Victory or defeat is a common thing in soldiers, especially since almost everyone thinks that the land battle will be won, and the loss of Beitang's monk Lingqin would not have been so stressful. But one of his colleagues magnified this matter infinitely, even in Guo Xing'a's previous life, the loss of Beitang became the biggest stain on Seng Lingqin because of this person's opposition, and became ironclad evidence of Seng Greenqin's self-righteousness. Giving up Beitang was a helpless move, but there was one person who resolutely opposed it, and the facts proved him right, and Monk Greenqin turned over with all difficulties, and this person was Guo Songtao.

Guo Songtao, the word Bochen, the number Yunxian, Hunan Xiangyin City West. A descendant of Guo Ziyi, a general of the Tang Dynasty and king of Fenyang. One of the founders of the Hunan Army, one of Zeng Guofan's important staff, and China's first foreign envoy. However, none of this is important to Seng Lingqin, Guo Songtao's current identity is his deputy. What is even more disgusting is that before leaving, Guo Songtao put his thinking on Western affairs for many years into practice, believing that in order to "control the Yuanyi," it is first necessary to understand the situation in foreign countries, and suggested that talents who are fluent in foreign Chinese should be selected from Guangdong, Shanghai, Kyakhta, Kulun, and other places to enter Beijing and transfer to the Transmission Division, and set up a bureau in Tianjin to imitate Western-style warships to control the country. Xianfeng was very interested in this, and immediately summoned him to ask for a specific strategy. With Xianfeng's attention, Guo Songtao suddenly changed his identity, he was already a person who was deeply versed in military strategy, and he had a greater right to speak in front of Monk Greenqin.

Originally, the two were not in harmony from their birth experience to their temperament, and one advocated shipbuilding and the other advocated adding artillery, and it was like an enemy of enemies, and there was no word to say together. Later generations often think that Guo Songtao's opinion is right, and Monk Greenqin is a fool, but some heroes are judged by success or failure. Everyone knows that the strong ships and cannons are good, but the problem is that Seng Lingqin defended Dagukou for two years, and there were three battles in the middle. Moreover, shipbuilding is not something that can be successful overnight, and the old warships will be built to death, and the new ones will not be built. Even if you buy some foreign ships and come back, if you don't have skilled sailors, can you hire a group of pirates to fight the invaders? This, of course, Guo Songtao is right in the long run, and it is right to see the monk Greenqin in an emergency, but the ending is irreversible, it can only be said that they are both unlucky enough, and a pair of people are not at the right time.

Guo Songtao was resolutely opposed to abandoning Beitang, and also raised the concern that if Yangyi occupied Beitang, he would definitely make a detour to attack the flank of the Dagu Fort. What Guo Songtao said makes sense, but there is no way for Monk Greenqin, who has no soldiers in his hands, and it is better to fight a land battle than to lose Dagukou. It's just that Seng Lingqin never thought that Guo Songtao, a child of Sanxiang, would have such a big temper, and if he didn't agree with his opinion, this guy resigned and stopped playing. If Beitang is not lost or Yangyi is severely injured in Beitang, Monk Greenqin can still explain, but now Beitang is lost, and Yangyi has not hurt a single hair, and the officials rushed up at once. The impeachment of the monk Greenqin "does not accept good words, is stubborn and self-serving, and traps the city and loses land" can bury him, fortunately Xianfeng and the military aircraft still trust him, otherwise Monk Greenqin will be miserable.

Monk Greenqin's troops were overstretched, and he was overwhelmed by the officials in the court, and he sighed that his luck was not good. However, if he knew what Yangyi in Beitang was doing, he would not feel that the time was bad, and he would have to sigh that he was born at the wrong time. The coalition army sent more than 13,000 troops to take the army grain city and Xinhe in two ways, and killed the main British army in Xinhe.

Early in the morning, Wilson got up from his tent in the mud, and began to wash up and enjoy his very untasty breakfast. More than 18,000 men and nearly 5,000 horses and mules were crammed into the small camp, a place that looked like a mud pit after the rain and smelled like a garbage dump. The cannons on the Beitang Fort were replaced by iron and wooden cannons by the Qing army, and many of the British army's big tents were fixed with this thing. The Indians have a very bad taste, they always pee in it, and then the camp smells even worse. However, Wilson was about to be freed from this suffering, and today his troops were finally arranged into the battle sequence, although very backward and almost the first-to-last, but it was enough to make Wilson excited, and he was about to go on the battle. He was assigned to the Anglo-Indian 1st Division, under the command of Commander Smith, and Wilson was very fond of the colonel, who was not too old-fashioned.

After only half an hour's rest after breakfast, the coalition forces were marching out, and Wilson commanded his battalion in high spirits, walking at the end of the ranks. The air after the rain was very fresh, and Wilson felt that this was a good sign, and today he would be able to build his own feats and win honor for his family. And he was convinced that the British army would be able to achieve victory, because he had a treasure by his side that he had three artillery squadrons equipped with the latest Armstrong cannons, two of which were ahead of him.

About three miles from the target, the coalition forces were met by the Qing army, who numbered less than 2,000 men and were divided into two groups to meet them. The Qing army was all cavalry, lined up in a human wall about two kilometers long. Through the binoculars, Wilson could see that the horsemen were wearing hats that were not decorated with red tassels, but rather two animal tails, and that they were sitting in wooden saddles and iron stirrups. The appearance of the troops was neat, but it always gave it a primitive feeling, and Wilson did not feel that they were much stronger than the natives mentioned in the officers' jokes.

The Qing army did not take the initiative to attack, they seemed to be waiting for something, which gave the British time. With the help of Wilson and another infantry battalion, the artillery squadron quickly set up its guns. After a simple aiming, determining the length of the fuse, the artillery fire began at the Qing army at a distance of about 1,500 yards.

