On the night when Wu Chaoyue fired the first shot of the bloody suppression of the Taiping Rebellion, a major event occurred in Jiangning City, that is, after dark, a Taiping army of about two or three hundred people took advantage of the cover of night to touch the neighborhood outside Jubaomen, and had a fierce battle with Jiangning Lianyong, a force of about 1,000 people stationed there.

Here must be praised Manchu officials, no matter how Wen Tian Wu frolic in the Qing Dynasty, there are always a few people who really do things, Jubaomen this Lian Yong is the product of the Manchu dutiful officials, it is Wu Jianzhang's direct boss Jiangsu political envoy Qi Suzao entrusted the famous Jiangning scribe Zhang Jigeng to train and form, although the soldiers are all Mi Xing porters have no actual combat experience, but they are all strong, and Zhang Jigeng was successfully brainwashed, morale is very high, more than 1,000 people to two or three hundred Taiping soldiers, relying on the advantage of numbers, Even if most of the weapons were flat wooden sticks, they were still inseparable from the Taiping army, and they were in a stalemate for a long time.

Under such circumstances, if the Qing army went out of the city in time to reinforce, it was not completely hopeless for the Jiangning defense to get off to a good start, but unfortunately, the Taiping army was too experienced in combat, and had arranged a suspicious plan early, tied the lantern to the donkey's neck, and let the donkey run back and forth in the woods on the south bank of the Qinhuai River, and from a distance it looked like there were a large number of troops ambushed in it. Therefore, even if Lu Jianying, Qi Suzao and Jiangning General Xianghou have all come to the city to watch the battle, they do not have the courage to send a soldier out of the city to help the battle, and the heavily armed regular army just watched the fierce battle between the people with flat sticks and the Taiping soldiers. - Of course, considering the danger of opening the city at night and the low combat effectiveness of the Qing army's green battalion, Lu Jianying and others cannot be completely wrong.

Next, the thing that made the future generations beat their chests happened, because the weapons were too bad, Jubaomen Lian Yong ran to the city to ask the city to provide swords, guns, birds, guns, and guns, and also asked the city to send hundreds of soldiers out of the city to help, Qi Suzao agreed, but Lu Jianying and Xianghou immediately suspected that Lian Yong under the city was playing with the Taiping army, and wanted to help the Taiping army open the city gate, not only flatly refused, but also ordered the Qing army in the city to practice Yong to fire at Jubaomen!

The result of the artillery bombardment, of course, was that Jubaomen Lian Yong suffered heavy casualties and quickly collapsed, either surrendering to the Taiping army or jumping into the Qinhuai River to flee for his life, and the most effective regiment in Jiangning completely disappeared. Seeing this scene, Zhang Jigeng, a famous man in Jiangning who single-handedly formed this group training, cried loudly, Qi Suzao vomited blood in his mouth, and fell unconscious on the spot, but Lu Jianying waved his hand and asked the master to count these dead and brave heads as a capture, and write an excerpt to the capital to report the victory.

Compared with the great victory of Jubaomen, the small victory on the side of Shence Gate is certainly not worth mentioning, but fortunately, thanks to the blessing of Lin Fengxiang, a famous general of the Taiping Army, after receiving Hui Zheng's report, the next morning, Lu Jianying and Xianghou and other Jiangning bigwigs still summoned Wu Chaoyue in the Liangjiang Governor's Mansion and learned about the situation with Wu Chaoyue in person. Jiang Ning General Xianghou, who had resolutely opposed Wu Chaoyue and helped defend Jubaomen, also split his head and covered his face as soon as they met, and asked: "Did you really hit the bandit leader Lin Fengxiang?" Really? Confirmed? ”

When he asked this, the auspicious expression with a pair of dead fish eyes was full of distrust, as if no matter what Wu Chaoyue said, he would never believe it. And Wu Chaoyue, who had clashed with Xianghou before, became more and more dissatisfied in his heart, and replied unceremoniously: "General Yuxiang, the lower official never said that he hit the bandit leader Lin Fengxiang, let alone killed him. Xia Guan may have hit a rebel bandit last night, and that rebel bandit leader may be called Prime Minister Lin Cheng by the bandit, as for whether he hit him or not, whether that rebel is a pseudo prime minister or not, Xia Guan can't confirm it. ”

After answering, Wu Chaoyue told Xianghou and the other Jiangning civilians and soldiers in the governor's hall what happened last night truthfully, and since he did not exaggerate in the slightest, he did not conceal the fact that many people in the Shence Gate defenders heard the Taiping soldiers shouting. And after listening to Wu Chaoyue's introduction, Xianghou immediately waved his hand and said viciously: "The shouting of the rebel thieves can't be used as evidence, whether the bandit leader is Lin Fengxiang still needs to be investigated in detail, so I can't give you credit now!" ”

