In a flash, half an hour has passed. The staff officer of the small rowing boat www.biquge.info the pen and fun pavilion shouted a few more times to persuade him to surrender, but Da Nian, the deputy general of the Dagu Association, completely ignored it.

The staff officer of the captive army was helpless and shouted: "Wait for you for another half hour, and I'll come back in half an hour!" After speaking, he rowed the boat and returned to the "Keyang".

After a stick of incense, the flotilla led by the second group of warships sailed into the estuary, led by the frigate "Keyang", which began to turn the bow and aim its side at the right battery on the south bank.

Standing on the main battery, the guerrilla Dekui said to the deputy general Da Nian with some horror: "My lord, didn't the Yue thief just say that he would give another half an hour?" Looking at the formation, are you going to attack the battery? ”

"Phew, fucking rabbit cub tricked!" After Da Nian scolded angrily, he shouted at the Qing soldiers resting in the earthen room next to the fort: "Dogs and miscellaneous hairs, get up for Lao Tzu and prepare for war!" ”

After speaking, Da Nian stared at the barrage in the river, and his heart began to settle down. In his opinion, with this barrage, those large Western warships led by the Cantonese thieves would not be able to enter. Although there are a large number of small ships of the Cantonese thieves, the four forts at Dagukou have all been re-reinforced with Sanhe soil, which is extremely stable, and the artillery power is also fierce, so there is no need to be afraid of the Cantonese thieves at all.

Even if the Cantonese thieves could not be defeated due to the small number of troops in the Dagu Fort for the time being, as long as they delayed for a day and insisted on the arrival of reinforcements in the city of Tianjin, they could take advantage of the terrain of the fort to defeat the Cantonese thieves and sailors.

Da Nian, who put his heart down, heard a loud bang before he could laugh, and a lead bullet larger than the mouth of the bowl smashed heavily on the top of the cover of the fort a few steps away from him, smashing the top of the fort into a big hole, and the lead bullet bounced up and crashed into the Qing soldiers who entered the fort next to him, and suddenly, the three Qing soldiers were knocked into a blur of flesh and blood.

The thieves have fired!

Can thieves fight so far? Da Nian was blindfolded! He was stunned!

At the mouth of the river, the warship closest to the main fort of the thief army was only four miles, and on the main battery, except for a few heavy guns of more than 5,000 catties, the rest of the guns below 2,000 catties could not shoot four miles away at all.

He didn't have time to think about it, and shouted: "Open the cannon!" Give Lao Tzu a hard beating! ”

The Qing soldiers hurriedly lit the fuse and fired at the Cantonese thief warship in the distance.

For a while, the cannons of the main battery on the south bank opened fire one after another, and lead bullets whistled out of the sky and smashed into the river. However, many of them fell into the water before they reached the position of the warship, and only more than 20 cannons fired by heavy guns also mostly fell around the warship, and only two or three cannons hit the warship, and they only hit the ship's board, three or four holes, and it was not a heavy damage.

On the side of the main fort, the Qing soldiers were horrified to find that the solid top cover of the fort made of Sanhe soil had been uncovered and collapsed by the cannon of the thief army.

River. The naval division of the capture army was divided into two teams, one team had only more than 30 ships, of which eight Western warships were the leader, led by Liang Peiyou, the commander of the 5th Division, to besiege the north shore battery; The other group consisted of seventy or eighty ships, led by fourteen Western warships, divided into three groups, and was personally led by Luo Xuan, commander of the 5th Division, to storm the three batteries on the south bank.

The battle had already begun, and the warships of the naval division rushed into the mouth of the Dagu River, braving the artillery fire of the Qing army, and began to fire round after round of volleys. Soon, nearly half of the stone slopes of the three forts on the south bank collapsed, and most of the gun walls were shattered, unable to resist the attack of shells.

After a few pillars of incense, the right battery on the south bank was completely muted. The artillery was shattered by the explosion, and the Qing gunners and Minyong suffered heavy casualties, and they all dodged the fierce artillery fire from the warships and fled into the earthen chamber, leaving only the main and left batteries still resisting and returning fire.

