The first general attack of the British and French forces was repulsed, and it was only in the form of hand-to-hand bayonet combat that the Chinese army was forced to repel in the form of bayonet hand-to-hand combat, and once there was a bayonet hand-to-hand combat between the charge and the counter-charge, as long as the gap between the two sides was not too large, then it was basically a battle mode of killing 1,000 enemies and losing 800 themselves.

When the Anglo-French forces retreated, the place where the two sides fought was almost full of corpses!

"In this battle, the preliminary casualties of our army have been counted, of which 1,265 were killed, 1,700 were seriously wounded, and minor injuries have not yet been counted! Most of the casualties were the officers and men of the 10th Division, a total of 830 killed and 1,270 seriously wounded! ”

"On the enemy's side, our army killed a total of 627 enemy soldiers and captured another 230 enemy wounded!" When Liu Hetao said these two simple sentences, his tone was trembling.

You must know that this battle was definitely the heaviest casualties of the Chinese army since the era of Yu Shengjun, and the casualties of more than 2,000 Royal Army officers and soldiers led to the complete cripplement of the 28th Infantry Regiment and the 29th Infantry Regiment.

The generals of the Third Army, including Qu Panyun, did not look good when they heard these numbers, but Liu Hetao's words were not over, so they only listened to him continue:

In this battle, our army suffered a large number of casualties, including Major Mei Longqin, deputy commander of the 27th Regiment, Major Wei Duoli, commander of the first battalion of the 27th Regiment, Captain Dai Jin, deputy commander of the second battalion, Lieutenant Jia Nongyuan, commander of the second company of the first battalion of the 27th regiment, Second Lieutenant Song Chuanxuan, deputy commander of the fourth company, and Lieutenant Huang Tujun, commander of the seventh company. Lieutenant Fu Xuan, commander of the first company of the second battalion, lieutenant Qin Xuan, commander of the third company, and second lieutenant Cai Binxu, deputy company commander. Second Lieutenant Zhou Renzhuo, deputy company commander of the 6th Company, and Lieutenant Tian Xun'an, commander of the 8th Company. 3rd Battalion ......"

Read the list of the dead. Liu Hetao still did not stop, but read the list of injured officers. Among them, the most eye-catching is the news that Major General Fang Anyun, commander of the 10th Infantry Division, was seriously injured and is still in a coma.

The list of dead and wounded officers was very long, Liu Hetao read the names one after another, and there was no sound in the entire conference room except for the sound of him reading the list, and everyone was breathing.

After finally reading the list of dead and wounded officers, Qu Panyun took a deep breath and said: "Loyal to Your Majesty and martyred for the empire, this is the best belonging of my generation of soldiers!" ”

Although he said that, Qu Panyun's tone still revealed a deep sadness. Today's battle is definitely the biggest loss of the Chinese army since its formation, not only the deaths and injuries of more than 2,000 Royal Army troops are heart-wrenching, but the death of those outstanding officers who have been trained with great difficulty makes Qu Panyun's heart ache even more.

But their sacrifice was worth it, and although the 10th Infantry Division paid a heavy price in casualties, it also held off the attack of the British and French forces in a head-on confrontation, killing more than 600 foreign soldiers and capturing more than 200 foreign soldiers.

Nearly a third of the more than 3,000 foreign soldiers who launched the attack were left behind.

Although the casualty ratio was not very good for the Chinese army, from the overall strategic point of view, this defensive operation was a success.

After this offensive failed. The Anglo-French forces also suffered heavy losses, and it would be even more difficult for them to launch a second offensive, fearing that they would have to wait for reinforcements from Indochina and India to arrive before launching a second general offensive.

Although the Chinese army suffered many casualties, it originally had more troops. The 10th Division still had 6,000 men dead and wounded, and more than 10,000 in addition to the Allied Defense, and if the British and French forces stopped their massive offensive. The Third Army had time to recruit new recruits, then train and participate in combat.

At the beginning, the high command took into account the problem of how to replenish the Third Army in case of excessive losses due to the war with the British and French forces after it went south. Due to the long distance, it was obviously impossible to recruit soldiers from Zhejiang or southern Jiangsu and send them all the way, so the military training department, the ordnance department, and the quartermaster department, which were in charge of recruiting and ordnance affairs, sent officials to Fujian and eastern Guangdong in advance.

Good recruit soldiers nearby for training. Collect military supplies, etc.

Before marching into Guangzhou, the officers of the Military Training Department had already begun to recruit troops in Fujian, Chaoshanfu in Guangdong, and other places, and as long as the Anglo-French forces gave them more than three or four months, they would be able to replenish the newly recruited soldiers who had completed their training to the 10th Infantry Division fighting in Guangzhou.

The problem of firearms is a bit more troublesome, but fortunately, now the Chinese army is a home defensive operation, and the ordnance lost by their own side can often be recovered after the battle, and the Anglo-French army in the previous World War lost nearly 1,000 people before the battle, and these weapons of the British and French forces were naturally collected by the Chinese army that cleaned up the battlefield later.

