Before Li Xiucheng returned to Nanjing, Hong Xiuquan and Meng Deen had already sent Liang Fengchao, who was the most proficient in water warfare in Nanjing, to lead more than 10,000 elites to garrison Jiuhuanzhou, and a small number of Nanjing Taiping warships and a large number of forcibly recruited civilian ships were all transferred to the narrow northern channel of Jiuhuanzhou, so as to ensure the communication between the Nanjing Taiping Army and the north bank of the Yangtze River.

Liang Fengchao did not disappoint Hong Xiuquan and others, even during the victory of the Wu Army's naval division Xu Laibu's troops, the Taiping Army's naval division commanded by Liang Fengchao still did not let the Nanjing Taiping Army and the Jiangbei Taiping Army lose contact, and also took risks many times to escort the troop and grain transport ships across the Yangtze River, and sent a lot of Jiangbei grain to the Nanjing battlefield under the nose of the Wu Army's naval division. When the Wu army Feng Sanbao's troops once went north to feint to attack Jiangpu, Liang Fengchao's troops also made the Wu army's sailors retreat with strict defense, and did not dare to take advantage of the situation to launch an attack on Jiuhuanzhou.

Of course, these are also related to the strategic purpose of the Wu army at that time, the biggest purpose of the Wu army at that time was to put pressure on the Taiping Army in Nanjing, forcing Li Xiucheng to return to Nanjing as soon as possible to share the pressure for the Wu army in Shanghai, and he had no interest or energy to clean up the Taiping Army in Jiuhuanzhou, otherwise, with the water and land strength of the Wu army at that time, it was not absolutely impossible to take Jiuhuanzhou.

However, Wu Jun's temporary forbearance caused another consequence, that is, Liang Fengchao thought that he was sure enough to hold Jiuhuanzhou, and there was no need for people to interfere in the important land of Jiuhuanzhou, so when Li Xiucheng sent his subordinate general Gui Tianyi Fu Zhenggang to lead the army to Jiuhuanzhou to help Liang Fengchao, Liang Fengchao not only was not grateful, but on the contrary, he felt that Li Xiucheng was doing too much and causing trouble for himself. - Because after Fu Zhenggang landed on Jiuhuanzhou with 20,000 Taiping troops from Jiangsu and Zhejiang, the Taiping troops on Jiuhuanzhou not only had to face trivial problems such as readjusting the camp and defense, but also had the troublesome problem of two bosses on one island and two armies, Liang Fengchao and Fu Zhenggang were not subordinate to each other, neither of them could command anyone, and they were both a little unconvinced of each other.

"A group of landlubbers, who don't know how to fight a water war and come to Jiuhuanzhou, what role can it play?"

This is Liang Fengchao's complaint quietly when Fu Zhenggang's army landed on the island, but fortunately, Liang Fengchao's personality is not too stubborn, and he knows that Li Xiucheng is also well-intentioned, so Liang Fengchao still welcomed Fu Zhenggang's arrival with a smile on his face, adjusted the camp to make room for Fu Zhenggang to set up camp, and agreed with Fu Zhenggang to discuss and go. Then after confirming that the Wu Army's naval division had set out from Wuhu and marched eastward, Liang Fengchao also agreed with Fu Zhenggang at the first time, and decided that Liang Fengchao's army would be responsible for fighting water battles and defending forts, and Fu Zhenggang's army would be responsible for blocking the landing of Wu's naval division, and would also be responsible for protecting the ten pontoon bridges on the northern channel of Jiuhuanzhou.

Of course, the march on the water is far faster than on land, even if the Wu army sailors did not rush overnight, on the morning of the battle of the Wu army Cao Yanzhong's army at Moling Pass, the Wu army sailors still calmly arrived at the upper reaches of Jiuhuanzhou, and appeared in front of the Taiping army with the strongest lineup for the first time since the Eastern Expedition.

There are as many as eight steam paddle gunboats alone, two of which are still the most advanced iron-hulled steam gunboats in the world, and there are six sail warships and 16 red single boats that are like water batteries to help, more than 800 gunwales, and more than 400 military sampans to protect the near side, which stretches for several miles, and the strength is enough to crush the Taiping army sailors in the heyday. So after seeing the huge fleet of the Wu Army's naval division in the telescope, not to mention that Liang Fengchao, who bore the brunt of the attack, turned pale, and even Fu Zhenggang, who was only responsible for fighting land battles, exclaimed, "God! How come the sailors of the demon soldiers have so many gunboats? How will this battle be fought? ”

Liang Fengchao, who was in charge of the fort and the naval division, hurriedly ordered the army to prepare for battle, and the defenders of the fort were all in place and arranged in advance to rotate the army, and the large ships of the naval division and the unarmed ferries and cargo ships were all transferred to the outlet of the North Channel of Jiuhuanzhou to hide, and the small boats were all arranged at the inlet of the North Channel of Jiuhuanzhou to help Fu Zhenggang's army protect the pontoon bridge. At the same time, he hurriedly contacted the Taiping army in Jiangpu and Pukou, so that they were ready to send reinforcements at any time.

