Dong Yanghong looked at Changxing County in the distance with a deep face. He is a native of Guangxi, and he is the first batch of old people to participate in the uprising after Hong Xiuquan's uprising.

He was born in a peasant, illiterate, and did not understand any big tactics, he led the troops to fight by his own years of experience, many years of war experience, he knew very well what the Qing army was, when the battle was dignified, the Qing army might still be able to put a few rows of guns and bows and arrows, but often he led people to rush, and the Qing army on the opposite side was going to be broken up eight or nine times out of ten.

The range of the Qing army's muskets can hit about 100 meters at most, as for the bow and arrow, it is closer, the accuracy and power are not very good, even if it occasionally encounters the Qing army's foreign guns, the range of those foreign guns will not be much farther than that of bird guns, and the only ones that can be farther are those carrying guns or small cannons with bowl mouths.

However, at that moment just now, he was a little puzzled, the number of muskets equipped by the Qing army on the opposite side was beyond his expectations, and more importantly, the muskets of the Qing army on the opposite side had a surprisingly long range.

They fired at a distance of four or five hundred meters, and what shocked him even more was that their shots hit one after another.

In Fangcai's attack, his own soldiers did not launch a formal charge, and they lost at least twenty men on the way forward.

This annoyed him greatly!

But he was annoyed, but he did not lose his mind, from the starting position to the city wall, to say the least, there are three or four hundred meters, if you rush forward against their firepower, it is estimated that it is not under the city wall, you will lose more than half, so you don't have to fight.

So he suppressed his anger and gave the order to retreat in time.

Since the first wave of attacks could not be taken, and the Qing army on the opposite side had a surprisingly long range, he couldn't think of any good way for a while, so he could only stabilize it first, and then plan the next attack.

Dong Yanghong thought so, and soon these Taiping troops stopped the attack and set up camp two miles outside the city, and at the same time sent soldiers to cut down trees nearby to build various equipment for climbing the city, and his cavalry also dispersed, on the one hand, to expand the scope of reconnaissance, on the other hand, to collect grain and grass on the spot.

The Taiping army outside the city did not attack but camped down, which made Lin Zhe at the head of the city also frown slightly.

He also thought that if the Taiping army on the opposite side attacked a few more times, his troops would rely on the range of the Minnie rifle to shoot them one by one under the city wall.

But this idea is still too wishful thinking, and the Taiping army on the opposite side is not stupid, they suffered casualties in the first charge, and immediately stopped the attack.

In this regard, Lin Zhe turned to Hunter William and said, "William, what do you think of the current situation?" ”

Hunter William also frowned, these Taiping soldiers were more vigilant than he thought, he had known that he should have put the Taiping army close to three hundred yards before ordering the troops to shoot, in that case, not to mention leaving all the Taiping army, but at least a quarter of their people!

In this situation, if Hunter William led the British troops, he would immediately take the troops out of the city to meet the battle without saying a word, but he knew very well that Lin Zhe's troops were not British troops, and those soldiers were just a group of recruits who had been trained for several months and participated in the war for the first time, not well-trained British soldiers who had been fighting for many years.

Take them out of the city directly to fight, and I'm afraid it will be difficult to maintain the current state at that time.

Out of caution, Hunter Wilhelm said to Lin Zhejian: "I build yì We continue to maintain the current state of defense, we have the city wall to rely on, and I see that the enemy army has no artillery, it is impossible for them to defeat us with infantry alone!" ”

Now the two sides of the war have no artillery strength, and the Taiping army on the opposite side can be regarded as a lone army, and the number is not large, so it is naturally unlikely that there will be artillery.

There is an artillery company in the Yongying camp in Yuyao County, which has three small cannons, but those three small cannons are just the kind of small cannons, and they are at least a few decades old.

Just now, these three doors just didn't fire, it's not that they don't want to fire, but the range is so pointed, it's useless to fire at a distance of four or five hundred meters, as for firing at close range, the Taiping army hasn't reached it yet, and they were repelled by the Minnie Bu' gun.

This was the embarrassment of the old front-loading smoothbore guns after the appearance of the Mini rifles, especially for small-caliber front-loading smoothbore guns.

Since the popularization of the Mini Infantry gun to equip various countries, because the long range of the Mini Infantry directly promoted the innovation of artillery, in the late fifties to the sixties, the previous six-pounder and nine-pounder guns quickly lost their former charm, during the American Civil War, both the North and the South were large-scale popularization of the 12-pounder Napoleon gun, and at the same time rifled guns were also a large number of equipment.

At the same time, the British army developed and equipped rear-loading rifled guns, that is, Armstrong guns, and applied them to the Chinese battlefield in the Second ** War.

There was no artillery on either side, which made the Taiping army have to rely on traditional infantry to climb the wall and fight hand-to-hand if they wanted to conquer Changxing.

In this way, the soldiers of the Yongying Battalion of Yuyao County, who were waiting for work on the city wall, could continue to shoot on the way of the Taiping army's charge, and it was estimated that the Taiping army would die before they reached the city wall!

