Long before dawn, seeing that the southwest corner of Wuchang County was already full of smoke and fire, Wu Chaoyue had already ordered the shelling to stop to save shells. Pen @ fun @ pavilion wWw. ｂｉｑUｇE。 info But even so, the fire in the city caused by picric acid has been completely out of control, the night wind urged the flames more than ten meters high to sweep north, constantly igniting the streets and houses in the city, buildings and trees, turning one house after another into a huge fire, the Taiping soldiers and the people in the city cried and ran in the smoke of the fire, chaotic, trampled on each other and died countless, fainted and fainted by the smoke abounded, everywhere there were cries of children calling mothers, and there were also chaotic crowds running to avoid the fire, The scene was as miserable as a doomsday hell.

The chaos in the city also seriously affected the morale of the Taiping army on the city wall, in order to rescue the grain, grass and ammunition hoarded in the houses, the guard Liu Man was also forced to transfer a lot of soldiers from the city to the city, but because the fire was too big and the city was too chaotic, these defender soldiers never looked back, and the city guard strength was greatly reduced.

When the sky gradually brightened to the point where he could see the situation in the city, Wu Chaoyue decisively ordered the breech artillery to continue firing, focusing on attacking the Taiping defenders in the city, and at the same time urging the mortar artillery to step forward and suppress the enemy in the city with more mortar shells, clearing the field and opening the way forward for the Wu soldiers. At the same time, the people of the Wu army also rushed forward with hoes, baskets and other tools, carrying stones and soil to fill the roadblocks and ditches, and dismantling the earthen walls opposite the trenches.

The counterattack of the Taiping army in Wuchang County was very weak, and the Taiping army that could really fight in the city was only about 2,000 people, trapped in part of the city by the flames, and went out of the city to attack the artillery position of the Wu army and was pinned down and killed partly, coupled with the artillery cover of the Wu army, there were naturally not many Taiping soldiers who could really shoot back in the southeast corner of the main battlefield, and they could not stop the Wu army and the people from quickly filling the trenches.

At the critical moment, Liu Man, the defender of the Taiping Army, made a mistake again, and even let the soldiers who had previously gone out of the city retreat to the defense line of the sheep and horse wall, in a vain attempt to strengthen the direct fire to prevent the Wu army from filling the trench, as a result, the Wu army's mortar slightly adjusted the angle of fire, and it didn't take a few cannons to blow up the Taiping soldiers who were hiding behind the sheep and horse wall and shoot the flesh and blood, burning the ghosts and howling wolves, and the Taiping soldiers who were lucky enough to escape the shelling also screamed and ran away to both sides, and no longer dared to stand in front of the Wu army to shoot at each other, Wu Jun and the people took the opportunity to speed up and fill the first trench in a race against time.

At the same time, the battle on the side of Hu Lin Yi also entered a white-hot stage, with the cover of the artillery fire of the water division, the two thousand Taiping troops led by Wei Jun barely landed successfully, quickly assembled into a formation, and began to carry out a fierce musket battle with the Hu Lin Yi Army, and the Hu Lin Yi Army calmly responded to the battle with the favorable terrain seized in advance, and constantly fought with the Taiping Army with three shots, and repelled the frontal charge of the Taiping Army twice. The Taiping Army's naval division, which was somewhat chaotic in formation, hurriedly withdrew to the open area of the water and rearranged its formation to prevent the Hunan Army's naval division from taking advantage of the situation to attack.

The critical moment to decide the outcome came, and before the formation of the Taiping Army's naval division was reorganized, the Hunan Army's naval division down the river had already been killed within visual range. However, at this critical moment that determined the future direction of the Battle of Wuhuang, Zeng Guohua, who commanded the Hunan Army's naval division, was too cautious and categorically rejected Yang Yuebin and Peng Yulin's unanimous proposal to raid the right flank of the Taiping Army's naval division, and only sent a sampan fleet to raid the right flank of the Taiping Army's naval division, which was still in the whole team.