The jealousy of the Manchu officials can open Wu Chaoyue's eyes, after hearing Xiang Hou say this, before Wu Chaoyue can open his mouth to distinguish, those banner generals with lightning rods on their heads have already nodded one after another, saying that what General Xiang said is extremely true, and now it is not possible to confirm that the person Wu Chaoyue hit is the long-haired famous general Lin Fengxiang, so he can't give Wu Chaoyue credit. Jiangnan Admiral Fuzhu Hong'a nodded again and again, and said with confidence: "It must not be the thief Lin Fengxiang!" Maybe this is still a treacherous plan, trying to trick us into opening the city gate and going out of the city to pursue, but Geng Huan's side did not have a plan, otherwise the Shence Gate might be in danger last night. ”

Hearing these words, Wu Chaoyue, who didn't like the Eight Banners parasite, was even more angry in his heart, and couldn't help but speak: "Ladies and gentlemen, when did the lower official say that I must have hit Lin Fengxiang?" When did the lower official say that he wanted credit? The lower officials just reported the truth, if you think you can't believe it, then you don't believe it, why do you say so much? ”

"Bold!" Fuzhu Hong'a and other Eight Banner generals suddenly jumped like thunder, and they all scolded: "Who are you who dare to be so presumptuous in front of General Xiang? ”

Wu Chaoyue kept a straight face and didn't speak, and Hui Zheng, who barely had a little friendship with Wu Chaoyue, gave up and pleaded for Wu Chaoyue again and again. However, at this time, there was a herald outside the door who rushed to the hall and said to Lu Jianying: "Lord Tai, send a rebellion outside the city to divide the troops, and take the official road outside the east gate along the Qinhuai River to the north." ”

"Rebel division? Where to go? Lu Jianying hurriedly asked.

"It's not proven yet." The herald replied truthfully, and said, "But I don't know why, during the march, the rebel thieves have been chanting a slogan in a neat manner - step on the gate of the gods!" Avenge Prime Minister Lin! ”

"Stepping on the Divine Gate? Revenge for Prime Minister Lin Cheng?! ”

Lu Jianying was stunned at first, and then suddenly came to his senses, and his cloudy old eyes immediately turned to Wu Chaoyue, and Jiang Ning's civil and military forces who were present were all like this, all of them looked at Wu Chaoyue like aliens, and even Xianghou couldn't help but be surprised in his heart, "Could it be that this Southern Barbarian really hit Lin Fengxiang?" ”

Wu Chaoyue's face remained silent, and he said calmly to Lu Jianying: "Lord Taiwan, the lower officials think that it is still impossible to confirm that the person who the lower officials hit yesterday is Lin Fengxiang, and it is necessary to prevent long-haired fraud, and it is also possible that Longhair's new seal is a pseudo-prime minister surnamed Lin, so the lower-ranking officials dare not ask for a reward." By the way, if there is nothing else, then the lower official will leave. ”

After that, Wu Chaoyue bowed his hand to Lu Jianying, turned around and left very chicly, leaving Xianghou and others in the hall to stammer, and then shouted angrily, all thinking that Wu Chaoyue's attitude was too arrogant and domineering, and he dared to throw his face at the master without the slightest consciousness of being a slave, and the banner generals asked Lu Jianying to punish Wu Chaoyue seriously. But fortunately, Wu Chaoyue is arrogant, but in fact, he has not violated half of the military law, so even if Lu Jianying wants to help the Eight Banners master get angry, he can't find any excuse for a while, and the Eight Banners masters can only temporarily record Wu Chaoyue's arrogant attitude in the little black account book, and wait for the opportunity to be angry later.

Wu Chaoyue flicked his sleeves and left, the reason was not only that he was angry with the master of the Eight Banners, but also that Wu Chaoyue suspected that the division of the Taiping Army was going to move to Shence Gate, so he was anxious to observe the enemy situation and prepare for defense. The result was not as expected by Wu Chaoyue, just after noon, the 3,000 Taiping army division that had been killed from the east in a roundabout way really stopped outside the Shence Gate, and immediately seized the highlands of Dazhuang Mountain, and began to arrange camping and fortifications such as trenches and earth barriers.

