Nine days later, in the ancient city of Kandy on the island of Ceylon.

Smoke erupted as the southwest monsoon from the Indian Ocean quickly drifted away.

Lin Shifa watched the large group of British soldiers outside the city retreat like a tide, leaving behind a criss-crossing corpse, a tragic scene.

"Finally repelled the British attack again! This time, the enemy army didn't know what kind of medicine they had taken wrong, like mad dogs, our brothers were afraid that they would suffer a lot more! Lin Shifa didn't raise his head, sighed, and said to the people beside him: "Immediately count the casualties of the soldiers in the city, save the wounded, and organize personnel to strengthen the city defense to resist the next enemy attack." ”

"Yes, Master Lin!" The signal corps immediately went to give the order.

As the commander of the 7th Infantry Division of the 6th Field Corps, Lin Shifa led several infantry regiments of the 7th Infantry Division to occupy the entire island of Ceylon, and found that the entire coastal ports of India had been captured by the Indian Ocean Fleet led by Wei Jun, so he settled on Ceylon Island.

But what he didn't expect was that three months ago, a huge British fleet, escorting hundreds of troop carriers, arrived at the port of Colombo, the capital of Ceylon.

Before the three warships left behind by the Indian Ocean Fleet could sail out of port, they were sunk by a volley of British fleets, and hundreds of naval officers and men were also wiped out. The four rebuilt batteries in Colombo Harbor were destroyed by the British fleet that bombarded them several rounds without even a single warship, and even the soldiers on the batteries were killed. Subsequently, the British troop carriers launched a landing battle under the escort of many warships, and the three infantry regiments stationed in Colombo organized stubborn resistance, but under the bombardment of the British fleet beyond imagination, they could not resist at all, and the three infantry regiments of the 7th Infantry Division were killed and wounded all over the ground by dense artillery, and the port was difficult to defend at all.

After the British army occupied Colombo, they heard that there were originally 10,000 infantry of the Chinese Empire on Ceylon Island, and they wanted to leave 10,000 infantry to garrison, and they were anxious to attack Madras and Calcutta, but they did not expect that as soon as they left, Lin Shifa organized troops to attack Colombo, and the 10,000 British troops left behind were defeated, with more than 2,000 dead and wounded.

Enraged, the British sent a troop carrier and a fleet of 30 warships back to the port of Colombo to attack Colombo again. However, this time, Lin Shifa was prepared and knew that Colombo was not suitable for infantry defense, so he evacuated Colombo early, leaving the British army empty.

When Lin Shifa led the remaining 7th Infantry Division of more than 8,000 officers and men to retreat inland to Ceylon, although the main force of the British expeditionary fleet left, nearly 30,000 British infantry and a fleet remained on Ceylon Island.

Soon, the 30,000 British infantry began to sweep the island of Ceylon. In order not to be broken by the enemy, Lin Shifa reduced his forces in advance and withdrew all the soldiers to the ancient city of Kandy, and at the same time, many Sinhalese spies who had been subdued were sent to various parts of Ceylon to incite the local Sinhalese to rise up against the British army's reoccupation of Ceylon, so as to delay the British army's attack on Ceylon.

After the battle of Colombo Harbor, the British army did not seem to be in a hurry, and under the leadership of Lieutenant General Johnson of the British Army, they first occupied all the ports on the island of Ceylon under the cover of the fleet, and then advanced step by step, encircling the ancient city of Kandy, which was guarded by the 7th Infantry Division.

However, because Lin Shifa had already prepared, he moved all the Sinhalese people around the ancient city into the ancient city in advance, strengthened the city defenses, and built the fortifications of the ancient city very completely. At the same time, he also sent troops to forcibly burn down all the surrounding villages, so that the invading British army had no supplies at all.

In this way, after the British army led by Lieutenant General Johansen attacked the ancient city several times in a row, they did not break through, they could not attack for a long time, and there was not much food supply, so they had no choice but to suspend the attack first and send tens of thousands of troops to collect food everywhere, which caused the local Sinhalese people within dozens of kilometers around the ancient city of Kandy to suffer and complain and hate the British soldiers.

