Tongzhou is the beginning of the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal, and it is the only way for Cao to enter Beijing. Since www.biquge.info the Yuan Dynasty, after Beijing City was the capital of a country, Tongzhou, which was located on the side of the Jingdong Canal, became an important transportation place, and occupied the most important position in the Gongwei Capital and the canal. The specialties of the south, especially the grain, arrived in Tongzhou after passing through Tianjin by Cao or sea.

In the Ming and Qing dynasties, the imperial court built granaries in Tongzhou to facilitate storage and transportation. Especially in the Manchu Dynasty, the population of Beijing increased greatly, and Tongzhou was almost equal to the granary, which had to be transported and preserved, close to the canal, inherently convenient, and stored nearly one million stone grain at any time, which was equivalent to the national warehouse of the Qing Dynasty. "The country has transported four million stones in the southeast every year, and three out of ten of them are stored in the warehouse", which can really be described as the granary of the world.

At this moment, Feng Yunshan, Shi Dakai, Luo Xuan, Zuo Zongtang and others, who entered Tongzhou City, under the leadership of Lin Fengxiang and Tan Shaoguang, went to the two major warehouses in the city, Daxi Cang and Zhongcang.

The smoke was billowing in front of him, which was where Zhongcang was located, and thousands of captives were taking the battalion as a unit, under the command of their respective battalion commanders, carrying water to extinguish the fire, and more than a dozen water dragons were already desperately drawing water to extinguish the fire.

Lin Fengxiang pointed to the dozens of granaries that were still smoking not far away, and said with an angry face: "Holy King, these Qing demons have done too much, and when they escaped, they also set fire to the granaries in Tongzhou City. Many granaries have been extinguished, but there are still more than ten silos that have been completely burned down and cannot be rescued. ”

Tan Shaoguang said with a happy face: "Master Lin, don't be too greedy." Qing Demon didn't burn it all, it's already good. This middle warehouse alone should be able to seize more than 400,000 stone of grain. There is also the big Xicang over there, I heard more, fortunately, those Qing demons who were ordered to set fire were in too much of a hurry. ”

Feng Yunshan said: "These grains can be described as windfalls. The war has caused many displaced people, and the rice shop in Tongzhou City has closed its doors, and the people in the city may have no rice to cook, so it is better to put some grain to help the displaced people and the people. ”

Zhou Shengfu, the director of the logistics department who followed him, hurriedly responded.

Occupying Tongzhou City, the captives not only captured dozens of cannons, swords, spears, muskets and gunpowder, etc., but most importantly, a total of 1.2 million stone grain was seized in Daxicang and Zhongcang, and 700 war horses were seized in the corner of Tongzhou City.

As for those knives and spears, in Feng Yunshan's opinion, they were all broken copper and iron, and there was no way to use them. And most of the muskets were arquebuses with crooked necks, something from one or two hundred years ago, which made Feng Yunshan speechless for a while. It is no wonder that in history, the Qing soldiers fought against foreigners, and they were defeated like a mountain, they lacked the courage to fight, and their weapons were so poor, how could they fight against others?

At dawn the next day, the bells of the bell and drum tower in Tongzhou City rang loudly, and the begging troops inside and outside the city gathered one after another, hurriedly ate, and prepared to go on the expedition.

By the time of the day, Feng Yunshan received a report that the troops of the 1st Division, the 8th Division, and the 9th Division had all advanced westward from outside Tongzhou City.

The target of the captive army is the Bali Bridge!

This is naturally not because Feng Yunshan is prescient, but because there is a canal from Tongzhou to the capital, and if you want to attack Beijing, you must cross the river. And on this canal, there are only two bridges, the west one is a wooden bridge, and the mule and horse carts carrying cannons cannot pass, and the second is a beautiful white marble single-arch stone bridge, which is built very firmly, probably because the distance from the west gate of Tongzhou to the bridge is exactly Bali, so it is named Bali Bridge.

Listening to the spies lurking in Tongzhou, on the arch of the bridge, if the weather is good, you can still see the Beijing city wall. When the sky was bright, there were already reports from the Malays, saying that most of the Qing army had retreated to the area centered on the Bali Bridge, and on the basis of the fortifications that had been built, they had excavated and strengthened the earth fortresses and trenches overnight. However, because the banks of the canal of Bali Bridge are overgrown with bushes, and the banks of the river are full of woods, blocking the view, Tanma does not see very clearly.

