Limited by the number of troops, Wu Chaoyue could only choose to station two battalions of 1,000 people outside each gate of the Xicheng Gate of Nanjing, establish fortifications and lay mines to intercept the Taiping army's way out of the city, and block the enemy with a meager force, fortunately, with the help of the Qinhuai River, it can not only help block the road, but also allow the sampan fleet of the Wu army's naval division to quickly maneuver and fight, so although the strength of the Wu army in the west of Nanjing is single, it is barely enough, and it can also free up its hands to launch an attack while encircling the enemy, and exert pressure on the enemy in the east city.

The most pressure is the Wu army Feng Sanbao Corps, there is no natural danger outside the east gate of Nanjing, such as the Qinhuai River and Xuanwu Lake, and the terrain is very open, it is easy to be broken through by the Taiping Army, plus the equipment and individual quality of Feng Sanbao's corps are relatively poor, so Feng Sanbao can only adopt the advice of the old people of the Hunan army in his own corps, recruit a large number of people, and dig a large trench from Xiaolingwei to the Qinhuai River to strengthen the defense, as a result, although Wu Chaoyue did not oppose Feng Sanbao to block the enemy with this stupid method, However, the Wu army spent a lot of money and food, which increased the burden of logistics.

Cao Yanzhong's corps of the Wu army, which was only responsible for blocking the Shence Gate and the Taiping Gate, had the least pressure on defense, but when the troops were divided to attack Tianbao City, the stronghold of the Taiping Army located on the Purple Mountain, the soldiers of the Wu Army encountered stubborn resistance from the enemy who defended the base, and many attacks were repelled by the Taiping Army, and they failed to take Tianbao City for two consecutive days, on the contrary, they paid a lot of casualties.

There are two main reasons why Tianbao City was not able to be defeated in two days, one is that Tianbao City is located on the top of the west peak of the Purple Mountain, and the breech guns of the Wu army fired from the bottom of the mountain, and the bitter acid shells could not enter the enemy camp, so they could not cover the Wu army soldiers to launch an attack. The second is that the fortifications of Tianbao City are solid, the camp walls and forts are all made of the hardest tiger skin stone in the local area, and the grenadiers and picric grenades of the Wu army cannot be destroyed, plus the guns and artillery firepower of the Taiping army are set reasonably, and the main battle weapon Mini gun is very suitable for defensive warfare, so it is difficult for the soldiers of the Wu army to attack and ascend without enduring all the hardships.

If you can't take Tianbao City, you can't attack the bunker city covered by the firepower of Tianbao City, after the continuous failure of the attack, Cao Yanzhong, who has always been steady, rarely has some temper, and simply went to the front line to command and supervise the battle, but this still has little effect, the two attacks of the Wu army are still repelled by the Taiping army, and dozens of people are killed and wounded but they can't even touch the camp wall of Tianbao City. Cao Yanzhong was furious, in addition to scolding the battalion officer who led the charge of the army for a bloody dog, he also issued a heavy reward on the spot, organized a death squad to attack again, and decided to use Dana explosives to blow up the camp wall of Tianbao City and open the way to enter the army.

To Cao Yanzhong's disappointment, the death squad he personally organized was quickly dispersed by the guns of the Taiping army, but when Cao Yanzhong scolded, he was quickly pleasantly surprised to find that although the death squad of the self-army broke up but did not give up the attack, they were still climbing up with difficulty under the cover of grass, trees, soil and stones, and gradually approaching the enemy camp, while the guns of the Taiping army kept firing, but they could not repel the Wu army death squad. Cao Yanzhong was overjoyed when he saw it, and hurriedly sent a large team to cover it with guns, and would rather pay more casualties than cover the attack of the death squad.

When it was slightly dark, several members of the death squad finally touched the city wall of Tianbao, but before these warriors could place explosives to detonate, the wall had already rained down countless stones and ash bottles, and some Taiping soldiers ventured to poke their heads out and shoot below, several Wu soldiers were either dead or wounded, and they could not carry out blasting at all, and the Wu soldiers below were so anxious that they stomped their feet, but they ventured forward twice to reinforce them, but they were repelled by the guns of the Taiping army.

