The British artillerymen fought back with difficulty, but the effect was very weak, and their return fire seemed to only prove the honor of their soldiers. In terms of range and accuracy, the Armstrong field gun far surpassed the batch of antiques in Bi Yuntao's hands. But they were in an offensive position, they had already penetrated into the positions of the Gu'an army, everyone was within the effective firing range, and the range advantage of the Armstrong guns was immediately negated.

Moreover, the original target of the British artillery was the defensive position of the Gu'an Army, and it was inevitable that there would be some panic when the temporary turn was made, and the shelling of the Gu'an Army stirred up mud all over the sky, which greatly reduced the accuracy of the rifled guns. The gun emplacements of the Gu'an Army are not only staggered, but also built sturdily and abnormally. They were not like the British army in the field, they could only resist hard, the strong ramparts were made of mud and stone, and several layers of quilts were added in the middle, even if a few shells accurately hit the gun position, they were also offset by the ramparts.

The artillery battle did not distinguish the winner for a while, and as the formation changed, it became difficult for both sides to find the opponent accurately, and the artillery fire began to consciously shift to the infantry. The British troops, who practiced assembling in the open field, suffered a big loss again, they stood too closely, and an iron ball that hit the wrong direction could harvest more than a dozen lives. The shock wave generated by the blasting shells lowered the soldiers to the ground one by one. Most of the soldiers of the Gu'an Army were lying in well-established trench fortifications, and they basically did not show their heads except for shooting, and the British shells could not even hurt a single hair unless they happened to hit the trenches.

"It can't go on like this, there must be a new offensive!" Mitchell, who could only hold a telescope in the rear, anxiously thought about how to deal with the battle situation in front of him.

In his telescope, the battlefield was very chaotic, the red British army and the gray-blue and green Gu'an army, like two ant colonies mixed together. The two armies have fallen into a stalemate, you have me, I have you. The red British army had broken through to the gray-blue side, but there were indeed a few thick gray-blue passages in the red ocean, like huge scars, faintly splitting the red ocean.

In the dense crowd, white smoke rises from time to time, which is the white smoke from the muzzle of the gun. The white smoke above the heads of the British army was very rhythmic, rising layer by layer like a wave in the sea. Through this smoke, the professional soldiers can see that the British army is well trained, and that they are uniform when they are in battle. The white smoke on the side of the Gu'an army was very chaotic, completely out of rhythm, like a pot of boiling water, and there was always a cloud of smoke enveloping them. There is no training proficiency here, but you can see the terrifying rate of fire of the Gu'an Army, they are shooting continuously, so that the smoke will not disperse for a long time.

In addition to the white smoke that floated up, there would also be small clouds floating up in the military formation, which was the smoke of gunpowder from the muzzles. In Mitchell's eyes, the clouds on the British side were smaller, but they also rose more frequently. This once again demonstrated the high quality of the British artillery, which had undergone long-term training and was extremely proficient in handling the artillery, and the rate of fire of the breech-loading guns was much higher than that of the breech-loading guns. However, there are more clouds on the side of the Gu'an army, and the volume of the clouds is also larger, although the frequency is a little lower, but it is continuous. One is that the caliber of the artillery in Bi Yuntao's hand is larger, and the smoke of gunpowder is naturally greater, and the second is that there are less than fifty artillery pieces after the British army, which is less than one-third of Bi Yuntao's. Most of Bi Yuntao's artillery is temporarily filled by infantry who know a little more, and the ability to operate artillery is naturally not comparable to that of the British army, but the quantity is intended to make up for the quality.

"Order the troops to retreat immediately, such a strong attack is not the way! We need to organize a new offensive! Although Mitchell was only affected by the flying mud, he felt the wails of the wounded soldiers, so he decisively gave the order to retreat.

"General, we are at the advantage, their line of defense has been broken through, it is a pity that we retreat now!" Not everyone saw the crisis, like Colonel Robert.

"Robert, we didn't break through their defenses, that's the trap of the Easterners. Our forward troops, already caught up in their crossfire, continue to insist that there will only be more needless casualties. Order the troops, and immediately retreat! Mitchell is also impressed that the Chinese can always come up with some strange ideas.

Mitchell's order to retreat was very timely, but the path for the British to retreat was not smooth. Although the gossip array is not as divine as it is said in the TV series, it is really not something to put on a show. The so-called Tai Chi gives birth to two yi, two yi gives birth to four phases, four phases give birth to gossip, gossip and change sixty-four yao, and the cycle has changed endlessly. The armies in the Bagua Array, except for the fixed array eyes, have always been moving in this way of yin and yang cycles, like an incomparably complex dynamic labyrinth. Lu Xun was trapped by Zhuge Liang and almost starved to death by a pile of stones, which must be an exaggeration, but it is indeed not easy to get out in a short time.

The Bagua Array is divided into eight gates, namely, the eight paths that the military array gave up when facing the impact, and the formation that moves in a circular way, and only by finding these eight paths can it go out. It's a pity that Mitchell doesn't understand this, so the retreat route he designed is a straight line back to the rear, and even if he does, he will definitely not find where the eight gates are.