As a result, although the effect of the raid was good, the Hunan army's sampan fleet successfully entered the Taiping army's right-wing ship group, causing great confusion on the Taiping army's right flank, but Qin Rigang, who led the Taiping army's naval division, made a decisive decision and decisively ordered the right wing to meet the enemy on the spot, and would rather let the right wing pay more losses than to rescue, but only urged the Chinese army and the left wing to move forward together, and took the initiative to meet the main force of the Hunan army's naval division to force Zeng Guohua to fight a decisive battle on the river. also completely missed the rare fighter that annihilated all units of the Taiping Army's naval division.

Zeng Guohua's wrong choice made Wu Chaoyue and Hu Linyi angry, originally as long as the main force of the Hunan Army's naval division broke the right flank of the Taiping Army's naval division, it could immediately bombard the back of the Taiping Army's Wei Jun's department with the ship's gunwales, and cooperate with Hu Linyi to defeat Wei Jun and lay the victory. Zeng Guohua just missed this good opportunity, Hu Linyijun naturally had no hope of quickly defeating Wei Junjun's army, and then triggered a chain reaction, seeing that the reinforcements were still holding on, Liu Manbu of the Taiping Army in Wuchang County naturally would not easily abandon the city and leave, resulting in the Hubei New Army could only continue to fight a tough battle. So after seeing this scene from a high place, even in front of Zeng Guofan's henchman Liu Rong, Wu Chaoyue couldn't help but scold, "Zeng Guohua's head is full of Yangtze River water, isn't it?" I just want to preserve my strength, why don't you want to think about how to kill thieves and break the enemy? ”

Liu Rong, who was in charge, was embarrassed and didn't dare to say anything, Wu Chaoyue had no choice but to continue to attack the fortification head-on according to the established plan, fortunately, the weapon advantage of the new army in Hubei was too huge, and the Taiping army defenders in Wuchang County were relatively few, and the Wu army was counterattacked very little, and the progress of filling the trench was extremely fast, and the second moat had also been filled. The experienced veteran Cao Yanzhong had also rushed to Wu Chaoyue's front and asked for instructions on whether to immediately organize the people to build a pontoon bridge to open the road for the Hubei New Army to reach the city.

Wu Chaoyue subconsciously wanted to agree, but when the words came to his lips, Wu Chaoyue changed his mind again, turned to Liu Rong next to him and said, "Mr. Meng Rong, please send someone to contact General Hu Linyi Hu and ask him if he needs reinforcements?" If necessary, I will immediately divide my troops to help him! ”

"Wu Futai, why did you think of going to help General Hu Linyi?" Liu Rong asked with some confusion.

"It's very simple, with the help of our army, General Hu's side will have hope to break the deadlock soon, quickly defeat the landing force of the Long-haired Water Division, and not give the Long-haired Water Division a chance to reinforce Wuchang County, and we will be much easier if we free up our hands to clean up the remnants of the enemy in the city." Wu Chaoyue explained: "But if I only storm the county seat of Wuchang, then the all-out war situation is likely to continue to stalemate, and we may pay more costs." ”

Liu Rong suddenly realized, and hurriedly sent someone to contact Hu Linyi, and secretly said in his heart: "Concentrate superior forces, annihilate local enemies, and divide and destroy all enemies one by one." Wu Futai used soldiers, and the marshal used soldiers ......, alas, no wonder he was able to serve as a provincial governor at such a young age. ”

As Wu Chaoyue expected, the arrogant Hu Linyi was indeed a little reluctant to bow his head and ask Wu Chaoyue for help, but since Wu Chaoyue took the initiative to divide his troops to help, he fought with Wei Jun on the opposite side, and it was difficult to solve the problem, and he was not sure of victory. Hu Linyi naturally no longer hesitated, and immediately nodded in agreement, after the news was brought back to Wu Chaoyue by the fast horse, Wu Chaoyue didn't even blink an eyelid, and immediately ordered Huang Dasha to lead a battalion to reinforce, and the remaining two battalions temporarily stopped attacking the city, and stood by to protect the artillery battalion tightly.

