In order to test the true strength of Shi Dakai's main force, and in order to delay the progress of the Taiping Army's camp construction to facilitate the attack, Ding Ruchang completed the day when he returned to the Taiping Army's camp, Wu Chaoyue sent three outposts to attack the Taiping Army's logging team, two of which were the green battalion soldiers under Wang Guocai, responsible for the main attack, and the other post was Wu Chaoyue's descendant of the Hubei New Army, responsible for covering and responding. Pen @ fun @ pavilion wWw. ｂｉｑUｇE。 ｉｎｆｏ

The result of the outpost battle made Wu Chaoyue a little secretly frightened, the green battalion soldiers under Wang Guocai were already relatively competitive compared to the other green battalion soldiers of the Manchu Qing Dynasty, but when they raided the Taiping army auxiliaries who were cutting wood, those second-line troops of the Taiping army not only did not immediately collapse and fled back to the camp for help, but also directly picked up the wooden stick with the axe in advance and fought with the green battalion soldiers, and even killed the green battalion soldiers a little overwhelmed.

In order to repay Wu Chaoyue's kindness, the Green Battalion has made great efforts to rectify the Green Battalion, and the equipment and morale of the Hubei Green Battalion have been greatly improved. Relying on the fire of arquebuses and carrying guns, after getting through the panic stage of hurrying, the Green Battalion finally reluctantly defeated the second-line auxiliaries of the Taiping Army, forcing them to throw down the wood that had just been cut down and scatter their legs to flee for their lives. However, when the main force of the Taiping Army sent soldiers to reinforce them, the Green Battalion soon could not support it, and fled east to seek protection from the Hubei New Army.

Then, relying on the high rate of fire of the firing pin gun, the Hubei New Army quickly suppressed the offensive of the Taiping Army, but the battlefield experience and adaptability of Shi Dakai's subordinate generals surprised the Hubei New Army. And in the battle, great attention was paid to finding wood and stone cover to weaken the power of the Wu army's muskets.

Fortunately, the sentry officer who led this Hubei New Army was an old man brought by Wu Chaoyue from Shanghai, and he also had a lot of combat experience, so he immediately adjusted his tactics as soon as he found out that the situation was wrong, and immediately led the army to fight and retreat, never giving the Taiping army a chance to cut off the way back to the camp from the army, but because of this, he was killed by the cold guns of the Taiping army and wounded six people in the battle. When the Taiping army's brigade came to help, the Hubei New Army, which had already seized the favorable terrain in advance, was not given dumplings by the enemy, and relied on intensive firepower and an appropriate amount of grenades to cooperate, causing not a small number of casualties to the Taiping army, and then quickly evacuated the battlefield with little ammunition left, and the Taiping army was afraid of being ambushed by pursuing too far, so they also retreated on their own after only chasing a few miles, ending this small but quite fierce outpost battle.

After listening to the Shanghai veterans' report on the battle, Wu Chaoyue didn't speak for almost two minutes, first waved his hand to let the veteran go down to rest and receive the reward, and then suddenly asked Zhao Liewen: "Huifu, in addition to the ones that have been sent to the soldiers, how many picric weapons do we have left?" ”

"5,200 grenades, 1,250 grenadiers, 800 breech shells, and 260 mortar shells."

Zhao Liewen's quick answer made Wu Chaoyue frown a little, knowing that this inventory was enough to fight this battle, but if this battle could not completely defeat Shi Dakai, so that Shi Dakai still had the ability to continue fighting, or just defeated Shi Dakai, the Taiping army in Jiujiang would immediately make a comeback. Then, before obtaining supplies from the Hankou Arsenal, the Hubei New Army would not have the magic weapon picric acid weapon available. Moreover, even if he could immediately obtain supplies from the Hankou Arsenal, with the pitiful picric acid output of the Hankou Arsenal, it would never be possible to support Wu Chaoyue to fight another large-scale strategic battle for a while.

