Sitting behind the battlements, Beresford couldn't help but be shocked. Although the Enfield P1853 rifled rifle used by the soldiers on the city wall was not the most advanced rifle in the British Empire, except for the Enfield P1860 short rifle and the Enfield cavalry artillery carbine, which had been improved only in the last two years, the P1853 had the longest range. Compared to the strange elongated rifles in the hands of the Chinese enemy troops outside the city, the P1853 rifle in his own army, which had shone in the Crimean War, was simply rubbish.

When, in the backward East, had such advanced weapons? For the first time, Beresford felt the sadness of being inferior in weaponry and equipment, and wondered whether it was a mistake for him to hold on to resist.

"Bang!"

With a loud bang, the enemy forces outside the city seemed to have fired artillery.

Immediately afterwards, on the city wall, in the city of Kandy, violent explosions sounded in several places. At the same time, there was heavy gunfire outside the city, and the enemy troops opened heavy fire on the inside of the city. Beresford's heart sank as the cannon exploded, and he could tell it was the sound of howitzer shells exploding, specifically used against the infantry hiding behind the walls. As early as the battlefield in Crimea, many of the Russian infantry hiding behind the fortress were killed by the British and French forces with such howitzers and suffered heavy losses.

Beresford wanted to warn his soldiers, but there was a crackle of shells all around. Obviously, there were only more than a dozen artillery pieces outside the city, but there seemed to be dozens of them, and the shells kept falling, seemingly endless, he couldn't open his eyes at all, and he didn't dare to raise his head, and an explosion in his ears shook his eardrums.

After a long time, the surroundings finally quieted down. Beresford didn't know how many rounds of artillery fire, but fortunately he was only hit in the left shoulder by a piece of debris that didn't hurt him, but he was shocked when he turned his head to look around.

It was as if he was in hell. There were British soldiers killed and wounded everywhere, and at a glance, almost half of the soldiers on the city walls were killed or wounded, and there were scarlet blood stains everywhere, broken arms and limbs, and the wooden handle of the exploded rifle, mixed with the broken barrel and minced meat, so that he almost vomited.

He called a few times, and a herald from the communications company covered his wounded waist and moved to his side to report: "General Beresford, let's surrender, God has given up on us, and the devil has ruled the world." This Kandy city can't be defended! ”

"How many casualties have our troops had?" Beresford asked directly, although he saw such heavy casualties, after all, it was only around him, maybe the enemy knew that he was here, and concentrated his firepower nearby, and there may not be such large casualties in other places, and he still had a trace of luck.

"General, the soldiers have suffered heavy casualties. Of the 2,400 soldiers on the city walls alone, nearly 950 were killed or wounded. Of the 1,100 people who had been prepared in the city, more than 130 were killed and injured by shells that fell into the city. This battle can't be fought! ”

Beresford shuddered and almost fainted on the spot. Although he knew that the casualties would be large, how could he not have imagined that it would be so huge! The entire army he led was only 3,500 people, this confrontation, no, it can't be said to be a confrontation, it should be the attacked defender, once the city was defended, nearly one-third of the casualties were killed, how to defend this city, let alone how to fight this battle.

Damn the Chinese Empire. What kind of unit is this, the rifle has a farther range than the most advanced Enfield rifled gun in Great Britain, not to mention that even the howitzer shoots so far, the key is that the frequency is so fast, there is simply no need for a stop time, and one gun can be used as two or three. Moreover, the grenade explosion is powerful and the lethality is even more amazing, as if it is specially customized for attacking the city, it is simply the nemesis of the city defenders!

In the face of such an army, Beresford felt a deep sense of powerlessness. At this moment, he realized that what Robinson said was reasonable, he knew that this was the case, it was better to surrender earlier, it was he who killed the thousands of soldiers.

..........

While Beresford was tasting the bitter fruits of defeat, Lin Shifa led the soldiers of the 7th Infantry Division of the Six Fields to reap the joy of victory.

On the tower of the ancient city of Kandy, a white flag has been erected, the city gate has been opened, and the commander of the British army, led more than 2,000 soldiers, has untied the rifles in his hands, ammunition bags, short knives, etc., in batches, and piled them up in the open space outside the city wall.

As soon as Lin sent hundreds of soldiers to receive the weapons and ammunition handed over by the British troops in the city, the staff officer in the army who knew foreign language came to report that the British commander named Beresford in Kandy had led the LinkedIn army out of the city to ask for surrender.

As for what kind of surrender ceremony or something, Lin Shifa was not interested at all. He is not like those civilian officials, thinking that he was bullied by foreign adults in the past, and now he has to raise his eyebrows and win the battle, and it is best to humiliate these foreign adults to gain pride. From beginning to end, he just regarded these foreigners as foreign devils. The only thing of interest is how much can be seized.

Lin Shifa directly sent the deputy division commander in charge of logistics to accept the British army's request to surrender, and carefully examine it, and make sure that all the baggage and materials brought by the British army were collected. In terms of weapons, the captured British Enfield rifles, although not as advanced as the Mauser rifles, are also very valuable, and they are captured and returned to the local defense garrison or handed over for sale, which is a great fortune. And the money on the British soldiers can make a lot of money. The British troops in these colonies had a lot of opportunities to make a fortune, and each soldier had a lot of cash on them, and he only had to hand over half of it to the field regiment above, and the rest could be legitimately kept as a war subsidy for the officers and men of his 7th Infantry Division. It is precisely because of this that the soldiers want to fight for the battlefield.

