The charge continued, under the persecution of Cai Yuanlong and Huang Jinai, the Taiping soldiers rushed to the stone bridge across the river wave after wave with two horses as a unit, and fought for the opportunity to break through the moat and fight close combat with the Wu army with their lives and blood, but the firepower of the Wu army was as dense as a storm, knocking down the Taiping army who were trying to cross the river one by one, almost not giving the Taiping army any chance to cross the river safely. Before he could rush to the edge of the Wu army's blocking position, he was already dead on the spot.

On the battlefield in the city with complex terrain, the Wu army's main battle rifle and firing pin gun were not as accurate as the Mini gun because they had no rifling, and they were indeed not as good as the Mini gun in street fighting. However, in an unobstructed open area, Wu Jun's firing pin gun can dominate to the fullest, making it difficult for the enemy to get close.

The small force could not rush through, and Cai Yuanlong and Huang Jinai also tried to let the large army charge in a group, in a vain attempt to block the bullets with the soldiers in front and cover the soldiers behind to rush to the front of the Wu army's position. But it's a pity that the Wu army's preparation is too sufficient, just saw the dense crowd of the Taiping army, dozens of grenadiers immediately fired continuously, the firepower covered the bridge across the river, and the Taiping soldiers were slaughtered in patches, plus the Wu army artillery on both wings has been firing at the exit of the city gate one after another, no matter how many soldiers the Taiping army sent, they were sent to death in vain, and it was also difficult to rush across the moat bridge, on the contrary, it also made their casualties rise sharply.

"General, the firepower of the demon soldiers is too fierce, the brothers can't rush over!"

"You can't fight like this again, if you fight like this again, you will die in vain, and the brothers will not dare to go up!"

Similar reports were constantly sent to Cai Yuanlong and Huang Jinai, who led the army to break through, among them, Cai Yuanlong was better, and he could slow down the offensive and find another way, but Huang Jinai, who was shouldering the heavy responsibility, had no choice but to roar and order: "Rush!" Keep rushing! No matter how many people die, you have to rush out for me! ”

Of course, Huang Jinai is so anxious because Hong Xiuquan Hong is preparing to go out of the city from Chaoyangmen, and Huang Jinai must open the way out of the city for the Nanjing Taiping Army led by Hong Da Sect Master and Meng Shiyong, Qin Rigang and others, and at the same time, according to the breakthrough plan arranged before, Hong Da Sect Master has also left the Tianwang Mansion with his more than 80 Wang Niang, and entered the inner city of Nanjing under the strict protection of the Nanjing Taiping Army, waiting for Huang Jinai to kill them a bloody way, so Huang Jinai has no choice but to force the army to be like a moth to a fire, Continuously rushed out of the city to attack the Wu army's position.

Since it is clearly said that it is a moth to the fire, the helpless act of gold love is of course doomed to be useless, the guns and shells of the Wu army are like an invisible wall of death, and countless Taiping soldiers who tried to rush through this wall are put to the ground, and the corpses of the Taiping soldiers on the bridge across the river are densely wounded, stacked on top of each other, and they are piled up more than half a person high, but there are still few Taiping soldiers who can rush across the bridge, and the blood flows into the moat, dyeing the wide and deep moat red.

Or when Huang Jinai's army was about to suffer more than half of the casualties, the situation of the Wu army and Feng Sanbao's department seemed to have been prepared before it was reported to Li Xiucheng, but Li Xiucheng's first reaction was still a little unbelievable, and he was surprised: "How is it possible?" How could the demon soldiers be so well prepared in advance, and even our Fire Bull Array had no effect? Did the demon soldiers know that we were going to break out tonight? ”

"King Chung Chitose, I'm afraid that the demon soldiers really know in advance that we are going to break through tonight." Li Shuxiang said tremblingly: "The demon fire bomber of the demon soldier is the evidence, the demon soldier did not arrange the demon fire bomber near the city gate before, tonight the demon fire bomber of the demon soldier not only appeared immediately when we began to break through, but also specialized in the exit of the city gate, it is obvious that the demon soldier has been prepared, not only moved the demon fire bomber to the front line, but also arranged the artillery position long ago, specially used to block the door." ”

