If this matter is caught by the Qing court and foreigners and publicized it, it will undoubtedly be extremely unfavorable to Lin Fei's rule of the Qing Dynasty, although this matter has a lot to do with the Qing court's refusal to let the people out of the city, but the root cause of everything is still in Lin Fei's bombing.

Lin Fei has been creating an image of Renjun in front of the people of the Qing Dynasty, from the current point of view, the image of Renjun is very good, Lin Fei has an excellent reputation among the people, but the battle of Zhenjiang may make Lin Fei's reputation plummet.

Lin Fei regretted very much, he should not have used strategic bombing to attack Zhenjiang City, but now that the mistake has been made, there is no way to recover, and all Lin Fei can do is to try to eliminate the impact.

The first thing Lin Fei did was to instruct the propaganda department not to publicize this matter, and the news notice only said that our army occupied Zhenjiang City, and as for how to fight and occupy it, do not mention it.

Lin Fei also instructed Wei Zelong to keep his mouth shut about the casualties of the Qing people in the Battle of Zhenjiang and not announce the matter to the outside world, this matter was suppressed by Lin Fei, and became one of Lin Fei's "black spots" in the future.

After the Battle of Zhenjiang, Nanjing was close at hand, and Li Hongzhang really panicked at this time.

Nanjing is the most important city in the entire central theater of the Qing Dynasty, once captured by the Chinese, the Chinese will gain a firm foothold in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River, the Huaxia Army can meet with the 1st Division (that is, the Tianjin Dispatch Army) and the 9th Division to the north, and the 9th Division and the 900th Division to the south, and complete the strategic encirclement of the Qing army under Li Hongzhang.

The Huaxia army can also march west along the Yangtze River, attack the important town of Anqing in Anhui and Jiujiang in Jiangxi, and the troops will approach Wuhan, and together with the Huaxia army in Guangxi, Guangdong, and Yunnan, they will complete the strategic encirclement of Zhang Zhidong in Hunan and Hubei.

Once Zhang Zhidong retreated into Sichuan, Yuan Shikai, who was stationed on the front line of Luoyang in Kaifeng, would fall into the strategic death of the enemy in the north and south, and Yuan Shikai would not have the power to return to heaven at that time, so he could only advance westward and retreat into Shaanxi, so that the land owned by the Qing court would only be left in the northwest and southwest provinces such as Shanxi, Shaanxi, Sichuan, and Gansu.

Li Hongzhang understood that he must defend Nanjing at all costs, otherwise the entire Qing State would be doomed.

On 1 May, Li Hongzhang held a military meeting at the Nanjing garrison camp to discuss the Huaxia Army's advance route and defensive strategy, and Li Hongzhang's aides unanimously agreed that if the Huaxia Army wanted to attack Nanjing, there were three routes to choose from: First, it was the most convenient and fastest to go upriver along the Yangtze River.

Second, to attack the eastern part of Nanjing by land.

Third, it made a detour to the south side of Nanjing and launched an attack.

Li Hongzhang believed that Huaxia was the least likely to take a third route of march, and if the Huaxia army wanted to attack the southern part of Nanjing, it would have to go nearly 100 kilometers more, during which it would have to be blocked by the Qing troops at various levels, and the circuitous route was full of the unique water network terrain of the south of the Yangtze River, and it was extremely inconvenient to march forward.

It is not very likely that the Huaxia army will take the second route, because there is a mountain in the east of Nanjing City, called Zhongshan, Zhongshan is an important geographical barrier in Nanjing, as the so-called "Zhongshan Dragon, Stone Tiger Standing", Zhongshan is like a dragon, lying in the east of Nanjing.

The Huaxia army has strong firepower, soldiers are brave in combat, and they are especially good at fighting field battles in the plains.

Li Hongzhang believed that the Huaxia Army was most likely to take the first offensive line, and that it was very likely that the Huaxia Army would use its powerful naval strength to go upriver along the Yangtze River and land near Nanjing, and the landing site would inevitably be Yanziji.

Yanziji is one of the three famous rocks of the Yangtze River, has always been an important ferry port of the Yangtze River, is the place where soldiers must fight, when the Song and Jin confrontations, Jin Wushu led 100,000 troops to the south, the Song army general Han Shizhong, Liang Hongyu led the troops to launch the battle of Huang Tiandang, defeated the Jin Wushu, Huang Tiandang in the Song Dynasty, in the area of Yan Ziji.

During the First Opium War, the British army landed at Yanziji, broke through the city of Nanjing, burned and looted all the way, and forced the Qing court to sign the "Sino-British Treaty of Nanjing", which humiliated the country.

Li Hongzhang is determined to select a capable general to guard Yanziji, because the battle in Yanziji must have both land and water battles, so Li Hongzhang wants to send a naval officer to guard Yanziji, thinking about it, Luo Rongguang is the most suitable, but Luo Rongguang was beaten half to death by Tan Sitong, Luo Rongguang's personal guard battalion was killed by Tan Sitong, Luo Rongguang was already full of hatred for the Qing court, so he could no longer be used.

Li Hongzhang looked around the account, Liu Kunyi is good at land warfare, not good at water warfare, Tan Sitong is a scholar, more than loyal and brave, lack of talent, are not the best candidates to guard Yanziji, at this time Li Hongzhang suddenly saw a person, this person is polite, wearing a pair of glasses, thin figure, bright eyes.

