Chapter 99: Secrets of the Palace

This Rustin fast gunboat is also an iron-hulled ship of more than 700 tons, equipped with more than 10 mén of various types of guns from 120mm to 47mm.

Soon the situation was figured out, it turned out that a large number of iron cylinders suddenly floated down from the upstream, and the Rustin, who was responsible for patrolling the river, was naturally the first to discover this situation, and originally did not pay much attention to this thing that floated down, the hostile Vietnamese did not have a decent navy at all, and the only two wooden ships of the Hue Navy Division had already been sunk yesterday, and now there is no need to worry about the enemy's attack on the river.

So out of curiosity, the Rustin leaned up to check the hydropower-floating iron bucket, who knew that a slowly approaching iron bucket lightly touched the draft position of the battleship, and under the attention of the soldier Mén, there was a violent explosion, which directly blew a hole more than 2 meters in the position of the battleship's right chord waterline, and tore the boiler in this position of the bilge, causing a chain explosion, and directly blowing the battleship in half.

This news naturally made Gu Ba very angry, under this comprehensive control, these hateful guys actually came up with these strange things! This must have been some kind of strangely shaped mine, "ordered to send torpedo boats to patrol the river and detonate as many mines as possible from the Vietnamese......"

The night was interrupted by the sound of intermittent explosions, which kept the French from getting a good night's sleep, and in the morning the officers came again to report that a torpedo boat had been wounded and several naval soldiers had been killed in the vile mine warfare of the Vietnamese during the previous night's minesweeping operation.

Guba was obviously furious, and immediately ordered an attack.

Although Xue Chao harassed the French last night, but Lu Guogong Song Xing brought a not very good news, after the palace was successfully relieved, the Vietnamese king Nguyen Phuc Dinh decided that we would not evacuate Hue, saying that we wanted to live and die with the people of the whole country! However, Song Xing thought that the bigger reason was that the huge property in the palace was about to be given up, and Ruan Fuying couldn't think about it for a while, so he was still in the palace.

Song Yunze asked whether to forcibly take the king of Vietnam away, with the current strength of the army, it was completely realized, but this was stopped by the old and heavy Song Xing, "If the name is not right, it is not good, and you must not make a wrong decision that will affect the future development in Vietnam for the sake of temporary pleasure!" Nguyen Phuc Yen is a coward, but he has been in power for a long time, so he can't be moved lightly! ”

Xue Chao was pondering Song Xing's words at this time, thinking of the instructor's repeated care when he left, what kind of trend is this?

Xue Chao had a new understanding of the arduousness of yesterday's battle, if the French established a position with artillery, they would be in a very passive position, although they won yesterday, but there were too many problems with the troops.

The mortar Xiǎo detachment, which exerted great combat power, released more than 20 shells in one go, which is half of the total stock, and the most terrible thing is the odd difference in accuracy, which basically belongs to the kind of inaccurate head. And these 40 shells were only asked from the Artillery Bureau after he left, it is said that it is because of the trouble of making shells, and the current production is not high, anyway, the instructor's side is also very tight!

Fortunately, the supply and storage of bullets is still very large, and some of them are stored in the territory of the Guangzhi Song family. In yesterday's battle, the soldiers of Xue Chao's two battalions can be said to be highly moraled, and there are already arrogant xiǎo Zi who are going to break through the French into the Xiangjiang River today, but this is obviously a good wish, the big warship of the people will go to that side, how much will they go and not die!

"Report! The French brought in a lot of artillery from the east side! "The sentinel close to the east mén hurriedly sent the news.

The French are really powerful, Xue Chao sighed secretly, next time he discussed with the instructor, no matter what, he should arm himself with an artillery battalion, his seven hundred people are really nothing in front of other people's artillery, he hurriedly climbed behind a hidden roof chimney pipe, and quietly checked the artillery brought by the French in the distance.

One, two, three......

Xue Chao almost didn't hold on to this chimney and fell downstairs, a full 12mén cannon, transported to the West Street by the French, and his own simple fortifications were not cleaned up with one shot!

Looking at the layout of the army carefully, it is obvious that the opponent's defense is very strict, and he only has a lot more troops than himself, if he relies on artillery, his head is a little buzzing, and he is busy thinking about how to break the enemy for a while.