The Armstrong cannon's shell was very advanced in a world without Gochena, firing a conical cannonball weighing about five kilograms, with a charge of about one kilogram. The shells were hollow and made in advance with a special casting method so that in the event of an explosion they could be divided into forty-two roughly identical pieces. It is completely covered by a three-millimeter-thick lead casing and tapered in the middle of the cylindrical section in order to reduce friction. The shell lead is divided into two parts, one is detonated after ignition inside the shell, and its length is determined in advance according to the firing distance, and the other is the fuse that ignites when hitting an obstacle". As for its power, each cannon can be described as amazingly effective, each shell can explode into forty-two pieces, which can kill and injure dozens of Qing soldiers in an instant, and the area spread is very wide.

Wilson could clearly see through the telescope that the shells were constantly exploding above the heads of the Qing cavalry, and each shell could collapse and fly out forty-two pieces of shrapnel, killing and injuring the Qing cavalry continuously. But the line of the Qing cavalry did not waver, they still stood firmly on the front, bearing the threat of death, and at the same time returning fire with muskets. Wilson's head was supposed to use bows and arrows, but the Qing army had all muskets, but most of them were old arquebuses, with only a few flintlock muskets.

"Will they have rifles?" Wilson chatted casually with the battalion commander who had come to help.

"Probably not! It seems that most of them are smoothbore guns. "The battalion commander also came back with hearsay.

"I don't think the Enfeld P1853 can shoot at a target fifteen hundred yards away, do you think a smoothbore gun is possible?" All the coalition forces except the artillery were available, so Wilson chatted leisurely.

"Why don't you aim for the moon? The hit rate will be higher. Both of them laughed at the same time, which was a meme in the army.

"What are they doing? Demonstrations? Wilson asked, puzzled.

The battalion commander could not answer, but shrugged his shoulders to Wilson. The Qing Empire, even his predecessor, the Ming Empire, had no idea about precise numbers, and the concept of range was also very vague. Many people in the Ming Dynasty really believe that the range of the red-coated cannon is ten miles, so it is not surprising that the Qing army fired at a target nearly three miles away.

The unilateral massacre lasted for a while, and the commander of the Qing army seemed to have noticed that something was wrong, they were busy for a long time, but the coalition army did not lie down alone, so they began to charge. In the face of the cavalry charge, Wilson also said goodbye to his leisurely time, hurriedly reorganized the ranks, and the entire battalion formed a huge hollow phalanx. The bayonets on the soldiers' rifles glistened brightly, and they were all very nervous, and the galloping horses would make everyone nervous, and Wilson was no exception. Fortunately, the Qing army did not notice the difference in Wilson's troops, and if they were to know that the weak chickens of the British army were here, they would definitely flock to it.

The Qing army targeted the 3rd Regiment on the left flank, which was Wilson's regiment, but the Qing attacked the battalion in front. The British troops of the main division were providing fire cover for the first battalion, but the Qing troops were very brave, they almost ignored the oncoming rain of bullets, and rushed forward without fear of death.

The first battalion had already run out of bullets, and the Qing army had not much time left for them, and by the time they loaded the next bullet, the Qing army must have crashed into their phalanx. Once the phalanx was defeated, the consequences would be catastrophic, and although Wilson believed that the coalition would still win in the end, the three regiments would definitely have to pay great sacrifices.

However, a miraculous scene occurred, the first battalion was still loading, but the Qing army reduced the speed of the charge. Instead of drawing their sabers, they rushed directly into the phalanx of the first battalion, but on horseback they began to shoot with arquebuses.

"Thank God!" Almost all of the officers let out a long sigh.

Armstrong Artillery helped the first battalion solve the problem, and the Qing army could not withstand the bombardment at such a close distance, and they retreated like the wind, just like they came with the wind. However, the Qing army did not retreat to its original position, and Wilson could see that the Qing army rushed towards the Fourth Brigade again.

"Damn the Oriental scheme! The artillery immediately blocked the Qing army's charging route! "Colonel Smith, an officer experienced in warfare, discovered the Qing army's attempts.

The Qing army's shock to the Third Regiment was completely a pretense, and although they paid heavy sacrifices for it, their goal was achieved. They tried to lure the 4th Brigade on the right flank to the swamps and then annihilate it with the advantage of the terrain, and they had to admit that they did it. When the Qing army attacked the first battalion and retreated, the fourth brigade really ran out of the swamp formed after the rain in order to cover the third regiment and encircle and annihilate the Qing army.

The Fourth Brigade quickly discovered its embarrassing situation, they quickly adjusted their formation, and the 700 marines who copied it immediately went around to the front to buy time for the Fourth Brigade. Of course, thanks to the Armstrong artillery and this damn weather, the continuous bombardment of the Armstrong artillery forced the Qing army to change the route of the attack, and this unfortunate weather made the ground full of water, and the cavalry could not gallop at will.

The battle then came to an end, and the Qing army was caught in crossfire, with rifles and heavy artillery making it impossible for them to approach the British positions. After a stalemate of several minutes, the Qing cavalry, which could not stand the close bombardment of the artillery, began to scatter and retreat.

On the battlefield within a radius of several kilometers, there are corpses of Qing cavalry everywhere, all of them are young and strong people!

"They just don't have formal training, otherwise we would! They are so brave! "Colonel Smith did not mock his enemies, he had great respect for his opponents.

The monk Lingqin at the mouth of Dagu also received a battle report, the army grain city and Xinhe fell to the enemy, and the two thousand defenders returned in a bloody battle, and the remnants of the army were less than 1,000 people.

"I asked for help, my belly and back were attacked by the enemy, and Tianjin was in danger!" Monk Greenqin looked worriedly in the direction of Beijing.