Zhou Lang's plan to advance from land to Chaoshan has been cancelled, but the infiltration of Guangdong into Fujian has been going on.

Zhu Qi's method is very old-fashioned, and Zhou Lang is very passive. At present, the landlords in the border area of Fujian and Guangdong are all armed, and most of them are committed to the Manchu Qing Dynasty, Zhu Jue provided weapons to these landlords, although it is a simple bow, arrow, knife and gun, the power is limited, and the wealthy people in the Chaoshan area have the habit of building fortresses, and the defense power of the building mode such as tulou and enclosed house should not be underestimated, the key is that the number is too much, and one by one the enclosed houses and tulou are beaten over, not to mention the time and effort, and the consumption is too great.

Unable to break through from the nearby battlefield, Zhou Lang thought of a way to hit the core directly and chose to attack Guangzhou directly.

How could a person like Zhu Qi not think that the enemy would attack from the sea, not to mention that Zhou Lang had already fought Guangzhou once, if he was not prepared, it would not be worth Zhou Lang's attention to him.

From the very beginning of Zhu Jue's tenure, he began to rectify coastal defense.

Over the years, not only did Zhou Lang send troops to fight Guangzhou, but there were many forces that threatened the coastal areas of Guangdong, and the most frequent harassment of the coastal areas of Guangdong, in addition to the many pirate gangs, the most threatening was the naval fleet sent by the Tay Son Dynasty of Vietnam.

The Xishan Dynasty was really shady, so it was enough to recruit Chinese pirates to help them fight, and also sent them back to China to raid the coastal areas to raise funds for the Xishan Dynasty.

These pirates were attracted by the official position of the Xishan Dynasty, or the interests of cooperation, and owed a large amount of allegiance to the Xishan Dynasty. Every year, a fleet is formed to go north, and Guangdong, Fujian, and Zhejiang suffer greatly.

However, the Manchu Qing coastal defense has been abandoned for a long time, there is a story, it is said that after Magarny went to Beijing to meet Qianlong without obtaining a trade permit, he came to Guangzhou to negotiate with the governor of Liangguang, and finally did not achieve any gains, and left Guangzhou in a gloomy manner, when passing the Humen Fort, Magarny thought that the fort would fire a salute to the foreign missions going to sea in accordance with Western practice, but found that the fort did not move at all, and after a closer look, he found that the cannon door was actually drawn, and there was no cannon at all.

This story is too exaggerated, but Guangdong's coastal defense is indeed very slack. The sailors have empty names, there are serious vacancies, the warships are in disrepair, and as for the cannons, many of them are rusty. Such a sailor did not even have the courage to fight in the face of organized Vietnamese pirates.

The officers and men of the naval division stayed more often in the land ports, colluding with the Tiandihui and pirate representatives in the ports, ignoring the pirate representatives' blatant collection of sea taxes on merchants, and even sharing dividends from the pirate industry.

Zhu is able to tolerate the corruption of his colleagues, seeing it as a malpractice, which is not something that everyone can fight. However, Zhu Jue could not tolerate the collusion of officers and soldiers with pirates, which was no longer a disadvantage, but a curse.

Zhu Jue does not have the ability to solve the problem of having no sea and defenses in the whole of Guangdong, because the manpower and material resources that need to be invested are too great to be solved in a moment, but he has the ability to solve the key and vital areas.

As the gateway of Guangdong, Humen, is the top priority, Zhu Jue ordered people to reconstruct the defense of Humen, the officers and soldiers of the Navy Division were reorganized, the fort was rebuilt, the fortress was newly built and expanded, and the Foshan blacksmith was hired to cast new cannons, and the 10,000-pound cannon alone was cast twelve, which were located on the sandbar forts in the river such as Humen Fort and Hengjie Island, and the Pearl River estuary was strictly blocked, and the Haikou boat Shuo River was strictly prevented.

The city defense of Guangzhou was also rectified, redundant personnel were eliminated, water warriors were recruited, brave generals were appointed, and strict training was carried out.

Zhu Jue is very confident that there will be no such thing as the siege of Haikou in Guangzhou.

Zhou Lang has collected intelligence on these measures of Zhu Jue and has also attached great importance to them.

Therefore, the fleet he sent this time, in terms of overall strength, was stronger than the last time Magalny captured the battery.

When Magalny attacked the Humen Fort, the main force was the battleship Lion, with 64 guns, which belonged to the British third-class battleship, with the largest artillery of 26 24-pounder guns, equivalent to the 6,000-pound guns of the Qing army.

In the Zhou Lang fleet, there were two third-class battleships, which were built in one year under the guidance of Dutch technicians and Cantonese craftsmen from the Dagu Shipyard. At present, Zhou Lang has only built these two, not that he doesn't want to build more, first, due to the limited materials, especially the lack of logs used as keels, and secondly, the performance of the two warships is still uncertain, and it has been half a year since the construction was completed, but it has been on trial, and British and Dutch technicians have been tested at the same time.

