Li Zhan had quietly retreated at the moment when Ao Bai fell to the ground, and quickly got on his horse and ran towards the river.

After staying on the sailor warship, Li Zhan gasped for breath and said to Liu Kongzhao: "Run, Ao Bai is dead!" ”

"Huh? How so? Liu Kongzhao was shocked.

"Don't ask so much, it's too late if you don't leave, the Yangzhou Military Brigade has already arrived." Li Zhan didn't know who the crowd was outside, he thought that other combat divisions of the Yangzhou Army had already rushed over.

"Where are we going? Why don't we go back to Nanjing? The panicked Liu Kongzhao had no idea.

"Back to Nanjing, do you think Nanjing can hold on?" Li Zhan did not want to return to Nanjing, he knew that with only 5,000 Qing cavalry and Zhu Guobi's men, it was impossible to hold Nanjing.

"And where do you say you're going?" Liu Kongzhao said urgently.

"Don't worry, let me think!" Li Zhan calmed his breath and lowered his head to think.

"Your sailor has no problem walking along the inshore water, right? Let's go to Shandong, where it is still under the rule of the Manchus. Li Zhan thought for a moment, looked up at Liu Kongzhao and said.

"Okay, then let's go, we won't be able to leave if it's too late." Liu Kongzhao hurriedly said.

"Aren't we waiting for the soldiers on the shore?" Li Zhan asked with some hesitation.

"I can't care so much, let's go!" Liu Kongzhao did not want to delay for a moment, and ordered the naval warships to immediately lift anchor and sail towards the lower reaches of the Yangtze River.

Although the Qing soldiers on the shore suffered heavy casualties, there were still seven or eight thousand people, and it was the fourth regiment of the garrison division that stopped the Qing troops in the direction of the riverbank, and the more than 2,000 people of the four regiments only stopped the more than 2,000 Qing soldiers on foot, but nearly 5,000 Qing cavalry ran in a circle towards the river.

The two thousand Qing soldiers on foot were quickly overwhelmed by the soldiers and civilians of Yangzhou who poured up, and seeing the scene in front of him, Shi Kefa was stunned by the huge power of the people of Yangzhou.

Although the trapped Qing soldiers caused a lot of casualties to the soldiers and civilians of Yangzhou, the crowd did not stop, and the two thousand Qing soldiers did not last long, and soon the crowd continued to pour towards the river.

The Qing cavalry who ran to the river were dumbfounded when they looked at the sailor warships that were going away, and under the leadership of a general, the Qing soldiers who had no way to retreat began to rush back.

Wang Qiang has already gathered all the remaining Yangzhou Type 1 rifles, and there are still about 400 rifles, mainly brought by the Fourth Regiment.

Wang Qiang himself ran in front with three or four guards carrying machine guns, he didn't want the people of Yangzhou to suffer too many casualties, and the best weapon to deal with the cavalry was firearms.

The Qing cavalry that rushed back was first met with machine gun fire, and although the Qing soldiers kept turning on their backs, no one stopped.

Wang Qiang quickly finished the second chain, and by the time the third chain was loaded, the riflemen had already opened fire, and this time the Qing cavalry fell more.

Wang Qiang did not open fire immediately, he wanted to use the blocking fire of the machine gun to buy time for the riflemen to reload.

The front of the Qing cavalry attack was very wide, and the four hundred riflemen only lined up in two rows on both sides of Wang Qiang, and after the second round of rifle firing, Wang Qiang's machine gun rang out, and Wang Qiang's short shot made the Qing cavalry fail to rush to within 50 meters of the riflemen.

Shi Kefa, Liu Lan and others had already followed, and countless Yangzhou soldiers and civilians had gathered behind them, and the cheers in the crowd had already resounded in the sky when they saw that the Qing cavalry had been beaten and fell off their horses.

But the more than 2,000 rounds of ammunition for the machine gun were really not enough, and soon Wang Qiang's machine gun stopped roaring, and the Qing cavalry got closer and closer to the riflemen.

The commander of the 2nd Regiment of the garrison division had already made preparations with the garrison division, and just when the Qing cavalry was about to break through the defense line of the riflemen, the remaining five or six thousand men of the garrison division took the lead in rushing forward.

