Unfortunately, it took Ross half an hour later to discover the crux of the problem. When he mobilized the remaining 24 field guns and arrived at the mountainside of Nanshan, the British infantry lost more than 300 men.

Frightened, he hurriedly ordered a retreat, and all the infantry retreated 500 meters away from the battery. Immediately, artillery was mobilized, aimed at the battery on the top of the hill, and bombarded with field artillery.

Half an hour later, after consuming hundreds of shells, he looked through the telescope and sadly found that the turtle shell on the top of the mountain was unharmed. Before he could reach a distance of 400 meters, several of the soldiers he sent to reconnoiter were killed by bullets fired from the meat grinder-like fortress on the top of the mountain.

After more than ten minutes of bombardment, he was finally convinced that this small-caliber field gun, whether it was firing solid bullets or flowering grenades, would be difficult to damage the enemy soldiers in the battery, and it would be even more difficult to shake the tortoiseshell-like battery. Only then did he realize that what Seymour had said was that dozens of warships of the expeditionary fleet had been bombarding the batteries on the river bank for almost a whole day, but they had little effect, and they had not been able to break through the batteries at all, but instead pinned their hopes on their infantry. Now, he is in the same situation as him.

But Ross still did not give up, he did not order the shelling to stop, but the remaining seven or eight hundred Indian men among the generals, as well as hundreds of men invited from Hong Kong, a total of more than 1,300 people, were all escorted and coerced up the hill and rushed to the fort.

Immediately afterwards, Ross selected death squads from the army and organized nearly 500 strong warriors to follow behind the people, preparing a large number of grenades, Congreve rockets, etc. to prepare for fire suppression, and at the same time sent an engineer company to make explosive packs, preparing to blow up the local foundation and gun port of the hilltop battery.

So, after making preparations, a man in front of him attracted firepower as a meat shield, and he sent the pot lid, planks, cowhide and other materials in the army to the warriors of the death squad as a cover, and actually rushed to the top of the mountain fort in one fell swoop.

Numerous Congreve rockets and others suppressed the fire of the hilltop battery, and after the strong battery withstood several explosions of explosive packs, a corner of the battery finally collapsed, opening a gap, and Ross was overjoyed. Immediately organized troops to focus on attacking, and the soldiers of the captured army in the fort also resisted vigorously, and almost all sides exchanged lives for lives.

Inside the Nanshan Fort. Tabuqi and Rong Weishan both hung up their colors, looked at each other, and saw a sense of absoluteness in each other's eyes.

After a whole day of hard fighting, now that the Nanshan Fort is besieged, the situation in the northern defense line is not very clear, and it is estimated that it will not be much better. He led a total of 2,700 soldiers from the two regiments of the 16th Division and the division headquarters guard battalion, and now, only about 400 people are left on the northern front, plus about 300 people in the Nanshan Fort, a full 2,000 soldiers died on this land.

"Deputy division commander, there is almost no ammunition, the brothers are killing and firing too fiercely." Rong Weishan smiled bitterly.

"The dead brothers have all been cleaned? If you really don't have bullets, you kill the enemy with a knife and spear, didn't you come here like this before? By the way, there is also gunpowder in the shells, all of which are out. Tabuzi sighed, this new musket is good, but the consumption is too great.

"Got it! We will die for the Empire and serve Your Majesty! ”

"Weishan, pass the order, fight to the last 100 people, and blow up all the artillery! Can't fall into the hands of foreigners, go and bombard the Weiyuan Fort under the mountain! Tabuzi shouted: "Others, work with me to dismantle the small calibers of the cannons in the west and transport them to the east, and Lao Tzu will blow them up with artillery!" ”

Just as Tabuzi in the fort was preparing for the worst, the British troops besieging the fort suddenly retreated like a tide. In the distance, there was a thumping of gunfire, initially sparse, then denser. When the British army retreated, Tabuqi and the others found that the east side of the Taiping Waterway far below the mountain was filled with gunsmoke, and a large number of soldiers in gray uniforms appeared in fierce battles with foreign soldiers in red and white uniforms.

"It's reinforcements arriving! It must be the reinforcements led by Division Commander Zhang who have arrived! Tabuzi and the others cheered loudly.