Two battleships, one captain is the old pirate Qiu Tong, one captain is the pirate Zhang Biao, each has an Anglo-Dutch team for testing, this attack on Guangzhou, the test team is still together, because the battle is the ultimate way to test the warship.

If he passes this actual combat test, Zhou Lang will start mass production of this kind of battleship.

Zhou Lang was worried about the firepower of the battleships, the firepower of these two battleships was basically the same as that of the Lion, one was equipped with 64 cannons, including 20 24-pounder guns, and the other was equipped with 70 guns, of which 30 were 24-pounder guns, and the combined firepower of the two ships was much stronger than that of the Magalny fleet at that time.

However, Zhu Jue built a large number of 10,000-pound cannons, the largest caliber 64-pound heavy naval gun equipped on a Western first-class battleship, which the Qing army called 8,000 pounds of heavy artillery, this kind of 10,000-pound heavy artillery, no one has ever seen it, which made Zhou Lang quite worried.

The offensive finally began, and there was nothing wrong with the tactics, just choosing the best angle to try to avoid the battery fire, and at the same time posing a threat to the battery, and then bombarding the battery. In addition, the army soldiers who cooperated with the operation chose the opportunity to land and attack from land.

The first fort attacked by Zhou Lang's fleet was the Nanshan Fort on Aniangshoe Island (later known as Weiyuan Island) outside Humen Town. Nanshan is located on the southwest beach of the island, facing the water and waves, and is controlling the main channel of the Pearl River. The fort was built on the top of the South Mountain, which is the commanding height of the island. This fort can be traced back to the fortifications built in the early Ming Dynasty to guard against the Japanese invaders, and today's fort was built in the 56th year of Kangxi (1717), and the Yongzheng and Qianlong dynasties have not changed much. Before the Opium War, Guan Tianpei and other Qing army generals successively built two forts in Zhenyuan and Jingyuan, and the three forts were collectively called Weiyuan Fort, and later Ah Niang Shoe Island was renamed Weiyuan Island.

The fort has 12 gun emplacements, two 10,000-pound cannons, and the rest are four 6,000-pound heavy guns and six 3,000-pound heavy guns.

The firepower is okay, although the number is small, but the power is great.

With the bombardment of naval artillery, the battery chose to counterattack, but the accuracy of the Qing army's artillery was as bad as ever, their officers would not waste gunpowder for soldiers to train with live ammunition, unless Zhu Jue could keep an eye on these officers, otherwise the money for purchasing gunpowder would definitely fall into their personal pockets, and the training would only be on paper.

Although the artillery skills were terrible, the will to fight was stronger than the last time, and the last time Magalny's flagship scared away the defenders of the battery with a shelling alone. This time, Zhou Lang's fleet bombarded the fort for an afternoon, of course, neither side caused fatal damage to anyone, but the firepower of Zhou Lang's fleet has remained stable, but the firepower of the fort is much weaker, and the reason is unknown.

The infantry, called small boats, landed on the beach on the leeward side of the Taiping River on the west side of Nanshan, five miles away, and began to make a detour towards the fort, if it went well, they could take the fort before dark, and everyone could spend the night in the Qing barracks, otherwise they would have to camp.

They are very lucky, the Qing army's will to fight is indeed stronger than last time, Zhu Qi's method of choosing warriors has a certain effect, but after all, the use of personal force is limited, and there are few officers like Guan Tianpei who are willing to repay the country with death. After the presence of enemy troops in the rear, the defenders of the battery still took action to block it, but after the condescending counterattack was easily routed, they were reluctant to try again, and when the infantry charged the battery, the Qing soldiers began to flee.

At night, the soldiers of the wishful fleet lived in the Nanshan Fort barracks.

After the Nanshan Fort was captured, it was equivalent to opening the first lock of the Humen Fort Group. After that, you can choose the direction of attack, one is to attack the Humen Village, which is the closest to A-Niang Shoe Island, which was also built in the Kangxi year, and the history can also be traced back to the Ming Dynasty. However, the Humen Water Village of the Ming Dynasty was located on A-Niang Shoe Island, and Lu Ying was stationed at the location of the current Humen Village. During the Kangxi period, the sea was banned, and all the residents in this area moved inward, leaving only a water village. After the end of the sea ban, Kangxi rebuilt the walled city on the Daren Mountain in Shiqiling, on the east bank of the Taiping River. The newly built walled city is today's Humen Village, which was rammed earth in the early days and later covered with bricks.

Humen Village and Nanshan Fort are located on Aniang Shoe Island, separated by a not wide Taiping River waterway, the largest town in Dongguan in later generations, Humen Town is the development of Humen Village. Humen Village is also the Humen Naval Division Cooperative Camp Station, the Walled City has a built-in military room, a government office, and a deputy general is in charge of 41 camps in the waters inside and outside Humen.

It can be said that this is the core of the Humen Sailor.

