After enduring the calamities and hardships of 20 days, the main force of the coalition army at Baliqiao finally completed the supply of materials and soldiers, and the whole army pounced viciously on the city of Beijing with a pair of panda eyes. Within dozens of miles of the eastern suburbs of Beijing, the Qing Dynasty had no soldiers or officers to defend it, so the coalition army soon approached the city of Beijing. Lao Maozi Ignatyev once again provided information: the Qing defenders were concentrated in the eastern city, and the northern city was the weakest point and should be captured first. So, Montauban and Mitchell led a large army to the vicinity of Desheng Gate.

Twenty days is already a long time, enough for Xianfeng to go to Chengde Summer Resort, enough for Guo Xing'a to heal his severe cold, enough to drag down the will of the coalition army to fight, but not enough for the Qing court to figure out the situation. In the past 20 days, the sound of guns and cannons has not stopped on the front from Tianjin to Baliqiao, hundreds of miles, and the flames of war have not been extinguished for a moment. However, the Qing court, which was close at hand, did not make any reaction, although it got the news, but it didn't even know who was fighting.

Goxinga's name has been mentioned a few times, but it is always an option in the guesswork, and there are many options in the same group as him. Both the government and the opposition are speculating about who this strongman who blocked the edge of foreign devils is, but no one has ever asked for verification, not even asking about the movements of various ministries. Someone once proposed to immediately find out the source of this strong army, and then immediately recruit them into Beijing to guard the defense of Beijing, but they were vetoed by Shengbao, a famous general who was deeply versed in military strategy.

Shengbao is also reasonable, but it is not jealous of the virtuous and jealous, and it is necessary to engage in a word. First, he believed that he led a large army to garrison the Beijing Division, and this mysterious partial division harassed foreign soldiers outside, which was in line with the arrangement of the right way of the art of war, and should never be trapped in a lonely city. Second, this army has now sprung up, and if they are recruited into the Beijing division in a hurry, it is inevitable that they will be arrogant and will not accept control. Not only did it fail to play the role of consolidating the defense of the Beijing Division, but on the contrary, it also disrupted the deployment of the Beijing Division's defense.

A group of people led by Prince Gong Yixin had bet on Shengbao before, and naturally trusted Shengbao very much. After listening to Katsubo's remarks, he also thought it was quite reasonable, and he really didn't care about the fierce battle in the suburbs according to Katsubo's intentions, and no one asked who was participating in the war. Therefore, Guoxing'a fought for 20 days, and the imperial court had neither the assistance of a single soldier nor the supply of half a grain of grain, let alone military exploits.

There was a rumor among Shengbao's subordinates that the fierce battle with foreign devils outside the city was not the officers and soldiers of the Qing Dynasty at all, but a group of thieves who wanted to loot Yang Guzi's property. As soon as this statement came out, even the common people in Beijing looked lively with peace of mind, killing foreign devils will calm external troubles, and killing anti-thieves will calm civil strife, what a good thing!

The 150,000 Eight Banners in Beijing and tens of thousands of Qinwang troops, under the leadership of a generation of famous generals Shengbao, became a solid visitor. Outside the city, there was a lot of artillery fire, they were making tea and listening to books, and they were waiting outside the city, they were eating melon seeds and eating rotten meat noodles, as if everything had nothing to do with them. It wasn't until the good times of the twenty days were gone, and it wasn't until the foreign devils really came to the city that the government and the opposition found a feeling of nervousness again.

The coalition forces outside the Chaoyang Gate have turned into a panda army, and the long-term lack of sleep has made everyone a little nervous. All of them were restless and furious, their minds filled with all sorts of final madness, and their hearts were full of the desire to attack. Montauban guessed that the Gu'an army did not have much time left for them, three or five hours at most, and those really elite soldiers would catch up, so the coalition forces were not in a hurry to attack the city defense of Beijing, but were building their own fortifications. If you can't solve the terrible ghost troops, what's the use of storming the city of Beijing, the coalition forces came to the city of Beijing, just to fight the ghost troops when they were fully loaded.

"Today, as long as this king is not dead, he must not let foreign devils touch a brick in this capital." Monk Grinqin is finally ready to fight to the death, he has lost all the honor of a Mongolian hero, and only blood can prove him.

During the twenty days that Shengbao took the whole of Beijing safely, Seng Lingqin and Ruilin were not idle, they had been wandering around the suburbs of Beijing, collecting their remnants. Ruilin's department is okay, a pot of millet porridge, pickles stuffed in the nest, find two loud voices, and it won't take ten minutes to get people together. The Mongolian horse team of Seng Lingqin was not successful, they all ran away, and there were not a few who went directly back to their Mongolian hometown. After twenty days of hard work, Monk Greenqin got back more than 3,000 horses, and the rest of them didn't even have a reliable place to go. There were really some cavalrymen who ran to the south by mistake, and they were squeezed by the local government when they ran out of supplies, and they couldn't support back to their hometowns, so they fell directly into the grass and started the horse bandits.

Today, the foreign devils really came to the city, and Monk Greenqin and Ruilin also rushed over with the remnants, and Monk Greenqin was ready to return to Immortality. There were less than 20,000 Qing troops, and only about 3,000 were really capable of fighting, and the coalition forces of more than 10,000 began a long confrontation outside the Chaoyang Gate.