Seeing Wu Chaoyue's unkind expression, Zhao Liewen quickly guessed the reason and asked, "Weiting, are you worried that if you can't win this battle in one fell swoop, you won't have a picric acid weapon to use." ”

Wu Chaoyue nodded and said: "Our firing pin gun has the advantage of rate of fire, but you and I have secretly tested it many times, the lead bullet penetration of the firing pin gun is very poor, and it has almost no lethality to the enemy hiding behind the fortifications, and the long hair is also getting better and better, and it is not as stupid as before to rush up directly to die, the situation is slightly wrong, immediately find trees and big stones to cover, and rely on cold guns to deal with us." The only thing we can do right now is a picric weapon, and I'll have to think about the next battle. ”

"Comfort Ting, I don't think you can care about the excessive consumption of bitter acid weapons and give birth to the idea of saving." Zhao Liewen warned: "If you consider saving, our firepower is not enough, and we are even less sure of winning the battle with Long Hair." Only by breaking the cauldron and sinking the boat, using all his strength to completely beat Changmao and scared, until it was so miserable that Changmao did not dare to peep at Hubei again. But if you can't beat Long Hair in this battle for the sake of saving, then Long Hair is likely to attack Hubei again and again, and the ammunition and weapons you save will still be consumed, and the situation will definitely get worse at that time. ”

After thinking about it for a while, he found that this was the truth, Wu Chaoyue also quickly made up his mind, slapped the table and said: "That's right, things have come to this point, and the only way to go is to break the cauldron and sink the boat!" During the decisive battle, bring all the picric weapons, even if you are exhausted, you must also be completely afraid of Shi Dakai! ”

At the same time, Shi Dakai, who is also good at learning lessons, has also led several important staff officers to personally come to the previous Wu army's firefight, to investigate the real power of the Wu army's rapid-fire muskets and understand the combat situation, and when they saw that the Wu army's muskets far exceeded the range of the arquebus, Shi Dakai, Zhang Suimou and others inevitably had a somewhat solemn face, and saw the traces left by the explosion of the Wu army's grenades, Shi Dakai was inevitably even more worried, and finally understood why the friendly generals repeatedly failed in front of Wu Chaoyue. Shi Dakai couldn't help but have such a thought in his heart, "Insisting on fighting a decisive battle with Transcendence on land, is this king's decision too unwise." ”

"The Winged King is five thousand years old, please look here."

It's not all without gains, at least the right-hand man Zeng Jinqian found an important situation worth referring to in the field exploration, Shi Dakai followed the sound to the front and back, but saw Zeng Jinqian pointed to a stone that was shot, the bullet into the stone was not deep, and nearly half of the bullet body was still exposed outside the stone. Shi Dakai calculated for a while, and hurriedly went to see the position of the Wu army's soldiers in the previous formation, and found that the distance between this stone and the Wu army's position was only more than sixty steps and seventy steps to the sky. ”

The bullet embedded in the stone body was quickly dug out by the soldier with a dagger, and when it was handed to Shi Dakai, Shi Dakai found that the front end of the bullet had been seriously deformed, and then took it in his hand to look carefully and checked the weight, Shi Dakai immediately found a more important situation, "It's not iron, it's heavier than iron, but it's softer than iron." ”

"It's lead." Zhang Suimou, who was next to him, also held a bullet found elsewhere and said: "Lead is softer than iron and heavier than iron, we have tried to make our own guns, lead is relatively easy to cast, but the power is not as great as iron, and it is not as deep as iron when it hits wood." ”

Shi Dakai blinked his eyes, and then suddenly shouted: "Order the whole army to immediately repair the sheep and horse walls on the periphery of each camp, protect the inner and outer camps, and complete it before dawn tomorrow!" In addition, vacate the baggage wagons, load them with dirt and distribute them to the battalions for backup, and if the situation is not right in the event of an engagement, use these earth and stone wagons to establish a temporary defensive line! ”

The soldiers sang loudly, and immediately rushed back to the camp to give orders, while Shi Dakai looked at the Wu army camp in the northwest, gritted his teeth and said to himself: "Do what you want, surpass the little demon, just let the horse come!" ”

The scouts of the Qing army, who were quite effective, quickly reported the news of the Taiping army's rush to repair the sheep and horse wall of the camp to Wu Chaoyue, who was most afraid of this kind of fortification, smiled bitterly when he heard the news, but he had no choice but to let the Wu army and the Qing army step up preparations according to the original plan, and prepare to attack the Taiping army camp the next day. -- Although there is no sign of the Taiping Army's naval division leaving Wuxue at present, Wu Chaoyue still decided to attack the next day, not for anything else, but because he was afraid that the Taiping Army's naval division's plan to attack Banbishan revealed in Chen Yucheng's letter would be a delaying plan for the Taiping army.

Fortunately, it turned out that Chen Yucheng's letter was not Shi Dakai's plan to delay the army, and in the early morning of the third day when the Taiping army arrived in Wuxue, the scouts of the Wu army on land and water almost simultaneously sent an important situation that the Taiping soldiers were boarding the ship. At the same time, he sent people across the river to give orders to Cao Yanzhong and Liu Kun, a general who told them to hold the position of Banbishan and not leave the position to participate in the battle without an order.