Li Xiucheng was stunned for a moment, and immediately understood that Wu Jun had indeed prepared, and then Li Xiucheng immediately roared angrily, "Someone must have leaked the secret, and someone told the demon soldiers about our preparation to break through tonight!" This traitor raised by a son of a bitch, Lao Tzu must find him out, cut him with a thousand knives, and execute him to death! ”

"Chung Wang Chitose, the traitor's matter can only be talked about later, the most important thing now is what to do?" Li Shuxiang wiped his sweat and said: "The demon soldiers are so well prepared, I'm afraid it will be difficult for us to rush out from Chaoyang Gate and Hongwu Gate tonight, now we are giving up the breakthrough and continuing to defend the city?" Or do you want to find another way out of town? You've got to make up your mind. ”

"I can't give up on the breakout." Li Xiucheng shook his head and said: "The order to abandon the city and break through has been issued to the whole army, and the morale of the army has been affected, and it is no longer possible to defend the city." In addition, break through the ...... from other gates. ”

After hesitating for a moment, Li Xiucheng made up his mind and shouted: "Continue to rush over Chaoyang Gate and Hongwu Gate, see if you can rush out!" My Chinese army went to Jubaomen, rush from there! Long live the King of Heaven and tell him to get ready, and go there if he can rush out! ”

After quickly making a contingency choice, Li Xiucheng hurriedly took his Chinese army to the side of Jubaomen, and the mobile army that had been drawn back from the area of the dragon's neck followed closely behind and helped Li Xiucheng fight on the side of Jubaomen. However, it is a pity that the army led by Li Xiucheng has just opened the Jubao Gate, and there is a roar of artillery fire outside the city gate, and all kinds of shells are hitting the exit of the city gate, and at the same time, the soldiers of the Wu army on the blocking position have long been in strict formation, and they are attacking the Taiping army's army out of the city with dense firepower, and Li Xiucheng's army can not rush through the moat!

At the same time, without knowing that the breakthrough was blocked, even if it was not even ten o'clock in the evening as required by Li Xiucheng, the five armies of the Taiping army in Beicheng had already broken away from the street fighting positions one after another, and concentrated in the wide streets to prepare for retreat, and after the two divisions of the Wu army Cao Yanzhong and Qian Wei, who were well prepared for the night battle, discovered this situation, they also immediately launched an offensive pursuit, Ji Qingyuan and Li Rongfa and other troops had no intention of fighting, and they were panicked and just retreated to the south, and it was just ten o'clock in the evening, The Taiping Army took the initiative to abandon the Liuxiang battlefield that had been lost in the previous hard battle, as well as the entire Yifengmen Street, and the Wu army Qian Wei took advantage of the situation to seize the Dinghuai Gate and helped the friendly forces outside the city to take control of the city gate.

Worse is still to come, at ten o'clock, when the five armies in Beicheng couldn't wait to start fleeing south at full speed, the dense houses south of the Beimen Bridge suddenly burst into flames, the sound of killing shook the sky, everywhere was the slogan of capturing Hong Xiuquan alive and surrendering to Wu Chaoyue, Meng Shiyong and Qin Rigang, who were blocked in the inner city of Nanjing and could not move, hurriedly sent people to inquire about the reason, and finally learned that it was a part of Zeng Lichang's old department, in order to avenge Zeng Lichang, who died unjustly, deliberately set fire to create chaos, and received the Wu army into the city.