If Mitchell had God's perspective, or could have a plane, fly above the military formation and have a look. He will find that in addition to the fixed formation, all the armies of the Gu'an Army are constantly rotating like a spiral nest, and the inner and outer three layers are divided like a mille-feuille cake. The eight gates were only open for a short time, and the rest of the time the British army was in the passageway, constantly being carried around by the Gu'an army. Even if you find a way out for a while, you will be taken away again after three or two turns, even if you know the formation, you have to carefully estimate it for a while to find a way out, not to mention the British who don't know anything at all.

The British retreated for a long time, but they still stood still, and even a few battalions ran farther than the original, and not a single one of them could retreat. Moreover, he seduced out some of the ambushes that were originally interspersed and hidden, and completely fell into the siege of the Gu'an army. The most awesome part of the Bagua Array is also reflected, that is, a few people can be used to surround the majority, and the people who are surrounded will never find out about this situation. This was the case with the trapped British army now, Mitchell was clearly looking through the binoculars that Wilson's battalion had several roads to go, but Wilson felt that he was surrounded by enemies on all sides, and he was completely surrounded and killed.

"Nine Palace Bagua Array?" Guo Huaya, who had been bowing her head and rubbing her face in the coalition team, couldn't hide her surprise and exclaimed the name of the military formation in front of her.

Guo Huaya has always enjoyed the treatment of middle- and high-ranking prisoners of war in the coalition army, and Wilson and Vincent like him very much, so he has been active with the main force of the British army. However, Wilson was leading the troops into battle this time, so naturally he couldn't take him with him, so he stayed in the rear. At first, when he saw the British army attacking the defense line of the Gu'an Army, Guo Huaya was still very sad, after all, he was also a patriotic person, and he was also very sad in the face of a defeat of the Qing army. Seeing Wu Cheng Yonggu's antique cannon and other antique attacks, he lamented even more. He can also be regarded as a meticulous researcher of firearms, and he can hear the cannon of General Wucheng Yonggu just by the sound of the cannon, and naturally he knows how big the gap between these old guns of the Qing Dynasty for more than 100 years and the cutting-edge artillery of the British army is. He seemed to see the collapse of the Qing army in front of him, and heard the screams of the robe who was chased and killed by foreigners after another heroic but powerless resistance.

However, the plot did not develop according to his reasonable speculation, and the Qing army, which used the old cannon more than 100 years ago, had a big advantage, and the British army, which had always been invincible, fell behind. The old cannon, which he considered useless, was so powerful that the cutting-edge artillery almost fought back, and the earth-shattering sound of the cannon swore that these old cannons were worthy of their titles. When the military array was launched, Guo Huaya was even more completely shocked, things like the gossip array had long been eliminated by the Qing army, and only some very old-fashioned old commanders still occasionally studied it jokingly, but they didn't expect it to have such great power.

"Guo, what did you just say, do you know what happened to Wilson and them?" Vincent, who also began to rub his face, heard Guo Huaya's exclamation and found a savior at once. hurriedly found a translator and asked Guo Huaya.

"This is the Nine Palaces Bagua Array, a kind of formation in our China, Wilson and they have fallen into the formation, the situation they see is completely different from what we see, and it is impossible to get out of it on their own." Guo Huaya told Vincent honestly.

"Those guys kept on the move, and then ...... What's the point? Wilson How did they get trapped? Vincent couldn't understand what Guo Huaya was talking about.

"Think of it as something magical! I can't tell. In short, unless the person on the other side takes the initiative to let Wilson and them out, they will be trapped inside until they are consumed by life and death! "Guo Huaya's honesty is also for a reason, a name doesn't matter at all, the British can't even understand gossip, let alone break the formation.

"Do you know this magical thing?" Vincent asked cautiously, believing Guo Huaya's words.

"I understand a little bit, many of our troops in the Qing Dynasty have given up studying this formation, and I have only seen some of them from books!" Guo Huaya is still honest.

"Please help! For the sake of our friendship, at least save Wilson! Vincent's posture is very low, he and Wilson have always treated Guo Huaya preferentially, and after a long period of contact, there is indeed something similar to friendship between them.

"I don't know how to tell you, in your words, trying to crack this formation and rescue the people inside is a very complicated mathematical problem. I will need a great deal of time to calculate, and then I will send an army to meet it, and I will be able to succeed, but by the time I finish the calculation, I am afraid that Wilson and the others will have already been wiped out. Guo Huaya really thought about it in her heart, and then said the real result.

The so-called formation is easy to break the formation, the formation is not a static thing, but has always existed dynamically, and its weaknesses are covered up in the movement. Breaking the formation is to seize a certain moment when the weakness is exposed when the military formation moves, and break the weakness of the formation at once. And a certain point in the calculation dynamics requires a lot of time to analyze and calculate, and it is by no means something that Zhuge Liang can come up with in a joke.

"Damn it!" Vincent was extremely anxious, the trapped British soldiers were suffering more and more casualties, and the artillery fire was getting weaker and weaker.

"Thank you, I think I've found a way. We can't crack their formation, but we can get them to take the initiative to release the trapped people! Mitchell also overheard the conversation between Vincent and Guo Huaya, and he noticed a point that neither Vincent nor Guo Huaya paid attention to.