If from January to April, the Chinese Empire's war preparations could still be concealed, then by May the Chinese Empire's war preparations could not be concealed at all.

Because after completing the earliest preparations for war, the follow-up is to build fortifications in the Shanghai area, and it is naturally impossible to build fortifications, and it is necessary to enter the trade zone.

And when the Chinese army built fortifications in the trade area on a large scale, the ordinary people finally realized that the war that had been noisy for half a year was finally coming.

Among them, the most rapid reaction is naturally those foreigners, who have been leaving the trade area since April to avoid being harmed by the war.

Later, those Chinese who did business in the business area also left one after another, and many wealthy merchants and gentry began to move away from Shanghai and live in Hangzhou or other places in southern Jiangsu.

Since 1853, a large number of people have poured into Shanghai every day to escape the war between the Taiping and Qing armies, which has directly led to the explosive growth of the population in the commercial area.

Now, a small exodus has begun.

In the headquarters of the Seventh Army of the Chinese Army in the trade zone, many military generals gathered, not only the generals of the army, but also the high-level of the navy.

Sitting on the main seat was Qu Bingsong, the commander of the Seventh Army, but now Qu Bingsong had another title, and in April Lin Zhe gave him the title of 'Shanghai Defense Commander', with full responsibility for the defense of Shanghai and the surrounding areas. He not only commanded the strength of the Seventh Army itself, but also the two auxiliary defense divisions in Shanghai and Songjiang, the Wusong Fort Fortress troops belonging to the navy, and the troops that subsequently reinforced Shanghai were all under his unified command.

Even after the arrival of the Second Army, which reinforced Shanghai. This second army is under his command, and the famous Xu Yanqing can only obey his command in the defense of Shanghai.

From the internal positioning of the military. Xu Yanqing's status is undoubtedly higher than that of Qu Bingsong, when Qu Bingsong was still the commander of the Seventh Mixed Brigade and the commander of the Seventh Division, Xu Yanqing was already one of the three major generals of the army and served as the commander of the First Army.

However, Qu Bingsong has been stationed in Shanghai for a long time, and his familiarity with the defense of Shanghai and the surrounding areas is incomparable to other army generals, after all, Qu Bingsong has been staying in Shanghai for the past year or two, and all he is planning all day is how to hold Shanghai and the like, this kind of preconceived advantage is incomparable to Xu Yanqing.

Qu Bingsong outside. It was the Seventh Army and other senior generals of the Navy, such as Rear Admiral Lin Mao, commander of the Sixth Division, Rear Admiral Zhong Yilan, commander of the Seventh Division, Rear Admiral Shen Mengxiang, commander of the First Cruiser Fleet of the Navy, and Rear Admiral Su Xuanbin, commander of the Navy's Wusong Fort Fortress Force.

"Now the basic fortifications on this side of the trade zone have been constructed, but the construction of the infantry fortress near the Wusong Fort has been delayed, and it is expected to be completed in June!" It was Colonel Zhu Jianjia, chief of staff of the Seventh Army, who spoke.

Although this person was not a low rank among the many high-ranking generals present, he was the youngest of the youngest, and he was only twenty-three years old this year.

Although the Chinese army appeared to be younger as a whole, it was actually relatively young in 1853. They are all people in their twenties and thirties, but now the middle and high-level generals of the Chinese army have generally entered the threshold of 30 years old, with most of them in their 30s and quite a few in their 40s.

The students who apply for the Suiying Academy are generally in their twenties. is even close to thirty years old, and after several years of hard work, they are basically in their thirties. Even if you are young, you are close to thirty.

Today, in 1858, although the middle and low-level officers of the Chinese Army were mainly in their twenties. But these people are generally lieutenants, and there are not many school officers. As for the colonels in their twenties, there are really not many.

Not to mention a senior colonel who was twenty-three years old and was still the chief of staff of the First Army.

Zhu Jianjia's road to joining the army is a little different, he was not directly applied for the camp school, he was eighteen years old, that is, in 1853, he entered the Chinese army, but he was a civilian copywriter, and then audited in the camp school, and gradually exerted his military talent, so he was soon transferred to the field army, and after a few years, he was successfully promoted to colonel, and was appointed chief of staff of the Seventh Army because of his senior resume.

If nothing else, it won't be long before he is further promoted to major general, and by then he may be the youngest major general in the army.

However, although this person is young, he joined the army early, and he is the first batch of old people in 1853, and his qualifications are not weak, and he is not weak in the face of Qu Bingsong and others.

I only heard him point to the large map hanging on the wall and continued: "Now the city fortifications from the county seat of Shanghai to the business district have been basically completed, and the subsequent construction of our fortifications is mainly concentrated in the area from Wusong Fort to Suzhou Creek!" ”

"According to our speculation, in the event of a war, the British and French forces going north from Hong Kong may reach the sea off Shanghai, and at the same time, due to the existence of the Huangpu River, it should be unlikely that they will land directly from Nanhui County and other areas on the east bank of the Huangpu River, because if they want to land from Pudong, although the landing operation will not be hindered, but they will have to cross the Huangpu River if they want to attack the trade area and the county town of Shanghai in the future, and at the same time, we have deployed a large number of gunboats along the Huangpu River, and the enemy army does not have a large fleet to cooperate, It is very difficult to directly cross the Huangpu River and launch an attack on the western part of the Huangpu River, such as the trade zone! ”

"At the same time, because of the existence of our Wusong Fort, it is impossible for the British and French forces to enter the Huangpu River without conquering our Wusong Fort."