It turned out that this person's name was Xie Baozhang, who was the second officer of the Beiyang Navy to pilot the Yuanyuan ship, and fought bravely, during the battle of Liugong Island, the Laiyuan ship was attacked by the Japanese torpedo boat, and sank heroically, killing more than 30 people, Xie Baozhang jumped into the sea when the Laiyuan ship sank, swam in the icy sea for several hours, and actually swam back to Liugong Island.

Li Hongzhang was very surprised by this matter, and specially made an appointment to meet Xie Baozhang, and talked freely, deeply feeling the ability of this person, serving as the second pilot is really a tyrannical thing, so he left this person under the account, at this time Li Hongzhang decided to send Xie Baozhang to guard Yanziji.

Li Hongzhang then appointed Xie Baozhang as the commander-in-chief of Yanziji, commanding the land and water troops, and must block the Huaxia army, Xie Baozhang calmly accepted the order.

On October 5, 1900, his wife gave birth to a baby girl, and he named the baby girl "Xie Wanying", and the baby girl grew up with a pen name - Bingxin.

Li Hongzhang also transferred all the 100,000 Qing troops in Nanjing to Yanziji, plus the original 100,000 defenders of Yanziji, and the Qing army gathered 200,000 troops in Yanziji alone.

Li Hongzhang also sent Liu Kunyi to guard Zhongshan, Zhongshan had about 150,000 troops, and the entire Nanjing had already invested 350,000 troops, and Li Hongzhang ordered the Qing troops in the prefectures and counties around Nanjing to strictly defend and prevent the Huaxia army from detouring from the south side of Nanjing, and the total strength of these state capitals was 150,000, and the Qing army had already gathered 500,000 troops in the battle of Nanjing.

After Xie Baozhang arrived at Yanziji, he immediately ordered the Qing soldiers to collect the civilian ships of the nearby Qing people, and then connected these civilian ships with iron cables and crossed the river to resist the warships of the Huaxia army.

Xie Baozhang also ordered his subordinates to recruit a large number of craftsmen in Nanjing, cut down huge trees to make wooden stakes, and erect them underwater, and wrapped iron sheets on the outside of the wooden stakes.

The water defense is so strong, the land defense is also not weak, Xie Baozhang recruited 100,000 people, built trench fortifications in the Yanziji area, Xie Baozhang knew that the Chinese army was fierce, so he dug a lot of air defense bunkers in the trenches, and the Western merchants in Nanjing City also came to help the Qing State, they took out a lot of cement to help Xie Baozhang build air defense bunkers, with solid cement, the Qing army's bunkers can barely block a Chinese aerial bomb.

Li Hongzhang saw Xie Baozhang building layers of defense, and praised Xie Baozhang, which made Liu Kunyi quite dissatisfied, Liu Kunyi's qualifications were much older than Xie Baozhang, so Liu Kunyi also began to build fortifications in Zhongshan, and when building fortifications, Liu Kunyi invited American military experts in Nanjing.

Under the guidance of American military experts, Zhongshan was covered with large and small fortifications, and Liu Kunyi even deployed the only artillery team in his hand to the top of the mountain, and the artillery team had 15 German-made mountain guns.

The Qing army made such a big move in Yanziji and Zhongshan, Wei Zelong could not have not known, according to the original plan, Wei Zelong was going to lead the troops to land at Yanziji, but the Qing army attached so much importance to the Yanziji defense line, and if they fought hard, I am afraid that it would be half the effort.

So Wei Zelong sent a message to Lin Fei, hoping to change the combat strategy, Lin Fei immediately convened the staff officers to discuss, and the staff officers said that although the Qing army had strengthened the Yanziji defense line and the Zhongshan defense line, these two defense lines were not impenetrable in the face of our army's firepower attack, and our army could launch an attack according to the predetermined plan.

Lin Fei shook his head and said: "Everyone knows me very well, and knows that I don't like to fight hard with the enemy, and I still like to use clever methods to break the enemy, so think about it, what are the ingenious methods?" ”

The staff officers whispered for a while, and then Xiyun suddenly said loudly: "Husband, can we let Sister Ning Shuang dispatch airborne troops and directly airborne in Nanjing City?" ”

Lin Fei glared at Xiyun fiercely, his eyes were full of reproach, so many staff officers are here, how can you call me husband?

Xiyun regretted his speech, lightly stuck out his tongue, lowered his head, and Lin Fei said with a straight face: "Staff Officer Sa's idea is not feasible, our airborne troops do not have the ability to parachute directly to take Nanjing City. ”

The staff officers still didn't have a good way, Lin Fei said with a smile: "I decided to let the troops make a detour to the south, bypass the Zhongshan defense line, and attack Nanjing from the south side of Nanjing, where the Qing army was most defenseed. ”

"How can this work?" All the staff officers exclaimed in surprise and persuaded one after another: "Your Majesty, please think twice, if you make a detour to the south and bypass the Zhongshan defense line, the troops will need to walk nearly 100 kilometers more, and the time to end the battle will definitely be greatly increased." ”

"Also, if we take a detour to the south, the south is full of dense rivers, and now it is May, it is the season of increased precipitation, the southern rivers will be wider, the water flow will be more rapid, and the speed of our advance will definitely be greatly slowed down, and now the strategy of the Qing army is to delay time, waiting for the intervention of the Western powers, we can't afford to delay time."