In terms of the scale of the troops, the six battalions stationed on the north bank of the Yangtze River, the Hubei New Army, of course, had to be dispatched, and the five battalions of the green battalion Wu Chaoyue also had to take two to the Hubei New Army, leaving only three battalions of the green battalion soldiers led by Wang Guocai to guard the Wuwangmiao camp. At the same time, Wu Chaoyue also directly told Wang Guocai, saying: "General Wang, I will hand over the Wu Wangmiao to you, remember two points, the first is that no matter what the situation of the Wuxue war is, you are only allowed to hold on, not to fight!" Without my orders, you are not allowed to advocate sending a single soldier to reinforce the Wuxue battlefield!" ”

"Second, if the long-haired sailor comes to transport troops to fight Wuwangmiao, it is of course best if you can hold the fort and the camp at the same time, if you really can't do it, you can take the initiative to give up the fort and give priority to defending the camp! But before evacuating the battery, we must transfer or destroy all the shells and gunpowder, and don't give Longhair a chance to bombard our camp with our shells. ”

Wang Guocai honestly sang the promise and memorized Wu Chaoyue's order with his heart, and Wu Chaoyue instructed Wang Fu, the commander of the Wu Army's naval division: "Wang Fu, you are the same, without my order, you are only allowed to guard the iron cable defense line, and you cannot attack beyond the iron cable defense line." If the long-haired sailors break through our iron line of defense, you will flee north for me, and flee directly to Weiyuankou to station, and it is important to keep the fleet. I don't need to worry about the battlefield of the martial arts, I'm sure of it. ”

Wang Fu clenched his fists and sang a promise, and then couldn't wait to say: "Lord Futai, after you win in Wuxue, you must immediately give the order to the last general, so that the last general can also launch a counterattack." ”

"Of course." Wu Chaoyue smiled, then turned to Huang Dasha and Feng Sanbao and other generals, and said with a smile: "Okay, go back and organize the soldiers and horses to set off, this battle, we must completely hurt and fear the long hair, so that they will never dare to peep at Hubei again." ”

"Obey the orders of Lord Futai!" The generals of the Wu army clasped their fists together and agreed violently.

At about 9 o'clock in the morning, the Wu Army's battle team, composed of six battalions of the Hubei New Army and six battalions of the Green Battalion, had all left the camp and assembled at the official road to the east of the camp.

At about the same time, the Taiping Army's naval division also protected the troop transport fleet full of old and weak auxiliaries and sailed away from Wuxue Harbor and sailed to Fuchi Town on the east side of Banbi Mountain, preparing to land and launch a feint attack on Banbishan camp.

About half an hour later, the scout clipper of the Taiping army brought the news of the first big move of the Wu army back to Wuxue, Shi Dakai was overjoyed when he heard this, but after asking the time of the dispatch of the main force of the Wu army, Shi Dakai's face immediately changed, and he immediately shouted: "Order the sailor, temporarily stop landing in Fuchi, temporarily assemble at Fuchikou, and wait for orders." ”

While the herald was singing the promise, Hu Yihuang next to him asked suspiciously: "The Wing King is five thousand years old, what happened?" Why make temporary changes to the plan? ”

"It's not the right time to surpass the little demon." Shi Dakai replied with a gloomy face: "The main force of the Transcendence Little Demon and our sailor both set off at the same time, separated by a distance of more than ten miles, it is impossible for the Transcendence Demon, no matter what, to know this immediately, but he still insisted on giving the order to set off, which shows that he doesn't mind whether our sailor will stay in the Wuxue to participate in the battle." He is so calm and confident, he must have been prepared for a long time, and we can't afford to go to the feint attack on Banbi Mountain and waste mobile troops, so it is better to leave the sailor division as a reserve. ”

Secretly admired Shi Dakai's subtle knowledge, but Hu Yihuang was not as nervous as Shi Dakai, and said with a smile to Wu Chaoyue, who had only gotten his hands yesterday, and said: "I really don't know that the self-confidence of the little demon is there, and the strength of eight battalions of 4,000 people dares to take the initiative to attack the camp of our more than 20,000 troops?" But it's okay, he likes to die so much, so let's find him to settle the old account together! ”

Shi Dakai ignored Hu Yihuang with a gloomy face, but said in his heart: "I'm afraid that I will surpass the little demon and have this diamond diamond, so I dare to come to take this porcelain job." ”

At about 10:40 a.m., the main force of the Wu army, carrying 20 breech guns, 10 mortar guns and a large amount of ammunition, slowly moved to the vicinity of the Taiping army camp.

