(For those who are not familiar with the surrounding prefectures and towns of Shanghai, please refer to the "Offensive and Defense Map of the First Shanghai Campaign" in the related work.) ）

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It was Li Xiucheng's subordinate Liu Zhaojun who attacked Jiading. He led a detachment of divisions from Suzhou, from west to east, through Kunshan, in Jiading County in a place called Lujiajiao to do a pre-war rest, and then 9,000 men went straight to Jiading City.

In the north and west of the city, there were originally camps of officials and soldiers, and there were two sheds of water Yong under the command of Jiangning General Du Xing'a, but before they could meet the enemy, they had already broken apart, and some of them fled into the city, and the other part simply deserted. So the Taiping army did not encounter any obstacles, went straight to the bottom of the city, and began to attack the west gate and the north gate.

In the case of the Taiping army, there was no plan to besiege the city, but to take advantage of the front and prepare to go down with a drum. This kind of play, based on their experience in fighting against the Shanghai Official Army, is not wrong, but this time, they met Li Hengsong, who was determined to resist.

The defenders of Jiading were originally only a few hundred people, and Li Hengsong was responsible for assisting in the defense of Jiading according to Guan Zhuofan's deployment, so he brought 1,800 people from Nanxiang's camp into the city to garrison. This is the northern line of Shanghai, if Jiading is held, then Liu Zhaojun's long hair, which is equivalent to a cramped corner, not only can not threaten Shanghai, but also Baoshan and Wusong in the east can also be worry-free.

Li Hengsong had already assigned the task of guarding the city in advance, and the soldiers he brought were divided into the north gate, the west gate, and the south gate, and the soldiers of Xiong Zhaozhou of Zhixian County were sent to the east gate, because there was the back of the Taiping army's attack, and the pressure was the lightest.

Jiang De's battalion, a total of 700 people, was specially selected according to Guan Zhuofan's suggestion, each of them was paid six months' salary, there were more than 300 foreign guns, and the rest were basically holding bird guns.

When he received the enemy at the north gate and the west gate, and saw the main direction of the Taiping army's attack, Li Hengsong divided Jiang De's 700 men into two and divided them into the city wall to resist the enemy, and he himself commanded at the west gate. Although the artillery emplacements in the city were in disrepair, and a few cannons did not pose much threat to the Taiping army, this time, the green battalion soldiers fought well. When the Taiping army approached the city wall, the city fired guns and arrows, and repelled three Taiping charges in a row.

By noon, the Taiping army had injured more than 300 people, but there was still no progress. Liu Zhaojun saw that the fighting spirit of the officers and soldiers this time was very different from before, and if it continued like this, it would delay the major event of "loyalty to the king"! So he sent his nephew Liu Qifeng, with a thousand people, pushed two earthen cannons, and quietly went around to the east of the city under the cover of trees, to hit the east gate to try his luck, and he supervised the battle at the northwest two gates, and attacked with noise to attract the attention of the officers and soldiers. As for the south gate, it was specially let out, and the so-called "siege of the city must be que", which was reserved for the official army to escape.

Liu Zhaojun's attempt was so lucky that even he didn't expect it. Liu Qifeng's two cannons, a total of only two cannons were placed at the east gate, and there was a cannonball, which hit the female wall, and the splashed bricks just hit the forehead of Xiong Zhaozhou, the magistrate of the county who was supervising the battle in the city. Xiong Zhaozhou was immediately knocked down and died with a whimper, so hundreds of his subordinate soldiers immediately dispersed, shouting "Long Mao is coming", and scrambled to escape from the city wall first. Of course, Liu Qifeng would not let go of this opportunity, thousands of Taiping Army ants attached to him, and in just a while, the East Gate was inexplicably breached.

When the Green Battalion fights, it is good when they have the upper hand, but once the wind is against the wind, it is difficult to support morale, and it is even more unimaginable to fight hand-to-hand combat with Longhair in the city. So Li Hengsong's troops were also in chaos, first the ordinary battalion soldiers began to flee to the city, and even the elite of Jiang De's battalion with impulse could not be stabilized. Li Hengsong was so anxious that his eyes were split, and he yelled like a mad tiger, but after all, he couldn't stop the tide of rout, and he was also dragged on a horse by his own soldiers, and escaped from Jiading City from the south gate specially set aside by the Taiping army.

After escaping, he could no longer stand, and retreated to Nanxiang's camp until he gained a firm foothold. Under Li Hengsong's ambition, he never imagined that he would lose the first battle like this, but Xiong Zhaozhou had already died in his duties, and he couldn't even find anyone who was angry, so he really felt discouraged. There was no way, so I had to send someone back to Shanghai to report while gathering the rout.