During this period, Liang Fengchao and Fu Zhenggang had a dispute, Liang Fengchao asked Fu Zhenggang's army to enter the position in advance in order to block the landing of the Wu army at any time, but Fu Zhenggang was afraid that his army would be too close to the river bank and be covered by the artillery fire of the Wu army's naval division with heavy casualties, and insisted on waiting for the Wu army to start landing before sending troops to intercept it. In the end, under the persuasion of others, although Liang and Fu each made a step, Fu Zhenggang agreed to let part of the troops enter the blocking position in advance, but both of them were extremely unhappy in their hearts, and they felt that the other party was too selfish, and they were also very dissatisfied with each other.

Before the fighting spirit subsided, the sailors of the Wu army had already begun to move, and six huge sail warships lined up in a column under the protection of military sampans, and took the lead in killing the southwest battery that protected the entrance of the north channel of Jiuhuanzhou, and eight steam gunboats followed closely in a diamond-shaped formation, and the Taiping army battery did not dare to slack off, and the Wu army fleet had just entered the firing range and fired the first shot of this land and water war.

Still suffer from the lack of technology, the gunners of the Taiping Army who were born in the wild road rely on experience to open their guns, and the hit rate has never been high, and hitting the water moving target is half dependent on luck and half on luck, so even if the Taiping Army deployed more than 30 artillery pieces at the dangerous position of the entrance to the North Channel and fired together, only four shells hit the sail warship of the Wu army - all of them were solid shells, and three of them were directly hit on the side armor of the sail warship of the Wu army, and the damage caused to the Wu army's warship was pitiful.

The sail warships of the Wu army, which were beaten first, were very calm, and they were not in a hurry to fire back, or after the Taiping army shore artillery fired the second cannon, the sail warships of the Wu army were generally within half a mile of the Taiping army battery, and the sail warships of the Wu army opened fire together, and opened fire with a pendulum ** flow, and bombarded the solid shells to the Taiping army battery, and the Wu army steam gunboats behind also fired with large-caliber bow guns, and bombarded the black powder flowering shells to the enemy's gun position.

The use of solid shells and black powder flowering shells is because the style and equipment of the Wu army's sail warships are old, and there is no way to use flowering shells, and the steam gunboats are because the British side blocks the technology of large-caliber breech rifled guns to the whole world, and the caliber of Wu's three-pounder breech guns is too small, and if it is used to equip the most important bow position of the steam gunboats, it will be too wasteful of tonnage and firepower, so the steam gunboats of the Wu army are equipped with 24-pounder guns or 32-pounder guns, and can only use black powder shells. The three-pounder breech-loading rifled gun was equipped on the side of the ship for water combat, and at this time, the steam gunboat of the Wu army was facing the Taiping army battery, so it could only shoot black powder flowering shells.

Although the technology of artillery and shells is a little backward and outdated, it doesn't matter, in history, the Hunan army can take Jiuhuanzhou with these antique ships and military sampans, which will Wu military sail warships and steam gunboats to fight Jiuhuanzhou, in fact, it is still equivalent to killing chickens with knives, overkill.

The Taiping Army's Jiuhuanzhou Fort was very strong, but like the Wu Army's fort, it suffered from the fact that the construction technology was far behind that of the West, and the Taiping Army's fort was also an open-air fort without the protection of a stone roof or iron roof, which also doomed the Taiping Army Forts to suffer heavy casualties in long-range artillery battles. The large and small shells of the Wu army roared and raged, constantly falling to the ground and exploding or bouncing, and once the gunners of the Taiping Army who had no protection in the sky above their heads were affected by the explosion of the flowering shells, they would be seriously injured even if they did not die - after all, the bow guns of the Wu army's steam gunboats were either 32 or 24 pounds of caliber, and the charge was quite large. And once it is directly hit or bounced by a solid shell, then the gunner of the Taiping Army will end up with a broken tendon and fracture at the lightest, and even a broken internal organ if it is heavy!

