The difficulties encountered in the Northern Expedition by sea were much greater than those by land, because the other party's preparations were relatively sufficient, and Zhou Lang had already come to the sea for a surprise attack, if he had not taken precautions, the Manchu officials should be killed.

To put it bluntly, after all, they have not yet reached the second opium war, officials are corrupt, but the ability to self-purify still exists, and although Confucian education is quite criticized, after all, it can produce talents, even if the success rate is low, there are always a few outstanding among 10,000 people.

After Jiaqing became pro-government, he quickly opened the function of self-purification, Zhu Jue, a figure at the level of Zeng Guofan, has good ability, and the master and apprentice have purged the officials in a short period of time, and they dare not say that the corrupt officials and corrupt officials have all been purged, but most of the important positions are in the hands of really capable people, and Zhu Jue and Jiaqing are in charge of the overall situation, and the administrative efficiency has been greatly improved.

In a short period of time, they established a new defense in Tianjin and built a complete fort defense system. However, this defense system still did not help them completely block the enemy at sea from the land, and the corruption of the government can be improved by quickly promoting powerful personnel, but the abolition of the military is by no means something that can be reversed overnight, and the abolition of people basically requires the blood replacement of a whole generation.

Zhu Jue built a large number of forts and installed a large number of heavy artillery, not to mention whether the setting of these forts is reasonable, whether the quality of these cannons is passable, just collecting the forts is a group of Eight Banner disciples, this is the biggest dead end.

Zhou Lang excluded the huge fleet, led by four third-class battleships in service, equipped with up to two hundred and eighty guns, of which the heavy artillery was enough to bombard the Qing army's batteries, but even so, it did not destroy the Qing army's batteries, and the quality of the project was still quite good.

But when the infantry landed and outflanked in a roundabout way, the defenders of the battery fled, which was beyond the power of man.

When the Dagu Fort fell, the gate of Tianjin was opened, the soldiers of the three armies landed, and the field heavy artillery of the artillery unit provided support, Tianjin only held out for two days, and basically the time when the city wall collapsed was the time when the city was lost.

The main force of 30,000 troops was stationed in Tianjin, and then a steady stream of supplies was transported from the Haihe River to Tianjin to reserve supplies for the attack on Beijing.

Jiaqing and Zhu Jue were a little caught off guard by this situation, and immediately mobilized heavy troops to recover Tianjin, but the army did not move forward outside Tianjin, and the troops who were forced to attack suffered heavy losses.

After Zhou Lang got the battle report, he quickly went north, and more than 100 transport ships participated in the transportation, which could transport 30,000 people at a time, and Zhou Lang's handsome camp was also among these 30,000 people.

At this time, the Shuai camp is no longer what it used to be, after defeating the Eight Banners cavalry outside Beijing last time, Zhou Lang immediately equipped them with more war horses, the Shuai camp strength is still 10,000, and the number of war horses that can be equipped is as high as 20,000, 10,000 are Indian horses imported from India, 10,000 are Mongolian horses captured in various places, Mongolian horses for marching, Indian horses for war, and no delay.

Because the commanders are all veterans with the highest stature and the strongest physical strength, everyone can wear armor and be issued with cuirasses. But they are not cold weapon troops, they are all equipped with rifles, a bit of a mixture of British dragoons and French cuirassiers. When charging, it can be cavalry, and when defending, it can also dismount the infantry phalanx.

Zhou Lang arrived in Tianjin, it was the third month of the lunar calendar, and for security reasons, his itinerary was kept secret for the time being, which was repeatedly requested by Wang Fuqian and other civil officials. He didn't know what the point of such secrecy was, if he would still be in danger in his army, there would be no safe place in the world.

Zhou Lang also considered whether his revealing identity would cause special changes, such as the Qing army attaching great importance to it and mobilizing troops from other aspects to the Beijing-Tianjin area, which would have an impact on strategy, so he also chose to keep it secret.

The troops responsible for the attack on Tianjin, commanded by Gou Quan, who had stayed in Tianjin the last time Zhou Lang crossed the suburbs of Beijing, and was most familiar with the situation here. After Zhou Lang arrived, he also brought Chen Xiaoshou and other three soldiers, and the power of the commander-in-chief was transferred to Zhou Lang.

It has been found that the Qing army deployed about 50,000 troops on the outskirts of Tianjin, 20,000 horse infantry each, and 10,000 firearms troops.

Judging from the last attack of the other side, their firearms units still had a superficial understanding of weapons, and completely played the role of fire support, with artillery firing at a distance to suppress, shotguns shooting close to the city, and finally heavy infantry attacking the position.

Gou Quan reported that the Qing army was equipped with a large number of armor, and almost everyone wore armor. Some special defensive equipment has also been crafted, such as the shield car.

This kind of shield car is the equipment invented when the Eight Banners fought with the Ming army, the main purpose is to resist the firearms of the Ming army, but I didn't expect the Manchu Qing Dynasty to get it out of nowhere, and it was manufactured in large quantities. After Gou Quan repelled the Qing army, he captured a batch of shield cars.

This kind of shield car was called a brand car by the Ming army at that time, describing its "brand is very thick, a layer of cowhide, a layer of iron sheet, the small masonry does not move, the big masonry hits it and rolls down, and the firewood is not burned." ”

Gou Quan found that this kind of composite armor of cowhide and iron sheet has a certain defensive ability against rifle lead bullets, after all, the arquebuses at the end of the Ming Dynasty and today's flintlock pistols are smoothbore guns, and they have not been upgraded in power.

