After the Wu Army's Third Route Eastern Expeditionary Army fully boarded the south bank of the Yangtze River under the personal leadership of Wu Chaoyue, the three main battle corps of the Wu Army all officially entered the Nanjing battlefield, and the strength situation was that Wu Chaoyue's directly subordinate corps had more than 26,000 troops, Cao Yanzhong's corps had more than 18,000 troops, and Feng Sanbao's corps on Yuhuatai had more than 13,000 troops, plus more than 6,000 sailors, and the total strength of the Wu army on the Nanjing battlefield broke through the 65,000 mark for the first time. In one fell swoop, it broke the highest record of the Wu army on the local battlefield since it became an army.

Of course, compared with the Taiping Army of Jiangsu and Zhejiang, which still has a total strength of 2440,000, the Wu Army's strength is still extremely insufficient. Fortunately, fighting a war has never been a simple competition in troop numbers, and the Wu army, whether it is weaponry, tactical quality, or soldier quality, has formed a crushing advantage over the Taiping army in Jiangsu and Zhejiang, and it is also more than eight streets away in terms of morale, fighting spirit, and confidence. So much so that this battle was ostensibly a decisive battle between the main force of the Wu army and the main force of the Taiping army, but in fact it was Wu Chaoyue bullying Li Xiucheng, who was left in Nanjing by Hong Xiuquan to accompany the burial, and victory was only a matter of time and cost, as well as a question of how much the Wu army could reap.

The advantage is so huge, and the main battle corps has all entered the position on the south bank, Wu Chaoyue, the unworthy son-in-law, will no longer send troops to smash the encirclement of the Taiping Army and rescue Feng Sanbao, the old man who has been surrounded on Yuhuatai for more than two months, of course, he can't say anything. Therefore, after the great victory of Guan Liying, Wu Chaoyue, who had a reluctant conscience and a little remnant, immediately held a military meeting to discuss how to attack Fengtai Gate, smash the Taiping Army's encirclement of Yuhuatai, and open up the connection with the Wu Army's Feng Sanbao Corps.

“…… The two camps in the area of Fengtaimen are very strong, and the camp walls are one zhang high and six feet thick, which is no worse than the ordinary city walls; Four more trenches were dug to protect the camp, each trench was one foot deep and wide, and it was protected by sheep and horse walls, and there were also hidden mountain splitting cannons. ”

“…… The guards of the two long-haired camps in Fengtaimen are called Zhong Wanqing and He Mingliang respectively, and the troops are 17,800 people, and they don't know how to equip them with specific equipment, but they all have a unified team equipped with Mini guns. In addition, these two long-haired barracks have long-range artillery, and the range can protect every trench, so everyone must be careful about this. ”

“…… Long Mao also deployed heavy troops on both wings of Fengtai Gate to protect it, and to the west was the army of Li Xiucheng's son-in-law Cai Yuanlong, with a strength of about 35,000 people. ”

“…… There are also two long-haired camps on the east side of Fengtai Gate, the main long-haired camp closest to Fengtai Gate is called Wang Haiyang, there are 16,000 people with long hair, and the equipment is mainly Minny guns and flintlock guns, the artillery situation is not clear to us for the time being, but our detailed work has a report, General Feng Sanbao They have been broken through four camps by Long Hair, one of which was directly broken by the Long Hair under the command of Wang Haiyang, and the other was jointly attacked by Wang Haiyang's Long Hair and other Long Hair. It can be seen from this that Wang Haiyang's long-haired combat effectiveness is quite good, and we must not underestimate him too lightly. ”

“…… The other long-haired general on the side of Jiagangmen is called Deng Guangming, and the strength is also about 20,000, which is the new force of long-haired, and he has not participated in the Yuhuatai Battle before, and the equipment and combat effectiveness are not clear. But I heard that this Deng Guangming made a lot of military exploits when he followed Li Xiucheng to fight Zhejiang, and was personally invited by Li Xiucheng to be named the long-haired Guitianyi, and now he is arranged by Li Xiucheng to be stationed in Jiagangmen, and at the same time shoulders the heavy responsibility of reinforcing Fengtaimen and protecting the main camp of the bridge above Li Xiucheng. ”