In order not to let his subordinates say that he was nepotistic, Wu Chaoyue did not let his brother-in-law Nie Shicheng directly serve as a battalion officer when he formed the Hubei New Army, but let him serve as a sentry officer in the battalion of Huang Dasha, the number one fierce general under his command. As a result, Nie Shicheng really did not disappoint Huang Dasha and disgrace Wu Chaoyue, and led the army to walk at the front of the team, the queue was neat, the steps were firm, and the dense horizontal team was like an iron wall and directly forced the position of Wei Jun's department of the Taiping Army.

Knowing the power of the Wu army's linear tactics from his comrades-in-arms, and having also seen the linear tactics of Lin Fengxiang's cottage with his own eyes, Wei Jun, who is very good at using his brains to fight, of course did not dare to compete with all the Wu soldiers who were equipped with firing pin guns and lined up to be shot, and chose to let the interceptor troops scatter and hide behind trees, soil and rocks to confront the Wu soldiers. However, it is a pity that the intelligence of the Wu army that Wei Jun learned from Lin Fengxiang was too backward, and he did not know that the Wu army was only equipped with a new weapon after the Jiangyin War-grenadier canister!

After discovering that the Taiping army was hiding in the earth, rocks and trees, Nie Shicheng, who was also very good at using his brains to fight, did not lead the soldiers to rush over stupidly and be coldly shot, and chose to temporarily stop advancing, and then immediately asked Huang Dasha to sacrifice a grenadier with a range much farther than the arquebus, and the ten grenadiers that were fired quickly hit the small cannonballs in a parabola above and behind the Taiping army's concealment, and the shrapnel that exploded violently pierced the Taiping soldiers into a thousand holes, and the erupting flames quickly ignited the trees and weeds on the ground, burning the Taiping soldiers to no longer be able to hide. could only scream and flee in all directions, Nie Shicheng also led his men and horses to stride forward, constantly shooting and killing the fleeing Taiping soldiers in a panic with high-rate firing guns, and drove straight into the edge of Wei Jun's main main formation.

While the soldiers of the Taiping Army exclaimed that they had demon cannons beyond the little demon, Hu Linyi and other Hunan soldiers were so jealous that they were about to burst out of their eyes, and Huang Dasha and Nie Shicheng were also very good at showing off, and they had just approached the edge of the main position of the Taiping Army, and immediately sacrificed the grenadier again, and fired two rounds of shells in succession as if they would fire in succession. Seeing that the Wu army's artillery shells exploded one after another in the crowded places of the Taiping army, bursting out with terrifying power like the heavy artillery of the Hunan army's naval division, the Hunan army was even more jealous and had green eyes at the same time, it was inevitable that there would be cheers and morale. The Taiping army was in a panic, including Wei Jun, who couldn't help but cry out repeatedly, "What kind of demon cannon is the little cannon that surpasses the little demon?" How can it be so powerful that it seems to be able to fire continuously? How am I going to fight this battle? ”

Wei Jun really can't fight this battle, the original arquebus in front of the fastest rate of fire in the world today, there is not much difference between pure and burning sticks, musket shooting is completely beaten by the Hubei New Army, muster up the courage to charge in a skirmish line, first the firing pin gun is densely covered, then the bitter acid grenade is warmly entertained, and then there is the revolver to fill the leak, there is no chance to find the slightest hand-to-hand white-edged combat. Hiding behind rocks and trees was not an option, as long as the crowd of Taiping soldiers was a little denser, the Wu army's grenadiers would immediately hit their heads with cannonballs and be slaughtered in pieces. In the end, coupled with the morale-boosting Hunan soldiers who also charged from the front to exert pressure, Wei Jun no longer had the courage to continue fighting, and shouted as soon as he gritted his teeth and stomped his feet: "Withdraw!" Go downstream! There is no way to fight this battle! ”

After joining forces with Hu Linyi to successfully defeat Wei Jun's army, according to Wu Chaoyue's prior orders, Huang Dasha threw the pursuit task to Hu Linyi without chasing far, and immediately returned to the main battlefield with the men and horses of the camp. As a result, after Huang Dasha returned to the division to strengthen the frontal troops, Wu Chaoyue calmly commanded the people to build a pontoon bridge and prepare to attack the city.