The moat has never been able to rush through, and the hidden dangers inside have suddenly erupted, Meng Shiyong, Qin Rigang and others are of course anxious to become ants on a hot pot, and the Sect Master Hong is even more furious, constantly scolding Li Xiucheng's two sons-in-law for being incompetent, and they can't even rush out of the two city gates. Then Qin Rigang, a veteran of the Taiping Army, was also quite calm, and offered to lead the army to rush to Tongjimen by himself, wanting to open a way to escape from here. However, although the sect leader of Hong Da reluctantly accepted Qin Rigang's request and divided the army to protect his own safety to break through the siege and fight the forward, but after Qin Rigang led the army to open the city gate, before the Taiping army could charge, the bridge across the river at Tongji Gate had already made a loud noise, and the stone bridge collapsed and sank into the river, directly cutting off the Taiping army's idea of going out of the city from Tongji Gate. In order to reduce the pressure of the blockade war, Feng Sanbao's corps, which was the weakest of the three major corps of the Wu army, did not hesitate to use Dana explosives to directly blow up the bridge, so as to achieve the effect of blocking the Tongji Gate with a small number of troops.

Chaoyangmen and Hongwumen couldn't rush out, and the bridge across the river at Tongjimen was directly blown up by the Wu army, and the Hongda sect leader who was congested in the inner city with a large number of troops naturally became a turtle in the urn, and he couldn't think of any way to get out of the city. In desperation, Sect Leader Hong could only quickly send someone to Jubaomen to contact Li Xiucheng, asking Li Xiucheng to come up with a way as soon as possible and come up with an idea, so that he could escape from the city.

"There are only two choices, one is to give up the breakout, fully retreat to the inner city, and then find another way to get out of the city. The second is to let the army split up and attack every gate of Tianjing with all their strength to see if they can find a breakthrough. Neither option is too sure, what should I do? What are we going to do? ”

The difficult choice was put in front of Li Xiucheng, who wanted the army to fully retreat to the inner city, and was worried that the food would not last for a few days, and wanted the army to break through separately, Li Xiucheng was worried that the Wu army was tightly blockaded, and the Taiping army might not find any opportunity to open a road, and they were in a dilemma, hesitated, and did not dare to make any decision for a long time. In the end, it was Li Shuxiang who suddenly came up with an idea and said, "Zhongwang Chitose, can we blow up the city wall by ourselves and open a way out of the city?" ”

"yes, why can't we blow up the walls and open a gap ourselves?" When Li Xiucheng heard this, he was overjoyed and said: "The main strength of the demon soldiers is used in the area of the city gate, and there must not be many defenders in other city sections, as long as we can blow up the city wall, we will definitely be able to kill the demon soldiers by surprise!" ”

"Wait, what about the moat?" After cheering, Li Xiucheng suddenly remembered a fatal question, and hurriedly said: "After the city wall is blown up, what will happen to our moat?" ”

"Take the car and fill it in!" Li Shuxiang quickly replied: "Long live the Heavenly King with so many vehicles, you can push the river to fill the moat, as long as the action is fast, we have hope to fill in a road across the river!" ”

"It's just a matter of luck." Li Xiucheng made up his mind and shouted: "Give the order to the five armies in Beicheng, tell them to stop retreating, fight the demon soldiers to the death on the spot, and buy us time!" Close the treasure gate, and all the city gates that have not been lost will be defended on the spot! My middle and rear troops, turn around and go to the inner city! ”

Fortunately, in order to survive, Sect Leader Hong did not bargain with Li Xiucheng this time, and accepted Li Xiucheng's decision without hesitation, and adopted Li Xiucheng's suggestion, chose the blasting site in more than three miles south of Chaoyang Gate, and sent the earth camp to dig a cave under the city overnight. However, Li Xiucheng miscalculated that after his order was sent to Ji Qingyuan, the commander-in-chief of the Fifth Army in Beicheng, Ji Qingyuan immediately made a small calculation to preserve his strength, and arranged to order Li Rongfa, Yuan Dehou, Chen Decai, and Fang Haizong's four armies to fight to the death on the spot, so that his army could continue to retreat and retreat to the newly built city wall that already had a certain rudimentary form.