It was Dai Wenjie, the chief of staff of the Wu army, who was responsible for introducing the enemy situation to the generals of the Wu army, and it was only after Dai Wenjie finished saying that Wu Chaoyue, who presided over the meeting, said: "Everyone, not counting the long-haired army in Jiangning City, Li Xiucheng has about 24,400,000 rabble on the south bank of the Yangtze River, half of which was deployed by him in the south of Yuhuatai, in addition to preventing Feng Sanbao from breaking through, there is also a purpose to resist our attack with sufficient troops and strong fortifications, We will use a relatively easy-to-fight defensive war to consume our strength, and we will go all out to block us south of Yuhuatai and draw the battle into a stalemate. ...... for that. ”

Speaking of this, Wu Chaoyue paused, suddenly raised his voice, and said with a rather fierce expression: "We have to fulfill the wish of Long Hair!" Although our losses can be smaller by avoiding frontal attacks from the flanks, it will also make us miss the fighters that will destroy the main forces of Changmao in Jiangsu and Zhejiang, giving the main forces of Changmao the opportunity to escape for their lives, and increasing the difficulty for us to destroy them in the future! So in this battle, we don't play yin, only ming! Attack Fengtai Gate head-on, put pressure on the long hair of Fengtai Gate with all our might, force the long hair on both wings to send troops to reinforce Fengtai Gate, kill the reinforcements of Long Mao in the field, and do our best to kill the enemy, if we can kill 50,000 Long Hair, we will not only kill 40,000! Got it?! ”

"Understood!"

The generals of the Wu army agreed with a bang, and then Huang Yuanbao, who had the same straightforward personality as his brother, spoke: "King Zhennan, what if the long-haired people on both wings do not send troops to reinforce Fengtaimen?" ”

"Then kill the long hair of Fengtaimen first and rescue Feng Sanbao and them." Wu Chaoyue answered categorically, and said: "Then turn around and first break the long hair of the guard gate, and then break Cai Yuanlong in the west, and eat the main force of the long hair in one bite without being polite, and finally deal with Li Xiucheng's main force and the long hair in Jiangning City!" ”

"Okay, the Admiral understands." Huang Yuanbao, who had not fully recovered from his injuries, smiled happily, and then immediately got up and arched his hand as if his brother was pleasing Wu Chaoyue: "King Zhennan, let me go and fight Fengtai Gate, the ten battalions I brought from Moling Pass are all elite soldiers in a hundred battles, and I can take the two long-haired camps that can take Fengtai Gate head-on!" ”

"Do you dare to make a military order?" Wu Chaoyue asked quietly.

"The last general dare!" Huang Yuanbao agreed without thinking about it.

"Then you go." Wu Chaoyue smiled and said, "I will send ten more battalions with a hundred artillery pieces to help you, and they will all be at your disposal." ”

Huang Yuanbao was even more overjoyed when he heard this, and hurriedly thanked Wu Chaoyue, and couldn't wait to ask for a pen and paper to write the military order, Wu Chaoyue also turned to Qian Wei who was eager to try next to him, and ordered: "Qian Wei, the messenger who protects Huang Yuanbao's two wings will be handed over to you, Changmao will not send troops to reinforce Fengtaimen, and if Changmao dares to send troops, he will fight me to death!" ”

Qian Wei also hurriedly received the order, and then Wu Chaoyue first allocated the army sent to Huang Yuanbao to help, arranged the army to follow Qian Wei to fight, and went to Moling Pass, so that Cao Yanzhong could send troops to attack the Taiping army's Fangshan camp at the same time, gradually compressing the Taiping army's position space. Finally, he leaned back on the handsome chair, clasped his hands to his chest and said with a smile: "Okay, this battle will be handed over to you Huang Yuanbao and Qian Wei, I will stay in the camp and not go to the front line to distract you from thinking about my safety or something." But don't let me down! ”

"Never let the King of Zhennan down!" Qian Wei, Huang Yuanbao and the generals of the Wu army who were ordered to participate in the battle agreed neatly, and immediately began to prepare for the attack, during which some middle-level generals of the Wu army, whether true or false, rushed to the position of Qian and Huang to fight first, and worked hard to encourage their corporals to fight bravely, kill the enemy and make merits, and their fighting spirit was very high.