At the critical moment of success, a miracle appeared, a Wu warrior who did not wear a hat suddenly rushed out of the grass, rushed to the front and carried the explosive bag and rushed to the Tianbao City, the Taiping soldiers hurriedly smashed stones and shots, but never hit the vital point of the Wu warrior, the Wu soldiers successfully rushed to the wall, forced the explosives bag into a shooting hole, opened the fuse and rolled down the mountain, the result was also his luck, the Taiping soldiers in the shooting hole were in a hurry and slipped down, failed to push the explosives out of the shooting hole, Wu Jun's explosive package exploded directly in the bunker under the wall of the Taiping Army, and immediately blew a big hole in the camp wall of Tianbao City. The Wu army under the mountain cheered in unison, and immediately charged, and after a hard battle, they finally took the Taiping army camp that had blocked the Wu army for three days.

After the battle, of course, the warrior of the Wu army was led to Cao Yanzhong to be rewarded, and the beaming Cao Yanzhong first praised the warrior of the Wu army, and personally awarded him the promised reward, and then asked: "What else do you want, say!" ”

"General, the villain has two sons, and the poor family has not been able to let them study." The warrior of Wu Jun, who spoke with a Jiangxi accent, was not polite, and said: "I heard that our Zhennan King has built a new school in Hankou, and the ones that are read are all promising, and the younger one wants my two sons to ......." ”

"Hahahaha." Cao Yanzhong laughed and interrupted the words of this Wu army warrior, patted him on the shoulder and said, "Okay, you have a chance, and you can think about your son's future." Okay, the matter of your two sons' admission to the Hankou school is covered by me, and their tuition fees, food and housing in Hankou are also covered by me. ”

Cao Yanzhong, the general of the Wu army, only did one thing in his life that made Wu Chaoyue unhappy, that is, he promoted the two sons of this Wu army warrior to Hankou to study, because this Wu army warrior was a native of Fengxin, Jiangxi, surnamed Zhang, and later his youngest son was known by Wu Chaoyue after he got ahead, and Wu Chaoyue was so angry that he dropped the bowl - because his youngest son was called Zhang Xun.

Although this warrior surnamed Wu Jun surnamed Zhang had unfortunately given birth to a scum son, he really helped Wu Jun take Tianbao City and eliminated the hidden danger from above the sky for the Wu army under the mountain. After worrying about the future, Cao Yanzhong's corps of the Wu army immediately began to prepare for the attack on the neighboring bunker city, first carried 20 rear-loading rifled guns up the mountain, directly erected on the fort left by the Taiping army, and bombarded the bunker city indiscriminately until the buildings in the bunker city were basically turned into a sea of fire, and the soldiers of the Wu army launched an attack on the bunker city under the personal command of Cao Yanzhong, and relied on the strong artillery fire cover in the upper and lower directions, and it only took most of the day to successfully capture the bunker city, and basically annihilated the enemy defenders in the fortress.

The successive fall of the two fortresses of Tianbao City and Bunker City did not surprise Li Xiucheng too much, the only thing that surprised Li Xiucheng was the speed and determination of the Wu army, and he directly exclaimed: "It has only been five days before and after, and the bunker city and the Tianbao city have been lost, I thought that these two camps could last for more than half a month anyway." ”

"Our soldiers have done their best, but the firepower of the demon soldiers is too fierce, and the foreign gunpowder is powerful, so they can't stop it." Li Shuxiang also sighed, and then said to Li Xiucheng: "Loyal King Chitose, the demon soldiers fought our Tianbao City and Bunker City so resolutely, I would rather take it as soon as possible without considering the casualties, it seems that we are focusing on the dragon's neck, the weakness of Tianjing City's defense, should we prepare early and take precautions." ”

"It's time to prepare." Li Xiucheng nodded, and said with some hesitation: "Shuxiang, do you think this matter is a bit strange, the demon soldiers attach so much importance to the place of the dragon's neck, and they surpassed the little demon but did not personally go to the north city to supervise the battle, but just sat outside the Jubao Gate, will there be tricks in this?" ”

"Chitose Chung, do you suspect that the demon soldiers are attacking the east and west?" Li Shuxiang understood what Li Xiucheng meant.

