Late at night on the seventh day of the tenth lunar month. Pen & Fun & Pavilion www.biquge.info

The two families of Zhenguo Gong Min Zhuer Sedan and Bu Bafen Fuguo Gong Qi Dan led the family soldiers with more than 300 family members to descend from the side of Anding Gate in the northeast corner of the city and fled outside the city;

The Zhenguo Gong Balesic, the Zhenguo Gong Songqiergu, the Zhenguo General Longdeduo, and the three Feng'en generals also led their families to escape from Beijing City from between Andingmen and Deshengmen in the north of the city.

On the afternoon of the eighth day of the tenth lunar month, there were already rumors in Beijing about the escape of many Zhenguo leaders from Beijing City.

Even, when the flag people met, they all greeted: "When will you leave?" ”

"Let's leave tonight, or do you want to go together? If you don't leave, I'm afraid that the thieves will break the city, but I'm afraid that I won't be able to leave! ”

"Then it's decided, see you at Andingmen at the second watch tonight!"

With the surge of people, by the evening of the eighth day of the Lunar New Year, most of the banner people in Beijing were secretly rumoring about fleeing at night.

In the city of Beijing in the Manchu Qing Dynasty, the Manchus and Han Dynasty lived in separate cities. The Manchu and Mongolian banners all live in the inner city, while the Han, Hui and other ethnic groups live in the outer city or the suburbs.

And the inner city is continuous around the city wall has seventy or eighty miles, the heart of the city wall is rammed earth, the inner and outer walls are all based on the stone, the upper is wrapped through the city bricks, up to ten meters, the foundation of the city wall is also more than ten meters thick, extremely solid.

There are a total of nine city gates in the inner city: Zhengyang Gate, Chongwen Gate, Xuanwu Gate, Anding Gate, Desheng Gate, Dongzhi Gate, Xizhi Gate, Chaoyang Gate, Fucheng Gate, the guard and access control of these nine city gates, and the night patrol are all under the command of the "Admiral Nine Gate Infantry Patrol Five Battalions", which is commonly known as the Nine Gate Admiral Yamen.

The Admirals of the Nine Gates, a total of more than 20,000 people, were distributed in various gates of the inner city to defend. But the sergeants of the Admiral of the Nine Gates have never gone out of the city to fight, only to catch thieves, patrol and fight and the like, and have never seen blood at all, so how can they have much combat power?

The inner city is centered on the imperial city, and is divided into four corners and eight directions by eight flags - two yellow flags in the north: the yellow flag is stationed in Anding Gate, and the yellow flag is stationed in Desheng Gate; Two white flags in the east: the inlaid white flag is stationed in Chaoyang Gate, and the white flag is stationed in Dongzhi Gate; Two red flags in the west: the red flag is stationed in Fuchengmen, and the red flag is stationed in Xizhimen; The two blue flags are located in the south: the blue flag is stationed in the Xuanwu Gate, and the blue flag is stationed in the Zhengwen Gate. Well defended.

At present, because of the transfer of Xianfeng, after the battle out of the city and the defeat in the Old Summer Palace, there are still nearly 30,000 soldiers of the Eight Banners in the inner city of Beijing, mainly including nearly 30,000 people in the Xiaocai battalion, more than 12,000 people in the guard battalion, 4,000 people in the firearms battalion, 2,000 people in the Jianrui battalion, in addition, there are nearly 15,000 infantry battalions and hundreds of pro-army guards.

It can be regarded as a large number of soldiers, but unfortunately, among these Eight Banners soldiers, they are all hereditary children, and they have long lost the blood of their ancestors. Since the Kangxi period, as early as when Wu Sangui rebelled and stood on his own, none of the generals and tens of thousands of soldiers of the Eight Banners dared to take the initiative to provoke the great task of conquest of Wu Sangui, so that Kangxi lamented again and again, and finally used the Manchu and Han families to say that the newly formed Green Battalion Han soldiers quelled the rebellion of the three feudatories. At this time, it was less than 30 years before the Manchu Qing Dynasty entered the customs.

Now, after the strong national strength during the Qianlong period, the Eight Banners soldiers in Beijing are even more pampered and accustomed to it, and they are all relatives of the emperor, and their discipline is corrupt, they are becoming weaker and weaker, and their combat effectiveness is decreasing day by day. By now, it has been purely a group of aristocratic children who eat, drink and have fun.

The officers and men of the 1st Division of the Captive Army attacked Dongzhimen and Chaoyangmen several times from the east of the city, but they failed to have much effect, and hundreds of artillery shots were fired in turns, but the city wall did not move at all, only a little brick and stone were a little pitted.

So, Lin Fengxiang, who was in charge of the main attack in the east of the city, discussed with Luo Outline in the south of the city to open a gap from the outer city in the south of the city and attack the city.