The harvest was not bad. In addition to the three thousand rifles, there were several Congreve rockets that were not blown up. Seeing this thing, Lin Shifa couldn't help but be a little afraid, fortunately, his field howitzer was amazingly powerful, and he was willing to use cannonballs, so he covered the city wall with artillery first. The range of this rocket artillery is too close, and I am careful enough, if I wait for the soldiers to charge intensively, I will be blown up by this rocket artillery, but I will suffer heavy losses.

Now, for this kind of siege, Lin Shifa, like other infantry divisions, can ask the artillery division to help with artillery support, that is the best, without an artillery division, he relies on the fire of the two artillery battalions within his infantry division to suppress, in fact, there is not much complicated offensive strategy.

The offensive methods in military schools, although rigid, were effective. First suppressed with artillery, and the enemy's firepower was almost removed, and then under the cover of artillery, directly attacked with infantry. Of course, this is an emergency situation of war, if the artillery is sufficient, the time is not urgent, then directly use artillery to blow up the city gate or the city wall to collapse, but this requires too many shells and time, the cost is huge, and after the artillery is suppressed, the direct infantry attack, is at the cost of the lives of the soldiers, but also a lot of money. It depends on the trade-offs of the battle.

In this attack on the ancient city of Kandy, the officers and men of Lin Shifa's 7th Infantry Division were almost not damaged, only a few soldiers were killed or wounded in the exchange of fire with British scouts, and a few others were wounded during the siege. However, the consumption of artillery shells was huge, a total of 17 field howitzers, and in just a few hours of firing the shells, seven or eighty percent of the grenades carried by the whole division were consumed. If the British army does not surrender again, it can only be said that they can only send infantry to attack directly.

Not long after, the deputy division commander came to report that a total of more than 40,000 pounds in cash had been seized, as well as dozens of kilograms of gold, although not a lot, but it was also a small war fortune.

For the British prisoners, Lin Shifa was not polite, but for the ancient city of Kandy, especially the Buddha Tooth Relic Temple in the royal palace in the city, Lin Shifa was quite cautious, he asked the soldiers of the engineering regiment to invite the Buddhist believers around the city of Kandy to discuss the renovation of the Buddha Tooth Relic Temple, and from the gold seized from the British prisoners, took out 20 kilograms, announced that it would be donated to the Buddha Tooth Relic Temple, which was used to shape the temple's golden body and promote Buddhism.

This act of kindness immediately won the favor of the Buddhist Sinhalese people around Kandy. The Sinhalese were brought food and souvenirs by some old men with some teenagers and children, and Lin Shifa accepted them one by one and paid a small amount of the sage in a symbolic amount, although he did not seem to think about where the natives were going to spend the sustenance.

Leaving two regiments of soldiers to guard the ancient city of Kandy, because of the capture of the British army's baggage, the food was temporarily able for a period of time, plus the local Sinhalese people around it, after the food was worry-free, Lin Shifa led the rest of the main force of the 7th Infantry Division back to Colombo Port, took a troop carrier, attacked everywhere, and began to pacify the entire island of Ceylon.

The 7th Infantry Division did not choose to march by land, mainly because although the island of Ceylon was occupied by the Dutch and the British in turn, it was not fully developed, and the whole island was still a tropical mountain forest with many wild beasts, poisonous snakes and insects and scorpions, and Lin Shifa certainly did not want to waste his precious soldiers' lives on this foreign island.

Moreover, it is no slower to travel from Colombo by troop carrier than from the interior of the island. Moreover, more than 2,300 British prisoners were to be escorted to Colombo and placed in the custody of the Indian Ocean Fleet. (There are also more than 400 British soldiers who were not lightly injured in the ancient city of Kandy to receive local Buddhist medical treatment, although the 7th Infantry Division has military doctors, but the medicine is precious, of course, it will not be wasted on the British soldiers, but reserved for their own soldiers to use when critical.) ）

Although he only occupied the two important cities of Colombo and Kandy, as well as the two small ports of Matara and Galle that he had occupied on the way, Lin Shifa had already sent a report to Wei Jun, commander of the Indian Ocean Fleet, claiming that the 7th Infantry Division of the 6th Field Corps had occupied the entire island of Ceylon.

In fact, it is. The whole island of Ceylon, the most important is Colombo, followed by the city of Kandy, and the capture of these two places basically controlled the island of Ceylon. According to the information obtained, there are only more than 4,000 British troops on the island of Ceylon, and now the number of British soldiers killed and captured in the two places has exceeded 4,000, that is to say, except for Jaffna in the north, there may be more than 100 British soldiers, and the British army on the entire island of Ceylon has been wiped out.

As for the other local forces such as the Sinhalese and Tamils on the island of Ceylon, their personalities are weak, and even such a small number of British soldiers do not dare to resist, let alone the 7th Infantry Division, which now has tens of thousands of troops.

Therefore, there was no problem with Lin Shifa announcing the occupation of Ceylon, and the reason why he did this was more because he hoped to lead some of his officers and men of the 7th Infantry Division to Madras in southeastern India as soon as possible, where the big battle was what he was most looking forward to, or rather, the amazing wealth there was the most attractive to him.