The battle in Ezhou lasted nearly two hours, and although the Marines were extremely combative, in terms of street fighting in the city, the Qing soldiers armed with new muskets were far more difficult to deal with than the Qing soldiers with cold weapons.

Yan Yingyuan did not order the troops to use a large number of grenadiers and mortars, the streets were lined with houses, the people in the city did not know that the battle would start in the city today, after the Marines entered the city, a large number of people retreated into their homes and closed the doors, as if this could provide themselves with a sense of security.

Yan Yingyuan discovered this problem after the grenadier fired for the first time, and the two civilians who were killed by mistake made Yan Yingyuan feel a little guilty, and immediately ordered the troops to use heavy firepower carefully, and if they had to use it, they must first ask him for instructions.

When the Qing soldiers were gradually squeezed under the northern city wall, the battle began to become simpler, Yan Yingyuan had no scruples about accidentally injuring the people, mortars and grenadiers were fired, and the Qing soldiers began to fall, and more and more Qing soldiers knelt on the way of the Marine Corps charge with muskets.

Li Guoying had no good luck this time, he thought that it would be safer to have a lot of personal soldiers to protect him, but in fact, this hastened his death even more, under the bombardment of the grenadier, the human shield did not play any role at all, and with Li Guoying being killed, the battle in Ezhou City was over.

The city gate of Ezhou Linjiang was quickly opened, Huang Degong and Zheng Chenggong climbed the north gate tower, and Yan Yingyuan soon led people to meet the two on the city tower.

According to the battle plan, they will stay in Ezhou for three hours, which is to wait for the troops sent by the Fifth Division to take over the city of Ezhou.

After the Fifth Division took Jiujiang City without a fight, Weng Zhiqi immediately sent fast horses to chase the fleet along the river, and reported the news that Jiujiang City had been recovered to Huang Degong, and after discussing with Yan Yingyuan and Zheng Chenggong, Huang Degong ordered Weng Zhiqi to immediately rush to the upstream with the Anqing Naval Division's warship that arrived later.

During the duration of the stay. Everyone did not rest, and cleaning the battlefield, counting the results and counting the casualties were all necessary things.

None of the 21,000 Qing soldiers in Ezhou City escaped, the marines captured more than 13,000 prisoners, and the rest of the Qing soldiers were all killed, and the corpses of these Qing soldiers had to be transported to the outside of the city for burial.

The Marines suffered more than 200 casualties, and there were not many casualties. There were only about two dozen people, and the wounded soldiers had to be treated as soon as possible.

At present, the medical progress of the Wehrmacht in the army is very obvious, and the development of penicillin arranged by Luo Jian earlier has already entered the stage of clinical use, and with this special drug, the probability of wounded soldiers in wartime dying of wound infection is greatly reduced.

The wounded soldiers were simply bandaged and carried to the ship's medical cabin, where they would be better treated.

Everything was arranged, Huang Degong and Yan Yingyuan stood on the tower of Ezhou City and looked in the direction of the lower reaches of the Yangtze River, they were all anxiously waiting for the Fifth Division.

"Reehen, when you first proposed this plan. I'm still very worried, but now it seems that you are right! Huang Degong said to Yan Yingyuan from the bottom of his heart.

"Minister Huang, this is not my credit alone, if we don't have the full cooperation of the fleet, if we want to capture Ezhou, not only will the casualties increase greatly, but I am afraid that we will not be able to take it in a short time." Yan Yingyuan was always very modest at this time. This habit makes him always get along very well with everyone.

"We've been fighting in Ezhou for so long, I don't know if the news will reach Wuchang?" Zheng Chenggong said very worriedly. The opposite side of Ezhou is Huanggang County, although Huanggang County does not have a large number of Qing troops, but at least there are always people from the government, Ezhou guns and cannons are loud, everyone knows that the national defense army has come over, if they report to Wuchang. The Wehrmacht could not be stopped.