Then, Tabuqi ordered: "Go out of the fort to find bullets and other supplies, and if you can still fight, follow me down the mountain to disturb the enemy and relieve the pressure on Division Commander Zhang." Others cleaned the battlefield and cared for the wounded. ”

In the evening of the same day, Zhang Bashan, commander of the 16th Infantry Division of the Capture Army, led two regiments of troops to bluff and spook away the undecided British troops. Zhang Bashan and others retook over the Nanshan defense line and the Nanshan Fort, and organized the rebuilding of the destroyed fortifications overnight.

On the Pearl River at the foot of Nanshan Mountain, the fierce battle between the Combined Fleet of the Expeditionary Force and the Weiyuan Fort was also coming to an end.

Dozens of warships of the Combined Fleet bombarded non-stop throughout the day, and the Weiyuan Battery Group returned fierce fire from nearly 100 guns, and the two sides fought artillery fire for a long time. The combined fleet suffered heavy losses, two main warships were sunk, seven gunboats and shallow gunboats were destroyed, several warships were seriously damaged and it was difficult to continue the operation, and nearly twenty or thirty other warships were damaged to varying degrees and needed to be repaired.

Of course, there were also a lot of losses on the part of the captive army, and more than 30 artillery positions and more than 30 cannons were blown up in the Weiyuan Fort Group, and hundreds of soldiers of the captive army were killed. In addition, the Dahushan Fort was captured, and 2 warships of the Pacific Fleet, together with the 20 warships of the Pacific Fleet behind the Dahushan Battery, were damaged because they could not retreat in time.

Early the next morning, the British seemed to have changed their tactics.

After repairing the lightly damaged warship overnight, the British Expeditionary Force Combined Fleet sent a large number of troop transports and shallow water steam cannons straight north along the main channel of the Pearl River, rushed into the upper reaches of the Pearl River, braved the artillery fire of the Weiyuan Battery, and rushed through the waters of Dahushan and entered the Shiziyang River at the cost of one main warship and two small frigates and gunboats.

Zhang Bashan and Tabuqi on the top of Nanshan Mountain were taken aback, and they only then understood why the British army had sent so many warships to huddle the river to confront the Weiyuan Fort yesterday, and it turned out that it was to cover people's eyes and ears, and when they were pursuing the warships of the Pacific Fleet that had been harassing them, they took the opportunity to destroy the barrage chain between Dahushan and the east bank of the Pearl River. In this way, the British warships could quickly pass through the fire blockade area of the Weiyuan battery group and enter the Lion Ocean.

However, there were few forts and few river defenses in the Shiziyang section, so the British fleet could quickly pass through and continue north into the waters of this section of the provincial river from Changzhou Island to Canton City. Fortunately, there are many forts along the way in the waters of the provincial river, but they are not as concentrated as the Weiyuan forts.

Tabuqi said worriedly: "Senior Commander Zhang, we must rush to Dongguan County immediately and report to Guangzhou." What he meant, Zhang Bashan naturally understood, was to send someone to the telegraph branch in Dongguan County to send a telegram to the Guangzhou Telegraph Bureau, so he nodded: "This must be done." However, there is no need to be anxious, perhaps, the direction of Guangzhou would prefer the fleet of foreigners to sail in! After saying that, he smiled mysteriously, which made Tabuqi's heart feel a little calmer.

........

An hour later, outside the city of Guangzhou, on Ersha Island on the North Road of the Provincial River, hundreds of captives escorted a middle-aged man in civilian clothes, who was none other than Feng Yunshan, the emperor of the Chinese Empire, who had rushed to Guangzhou from Shengjing a while ago to personally sit in charge.

In front of him, Fan Ruzeng, director of the Special Services Department, approached and whispered: "Your Majesty, Zhang Bashan, commander of the 16th Infantry Division, has sent a telegram that their 16th Division has held the Weiyuan Fort and killed more than 2,400 British infantry and 2,500 Indian civilians. So far, since the British expeditionary fleet entered Humen, it has been sunk by our artillery batteries and warships, 3 main warships, 1 exploded and burned, 4 ships that could not fight again, 13 small warships of other types, and dozens of warships damaged. However, the British expeditionary fleet had already broken through the blockade of the Weiyuan battery group and entered the Lion Ocean under artillery fire. It is expected that at noon, we will arrive at another key area of fort fortification, the Choshu Fort Group on Choshu Island. ”

Feng Yunshan looked at Zuo Zongtang, Chief of General Staff, and Mauser, Deputy Chief of General Staff, next to him, and said, "Get the map!" ”

PS: It's hard to write, speed up the progress.