Zhou Lang sat in Tianjin, and ordered Chen Xiaoshou to take over Gou Quan to lead the army to attack, and the two of them each led three armies and fought in turn. Chen Xiaoshou was ordered to attack the Zhangjiawan area at most, and then the garrison must be rotated, and he was told not to be greedy for merit.

Military supplies are constantly being sent to Tianjin, and reinforcements are also arriving in a steady stream, all of which are auxiliary troops, and the Fujian auxiliary troops, who have the most rich combat experience, will be the first to take the lead, and then there will be Guangdong auxiliary troops, and the troops with strong combat effectiveness will be transported first, which is the principle.

With Zhou Lang's current transportation capacity, under the condition of ensuring supplies, he can transport 30,000 troops a month. At present, the total strength of the landing force has reached 100,000 troops, and before the attack on Beijing, the number of troops was sufficient.

The auxiliary forces have completely taken over Tianjin, and are constantly advancing northward, and they must fortify the area along the canal to keep this transportation and supply line unblocked.

Chen Xiaoshou's march was blocked layer by layer, each time more stubbornly resisted, and each time there were more people. When he arrived in Zhangjiawan, he even had a head-on decisive battle with 70,000 Qing horse infantry, and although he repelled the enemy, he was no longer able to pursue.

However, according to Chen Xiaoshou's report, the Qing army also suffered a heavy blow after this battle, cleaning up the battlefield and finding that 13,000 Qing troops were killed, 4,000 wounded were captured, and another 5,000 war horses were killed. After the Qing army suffered a heavy blow, they retreated in great strides, and did not even fortify at the Bali Bridge, and gathered their troops in Tongzhou. The defense situation of Tongzhou was also different from the last time, and instead of entering the isolated city, a strong fortress was built outside the city as a horn.

Zhou Lang then moved to Wuqing to take command nearby, and all of them quickly went north to respond, allowing him to choose an opportunity to attack Tongzhou. If there is no good opportunity, they will stand by in place, and Hou Chen's small hands will rest for five days, and then join forces to fight again.

Gou Quan crossed the Bali Bridge, and then made a tentative attack on Tongzhou, found that there was no chance, and then retreated to the Bali Bridge.

At this time, the dark clouds of Beijing City were overwhelming, and no one expected Zhou Lang to attack from two directions. The Qing courtiers collegially thought that there were more than 100,000, otherwise it would be impossible to connect Kezhou County in the short term, and judged that Jianghuai should be the main force of the opponent's Northern Expedition, and the attack on Tianjin from land and sea was just a partial division, with the purpose of preventing the capital from rescuing Jianghuai.

Everyone agrees with this collegiate discussion, but Zhu Jue still insists on not going to the rescue, so he stationed the elite soldiers in Beijing, Zhu Jue's statement is that even if the thieves in Tianjin are partial divisions and Jianghuai is the main force, they will still come to fight Beijing in the end. It is better to wait for work and fight the thief at the feet of the Son of Heaven.

At the beginning, some people ridiculed Zhu Qi for being timid, but now no one says this, but praises Zhu Qi for being old and serious, and has long expected that it is the thieves who will capture Tianjin as the main force.

Whether it is ridicule or praise, Zhu Jue is not in the mood to care, in his opinion, the current situation is too dangerous, he knew that the thieves were strong before, but he didn't expect it to be so strong, Zhu Jue personally strategized and went to Tongzhou to supervise the division, and as a result, he gathered twice the enemy's troops, and was defeated by the enemy head-on.

It was not the Eight Banners that were dispatched in this battle, but those who were transferred back from Sichuan and Shaanxi, and after suppressing the elite green battalion of the White Lotus Sect, two of the three major firearms battalions were dispatched, and 20,000 Mongolian horsemen from 30,000 foreign domains were sent.

Zhu Jue was sure that this time the soldiers fought bravely and hard, and there was no sign of collapse and escape, but they were still defeated, which made him, a literati, have no way to deal with it.

Therefore, he quickly gathered his troops and horses, strictly guarded Tongzhou, and ordered that he should not be ordered by the military aircraft department, and he was not allowed to go out of the city without authorization.

Then Zhu Jue quickly returned to Beijing, he did not run away, he went to Jiaqing to make suggestions, the Russian mission is still in the capital, it is said that there are Russian generals, proficient in the art of bird artillery, has been recommended to him many times, it seems that the Russian Yi to help the war is indeed sincere, the two countries have always been friendly, Zhu Jue asked the emperor for permission, hire the Russian general as his staff.

Where would Jiaqing not agree, the thieves have all hit Beijing City, and he is anxious like ants on the hot pot, and there is no way to retreat from the enemy.

Zhu Jue immediately took action and hired the young Russian colonel Nikolai into his shogunate, although Nikolai was young, he had rich experience, he had served as a resident military attache in Austria and Sweden, and had traveled to Britain, France, the Netherlands and other countries, and this time he was ordered to come to China, originally he really wanted to reach an agreement with the Manchus, because the Russians found that their trade with Guangzhou was difficult, and they tried once before, but they lost money.

Because of China's civil war, which led to the severance of Wuyi Mountain tea, as well as the rebellion of the White Lotus Sect in Hubei, the tea channel in Hubei was also blocked for a time, the price of tea in Russia skyrocketed in recent years, and the tsar received half of the tariffs from Kyakhta, although Kyakhta trade only accounted for less than 8% of Russia's foreign trade, but the tax revenue accounted for more than 30% of Russia's total tariffs, in 1760, Kyakhta tariffs were 238,000 rubles, accounting for 20.4% of the total tariffs of Russia; In 1775 453,000 rubles, or 38.5% of the total tariff, the loss of Kyakhta trade would jeopardize the financial balance of the Russian Empire.