Of course, it is unreliable to rely on seizure, in order to supplement the subsequent consumption of ordnance, and the weapons and ammunition produced by the Linde Machinery Factory in southern Jiangsu can no longer be sent to Guangdong, the officials sent by the Ordnance Department to the Third Army to fight with the army are ready to use local materials and directly set up some simple weapons manufacturing workshops in Guangdong.

Although it is difficult for blacksmiths and handicraft workshops in Guangzhou to mass-produce Mini rifles, it is still not a big problem to manufacture some flintlock pistols in small batches, and when there is no gun in hand, it is better to have a flintlock pistol than to hold an arquebus or simply a cold weapon such as a sword.

The subsequent British and French forces outside the city did not continue to launch a strong attack as Qu Panyun and others feared, but suspended the large-scale offensive on the inner city, except for continuing to carry out small-scale battles in the outer city, the large-scale battles stopped.

Qu Panyun didn't know that Count Ergin had already begun to write to Hong Kong and India, asking for reinforcements from South Asia to arrive in Hong Kong as much as possible.

The Count of Ergin continued to dispatch troops, and at this time, the news of the outbreak of a major war between the British and French forces and the Chinese army in Guangzhou finally reached Shanghai!

Due to the backward transportation in those years, the news of Count Ergin's attack on Guangzhou had to be transmitted to Bao Ling and others in Shanghai by means of letters, through ships carrying to Shanghai.

Bao Ling and others were also helpless about Count Ergin's unauthorized attack on Guangzhou, because strictly speaking, Count Ergin had already obtained the authorization of the British Parliament, and the French plenipotentiary had also obtained the corresponding war authorization from France, as long as they had the right time, then they had the right to directly start a war, without caring about the thoughts of these diplomats.

Strictly speaking, from the moment the Earl of Ergin sent troops, the Earl of Ergin had automatically taken over all British power in all affairs with China, whether it was diplomacy, war, or peace talks.

When the news of the outbreak of the great war in Guangzhou reached Shanghai, Song Guanqian, the co-minister of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, lodged the most severe protest with the British Minister to China, Bao Ling, and others.

Of course, Bao Ling and others also raised the so-called protest, saying that the Chinese army's unauthorized persecution of foreign citizens in Guangzhou was already a serious threat to Britain's interests, and if the Chinese army continued to prevent the allied forces from sending troops to protect the overseas Chinese, it would have a major impact on the relations between the two countries, and the possibility of war would be transformed from a military conflict in a certain place into a full-scale war.

But what is very interesting is that the protests of the two sides are protests, but they have not stopped diplomatic contacts, on the contrary, while the Guangzhou side is fighting, Bao Ling and Song Guanqian protested to each other and then continued to go to the negotiating table, and then engaged in meaningless bargaining.

The reason is just to stall for time.

Especially after the Anglo-French coalition launched a general attack on Guangzhou and failed, Bao Ling and Song Guanqian continued to talk, why?

Because the Chinese army still needs time to prepare for war in Shanghai and other areas in southern Jiangsu, and at the same time, the British and French sides also need time to continue to draw troops from South Asia to reinforce the Far East.

In this way, although they both knew that the negotiations were meaningless, the two sides continued to talk, and there was no such thing as saying that after the outbreak of war, the two sides would just leave the scene quickly, and then say anything to let the war decide the outcome of the negotiations.

After the news of the Battle of Guangzhou arrived in Shanghai, it took less than a day to spread to Nanjing, and when Lin Zhe learned that the British and French forces had launched an attack on Guangzhou, and the news that the two sides had fought a big battle was several days after the Battle of Guangzhou.

He couldn't help frowning as he looked at the military report written by Qu Panyun and transmitted back by a six-hundred-mile expedited horse.

Originally, he thought that the time for the war between the two sides should be after May or even June, but he didn't expect that neither he nor the British and French troops on the other side had completed the preparations for war, but the war had already broken out!

"Now our army has not yet completed preparations for war in southern Jiangsu, and the Wusong Fort and Jiangyin Fortress have not yet been completed, we need time!" Chen Yuntao said:

"From now on, we must win at least two months so that we can complete the most basic preparations for war in southern Jiangsu, and before that we must use all available means to delay the possibility of the British and French troops going north to Shanghai!"

"If necessary, you can even take a step back in the negotiations in Shanghai, even if it is a fake treaty, you have to drag out the time!"

Chen Yuntao, as the chief of the Joint Staff, is very clear about the preparations of the whole army; although many orders have been issued, in fact the Fifth Infantry Division and the Second Infantry Division are still on the way, and it will take some time for them to return to southern Jiangsu.

In this regard, Lin Zhe did not hesitate too much, and once again issued a secret edict in front of the Song Pass in Shanghai, so that he could make certain concessions in the negotiations, and even directly sign some unfavorable treaties, as long as it could delay the time for the British and French forces to go north to Shanghai.

As for the unfavorable treaty signed now, what will happen next?

What else can I do, just tear up the treaty and continue to fight!

After the Chinese army completes its preparations for war, no matter what the Treaty of Nanjing signed by the former Qing Dynasty or what treaty is signed with them before the Song Dynasty, it will all be torn apart. (To be continued......)