However, even if the speed of the cavalry is very fast, if you want to catch up with Chongzhen, who has fled hundreds of miles away, you will definitely not be able to do it in two or three days.

And these two or three days are enough for the situation of the Yangtze River defense line to undergo earth-shaking changes......

Wang Bo, commander of the First Division of the First Army of the Tiger and Leopard Army, had already taken less than 5,000 elites under his command to travel day and night, secretly lurking at a ferry less than 50 miles away from Nanjing City.

As a ferry port on the south bank of the Yangtze River that can dock warships, both the Haw Par Army and the imperial court know his importance.

Because, once this ferry is broken through by the Haw Par Army, the main force of the Haw Par Army can cross the Yangtze River in the shortest time through the ferry and kill the south bank of the Yangtze River.

In order to prevent this from becoming a fact, the imperial court directly arranged 10,000 new troops, 200 red-coated cannons, and more than 500 catapults here.

After several days of fighting, the defenders suffered 2,000 casualties, 70 or 80 red-coated cannons, and more than 100 catapults. However, the remaining strength and heavy equipment of the defenders could still deal a devastating blow to the attacking forces of the Haw Par Army on the river.

Therefore, in the eyes of everyone on both sides, even if the Haw Par Army wants to find a breakthrough in the Yangtze River defense line, they will not leave the breakthrough far here.

Therefore, the remaining 8,000 garrisons of the defenders, apart from closely monitoring every move on the river, had almost no defenses behind themselves. And this gave thousands of soldiers of the First Division of the Haw Par Army an opportunity to take advantage of......

Looking at the brightly lit ferry port illuminated by torches a few miles away, the serious expression on the face of division commander Wang Bo was directly replaced by contempt.

Under the gaze of several regiment commanders around him, he decisively ordered: "First regiment commander, do you see the hundreds of catapults directly behind the ferry...... According to reconnaissance, the defenders placed a total of 2,000 people here...... Tonight. I'll give you these two thousand......"

"Commander Zhang of the guard battalion, there are more than 1,500 gunners and 1,000 defenders in the red-coated artillery position of the defenders, and I will hand over these enemies to you......"

"The remaining two regiments, the division belongs to the heavy artillery battalion, which I personally commanded, and fought directly to the ferry. Destroy the remaining 5,000 defenders at the ferry......"

"I remember that after the operation begins, all participating units must get as close as possible to the target...... No one can expose the target in advance without an order......"

"Also, the exact timing of the attack is not up to me...... Tonight, the officers and men of Jiang's Fourth Army will cooperate with us...... The time when the heavy artillery of the Fourth Army opened fire is the time when we will launch an attack......"

In less than an hour, the piercing scream of flowering bullets piercing the sky sounded over the battlefield.

Subsequently, a few hundred steps away from the ferry. Dozens of fireballs mixed with a large amount of black smoke were raised. Immediately after, the violent explosion of the flowering bomb sounded at the ferry.

In the face of the sudden artillery attack, perhaps the defenders of the ferry were used to it and did not panic too much.

Thousands of defenders, like a huge war machine, quickly began to work.

Only, the goal of this war machine. Without exception, all of them face the Yangtze River. As for behind them. Apart from a handful of sentinels, there was no defense at all.

What's more, even these handful of sentries were wiped out by the scouts of the 1st Division Scout Company at the first time the heavy artillery unit of the Fourth Army opened fire, and they didn't know how they died until they died, and you don't have to say give early warning to the main force.

So. Under the cover of the sound of intense artillery fire and explosions, the more than 4,000 officers and men of the 1st Division, with almost no effort, easily approached the target less than 100 paces away.

At this distance, it was not a musket. It is also a light mortar, which can easily deal a devastating blow to the defenders.

As a result, the first division was equipped with more than 200 artillery pieces, large and small, as if they had been negotiated, and roared at the same time.

The flowering shells fired by the heavy artillery units of the Fourth Army were very powerful. The lethality of one flowering shell is inferior to that of four or five ordinary mortar flowering shells.

However, after all, the range of heavy artillery was Taiyuan, and when he flew over the Yangtze River and smashed on the ferry, he didn't have much accuracy.

Therefore, although the violent explosion of the flowering bomb at the ferry port was constantly sounding, the damage caused to the defenders of the ferry was not very large.

However, the more than 200 flowering shells fired by one division in one round are different.

Although the power is not very large, the accuracy of the flowering bullet is very high.

Because it was a close-range shot, a round of flowering shells smashed into the ferry, although it could not be said that the bullets hit the target. However, more than eighty percent of the flowering shells hit the target.

Without exception, all of these flowering shells that hit their targets smashed into the dense crowd of defenders.

A flowering bomb exploded, and a large area of defenders around it, like ripe wheat that had been cut down, was swept to the ground by the fragments of the flowering bullet, and their anger was unknown.

More importantly, the rate of fire of the mortar is very fast.

The first round of flowering shells had just exploded, and the defenders, who had suffered heavy losses, had not yet recovered from the shock, and the second, and even the third, rounds of flowering shells, as if it were raining, followed them closely.

As a result, after several rounds of thousands of flowering bombs exploded one after another, the Nuoda ferry port was completely shrouded in gunsmoke.

Not only that, but the remaining defenders of the ferry also suffered heavy losses and fell into chaos under the blows of flowering shells everywhere.

Such a good opportunity, of course, the First Division will not let it go.

With nearly 3,000 musketeers from the two regiments commanded by division commander Wang Bo, they rushed to the ferry with their muskets that had already loaded their bayonets. The remaining regiment and the guard battalion of the 1st Division also launched attacks on the defenders' slinger positions and artillery positions.

Chongzhen invested a lot of money in the training of the new army, although desperately resisted. However, under the attack of the Tiger and Leopard Army's infantry artillery, which transcends time and space, it can only be defeated again and again.

In the blink of an eye, half of the pier was occupied by the 1st Division.

As for the defending catapult positions and artillery positions, there is no doubt that they were all occupied by the Tiger and Par Army.

Under these circumstances, more and more officers and men of the 1st Division began to join the battle against the remnants of the defenders of the ferry......

Especially after the arrival of hundreds of mortars, the entire offensive directly turned into a one-sided massacre.

The final result was that the more than 4,000 soldiers of the First Division opened a breakthrough in the Yangtze River defense line carefully arranged by the imperial court in less than an hour, and took a ferry that could be used for the main force to land quickly.

As for the other defenders of the two sides of the ferry, in the face of the violent explosions and gunfire that sounded in the direction of the ferry, although they were eager to send reinforcements. However, other units of the Haw Par Army on the north bank of the Yangtze River did not give them this opportunity.

At the moment when the heavy artillery of the Fourth Army opened fire, the other troops were not idle, and used their fiercest offensive to launch an attack on the new army of the imperial court in front of them, so that they could not send a single soldier to reinforce the ferry.

Until the end of the battle at the ferry, the attacks on both sides of the ferry did not have any intention of stopping. (To be continued......)