But from Guangzhou to Kamchatka, by land into Moscow, this road is more expensive than transporting tea from the hinterland of China to Kyakhta and then to Moscow. As a result of this discovery, the Russians believed that they had no trade interest with the separatist forces in southern China, and they did not expect the southern forces to move so quickly and attack again so quickly. So they wanted to give the Manchus military aid in exchange for some trade privileges and expand Kyakhta trade. At the same time, it will also allow them to sweep down the rebellion as soon as possible, and the two countries will resume trade as soon as possible, which is beneficial to Russia.

The demand for the expansion of trade was accepted by the Qing court, of course, it was a habitual attitude, and it was a sign of grace to Russia.

After receiving these benefits, the delegation had returned home, except for Nikolai, who had been ordered to stay here to keep an eye on the situation, and to put it bluntly, he was a spy.

I didn't expect the other party to come to the door, they didn't want it last time, but now they ask him for help.

Nikolai did not refuse, he accepted the well-paid job, and all questions were answered. It's just that he was a little disappointed in the military literacy of the people he served, and most of the questions asked him were layman's questions.

The other party's main concern is what weaknesses the bird cannon can exploit.

Nikolai replied to him that there was no shortcut unless he was trained and well armed.

The other party was very disappointed, and he did not see Nikolai for a long time.

The second time they saw Nikolai, it was already when their enemies were approaching the city.

The Battle of Tongzhou is over.

It was a bitter battle, and Zhou Lang assembled six battle corps, as well as artillery and marshal battalions, with a total of 80,000 troops, and launched a strong attack on Tongzhou.

Pull out the outer camp and attack the city head-on, in a decent manner, relying on firepower, fighting for discipline, and personal martial arts have long been useless.

After three days of fierce fighting, the Qing army was defeated, this time the Qing army in Tongzhou exceeded 100,000, 15,000 dead and wounded, and nearly 20,000 were captured, which was the biggest victory since the beginning of the war, and the casualties paid were also the largest, reaching 3,000 people, and 800 were killed in direct battle.

The Battle of Tongzhou also completely opened the door to Beijing.

However, Zhou Lang was not in a hurry to attack, casualties were one thing, fatigue and illness also began to appear, so he immediately turned to rest, the wounded and sick were sent back to the rear for treatment, and the troops were replenished with troops and supplies.

At the same time, waiting for the arrival of a large number of vehicles collected, I don't know why the Qing army did not destroy the gate this time, but Zhou Lang must take precautions, and the order to collect livestock and vehicles has already been issued, I believe that it has already been shipped, and it is too late to interrupt.

This time, Zhou Lang collected more than 150,000 livestock and 100,000 vehicles, and he needed to ensure the supply of the front-line army for a long time, because he was ready to fight a protracted war.

When I arrived outside Beijing, it was already early May.

The total number of auxiliary troops arriving in Tianjin has reached 200,000, and the army has all been put in place, and this time the auxiliary troops have to cooperate with the siege of Beijing in addition to maintaining traffic along the road.

In the case that Beijing chose not to go out of the city for field battles, Zhou Lang continued to deploy troops, deploying 30,000 auxiliaries in the northern suburbs and 30,000 auxiliaries in the southern city, and they built fortifications outside the city gates to prevent the enemy from leaving the city.

All 80,000 soldiers were assembled in the eastern suburbs, obviously in the direction of Jiangsu's main attack in the east, and the west of the city was left for the Qing army to flee.

Nikolai witnessed the actions of the enemy army on the city wall, and he had not seen the battle process of the other side, so he could not judge the strength of the other side, and could only judge from the weapons and equipment they occasionally saw, which had reached the mainstream level of Europe, but the cavalry was relatively lacking.

Later, Nikolai saw that the other side was digging trenches and building barracks, and everything was in order, and the shape of the barracks was somewhat peculiar, that is, it looked like China, and it seemed to have the shadow of Europe, because Europeans may dig ditches, but rarely build walls. And Nikolai saw that in the design of the other party, the artillery was the core of the firepower, which he appreciated. Centered on artillery, rather than rifles and infantry phalanxes, this was also considered a new trend in Europe. In the Russian army, it was even deployed with cavalry as the center.

No one waited long for Nikolai for the expected military operation, and only three days after the enemy gained a foothold outside the city, he launched a tentative attack, mainly artillery bombardment.

This time Nikolai confirmed that the opponent was equipped with a large number of heavy infantry guns, from the perspective of the opponent's archery, the training was more formal, and the power of the opponent's artillery, Nikolai assessed that it was at the same level as the Europeans, perhaps the British or Dutch artillery they bought.

As for the object of his service, the Qing army showed undisguised fear, panic and other emotions. Nikolai judged that Beijing might not be able to hold on.

After returning home, Nikolai immediately wrote a report to the tsar, believing that the probability of the defeat of the Qing dynasty in China was very high, and hoped that the tsar would be able to make a correct judgment based on this situation.

Nikolai did not make a suggestion, but he could guess that the Russian Empire would not let go of such a good opportunity, and the ongoing war of the anti-French alliance in Europe had nothing to do with Russia, because Russia disposed of the ownership of the island of Malta to the Western European countries led by Britain, and there was also a plan for relations with Austria on the issue of partitioning Poland, and the British chose to support Austria, and Russia withdrew from the war against France last year. He also broke off diplomatic relations with Great Britain and signed treaties with Sweden, Denmark, Prussia and other countries aimed at opposing Britain.

Now let the Europeans fight their wars, and Russia can achieve in the East benefits that only Russia can achieve.

If His Majesty the Tsar could send 20,000 troops, he might be able to acquire a valuable territory in the East.

As for where this territory is, Nikolai is not very familiar with the geography of China, but in any case there is definitely a land of interest to Russia, and it is enough to understand this truth!