In the past few years, the biggest impression outsiders have of the Chinese army is that firearms are extremely sharp, so those who imitated Yu Shengjun's Taiping Heavenly Kingdom New Army and Qing Dynasty New Army, without exception, attached great importance to the use of firearms.

But a qualified modern army is not only sharp firearms, in fact, the bayonet charge of the modern army is more terrifying, throughout the battle of modern troops, the vast majority of them rely on the last bayonet hand-to-hand combat to defeat the opponent.

The Chinese army was no exception, in the early stage, that is, in the era of Yu Shengjun, in many battles between them and Lin Chengting's troops, although relying on the sharpness of firearms brought them a great strategic advantage, but in fact, it was their bayonet charge that swept the battlefield in the end.

For example, in the Battle of Danyang last year, Shi Qingxuan led the Third Division to meet Li Xiucheng's division of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, and finally it was a large-scale bayonet charge through Guò that completely defeated the enemy.

It is rumored that the Chinese army is only sharp in firearms and is not good at hand-to-hand combat, but in fact, the Chinese army is also good at bayonet charge, but the Chinese army rarely does this in order to avoid casualties, but every time it launches a bayonet charge, it can sweep the entire battlefield.

And today, too!

In the face of the bright bayonet forest, the more than 300 Jianghuai New Army, which was still resisting under the three rounds of salvo fire of the Chinese army and did not collapse, finally could not hold on, and let a few officers shout and shoot, withstanding words and the like, but those soldiers were trembling and could not reload the bullets at all.

Soon, some people turned around and fled, there was one, there was a second, when the bayonets of the Chinese army had rushed up, the soldiers of the Jianghuai New Army in the first row instantly suffered heavy casualties, and at this time, the only remaining soldiers of the Jianghuai New Army directly threw down their guns and turned around and ran, running as far as they could.

When the 1st Battalion of the 8th Infantry Regiment rushed into the gap in the blown up city wall, the more than 300 Jianghuai New Army troops blocking the gap collapsed instantly.

In the face of the fleeing enemy army, Zhang Lubao did not order his troops to continue to pursue the enemy, because at this moment, his task was not to kill and wound as many enemies, but to control this gap to the death, so that the follow-up troops could come up and launch an attack on the Qing army in the city through this gap.

Although the troops that blocked the gap collapsed, the Qing army obviously would not give up lightly, because once it gave up, it would announce the collapse of the entire Yangzhou city defense system, and even if it could continue to resist and fight street battles in Yangzhou City, it would be difficult to really block the attack of the Chinese army.

Soon, there was a Qing army general who led hundreds of Jianghuai new troops to rush towards the gap, and more Qing troops, especially those of the old green battalion army, also poured over, and in just a few minutes, the Qing army actually gathered more than a thousand troops to launch a counteroffensive.

Zhang Lubao also frowned when he watched so many Qing troops launch a counteroffensive towards his troops, the Qing army in Yangzhou City was much more difficult than the Taiping army he had encountered in the past due to the existence of the Jianghuai New Army.

At this time, in the face of the counterattack of a thousand enemy troops, it is not so easy to block it, and it will fail if you are not careful, so Zhang Lubao immediately ordered to reorganize the formation and prepare to meet these counterattacking enemies in the most perfect state.

He didn't need to resist alone for long, just five minutes, ten minutes at most, and then the follow-up troops would be able to catch up.

After all, it will take a few minutes for the other two battalions of the Eighth Infantry Regiment to be reinforced, and the current battle is around this gap, and there are still a large number of Qing troops on the city walls on both sides.

At this time, looking down from the sky, you can see that the three battalions of the 8th Infantry Regiment are actually lined up, the first battalion is located in the middle and occupies a gap position, while the other two battalions are on both sides, respectively, with rifles in their hands to suppress any Qing troops who dare to take the lead in the city.

But now, since the first battalion has penetrated the gap in the city wall, the second and third battalions of the eighth infantry regiment do not need to continue to cover on both sides in a rigid manner, because now there is no point in covering, the most important thing is to pass through the gap, cross the west wall of Yangzhou and advance in depth, completely tearing apart the Qing army's city wall defense system.

When the second and third battalions were in formation and then reinforced the first battalion, the first battalion was also attacked by the Qing army.

Because in this situation, any Qing army general with a little military knowledge knows that the battle has reached the most critical moment, and if the gap cannot be recaptured and plugged, then what awaits the Qing army is a complete rout.

As a result, thousands of soldiers, including the Jianghuai New Army and the Green Battalion Old Army, launched a fierce attack under the leadership of their generals.

Looking at the Qing army rushing over like a tide in front of him, Zhang Lubao knew that he must not retreat at this time, so he must hold it in hand-to-hand combat with bayonets in the end.

Since the place inside the city wall is not open, there is no open place more than a few hundred meters for the Chinese army to calmly fire several rounds of platoon guns, and the nearest Qing army is only more than 100 meters away from the first battalion.

So without any waiting, Zhang Lubao just asked the soldiers to reload and shoot!

As bursts of gunfire rang out, those Qing soldiers fell one after another, but to Zhang Lubao's surprise, he didn't know if the Jianghuai New Army had learned the tactics of the Chinese army.

Because it was not the new Jianghuai army that rushed to the forefront, but the old army of the green battalion.

