In more than two years, telegraph lines were also laid in China, so that Beijing and Shanghai, Guangzhou, Wuhan and other major cities could be connected by cable telegraph, so the attack of the British fleet reached Beijing in the night of the same day, and was learned by Luoyang.

Luo Yang immediately instructed Qiu Yuancai, warning him not to engage in naval battles with the British army, not to try to defeat the British army with coastal artillery, the powerful fleet firepower of the British fleet is not a joke, and told him to lure the enemy deeper, focus on counterattacks, and annihilate the enemy on land,

Luo Yang immediately notified all the important generals along the coast, especially Fujian and Nanjing, to ask them to step up their defense, even the Tianjin area, which was also more closely arranged, and Luo Yang also organized his most elite troops into three divisions and regiments, as a force for strategic support at any time.

The assistance to Guangzhou was mainly to allocate some weapons and ammunition from the Shanghai area, and escort them by a brigade of troops to march to Guangzhou.

In terms of the navy, it was divided into two groups, abandoned the Mawei military port, stationed the defeated Tu Beihai Fleet in Tianjin, Weihaiwei, Dalian Lushun and other places, with seven battleships and more than a dozen cruisers, and stationed the East China Sea Fleet in Jiangyin, Chongming, Zhenjiang and other places, with five battleships, more than a dozen cruisers, and more than 30 gunboats, and the center of gravity of defense is the gateway to Beijing, the mouth of the Yangtze River.

The navy is mainly defensive, because it is worried that the British fleet is too strong, and now it is confirmed that Britain has more than 40 battleships, more than 20 heavy cruisers, etc., and the rest of the cruisers in various departments, more than 100 ships, the total tonnage is more than three times that of the Chinese fleet, moreover, the British navy is well-trained and experienced, and the Chinese fleet can defend well and not give the enemy a chance to take advantage of it, it is good.

Of course, Luo Yang was also eager to try, and he really wanted to take his fleet up and fight with the British, at least, first annihilating the enemy's vanguard troops, after all, he was not willing to give up,

That night, Luo Yang didn't sleep all night, worried about the war in Guangzhou, that night, Qiu Yuancai didn't sleep either, he personally led the most elite headquarters mixed brigade, to advance to Shajiao, and, follow-up an artillery regiment, an infantry division, he was determined to hit the British army in Shajiao, so that it was terrified, and no longer dared to disturb the Guangzhou side,

Qiu Yuancai, who has always despised the enemy and despised foreign Maozi, only learned many things in the training class of senior officers, so Qiu Yuancai at this time was no longer the reckless former Taiping Army soldier.

The new rifles, more than 30 mortars, 16 pounds and 32 pounds of field howitzers, so that the mixed brigade has considerable firepower, that night, under the guidance of the people, Hua Xia Tian ** felt near the Shajiao Fort, three miles away from the British army, temporarily stopped to rest, ate dry food, etc.,

At dawn, the squadron immediately launched an attack on the British barracks with a small force of 100 people.

This is a decoy, Qiu Yuan wants to know how the tactics of the British army are, he is worried that the British army has the cooperation of the fleet in the bay, and it is not easy to fight.

The British army woke up very early, and as soon as they heard the gunshots, they immediately got up to fight, in addition to rifle shooting, the British army also used the six-pound shells they carried to bombard the **, and at the same time, the artillery carriage battery was destroyed in the Shajiao battery, but the huge coastal guns that could still be used by the cannon body bombarded the **,

The 100-man vanguard reconnaissance unit suffered serious casualties under the blow of British firepower, and that's it, or did they follow Qiu Yuancai's will and not fight hard with the enemy?

After fighting for a while, the reconnaissance troops retreated, and the British sent a hundred and ten troops to follow the advance, only advancing more than a mile, fearing being ambushed and attacked, and retreated again.

Qiu Yuancai has been spying on the British army's barracks, because it is set up on the high ground of the fort in Shajiao, and it can be seen clearly here.

"Prepare for a full-scale siege." After Qiu Yuancai gave the order, he commanded the infantry to advance, and secretly lurked to a place of more than 500 meters, where there were many shrubs and wild grasses, and the attacking troops in the middle were very well hidden.

In fact, the attack of 100 people is covering the covert advance of the large army.

On April 19, 1868, at eight o'clock in the morning, the squadron launched a general attack.

More than 30 mortars, a thousand meters away, fiercely bombarded the position of the Shajiao Battery, bombarding the British barracks into a sea of fire, and the thirty-two pound flowering shells also swore their existence with a mighty roar.

The bombardment of an artillery regiment instantly turned the British ** battalion in Shajiao into a hell of fire and blood, many British soldiers were killed, how high the corpses flew, and many people were injured by stones and shrapnel, more than 1,000 British soldiers, although they did a lot of precautions, still lack of concept of the firepower of the Chinese ** who quickly counterattacked,

The mortar is something that the British army has never seen, the advantage of this kind of artillery is that it can hit the parabolic trajectory and hit the inside of the obstacle wall or fortification, this is a curved artillery, in the undisguised British ** battalion, it has become the most terrifying existence, as soon as I heard the sharp whistling, Britain's legs were weak,

The artillery shells used in China are still the kind of clumsy shells that need to be filled with gunpowder and then fired, although the new types of shells have been successfully developed and are being equipped with elite strategic forces.

In this bombardment battle, the mortar is the most powerful, because the frequency of firing is too fast, and as soon as the shell is thrown into the barrel, boom, it will be shot, and the speed of shooting is five or even ten times that of ordinary cannons.

Yes, when the British army was attacked, they also used artillery to return fire, there were coastal guns with powerful shells, and small cannons brought by themselves that could move quickly with wheels, known as field chicken cannons, in any case, they were all stupid cannons that needed to be loaded with gunpowder and ignited.

After twenty minutes of artillery fighting, the British army suffered a crushing defeat,

The British are simply confused and cannot understand why there are so many shells in the squadron, if according to the standards of artillery strike of the British, at least, the Chinese need to have more than five hundred cannons, think about it, what a large number this is,

In fact, more than 30 Chinese mortars were completely equivalent to several times the efficiency of the British artillery at that time.

More than 1,000 British soldiers were almost blown up in the open air, and although the British soldiers who were very smart and capable, they had long fled to the outside of the barracks crying and shouting for their mothers, but they still couldn't escape the disaster.

It was almost saturation bombardment, Qiu Yuan was angry,

Both batteries were destroyed, and more than 400 people were killed and wounded, how could he not be angry,

The Chinese artillery shells have cultivated the British ** battalion over and over again, so that after the enemy stops bombardment, only more than 200 people can survive.

More than 2,000 infantrymen rushed forward as soon as the shells stopped.

"Kill, kill, kill."

"Kill the foreign devils and protect Greater China."

More than 2,000 officers and soldiers swarmed in, and in a short time, the remnants of the British barracks were all destroyed, and all the British troops who dared to resist were killed, even some British troops who were willing to surrender were also stabbed into tatters with bayonets by the fanatical fighting soldiers.

After occupying the British ** battalion, the Chinese ** retreated very sensibly, and the speed was extremely fast, because they were worried about the fleet firepower of the British Navy.

As expected, the British fleet saw clearly that after confirming that their own troops were destroyed and there were squadrons everywhere, the British naval guns carried out a fierce bombardment to retaliate against the Chinese,