On the wall of the county seat of Shanghai, Peng Wenyuan, the head of Qian, was covered with blood, leaning tiredly behind the female wall, and was about to close his eyes and rest for a while, when suddenly the shouting and killing of the city started again.

Peng Wenyuan stood up and looked out of the city, only to see that the Knife Society had gathered hundreds of ladders again, and it seemed that it was about to prepare for a new round of siege.

After three days of fierce fighting, the Knife Society's offensive did not weaken in the slightest, but instead gathered 50,000 people (engulfing refugees). On the other hand, the officers and troops under Peng Wenyuan's control, after three days of fierce fighting, have already suffered more than half of the casualties, except for the battalion of soldiers and horses led by Peng Wenyuan himself who still has some combat effectiveness, the combat effectiveness of other officers and soldiers who have been put together temporarily is extremely poor, and the perennial smoking has greatly reduced the combat effectiveness of the officers and soldiers, and it is not as good as the strong men who are temporarily caught can fight.

This was the twentieth attack of the Little Knife Society, and Peng Wenyuan knew that if there were no more reinforcements, he would not be able to hold the county seat of Shanghai.

"Will the AIIB security team still refuse to come to help defend the city?" Peng Wenyuan asked the soldiers around him.

The soldier shook his head and said, "My lord, don't count on them, they just won't help." I think the adults are giving them faces, so it's better to let the little ones lead the troops to forcibly capture them to defend the city! ”

"You know what?" Peng Wenyuan smiled bitterly: "Do you think this security team is the landlord's family?" They are formally trained troops, although I have never seen them fight, but I see that under their neat military appearance, there is a huge will to kill, Li Weiguo trained them to spend blood, and their combat effectiveness is definitely not low, if you add the foreign guns they are equipped with, they are much stronger than us, you go to catch them, I think you will definitely touch a nose. ”

The soldier said: "But our battalion brothers fought British foreign devils back then, and it is not an exaggeration to be regarded as the most elite army in the Qing Dynasty, can the army trained by Li Weiguo in just one year be stronger than us?" ”

Peng Wenyuan sighed and said: "This is the gap between people, what you have learned after ten years of hard study is not as good as others reading books for a few months, and you have practiced martial arts for ten years, it is better for others to practice hard for three days." This Li Weiguo sat on the Chongming County Order at a young age, and Lu Jianying's face touched his nose with ashes, he is by no means a general, don't look at his Li family's army has only been built for a year, and our people in the army know at a glance that the other party's combat effectiveness is by no means worse than ours, and even surpasses us. ”

The soldiers didn't understand and asked, "In this case, why didn't you ask Li Weiguo to send troops to reinforce the county seat of Shanghai?" ”

Peng Wenyuan smiled bitterly, pointed to it, and said: "First, Lu Jianying won't let me let Li Weiguo enter Shanghai, and second, this Li Weiguo can vomit blood from Lu Jianying's calculations, it is by no means a fuel-efficient lamp, he is very ambitious, let him come to Shanghai, this Shanghai is his." ”

The soldier said: "But I heard those Li Jiajun soldiers from the AIIB say that Li Weiguo has been appointed by the imperial court as the county commander of Shanghai?" Do we do this well? ”

Peng Wenyuan sighed: "Who can say that kind of thing, we can only believe Lu Jianying's words, who made Lu Jianying our top boss." ”

At this point, the Knife Society completed its assembly and attacked again.

Seeing that the knives would rush over, Peng Wenyuan's face was heavy, he knew that the county town of Shanghai could not be defended, so he said: "There are not many brothers left in our old camp, Lin Yao, you have also been with me for 20 years, now I will give you a task, you immediately take the brothers of our old camp out of the West Gate and cross the river from the French Concession to Li Weiguo for help." ”

Lin Yao frowned when he heard this, and said, "How can that be done?" Without our brothers in the old camp to defend the city, how can the adults and this rabble with this group of rabble resist the onslaught of the Little Knife Society? ”

Suddenly, Lin Yao realized something, and immediately worried: "My lord, should you ......?"