At the same time, although the fire in Wuchang County has been controlled, the fire has not been completely extinguished, and most of the ammunition, weapons, grain and grass hoarded in the houses have also been burned. But what made Liu Man even more helpless was that the messenger quickly reported back, saying that Qin Rigang was in a fierce battle with the sailors of the Hunan army, and the messenger boat could not get close to the battlefield at all, let alone get in touch with Qin Rigang.

The moment to test Liu Man's decisiveness came, although the Taiping army in the city still had the strength to fight on the battlefield of the city wall, and the ammunition rescued was barely enough, but seeing that the reinforcements had collapsed, and the main force of the water division had been entangled by the Hunan army's water division, and at the same time, he was extremely afraid of the bitter acid weapons of the Wu army, Liu Man inevitably had the idea of being greedy for life and afraid of death. In the end, Liu Manyi gritted his teeth, and like Wei Jun, he chose to abandon the city and leave, leaving the city from the north gate with the remnants of the army, and also fled to the lower reaches of the Yangtze River. The people in the city immediately opened the south gate to welcome the Hubei New Army into the city, and the soldiers of the Wu Army smoothly entered Wuchang County and planted the flag of the Wu Army on the head of Wuchang County.

Taking advantage of Zeng Guohua's missed opportunity, Qin Rigang, who has always hated the Hunan Army's naval division, entangled the main force of the Hunan Army's naval division at any cost. Although the warships of the Hunan Navy Division are not as powerful as the small pulling boats, they are better than the ships and cannons, even if they are collided, they can directly knock over the small pulling boats of the Taiping Army, and as long as the artillery hits, they can directly bomb the unarmored small pulling boats of the Taiping Army into pieces. The two sides had their own advantages, tactics were mutually resistant, and the battle was dark, the sun and the moon were dark, and the winner was not divided from morning to afternoon.

Countless warships on both sides have come out of the smoke and flames, the river is full of wreckage of warships and the dead bodies of soldiers on both sides, and the soldiers on both sides who fell into the water for help are also constantly rising and falling, with the river waves drifting everywhere, but the fierce battle of the sailors is still continuing, both sides are gritting their teeth and persevering, no one dares to retreat in fear, causing more casualties to the enemy's pursuit opportunity, all of them are fighting for their lives, just waiting for the other party to hold on first.

Seeing this situation in the telescope, Wu Chaoyue inevitably frowned, although the life or death of the Hunan army sailors is not Wu Chaoyue's business, but considering that they also have to rely on the Hunan army sailors to protect the Yangtze River waterway, they also have to count on the Hunan army to help recover the Hubei city in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River. Wu Chaoyue pursed his lips, but still ordered Qian Wei to lead the artillery battalion to carry the long-range breech guns to the bank of the Yangtze River, find a suitable position to set up artillery, and use artillery to bombard the Taiping Army ships to help the Hunan Army's naval division.

It was also the unfortunate luck of the Taiping Army's sailors, after the Wu army's artillery was arranged in place, there happened to be a red single boat captured by the Taiping Army from the Hunan army appeared in the range of the Wu army's artillery, and Qian Wei, who had received training as a British naval instructor, was not polite, and immediately used the triangulation method to determine the distance and distance, and immediately ordered all the guns to open fire after adjusting the firing height. -- It's really a blessing of luck that the artillery of this era is not very difficult to accurately hit a moving target.

Although only two shells hit, the unlucky red single boat was immediately blown up, and the hull also burst into flames, and at the same time, although the other eighteen bitter acid shells missed, they also exploded on the water and underwater, blowing the surrounding Taiping small pulling boats to the ground, and the waves of the underwater explosion directly lifted the two equally unlucky Taiping small pulling boats.

There is also a damn flame, the most bullish place of the picric acid flame is that it can also burn when it floats on the water, and it is the nemesis of the wooden boat by nature, and the small pulling boat of the Taiping Army is too low, and unfortunately after entering the water covered by the bitter acid flame, not only the sail will quickly catch fire, but even the hull is also in danger of being ignited. Therefore, although the first round of artillery bombardment of the Wu army had a very pitiful hit rate of only 10 percent, it gave the Taiping army a heavy psychological blow, and the soldiers of the Taiping Army's sailors, who had never encountered this kind of flame, shouted and screamed, "Demon fire!" Demon Fire! This is a demon fire, and the water can't be extinguished! ”

On the contrary, he suddenly received the assistance of land and shore artillery, and saw with his own eyes the tremendous damage caused by the Wu army's terrifying artillery shells to the Taiping Army's naval division, but the morale of the Hunan army's naval division was greatly increased, and the cheers from the top and bottom were endless, and the fatigue caused by the long-term battle suddenly disappeared from his body, and the operation of the ship and artillery was also more diligent and accurate, and the combat effectiveness suddenly rose to a higher level.

