Taking advantage of the weakness of the scattered deployment of the cadres and the inability to take care of each other, the French army had an unobstructed water communication line and was well-equipped and well-trained. Since the cadres were not sure which direction the French were attacking, they had no time to come to the rescue, so the result of such a sudden encounter was often that the cadres suffered dozens of casualties while the French suffered unscathed or only a few casualties.

On March 20, 9084, the French troops in Hanoi went out of the city with the support of gunboat fire from the Red River River and the fire of the strongholds outside the city to carry out a short surprise attack on the cadres, claiming to have killed more than 300 cadres, but later found out that 23 were killed and 60 were wounded, a total of 83 people, and their losses were slight: 7 seriously wounded, 1 lightly wounded, and no one was killed.

This kind of "piecemeal kraft candy" of firing one shot in the east and one shot in the west stirred up the panic of all the battalions of the cadre army, and for a time the grass and trees were all soldiers, and the morale was greatly affected. On the contrary, the morale of the French was thus high.

Due to the relatively sufficient logistical supply, Lin Yuansheng, after carefully observing the battlefield, decided to first tightly encircle Hanoi City and cut off all communication between Hanoi City and the outside world, and then launch an attack. Under his arrangement, the battalions of the Yunnan Gui Army and the Black Flag Army quickly began to operate, and soon completed the siege of Hanoi City.

Just after the cadres completed the siege of Hanoi, Liu Renyi, who was "weary of will" and "twilight", led 1,000 people from the Black Flag Army's personal guard battalion and foreign artillery to help in the battle.

Perhaps because he felt that all his subordinates had left with others, and that he, the supreme commander of the Black Flag Army, was too embarrassed to watch his family in Shanxi City, Liu Renyi went through a fierce ideological struggle. It's time to take part in the battle against Hanoi.

It's just that Liu Renyi is still so shrewd. He was asked to lead the Black Flag Army to fight a tough battle. He would never do this kind of thankless and loss-making business. During the Battle of Shanxi, the French army's strong individual combat ability made him still have lingering palpitations. Therefore, Liu Renyi, who was very "enthusiastic" on behalf of the Black Flag Army, undertook the arduous task of blocking and sending reinforcements.

Just when Lin Yuansheng was about to launch an attack, the Beiqi area actually entered the rainy season ahead of schedule, and the abundant rain made the land a piece of mud, so the two sides invariably stopped large-scale military operations on land and began a relatively calm period of recuperation, and rested for a month; But while military operations on land stopped. With the arrival of the rainy season, the water level of the rivers in North Ki of Vietnam rose sharply, and the former shoals became rivers and the water depth became suitable for boats, which was the best time for the French army to maneuver on the water. Because they have a very powerful fleet of river guns in their hands. The rise in the water level undoubtedly increased the range of the river gunboats, allowing these gunboats, armed with small-caliber guns and a large number of Hatch Chase five-barreled guns, to provide maximum fire support to the French forces in the Western Front positions.

On April 16, 9084, the French Nanqi garrison headquarters sent Lieutenant Colonel Domini to lead 600 infantry, plus artillery and engineers, a total of more than 1,000 people, on more than ten civilian boats, supported by five gunboats, to Hanoi. Due to the fact that the French army had carried out several small-scale supply and support operations in Hanoi before, they were all blocked outside the city by the Black Flag Army, and even the transport ships were captured by the Black Flag Army. This time, there was a group of ammunition, grain and other supplies urgently needed by the defenders, and the order given by the headquarters to Domini was simple: to deliver supplies to the isolated city of Hanoi. and rotate the defenders in the city.

Of course, the cadres could not sit idly by and watch the French get reinforcements so smoothly, so they set up an ambush outside the city with 2,400 people from the six small battalions of Huang Shouzhong and Wu Fengdian of the Black Flag Army, and 2,500 people from the fifth battalion of the Dian Army, and tried their best to block the reinforced French army, but because the fire of the French naval guns was too intense, the cadres of nearly 5,000 people could not prevent Domini from entering Hanoi on April 18.

The cost of the French battle was 8 killed and 25 wounded. The flotilla broke out of the siege on 19 April, unloading supplies and fresh troops in the city of Hanoi, carrying hundreds of wounded and weary soldiers. Lieutenant Colonel Domini stayed behind to assist Colonel Beran in command and operations.

Under the command of Lin Yuansheng, the cadres besieging Hanoi launched several large-scale strong attacks on Hanoi, but due to the lack of support from heavy weapons, especially heavy artillery, the most powerful 75-mm camp guns equipped with them could not gnaw at the stone walls of Hanoi City at all, and could only wander left and right outside the city, crying out in vain.