Diametrically opposed to the Wu army, which had high morale and was united, the Taiping army in Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Jiangsu, which had suffered a heavy defeat, was full of rumors, and there were soldiers everywhere, and the generals and soldiers of each battalion and base were all nervously watching every move of the main force of the Wu army, for fear that the wolf-like Wu army would first take the camp where they were and force themselves under the muzzle of the Wu army, and the morale was very low.

The shorty group is taller, on the contrary, the situation of the two Taiping armies of Zhong Wanqing and He Mingliang is relatively better, first, these two Taiping armies need to prevent Feng Sanbao from taking the opportunity to break through, they have never been transferred to participate in the battle and have not fought with the main force of the Wu army, and they do not know the fearlessness of the ignorant people of the main force of the Wu army; Second, the Taiping military fortifications on the side of Fengtaimen are strong, and the defensive battle is relatively easy to fight; The third is that the friendly forces on both wings are strong, the distance is close to reinforcements, and there is no fear, so on the contrary, the morale of these two Taiping armies is relatively high, and there are still some arrogant clamors in the camp that make the demon soldiers have no return.

In fact, not only Zhong Wanqing and He Mingming, but even Li Xiucheng himself is more at ease with Fengtaimen, because Li Xiucheng, who has carefully studied Wu Chaoyue's military style, found that Wu Chaoyue has never liked a real frontal attack, as long as he has a little opportunity, he likes to be opportunistic, and he is deceived and deceived to win. Therefore, compared with the Fengtaimen battlefield, Li Xiucheng was more worried about the Shangxinhe and Jiangdongmen battlefields where the Taiping army was weak, and suspected that Wu Chaoyue might attack in this direction first, first cut off the periphery of the Taiping army, and then see the seams, find an opportunity to break through, and rescue the Wu army Feng Sanbao Corps surrounded by the Taiping army at the minimum cost. - But then again, Wu Chaoyue really used to use troops like this before.

Under such a premise, when the Taiping scouts discovered and reported the news that the Wu army directly sent troops to Fengtaimen, Li Xiucheng was of course taken aback, and once suspected that Wu Chaoyue was attacking the east and west, using the feint attack on Fengtaimen as a cover, taking the opportunity to sneak attack other camps of the army, and finally after confirming that the Wu army had used an unprecedented number of artillery to attack the army, Li Xiucheng understood that Wu Chaoyue was really here this time, and he was going to attack head-on unusually.

"It's rare, I can't imagine that there is a time when surpassing the little demon also has a dignified face." After snorting in confusion, Li Xiucheng only thought about it for less than a minute, and immediately ordered: "Give Zhong Wanqing and He Mingliang an order, telling them to defend their respective camps for this king, and not to take a step back!" Then give Cai Yuanlong, Wang Haiyang and Deng Guangming an order, telling them to be ready to send troops to reinforce the Fengtaimen battlefield at any time, arrange the supervision team, and if the reinforcements in the camp have half a step back, they will be killed immediately! ”

Li Xiucheng decided to defend the Fengtaimen position with all his might, but the Wu army even set up a military order in order to take the Fengtaimen, and under the mutual refusal, the intensity of the Fengtaimen offensive and defensive battle was naturally not describable by pen and ink, in short, the Wu army began to prepare for artillery fire at ten o'clock in the morning, and it was not until after lunch that the Wu army of four battalions divided the soldiers into two roads, and launched an attack on the two Taiping army barracks standing side by side at the same time, and launched a battle for the camp and trench with the Taiping army outside the camp. At this moment, in the two Taiping army camps in Fengtaimen, there were already fires everywhere, everywhere was filled with bitter and sour green and yellow poisonous gunpowder smoke, the wind could not disperse, and the ground was full of the corpses of Taiping soldiers who were killed and burned by Wu army's artillery fire, and the Taiping soldiers who hurriedly came out of the artillery fortifications to meet were coughing and crying, and they were in pain.