"I said, Damu, what are you worried about? Didn't Li Heng say that we captured Ezhou to knock on the mountain and shock the tiger? If Wuchang didn't know, how could they report to Hong Chengchou? Li Heng's plan did not include a sneak attack on Wuchang. Hearing Zheng Chenggong's worry, Huang Degong said with a smile.

"Oops, how did I forget about this stubble?" Zheng Chenggong smiled a little embarrassedly.

The three of them chatted casually on the castle tower. While constantly looking at the Yangtze River, the Fifth Division on the Huang Fei Naval Division's warship was delayed, and Huang Degong had already taken out his pocket watch and looked at it five or six times.

The agreed three-hour time was getting closer and closer, and there was still no shadow of the warship, and Huang Degong was a little angry.

"Uncle, Anqing sailors haven't all been replaced by steamships, right?" Zheng Chenggong said coldly, and Huang Degong realized this problem.

Huang Fei's Anqing Sailor has always been a very embarrassing role, and the number of various warships is quite a lot, adding up to four or five hundred, while the number of sailors is decreasing year by year, from the original 15,000 to less than 5,000 now.

It was not that the soldiers of the Navy Division fled, but that these soldiers had a little vision, and they all ran to Zheng Chenggong's navy, when Zheng Chengcheng's navy was established, most of the soldiers were from the Anqing Navy Division.

Later, the Nanjing government vigorously developed the ocean-going navy, and the construction of the naval division was naturally no longer mentioned, and if it were not for the occasional conflict with the Qing naval division on the Yangtze River, everyone almost forgot the existence of the Anqing naval division.

Huang Fei, the chief soldier of the Navy Division, wanted to serve in the army at the beginning, but as he grew older, he saw that the Wehrmacht had become a world for young people, and this kind of thinking gradually faded.

Huang Fei knew that the sailor was destined to be eliminated, so he no longer asked the Nanjing government to change his clothes, and the Anqing sailor has been simply maintaining.

When Huang Degong ordered the Anqing Naval Division to cooperate with the operation, the original four or five hundred warships could only dispatch half of the number, and the damage to the ships was one thing, and the shortage of a large number of naval soldiers was the main reason.

"When this battle is over, the problem of Anqing Sailor must be dealt with." Huang Degong said to himself that as the Minister of National Defense, he was responsible for the problem of the Anqing Naval Division.

Finally saw a few wisps of black smoke floating on the river, Huang Degong raised his binoculars and saw that more than a dozen steam ships had come, and they were flying the flag of the Anqing Naval Division.

Of course, it was impossible for more than a dozen ships to transport all the five divisions there, and Huang Degong knew that it would be impossible to march to Wuchang today as planned.

Weng Zhiqi and Huang Fei arrived first by steamboat, but most of the Fifth Division was still far behind, and it was not until the next morning that the Fifth Division arrived. But there was nothing to be done.

Yan Yingyuan had the heart to lead the Marines to march to Wuchang by land, but after careful study, he had to give up this idea.

The distance from Ezhou to Wuchang is not far from the map, only about 100 miles, but these roads are covered with a dense network of rivers and water, and no one knows how much distance they have to detour during the march.

What's more, although Wuchang City was burned by Zuo Liangyu at the beginning. But the city wall has not been damaged, and Tong Dai has been operating in Wuchang for three or four years, Wuchang's defense is very tight, without the artillery support of the navy, only with the mortars and grenadiers of the marines, it may be extremely difficult to attack Wuchang City.

Everyone had to wait patiently in Ezhou for the night, and as soon as the fifth division arrived early the next morning, the fleet immediately lifted anchor and set off.

Mei Lezhang Jing Tong Dai, who was stationed in Wuchang, received a report yesterday afternoon that Ezhou had been lost, and it was really the Huanggang officials opposite Ezhou who sent someone to report it.

The Wehrmacht suddenly drove straight into the hinterland of Hubei. This is something that Tong Dai never dreamed of.

