Being in Hukou, how dangerous and urgent the situation in Shanghai is, of course it is impossible for Wu Chaoyue to know the specific situation, but just with his intuitive sixth sense, Wu Chaoyue understands that the situation in Shanghai is absolutely impossible to get better, and he is in urgent need of his own rescue help, so even if he admires Lin Qirong, the Hukou guard of the Taiping Army, from the bottom of his heart, after trying to surrender, Wu Chaoyue still did not hesitate to order an attack on Hukou, and personally commanded the battle against Hukou on the front line, intending to put pressure on the western front of the Taiping Army. forced the Taiping army to transfer troops from the eastern front to aid the western front, and surrounded Wei to rescue Zhao to share the pressure on the Wu army in Shanghai.

However, Wu Chaoyue soon found that he still underestimated the tenacity and tenacity of Lin Qirong and the Taiping Army at Hukou and the determination to resist, in the face of the absolute superiority of the Wu army's weapons, Lin Qirong led the Taiping soldiers to resist bravely, relying on the city fortifications, with courage, wisdom and iron will, repelled the Wu army's attacks again and again, not only caused huge casualties to the Wu army's soldiers, but also completely shattered Wu Chaoyue's dream of taking Hukou as soon as possible.

"Boom! Bang! Bang! ”

The artillery of the Wu army roared one after another, and the light and heavy shells fired one after another successively bombarded the head of the city at the mouth of the lake, and the walls of the city were bombarded with earth and rocks, and the dust and smoke were filled, and the sand and soil fell endlessly, and the shells continued to fly over the city walls and flew directly into the city, and the houses and streets in the city were blown to the ground, and the fires broke out in all directions, and the momentum was amazing.

However, it is only amazing, and the main force of the Wu army has been confronted for many years, Lin Qirong and the Hukou Taiping army are too aware of the Wu army's combat habits and tactical style, and they have made adequate preparations for the superior weapons of the Wu army early on, and the Wu army's artillery fire has just begun to rage, and most of the Taiping soldiers guarding the city wall have been transferred to the anti-artillery bunker under the city wall, leaving only a few soldiers in the city to monitor the movements of the Wu army. Otherwise, even if the flowering cannonball hits the bunker, it will be difficult to hurt the Taiping soldiers hiding in the bunker. At the same time, the Taiping soldiers who stayed above the city wall also hid behind the arrow stacks as much as possible, and used sundries to protect their bodies to block shrapnel, so it was also difficult for the Wu army's artillery fire to hurt the Taiping soldiers at the top of the city wall.

Wu Chaoyue, who had already suffered losses, did not waste too many shells to do useless work, and had just destroyed the long-range firepower rearranged by the Taiping army with artillery fire, Wu Chaoyue immediately ordered to attack, and a battalion of Wu soldiers also immediately carried all kinds of siege weapons to charge the Taiping army's position under the city at sunset, preparing to blow up the Taiping army's fortifications under the city with bitter acid grenades, and open up the way to foresight, so that after nightfall, the Wu army's characteristic blasting tactics were used to blow up the Hukou city wall.

Ping Pong, the soldiers of the Wu army had just entered the range of fire, and the gunfire above and below the city had already sounded chaotically, although the soldiers of the Wu army had already been mentally prepared for this, but they were still killed and injured many people in the blink of an eye, and the momentum of the charge was blocked. At the same time, judging by the intensity of the gunfire and the number of fires, Wu Chaoyue was stunned to find that most of the enemy bunkers destroyed by the self-army had been repaired by the Taiping army, and there were also some locations that should have been only on the ground before, and there were also gunpowder fires from musket shooting, and it was obvious that the Taiping army had built new defensive bunkers in those places.

As with the failure of the previous assault, the Wu army was stubbornly resisted by the Taiping army next to the moat, and the Taiping army opened fire on the city wall, hiding in bunkers and behind the broken sheep and horse walls, killing and wounding a Wu soldier who tried to cross the river directly on the bridge and rush to repair the temporary fortifications, and the pressure was impossible to raise his head at all. Although the soldiers of the Wu army also hid behind the thick wooden planks and kept shooting, they were never able to suppress the firepower of the Taiping army above and below the city, and they were suppressed very strongly by the firepower of the Taiping army.

