At the same time as the land battle behind the Weiyuan Battery Group began, the British Expeditionary Fleet Commander Seymour and Deputy Commander He Bo personally led the expeditionary fleet to attack more than 70 warships with the Ottoman and Dutch fleets, and began to attack the Weiyuan Battery Group on a large scale.

This time, Seymour decided to take advantage of the opportunity for the army to attack the fort from the rear, and dispatched the main force of the expeditionary fleet to bombard the fort head-on, so as to attack from both sides, and then under the cover of gunboat fire, the infantry flanked from behind and on the side of the fort, and quickly captured the Weiyuan fort, so as to penetrate deep into the inland river and capture the city of Guangzhou as soon as possible.

After all, the war has started at this moment, and if it drags on, it will not only give Guangzhou City more time to prepare for war, but also for the logistics supply and morale of the expeditionary fleet. Besides, Seymour's concept was not just to capture the city of Canton, but also to have many ports behind, Xiamen, Fuzhou, Ningbo, Shanghai, and even Nanjing, the capital of the Chinese Empire, all of which had to be conquered by his expeditionary fleet, and if other places were as difficult as Canton, Seymour could not accept it.

After he was ready to capture the city of Guangzhou, especially after annihilating the two fleets hiding in the Pearl River, he divided his forces and captured several ports at the same time, so as to completely crush the resistance of the entire eastern country more quickly! In fact, if it weren't for the fact that he found those fleets hiding in the inland rivers of the Pearl River, and the first battery was so difficult to capture, he would not have been prepared to send so many large main warships into the inland rivers of the Pearl River, after all, the river is not as deep as the sea, even if the water depth of the Pearl River channel does not allow the warships to run aground, but after all, it is still narrow, and it is difficult to exert combat power when crowded together.

However, in order to publicize the great national strength of the British Empire and show the military strength of the British Expeditionary Force, and secondly, to capture Guangzhou with the most powerful force to ensure that nothing goes wrong, Seymour finally decided to capture the city of Guangzhou in one fell swoop with the strongest fleet without dividing his troops.

And the first obstacle is this battery group.

Seymour did not expect that in just a few years, this eastern country would learn from the fortresses of Europe, and build so many strong fortresses on a large scale, and the first battery was bombarded before it fell. Not only that, but the other party's Krupp artillery is indeed as He Bo said, and the range is actually farther than the Armstrong cannon newly developed by the British Empire, fortunately, the Eastern artillery is not as well-trained as the gunners of the British Empire, otherwise, I am afraid that this battle will be even more difficult to fight.

When the troops were dispatched early this morning, Seymour ordered that in addition to his own flagship, the Duke of Wellington, the other four battleships, the "Willisley", "Captain Hundred", "Melville", and "Branham", as well as the "Yuriales", "Duru One", "Conway", "Browny", "Volaquium", "Alligator", "Chesapeake", "Awake", "Croucfler", "Talisha", "Harknight", and "Hutt" These 12 capital cruisers, all dispatched, plus the other 20 or so medium cruisers and other main warships and frigates, as well as nearly 30 steam gunboats and shallow water steam gunboats, the entire river can no longer accommodate so many warships, these small warships braved the artillery fire, looking for fighters like needles.

The warships of the British expeditionary fleet swooped down on the row of batteries on the east bank of the main general. It is to prepare to bomb it out in one fell swoop with the heaviest artillery fire, and cooperate with the infantry in the rear, and completely occupy it during the day today.

At this moment, the three major forts of Weiyuan, Zhenyuan, and Jingyuan of the Weiyuan Fort Group, because they were in the middle of the rocks on the foreshore, were close to the water and the waves, and were controlling the main channel of the Pearl River, and they had already issued an alarm to shell the British warships that had entered the firing range. Later, the Nanshan Fort and the Dahushan Fort behind also launched artillery bombardment.

The rumbling sound of artillery shook the entire Pearl River. Within a few minutes, there were several salvos, and thousands of shells fell into the British fleet on the river, and from time to time there were soldiers killed and wounded on British warships, and warships were damaged.

After several times of this, several small warships finally suffered too many shells, could not bear it, were seriously damaged, retreated or lost their combat capability, and even a cruiser "Wola" also suffered heavy damage, and the side compartments began to flood, and they had to retreat to prepare for port repairs.

However, the British expeditionary fleet, although it seems to have been beaten, is not without achievements. Several troop carriers have approached the upper and lower rungs and have successfully landed. The main warships have also successfully approached within 3 kilometers of the Weiyuan battery group, but Seymour is not in a hurry to order fire, he has to wait until the main warships are within 2.5 kilometers of the Weiyuan battery, so that the 5 battleships and 12 capital cruisers have reached the best range, and the main warships and all kinds of gunboats behind have also reached the effective range, and then fire together, using the power of intensive artillery fire to overturn the battery.