In Tong Dai's view, the Qing Dynasty deployed a strong force on the line from Jiujiang to Ezhou, and it may take more than half a year for the National Defense Force to uproot them point by point, and this is still under the condition that the Qing troops do not provide support to these places.

And now the national defense army played cards according to the rules, and actually ignored the Qing soldiers along the way, and went directly to Wuchang, an important town in Hubei, and Tong Dai's head was stunned.

In fact, in the last years of the Ming Dynasty, the Qing soldiers often did this. Didn't the Qing soldiers of that year enter a no-man's land in the territory of the Ming Dynasty? Now that the Wehrmacht has given them this hand, they can't cope with it.

Tong Dai's first reaction when he got the news was to quickly report the situation to Hong Chengchou, the governor of the two lakes.

But Wuchang is more than a thousand miles away from Hengyang, Hunan. It's really a bit far, of course Tong Dai knows that it is impossible to wait for Hong Chengchou to return to the division to rescue Wuchang, he just wants to tell Hong Chengchou that Hubei is in danger now, you can watch it.

Informing Hong Chengchou is only a long-term consideration, and Wuchang's defense is imminent. Of course, Tong Dai knew this, and since yesterday when he received the news of the loss of Ezhou, he began to move his troops back from the periphery of Wuchang.

There were already more than 20,000 Qing soldiers in Wuchang City, and under Tong Dai's urgent order, more than 20,000 Qing soldiers stationed in Hanyang and Jiangxia rushed to Wuchang City overnight. It seems that Tong Dai is going to concentrate all his forces to defend Wuchang.

Of course, Tong Dai knew the extreme importance of Hubei as a big granary to the Manchu court, but now that he was in control of the whole of Hubei, he simply did not have this strength.

However, Tong Dai knew that even if the National Defense Army attacked Hubei, they would not destroy the spring ploughing that was about to begin, unlike in the past, after the Qing troops entered the customs, they would destroy it in addition to destruction, which was also the reason why Tong Dai decided to stick to Wuchang.

As long as the people are still ploughing normally, the imperial court will be able to harvest grain after the autumn, and Tong Dai also expects Hong Chengchou to return to Hubei, first, to relieve the siege of Wuchang, and second, to take back the big granary of the imperial court.

Besides, Tong Dai is confident in holding Wuchang, the city of Wuchang is tall, and the city area is huge, forty or fifty thousand defenders stay in the city without feeling crowded, and the city has sufficient grain and grass reserves, Tong Dai feels that it should not be a big problem to defend for a year.

What made Tong Dai most confident was that Hong Chengchou had set up a firearms manufacturing institute in Wuchang, Hong Chengchou had built a firearms manufacturing institute in Hunan and Hubei, and Hubei's was built in Wuchang, although the scale was not as large as Hengyang, but in a few years, it had provided more than 20,000 new muskets to the Qing army in Hubei.

Although Tong Dai's name is like a Manchu, he is an authentic Han Chinese, but his family followed Nurhachi very early and became an important minister of the Manchu Qing Dynasty.

Although Tong Dai was still a slave when he met a real Manchu nobleman, most of the time he was already a master. Now in Lianghu, except for Hong Chengchou, ordinary people are really not taken seriously by him.

Of course, Tong Dai, who even the regent Dolgon wants to call Mr. Hong Chengchou, does not dare to provoke, but Hong Chengchou has basically personally guarded Hengyang and confronted the National Defense Army in the past two years, which has made Tong Dai really live a good life as a master for two years.

But now that the Wehrmacht is coming, the good days are coming to an end, how can Tong Dai be willing?

The unwilling Tong Dai decided to give the national defense army a little color in Wuchang to see, tens of thousands of Qing soldiers who have used a large number of new muskets and hundreds of cannons on the city wall of Wuchang are Tong Dai's biggest reliance today. (To be continued.) )