Coincidentally, there is an open and flat land four miles away from the Taiping army camp suitable for arrays, and there is an isolated small dirt hill in the middle where a flag array can be set up, which is an ideal battlefield for array. However, when Wu Chaoyue did not hesitate to order the whole army to camp in that open field, Zhao Liewen next to him shouted: "Wait! No, the land seems to have been turned! ”

Wu Chaoyue was startled, and when he hurriedly raised his binoculars to take a closer look, he saw that there were some newly excavated fresh soil dotted on the open land, Wu Chaoyue was even more shocked in his heart, and he hurriedly ordered the army to suspend its advance, and sent armed men to carry tools forward to dig up the soil with turning marks.

At the same time, when he saw Wu Jun sending someone to carry excavation tools forward on the high ground in the camp, Shi Dakai immediately understood that the mechanism had been exposed, and he couldn't help but slap Shi Zhenyuan, the clan brother who commanded the earthen camp, in the face, and roared: "What are you eating?" Asking you to lay a mine will also leave traces and waste our gunpowder! ”

Covering his swollen face that was swollen by Shi Dakai, Shi Zhenyuan replied aggrievedly: "The younger brother has tried his best, in order to hide from outsiders, the younger brother took the earthen camp to work overnight, and the moonlight was dark without torches, so there was really no way to cover all the traces." ”

"Wing King, forget it, this really can't be blamed on Brother Zhenyuan." Hu Yihuang persuaded: "Who would have thought that the little demon would be so cunning, and if he found some clues, he would immediately send someone to clear the mines, not that the Zhenyuan brothers did not do their best, but that the little demon was too cunning." ”

With Shi Dakai's helpless sigh, Wu Junmingong had also dug up the first mine secretly planted by the Taiping Army overnight, and what made Shi Dakai even more helpless was that the Taiping Army planted a chain of mines connected by fuses, Wu Junminfu just lit a fuse, and the lead immediately burned rapidly along the bamboo pipe buried in the ground, and quickly detonated other mines.

Wiping a cold sweat, first ordering the people to continue to clear mines and find other suitable deployment sites, Wu Chaoyue turned his treacherous eyes to the area of Lilinzui directly north of Wuxue Shangzhou - there is a modern Wuxue orchard, with high mountains and dense forests, which is the most suitable place to bury ambush soldiers.

Next, Wu Chaoyue opened the eyes of Shi Dakai and other primitive natives, suspecting that there might be enemy ambushes buried in the mountains and forests around Lilinzui, Wu Chaoyue did not waste his troops to search in the forest - but imitated the fire reconnaissance methods of the American devils, and let the breech guns bombard some picric acid shells to the upwind of Lilinzui, causing a forest fire, the grass and trees dried up in spring and autumn, and the wind spread extremely quickly by means of the fire, and soon burned the Taiping ambush soldiers who were ambushed there to cry wolf, and they all appeared to flee for their lives, and the ambush soldiers basically collapsed.

Seeing this scene, Shi Dakai was completely out of action, and said with a wry smile: "This king really admires this transcendent little demon, I really don't know how many twists and turns there are in my stomach, and the mine ambush soldiers are gone, so I can only fight him hard." ”

"Wing King, why don't you order the sailor to change direction and storm the camp of King Wu Temple that surpasses the little demon?" Zhang Suimou next to him suggested Yinyin: "Beyond the little demon to lead the main force to attack, the camp is empty, even if there is a layout, it will not be as strong and difficult to fight as before, as long as our sailor breaks through the camp beyond the little demon, beyond the little demon will inevitably panic and retreat, then we can take advantage of the situation to cover up and kill, and we can also have a chance to win." ”

Shi Dakai's eyes lit up, nodded, and said: "You can't just attack the camp beyond the little demon, you have to prevent the Qing demon crossing the river on the south bank for reinforcements, let the sailors divide into two ways, and storm the iron cable defense line all the way to contain the sailors who surpass the little demon, so that they can't spare their hands to transport troops across the river to reinforce Wuwangmiao, storm the Wuwangmiao fort all the way, take the fort first and then hit his demon camp, and at the same time use the artillery beyond the little demon to bombard his demon camp, and the demon camp will be broken!" (To be continued.) )