"Boom! Bang! ”

The city wall also suddenly sounded the cannon of the Taiping army, the four field guns of the Hukou Taiping army urgently carried the city were all captured from the Tsarist Russian fleet before, although the caliber is not large, it is only a three-pounder gun, but it has the advantages of light and flexible and small recoil, it is most suitable for temporary arrangement to strengthen the firepower, once the shell hits the target, it can also easily tear the thick door panel used by the Wu soldiers to resist the bullets, and the two particularly unlucky Wu soldiers were directly hit by the shells, and even the screams did not have time to be made, and they were directly buried on the battlefield.

Seeing this scene, Wu Chaoyue could only hurriedly send a grenadier team to step forward and suppress the field artillery fire of the Taiping Army with grenadier shells, but after wasting a lot of grenadier shells, although the field shells of the Taiping Army finally fell silent, more than a dozen Wu Army grenadier rangefinder gunners who needed technical training to take up their posts lay down in a pool of blood. - They were all hit by the Lizhi rifle of the Taiping Army, the Taiping Army is not a fool, after eating so much from the snipers of the Wu Army, and capturing a large number of Lizhi rifles with a higher technical content than the Minnie gun, they naturally formed their own sharpshooter troops.

During the period, the only thing that made Wu Chaoyue happy was that the construction progress of the temporary fortifications of the self-army was quite fast, relying on the efforts of the Wu soldiers to sacrifice their lives, before dark, the Wu soldiers finally dug out a large number of individual bunkers on the side of the moat, providing fire cover for the night attack, at the same time, after the sky was completely dark, the shooting accuracy of the Taiping army continued to decline rapidly, and the fire of the muzzle could also immediately expose their position, providing an opportunity for the Wu army to shoot accurately behind the individual bunker, and the firepower between the two armies was reduced. Wu Chaoyue also took the opportunity to invest in a second attacking team and began to try to uproot the Taiping army's fortifications under the city.

The progress is still not smooth, the second team of the Wu army has launched four charges and was repulsed by the Taiping army, failed to seize the position on the opposite side of the moat, and this is of course due to the Taiping army's dense firepower, and the other reason is that the soldiers of the Wu army who fought in the battle were the southwest Wu army in Hunan and Guizhou, and the combat effectiveness was relatively poor. Wu Chaoyue was also ruthless after discovering this, and just built two temporary pontoon bridges, and immediately transferred a battalion from his direct corps to fight directly with the elite main force.

Relying on the cover of the rapid-fire fire of the firing gun, the Wu army assault team of a sentry team rushed across the moat one after another and began to pull out the Taiping army bunker with bitter acid grenades, and also achieved a lot of results. However, just when Wu Chaoyue breathed a sigh of relief, the south gate of Hukou City, which was focused on by the Wu army, suddenly opened, and more than 100 Taiping warriors rushed out with short weapons and rushed out directly to the Wu army commando in close combat. The pace of the offensive was completely disrupted, and casualties increased rapidly.

"How dare you send a death squad out of the city to fight back? This Lin Qirong has really eaten our tactical habits thoroughly, and I did underestimate him a little. ”

After muttering helplessly, Wu Chaoyue's brows were a little furrowed, and he was inevitably a little worried that taking Hukou would cause too much loss, and the casualties would exceed his pre-war expectations. At the same time, Dai Wenjie, who was watching the battle from the sidelines, also reminded: "King Zhennan, Changmao's move is clearly aimed at our tactical preparation for bombing the bunker, and if you can come up with this way to stop us from blowing up the bunker, maybe there is also a way to crack our tactic of digging the city wall with a pointed wooden donkey to bury explosives, and our battle may be much more difficult than expected." ”

Wu Chaoyue was silent, but subconsciously remembered Lin Qirong's performance in the Jiujiang War in history - he was surrounded by the Hunan army for more than a year and swore not to surrender, and the soldiers under his command did not waver when they were close to starvation, and almost all chose to live and die with Lin Qirong. So Wu Chaoyue inevitably had some drumming in his heart, and said secretly: "What if I encounter such a situation?" How much do I have to pay to take the mouth of the lake? ”

That night, after spending a lot of time and ammunition, and paying the price of more than 100 elite soldiers casualties, the Wu army finally used grenade shells to basically clear the Taiping army's underground bunker outside the south gate of Hukou, but the sky was close to dawn, and it was too late to dig the city wall to carry out blasting by using the night, Wu Chaoyue had no choice but to let the demolition team try to attack the city gate of Hukou, and strive to grasp the last chance of the siege, and also test the Taiping army's response to the Wu army's blasting tactics by the way.