At this time, Song Yunze sent someone to send the news, and he had already seen that the signs were wrong, and discussed with his father, Song Xing asked him to bring soldiers to see the retreating west palace first, and form a horn with Xue Chao at the entrance of the west street. ,

Now there are a lot of Vietnamese troops in the palace, General Zhendong gathered a day's manpower yesterday, and finally caught less than 3,000 defeated soldiers, and they are all stuffed into the city to prepare for defense, anyway, there are soldiers of Lord Qincha guarding the retreat, plus Xue Chaoying won a big victory yesterday, so that the general also added a little courage.

The soldiers were stationed at various points outside the city, and hundreds of muskets kept the palace like an iron bucket. However, soon General Zhendong found out that this iron bucket was used as a sieve for people, and when the French soldiers covered the artillery in their field of vision, Ruan Puxing immediately jumped off the platform and went straight to Xi Mén to find Song Yunze, he was not stupid at all, that thing was not something that the body of blood could resist, so hurry up and ask Song Yunze what he meant.

Song Yunze was noncommittal, just defended with peace of mind, and if the French were killed or wounded, they would naturally be.

Soon the French shelling began, and sure enough, the target of the first round was the fortifications that Xue Chao had originally set up on the street, and after a burst of artillery fire, those simple fortifications were sadly swept away, however, it was obvious that Xue Chao's troops on the periphery had given up the tactics of relying on the fortifications to defend, and began to divide into xiǎo teams, using the terrain from xiǎo alleys to launch a blockade against the French.

For a while, there was a lot of gunfire on the battlefield, but the French never dispersed their forces and fought in the streets according to Xue Chao's intentions, but pressed towards the palace step by step, Major Clark had already planned to lure these nasty enemies out of the shantytown that was difficult to pursue, and the big target in the palace was the purpose of coming to Hue this time.

The cold guns everywhere still kept firing, but the effect is difficult to say, the French are relying on the buildings on the roadside everywhere to counterattack, the gunfire continues, but the casualties on both sides are limited.

The artillery grinded on the avenue until 9 o'clock, and finally launched a bombardment of the palace, the projectiles kept flying over the palace wall and smashed into the rooms inside, and many houses were immediately set on fire, but due to the relationship between the palace walls and the fact that the caliber of the 3-inch and 4-inch shells was more xiǎo in the end, the effect on bombarding the thick walls was not good, but the palace was indeed a mess.

After seven or eight rounds of artillery in a row, Major Clark saw that there was no way to counterattack in the palace, and it was obvious that the strong artillery used by the enemy yesterday was not powerful, so he immediately organized the Xiǎo team to attack.

At this time, an unexpected situation happened, the French ** team that broke into the palace was counterattacked by a large number of Vietnamese soldiers, and was about to withdraw from the palace, and those soldiers suddenly saw in the city méndòng that the soldiers who were still attacking frantically just now actually fled in a swarm, this abnormal phenomenon made them completely incomprehensible, and they were stunned to see a large number of enemy troops fleeing to the rear of the palace, and then hurriedly ran back to report to Major Clark, who was in command of the front.

Obviously, this situation also made Major Clark not very clear, but this was definitely the best opportunity to attack the palace, and a large number of French ** teams rushed into the palace.

The results of the Hue war soon reached Guangzhou through the sea channel, and on November 17, Qin Kai, who was preparing to participate in the naval division exercise that day, was also shocked when he got the news! The telegram that Xue Chao intended to send was not many words - "The French fleet attacked Hue, the king of Vietnam died, retreated to Quang Chi, and supported the new king Nguyen Phuc Minh!" ”

At this time, Qin Kai found that the world had undergone a very peculiar change, and the original Guba also broke into Hue to complete the occupation, and coerced the Vietnamese king Nguyen Phuc Dinh to sign the "Hue Treaty" to completely colonize Vietnam, but Nguyen Phuc Dinh soon died of shock before he could use the seal, and the French had no choice but to sign this traitorous treaty with the Emperor Xiǎo, who was re-established by the Vietnamese.

Now the Vietnamese king Nguyen Phuc Dinh hung up, due to his butterfly effect, the French did not get the opportunity to sign this traitorous treaty that obtained the legal basis for colonizing Vietnam, and Lu Guo Gong Song Xing, the old prime minister Vu Ha Ban, and the Hou of Zhendong Nguyen Pu Hung immediately supported this Nguyen Phuc Minh as the king of Vietnam after the three withdrew to Quang Trie.