In order to break through this fortified city, Iwao Konno suggested to Lin Yuansheng and Liu Renyi that the 120-mm cannon in Shanxi City, which had given a heavy blow to the French river artillery fleet, be transported here for siege, and Lin Yuansheng and Liu Renyi agreed to his suggestion and sent a team of soldiers back to Shanxi to transport artillery.

Liu Renyi's troops guarded the Red River, hoping to cut off the French army's waterway communications, but Liu Renyi repeatedly stressed to Lin Yuansheng that it was impossible for him to undertake the task of reinforcement and interception alone, and Lin Yuansheng had no choice but to order the 7th battalion of He Xiulin (Yunnan Yiliangren, a veteran of the Yunnan Army) who was originally used to attack the city 3,600 people from the 7th battalion to fight with Liu Renyi, so that the troops used for the siege could only be used by the Gui army, Lin Yuansheng's Yuan army and Ding Huai's "Yungui Miao soldiers" for the time being.

On the night of April 26, 9084, according to the agreement of the meeting three days ago, Ding Huai's Yungui Miao soldiers began to attack the south gate of Hanoi, and the attack began to go very smoothly. Compared with Ding Huai's good luck, the Gui army responsible for attacking the east gate was much less lucky, the Gui soldiers just jumped out of the bunker, and the dotted torches immediately became the best shooting targets for the French army, and in an instant, the field guns in the fortifications of the highland forts outside the east gate of Hanoi, the rifles in the bunker at the head of the city and the Haqikis machine guns on the gunboats on the Red River River were rained all over the head of this poor cadre army, and Chen Degui, the commander of the right battalion of the Gui army, led the team to assault the city, but died in an instant under the terrifying crossfire of the French army. More than 100 people died with him. More than 200 others were injured.

The Gui army attacked ineffectively. The Ding Huai army at the south gate also lost its strategy, and the attack was obviously blocked, and the two cadre armies finally could not support the defeat and retreated after attacking for three hours.

Lin Yuansheng and Ding Huai, of course, could not stop there, and launched two more attacks in succession on 27 and 28 April, but because the French army had already prepared, the cadres were unable to break through the blazing fire network composed of field artillery, Haqikes machine guns, and Grasse rifles, and could only increase casualties. After the three-day attack, the Gui army and the hastily recruited Yuan army, which had not had time to be well trained, temporarily lost their combat effectiveness, and the main force attacking Hanoi fell on the shoulders of Ding Huai.

Forced by the huge threat of the forts outside the city of Hanoi, Ding Huai decided to kick the forts outside the city before attacking the city, because the Gui army and the Yuan army suffered heavy casualties in the previous battle, and could not continue to attack, He Xiulin, who was temporarily sent by Lin Yuansheng to help, except for leaving two battalions of 1,000 people to help Liu Renyi to help, the rest were transferred back to participate in the attack.

At night on 28 April, the French defenders and armed parishioners in the fort outside the East Gate, which had just repelled a round of attacks by the cadres during the day, were just about to rest, when they seemed to notice something unusual 200 zhang in front of the fort. I was quite puzzled, I didn't know what kind of medicine was sold in the gourd of the Qianjun. It was not until the early morning of 30 April that it was suddenly discovered that the cadres had quietly advanced to a place only a few feet away from the fort by means of tunnel operation, and then hurriedly launched a counterattack with limited troops, but when the French soldiers and armed parishioners were about to rush to the position of the cadres, they suddenly found countless three-foot-long straw handles erected, and the cadres of the brigade launched a general attack on the fort under the cover of straw handles, and used the straw handles to resist the fire of the French guns. After all, the French defenders of the fort outside the city were already weak, and there were many Vietnamese indigenous soldiers and armed parishioners, and their combat effectiveness was not as good as that of the regular troops.

"Count 10,000 bundles, roll forward, grass to stand the wall, people are not subject to guns, grass to press the fort, you can break it." Lin Yuansheng made such an account in his "Notes on Entering Vietnam". This is the most skilled "rolling grass dragon" tactics of the Yunnan army, and it is precisely by virtue of this tactic that the cadre army gradually controlled all the strongholds of the French army outside Hanoi, and finally cut off an arm of the defenders of Hanoi; At the same time, Liu Renyi also successfully blocked the channel of the Red River with the captured transport boat, and Hanoi finally fell into a desperate situation of being surrounded on all sides.

But at the same time, Ding Huai also reached the point where his donkey skills were exhausted, and the "rolling grass dragon" tactics he was proud of could not be used to attack the city, and the cadres who lacked heavy siege weapons could only use the tactics of crowds to launch a strong attack. Although the strongholds outside the city were captured by the cadres, the firepower of the defenders at the head of the city and the gunboats on the Ming River remained unabated, and the cadres were intimidated by the fierce firepower of the French army, and could not move at all during the day.