The cannon roared, as long as the opportunity was seized, the Wu gunners would shoot bitter acid shells into the dense places of the Taiping army's naval divisions, but the poor Taiping army officers and men had to fire artillery against the Hunan army's naval divisions, and they could be hit by the picric acid shells falling from the sky at any time. In the end, they could not resist the fear caused by the Wu army's artillery bombardment, and a large number of Taiping ships began to rush to the water far from the Wu army's artillery position, and the battle formation gradually became messy. The naval division of the Hunan army took advantage of the situation to attack and gradually gained the upper hand.

Among the officers and men of the Taiping Army, there were indeed many rats like Liu Man who were greedy for life and afraid of death, but more of them were fearless warriors, and they sensed that the threat of the Wu army's artillery bombardment was too great, and many Taiping soldiers took the initiative to break away from the brigade and turned around to kill the Wu army's artillery position in a vain attempt to prevent the Wu army from firing artillery. However, it is a pity that these Taiping warriors were greeted by the cruel butcher knives of the Wu soldiers, grenadiers, grenade shells and firing pin guns, which killed the Taiping soldiers who tried to land on the shore and suffered heavy casualties, and they couldn't even find half of the chance to get off the ship to fight, let alone destroy the extremely damned Wu army artillery.

The artillery bombardment of the Wu army is only an auxiliary, whether it can win the battle or not depends on the Hunan army sailors themselves, but it is okay, although Zeng Guohua likes to preserve his strength, but there are still two brushes in the water war, with the cover of the Wu army's artillery bombardment, and strive to complete the assembled Hunan army sailors to raid the Qin Rigang flagship with the tactics of cluster charge, the Taiping army sailors suffered too few big ships, unable to intercept the Hunan army sailors in groups of red single boats and long dragon boats, Qin Rigang was forced to let the flagship turn east to escape, the Hunan army sailors were afraid of being surrounded by the Taiping army's ship sea, did not dare to pursue too much, but continued to bombard the Taiping army on both sides with artillery, forcing the Taiping army to turn around and flee eastward, and finally fought a rout battle very reluctantly, and won the victory at a great price.

At the same time, it was at this time that Liu Rong, who had successfully completed the military observer mission, thought of saying goodbye to Wu Chaoyue and preparing to return to the Xinshengzhou camp to hand over to Zeng Guofan. However, at this time, Liu Rong found that Wu Chaoyue had disappeared, and after asking Wu Chaoyue that he had entered the city, Liu Rong hurried into the city to bid farewell to Wu Chaoyue. However, after entering the city and seeing Wu Chaoyue, Liu Rong's nose was almost crooked!

"Folks! Fathers and villagers of Wuchang County! I, the governor of Hubei, am sorry for you! I never thought that the long-haired bandits would only care about resisting the officers and troops led by me, refusing to put out the fire, allowing the fire to spread, and deliberately setting fire to throw you on me as a burden! I couldn't stop Longhair from setting fire, I'm sorry for you, I'm sorry for you! ”

"Order, order, immediately open the porridge shed and give porridge, and do not let the people of this official go hungry! It is forbidden to let the people of this official go hungry! ”

As countless poor people who were affected by the war and lost their wives and mothers in the fire, Wu Chaoyue cried so much that the sky was dark, and he fainted several times, and Wu Dadao and other relatives couldn't persuade him. While those poor people were moved by Wu Chaoyue to cry, Wu Chaoyue said proudly in his heart: "It's done, the miners of Daye Iron Mountain in the south, and the miners of the Yuanxiang Coal Mine in the southeast, there is." (To be continued.) )