Maybe the Ming army didn't come to this kind of shield car, and the standard rifle equipped by the Zhou Lang army had to be designed several times to penetrate this kind of shield car. But this kind of small shield car has no defense against artillery, even the lightest 6-pounder infantry gun can easily break this kind of shield car, and because he is mixed with iron sheets, it will crack, and if a shot goes down, as long as it hits, it will be a dead and wounded.

Zhou Lang Dengcheng inspected the defensive positions of the Qing army and found that there was still a certain level, and it was basically possible to deploy the defense reasonably according to the terrain of the river. Trenches were dug and camps were built with rammed earth.

Zhou Lang realized that the Qing army had probably lost confidence in attacking the fortifications, and planned to use this method to keep themselves out of Beijing.

An army that does not have the courage to fight in the field will never have the courage to defend to the death.

After discussing with the officers, the basic countermeasure was similar to what Zhou Lang himself thought, that is, to use artillery to blast the opponent's camp, advance step by step, and fight them head-on.

After a few days of rest, the offensive began.

The artillery unit, which was already composed of 12-pounder guns, began to intensively bombard the camp outside the city of the Qing army, and in front of the artillery unit, there were two hollow infantry phalanxes, which together with the artillery formed an inverted zigzag layout, and the two phalanxes gathered about 500 meters together to protect the artillery in the middle. In the rear, 10,000 cavalry divided into two teams to protect the two wings, not giving the opposing cavalry a chance to outflank in a roundabout way.

The artillery bombarded a Qing army camp closest to Tianjin, the order flag on the city waved, and the infantry phalanx began to press forward.

In the trench in front of the Qing army's camp, thousands of horsemen suddenly rushed out and made a detour to the right. The right flank of the cavalry of the Shuai battalion quickly pressed forward and protected the right front of the artillery position. The cavalry of the Qing army did not come directly to charge the artillery array, but floated on the right side of the infantry phalanx, throwing a round of bows and arrows, most of them did not hit the target range, they were too far away, and the volley of the rifle returned fire, but it bit the tail of the cavalry floating in front of the formation, killing dozens of men and horses. Coupled with the frightened horses, or the poor riding skills and falling, they lost nearly a hundred people.

The cavalry formed in the distance, watched for a while, and then suddenly turned around and walked across the trench. Look at the direction is to go to the other two camps into horns, one is located in the Yongding River, the other is located on the bank of the Ziya River, stuck in the waterway of Tianjin to the north, the same camp Qing army has several, there is a camp on the opposite bank of the two rivers.

At present, the Zhou army is attacking the Qing army camp at the confluence of the Ziya River and the Yongding River, of course, the Zhou army cannot let him set up a village along the river, the other side of the river has long been controlled by the Zhou army, and they are still more than a mile away from the river bank.

Fierce battles have broken out before the Qing army left the camp, the Qing army's shotguns were released, intermittently, and not neatly, Zhou Lang saw that the loss of his phalanx was not large, and he started to walk into the range of the power of the salvo, and then began to fire a salvo, and suddenly the sand and gravel on the broken earthen wall were splashed, and the Qing army could not raise its head at all. Moreover, the British howitzers attached to the infantry also began to bombard the camp, and the shells continued to explode, and soon the Qing army did not resist and fled from the camp.

How many Manchu fortified cities are useless under artillery and rifle tactics, not to mention this kind of earthen fortification, they can hold on to the present, which makes Zhou Lang quite surprised, because when he came last time, the Qing army did not have this will, probably Zhu Qi and their rectification of military discipline played a role.

What Zhou Lang didn't know was that due to the failure of the last attack on Tianjin, all the officers who escaped were beheaded by Zhu Jue, although many people interceded, but Zhu Jue had a tough attitude and did not hesitate to offend a large group of Eight Banner magnates, but he personally supervised the beheading of all the officers who escaped. This kind of military law, without exception, has indeed deterred other armies.

In addition, Zhu Ju also greatly increased the soldiers' salaries, as long as there was a battle that day, each person would immediately be given ten taels of grain, and the rank of officers would be raised, this method Zhou Lang guessed, because he found a lot of silver ingots abandoned by soldiers from that small earthen city, and one ingot was ten taels of official silver. It is obviously impossible for a soldier to carry this kind of official money with him in battle, and it can only be said that this is a reward earned in the army.

This made Zhou Lang sigh: "Could it be that there must really be a brave man under the heavy reward?" ”

After Zhou Lang's stubborn resistance was unexpected, the Qing army did not stop moving, and the army attacked with this and pulled out the Qing army camp one by one. Except for the second camp, when other camps came to the rescue, and then were defeated by the field and suffered heavy losses, the next few camps were fought on their own.

From the early morning to the evening, all the strongholds of the Qing army outside Tianjin were pulled out.

After that, the next course of action, according to the reconnaissance, the Qing army in the North Canal and Yongding River have been deployed, and the North Canal is more tightly defended, Zhou Lang last time was the North Canal, obviously the Qing army focused on defending this line.

The officers were divided in their opinions, believing that since the North Canal was well guarded, it was time to take the Yongding River.

Zhou Lang finally decided to take the North Canal, because he had walked through it once, he was relatively familiar, and he didn't need to avoid the real and fight the void in a dignified battle, his strength was above the other party, and he had a better chance of winning if he was tough.