Directly under Tianjin Mansion, the Dagukou Fort at the mouth of the Haihe River. Pen & Fun & Pavilion www.biquge.info

Dagukou is the estuary of the Haihe River, guarding the waterway from the sea and land to Beijing.

As early as the Daoguang period, the Manchu Qing Dynasty built a circular fort on the north and south banks of Dagukou, after several years of operation, to this day, Dagukou Fort has built 5 large forts, 12 earthen forts, and 13 earthen forts, forming the Dagu Fort Group, which is heavily guarded.

The fort is made of three-fold soil and blue bricks on the outside, wood on the inside, and white ash grout, with a height of about one zhang and five feet, a width of nine feet, and a depth of six feet. These Dagukou forts were originally built as strong as mountains, but now, more than ten years have passed, and they have fallen into disrepair, and even the garrisons can only build a wooden and grass shed to shield them from wind and rain, let alone shells.

Early that morning, the adjutant general guarding the Dagu Fort went back to Tianjin Fucheng to visit his concubines, and before leaving, he also instructed Long Ruyuan, the guerrilla general of the Dagu Association, to keep an eye on the fort to prevent the long-haired thieves who were besieged in Jinghai from storming the fort.

When the guerrilla general Long Ruyuan heard this, he also made careful arrangements.

Originally, the defenders of this Dagu Fort, in addition to the Dagu Association Qing Army, plus the Minzhuang and other more than 2,000 people, but recently the minister of the Qin Mission, Seng Lingqin, transferred troops to encircle and suppress the long-haired thieves in Jinghai, and the deputy general in order to curry favor with the Qincha, he also sent more than 1,000 Qing soldiers and militia regiments of the Dagu Fort to support the siege of Jinghai.

Now there are only 1,000 Qing soldiers left to guard the 5 Dagu forts, which is very insufficient, so Long Ruyuan thought about it and sent more than 30 people to disperse and set up sentry posts along the line seven or eight miles away from the mouth of the sea to prevent the long-haired thieves who escaped from the direction of Jinghai from attacking the forts.

As for the sea, Long Ruyuan is not worried, the long-haired thieves are all in the direction of Jinghai.

At noon, Long Ruyuan asked the guards to set up the table and summoned a few good subordinates to drink together. ”

Long Ruyuan was taken aback, most of the wine woke up, and hurriedly put on armor with a few of his subordinates, and rushed to the lookout platform of the fort, only to see that the mouth of the sea was full of black and oppressive warships, at least hundreds, and drove towards the fort.

The first Western warship, tall and incomparable. Long Ruyuan sat on the ground with a blushing face and said, "It's over, this is a foreigner's warship!" Foreigners have come to attack my Dagu Fort! ”

At this time, Long Ruyuan just wanted to order someone to negotiate, and under the leadership of the Western warships led by him, dozens of warships of all kinds behind him were lined up and fired directly at the fort.

Hundreds of shells the size of bowls whistled down on the fort, shaking the solid fort a little. The lookout frame was hit by a shell and was torn apart.

At this time, the defects of the battery, which had not been repaired for a long time, were exposed. The artillery on the turret was also facing the falling shells, and the thick walls that had been shielding them were already in tatters. In the first two rounds of artillery shells alone, the Qing soldiers on the batteries everywhere suffered heavy casualties.

Long Ruyuan ordered the guards to fire back with artillery.

But a steady stream of warships behind them are still moving in, blocking the estuary, and the momentum is like a rainbow. The Qing soldiers guarding the fort had chills in their hearts, their hands and feet trembled, they filled the medicine in a panic, and they were busy for a long time, only firing one or two cannons, and they didn't know where they hit.

The warships on the sea opened fire several rounds in a row, and the bullets rained down, although most of them hit the fort and did not have much impact, but there were also one or two percent of the shells that fell on the heads of the Qing soldiers, and dozens of people had no time to dodge, and were knocked into broken hands and feet, and the flesh and blood were blurred.

Seeing this scene, Long Ruyuan and his subordinates' faces turned from red to white, and they were shocked. I don't know who shouted, the two thousand generals and the three generals led dozens of people to get off the fort and fled in the direction of Tianjin Mansion in the west.

When the guards of the fort saw that the adults were the first to flee, their hearts were immediately shaken, and no one had the intention of guarding the fort, so they all followed suit and abandoned the stall and fled.