It took a month and a half to recruit food. Lieutenant General Johansen immediately summoned the infantry to attack on a large scale, attacking the ancient city of Kandy dozens of times before and after, but under the strict defense of Lin Shifa, he still failed to break through. However, the Sinhalese who were forced to assist in the defense of the ancient city also suffered thousands of casualties, and the officers and soldiers of the 7th Infantry Division also lost more than 1,500 people in battle, and more than 2,000 were wounded.

More critically, the 7th Infantry Division's stockpiling and carrying ammunition began to run low. The cannonballs had long since been exhausted, and they were just filled with earthen gunpowder in the ancient city, and in this way, they began to become scarce day by day. The reason why the ancient city can still be occupied is completely supported by the thick walls of the ancient city and the few rifle bullets of the infantry soldiers.

And this time the British attack seemed to be particularly fierce, and the soldiers suffered particularly heavy sacrifices.

"Report to the division commander, the results of the battle damage have been counted." A staff officer came running to report: "In this battle, the soldiers defending the ancient city lost 437 killed and 350 seriously wounded, with a total loss of nearly 800 people. There are only about 3,000 soldiers in the city who can fight, and a 10-meter-long section of the wall in the west of the ancient city was blown down by British artillery today...... Division commander, if the foreigners attack like this again, I am afraid that if there are one or two more times, the ancient city of Kandy will be lost! ”

Lin Shifa sighed and said, "Now we are at the end of our ropes. There was no way, it really didn't work, so we broke through and went deep into the mountains and old forests to fight guerrillas. But then it's going to be more passive, and I don't want that. I'd rather use the walls of the city to kill more enemy soldiers than to burrow into the mountains and forests and kill the precious lives of my soldiers by poisonous snakes and diseases! ”

At this moment, the sentries on the city wall suddenly noticed that the British soldiers who were originally besieging the ancient city of Kandy outside the city suddenly abandoned their artillery and abandoned a lot of food and other camp logistics materials as if they were crazy, and began to retreat directly.

Lin Shifa felt very strange and sent a few detectives out of the city to investigate.

It didn't take long for several outposts to confirm that the British had indeed withdrawn and withdrew all their soldiers to the port of Colombo. Only, why is that? Seeing that the ancient city of Kandy is about to be breached, those British troops will be able to annihilate themselves, and there is no reason to retreat. Moreover, he was still in such a hurry that he even threw away the most important baggage such as artillery and food, which made Lin Shifa very puzzled.

At noon the next day, the outpost sent to Colombo again reported that the British had left Ceylon overnight in troop transports, escorted by a large fleet of warships, and had gone west, seemingly in the direction of Bombay.

Lin Shifa suddenly realized that something must have happened on the Bombay side, forcing these British troops to rush to Bombay to rescue. But if you think about it, you feel that something is wrong, even if Mumbai is urgent, it will not be impossible to wait for the last day or two, you know, as long as you launch one or two more attacks, the ancient city of Kandy can be captured. Moreover, it is not necessary to withdraw all the soldiers, not even the artillery baggage, to support Mumbai, as long as the artillery is also needed.

But no matter how much, Lin Shifa sent people to pacify the ancient city of Kandy, and at the same time personally led two infantry regiments to Colombo.

At this time, he understood why the British army retreated in a hurry, and even retreated to the end, even Colombo and the whole island of Ceylon were abandoned.

The British expeditionary fleet suffered a crushing defeat in the Bay of Bengal, with only one vice admiral leading 20 warships to escape, and the remaining dozens of warships were sunk and more than 90 were captured, and the entire fleet suffered an unprecedented defeat. Moreover, the 60,000 infantry in Calcutta were also surrounded and almost completely annihilated.

Obviously, the British troops on these islands of Ceylon must have learned of this news and fled in desperation. And he Lin Qifa and the 7th Infantry Division are all desperate.