Seeing this scene, of course, the green battalion soldiers, Jiang Ning Lian Yong and Wu Jun Lian Yong on the Shence Gate were a little worried, and Wu Chaoyue was also bitter, knowing that his escape plan would never be as easy as he imagined. But after calming down, some Wu Jun Lian Yong left his post for no reason, quietly gathered together, muttering in a low voice I don't know what to say, Wu Chaoyue noticed this situation, so he shouted to those Lian Yong: "Go back to your post, what do you say when you get together?" ”

Wu Jun, who was accustomed to obeying orders, sang Yong Yong, and hurriedly rushed to his post to continue standing guard, but after hesitating for a moment, Meng Yu, one of the four sentinels of the Wu army, actually ran in front of Wu Chaoyue again, saluted and said: "Mr. Lian, there seems to be something wrong with the rebellious camp. ”

"What's the problem?" Wu Chaoyue asked casually.

"The camp of rebellion, within the range of our artillery." Meng Di, who had received artillery training on some foreigner warships with some training bravery, replied truthfully: "The last general used the triangular positioning method taught by foreigners to repeatedly calculate, and found that the distance between the long-haired camp and the fort on the right side of the Shence Gate was between five and a half miles to six miles, and the maximum firing range of the eight red-clothed cannons on the right side of the fort on the right side of the Shence Gate was ten miles, which could completely cover the entire long-haired camp. ”

"Is there such a thing?"

Wu Chaoyue's joy was not trivial, and he hurriedly led Meng Yu to the right fort, found a reference and stretched out his thumb to measure the distance between the fort and the Taiping army camp, and the result made Wu Chaoyue even happier that the Taiping army's Dazhuang Mountain camp was indeed only five or six miles away from this fort, so if these red-clothed cannons on the fort could really hit a distance of ten miles, then it would be easy to cover the entire Taiping army camp.

When Wu Chaoyue used the triangulation method to calculate the distance, the Qing gunners on the fort had been watching the excitement from the side, and several of them asked curiously: "Lord Wu, what are you doing?" ”

"Measure the distance between here and the long-haired camp? How? You don't even know that? ”

Wu Chaoyue asked suspiciously, several gunners shook their heads and said they didn't know, when Wu Chaoyue was even more confused, Meng Yu came up and whispered in Wu Chaoyue's ear: "Mr. Lian, the last general has tried, they don't understand anything, don't say that the distance is calculated by the triangulation method, that is, they can't even look at the ruler, and the amount of charge is not right, and the shells used are also problematic." But these things have been taught to us by foreigners, so as long as we replace the gunners with our people, we can definitely shoot cannonballs into the long-haired camp. ”

Wu Chaoyue was even more overjoyed when he heard this, and while glad that he was forced by Ali Guo to send Lian Yong to receive artillery training, he hurriedly led Meng Yu to find Geng Huan. However, at this time, some foot knights suddenly rushed to the side of the Taiping army, and Wu Chaoyue could only put aside the artillery matter for the time being, and quickly ordered to practice Yong to prepare for battle, and then habitually picked up a mini gun - but Wu Chaoyue also knew very well in his heart that he was probably not as lucky as last night.

Wu Chaoyue felt that he could not have the same luck as last night, because he thought that the Taiping army would definitely learn a lesson and no longer enter the range of the Minnie gun, but Wu Chaoyue forgot a very important point, that is, Lin Fengxiang was shot next to the moat last night, so the Taiping army still didn't know the terrible range of the Minnie gun, and then ......

Then the cavalry of the Taiping Army approached half a mile away from the city gate arrogantly, and Cai Lianxiu, the Taiping general who led the team, also raised a monocular and looked at the city, looking for the murderer who seriously injured Lin Fengxiang. Wu Chaoyue saw that there was such a good thing, and quickly ordered the snipers to collectively aim at Cai Lianxiu, who was wearing the color of a general's uniform, and then with an order, twenty-one mini guns fired at the same time, and all the bullets were directed at Cai Lianxiu. Then, Cai Lianxiu was extremely unlucky to turn over and fall off the horse, and was killed on the spot with three bullets in his body.

When the Taiping soldiers screamed and hurriedly carried Cai Lianxiu's body and crawled for their lives, there was already a burst of joy on the Shence Gate, and the green battalion soldiers, regardless of whether they could hit or not, all used arquebuses to shoot at those Taiping soldiers, and the batteries on the left and right sides also opened fire one after another, shelling the Taiping soldiers who were fleeing - unfortunately, one cannon was more ridiculous than the other, and even a single hair of the Taiping Army was not touched.

