In the strategy of the entire Chinese army, whether or not Guangzhou can be taken or held does not affect the overall situation, because on the whole, even if the whole of Guangdong is captured by the British and French forces, there is no need to expect the Chinese Empire to surrender.

As long as the British and French forces can't conquer Shanghai and can't fight Nanjing, then Lin Zhe will have to hold on no matter what, anyway, he is the home field, even if he can't win a few battles for a while and lose a few battles, and although he will lose tens of thousands of people, it will be heartbroken, but it will not shake the foundation of the Chinese Empire, and it won't take a few months for the Chinese army to recover and fight again.

After so on, he didn't believe that these foreigners could win every time, and Lin Zhe didn't need the foreigners to be defeated several times, as long as these foreigners were defeated once, then it would be enough, and then the Anglo-French alliance army that was on an expedition and suffered heavy casualties would collapse on its own, and even if Britain and France wanted to fight again, it was estimated that they would have to draw troops to fight again.

If no one admits defeat in this way, it will drag on for five or ten years, and it is normal for a modern war to last three or five years, and then we will have to see whether the Chinese Empire can afford it or these British and French allied forces from afar can afford it.

Putting aside the whole strategy, let's just talk about the tactical task of the Third Army itself, the core of their task is actually not to capture Guangzhou, and the latest task given to them by the high command is actually only to contain the British and French forces and relieve the pressure on the Chinese army in the Shanghai area.

If holding Guangzhou can contain part of the strength of the Anglo-French coalition army, but taking a step back, even if it can't hold Guangzhou, as long as the Third Army does not suffer too many losses and continues to garrison troops nearby, the Anglo-French coalition army will have to maintain a part of its strength in the Pearl River Delta region such as Guangzhou or Hong Kong, not to mention much. But you have to ask for three or four thousand.

And how many troops could the British and French forces draw from India and the colonies of the East?

If there are 20,000, you have to snicker, and if the Third Army can contain more than 4,500 Anglo-French troops by itself, then from the perspective of the High Command, then the Third Army has already passed the examination.

Of course, if the Third Army was able to inflict heavy losses on the Anglo-French forces under the city of Guangzhou, then it would be a surprise.

The current Qu Panyun is holding this kind of idea, if he can hold Guangzhou, he will defend it. If there is a chance to deal a heavy blow to the British and French forces, then he will try his best to fight for it, and he can't just give up Guangzhou without firing a shot.

As the Anglo-French fleet approached from the lower reaches of the Pearl River, before the Anglo-French army artillery outside the city entered the predetermined position to shell, the Anglo-French fleet on the side of the Pearl River had already carried out a large-scale artillery bombardment, and carried out a fierce artillery bombardment of the outer city of Guangzhou near the river.

As many as more than 10 warships lined up and used more than 100 artillery pieces to carry out artillery bombardment, this kind of momentum was much more fierce than the artillery battle between the land forces, and the entire Pearl River was full of artillery sounds, and countless shells flew to the outer city of Guangzhou on the riverside. The outer city wall more than two feet high was hit by heavy solid cannonballs, and the bricks and stones on the city wall were splashed, which made the few Chinese soldiers who stayed in the outer city stunned when they saw it.

Under such a heavy shelling, if the Chinese army had deployed a large number of troops on the outer city wall facing the river, it would have suffered heavy losses under such heavy shelling.

But now the Chinese army has made it clear that it wants to abandon the outer city, so it has not reacted to the shelling of the outer city walls by the British and French fleets.

Now Qu Panyun is paying attention to the British and French army outside the east gate of the inner city, only to see them slowly approaching, and when they enter almost 1,800 meters.

The artillery units of the Third Army deployed at the head of the city took advantage of the height of the gun emplacements. Sporadic shelling began, although the intensity of the shelling was infrequent.

The reason why the cannon was fired so early. On the one hand, they want to make full use of the altitude advantage to inflict a certain number of casualties on the enemy as soon as possible, and on the other hand, they want to determine the firing yuan in advance and calibrate the firing yuan in advance for the subsequent shelling within 1,500 meters.

Naturally, such a long-distance sporadic artillery bombardment could not have caused any damage to the British and French troops at a distance of about 1,800 meters, except for the horizontal phalanx of an infantry company, which was unfortunate enough to be hit by a solid ball shell, and several people were killed and wounded, the British and French troops continued to approach intact.

Time passed little by little, and the battle between the two sides was progressing very slowly. The Anglo-French army did not advance quickly, and their infantry and other units soon stopped at a distance of about 1,500 meters, leaving only the artillery units to continue advancing.

It didn't take long for the artillerymen of the British and French forces, which had entered a distance of about 13,400 meters from the city wall, to stop, and the artillerymen quickly turned the artillery from the opposite position. At the same time, the horses pulling the guns were led to the rear, and at the same time the artillerymen were already struggling to build artillery positions.

The artillery of these British and French forces was quite efficient in terms of training and organization, even though the artillery units of the Chinese army had already begun to carry out intensive artillery bombardment of these British and French artillery positions in an attempt to prevent them from building artillery positions.

However, they still quickly built a simple artillery position, and soon a ramp appeared behind the guns, which was a necessary fortification for the firing of modern field artillery with gun carriage wheels, which was used to cushion the recoil of the guns and quickly reset them.

