The 60,000-strong army was wiped out in an instant, the vast majority of them were captured, and the real casualties on both sides were negligible.

The battle was a battle to the delight of the Chinese General Staff – and this was the best they could have hoped for in this war – that we had won and the enemy had lost, but with little bloodshed on both sides, and would not have provoked unnecessary intra-clan hatred.

In this regard, even Fan Wenhu's evaluation within the empire has become much better - at least many generals think that this person is still knowledgeable about current affairs.

As for Fan Wenhu's son, Fan Tianshun, the defender of Fancheng, gave the Chinese army a bit of a headache, this die-hard of the Great Zhou led two hundred small ships to break through to the east, but he was stopped by the Chinese army before he could go far, and a fierce battle broke out between the two sides on the Hanshui River southeast of Yuliangzhou.

The Chinese army dispatched 90 large sampans with musketeers to meet the battle, Fan Tianshun braved the dense rain of bullets to stand on the bow of the ship and shouted a fierce battle, the Zhou army burst out with amazing momentum, regardless of casualties and advanced downstream, the thin Han River naval division of the Chinese army was unable to repel the attack for a while.

A round of melee broke out between the two sides, and the Zhou army fired at the Chinese army with a bow and a small number of muskets, and they were inferior in firepower but had a certain advantage in local forces.

Some of the small boats broke through the Chinese army and continued southward.

Fan Tianshun didn't know that his father's main force had been destroyed, and he thought that the 60,000 Zhou army was going head-on with him in the lower reaches of the Han River, and as long as he broke through the defenses in this area, he still had a chance to join Fan Wenhu's army.

This rosy vision was soon shattered.

Not because he knew about the rout of Fan Wenhu's army, but because he himself could not break through the resistance of the Chinese army.

Not far ahead, the Chinese army pulled up a chain across the river on the narrow river of the Han River (this place is near Liu Xuande's Ma Yuetan River) to temporarily block the advance of the Zhou army, and at the same time, the Chinese army also deployed a large number of field artillery on both sides of the Han River, and the mortar positions on the South Mountain could also shoot directly at the river.

The Zhou army was congested in front of the chains in the Hengjiang River, and Fan Tianshun loudly ordered the strong men under his command to use big axes to try to cut the chains, but of course they could not succeed for a while.

A large number of small boats of the Zhou army (most of which were also sampans) became stationary targets, and the Chinese artillery on both sides of the strait could hit a large number of people every time they bombarded, and some shells at suitable angles could even jump on the river several times in a row, destroying many ships with one shot.

Fan Tianshun's boat was also hit by this deadly shell, and a 10-pound cannonball passed directly through the amidship of his ship, cutting the sampan in half, and Fan Tianshun, who had always stood at the bow to boost morale, fell into the water suddenly, and his flag also fell.

In the end, the Zhou army failed to cut the chain, and the Chinese fleet solved the entanglement of the Zhou army and caught up from the rear, and some Chinese infantry also stood by the river with muskets.

Losing the flag and not seeing the main general, the last will of the Zhou army to resist disappeared.

As the end of this battle, Fan Tianshun's luck was not bad, he was caught up in a coma by the blocking net set up by the Chinese army in the lower reaches of the battlefield, which can be regarded as picking up a small life.

……

The Battle of Xiangfan became the largest battle between the Empire and the Great Zhou at Jianghuai, in which the Chinese army lost 377 killed and more than 700 wounded, with a total of thousands of casualties.

Wiped out more than 80,000 Zhou troops (excluding the militia and box army recruited by Lü Wenhuan and Fan Tianshun), of which 72,000 were captured.

In general, for a big battle in which both sides dispatched more than 100,000 soldiers and horses, the amount of blood shed on both sides was not much.

Xu Shisong was furious at the outcome of this battle, and the 100,000 soldiers and horses were exhausted in a few days, which was really an unacceptable result for the already stretched Zhou.

Moreover, the fall of Xiangfan has actually made the Yangtze River natural insurance no longer reliable.