And the North Shore Battery, under the bombardment of five new Western-style warships newly built by five Cheung Chau Shipyards, quickly collapsed. There were not many Qing troops in the north bank fort, and there was only one guerrilla and four commanders in charge of the defense, a total of less than 300 people, and after more than ten rounds of shelling by warships, more than ten cannons were blown apart.

It's not that the batteries on the north shore are poorly built, but that the guns of these five new warships are too fierce. On the decks of these five warships, each warship is equipped with two 8-inch and three 6-inch Krupp breech-loading rifled guns, which are amazingly powerful and extremely accurate in bombardment.

There were even two guns, aimed directly at the artillery on the battery, bombarded the past, where the cannon landed, less than half a meter away from the artillery, and the base of the artillery was destroyed on the spot, so that the cannon fell to the ground, and it was impossible to return fire. Moreover, the smashed stones and fragments of Sanhe soil were splashed, killing and wounding several Qing gunners around.

Moreover, these five warships were lined up, and they were still nearly 4 miles away from the batteries on the north bank, which was really too amazing for this Krupp breech-loading rifled gun, and the firing range was so far that it was completely incomparable to the front-loading smoothbore guns.

As for the artillery of the north bank battery, only 2 cannons are 5,000 catties, and the rest of the artillery below 2,000 catties cannot reach the warships on the river at all.

The defenders of the fort on the north bank could only shout and order the Qing army to fire back indiscriminately. But under the cover of the artillery of the captive army, those gunners still had the heart to fight back, and they dodged one after another, for fear of being hit and turned into pulp.

It didn't take long for the North Shore battery to be completely paralyzed.

At the same time as the warships on the Zhigu River and the fort exchanged fierce fire, dozens of ordinary warships took advantage of the chaos to pass quickly from the middle of the river, rushed through the barrage sand, and entered the Dagukou inland river.

The main battery and the left battery on the south bank hurriedly fought back, but these ordinary warships were the fast sailboats carefully selected by Luo Gang and Liang Peiyou and others, full of sails, the speed was extremely fast, and the accuracy of the guns on the fort was very low.

More than 30 warships that rushed into the inland river carried more than 1,000 landing troops of the captive army, and under the cover of the gunfire of the warships, they began to land, preparing to go around to the rear of the fort and capture it.

Da Nian, the deputy general of the Dagu Association, was shocked when he saw this, and at this moment, he realized that the Dagukou Fort could not be defended!

And when he was about to send someone to intercept the enemy troops who had landed, two detectives came to report that a group of troops suddenly appeared on the wasteland far behind the fort, dressed in the uniforms of the Cantonese thief army, and it turned out to be a group of thieves, who had gone around to the rear of the fort at some point.

"It's over!" The guerrilla general Dekui ran over, wiped the dust off his face, spat on it, and shouted at Da Nian: "My lord, we can't hold the mouth of Dagu!" A large group of Cantonese thieves actually came to the back. No wonder the thieves said that we should give us two hours to consider whether to surrender or not, but it turned out to be a delaying tactic, which was basically to delay the time and let these thieves bypass from behind. ”

The adjutant general Da Nian was already sitting on the ground, speechless! Needless to say, he also knew that this Dagukou Fort would definitely not be able to hold it, and there were only two ways in front of him right now, one was to surrender to the thieves, and the other was to fight desperately to the end, and there was no possibility of escaping.

Since these Cantonese thieves had already sent people to make a detour from the back to besiege the fort in advance, why did they still brave the artillery and send boats to rush into the inland river?

Da Nian's brain exploded, and he took a breath of cool air in his mouth!

Could it be that the messenger for help sent by himself failed to run out at all? The Cantonese thieves had already intercepted it in advance, risking the front and rear attacks of the artillery, in order to wipe out all their entire Dagu co-defenders? Can't even run away and send a message?

In this way, the purpose of this group of thieves is far more than just capturing the fort, and their strength should be far more than that. Their purpose is the city of Tianjin, and even the capital of the Qing Dynasty! Da Nian was stunned by his own inference!

In the Qing Dynasty, the building will fall, I don't know if it can resist the sneak attack of this gang of thieves.

Thinking of this, Da Nian's mind was hot, he had to send a messenger to report the information he found to Tianjin, so that the imperial court could take precautions in advance!