However, Feng Yunshan, who heard the report, thought of the exact same war in history, and immediately judged that Seng Lingqin, the Mongolian prince, must have the idea of fighting to the death at Bali Bridge.

To be honest, this terrain is really favorable to the Qing army. There are bushes and woods all around, and the Mongolian cavalry can ambush in the woods, and when the captives want to cross the Bali Bridge, they suddenly kill, surrounded on three sides, and the canal on the other side.

However, he probably didn't expect that the huge gap in weapons between the two sides could not be bridged by terrain. And he could only fight with the wind, and he had long lost the bloody Manchurian cavalry when the Eight Banners entered the customs, and he couldn't bear his heavy hopes.

What's more, he still has the killer weapon of the special cavalry.

The 1st Division, the 8th Division, and the 9th Division were divided into eastern, central, and western routes, centering on the location of the Bali Bridge, and marching to the canal in the northwest direction. Feng Yunshan took the four regiments of the 5th Division, the 4th regiment of the 10th Division, and the only two remaining main infantry regiments of the 1st Division as the rear army, and then supported them.

The front spread out from east to west. Lin Fengxiang led the 1st Division A to make a detour from the west of Baliqiao Village and insert the area west of Baliqiao in the north; and Chen Tianshi led the Eighth Division from the east of Baliqiao Village to obliquely insert Baliqiao; Tan Shaoguang led the Ninth Division along the official road and also attacked the Bali Bridge.

The two artillery regiments of the Ninth Division were in the center, as the vanguard troops, directly penetrating into the Bali bridgehead, and the two wings were guarded by musketeers, and the newly formed 800 musketeers on horseback were even more vigorous, and under the personal leadership of the regiment commander Zhang Ying, they took the lead in opening the way in front.

Half an hour later, Zhang Ying's musket horse team and the Qing cavalry of the brigade encountered, the opponent was a group of full-flag cavalry, outflanked from the left flank, thousands of cavalry galloped in a dense formation, less than fifty steps away from Zhang Ying's regiment soldiers, they fired first, the arquebus and shotgun in their hands crackled and shot, the momentum was huge.

Unfortunately, except for a few warhorses barking a few times, it had no effect at all, and the Qing army's muskets did not know whether they were all flying or failing to shoot fifty paces away at all.

However, Rao is like this, which still makes the soldiers of the captive army nervous. The scene was filled with the sound of horses' hooves and gunshots, and Zhang Ying realized that his more than 800 brothers were running too fast, and they were more than 200 steps away from the main force of the Ninth Division behind.

He shouted the order: "Fire!" While issuing the password according to the military flag taught in the Whampoa Military Academy, he quickly shook the flagpole, pointed at the enemy troops, and signaled to open fire.

The eight-hundred-shot Sharps M1852 carbine emitted a thick smoke and a dense sound.

The more than 1,000 full-flag cavalry were attacked by fierce fire, and one by one they fell to the ground. But the following groups of Qing cavalry, still one after another, only to see the enemy horses galloping, raising large clouds of dust everywhere, full of cavalry with many people, howling rudely, they wanted to drown the soldiers of Zhang Yingtuan.

Seeing that the situation was not good, Zhang Ying finished firing a round of guns, but he didn't have time to reload ammunition, so he tossed the carbine diagonally around his neck aside, took out the Colt revolver on his waist, and there was another round of intensive gunfire.

The Qing army has fallen again.

Then, Zhang Ying led 800 musketeers to stop their horses, put away the Colt revolver, pulled out the saber tied to his back, turned the horse's head while waving, retreated, and moved closer to the main force of the 9th Division of A, which was closely behind.

At this time, the main force of the infantry of the 9th Division finally arrived.

The gunfire that was several times denser than the eight hundred musketeers just now rang out, and the Qing cavalry, which was like a tide, fell off their horses like fallen leaves.

Moreover, after this delay, the two artillery regiments of the 9th Division in the middle of the back have already arranged their artillery.

Several field mortars that were conveniently arranged had already been ignited and began to fire violently, and the shrapnel that erupted exploded in the Qing cavalry, and the whistling fragments tore apart the Manchu and Mongolian cavalry.

The Qing army that rushed over saw that it could not take advantage, but lost hundreds of horses, and saw the fierce firepower of the captive army, and was a little afraid, but the military order behind it kept urging them to rush forward and kill, and they were in a dilemma for a while, and they couldn't help but hesitate.