Li Xiucheng nodded and said: "It is true that the dragon neck is our weakness, but as long as we pay attention to this place, it is not too difficult to rush to repair the fortifications and plug this loophole, so as to surpass the treachery of the little demon, it is impossible not to see this." So I suspect that the little demon did not come to Beicheng to command and supervise the battle, that is, he knew very well that just by fighting the dragon's neck could not guarantee that he would be able to break the city, he asked the demon general Cao Yanzhong to focus on the dragon's neck, which may be attracting our attention, wanting to divert the tiger from the mountain, and tricking us into arranging the mobile elite to the dragon's neck battlefield in advance. ”

Considering that Wu Chaoyue has always used troops to deceive, of course Li Shuxiang did not dare to deny this possibility, so he could only nod his head first, admitting that Wu Jun's actions might be attacking the east and west, and then asked: "King Chung Chitose, what are you going to do?" ”

"We can't adjust the army's defense in a hurry first." Li Xiucheng replied: "The army will not move, organize the people in the city to rush to build the inner wall, first build an inner wall connecting the inner city of Tianjing and the Taiping Gate, and then see the reaction of the demon soldiers." ”

"That's too passive." Li Shuxiang suggested: "Otherwise, transfer some second-line troops to the Taipingmen side, and then ask the generals who secretly surrendered to the demon soldiers before, and secretly send false news to the demon soldiers, saying that we have transferred the mobile elite to the Taipingmen battlefield, and planted a lot of mines and hidden artillery fire there, so that the demon soldiers feel that we have used the main force on the dragon neck battlefield." In this way, if the demon soldiers really plan to attack the west, there will definitely be a move. ”

Li Xiucheng nodded in acceptance, arranged the arrangement on the spot according to Li Shuxiang's suggestion, and said in his heart: "Beyond the little demon, come on, I want to see what tricks you can play." ”

As mentioned above, many generals of the Taiping Army have wavered in their stance and quietly made secret contact with the Wu army, and some of these people are indeed greedy for life and fear of death and take the initiative to beg for surrender, but there are also some people who have been secretly deceived by Li Xiucheng's secret order, not only taking the opportunity to test the virtual and real movements of the Wu army, but also ready to give false news and false information to the Wu army at any time, and help Li Xiucheng mislead the Wu army's enemy judgment. - In history, Li Xiucheng's son-in-law Cai Yuanlong is a master in this regard, and Taicang almost killed Li Hongzhang's younger brother Li Hezhang directly.

It is precisely because of the existence of these deceiters that Wu Chaoyue soon received the news that Li Xiucheng had increased his troops on the Dragon Neck Battlefield, not to mention the results, because Wu Jun's fine work and Cao Yanzhong's side also had similar reports, Wu Chaoyue really believed that his plan to divert the tiger from the mountain had been successful, and the center of gravity of the enemy in the city had moved to the northeast of Nanjing, and there was already a hole in the long wall section from Jubaomen to Yifengmen.

It is also deserved Wu Chaoyue's bad luck, just misjudged the enemy's situation, Wu Jun's sailor patrol fleet sent a statistical report, saying that it may be because there are too many small lakes outside the city, the Taiping army guards between Qingliangmen and Hanxi Gate are not many, and the patrol is not strict enough, and more importantly, the Wu Junshui scouts also found that this section of the wall is too old and underrepaired, and the masonry is loose and easy to excavate, which is very suitable for the Wu army's good city wall blasting tactics. Wu Chaoyue was greatly moved when he heard the news, and after discussing it with a group of staff, he decided to take a gamble, and soon formulated a plan for a night sneak attack, organizing an army of more than 3,000 people to launch a blasting sneak attack.