"Based on these circumstances, we judged that it was unlikely that the Anglo-French forces would land directly from the Pudong area, and that they would land from the area near the Wusong Fort along the Yangtze River, and that the enemy's primary goal must be to conquer the Wusong Fort, and only after conquering the Wusong Fort would their fleet be able to enter the Huangpu River to support their army operations.

Therefore, it is highly likely that their landing site was in the area upstream of Wusong Fort in Baoshan County. Especially the area located about five kilometers west of Wusong Fort!

Therefore, in our follow-up preparations, the focus of defense should be on the area around Wusong Fort. Take the defense of Wusong Fort as the core strategic goal! ”

"In addition, we do not rule out the landing of enemy troops on the coast of Pudong and the coasts of Fengxian County and Jinshan County north of Hangzhou Bay. It cannot be ruled out that they will land directly from Hangzhou Bay and then attack Hangzhou! ”

"Although the possibility of the above-mentioned landing site is relatively small, we should also prepare for it in advance!"

When Zhu Jianjia said this, Lin Mao, the commander of the Sixth Division, opened his mouth and asked: "As we all know, this time the British and French soldiers of Taixi invaded our China, and their purpose was to open the port to trade, and their strategic goal is definitely not only this Shanghai, but it is very likely to fight to the Beijing Division, because only in this way can it be possible to force us to sign a covenant under the city."

Under such circumstances, if the enemy army sees us, Shanghai is heavily guarded. So what if you go directly across Shanghai and continue along the west? ”

Regarding Lin Mao's question, Zhu Jianjia said: "We naturally have taken this into consideration, and the headquarters has obviously made relevant arrangements, otherwise we would not have spent a lot of money to build the Jiangyin Fortress, as long as the Jiangyin Fortress is there, even if the enemy army bypasses our Shanghai, it cannot go all the way up the river!" ”

The possibility of the Anglo-French fleet bypassing Shanghai and going directly up the river is actually very large, although there is a Wusong battery on this side of Shanghai, but it is limited by the range of artillery in this era. Even heavy artillery has a range of a few kilometers at most.

However, how wide is the Yangtze River estuary north of Wusong Paobei? The width of the river from Chongming Island in the center of the river to the Wusong Fort is seventeen or eighteen kilometers, and it will take heavy artillery to completely block such a wide river, at least a few decades later. Strictly speaking, the Wusong Fort was not used to block the mouth of the Yangtze River, but to block the entrance of the Huangpu River.

Therefore, the fleet of the British and French forces could directly cross under the nose of the Wusong Fort, whether it was to land along the river on the west side of the Wusong Fort, or to continue westward all the way to Jiangyin.

It was precisely in consideration that the Wusong Fort could not completely block the mouth of the Yangtze River. The high command took great pains to build a fortress in Jiangyin, and the troops hoarded in southern Jiangsu did not say that they would be transferred to Shanghai. Instead, Shanghai and Jiangyin defended separately.

For example, the Second Army and the Fifth Army, which had returned to southern Jiangsu, although the Second Army said that reinforcements had come to the Shanghai area. However, it is expected to be deployed in the area of Taicang Prefecture to support the Baoshan operation, and at the same time, it can continue to speak west after the foreigners cross Shanghai and quickly reinforce Jiangyin.

In addition, after the Fifth Army had a preliminary rest in Yangzhou, in addition to leaving an infantry regiment to garrison Yangzhou, the main force had already crossed the river from Guazhou into Zhenjiang, but did not stop at Zhenjiang but continued to advance eastward and went straight to Jiangyin.

In the overall strategic arrangement of the General Headquarters, Shanghai and Jiangyin are the two strategic support points, and a total of troops belonging to the four armies are flexibly deployed on the line from Jiangyin to Baoshan County.

Just when the Chinese army had been completely openly preparing for war, the Earl of Elgin in Hong Kong had already waited for reinforcements that he had been waiting for for many months.

On May 26, Earl Elgin led up to 15,000 reinforcements in Hong Kong to reinforce Guangzhou, plus the original 5,000 troops under the city of Guangzhou, a total of 20,000 British and French soldiers launched a second general attack on Guangzhou.

In the face of the menacing British and French forces, Qu Panyun stubbornly did not retreat, but after a little resistance, he took the initiative to lead the army to withdraw from Guangzhou.

Two days later, Count Ergin personally led his troops to Huaxian to pursue the Third Army of the Chinese Army, but Qu Panyun still avoided fighting and retreated again.

After chasing back and forth for a few days, Count Ergin also knew that it would be difficult to catch up if he wanted to continue the pursuit, and his strategic task was not to eliminate Qu Panyun's Third Army, and even to occupy Guangzhou was just for the strategic security of Hong Kong, so after taking Guangzhou, Count Ergin left 4,000 troops in Guangzhou, and the army still went north on the fleet.

His target is Shanghai, Nanjing! (To be continued......)