After a brief thunderstorm, the officers and men of the 9th Division of the Servant Army, which had just been interrupted from the offensive, went into battle again.

Thunderstorms and heavy rains are common things in the summer in the south of the Yangtze River, and when you encounter them, you can only say that you are unlucky, and the Qing army is lucky, and you can't complain about anything else. However, the Qing army in Shangyu County is afraid that they will not be able to wait for the next heavy rain, because the inner city that has been continuously strengthened and built since the end of Shunzhi has now been bombarded by cannons - the rammed earth and brick city wall is so careless, and the people on the east bank have basically abandoned this backward building system now, and instead use green bricks and stones as the main source of building materials for the fortress, although the cost will be very high.

Niu Gui learned the style of Mo and Shao, dressed in military uniforms, holding a saber, and staring at the dilapidated Shangyu City with blazing eyes. Just now, nearly 1,000 selected sons, under the cover of eight artillery pieces, swept away all the Qing soldiers who were stubbornly resisting in the inner city with a volley of dense muskets. Before them, the musketeers of the Qing army who could fight well had been ploughed with Mini rifles by the officers and soldiers from the 7th Mixed Battalion, which greatly facilitated the attack of the latecomers, so that in just over a day, the inner city was almost overwhelmed.

Cannonballs smashed into the city wall one after another—the city gate had already been smashed, but the Qing army had put a lot of dirt, stones, broken bricks, rotten wood and other obstacles behind the city gate—and with each drop, Niu Gui seemed to be able to hear the tooth-wrenching groans of Shangyu County. As a result, just as he was thinking about when he would be able to break the city wall, he heard a loud "boom", and a gap several meters long appeared above the city wall, and the lower part was also seriously deformed, and it seemed that it could not support it for too long.

Niu Gui was overjoyed when he saw this, and immediately sent someone to notify the artillery units temporarily belonging to him, and asked them to concentrate their firepower to bombard along the vicinity of the gap, and strive to continue to expand the gap so that it could lead the troops through. At the same time, he also asked his subordinates to remember that in the future, when building city walls, they must not use rammed earth materials to save money, especially in today's increasingly powerful artillery.

……

And just when the people on the east bank stormed the county seat of Shangyu, at the mouth of the Cao'e River, dozens of kilometers away in the northwest, a number of small steamers on the east bank had been nailed to the bottom of the river, and many wooden stakes were pulled out. Near these small steamers, five or six naval gunboats with a very shallow draft drove upstream along the cleared gap. Because the Cao'e River was located in the Manchu-controlled area, and Shaoxing Province had always been a prosperous and economically developed place, they could not but take into account the local demand for shipping, so they only set up obstacles at the entrance to the sea - which has now been cleared by the people on the east coast - to prevent ships from the east coast from sailing directly into the wide area of the river downstream, shelling and plundering everywhere.

The reason why they dared to do this was because the two infantry regiments of the 6th Division of the Servant Army had just routed a nearby Qing army guarding the battery, killing and wounding more than 1,000 prisoners, and capturing more than 10 naval defense guns. Because they were unusable and extremely heavy, these guns were destroyed by the order of Xie Zhen, who commanded them, and the gunners were taken to the large camp outside Shangyu County.

And after this battery was ended, the pressure on the navy on the east coast that destroyed the stakes was much less. Because from a tactical point of view, the two batteries that are horns of each other work together to maximize the blockade ability, after all, in this era, the closer the artillery is, the more accurate it is, and the most powerful. Like the people on the east bank who took out the fort on the right bank of the Cao'e River, the ships that pulled out the wooden stakes could first clear the obstacles on the right side to avoid the Qing artillery fire on the fort on the left bank.

The scale of the Qing army's fort was similar to that here, and it was equipped with seventeen or eighteen coastal defense heavy artillery. However, because of the angle and distance, only some of them can hit the small steamers on the east bank that are operating on the river, and the accuracy is enough. In addition, the people on the east coast also sent the "Rock of Cádiz," the flagship of the "Sea of Okhotsk" detachment, which was old but still powerful, to suppress the firepower, which further weakened the firepower of the Qing army's batteries, so in the past few days of operation, only two small steam steamers were sunk and a "Yaksa" class armed transport ship was heavily damaged, and although the "Cadiz Rock" was hit by more than 60 bullets, the hull was not irreparably damaged, and the casualties were not serious. Therefore, on the whole, the operation was very successful, and the loss of ships was very small - you must know that the warship hitting the fort itself was extremely disadvantaged, and the British fleet would not have been deflated in front of the Dagukou fort in 1859, it was still the corrupt Qing army - of course, provided that you ignore the other many other civilian small and medium-sized hard sailing ships that were sunk by the Qing army's artillery fire.