Of course, the scouts of the Wu army's sailors did not deceive Wu Chaoyue, and after the Wu army engineers secretly sneaked under the city of Nanjing, they did quickly dig up the wall bricks on the wall section that had been in disrepair for a long time, and touched the rammed earth layer in the Nanjing city wall. However, just as the Wu army engineers were struggling to dig the Ming Dynasty rammed earth, which was already as hard as stone, the Taiping army secret sentry who was hiding on the city wall without lights heard the excavation sound of the Wu army engineers and quietly issued an alarm signal, and the Taiping army guards stationed in the city tower rushed out to throw torches and stones to hit the Wu army engineers. And Qin Li, the general of the Wu army who was ordered to launch a surprise attack, was also a little greedy, and if the sneak attack failed, he simply changed to a strong attack, and wanted to take advantage of the opportunity that the Taiping army reserves had not had time to go to the city to help the battle, and won the first merit in breaking through Nanjing.

The result of the strong attack was the defeat of the Wu army, and the Taiping army reserves with sufficient troops and never neglected the defense of the western front landed in the city one after another, and met the Wu soldiers who risked the attack with a number of sheep's head stones, ash bottles and rolling logs, and the Wu soldiers who relied on the flying ladder to enter the city only saw a little opportunity in the early stage, and then the more difficult it became, they were smashed by the stones and bricks of the Taiping army in the absence of artillery cover, and were killed and wounded by intensive fire, and finally had to leave nearly a hundred corpses and flee in disarray. It was very humiliating to end this sneak attack.

This battle was of course a shot in the arm for the Taiping army, which had been defeated repeatedly, and it also proved that Li Xiucheng's judgment was correct, and the Wu army, which was ostensibly focused on the dragon's neck, was indeed worried about other weaknesses in the sneak attack on Nanjing's city defense, which made Li Xiucheng even more afraid to concentrate the main force on the dragon neck battlefield, which made it more difficult for the Wu army to succeed in the sneak attack. And for Wu Chaoyue, it was not nothing, through the speed and number of the Taiping army's reserves, at least Wu Chaoyue understood that his plan to attack the east and the west was not completely successful, and the Taiping army still stationed a considerable number of heavy troops to defend the city in the west of Nanjing. Therefore, after carefully understanding the process before and after the failure of the sneak attack, Wu Chaoyue quickly came to the conclusion and said: "The battle of Nanjing has to be fought, and it is definitely not as easy as we imagined to attack the city by attacking the east and the west alone." ”

Dai Wenjie and other staff members unanimously agreed with Wu Chaoyue's judgment, and then Dai Wenjie comforted Wu Chaoyue and said: "King Zhennan doesn't have to worry, we don't need to worry, we have the Yangtze River waterway to transport grain, this battle is fought for a year and a half, and there is no need to consider the problem of grain, grass and military needs, you can take your time and fight slowly." ”

Having completely dredged the Yangtze River channel and having a superior naval division in hand, Wu Chaoyue really didn't need to worry about military rations and battle time, he could calmly adjust his tactics and find another way to break through Nanjing City. However, in the afternoon of the same day, Wu Chaoyue found that he was also a little too optimistic in this regard, because in the afternoon of the same day, the Shanghai Wu Army, who had already made contact with the main force of the Wu Army several times before, sent an urgent report, in addition to reporting the specific situation of the Wu Army in Shanghai, and reported two bad news to Wu Chaoyue.

The first bad news is that the British Governor of Hong Kong and the commander of the three armed forces in China suddenly changed, and Lao Bao Ling, who had a good relationship with Wu Jun, was transferred back to Britain to take up his post, and his baby son Xiao Bao Ling wanted to sell all the shares in South Africa mineral exploration in his hand back to the old Wu family, and the new Hong Kong Governor Robinson had never been to Asia before, and he had no relationship with the old Wu family before, so the friendly and cooperative relations between the old Wu family and the British official, as well as the British official attitude and position towards the Chinese civil war, may have new changes.

The second bad news was even more troublesome for Wu Chaoyue, that is, the Wu army in Shanghai found that Li Xiucheng's envoy had gone to the Shanghai concession to contact the British and French and other Western powers, and openly stated that they wanted to ask the Western countries to mediate the armed conflict between the Wu army and the Taiping army, and were willing to pay any price for it. Once Li Xiucheng's move succeeds, if Britain, France, and other countries intervene for their own interests, Wu Chaoyue, who does not dare to offend the British and French powers at present, will face thorny problems, and if it is not handled well, it may lead to unpredictable dangerous consequences......