At this time, Tan Shaoguang returned to the 9th Division, and transferred the 2 artillery regiments and 2 main infantry regiments of the 90th to the outer city, preparing to attack the inner city from the outer city.

The circumference of the outer city wall of Beijing is 28 li. There are seven gates in the outer city, of which there is the east gate on the east side of the inner city, and the west side has the west gate. The seven gates of the outer city have urn city and arrow tower, but each city tower is shorter than the inner city, therefore, although the Qing army gave up the outer city, but the outer city tower, close to the edge of the inner city tower, has been difficult to have the capture of the army soldiers to go to the city, as soon as the city tower, it was bombarded by the Qing army's artillery. Although the captive army took out the artillery originally located on the upper tower of the outer city to bombard, because the inner city wall was higher than the outer city wall, the Qing army was condescending, and the artillery on the outer city wall was destroyed and dumbed at once, and more than 100 soldiers of the captive army were also damaged.

However, after Tan Shaoguang arrived with the Ninth Division, the situation changed suddenly.

The two artillery regiments of the 9th Division directly used more than 20 Krupp rifled guns deployed in the regiment to fire continuously. Because the Krupp rifled guns were far farther and more accurate than the Qing artillery on the inner city wall, it didn't take long for the artillery next to the two towers of Chongwen Gate and Xuanwu Gate to be muted after more than ten rounds of shelling, not that all the artillery on the city tower was destroyed, but that after the gunners on the city tower were killed by several rounds of artillery, they all took refuge and stopped firing.

Seeing this, Mu Yin, the minister of military aircraft and the military department who was in charge of supervising the war, was furious, and ordered the infantry commander Qi Ying to lead the supervision team to be stationed directly on the city tower, and when he saw the artillery fleeing, he was beheaded, killing more than 20 people one after another, and finally stopped the escape of the Qing army.

Due to the angle of elevation, the cannons fired from the outer city to the inner city tower could not directly hit the cannon body of the Qing army on the city tower, and could not completely destroy the artillery. The Qing gunners were forced to return to artillery, set up artillery, and bombarded the outer city.

Tan Shaoguang was furious when he saw that he couldn't take much advantage, and ordered the first and second main infantry regiments to directly use the killer weapon again: Congreve bazooka.

Originally, Tan Shaoguang had already been explained by Feng Yunshan that he was not allowed to use bazookas and gasoline to burn the inner city of Beijing, so as to avoid completely burning the inner city of Beijing. But now seeing that artillery is difficult to win, in desperation, Tan Shaoguang has no choice but to die.

As a result, dozens of Congreve rockets fell into the city wall like locusts, and then exploded suddenly, and the Qing troops on the city tower were blown up to the point of crying wolves, and they all dodged, and they had no heart to fight back.

At this time, Luo Xuan led the marine regiments of the 5th and 10th Divisions to take advantage of the situation to bombard the artillery on the city tower, and blew up dozens of heavy artillery pieces on the two towers of Chongwenmen and Xuanwumen.

Suddenly, the Qing army's artillery defense in the south of the inner city failed, and there was no power to fight back.

The cannon roared over there, and in Beijing, as the cannon continued to sound, everyone's minds were also panicked.

Located in the northeast corner of Beijing, Prince Su's mansion is brightly lit and crowded.

In the palace study guarded by several eunuchs, Prince Su Jingmin, Prince Li Quanling, Prince Rui Renshou, Dorobelle Wangchu Linqin and other seven or eight people were discussing matters in secret.

"Are all the manpower arranged?" Prince Rui Renshou is the oldest, and he is also the leader of the matter they are discussing today, but because the Suwang Mansion is the closest to the northeast corner, Renshou summoned everyone to the Suwang Mansion to discuss.

"Prince Rui, it's all arranged!" Dorobellewang Chuklinqin replied respectfully: "One of the city gate leaders and two city gate officials of Andingmen, both of whom are from my Mongolian Yellow Banner clan, have promised to come down and open the city gate and go out of the city with us. ”

"Good!" Renshou's face was a little uncertain, and he gritted his teeth and said: "Gong Lao Liu doesn't want to live anymore, so don't drag us to seek death with him." Since he likes to defend the city of Beijing, he will give it to him, and we will evacuate Beijing tonight and go to Rehe! ”

Prince Su Jingmin also gritted his teeth and said, "If you don't leave, I'm afraid it's too late." According to those minions, the Cantonese thieves were already attacking fiercely from the outer city in the south, and the Chongwen Gate and Xuanwu Gate in the south of the city were already difficult to hold! ”

"Yes, the tens of thousands of Eight Banners forbidden troops in Beijing turned out to be rice buckets. If there was a point of courage when the ancestors entered the customs, they would not have fallen to this point! ”

"Without further ado, everyone, let's go back and get ready. At the second watch tonight, the Anding Gate will be opened, and everyone will go out of the city together. ”