The gunfire is dense like the firecrackers of the New Year, with the Mini gun that is relatively advantageous in the defensive battle, the guns and bullets of the Taiping army once pressed the attacking Wu army to the point that they could not raise their heads, and the iron and stone scattered bullets from the original mountain splitting cannon hidden behind the sheep and horse wall also caused a lot of casualties to the Wu army, but after surviving the opening three axes of the Taiping army, the grenadiers of the Wu army quickly blew up the Taiping soldiers behind the sheep and horse wall on the opposite side of the trench, and suffered heavy casualties. At the same time, after discovering the location of the remaining artillery positions of the Taiping army through fire reconnaissance, the breech guns of the Wu army quickly bombarded the artillery positions of the Taiping army, which had been prepared by the artillery fire, to the ground, and the flames soared into the sky.

The next battle was still fierce and abnormal, the Taiping army had fortifications to rely on, and the main weapon Mini gun was relatively advantageous in the defensive battle. The Wu army had to suppress the enemy's firepower with grenadiers and picric grenades, and then they could rely on the opportunity of the Taiping soldiers to change ammunition and move forward piecemeal, waiting for the opportunity to charge in clusters to fight for the trench position, and the two sides had their own strengths, and the battle situation was stalemate for a certain period of time.

If it was another Wu army general to command this battle, he would definitely not be too anxious about such a stalemate, and would only patiently wait for the fighter or look for the enemy's flaws, and then make a move when he has the opportunity. But it was a pity and unlucky for the Taiping army in Fengtaimen, they met Huang Yuanbao, the younger brother of Huang Dasha, the number one fierce general of the Wu army, who was a super fierce man who walked in the first column of the Wu army's horizontal team every time he followed Huang Dasha to fight! It didn't take much time for the battle to reach a stalemate, and the impatient Huang Yuanbao waved his hand and shouted: "Go up to four more battalions!" Two on each side! ”

"General Huang, isn't it too urgent to add troops now?" The subordinate said cautiously: "Our army on the front line is not too bad, so there is no need to be in such a hurry, right?" In the trench battlefield, if the troops are too dense, it will be easy for casualties to go up? ”

"Less nonsense! There are many Minnie guns on the long-haired side, and they are more accurate than our firing pin guns, and the losses from slow shots are greater! Huang Yuanbao's calculation formula was completely different from that of his subordinates, and he shouted: "Send someone to bring a letter to the four battalion officers in front and ask them, do you want Lao Tzu to remove them and let Lao Tzu personally lead the troops?" ”

Unable to withstand Huang Yuanbao's brutality and obscenity, the Wu army, which had only 20 battalions in total including artillery, threw eight battalions of troops into the front line at once less than two hours after the official offensive began. After the herald brought Huang Yuanbao's message to the four battalion officers on the front line, the four Wu army camp officers who were patiently maneuvering with the soldiers also immediately knew that Huang Yuanbao was about to go crazy, in order not to offend this hot-tempered boss who had won the trust of Wu Chaoyue, and delayed his glorious future, the four battalion officers of the Wu army had no choice but to pull out their guns and raise their guns and shout: "The four sentinels take turns to rush!" The pro-soldier team, as a reserve for Lao Tzu, if anyone dares to run, he will be killed on the spot! ”

Facts have proved that Huang Yuanbao's calculation formula is quite correct in a certain environment, after the four battalions of the front line were forced by him to launch a rotational charge with the sentry as a unit, although the casualties of the Wu army rose rapidly in a short period of time, but the speed of the breakthrough was rapidly accelerated, first relying on grenades to open the way, scattered soldiers rushed through the second trench of the Taiping army, and then under the cover of the close combat of their companions who crossed the trench first, more Wu soldiers were able to rush through the trench and start a bayonet white-edged battle with the Taiping army at the closest distance. As a result, after reaching this level, the weakness of the Taiping army in Jiangsu and Zhejiang that was not good at white-knuckle warfare was naturally seriously magnified, and just forty or fifty Wu soldiers rushed through the trench and jumped off the sheep and horse wall, and the Taiping army, which relied on the trench and the sheep and horse wall to cover the battle, was already in chaos everywhere, and the Wu army officers and men took the opportunity to cross the trench in a big way, and captured the second trench defense line of the Taiping army He Mingliang faster than expected. At the same time, the four newly dispatched battalions of fresh troops had just entered the offensive position.

