[Everyone understands the importance of the first order, ask for the first order, ask for support]

At night, the stars are shining. In the past few days, the weather in Wuchang has been sunny.

Fan Shishou had already fallen asleep, and his face was obviously much worse than a month ago. Recently, he has not eaten well, slept well, and his highly tense nerves have been eroding his health little by little.

There is a lot of pressure on either side in the battle, and the difference is that whichever side has the advantage, the pressure on the manager will be lighter. Chen Ming had never seen Fan Shishou, nor had he seen the current Chen Hui, if he saw him, he would find that both of them were tormented by the huge pressure that was as heavy as a mountain.

Maybe there is a little difference, the general's mansion still has 40,000 fully armed soldiers, and there is a stronghold defense line that has been built for a long time. But the three towns of Wuhan are all sparse. After the Dingchang sent a large number of men and horses to Xiangyang and Yunyang, there were only three Lu Yong battalion guards left in the huge three towns of Wuhan. Now a few months have passed, the prosperous Hankou town is still the same as before there is no wall, Hanyang County outside the city is not a fortification as before, the only change is the defenders of the three towns of Wuhan, with the southward movement of Anhui soldiers and horses and the return of the Arya River, coupled with this period of Hubei government recruited by the militia to practice bravery, the garrison of the three towns of Wuhan reached 15,000 people. But is this a bird? Of these 15,000 people, more than half are defeated generals and low-quality militia groups who have lost their souls.

Not to mention frontal combat, even defensive operations, it is difficult for them to give people confidence.

That night, the cavalry battalion that arrived quickly took Hankou Town in one fell swoop. Hankou, which faces Hanyang across the Han River, also faces Wuchang across the Yangtze River. In the calm night, suddenly the fire rushed to the sky, the sound of killing shook the sky, and the Qing soldiers who kept vigil by the river, especially the Qing soldiers of the Hankou Naval Division Battalion, knew with their toes that something had happened in Hankou.

The news was urgently reported to the governor's yamen.

Fan Shishou had a very poor quality of sleep at night, he slept very lightly, and the slightest noise could wake him up. There were one or two shouts of hurried footsteps outside the room, and before the door was pushed open, Fan Shishou had already gotten up and put on his clothes.

As a cultured and cultivated, most importantly intelligent official, the first thing Fan Shishou did when he saw someone was of course not to reprimand, his face was tight, his whole face was completely straight, his eyes were focused, and his lips were raised, which was his nervous performance.

"What's wrong?" If you come in the middle of the night to disturb yourself, something must be wrong. Fan Shishou is very clear-headed.

"My lord, Hankow, Hankow has been attacked by the rebel army......"

Hankou was not only attacked by the cavalry battalion of the Fu Han army, but also completely controlled by the cavalry battalion of the Fu Han army. Of the nearly 1,000 large and small ships that stayed at the wharf in Hankou Town, less than half of them escaped when the situation was bad. Most of these vessels were small boats, and they were ships that stayed outside the Hankou wharf.

Fan Shishou was not surprised or shocked by the loss of Hankou Town, which did not even have a wall, like the sand market outside Jingzhou, which could not be defended at all. The Fu Han army 'captured' enough grain to feed them for two years in Shashi, which was still an early departure of a large number of grain ships, and winter itself was the off-season for Shashi rice market.

At that time, Xue Shiyan didn't want to keep Shashi? It just can't be done. All they can do is to let the bosses of the sand market escape as soon as possible and empty the sand market as much as possible. Just like Hankou Town these days, the Yamen in Wuchang City did the same.

-- Evacuate Hankou Town.

As a result, the Fu Han army, which had not moved for half a month, really did not sit idly by, and drank the Ma River in one fell swoop, and even worse, controlled hundreds of ships of different sizes.

And Fan Shishou knows more clearly - the prologue has begun. The attack of the Fu Han army and horse team meant the beginning of their attack.

Two days later, the Fu Han army, which was dispatched by a large army, took the county seat of Hanyang, and the 3,000 Hubei Green Battalion and part of the Anhui Green Battalion stationed there were defeated without a backhand. Chen Ming is completely drinking the Yangtze River, and Wuchang City is across the river.

The Yueyang Naval Division had already arrived in Wuchang, and they added the Hankou Naval Division Battalion of the Hanyang Association, two battalions with about 800 sailors and more than 30 warships, the largest of which was no longer bluffing boats and sentinel boats, but two oared boats brought by the Yueyang Naval Division. Chen Ming seriously doubted whether the two things were warships, larger than bluffing ships and sentinel ships, but they couldn't even see a small cannon on them.

With such a big size, if it is a warship, let alone a small cannon, a 'cannon' of five or six hundred catties can also carry it. But these two oarboats, which are seriously behind the times in Chen Ming's eyes, seem to be used to load troops.

The two sailor battalions were the first line of defense for the Qing soldiers to guard Wuchang, and the Fu Han army was not the Taiping army, the latter went from south to north, but Chen Ming had to go from north to south. If Chen Ming wants to take Wuchang, he first needs to cross the Yangtze River.

For a long time, Chen Ming has been thinking about a problem: how to fight a water war. In the case of the same grade of warships on both sides of the enemy, even if the Fu Han army had enough artillery, it could only be transported on ships, rather than really assigned to ships to fight.

Civilian ships cannot withstand the recoil of real cannons. No matter how large a ship is, under the dual influence of the mass of wood and the structure of the hull, the bottom of the ship may be shaken to the point of leakage, or the deck may be cracked as soon as the two guns are fired.

Like the biggest problem of converting civilian ships into warships during World War I and World War II, the defense is seriously insufficient.

Again, Chen Ming didn't want his sailors to become an old-fashioned fleet like the historical Hunan Army sailors or the Taiping Army sailors. He didn't plan to engage in any sailors at this time, there might be manpower, and the quality of the ships was seriously inconsistent. Now Chen Ming wants a replacement that can be used for the time being.

Therefore, after thinking about it, the only thing that the Han army can now be used by the 'sailor' platoon is grenades and tiger squat cannons weighing dozens of catties. There is no need to think about the cannon, although the largest of the hundreds of ships that the Fu Han army 'requisitioned' at the Hankou dock is larger than the two oared boats in the Yangtze River, Chen Ming will not risk using that thing to carry the cannon.

The Qing soldiers on the other side of the river have a village on the riverside embankment, but that is only a point, and Wuchang City is not easy to fight. There are many mountains and rivers, the hills are undulating, the lakes and rivers are staggered, the outside is geographically strong, and the inside is dangerous according to the terrain.

But the prerequisite for all this is that the defenders can go up some notches.

After the Fu Han army took control of Hankou and Hanyang, the artillery waved by the river, and the two naval divisions and battalions of the Qing army did not dare to go in the center of the Yangtze River waterway. [The narrowest part of the Yangtze River in the Wuhan section is only about one kilometer] The Manchus still have a lot of troops in their hands who can fight, but they are not in Wuchang.

Chen Ming was very confident in launching the battle to cross the river, and he believed that the troops would find a foothold on the other side of the river, and then quickly gather troops and materials needed for the battle there, and launch an attack from east to west, and it would be much easier to capture Wuchang than to take Jiangling City. (To be continued.) )