"Okay, there's no time, this is my last order to you, you remember, that Li Weiguo will be a great thing in the future, and you will have a future with him in the future. I'm old, and I'm going to be the world of you young people from now on. Go, I have my home. ”

"Your Excellency!" Lin Yao burst into tears, he followed Peng Wenyuan since he was a teenager, and now he has been twenty years, he knows Peng Wenyuan's temper well, respectfully kowtows to him, and then takes those old brothers who have also followed Peng Wenyuan for many years to break through from Ximen.

Not long after Lin Yao led hundreds of old brothers of the Peng Zi Battalion to break through from the West Gate, the North Gate and the South Gate were successively broken by the Little Knife Society.

The defenders were killed, and the remaining Qing troops were even more demoralized, and they suddenly dispersed.

Liu Lichuan was very happy to see that the city of Shanghai was broken, three days ago he had been attacking the county seat of Shanghai for a long time, and when he learned that the county seat of Baoshan was lost and occupied by Li Weiguo, he was still very nervous for a while, worried that the back road would be cut off, and he had planned to withdraw his troops and recapture Baoshan County. However, he soon learned that Li Weiguo had no intention of reinforcing Shanghai, and listened to Chen Tao's suggestion, and divided his troops to attack Jiangwan Town, which was an industrial area built by Li Weiguo.

Liu Lichuan obeyed Chen Tao's construction and immediately ordered Chen Tao to lead 3,000 soldiers and horses to Jiangwan Town, and at the same time, Liu Lichuan began to storm the county seat of Shanghai.

When Li Weiguo learned that there was an army of the Little Knife Society in Jiangwan Town, he immediately mobilized a large army out of Baoshan County to reinforce him. Chen Tao led the army to Jiangwan, and saw that there was Li Weiguo's 2,000 foreign spear team to defend it, and it was difficult to capture it for a while, and his ability was to be ordered to contain it, so he did not attack desperately.

Liu Lichuan learned that Li Weiguo had indeed sent troops to Jiangwan Town, so he took the opportunity to step up the attack on the county seat of Shanghai, and until today, the county seat of Shanghai was breached, and he guessed that he was relieved.

However, soon Liu Lichuan was entangled again, and he suddenly received a report that in the Gulou area of the center of Shanghai, there were a full 2,000 foreign gun teams stationed around the AIIB.

Liu Lichuan knew that there must be no foreign army in Shanghai County, so when he went to take a look, he immediately found that although the other party was wearing a military uniform similar to that of foreign soldiers, the military emblem on the military cap was engraved with the word "Li".

"Li Weiguo, you actually blocked Lao Tzu!"

Liu Lichuan scolded loudly, because he knew that Li Weiguo's main army had arrived in Jiangwan Town, and there were only 3,000 people in Chen Tao's department there, and he would definitely not last long. Liu Lichuan was anxious to reinforce Chen Tao, but if he didn't get rid of the two thousand Li family troops near the Drum Tower, he would be attacked on his back, so he could only grit his teeth and order the whole army to storm the Drum Tower.

The Drum Tower is a small city tower in the city, brick and stone structure, because it is used to look at the enemy situation outside the city, so it is higher than the outer city wall, 500 Li Jiajun soldiers rely on the Drum Tower for defense, 500 Li Jiajun soldiers are stationed in the AIIB building, relying on the eight-story reinforced concrete building and the Drum Tower are each other's horns. Around the Drum Tower and the AIIB Building, there were also 1,000 soldiers of the Li Family Army who built a large number of circular fortifications with sandbags, and the soldiers hid behind the fortifications and defended them with foreign guns.

Whether it is the Drum Tower or the AIIB Building, it is the only commanding height in Shanghai County, Li Jiajun relies on these two buildings, and occupies a geographical advantage by defending each other's horns, and the surrounding streets are not conducive to the knife will launch an attack formation, which is more suitable for the firepower advantage of foreign muskets, so the soldiers of Li Jiajun are quite easy to defend.

Xiaodao would launch more than a dozen fierce charges one after another, but unfortunately, under the fierce attack of the Li family's army with rows of muskets, the flesh and blood suffered heavy casualties and did not capture an inch of land.