The Taiping army ran away in embarrassment, but Geng Huan, the guard of the Shence Gate, rushed to Wu Chaoyue with his hands and feet, snatched Wu Chaoyue's Mini gun to appreciate and study, and cheekily asked Wu Chaoyue for a defense. Wu Chaoyue also took the opportunity to say: "Brother Geng, if you want to take it, I'll give you a handful." But there is one thing I want to discuss with you, some of my regimental training have practiced bravely on foreigners' warships, and learned the use of artillery from foreigners, I would like to ask you to hand over the artillery here in Shence Gate to them to operate, and help your gunners bombard Changmao, okay? ”

"It's a small thing." Geng Huan waved his hand and said, "From now on, you can also take care of Brother Wu of the fort of the Shence Gate, if the gunner is not obedient, you will come to me directly." ”

Wu Chaoyue and Meng Yu were overjoyed when they heard this, and then Wu Chaoyue hurriedly ordered Meng Yu to gather Lian Yong, who had received artillery training, and let them go to the fort to manipulate the artillery to aim at the Taiping Army camp, and then Wu Chaoyue instructed Meng Yu: "Just adjust the firing angle of the artillery, don't rush to fire the cannon first, and talk about it in the evening." ”

Meng Wei asked the reason suspiciously, and Wu Chaoyue bowed to the Taiping Army camp that was under intense construction in the distance, and replied with a smile: "Of course, it is to make Changmao work hard, fire now, and run away before the long-hair camp is repaired, wouldn't it save a lot of effort?" ”

Meng Yu suddenly realized, hurriedly laughed and agreed, and then acted according to Wu Chaoyue's order, gathered the gunners to take over the fort, and also took over the fort on the left side of the Shence Gate according to Wu Chaoyue's instructions, and adjusted the firing angle to the maximum as much as possible to enhance the firepower.

When the gunners of the Wu army happily took over the fort on the city wall, Ji Wenyuan, the general of the Taiping Army, shed tears in front of the corpse of Cai Lianxiu, the beloved general, and after asking what happened, Ji Wenyuan roared and roared that he must avenge his generals, and had to order: "From now on, no one is allowed to approach within one mile of the city wall of Shence Gate without my order!" Hurry up and build your camp, and be sure to finish it before sunset! ”

The sun gradually set, and after eating a simple meal on the city wall that made Jiang Ning Lian Yong's eyes red, Wu Chaoyue first carefully looked at the Taiping army camp with a telescope, and saw that the Taiping army camp was almost completed, so he immediately ordered the gunners to prepare to open fire. Where are you shooting? ”

Bothered to pay attention to Geng Huan, after asking the gunners to be ready, Wu Chaoyue waved the command flag in his hand and decisively ordered the cannons to be fired, and the Wu gunners ignited the sixteen cannons on the Shence Gate at the same time, and the sixteen cannons roared one after another, and the sixteen solid cannonballs were bombarded successively at the Taiping army camp in the distance. Then, what made Geng Huan and the Qing army gunners stunned happened, in their eyes, the sixteen red-coated cannons that could only hit a distance of one or two miles at most, and nine of the guns accurately hit the Taiping army camp, bombing the Taiping army camp into a crowd. Although the other seven artillery pieces did not hit the target, the shells all landed within half a mile of the Taiping camp.

"How can our artillery hit so far? Can you still hit so accurately? How did we not know before? ”

When Geng Huan and the Qing gunners were dumbfounded and screamed, the Wu gunners rushed up without saying a word to reload and reload, and readjusted the high firing angles of the seven guns that did not hit the target, and then ignited and fired the cannons one after another.

The morale of the Qing army was high, but the soldiers of the Taiping Army who were having dinner and had finally repaired the camp were dumbfounded, and even Ji Wenyuan, who had been on the battlefield for a long time, exclaimed, "How is it possible?" How could the Qing Demon's artillery be so accurate? Still playing so far? Isn't that the Qing Demon Cannon on the side of the Treasure Gate like this? There's a ghost on this side of the Shence Gate?! "-You can't blame Ji Wenyuan for being a rookie, he was a rookie of the Qing army that Ji Wenyuan had encountered before, and he had never exerted the true strength of the red-coated cannon, so after meeting the Wu army gunners who had received training in modern artillery operations, Ji Wenyuan completely became a rookie.

No matter how much you scream, it was useless, after adjusting the firing angle and shooting height by the last afterglow after sunset, the Wu gunners could easily bombard the cannonballs into the Taiping army camp even if they lit the lantern lighting and filled the ammunition, and the Taiping army had just built the camp to the point that the fence was shattered, the wall was broken, and occasionally a few shells broke out, which happened to bombard the Taiping army's camp tent, and the Taiping soldiers in the tent were even more unlucky, and there were several who were smashed into pieces.