Long Ruyuan ordered his guards to shout and stop, but to no avail. In desperation, he personally led dozens of personal soldiers, stuck to the front fort on the south bank, personally lit a 10,000-pound cannon and opened fire, firing two cannons in succession, and the two red single boats in the front of the two companies were sunk instantly.

At this time, Luo Xuan, who was on the flagship "Humen", saw that the front battery on the south bank hit the two red single transport ships next to the flagship one after another, and was furious, and ordered more than ten warships to concentrate on the front battery on the south bank to open fire.

The red single boat in the front was an empty transport ship that he had deliberately used to attract the fire of the battery, and the back was a warship. Fortunately, he arranged it this way, so as not to suffer too many losses.

But even if it was only the transport ship that was sunk, there were several prisoner brothers on it, which still made him angry. Under his roar, the flagship of the "Humen" took the lead in turning the bow of the ship, facing the front fort on the south bank, firing fiercely, and the rest of the warships also followed the attack, hundreds of shells poured over the front fort on the south bank, smashing the entire south bank fort into a mess, and even the giant cannon of tens of thousands of catties was smashed in several places, and it was no longer usable, and Long Ruyuan, who was sticking to the giant cannon, was also hit by the cannonball, and died in Huangquan immediately.

Seeing that the guerrilla general died, and the adjutant general did not know where he had gone for a long time. As soon as the Qing soldiers shouted, they immediately withdrew from the fort, rushed down the slope, and even did not want the barracks under the fort, and fled desperately to the west.

A quarter of an hour later, there was no trace of the Qing soldiers on several forts in the entire Dagukou, and they all ran out. In this way, the Dagu Fort fell like a joke.

Luo Xuan didn't notice it, but still ordered the warship to continue to pour shells on the battery, and after three rounds of hundreds of shells covered the first three batteries, the watchman on the flagship suddenly found that there was no one on the Qing army's battery.

He hurriedly reported to Luo Outline, Luo Outline heard the report, tentatively sent more than ten people ashore, made a detour and climbed up to the fort to see, it was really empty, even the cooked rice was still hot, and he didn't have time to eat, it seems that the Qing soldiers fled in a hurry.

Luo Xuan sent three main regiments to hold 5 batteries at Dagukou. Luo Xuan personally got off the "Humen" and climbed up to the front fort on the south bank, only to see that this is the largest fort in Dagukou, known as the "screen of Jinmen", and the majestic town is guarding the high place of the sea gateway, if it were not for the disrepair and collapse of the protective fortification wall, not to mention the warships on the Haihe River with artillery to break through, it would be difficult to occupy even the captives rushing up from below to attack. Fortunately, the Qing soldiers fled in fear of battle, otherwise, it would have been difficult to occupy the entire fort so easily.

On the opposite side, a former fort on the north bank was built on the stone wall on the north bank, and the fort on the south bank joined forces to block the mouth of the Haihe River. Moreover, Luo Xuan noticed that there were two more forts upstream of the river in the back, and in the middle of these forts, there was a large iron cable horizontally, blocking the entire river surface.

Luo Xuan couldn't help but secretly say that it was a fluke, if it weren't for the Qing soldiers to flee, just by jumping the iron cable and the arrangement of a few forts, it would be enough to inflict heavy damage on the warships of the captured army and sailors.

It seems that the discipline of the Qing Demon Army is really corrupt.

After Luo Xuan led his troops to occupy the fort, he sawed the iron cable, led the warships to continue to go up the river, continued to march westward, and approached the city of Tianjin.

The fleeing Qing soldiers met the Mongol detectives who were looking around for news, and hurriedly asked for help. Tanma did not dare to slack off, and hurriedly captured the Dagukou Fort, I don't know whether it was the foreigners or the tens of thousands of sailors of the long-haired thief soldiers, who had occupied the Haihe River, and the news of the attack on the Tianjin Fucheng was urgently reported to the two Qincha of Seng Lingqin and Shengbao, who were besieging Jinghai.

Seng Lingqin and Shengbao were taken aback, and called a few deserters from Dagukou who fled to the camp, but they couldn't tell whether it was foreigners or spear thieves who occupied the Dagukou fort. Because these deserters only heard that the first fort in Dagukou had been captured, they fled when they heard the news, and they didn't see anyone at all.

Monk Grinqin and Shengbao were furious and ordered the guards to behead the deserters on the spot. They hurriedly sent more than 10,000 troops to rush to Dagukou for rescue.

As a result, the Qing soldiers besieging Jinghai City suddenly withdrew 20,000 horses and rushed to the east.