But even if they could reach the foot of the city wall, the cadres could easily be overwhelmed by the dense fire at the head of the city, and if there was no progress during the night, they would have to withdraw in time at dawn; If they could not withdraw after dawn, then this group of poor officers and soldiers could only lie under the base of the city wall all day, relying on the comrades who occupied the high ground outside the city to constantly fire guns and cannons to disperse, weaken the firepower of the French army at the head of the city, and wait until dark to withdraw to the camp. It was a very difficult day: not only did he have to hide at the foot of the city wall and endure artillery fire, but even eating became a big problem. Due to the contact with the rear was blocked by the French firepower, the rice could not be delivered at all, the soldiers who delivered the rice balls could only wrap the rice balls with cloth and throw them hard, so it was also a helpless move, under the suppression of intensive firepower, the psychological pressure on the soldiers who threw the rice balls can be imagined, and the accurate head of the throwing under this pressure is naturally "conceivable", how many of such rice balls can enter the stomachs of the poor people lying under the city wall only God knows, and what is even more unlucky is that if there is a shortage of rice one day, When you can only boil porridge and drink, then the poor people are even more pitiful. On this day, I can only be hungry, so I can't wrap the sticky porridge in a cloth and throw it forward, right?

On May 10, 11, 20 and 21, the Black Flag Army launched two successive assaults by means of tunnel assault and mine blasting, but because the mines were not clear, they were only "mines were generated, and the city collapsed." Flying stones killed several of our troops". After the gap is blown open. The follow-up troops could not rush forward in time, and the French army blocked it in time, and the gap almost became a morgue for the cadres, and the gap was quickly "blocked" by the corpses of the cadres and soldiers, and the scene was very miserable.

Due to the ferocious firepower of the French army, the offensive of the cadres was at a loss. The Frenchman Thomas described it this way in his History of the Conquest of Indochina:

"From March 21 to May 22, 9084, the French army of 2,000 was composed of 25,000 cadres (it is an exaggeration that the total number of cadres who directly participated in the attack was only 10,000. And it was not at the same time put into the battlefield) siege, the cadres were well armed, brave and tenacious in battle, and their attacks on the tunnels and defensive fortifications of Hanoi were unanimously praised by the French officers. The cadres attacked seven times, broke the city wall three times, and the gap in the wall filled the corpses of the cadres. ”

In the face of heavy casualties and low morale of the cadres, Lin Yuansheng also realized that such an attack was only a waste of soldiers' lives and had no effect. On the night of May 22, Lin Yuansheng convened a meeting of the generals. The generals of the Gui Army, Chen Chaogang and others, were quite frustrated, thinking that there was no point in fighting any more and that they should withdraw their troops, while Huang Shouzhong and Wu Fengdian and other Black Flag Army generals and Iwao Konno thought that they should wait for the arrival of the 120 mm cannon to continue the attack (due to the early arrival of the rainy season, the road was muddy and difficult to walk, and this cannon was still struggling on the way to Hanoi), Liu Renyi was silent, and the final result of the meeting, under Lin Yuansheng's insistence, continued to attack, but Lin Yuansheng followed Iwao's advice and no longer blindly launched an attack, Just tightly encircled, just waiting for the 120mm cannon to arrive. At the same time, Lin Yuansheng also asked Zhao Wo for help one after another, asking for reinforcements to be sent again.

Because the artillery team with the main force of the Yunnan gunners who originally helped Liu Renyi in the battle played an important role in the battle, Lin Yuansheng realized the lack of offensive weapons and the role of foreign artillery. ”

After Zhao Wo received Lin Yuansheng's report, he immediately sent a submission to his immediate boss Xu Yanxu, asking for reinforcements and the allocation of ocean artillery needed on the front line. Xu Yanxu carefully read the ordnance materials that were transferred to Beining, and found that among the artillery that had been allocated to Huang Guilan were two 100mm marine guns converted from decommissioned naval guns, as well as sufficient ammunition, so he told Zhao Wo the news and asked Zhao Wo to transfer these two cannons from Huang Guilan and send them to the front line for Lin Yuansheng to use. At the same time, he also sent an order to Huang Guilan, asking Huang Guilan to send troops to support Lin Yuansheng.

After Zhao Wo got the news, he immediately sent someone to Huang Guilan to ask for cannons, and asked Huang Guilan to send troops to support Lin Yuansheng, Huang Guilan agreed to be quite happy, but claimed that the two cannons were too heavy, "inconvenient for transportation, and the battalions were unwilling to use them", and they had been kept in the warehouse and did not move, and now he had a lot of munitions and materials there, so he had to find them, so Zhao Wo waited patiently; As for sending reinforcements, Huang Guilan promised to send 1,200 people from Zhang Xun's "Jingwu Battalion" to go, but due to "incomplete armaments", she asked Zhao Wo to wait a few days, "As soon as the armament is complete and the training is complete, we will go out immediately." ”

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