In the end, at about the time of the second watch, when a cannonball smashed into Ji Wenyuan's tent, Ji Wenyuan, who had planned to grit his teeth and hold on all night, could not hold on any longer, and was forced to shout: "Order the whole army to pull out the camp overnight and camp in the north of the mountain!" Lose his mother, the Qing demon on this side of the Shence Gate is just too weird! ”

The order was conveyed, and the soldiers of the Taiping Army, who had worked hard for a day, could only get up in a hurry, abandon the camp that had just been repaired not long ago, and move the camp overnight with torches and grain and grass. And after seeing this in the telescope, Wu Chaoyue thought about it again, then turned to Geng Huan, who had been by his side, and said: "Brother Geng, the opportunity for meritorious service has come, Changmao is moving the camp, it is a great opportunity for us to highlight the strange soldiers, do you have the courage to take a death squad out to rush Changmao?" The long hair is coming in a hurry, the physical strength has dropped seriously, the fighter plane can be met but not sought, as long as you have the guts, I will keep you and you can catch a lot of heads! ”

Seeing the torches on the side of the Taiping Army in the telescope, Geng Huan also understood that the Taiping Army must be moving the camp overnight, and after listening to Wu Chaoyue's instigation, it was inevitable that he was a little tempted, but he only moved in his heart, Geng Huan quickly shook his head and said: "Brother Wu, it's not that I don't have the guts, it's that you also know the situation here, those Qiu Bacha under my command are too far behind in your practice, and you will be sent to death if you take it." Besides, the long hair is cunning, even if the camp is moved in a hurry, there must be an army to take precautions, and this cheap will not be so easy to choose. ”

Wu Chaoyue knew that Geng Huan was telling the truth, but at the moment, this fighter plane was rare, and it was a rare opportunity for actual combat training - training with the Taiping Army was ten times better than Zhou Lichun and Chen Mujin's rabble. So after thinking about it carefully for a long time, Wu Chaoyue quickly came up with a bad idea, and came to Geng Huan's ear and muttered in a low voice, Geng Huan also thought about it for a long time after listening to it, and finally nodded and said, "Okay, just do it!" ”

…………

As Geng Huan said, although Ji Wenyuan, who was old on the battlefield, was forced to move the camp overnight, he still separately assigned 500 elite soldiers to be led by the general Shi Shaoheng, and arranged them on the flank to prevent the Qing army from taking the opportunity to launch an attack - although Ji Wenyuan knew very well that the Qing army did not have the guts. However, to Ji Wenyuan's surprise, at the beginning of the third watch, there were really some Qing soldiers who came over with torches, and they beat gongs and drums from afar.

There was no suspense, just saw the Taiping soldiers killing with red eyes, those Qing soldiers who went out of the city didn't even blink their eyelids, and immediately threw down the torches, gongs and drums and scattered their legs to flee for their lives, Shi Shaoheng led the army to chase after him, Ji Wenyuan, who was experienced in the battlefield, saw that the situation was not right, and hurriedly sent someone to contact Shi Shaoheng, asking Shi Shaoheng to beware of the Qing army ambush, but Shi Shaoheng yelled and replied: "There are Qing demon ambushes are not afraid!" I still wish these dogs and demons would come out of the city and ambush me! ”

Of course, there were ambushes, when Shi Shaoheng took the Taiping soldiers all the way to the edge of the moat, the war drums in the city sounded, and a row of bullets was immediately shot from the opposite side of the moat, and at the same time, the Qing army Lian Yong in the city also shot and threw torches, and the Taiping soldiers who were shouting and charging suddenly lay down a lot of people. But Shi Shaoheng and other Taiping soldiers were not only not afraid at all, but also continued to charge, shouting and preparing to directly cross the seriously silted moat, and swore to kill the Qing demon who was ambushed on the other side of the moat.

Shi Shaoheng and other Taiping soldiers soon found out that something was wrong, although the number of Qing soldiers ambushed on the opposite side of the moat was not very many, but the speed of musket shooting was unseen in their lives, usually the arquebus fired a shot time, the Qing soldiers on the opposite side were able to fire five or six shots, in the face of such a high frequency of shooting, the Taiping soldiers who had been accustomed to the arquebus rate of fire were caught off guard and suffered a big loss, and the casualties were very heavy.

Of course, there were also brave Taiping soldiers who jumped into the moat, and continued to charge forward, but when they fought with the silt while dodging bullets and rushed to the other side of the moat, before they could jump ashore, a stabbed bayonet had already appeared in front of them!

"Brothers, kill!" Wu Chaoyue, who had a rope tied to the upper city around his waist, brandished a revolver and roared, and couldn't wait to pull the trigger on a nearby Taiping soldier, killing a heroic Taiping soldier on the spot!