Liu Lichuan realized the strength of the Li Jiajun at this time, and regretted his absoluteness a little, he should have retired a long time ago, but now that he is difficult to ride a tiger, he can only insist on this bone.

"Transfer the big general's cannon at the head of the city, I don't believe that I can't open a hole!"

Liu Lichuan was anxious and ordered someone to transport the Qing army general's cannon on the outer city wall down to bombard the drum tower and the AIIB.

The kind of cannon of the Qing army is particularly cumbersome, and the weight of thousands of catties is taken down from the city wall, and then carried to the vicinity of the drum tower, which is particularly time-consuming.

After a morning of work, the knife club finally got two doors and placed them in the middle of the street, aiming at the AIIB building and the drum tower.

At this time, the problem came again, no one among the members of the Little Knife Club knew how to fire, so they found a few two knives, and after studying for a long time, they put too much gunpowder into it, and blew up the two general cannons.

Then Liu Lichuan got two more general cannons, and finally drummed up to be able to shoot, but the accuracy was too poor, and more than a dozen shells were fired but failed to hit.

At this time, Yang Ping, the commander of the Li Jiajun who was in charge of the command around the AIIB building and the drum tower, realized the danger of the small knife and the cannon, so he preemptively launched a counter-charge. And Liu Lichuan always thought that Li Jiajun could not hold out, and did not react, but was disrupted by a sudden countercharge by Li Jiajun, not only lost thousands of troops, but even the last two general cannons were blown up by Li Jiajun's soldiers with gunpowder.

Liu Lichuan is angry!

He hurriedly transferred troops to attack, but as a result, Li Jiajun retreated back with a charge to blow up the artillery of the knife club, and continued to defend it, the knife club failed to charge, and paid a huge price of casualties of a thousand soldiers, and the angry Liu Lichuan scolded the ancestors for the eighteenth generation, but there was no way.

At night, Liu Lichuan carried out many sneak attacks, but unfortunately they were all beaten back by the powerful muskets of the Li family's army, and suffered heavy casualties, so he had to stop the attack and rest on the spot.

Since the Xiaodao Society was unable to devote all its forces to the battle between the AIIB and the Gulou District, the remaining tens of thousands of soldiers and horses began to burn, kill and loot the landlords and wealthy families in Shanghai County, making the city full of chickens and dogs.

Originally, Liu Lichuan could stop the excessive indiscriminate killing of innocents, but he couldn't attack the AIIB for a long time, and he was angry, and seeing that his morale was very low by Li Jiajun, he acquiesced to the looting of the soldiers, so as to boost morale and prepare for the big war in Japan.

At the same time, on the side of Jiangwan Town, Li Weiguo also learned the news that the city of Shanghai County was broken, and knew that Peng Wenyuan was killed in battle, and there was no Qing court official in Shanghai County who was higher than Li Weiguo's official position, so Li Weiguo did not choose to defend, but took the initiative to launch a fierce attack.

Originally, there were 2,000 defenders of the Li family army in Jiangwan Town, and Li Weiguo left 3,000 people to guard Baoshan, bringing 4,000 soldiers and horses, adding up to a total of 6,000 troops, and equipped with ten 16-pounder guns, and the other six 24-pounder guns were left in Baoshan City for defense.

The 6,000 high-morale musket team of the Li family's army, under the cover of the fire of ten guns, marched in a neat pace, echelon rush, and suddenly beat Chen Tao's troops on their backs, and the 3,000 soldiers and horses held out in less than an hour before more than half of them were killed and wounded, and finally Chen Tao was forced to give up the task of containing the Li family's army and fled to Shanghai with the remnants.

Li Jiajun took advantage of the victory to attack and arrived outside the north gate of Shanghai County in the second half of the night.

The scout returned to report: "Report, the reconnaissance found that the gunfire in Shanghai County is very dense, which proves that our troops guarding the AIIB are still resisting!" ”

Li Weiguo nodded, everything was in his plan, so he said, "Very good!" Give the order to go down, rest for half an hour, and attack at dawn! ”