The 2nd Division of the British Army, which was originally stationed in Egypt, also came from Tianjin to reinforce the coalition forces of the Eight Banners, and the French army, which had always demanded equality between the two sides, also completely gave up the comparison and agreed to the reinforcement of the British army. After all, at the moment of the great enemy, the so-called decency and honor are still not as effective as the actual troops. Montauban was still the commander-in-chief of the coalition forces, but the British representatives suddenly had a greater say in the meeting.

"Praise God, this majestic building!" Mitchell admired the majesty of Chaoyangmen heartlessly.

"Do you have the means to attack a city like this? I think that a siege of such a city, especially if there is no siege artillery at all, is likely to be protracted. Montauban was not in a good mood at all, and although he had replenished the British Second Division, he was not very confident in defeating the Ghost Army.

"If Armstrong's heavy artillery hadn't been snatched up by the ghosts, we would still have a chance to capture this great city, and now we can only hope that the people inside will invite us in!" Unlike Grant, Mitchell and Grant were equally aware of Elgin's intentions to capture the Chinese capital, but he did not think that more than 10,000 of them would be able to attack a city as majestic as Beijing.

"The people inside took the initiative to let us in?" Montauban doesn't think there's going to be a particularly major diplomatic breakthrough at the moment.

"As long as we can defeat the ghost troops outside the city, and feel that we can bring the people of the magnificent capital to their knees, we can calmly enter this ancient and mysterious capital. If we can't defeat the Ghost Army, what's the point of taking the capital? Mitchell knew very well that the assault on Beijing had never been in any of Handsome's plans.

Although the coalition forces crushed the main force of Seng Lingqin, it was claimed to have solved the most powerful forces in northern China. But the appearance of the ghost army let the coalition know what is really powerful, and the torture like a dogskin plaster makes the coalition no longer despise this ancient eastern power.

"Wait! Wait until they reappear! Montauban looked worriedly at distant Tianjin.

The expedition of the coalition forces was very different from the plan they had made before their departure. Military operations have been postponed for at least two months due to frequent problems with the supply system. And Goxinga artificially slowed down the speed of the coalition forces by ten to twenty days. In late October, the coalition forces saw the city of Beijing, but at this time, the climate in Beijing and Tianjin had suddenly turned cold, and the situation became very bad for the coalition forces.

Montauban still attaches great importance to intelligence gathering, so he learned from the residents of the Beijing and Tianjin areas that the North Canal, the transportation artery of the coalition forces, would freeze in early November. If the war drags on, the coalition's already weak transport capacity will be greatly limited, and the supply system is likely to collapse, with unimaginable consequences. Montauban had to prevent his troops from being in a precarious situation, so the coalition forces had to end the war in mid-November, before the North Canal froze. But time was already very tight, but the ghost troops were still floating unhurriedly, so Montauban was very anxious.

Outside the Chaoyang Gate, the coalition forces waited for an afternoon, and the two shadows of the Gu'an Army never appeared. Even the monk Grinqin who was fighting with them felt that the enemy on the other side was a little out of order, and had been doing some strange things. However, Montauban's hard waiting was not without gains, and during the twenty days they were tormented, Hengqi, who had repeatedly come to sue for peace, appeared in front of the top of the coalition army again. In fact, the Chinese expedition has been enough to fight the current situation, but it is because Ergin's personal political intentions are still persistent. Montauban and other Frenchmen, even British generals like Mitchell, did not want to continue fighting. However, the Qing court still held their hostages, and they must wait until they returned to Tianjin before they were willing to release, which was something that the top leaders of the coalition forces could not accept, and it was the only reason why the war was still going on.

Prince Gong Yixin is no longer determined to fight the main battle, and even becomes a little afraid of the enemy. He and his father-in-law Gui Liang and Wen Xiang and other cronies believed that the situation was critical, and they were in a dilemma, and if there was a line to do, it was better to compromise and accommodate. He really has no way out except to bend his knees and sue for peace. Although Guoxing'a dragged the coalition army for twenty days, in Yixin's eyes, this mysterious army finally failed to stop the progress of the foreigners.

Beijing is the capital of the Jin, Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties, after the successive dynasties, especially the Ming and Qing dynasties, it has become a strong city, thousands of large and small cannons are installed on the city at present, and the outer city and the inner city are dug with a relatively wide and deep moat. There were 150,000 people in the Eight Banners of the Beijing camp inside and outside the city, and at the same time, the troops of King Qin from the inland provinces were also coming one after another. However, these people have not been trained for a long time, and they lack defensive preparations in advance, and it is completely unknown how effective they will be when they really fight. Moreover, since Emperor Xianfeng left, the princes and ministers who stayed in the capital thought that "the city could not be defended", completely lost the confidence to resist, and did not prepare for the resistance at all. Coupled with Shengbao's flickering, everyone is not prepared, they are all waiting to see Shengbao Qingtian to protect and destroy the foreign soldiers!

At this time, Goxinga was struggling, he was not far from the coalition army, but he was reluctant to catch up. Because once he chased, he entered the Beijing Division and became the division of King Qin, and then he was about to be commanded and dispatched by Shengbao. How could Guo Xing'a be willing to suffer such a loss, but if he didn't suffer a loss, he wouldn't be able to enter Beijing!