The five or six "Amur" class shallow gunboats that broke through to the sea had a shallow draft and fast speed, and each of them was equipped with eight small and medium-caliber guns. No, after breaking through the barrier to the sea, they immediately went up quickly and sank several small sailing ships that looked very suspicious, because there were some soldiers suspected of wearing Qing army uniforms on them, which made people wonder if they were ships requisitioned by the army.

At this time, the Cao'e River is in the summer flood season, the river is wide and deep, and the "Amur River" level with a draft of less than one meter can basically be used anywhere. Based on some of the hydrological data at hand, the naval officer who led the team believed that there was no problem at all in sailing to the territory of Shangyu County. Further upstream, the average water depth is probably enough to sail to Xinchang County, but it is better to be cautious if there is a shoal in the middle of the river that hinders navigation—but everyone thinks that it is not a big problem, because the Qing country's own small wooden sailing boats on the inland rivers dare to sail upstream, and the shallow gunboats on the east coast, which are not much different from their draft, should be fine to sail there.

After these gunboats broke through the mouth of the Cao'e River and reached the upper reaches, they basically announced two things: first, this wide river was no longer safe for the Qing army, and if they tried to force their way across the river, they might be bitten and attacked by the wolves of gunboats on the east bank, and eventually suffer heavy losses; These two also told the commander of the Qing army that now the east bank side can quickly transport materials and personnel through the Cao'e River, and the durability of the battle has been greatly enhanced, and the artillery design will no longer be stopped because the gunpowder is used too violently - of course, when the navy's ships enter the Cao'e River, they will still face the flank attack of the Qing army battery on the left bank, but without the cooperation of the right bank battery, this loss is already bearable, after all, in the previous confrontation with the "Cádiz Rock" heavy cruiser, The artillery on the batteries of the Qing army was not without losses.

In addition, the breakthrough of naval gunboats on the east coast – if nothing else, a larger number of naval gunboats will come over these two days – into the Cao'e River was also great news for the 18,000 or so Qing troops who were holding out in the Yuyao area (although they did not know it yet). Their ammunition was already running out of ammunition, but with the East Coast army attacking them at both ends, their ammunition stocks were running out quickly, and they were running out of ammunition, which was quite painful.

As a last resort, the Qing army decided to leave Yuyao County, which had fortifications, forts, and existing positions, and the whole army broke through to the west, intending to rush to the area of Shangyu County to see the situation. Naturally, they quickly confronted the main army on the east coast halfway.

……

On June 20, 1680, on the bank of the Yaojiang River, 20 miles northeast of Shangyu County, more than 10,000 officers and soldiers on the east bank, including the Fifth Division of the Zhejiang New Army and the First Regiment of the Fifth Division of the Servant Army, slowly lined up and blocked more than 10,000 Yuyao Qing troops who were retreating westward.

The artillery of the east coast, which had made a statement, began a rapid fire attack as usual. Solid, hollow, filled with gunpowder, and unfilled with gunpowder, all kinds of shells, under the orders of the artillery commander, accurately and ruthlessly hit the heads of the Qing troops on the opposite side. Although there had just been a shower before, and although the soil in the river valley was relatively soft, the rapid artillery shells still loosened the positions of the Qing troops on the opposite side, and some people shouted, but they were quickly reprimanded by the officers or directly corrected the law.

The artillery commander on the east bank lowered his telescope on his chest with satisfaction and gave the order to continue the shelling. The reaction of the Qing army surprised him slightly, and it seems that with the increasing flow of foreign weapons and tactics into the land of China, whether it is the Qing, Shun or Ming armies, the tolerance of muskets and cannons has improved a lot. Of course, they can't do it in the face of platoon artillery bombardment and don't move--in fact, no army in this era can do it, and the people on the east coast can't do it, the difference is that everyone has a stronger ability to endure casualties in the face of artillery bombardment -- but this will be a few rounds of fighting, and there is actually no big chaos, the growth of the Qing army and the Shun army is indeed relatively rapid, and the ability of their officers to absorb advanced military technology and ideas is indeed good, but it is estimated that it will only stop there, and I believe that if they fight a few more rounds, they will also collapse. The artillery commander insisted that even if there was an army on the east coast on the opposite side, a few more rounds or even a dozen rounds would cause morale to plummet and collapse, and he did not believe that the Qing army was all iron.