At this time, there were only more than 3,000 Qing cavalry left, and as Liu Lan led the people to throw the wood and ladders left by the Qing soldiers outside the steel mill to the front, the speed of the Qing cavalry was forced to slow down.

The garrisons from all over the country also surrounded the Qing soldiers who had slowed down, and after a while, the 3,000 Qing cavalry were already firmly surrounded in the middle.

The encirclement and annihilation of more than 3,000 Qing cavalry made the Yangzhou army pay a lot of price, watching the soldiers fall under the knives of the Qing soldiers, Liu Lan was about to run forward with a pistol in her red eyes.

Seeing this, the red lady hurriedly grabbed Liu Lan, this kind of chaotic battle with a pistol will not play a role, Liu Lan was frightened by the arrow just now, and now she no longer dares to let Liu Lan take risks.

Seeing that the Qing soldiers were still brave, the people of Yangzhou also rushed up, and now basically three or four people are fighting around a cavalry, and after paying the price of several thousand, they finally wiped out all the cavalry of the Qing army.

Seeing that the battle had stopped, Shi Kefa breathed a long sigh of relief and hurriedly ordered the garrison division to clean up the battlefield and treat the wounded.

Li Zhan and Liu Kongzhao ran towards the mouth of the Yangtze River with the sailor warship, and the speed of the warship down the river was indeed very fast, and when the Qing cavalry was completely annihilated, the sailor warship had escaped more than 20 miles.

"Master Hou, it's not good, the battleship of the Yangzhou Army is in front!" Without waiting for the soldiers to report, Liu Kongzhao had already seen black smoke rising from the river in the distance, which he knew was a unique sign of Yangzhou steamships.

"What to do? What to do? Liu Kongzhao was so anxious that he asked Li Zhan beside him again and again.

Li Zhan's heart also cooled down, it was impossible to turn back and rush to Nanjing at this time, and now Li Zhan's only life-saving straw was that the Yangzhou battleship returning from the sea did not know everything that happened in Yangzhou, so that they could get through in confusion.

The Yangzhou battleships that Li Zhan and others saw were the "Weiqing" and "Fengyang" battleships that had returned from Japan, and the two battleships were followed by more than a dozen steam merchant ships equipped with artillery.

Shi Lang stood on the deck of the "Wei Qing" and was also anxious, the two people sent to Zhenjiang by Wang Qiang yesterday did not wait in the town, but asked the temporary port to send ordinary steam ships to the mouth of the Yangtze River to wait for the warships returning from the voyage.

Fortunately, they did so, otherwise Shi Lang and the others would not know what happened in Yangzhou, and they would not have launched an attack on Liu Kongzhao's water division who escaped from the Yangtze River.

The "Weiqing" and "Fengyang" had already driven at full speed towards the upper reaches of the Yangtze River, and they had already seen the warships of Liu Kongzhao's naval division on the river, and Shi Lang ordered the two ships to prepare for battle.

"Wei Qing" and "Fengyang" blocked the channel of Liu Kongzhao's naval division's warships, and Li Zhan and Liu Kongzhao's hearts cooled.

Li Zhan still didn't give up, so he asked Liu Kongzhao to send a small boat to negotiate, and Liu Kongzhao, who had no opinion, had to rely on him.

Seeing that the boat was smashed to pieces in the middle of the river, Liu Kongzhao ordered the sailors to turn around and run towards the upper reaches of the Yangtze River.

In the upper reaches of the Yangtze River, Liu Kongzhao's naval division was greeted by four merchant ships equipped with artillery that had been moored in the harbor before, and the merchant ships lined up in a row did not say a word, and the warships of the naval division opened fire, and the dense naval warships were beaten and caught fire one after another, and the three warships had capsized, and the corpses of many sailor soldiers began to float on the river.

Shi Lang has already stared at Liu Kongzhao's flagship, which is also blamed on Liu Kongzhao's flagship target is too obvious, not only is it the largest warship in the naval division, but the flag flying high on the bow directly explains the identity of this warship.