Bang! Bang! The sound of artillery continued, the sail warships of the Wu Army were like water batteries, and the sail warships of the Wu Army took turns firing with their side guns, and the shells were bombarded one after another to the fixed targets of the Taiping Army Forts, and the first row of guns was finished, and the second row immediately followed with the fire, without any interruption, until the Taiping Army's batteries were bombarded with thousands of holes, and the dust and smoke were filled, and there were flowering shells that exploded on the ground from time to time, splashing clusters of fire on the Taiping Army Batteries, making the Taiping Army gunners feel like they were in an iron fire hell, and the number of casualties rose rapidly.

Of course, the gunners of the Taiping Army were also bravely firing back, but they did not receive professional training, did not know how to correct the gun position and adjust the angle of fire, and stood at a fixed place to hit a moving target on the water, and the hit rate was naturally quite pitiful, and the so-called return fire did not have any effect at all, and the biggest role that the artillery shooting could play was only to let the Wu gunners see where their gun positions were located and bombard their artillery positions more accurately.

"Shoot! Fire! ”

"The cannonballs of the demon soldiers are coming, get down!"

"Ahh Help me! My leg! My leg! Who's going to save me! ”

"Bomb the cannon! Hide! Hide! ”

Similar screams have been echoing on the Taiping army's batteries, and the panicked Taiping gunners have also been running to escape in the flames and smoke, and when the Wu army's steam gunboat adjusted its position and began to use the breech guns on the side of the ship to fire picric acid shells, the desperate screams of the Taiping gunners also reached their peak, "Demon artillery shells!" Demon artillery shells are coming! Find a way to hide! Find a way to hide! ”

The burning effect of the bitter acid pit bittered the Taiping artillery shells in the open air, and also ignited the gunpowder that the Taiping gunners were loading several times, causing a secondary explosion, and also caused several Taiping artillery to be detonated, the shelling was only more than half an hour, and the Taiping army's artillery was already muted nearly half, and the gunner's casualties were even more heavy, forcing Liang Fengchao to use the rotation of gunners early, but unfortunately this still did not have any effect, on the contrary, it only made the Taiping gunners die more and faster.

After more than an hour of shelling, the southwest fort of the Taiping Army in Jiuhuanzhou was basically turned into a ruin, and only five or six of the more than 30 artillery pieces were still firing occasionally. The soldiers of Fu Zhenggang's Taiping Army, who were forced by Liang Fengchao to enter the position in advance in advance, were covered by artillery fire, and the casualties rose rapidly, Fu Zhenggang also began to scold, scolding the gunners under Liang Fengchao's command for being incompetent, and scolding Liang Fengchao for refusing to listen to his correct opinions, resulting in his army being shelled by the Wu army in vain.

The Wu gunboats went down the river, and the target was of course the Taiping Army's naval division ships and transport ships hiding at the outlet of the north channel of Jiuhuanzhou, and as a result, although the Taiping Army battery protecting the outlet of the water outlet supported a little longer than the inlet battery, it was still bombarded into a ruin by the fierce artillery fire of the Wu army in just two hours, and the Taiping army fleet hiding behind the fort had no choice but to hastily flee into the narrow north channel of Jiuhuanzhou, during which the ships collided with each other in a chaotic manner, and many ships capsized and sank or ran aground. There were also many civilian sailors forcibly recruited by the Taiping Army who took the opportunity to flee for their lives, and then they were densely congested in the narrow waterways, completely losing their mobility and could only be beaten passively.

Fortunately for the Taiping Army's naval division, the northern channel of Jiuhuanzhou was too narrow, and the large warships of the Wu army did not dare to rush in casually to chase and kill, so after the naval fleet escaped beyond the range of the Wu army's warships, the Wu army's naval division had no way to deal with the Taiping army's fleet for the time being, and Liang Fengchao, who was ordered to command the Taiping Army's naval division, also breathed a long sigh of relief, wiped his cold sweat and said: "Fortunately, I can still keep the fleet." ”

Liang Fengchao really underestimated the madness and arrogance of some Wu Jun's sailors, and forced the Taiping Army's fleet into the northern channel of Jiuhuanzhou, and the two small iron-hulled steam gunboats of the Wu army suddenly turned around and sailed back, and returned to the inlet of the north channel of Jiuhuanzhou to rendezvous with the rear army, and then under the protection of two red single boats, forty military sampans and twenty scout clippers, a small iron-hulled steam gunboat rushed into the narrow north channel of Jiuhuanzhou without hesitation, and fired fiercely at the small boats of the Taiping Army sailors hiding in the northern channel.