Hunter William thinks so, but it is obvious that Dong Yanghong on the other side does not think so!

Early the next morning, Lin Zhe was urgently woken up in his sleep.

"My lord, the enemy army has launched an attack from the southern city!" The herald said with a panicked face.

Lin Zhe was also stunned when he heard this, they launched an attack from the south city gate?

Aren't they on the north side, and when did they run to the south wall?

After getting up quickly, putting on his clothes and hurriedly washing his face, he saw that Hunter William, Wang Luyun and others had arrived together, and it was obvious that the herald was not only calling him, but also other senior generals in the battalion.

"What's going on, let's talk carefully!" Lin Zhe sank down, and then his tone was as calm as ever.

"Those Taiping thieves must have sneaked around our city wall last night, and then ran to the south gate, where we only have less than a hundred people in the sixth company, I'm afraid it will be difficult to support!" It was Wang Luyun who spoke, although he was not a professional officer, but he could also see that the situation at the South City Gate was a little nervous.

In the entire Changxing City, there are nearly 2,000 people who directly and indirectly participate in the defense of the city, and the main force is naturally the Yongying of Yuyao County.

As the main force to defend the city, the Yuyao County Yong Battalion has a total of six companies, three of which are deployed in the north, one company on each of the other three city walls, and the artillery platoon is also deployed on the north city wall, in addition to the Yuyao County Yong Battalion has about 300 people.

Although these long-term husbands are said to be ordinary people, after nearly half a month of running-in, it is still feasible to undertake some auxiliary tasks, at least much easier than the young and strong people in the city who have been temporarily recruited.

It's just that the defenders of the city said that there were nearly 2,000 people, but in fact, only the more than 500 soldiers of the Yuyao battalion were able to go up to the city wall to kill the enemy.

Previously, because the Taiping army was coming directly from the north, half of the troops, that is, three companies, were deployed on the north city wall, and the other three city walls were each with only one company.

Now the main force of the Taiping army suddenly moved to the southern wall, and launched a fierce attack at dawn, which made the defenders of the city quite passive.

Lin Zhe knew that the battle situation ahead was urgent, and immediately ordered: "Immediately order the second company to reinforce the southern city wall, and the third and fourth companies will send troops to support the southern city!" ”

Just when Lin Zhe urgently dispatched troops to reinforce the southern city, the southern city gate.

Shi Langyi looked at the Taiping soldiers who kept rushing under the city in the distance, and his heart was already terrified, he did not participate in the battle in Beicheng yesterday, but then he also read the battle briefing over there, according to the briefing, the Taiping army's attack was weak and loose, and more than 20 people were killed and wounded after just a slight rush, and then the attack was stopped.

But today, the Taiping army outside the city has at least more than 50 dead and wounded, but they are still charging towards the city wall one after another, they step past the soldiers of their comrades, holding swords or muskets, bows and arrows towards the rush, regardless of the comrades around them continue to fall.

Seeing that the Taiping army on the opposite side was so fierce, it was impossible for Shi Langyi, a scholar officer who participated in actual combat for the first time, not to be shocked.

All he could do was shout over and over again: "Reload, shoot!" The order was to make the nearly 100 Mini rifles of the soldiers under his command exert their maximum firepower to intercept the enemy's charge on the road.

But the Taiping troops on the opposite side obviously also knew the ferocity of the firepower of those Qing demons in Changxing County, they launched a charge more than four hundred meters away, but slowly walked one or two hundred meters away as before to charge.

At the same time, the Taiping soldiers in the front row also pushed thick wooden boards and other shields to block bullets, and these temporary shields made of thick wooden boards were naturally impossible to stop the penetration of bullets at medium and close distances, but there were still some effects at long distances, effectively reducing casualties at long distances.

When the Taiping army rushed to a distance of more than 100 meters, those shotgunners also shot at the head of the city, and some archers even got closer to the distance of tens of meters and shot at the head of the city.

Although these musketeers and archers of the Taiping army suffered heavy casualties after shooting at close range, they also caused some casualties to the soldiers of the sixth company on the city wall.

Especially those archers, who were very good on the head, often bent their bows and fired arrows, killing and wounding a soldier of the sixth company.

In this case, Shi Langyi shouted: "Prioritize shooting those musketeers and archers!" ”

He was not wrong to make this tactical choice at this time, but now the Taiping army charging outside the city not only had musketeers and archers, but also more hand-to-hand soldiers armed with swords and carrying long ladders.

When the firepower of the sixth company was inclined to the Taiping musketeers and archers outside the city, these musketeers and archers fell one after another, but those hand-to-hand soldiers took advantage of this opportunity to rush up.

A long, low, but extremely stout Taiping soldier at the bottom of the city put the pitted ladder on the city wall, he directly took the thick back of the big knife in his mouth, and then climbed the ladder with both hands and feet, so that a nimble monkey quickly rushed up.