Seeing this scene, the two Wu army camp officers who were responsible for attacking Zhong Wanqing's camp of the Taiping Army were also anxious, and in order not to be scolded and beaten, they could only shout and force the soldiers to move forward desperately, so that they finally quickly captured the second trench defense line of Zhong Wanqing's camp, and then hurriedly launched an attack on Zhong Wanqing's third trench defense line. And seeing the tidal offensive of the Wu army soldiers in the telescope, Huang Yuanbao was of course triumphant, but Zhong Wanqing and He Mingliang on the side of the Taiping Army gasped one after another, and said in surprise: "The demon soldiers are crazy? As soon as they came up, they attacked so fiercely and invested so many troops, they were so anxious to rescue the demon soldiers on Yuhuatai? The demon soldiers on Yuhuatai are not good, don't be in such a hurry? ”

Of course, Huang Yuanbao, who only wanted to make meritorious contributions, was not in a hurry to rescue the Wu army's Feng Sanbao corps, but Feng Sanbao, who had been heavily surrounded by the Taiping army for more than two months, was a little anxious, especially after seeing the fierce offensive of the Huang Yuanbao army in the telescope, Feng Sanbao also misunderstood Huang Yuanbao's intentions, and said with some surprise: "Why are our reinforcements fighting so quickly?" Is this a signal to us to break out quickly? ”

I haven't been able to get in touch with the outside world, I don't know what the situation of the support forces of the self-army is, and I don't even know that Wu Chaoyue has personally arrived at the Nanjing battlefield, and the dog-headed military divisions Li Hezhang and Ding Baozhen are of course also a little suspicious that Huang Yuanbao's overly anxious offensive represents a special signal. But fortunately, Li Hezhang and Ding Baozhen are not particularly greedy for life and afraid of death, so they didn't rush to suggest that Feng Sanbao quickly give up Yuhuatai and break through with all their might, but just proposed: "Why don't we send troops to fight a dozen?" Cooperate with our reinforcements to flank the long hair, and then decide depending on the situation? ”

Feng Sanbao accepted the suggestion put forward by Li Hezhang and Ding Baozhen without much thought, and found that after the Wu army on Yuhuatai made some moves, although the Taiping army had already been prepared to be attacked by the Wu army inside and outside, and built the same strong fortifications in the direction facing Yuhuatai, but considering that the Wu army attacking from the front was too fierce, and the pressure on Zhong Wanqing and He Mingliang was too great, Li Xiucheng still ordered the five Taiping troops stationed at Shuangqiaomen, Qiqiao Urn, Jubao and Shuixi Gate to attack and attack Yuhuatai.

"Chung Wang Chitose, will the action be too big?" Li Shuxiang reminded very carefully: "The demon soldiers who came over from the big victory are attacking fiercely, and there are strong reserves available, in order to contain the demon soldiers on Yuhuatai, we mobilized so many troops out of the camp to fight field battles with demon soldiers in one breath, if we hold Fengtai Gate, it is good to say, if we let the demon soldiers break through our Fengtaimen defense line, and take the opportunity to join forces with the demon soldiers on Yuhuatai to counterattack, we are afraid that our losses will be great." ”

"It's better to gamble than to be eaten by the demon soldiers." Li Xiucheng's expression was as grim as ever, and said: "Our scout report said that the banner of surpassing the little demon is still in the big victory pass, and he did not personally go to the front line to command and supervise the battle, and the demon soldiers on Yuhuatai should not have made contact with the demon soldiers outside, I don't know if the demon soldiers outside plan to meet them to break through, or just want to get through the contact with them, there may be mistakes in tactics, this is our opportunity, the more chaotic the battlefield, the greater our chance." ”