The sky was drizzling again. Lieutenant Colonel Júneo stood on a small dirt bag, carefully observing the battle ahead. At this time, he had no worries about the victory of this battle, and he was more observing and evaluating the combat effectiveness of the Qing army, to see how well they absorbed modern military ideas and how well they applied modern military technology. To put it bluntly, he just wanted to see how the Qing Green Battalion army was carrying out military reform with the covert help of the Dutch, English and even Portuguese! You must know that more than 200 foreign mercenary officers and soldiers in Beijing have been naturalized, and there are even foreigners who have led this kind of organization, and people on the east coast have to be vigilant.

Now from the battlefield, it seems that they have learned well, and they have not improved as much as they imagined. However, considering the resistance brought about by the reform of the Qing army's huge and bloated army, and the lack of "sparring" of the Qing army in Hangzhou, it is not like the Xiangyang battalion that has already fought many firearms battles with the Shun army, so it is okay to achieve this point now.

"Boom! Rumble! "That's the close-range artillery at the forefront. These guns do not have a long range, but they fire mostly scattered shells and grapeshot shells, and they are extremely lethal in the face of densely formed enemies. No, the Qing army, which had just gritted its teeth and rushed to the front, was immediately disrupted, some brave people still wanted to continue to charge, some people held their heads and ran around, some people turned around and fled, their thoughts were not unified, the formation was disjointed, and this wave of offensive was over.

"Order: The first and second regiments of the Fifth Division of the Zhejiang New Army will attack and advance with the fleeing Qing troops!"

"Order: The 1st Regiment of the 5th Division of the New Army will attack, focusing on attacking the junction between the two Qing armies close to the river bank!"

"Order: The cavalry column (about 1,000 cavalry, so that 1,000 cavalry is still cruising on the northern coastal plain) go out, arrive at the intended departure position, and tell Commander Zhou that the rain is slippery, which is not conducive to the cavalry to drive and charge into battle, and ask him to act on camera."

"Order: The 7th Mixed Battalion immediately set off from the concealed position, intercepted the flank of the Qing army, and played a decisive role!"

Júneo lowered his binoculars and waved his arms widely, giving orders from time to time. On his side, the liaison staff officer called a herald from time to time and asked him to quickly ride to the various departments to deliver the order, so as to realize the combat intention of the superior commander and eliminate the more than 10,000 Qing troops in front of him.

"Wan Sheng! Kill! Kill! Kill! The fierce roars of tens of thousands of men shook the earth, shook the river, and at the same time shook the already shaky Qing army brigade, causing it to slowly collapse psychologically. Junio climbed to a higher place, and the roars below came and went, and this one, and that one. With gray hair, he listened carefully, like appreciating elegant music, like listening to the sun, and like a conductor of later generations standing in front of a huge stage, fascinated by the conduct of a magnificent symphony orchestra.

The Confucian commander-in-chief and Confucian commander of this meeting seem to have entered a certain realm, and it seems that they don't need to open their eyes to look at the battle situation in front of them, they only need to identify the strength and weakness of the killing sound of the enemy and us, and then calmly deploy troops to destroy the enemy in one drum!

The shouts of tens of thousands of troops gradually moved away from the mountain where Junio was located, and slowly began to become distant. Correspondingly, the shouts of the enemy Qing army had already become a little noisy, and then chaotic. I don't know when the rain will stop again, and when the sun breaks through the dark clouds and sprinkles the golden light on the earth again, the orderly, organized, and rhythmic shouts, trumpets, and drums of the Qing army have completely disappeared.

As if he had exhausted all his energy to complete a heroic movement that shook the earth and wept ghosts and gods, Junio, who had been standing for a long time, was just about to move his position, but suddenly a wave of dizziness hit him and he almost fell to the ground. Fortunately, the combat staff officer who followed closely next to him was quick-eyed, held him up, and asked with concern: "Dashuai, your body ......."

"It's okay! I'm old, I've been standing for a long time, and I'm just a little dizzy for a while. The battle is over......" Junio waved his hand, comforting the staff officers and guards who had gathered together.

"Yes, handsome! The battle is over, and our army can be a complete victory! A young staff officer replied with a red face: "The main infantry regiment is advancing head-on, the 7th mixed battalion is flanking, and the cavalry brothers are the last to move, completely disrupting the organization of the Qing army, and at this time the various divisions are chasing the north. After this battle, there is no longer any opponent east of the Cao'e River, and I am afraid that the Fu Quan of Hangzhou will not have the courage to lead his troops to cross the river and fight a decisive battle with us! Xinchang, Shengxian, Shangyu, Yuyao four places, we can occupy the place in a grand way, there are Cao'e River, Huiji Mountain, these natural defense lines, our army has been invincible! ”