Ji Qingyuan's selfish arrangement soon led to disastrous consequences, and he was already extremely unconvinced by his firing line king, which would see Ji Qingyuan so selfish, forcing his army to retreat in front of him, not to mention Chen Decai and Fang Haizong and others, that is, Li Rongfa immediately jumped like thunder, yelling and shouting: "Why do you want Lao Tzu to be in front?" Remove! Keep withdrawing me! Retreat behind the new walls to defend the walls! ”

The four Taiping troops who were ordered to fight to the death on the spot all made this choice, all of them left Ji Qingyuan's order behind, and all of them just ran south with the army, rushing to the newly built city wall that could barely be guarded, Cao Yanzhong and Qian Wei, who led the troops to pursue in the back, were of course unceremonious when they saw that there was such a good thing, and immediately led the army to pursue with all their might, followed the footsteps of the defeated Taiping army and rushed directly to the new city wall, and took advantage of the opportunity that the Taiping army had no time to arrange defenses, and successfully broke through the new city wall of the Taiping army. It completely shattered the hope of the Taiping army to use this wall to buy time.

When the news was transmitted back to the rear, Wu Chaoyue was even more polite, and immediately ordered Wang Fu to lead the Wu army's sailors and marines to enter the city for reinforcements, search and kill the remnants of the enemy and march to the east, to meet the Wu army's rear army in the area of the dragon's neck outside the Taiping Gate to enter the city, and Wu Chaoyue himself continued to stay outside the Shence Gate, patiently waiting for the next good news.

At this moment, of course, there is already a great chaos in the city of Nanjing, there are countless fires in the south and north of the city, and the streets and alleys are full of ordinary people, soldiers and civilians running and shouting, both the generals and soldiers of the Taiping Army with different aspirations take the opportunity to make trouble, spread rumors to shake the morale of the army, and set fire to help the Wu army fight, and there are countless hooligans and ruffians who take advantage of the fire to rob, commit adultery and plunder, and indirectly help the Wu army to hit the morale of the Taiping army. The Taiping army that broke through and was blocked was even more demoralized, and the five Taiping troops that withdrew from the north city were completely chaotic under the pursuit of the Wu army, and the soldiers could not find the generals, and they could not find the soldiers, shouting and screaming like headless flies scurrying around, and the two divisions of the Wu army Qian Wei and Cao Yanzhong, who were advancing in parallel on both roads, were like bamboos, and quickly seized the Drum Tower, Beimen Bridge and Jilong Mountain and other key points in the city.

Seeing the tragic scene of fires everywhere in the city on the tower of Xihua Gate in the inner city, Li Xiucheng was of course like a knife and couldn't stop crying, but after the matter came to this point, Li Xiucheng no longer had any way to reverse the situation, so he could only lead the army to stick to Xihua Gate to protect the safety of Hong Xiuquan in the inner city, and then there was to buy time for the Taiping army soldiers who were digging the city wall. At the same time, Li Xiucheng kept muttering, "If only the King of Heaven didn't interfere, if only he didn't make a holy decree, if only I was in command alone, these situations could actually be avoided......." ”

Perhaps with the blessing of the Heavenly Father, the last hope was still left to the Taiping army, and under the hard work of the Taiping army's earthen camp soldiers, after four o'clock in the morning, when the Wu army had successfully touched the outer wall of the Tianwang Mansion, a wide and deep blast hole finally took shape, and as much as more than 1,800 catties of gunpowder were quickly filled into the blast hole. And because Hongwumen and Chaoyangmen have been constantly gunned, the soldiers of the Wu army also knew nothing about the Taiping army's actions of digging holes and filling medicines in the city, and they never noticed the abnormality, so naturally they did not make any preventive preparations in advance.

Before igniting the fire, Li Xiucheng first replenished an army to each of the two battlefields of Chaoyangmen and Hongwumen, and clearly asked his two sons-in-law, Cai Yuanlong and Huang Jinai, to personally lead their army that had suffered heavy casualties to charge after the city wall collapsed to contain the Wu army outside the city, and then personally arranged the preparation for filling the river after the collapse of the city wall, and finally knelt down on both knees to the section of the wall that was ready to be blasted, kowtowed three times, and said in a hoarse voice: "Whether you can rush out depends on this last chance." Please Heavenly Father, light the fire. ”