When the Wu army demoman tried to plant explosives at the city gate, a large number of straw bundles and torches poured with fire oil and gunpowder were suddenly thrown on the city wall, and the fire was blazing, quickly engulfing the Wu army demoman, and directly ignited the Dana explosives carried by the Wu army demoman, and the explosive bag exploded violently, which immediately blew up the three Wu army demomen to pieces, and completely shattered the last chance of the Wu army to break the city tonight.

Seeing this in the telescope, Wu Chaoyue's face was so ugly and ugly, because Wu Chaoyue could see that the Taiping Army's hand was not only effective against the Wu Army Demoman who had no protection, but also against the Wu Army Engineer with the protection of the pointed wooden donkey.

It's useless to worry in my heart, the sky is already dark, and then launching a blasting siege is tantamount to sending death in vain, and at the same time, the soldiers are obviously a little tired, so Wu Chaoyue can only order the troops to retreat, learn a lesson and arrange a new force to monitor the south gate of Hukou, not give the Taiping army a chance to rebuild the bunker, and withdraw to the camp with the main combat force to rest, and also have to consider spare siege tactics in order to prevent accidents.

After thinking about it on the bed for a long time, Wu Chaoyue found that he was actually just two spare siege tactics, the first was a tunnel siege, planting explosives under the city wall, and the second was a frontal assault, using siege weapons such as flying ladders and ladders to directly attack, both tactics were not absolutely sure, and both tactics were likely to pay a greater price for casualties. So as a last resort, Wu Chaoyue had to consider another choice - whether to follow the historical Hunan army and use the method of long-term siege and food to deal with the tenacious and tenacious Lin Qirong and the Hukou Taiping army?

"It's too time-consuming, not only will it also consume a lot of my food and military supplies, but also hurt the morale and sharpness of the army, so I still have to find another way to break the city as soon as possible."

When Wu Chaoyue, who never recognized the tactics of fighting in a daze, dispelled the idea of learning from Teacher Zeng, the curtain of the sleeping tent shook, and the captain of the pro-soldier Wu Dadao sneakily poked into the obscene head, and saw that Wu Chaoyue was still open and did not fall asleep, Wu Dadao opened the curtain and came in, saluted and said: "Yuzhen Nanwang, our army has come to report carefully, Rao Governor Mao sent troops from Zhangtiandu, and came to the direction of Hukou through Tutang, and has now arrived in Xujiafu. Judging from the route and the speed of the march, it is very likely that this long-haired army came to reinforce the long-haired at the mouth of the lake. ”

"How many troops? Who will the Lord be? How is the equipment? Wu Chaoyue asked casually.

"There are more than 3,000 troops, and the main commander will be Ji Rongxian, the chief of the long-haired system." Wu Dadao replied with a name that Wu Chaoyue had never heard of, and said: "The equipment is very poor, and our army only sees old-fashioned arquebuses and lifting guns, but no foreign guns. ”

"To send you to death?" Wu Chaoyue smiled dumbly, but he didn't dare to take it lightly, so he ordered: "Let our meticulous work strengthen monitoring, prevent this long-haired army from pretending to be a pig and eating a tiger, and also prevent Shi Zhenji from following with the main force of Raozhou's long-haired army." ”

Wu Chaoyue, who had only slept intermittently for two or three hours last night, yawned, and could no longer resist sleepiness, closed his eyes and snored and fell asleep, and slept directly until lunchtime before waking up. As a result, to Wu Chaoyue's surprise, he had just made some movements, and the voice of Zhang Dejian, the head of the self-army spies, came from outside the tent, and Wu Chaoyue guessed that Zhang Dejian must have been waiting for him for a while, so he immediately ordered to summon him.

As expected, after Zhang Dejian entered the tent and saluted, he really asked cautiously: "King Zhennan, didn't you disturb your rest, right?" I heard you barely slept last night, does it matter? ”

"It's okay, I'm not made of tofu, so it's nothing to sleep for a few hours." Wu Chaoyue smiled, and complained: "Shi Peng, if you have something, wake you up directly, why do you have to wait for me to wake up?" ”

"It's not an urgent matter, so I didn't dare to disturb King Zhennan's rest." Zhang Dejian explained, and said: "The humble post is for the reinforcements sent by Rao Governor Mao to Hukou Changmao, I don't know if the king of Zhennan has ever known, there is a long-haired army from Raozhou's side, it is possible to reinforce Hukou Changmao, and the commander of the army will be called Ji Rongxian." ”

"You know, what's wrong? This Ji Rong is a long-haired celebrity first? Very capable of fighting? Wu Chaoyue asked with some concern.