On the 17th day of the first lunar month, the Battle of Shanghai officially began, and Jiading fell on the day of the war.

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At the beginning of the war, the northern front lost its weight, and for the people of Shanghai, it was as if another boulder had been thrown in their already uneasy hearts. But for Kwan Zhuofan, there is a different view.

Jiading will not be able to hold on sooner or later, but what I didn't expect was to lose so quickly. Could he have misread Li Hengsong? Guan Zhuofan thought to himself. Was it because of his lack of fighting spirit, or was it due to improper command, or something else? Li Hengsong's battle report is somewhat vague, and Guan Zhuofan has already sent someone to inquire again. And what he is particularly concerned about is how Jiang De's battalion is performing, and how much it has suffered now.

As for whether Nanxiang should be guarded, and whether he can hold it, this will have to wait until Li Hengsong returns, and then make a decision. Although Nanxiang was the northern gateway to Shanghai, once the Taiping army captured Nanxiang, it had to directly face the coalition forces in the concession. In the case of Liu Zhaojun's partial division, he may not be able to make this determination.

In any case, the telegraph office in the county government office was immediately busy, transmitting the battle situation on the northern front to Sijing, where Ding Shijie was stationed, and Zhoupu, where Hua Er was stationed, through two wire lines to the west and south. The telegram that Wall replied to was that there was no movement on the southern route; And Ding Shijie's reply is that five miles outside Songjiang City, there have been long-haired exploration horses, and outside Qingpu County, there is no trace of long-haired, so the direction of Longhair's main attack may be Songjiang.

Qingpu is located in the north of Songjiang, not far from Songjiang, and is the two important towns on the western route, of which Songjiang is especially important. The route from Songjiang to Shanghai is Songjiang Mansion - Sijing Town - Qibao Town - Shanghai. The reason why Guan Zhuofan ordered Ding Shijie to advance the base camp of the Xuan army to Sijing was because Sijing was about ten miles away from Qingpu and ten miles away from Songjiang, which was the most suitable for use as the fulcrum of the two cities.

Ding Shijie's command post is located in the town office in Sijing Town, and a room next to it is the telegraph room. Daniel Zhang's horse team was on standby in the barracks outside the town, and eight cavalrymen in charge of communications took turns to and from Song**pu Second City, ten miles away, to ensure that the latest battle situation and orders from Shanghai could be transmitted at any time.

Ding Shijie's judgment in the telegram was not wrong. At four o'clock in the afternoon, Li Xiucheng's army from Hangzhou finally appeared. On the city of Songjiang, I gradually saw countless Taiping troops dressed in yellow, roughly divided into four routes, carrying all kinds of vehicles, coming from the west all over the mountains. After a while, a huge yellow sedan chair appeared on the horizon, carried by thirty-two majestic sedan chair men, and around the sedan chair, surrounded by guards wearing five-color brocade and hideous faces - this is the world's famous "sedan chair", and the loyal king Li Xiucheng arrived.

The Taiping army arrived at Baishagang, which was five miles away from the city, stopped, and camped in an orderly manner, and was busy until the evening, and camped more than 40 in the west of Songjiang City.

In addition to the Xuan army, the original defenders in Songjiang City included 1,100 soldiers under the jurisdiction of the prefect Jia Yiqian, and 800 militia groups led by Liu Xunji, the governor of Songjiang Prefecture. Will this fortress withstand the huge waves?

Now that the enemy situation is clear, Guan Zhuofan sent a telegram to Wall, ordering the foreign gun team stationed in Zhoupu on the southern line to quickly draw 400 people, led by Forrest, to travel west from the Huangpu River by small steamer to support Songjiang, and enter the city before 10 o'clock in the evening. And Ding Shijie also urgently transferred two sentinels to the Xianzi battalion to assist in the defense of Qingpu to enrich the defense of Songjiang.

In the middle of the night, Guan Zhuofan, who was still sitting in the signing room, received Ding Shijie's last telegram of the day: "Forrest has arrived, and he will enter the city immediately, and it is expected that there will be a fierce battle in the morning." ”

Guan Zhuofan's palms were sweaty - the nine counties and one government around Shanghai, any city can be lost, but Songjiang City cannot be lost! The line from Songjiang to Shanghai was the central axis of the entire theater of operations, and it was also the strategic line that he sacrificed his life to keep, and he wanted to use this line to split the surging tide of the Taiping Army in half.

This night, for the first time since he crossed over, he couldn't sleep, so he sat in the signing room until dawn.

However, until noon, there was still no telegram from Sijing. Guan Zhuofan was anxious, and was about to send a message to ask about the battle situation, but received an unexpected news.

"Loyal King" Li Xiuben was a person, and suddenly drove back to Suzhou.