But the fleet did not choose to attack the Walled City of Humen, but chose the second direction of attack, continuing along the waterway of the Pearl River, approaching Guangzhou, apparently in their eyes, there was no Humen, only Guangzhou.

In the center of the Pearl River on the other side of the Nanshan Fort, close to the left side of the main channel, there is an island or two islands, called Rung Island, if it is counted as two islands, it is called the Upper Rung Island and the Lower Rung Island, the two islands are like the two horizontals of the Chinese character "two", Heng in the heart of the river, the situation is sinister, and the meaning of going to the Rung.

The upstream is the upper rungs of the island, the island is east-west horizontal, there is a mountain on the east side called Heng Shan Mountain, there is a mountain on the west side called Yongan Mountain, and there is a fort on the Heng Shan Mountain. There are no fortifications on the lower rungs island. If you act boldly, you should actually attack the Rung Fort and Nanshan Fort at the same time, the British army during the Opium War chose to seize the undefended Lower Rung Island first, and then at high tide, besiege the Shangrung Island Battery, and the battle ended in an hour. And the Weiyuan Fort opposite where Guan Tianpei was sitting took ten hours to take.

Since Zhou Lang's fleet did not know the power of the Qing army's artillery, it was more cautious, avoiding the fire of the rungway battery, and attacking Aniangshou Island from the south side of the Nanshan Fort, close to the east side of the channel. If the position is slightly north, it is easy to be caught between the Rung Battery and the Nanshan Battery, because the distance between the two batteries is too close. The main span of the Humen Bridge in later generations is from Aniangshoe Island to Rungjie Island, which is only 888 meters, which is completely within the range of artillery.

During the Opium War, the iron lock designed by the Qing army was connected to Rung Island at one end and A-Niang Shoe Island at the other end, and a wooden row was used to float in the middle, but unfortunately it did not play a role and was washed away by the river.

The close ones can be blocked with iron locks, and if they have to pass through the main channel, they can't avoid the fire of the batteries anyway, but now the fleet doesn't care about the artillery of the Qing army, because they have discovered yesterday that the artillery of the Qing army is empty. The caliber of the cannon was indeed bluffing, larger than the 64-pounder gun of the British army. But the quality was so poor that after attacking the fort yesterday, I found that the two 10,000-pound cannons had been blown up.

Historically, until the 1840s, Lin Zexu personally supervised the cannon is also this virtue, according to Lin Zexu's records, Foshan iron cannon can not be used, there are too many impurities in the iron, there are a large number of air holes in the gun body, a shot is exploded, once used a hammer to break 1 door, found that the largest air hole can be filled with a full bowl of water.

But these cannons were supervised by Lin Zexu's relatives, and he also personally tested the cannons, and he was very satisfied with the fact that he could hit the foot of Nanshan Mountain on the opposite side from the rung-up fort. Either Lin Zexu's level is limited and he was deceived by craftsmen, or he is not rigorous in his work and does not supervise carefully.

Zhu Jue supervised the construction of these iron cannons, did not let the government artillery factory with serious defects to build, like Lin Zexu, chose Foshan iron craftsmen to build, but the effect is similar, the quality is not satisfactory, in fact, it is possible that no one is to blame, but the technology does not meet the requirements, Foshan's folk blacksmiths may not have the ability to cast super-large caliber heavy artillery. The local iron is also not suitable for making artillery.

In short, after understanding that these cannons had to have their own tables, the fleet did not need to take it to heart, and drove into the channel with great momentum, ignoring the rungside batteries at all, and as a result, the batteries did not open fire, allowing the fleet to pass safely.

After crossing the rungs of the island to the north for five miles, please ask the Qing army to defend the last line of defense of Humen, Dahu Island. There are big tiger mountains, small tiger mountains, two small hills, local legend two tiger mountains like guarding the portal, this is the origin of the name of the tiger gate, in fact, "door" in Guangdong refers to the mouth of the sea, Guangdong has eight gates, Macao, Jiangmen are one of the eight gates.

Humen also means this, outside the Humen is the outer ocean, Lingding Ocean, after the Tiger Gate is the inner ocean, the lion ocean.

With the experience of attacking the Nanshan battery and the rungside battery, it was not difficult to hit the Dahushan battery, but the fleet was not interested in fighting.

As a result, the other party was not interested in fighting, and let him go again.

In 1834, before the Opium War, two British light warships once broke through the Humen Fort Group and easily broke into Huangpu Harbor. It attracted the attention of Guan Tianpei and other generals of the Qing army, thinking that the defense system was not working, so they rebuilt a number of batteries and built three lines of defense, but unfortunately it still didn't work in the end. It is said that a national hero like Guan Tianpei did not kill a single British soldier at the cost of dying in battle, and the only result was that he wounded five British soldiers.

Judging from the current situation, Guan Tianpei is really a non-war crime, and he is powerless to return to heaven.

After crossing the Humen, Guangzhou was in sight, and as last time, the fleet immediately seized Whampoa.

The Battle of Canton came to begin.