"Back to the king of Zhennan, the lowly position came to report to you about Ji Rongxian, not because this Ji Rongxian is very capable of fighting, but because the lowly position knows this Ji Rongxian." Zhang Dejian replied respectfully, and explained: "Ji Rongxian is a native of Hubei Province, when he was the head of Wuchang Mansion, he was a gangster leader on the streets of Hubei Province, specializing in opening pits and abducting and stealing chickens and dogs for a living, and was arrested more than once by the lowly position, and they are very familiar with each other. ”

"At the end of the second year of the emperor, Changmao broke through the Hubei provincial capital, lost his job, and broke off contact with this Ji Rongxian." Zhang Dejian continued: "Later, when he inadvertently knew the whereabouts of this Ji Rongxian, he had already become a thief under the command of Da Changmao Shi Zhenji, and he was quite good. At that time, he paid attention to him again, and secretly asked people to collect some information about him, just waiting for the opportunity to meet on the battlefield in the future, and try to make him use us. ”

"And what about him?" Wu Chaoyue asked curiously.

"A typical brave and ruthless person, who dares to fight and fight, has a very good way of forming gangs, and is a natural gangster leader." Zhang Dejian did not have a high evaluation of his old acquaintance Ji Rongxian, and said with a smile: "But his character is very bad, he is both lustful and greedy for money, he is very greedy for life and afraid of death in his bones. ”

After belittled an old acquaintance, Zhang Dejian put the information about Ji Rongxian in front of Wu Chaoyue, and then said his true plan, and said: "King Zhennan, I want to try to rebel against this Ji Rongxian, if it succeeds, we may be able to use him to lure the main force of Raozhou Da Mao Shi Zhenji to Hukou, besiege the city and send reinforcements to kill Shi Zhenji's main force in Hukou, and then we want to recover Raozhou, it will definitely be much easier." ”

Wu Chaoyue, who has the same despicable character, will certainly not refuse the opportunity to buy the rebellion, and hurriedly asked: "Shi Peng, how sure are you that you can rebel against this Ji Rongxian?" ”

"I dare not say that I am 10% sure, but at least 60% sure." Zhang Dejian replied confidently and said: "Let's not talk about the relationship between the humble post and Ji Rongxian before, just the current situation Ji Rongxian must be playing the drum in his heart, the long-haired thief soldiers under his command are not very elite, and the equipment is also very average, coming to reinforce Hukou is purely to touch the stone with eggs, Ji Rongxian has also followed the long-haired southern expedition to the north for so many years, it is impossible not to understand this, so as long as we have both grace and power, the possibility of reversing this Ji Rongxian is absolutely great." ”

Wu Chaoyue was so moved when he heard this, he almost wanted to blurt out that he agreed to try his luck, but after careful consideration, Wu Chaoyue found an important problem and hurriedly asked: "Wait, Shi Peng, do you know, why did Shi Zhenji deliberately send this Ji Rong to Hukou first to touch the stone with eggs?" Didn't Shi Zhenji know that sending such a poorly equipped army to reinforce Hukou would also have to fight a field battle with us, and there would be no difference between sending him to death in vain? ”

"This ......." Zhang Dejian hesitated a little, and only after a moment did he shake his head and said: "I don't know the specific reason, maybe Shi Zhenji just wants to go through the motions and give Hong Xiuquan and Shi Dakai these long-haired big men an explanation; Maybe Shi Dakai wanted to use the strategy of luring the snake out of the hole to lure us into dividing our troops to meet or pursue Ji Rongxian, and to share a little pressure on Hukou Changmao. ”

"It's important." Wu Chaoyue said very calmly: "If we can't figure out Shi Zhenji's true intentions, even if we reverse Ji Rongxian at any cost, it is likely that we will work hard in vain, and we will not be able to get the opportunity to kill Shi Zhenji's main force in advance by besieging the city and sending reinforcements." ”

"Then I will send someone to investigate, and then report to the king of Zhennan when the reason is clear." Zhang Dejian hurriedly replied.

Wu Chaoyue nodded, and then picked up the information summary about Ji Rongxian brought by Zhang Dejian to watch, but when he saw that the Taiping Army soldiers led by Ji Rongxian were all Huguang soldiers, Wu Chaoyue's heart suddenly moved, and after a little calculation, he said again: "Shi Peng, there is no need to investigate carefully, you can arrange it now, and immediately start to plot against this Ji Rongxian, but there is no need to ask him to help us trick Shi Zhenji's main force into a decisive battle at Hukou, and let him do another big thing for us." ”