In response to the very rampant behavior of the French, Li Zhongtang immediately summoned the French consul and asked him to quickly inform the French Minister Bao Hai of the situation, and the Qing Dynasty asked the French to give a proper explanation as to why they occupied Hue, the capital of Vietnam, which was part of the Qing Dynasty.

On 18 November, the combined fleets of the Beiyang Naval Division and the Nanyang Naval Division held a grand exercise in Tianjin, and Li Zhongtang obviously invited consuls from various countries to board the 501 ironclad ship of the Nanyang Naval Division, the flagship of the exercise, apparently in order to show force. ,

For Li Zhongtang's unscrupulous leakage, Qin Kai was actually very angry, these consuls and ministers were all thieves, he specially ordered that the important equipment on the ship, such as the rangefinder, were unloaded, and then hidden, but the thick barrel could not be truncated, otherwise he was ready to do it.

Li Zhongtang specially introduced the hero of the Nanyang Naval Battle, Qin Kai, to the consuls of various countries on the battleship, and praised the state of the Nanyang Naval Division, which was naturally the result of his and Ding Richang's behind-the-scenes jiāo exchange, but it can be seen that Ding Richang and Li Zhongtang are quite cool about this set.

Of course, the finale is the artillery shell of the 501 ship, this time the shell attack was obviously deliberately arranged by Qin Kai, and each artillery group aimed at the shell freely, although the black fire was replaced with a black fire bag, but the huge shock of this artillery still shocked all the consuls present.

After that, Lord Li Zhongtang publicly announced that in view of the unilateral occupation of Hue by the French Navy, he had telegraphed to the French Minister Bao Hai that he did not agree to sign any peace treaty with France for the time being, and that France must withdraw its troops from Hue, and at the same time, the Huai Army Phan Dinh Xin's Dingzi Army stationed on the Vietnamese border received an order to be stationed in North Vietnam, ready to help Vietnam resist the French attack at any time.

This situation seems to be that the war between the Qing and France is about to break out, as the most powerful empire of the sun never sets, the attitude of Sir Wittoma, the British minister to China, is very evocative, this time after visiting the 501 ironclad, his accompanying military advisers immediately found some clues, and concluded that this is a German-made ironclad ship.

Sir Wittoma, who had not been enthusiastic about the Qing warship trade, suddenly realized that it was clear that Europe was no longer the British who were selling warships to the Qing Dynasty, and what surprised him even more was that the accompanying military adviser pointed out to him that the guns on the ironclad ship were clearly superior to those of the British warships.

This naturally reminded him that the German Empire, the manufacturer of the artillery, had obviously mastered the technology they did not understand, and now where this information could be obtained, the Qing Kingdom was obviously a good choice, and with the noble brain of Sir Wittoma, it was natural to think that these cannons could be produced from the corner of the horsetail.

Therefore, when Li Zhongtang announced that he would set up a joint fleet of Nanyang and Beiyang to inspect Fuzhou and Guangzhou, he immediately proposed that Hong Kong, as a free port, was willing to provide coal refueling services for the fleet of the Qing Dynasty, and agreed to complete the two ironclad cruisers made by the Qing State in the British shipyard.

Li Zhongtang was naturally happy to see the unexpected statement of the British, while the French consul left the exercise venue in a hurry, and after the Japanese consul in Tianjin, who Qin Kai paid special attention to, got on the battleship, he kept wandering around, always walking towards those important battleship parts, but under special care, he obviously didn't get much information.

The next day, the French minister Bao Hai issued a statement that according to the Second Treaty of Saigon, France had the right to garrison troops throughout Vietnam, and that the French had arrived in Hue to assist the Vietnamese king in quelling the rebellion, which they knew was initiated by Nguyen Phuc Minh, who was now supported by the Vietnamese.

For these true and false news, the whole Qing Dynasty was waiting for an authoritative information, and soon the "Fujian New Daily" once again described the whole process of the invasion of the Vietnamese capital Hue by the French navy, of course, the army led by Xue Chao was weakened into a local Chinese organization, and the main force of resistance became the army of Vietnam itself, and the new Vietnamese king was explained in detail.

In fact, after the French occupied the palace, they also created a puppet of the king of Vietnam, but it is more legal for Lu Guogong to support the king of Vietnam, and he has the appearance of important ministers of Vietnam, in addition, the edict of the king of Vietnam has played a role in stabilizing the hearts of the people, as for how Nguyen Phuc Dinh wrote the edict at that time, there is no way to verify