Because the artillery will produce a huge recoil force when firing, if it is a gun erected in a fixed gun position, it can use the foundation to resist this recoil, but if it is only installed on the wheeled gun mount, the main gate gun will retreat several meters backwards when the gun is fired, at this time, if there is no slope behind to slow down the back movement of the gun and reset, then every shelling has to rely on the manual reset of the artillery, its efficiency is quite slow, and the reset is not accurate, As a result, subsequent shelling could not be adjusted to the previous shelling.

Under the bombardment of nearly 20 guns of more than 12 pounder caliber of the Third Army at the head of the city, these British and French troops still quickly built the most basic improvised positions, and then the artillerymen who had been waiting for a long time quickly reloaded and opened fire.

For a time, about 50 artillery pieces on both sides were bombarding each other, all trying to crush the enemy's artillery units first.

But Qu Panyun, who was watching the battle, looked a little suspicious, although the artillery battle between the two sides lasted only about ten minutes. However, a simple judgment with the naked eye can already judge that these foreigners not only surpass themselves in the number of artillery, but also their artillery skills are obviously superior to those under their command, so that they will fall two shells on the enemy's artillery position, but three shells will be hit on the wall where their own artillery is located.

Although this kind of range of hits does not represent direct kills, more hits represent more casualties. If this goes on for a long time, I'm afraid I will suffer a big loss.

Seeing that another solid cannonball fell into the city wall where the artillery was located, although the shell did not directly hit the gun position, but it hit the pheasant moat on the city wall, and the pheasant moat that was hit by the distance was directly shattered, and the scattered stone fragments also caused two soldiers who were several meters away to be injured.

Regarding this situation, Qu Panyun immediately ordered: "Let the auxiliary troops immediately go to the artillery position and increase the height and thickness of the gun position!" ”

At this time, the distance of the two sides was about 1,300 meters to 1,400 meters, and the hit rate of each other's shelling was actually quite low. Not to mention that the artillery positions on both sides are protected, for example, the artillery positions of the Chinese army on the city wall, considering the shooting angle and the cover of the city wall, in fact, it is difficult for the direct aiming artillery of the British and French forces to accurately concentrate the artillery of the Chinese army, and the shells either fly over the city wall overhead, or only hit the city wall too low, which leaves the height window of the British and French artillery shelling only about one meter.

In addition, even if the shells fell at this height, the gun emplacements on the city walls were far apart. It was difficult for the shells to land accurately on the gun emplacements, and even if they were hit, there were sacks of burlap in front of them. Sandbags up to almost a meter thick were enough to counteract the direct shelling of enemy solid shells.

Of course, if it is in the face of the enemy's grenades and grenade shotguns, these protective means will not have much effect, so the artillery positions of the Chinese army are built in advance with many anti-artillery holes.

A supported canopy was built above the gun emplacement, covered with wooden planks and covered with earth, which was enough to effectively offset the iron balls and shrapnel generated by the explosion of the grenade projectile. As for the grenade, it is more troublesome, and it can only be resisted.

In fact, many of the urban defense systems deployed by the Chinese army in Guangzhou are being carried out for the first time, because in the past, the Chinese army has fought others, and strictly speaking, it has not been attacked by others on a large scale. Therefore, it is still a little unfamiliar with the construction of city fortifications.

In the construction of the city fortifications, it is inevitable to refer to some designs of the Taiping Army and the Qing Army, Li Hongzhang and Lin Chengting in order to fight against the Chinese army, in the city fortifications are very deep, the history of the trench system will not appear until the First World War, Lin Chengting has been a simple version in the past few years.

In addition to learning from the enemy, he still regards himself as an imaginary enemy, thinking about how he should defend himself if he encounters a Chinese army attacking the city?

Trenches were necessary, walls were also needed, and in order to counteract the large number of grenades and grenades used in the Chinese army, anti-artillery holes were constructed.

The perfect defense system led to a significant reduction in the losses of the Chinese artillery units in the early stages of this artillery battle, which suffered less than 30 casualties in half an hour of shelling, which was even less than the casualties of the British and French artillery outside the city.

Although the British and French artillery outside the city has more artillery and is more accurate, their artillery positions are hastily constructed, although a large number of British and French soldiers are now struggling to build fortifications, trying to make their own artillery get good protection in a short time, but at present, these British and French artillery are still fighting in an unprotected state.

In this way, although the artillery of the Third Army of the Chinese Army was less than that of the British and French troops on the opposite side, and this hit rate was also inferior, the actual results were higher.

Half an hour after the artillery bombardment by both sides, the British and French troops on the opposite side had at least 50 casualties, and the gun position of one gun was accurately hit by a grenade shot, and the shrapnel emitted by the grenade that exploded just above the head of the gun killed and wounded almost more than 10 artillery members in the entire gun position.

In this artillery battle in the morning, the artillery of the Chinese army relied on full preparation to occupy a slight advantage!

But the Anglo-French army on the opposite side is obviously not a fool, when the Earl of Ergin found that these Chinese troops on the opposite side actually had the courage and even the ability to conduct artillery battles on their own, he quickly changed his tactics, he sent one or two infantry battalions to the south, he wanted to use the wall that bypassed the inner city and went to the outer city wall that also belonged to the east, where he would be able to get the artillery support of the fleet, and the soldiers of these two battalions could easily break through the defense of the outer city wall and attack the city! (To be continued......)