Although Xu Shisong retreated in time and successfully retreated most of the new army and tens of thousands of forbidden troops to the south of the Yangtze River, there were still some new forces that could not be withdrawn, such as Tong Guan, Fan Wenhu and the 30,000 forbidden army led by Weng Shuping, who was reactivated, and was still in Anqing, an important town north of the Yangtze River.

Tong Guan and Weng Shuping were isolated in Jiangbei while waiting for Fan Wenhu to rendezvous, at which time the small sail gunboat force of the Huaxia Navy had destroyed the Yangtze River Naval Division of the Great Zhou Dynasty, and after joining up with the upstream troops, the entire Yangtze River was blocked.

Xu Shisong, who did not have the advantage of a water master, even if he wanted to save Tong Guan, there was nothing he could do now.

On the third day of August 1795, the Chinese army launched a general attack on Anqing, and twenty minutes after the offensive began, Fan Wenhu, who learned that his son had not been killed in battle, opened the city gate and led part of the defenders to surrender to the Chinese army, and the Chinese army immediately entered the city.

The resistance of the Zhou army then collapsed, Weng Shuping surrendered to the Chinese army at Anqing Prefecture, and Tong Guan led 600 personal soldiers to try to break through the siege, but was killed by the Chinese artillery.

This eunuch became the first high-ranking official to die for the Great Zhou Dynasty in this war.

After the Chinese army took the land of Jianghuai, the battle situation has become very clear, and the losses of more than 200,000 Chinese troops participating in the war are almost negligible, while the Great Zhou forbidden army has lost almost 130,000 people!

……

Yangzhou.

The city is located in the north of the Yangtze River, but it is a standard city in the south of the Yangtze River.

Even when the Great Zhou Dynasty was fully curled up in the south of the Yangtze River, Yangzhou could miraculously maintain its former prosperity, the reason is very simple, when the Jin army hit the Yangtze River, the Yangzhou army and people resolutely resisted, and the two sides fought fiercely near the city wall for 80 days.

This retreat made Yangzhou a heroic city, and the Jin army never visited it again.

Yangzhou and Jiangnan are only separated by a river, this is the world's best prosperous place, after the battle of Yangzhou, all the scholars in the south of the Yangtze River who have a little heart, like to come to this Great Zhou to settle in the last city of Jiangbei for a period of time, as if this can express their ambition to save the country.

These people did not make Yangzhou's city defense stronger, but they really made the city more prosperous.

Today, Yangzhou has a population of about 800,000 (including the villages attached to the surrounding areas), which is the current Great Zhou and is estimated to be the most populous city in the world.

In fact, Xu Shisong also retreated from here to Jiangnan.

He originally wanted to evacuate the population of Yangzhou as well, but the people of Yangzhou had no intention of doing so, and later he hoped that the people of Yangzhou would resolutely resist the attack of the northern army as they had done more than 40 years ago, so as to delay the change.

However, the people of Yangzhou resisted the Jurchen army at that time because the Tartars slaughtered all the way, and all kinds of horrific extermination crimes were committed one after another, and if they did not resist, the whole city would be killed, and the women would be humiliated as slaves.

But this is obviously not the case with the Chinese army, they marched all the way from the Huai River, and did not slaughter any cities or villages.

The captured officers and soldiers of the Great Zhou Dynasty are alive and well, but they have to undertake some transportation and auxiliary security tasks.

Even the bandits that accompanied the war were wiped out by the Chinese army.

What's more, Yangzhou is the main transportation route of the Grand Canal into the Yangtze River, and in the past ten years, Yangzhou's economic development has also contributed to the economic and trade exchanges between the empire and the Great Zhou.

Most of the residents of Yangzhou are very familiar with the Chinese people, and there is no barrier.

Therefore, this time, the heroic Yangzhou soldiers and civilians did not resist the Chinese army, but directly surrendered after receiving a guarantee from Li Jing Huaiqiu, the commander of the First Army of the Chinese Army, that he would not commit any crimes.