And after the first battalion's rounds of guns passed, even though the hundreds of soldiers of the green battalion who rushed to the front collapsed again because of heavy casualties, it was the Jianghuai new army with smoothbore foreign guns that appeared before they collapsed.

At this time, they were less than seventy meters apart!

Seeing this situation, Zhang Lubao scolded in his heart: "Damn! ”

This Jianghuai New Army actually let those Green Battalion soldiers use them as human shields, otherwise how could they have broken through to a distance of about seventy meters without damage.

The next moment, the three or four hundred soldiers of the Jianghuai New Army pulled the trigger in unison, and after the crackling sound, although the accuracy of the smoothbore foreign gun was far lower than that of the Mini rifle, it still caused some casualties to the first team in a dense three-column formation.

In an instant, nearly twenty soldiers standing in the front row fell!

And at this time, it can be regarded as a real reflection of the combat effectiveness of the Chinese army when conducting line operations!

I saw that the soldiers in the front row did not look at the fallen comrades around them, but continued to reload, although some people slowed down the reloading speed because of nervousness, but the overall formation was not chaotic at all.

The soldiers of the second platoon had already stepped forward and automatically filled the vacancy in the first platoon due to casualties, and within four or five seconds of being hit by the guns of the new Jianghuai army, the first platoon of the first battalion was restored.

At this time, both sides were stuck in a short and tense reload time, although this reloading time only took about twenty seconds, but in this situation, every second made Zhang Lubao feel as if it were a hundred years ago.

However, Zhang Lubao was not the same as the officers of the Jianghuai New Army who kept shouting and scolding the soldiers to hurry up and reload, he just rode on his horse as calmly as before, waiting for his soldiers to finish loading.

He believed that his soldiers could still reload efficiently in this tense state, and there was no need to shout and urge.

Because the soldiers under his command are elite soldiers who have been trained in the Chinese army for many years!

The 8th Infantry Regiment, formerly known as the 5th Mixed Regiment, was formed in Shanghai in April 1855, and the soldiers mainly came from the northern Zhejiang region, although the northern Zhejiang region was considered a relatively economically developed area in China, but this did not affect the soldiers of the mixed regiment, because like all the soldiers of the regular army, the soldiers of the 6th mixed regiment were recruited from the local peasants, all of whom were from good families.

So far, except for the cavalry unit, which is a special unit for recruitment, all the soldiers in the other units of the Royal Army are all good people in the countryside, and there are no small citizens, homeless people, or routs.

Last year, when Lin Zhe raised the banner of rebellion and established the Generalissimo of China, all the regular army was reorganized into four infantry divisions, and a new fifth infantry division was built, and the fifth mixed regiment stationed in Changzhou at that time was incorporated into the third infantry division.

Therefore, since the beginning of last year, the soldiers of Zhang Lubao's first battalion have been organized and trained for two years and two months.

However, the 1st Infantry Battalion led by Zhang Lubao was more than that, because the predecessor of the 5th Mixed Regiment was the '4th Regiment' during the period when Yu Shengjun implemented the small regiment establishment, which was formed in October 1853 and expanded from the three infantry companies of the earlier 2nd Regiment, and the 2nd Regiment was formed on June 18, 1853.

When the Fifth Mixed Regiment was first established, its Fourth Regiment was renamed the 13th Battalion, and after the 5th Mixed Regiment was reorganized into the 8th Infantry Regiment, the 13th Battalion was directly renamed the 1st Battalion.

That is to say, the formation time of the first battalion led by Zhang Lubao can be traced back to June 1853, although this army establishment time cannot be compared with the first regiment, which is the oldest qualified, that is, the Yuyao County Yong Battalion at the beginning, but among the dozens of infantry battalions of the Chinese army, its qualifications are enough to rank among the top five.

This can be seen from the fact that there are dozens of veteran non-commissioned officers who joined the army in 1853 in the first battalion, and the soldiers in the battalion are all veteran elites, the longest of whom have been in the army for four years, and even the newly recruited soldiers have joined the army for at least one year.

You must know that the Chinese army has not been idle in recent years, fighting with Lin Chengting in the early years, fighting with the Shanghai Knife Society, and fighting with Wu Ruxiao, there are quite a lot of large and small battles, not to mention the early ones, let's just say that after the formation of the Eighth Regiment of the Third Division, it has extensively participated in a series of battles of the Chinese Army from last year to this year, and has rich combat experience, and the combat experience of the battalion is not inferior to any infantry battalion in the Chinese Army.

So you can see that they are calmly loading, almost ignoring their comrades who fell to the ground, ignoring the Jianghuai New Army who are also loading on the opposite side, they are loading with their heads down one by one, completely ignoring anything in the outside world.

Time passed little by little, and after more than ten seconds passed, some soldiers raised their guns, and after a few seconds, all the soldiers had already raised their guns.

And at this time, the soldiers of the Jianghuai New Army on the opposite side were still loading!

Zhang Lubao naturally didn't waste even a second of time, and soon gave the order to shoot, and as the order to 'shoot' was given, another burst of gunfire rang out.

Zhang Lubao looked at the Jianghuai New Army on the opposite side, which had fallen a large part, and sneered in his heart: Shoot against my first battalion in line columns, you are not qualified enough! (To be continued.) )