At this moment, the "Melville", which had been hit by several artillery shots at the front of the fleet, suddenly sent a flag that an iron chain had been found in the river, and the hull of the ship could not be approached by the battery. Seymour realized that the cunning enemy must have placed chains or ropes in the middle of the river, and while he ordered the British troops occupying the upper and lower rungs to quickly search for the source of the chains, he filled the two troop transports with water and rushed to the front as the vanguard, while the main warships in the rear were close together, firing at the batteries and advancing slowly.

However, even if the British fleet coped with it properly, it was still delayed for about ten minutes, and was stopped by iron chains 3 kilometers in front of the battery, which was the best range position for the artillery on the battery, and in just ten minutes, it suffered heavy losses.

The concealed forts, which were originally hidden in the branches and weeds, suddenly revealed their black barrels, and in an instant, dozens of cannons of the entire Weiyuan Fort group opened fire together, and more than 300 gunners guarding the Nanshan Fort on the mountainside of Nanshan also began to shoot fiercely.

The flotilla of the captives, which had long been behind the Dahushan Fort, and the six gunboats hiding in the bay of the Taiping Waterway immediately set out, adjusted their distance, and began to shell the British fleet by using their range.

A medium-sized cruiser was hit and the ammunition depot exploded, and the entire warship was blown off by the waist, and it sank underwater before even the friendly forces around it could rescue it. The other two steam shallow gunboats were hit several times, and suddenly the bilge was flooded, and the British soldiers on the gunboats fled. In addition, a large cruiser was also badly damaged and had to return to port for repairs, several frigates and gunboats were badly damaged, and even the battleship "Melville" at the front was also seriously damaged, the ship's steam system failed, the sails were damaged in many places, and the speed was greatly reduced.

As for the entire fleet, more than 10 warships were slightly injured, not counting the British soldiers and sailors on the warships, dozens of people were killed by dense shells, and more than 100 people were injured.

Unfortunately, this situation didn't last long.

Half an hour later, an iron chain at the east end of the upper rungboard island was found and destroyed, and although the iron chain between the lower rungder island and Nanshan was not found, it was broken by two water-filled troop carriers.

On the top of Nanshan Mountain, Tabuqi, who watched the battle on the water surface of the river through a telescope, couldn't help but feel sorry. Those wooden platoons were buried in this section of the river with great manpower and material resources to intercept the merchant ships to avoid leaking news, but they were destroyed by the British army in this way.

At this time, the British fleet also launched a huge attack!

Seymour and Captain Holly personally led the "Duke Wellington" and the "Captain of the Centennial", together with the other two battleships, turned the ship sideways to face the east bank, and fired a fierce salvo on the right side of the ship against the Weiyuan battery.

These four battleships alone were fired by hundreds of guns at the same time, and the momentum was shocking.

The other main warships that followed on one side, 11 large cruisers, other small and medium-sized cruisers, frigates, and more gunboats opened fire one after another, and suddenly the bullets rained down like meteorites on the river bank of the Weiyuan Battery.

Thousands of shells fell in a messy manner on the front of the fort more than a mile long along the coast, and suddenly the entire river bank shook violently and violently.

After several rounds of shelling, the smoke of gunfire filled the entire river surface and riverbank, and it was no longer possible to distinguish the specific terrain and targets, and both sides were desperately firing artillery.

It has to be said that Seymour was good at commanding large-scale naval battles, and while directing the artillery bombardment at the front, he also ordered the steam shallow water gunboats at the very edge to take advantage of the good opportunity filled with smoke to enter the Taiping Waterway and engage in a fierce exchange of fire with the six Chinese imperial gunboats at the inlet. At the same time, a combined fleet of more than 30 British warships, Ottoman and Dutch warships, broke through the Upper Crossing Island, and launched an attack on the Dahushan Fort in the north and the Chinese Imperial Fleet behind.

The British soldiers who had already landed on the upper and lower rungs also began to tidy up the upper and lower rungs of the forts, assemble the cannons, adjust the angles, and fire at the Weiyuan forts.

A scuffle, from morning to morning, a full four hours. Both sides opened fire numbly, the entire battlefield was covered with smoke, and the attacking and defending sides did not even know how much they lost, and both sides were red-eyed. However, the sound of artillery is gradually not as alarming as it was at the beginning, and needless to say, it must be the reason for the gradual increase in the number of warships and batteries that can fight.

And the battle on the east side of Nanshan Mountain and the south slope behind the Weiyuan Fort has also begun to heat up!