"The demon soldier's steamer dares to rush in?!"

At the same time, Liang Fengchao immediately understood that his opportunity might come, in addition to ordering the sailor's boat to meet him to fight a close-quarters battle, he quickly sent someone to contact Fu Zhenggang, asking Fu Zhenggang to quickly send troops forward to help the sailor's boat deal with the Wu army's boats that ventured into the narrow waterway. And Fu Zhenggang also had a bit of a big picture, even though he knew that there would definitely be a lot of casualties in such a fight, he still sent his army to rush to the north shore of Jiuhuanzhou and opened fire on the Wu army's fleet.

Under the persecution of the leading generals, the small boats of the Taiping Army, which were weak in firepower, were like moths to a fire, howling and shouting and paddling and rushing towards the big ships of the Wu army, in a vain attempt to set fire to the steam cannon ships and red single boats of the Wu army near the side. The sampan of the Wu army, which was responsible for protecting the inshore side of the big ship, also did not hesitate to meet the enemy, using muskets and grenades to meet the incoming enemy.

Then, Fu Zhenggang's Taiping army also rushed to the shore of Jiuhuanzhou and began to join the battle, but unfortunately, the Taiping soldiers who shot in line were immediately bombarded by the Wu army's gunwales.

At the same time, the large-caliber bow guns of the Wu army's steam gunboats were also firing at the pontoon bridges that had been holding the Taiping army, and as a result, relying on the superb skills of the Wu army's gunners and the hit rate bonus of short-distance shooting, the first Taiping army pontoon bridge quickly broke and fell into the water, and then the second pontoon bridge was also directly hit by the 24-pound shells of the Wu army's steam gunboats, and was directly blown to pieces, and the Taiping soldiers guarding the bridge fell into the water continuously, screaming and floating everywhere.

More ruthless is still behind, with the continuous density of the Taiping army's boats, the Wu army clipper, which had been hiding behind the military sampan, suddenly made a move, with curling green smoke and rushed into the dense place of the Taiping army's fleet, the Wu army sailors on the ship jumped into the water first to escape, the soldiers of the Taiping army sailors found that the situation was not good and quickly dived, but they still could not change the consequences of the Wu army's clippers rushing into their fleet's dense place, the Wu army's sailors only used a grasshopper clipper full of Dana explosives, and they sank and overturned nearly twenty Taiping army boats, The pressure on Wu's sampan fleet was also greatly reduced. Then, two more Wu army fast boats rushed towards the enemy ship group and exploded, and more Taiping small boats were blown up, and the Taiping army's small boat fleet was completely chaotic, and it was even more unable to pose a threat to the Wu army's big ships.

After the third and fourth Taiping Army pontoon bridges were broken by the Wu army, another Wu army iron-hulled steamship also rushed into the north channel of Jiuhuanzhou under the protection of the same number of boats before, and attacked the pontoon bridge of the Taiping army without hesitation, constantly bombarding the enemy with large-caliber bow guns, smashing the water pontoon bridges of the Taiping army one by one, cutting off the direct continuity between the Taiping army and the north shore of Jiuhuanzhou.

In order to prevent the crowded Taiping fleet from being burned by the Wu army, Liang Fengchao could only take the Wu army fleet upstream to temporarily block the pontoon bridge, and quickly ordered the self-army fleet to rush out of the northern channel and flee downstream, trying to save the ships - without the ship, it would be difficult for the Taiping army to escape back to both sides of the strait. At the same time, Liang Fengchao hurriedly sent someone south to contact Li Xiucheng, and clearly told Li Xiucheng that unless the Wu army and the navy withdrew, he would no longer be able to ensure the smooth communication between the Nanjing Taiping Army and the Jiangbei Taiping army, and if the Wu army and the navy division gained a foothold near Jiuhuanzhou, it was very likely that the Taiping army of Jiuhuanzhou would be completely trapped on the island!

It was also a coincidence that when Liang Fengchao's emergency messenger saw Li Xiucheng, it happened that Li Mingcheng's emergency messenger also came to Li Xiucheng to ask for help, and when he heard the bad news that the two battlefields of Jiuhuanzhou and Moling Pass were in an emergency at the same time, Li Xiucheng's face turned blue for a long time before making a difficult decision, and said: "Let Liang Fengchao and Fu Zhenggang defend Jiuhuanzhou!" Save Moling Pass first! There is no hope on the water, only by keeping the Moling Pass, our grain, grass and ammunition can be replenished by land! ”