Shi Lang had already taken a small boat to the "Fengyang", and although the river was wide, the flexibility of the "Weiqing" was obviously not as good as that of the smaller "Fengyang" in the river.

Seeing the "Fengyang" rushing directly towards his flagship, Liu Kongzhao was so frightened that he ordered the sailors to row the warship with all his strength to the shore, and he also wanted to escape from the shore.

Several naval warships intercepted the "Fengyang", Shi Lang directly ordered the ship's guns to open fire, and several warships were quickly overturned in the river, and the "Fengyang" did not slow down, emitting thick black smoke, and went directly to the flagship.

Less than a hundred meters from the flagship, Shi Lang did not order the artillery to fire, he wanted to capture the battleship alive.

Liu Kongzhao had lost the courage to resist, only Li Zhan was hoarsely shouting for the soldiers on the ship to open fire, and the soldiers looked at Liu Kongzhao blankly and did not pay attention to Li Zhan's screaming.

"Let's go!" Liu Kongzhao shouted weakly.

As the sails on the flagship fell, the soldiers also stood on the sides of the ship, and the flag on the bow of the ship was lowered, and Shi Lang knew that the ship had surrendered.

With the surrender of the flagship, the entire naval division soon stopped resisting, and under the supervision of the "Weiqing" and "Fengyang", more than a dozen merchant ships escorted more than 100 large and small ships of the naval division and slowly sailed upstream.

Liu Kongzhao and Li Zhan had already been escorted to the "Fengyang", both of them hung their heads and did not speak.

The small steamboat that had previously informed Shi Lang and the others had already sailed towards Guazhou with all their might, and they hurried to report to the supervisor and the others.

Shi Kefa, who had defended Guazhou, began to worry about the fate of the Nanjing court, but there was no news about Nanjing, which made Shi Kefa anxious.

The small steamboat anchored directly at the site where the Qing troops landed in the morning, and two of Wang Qiang's guards jumped off the boat and ran to the shore.

Shi Kefa and others also organized soldiers and civilians to clean up the battlefield on the shore, and after this battle, all 15,000 Qing soldiers were annihilated, and more than 20,000 soldiers and civilians in Yangzhou were killed and wounded.

The bodies of the Qing soldiers were quickly transported by the carts that arrived later, and a large pit was dug far away from Guazhou to be buried, and the bodies of the soldiers and civilians in Yangzhou had to be properly collected and buried until enough coffins were brought from all over Yangzhou before they could be buried.

Looking at the bodies of Yangzhou soldiers and civilians lined up by the river, women such as Liu Lan and Red Lady couldn't cry anymore, and Shi Kefa hurriedly asked people to help them down.

Two guards found Wang Qiang and loudly reported that Li Zhan and Liu Kongzhao had been captured alive by the fleet returning from Japan.

The news of the capture of Li Zhan and Liu Kongzhao diluted the sadness of the soldiers and civilians in Yangzhou, and the soldiers and civilians who were busy stopped and shouted in unison to Shi Kefa, Wang Qiang and others: "Kill them!" Rip them off! ”

Wang Qiang shouted loudly: "Good! Must have chopped them off! ”

Shi Kefa also nodded firmly.

The two guards ran to the river and boarded the boat, they were going to tell Shi Lang the news, and asked him to take the two traitors to the bodies of the Yangzhou soldiers and civilians, and the two traitors would be chopped alive in front of the bodies of the Yangzhou soldiers and civilians to pay tribute to the sacrificed Yangzhou soldiers and civilians.

The "Fengyang" escorted the two traitors to the riverside, and soon Li Zhan and Liu Kongzhao were brought to the neatly arranged corpses of the soldiers and civilians in Yangzhou, and the angry soldiers and civilians could no longer control their emotions, so they rushed forward and tore the two of them.

Liu Kongzhao was already frightened into a pile of mud, and there was a foul smell on his body, obviously the urine and urine had been completely **, Li Zhan forced himself to calm down, but his trembling legs were already shaking like sifting chaff.

PS: I wish all friends all the best in the Year of the Monkey and all your wishes come true! Tashi Delek! I'm here to greet you for the New Year!