When Song Baicheng woke up from the darkness, what caught his eyes was the dim light, and a white-bearded military doctor in a white robe under the light was in front of him, only to hear him say to a medical soldier: "Transfer him to the ward!" ”

Ignoring Song Baicheng, who had just woken up, he turned around and went to the edge of another hospital bed.

Although Song Baicheng had woken up, his whole body felt tired and weak, and there was a sharp pain in his right leg, which made him frown unconsciously.

He didn't have to think much about it to see that he should have arrived in the military hospital, and there were many screams in his ears, ** and screams seemed to be more dense than on the battlefield, and a group of military doctors and medical soldiers in white robes were busy back and forth, dealing with the wounded one after another.

When lying on the stretcher and being carried out by two medical soldiers, Song Baicheng saw the person lying on another hospital bed and seemed to be somewhat familiar, if he remembered well, this person should be Lieutenant Tang Bingjun, the company commander of the sixth company, at this time, I saw that he was already in a coma, but the expression on his face was distorted, obviously he was still suffering greatly in the coma, so at this time a military doctor was holding a saw that had been disinfected with alcohol to cut off his left calf.

Although I didn't see it clearly, I could see that the sole of the left calf had been completely shattered, and only a little flesh and bone remained, and this injury was known to have been caused by a shell.

After going out, Song Baicheng turned his head to look at the courtyard, only to see that there were many wounded people lying or sitting in the yard under the dim kerosene lamp, some people were making miserable howls, some people were making a miserable **, and the other end of the courtyard was a pile of rows and rows of corpses. They weren't even covered with a white cloth, they were piled up.

This battle. How many people have you killed or wounded? One thousand two thousand, that's definitely more than that. Maybe 35,000, or more?

After being carried to a ward by the medical staff to lie down again, Song Baicheng finally said the first sentence after waking up: "Did we win?" ”

The medical soldier was obviously slightly stunned by the question, and after a long time, the young man, who was estimated to be only sixteen or seventeen years old, said with a smile: "I don't know very well, but I heard from people outside that those foreigners have retreated!" ”

The victory or defeat of the war is difficult to judge for ordinary soldiers, especially for these medical soldiers in the rear, but after Song Baicheng heard that the foreigners had retreated, he couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief in his heart, if this foreigner retreated. Then it means that this defensive operation is a success, that is, they have won!

When Song Baicheng was thinking nonsense alone, a huge conference room in Wusong Fort was brightly lit, and there were many high-ranking generals of the navy and army during the period, and several of them were still wrapped in bandages.

In the light, Zhu Jianjia, the chief of staff of the Seventh Army, was saying in a slightly excited tone: "According to the report of the reconnaissance cavalry ahead, the enemy has withdrawn from the front of the fortress and retreated to their landing site. Their fleet has also returned, and they should not launch another large-scale attack on our army in the short term! ”

"We all know this, and when it comes to the rest, this time the enemy and I have suffered casualties. How's that going? "Obviously, everyone present was most concerned about the casualties of the enemy and the enemy, whenever they saw the dense corpses and wounded on the battlefield. These people couldn't help but tremble in their hearts, even though they hadn't gotten the exact numbers yet. But judging from the situation at that time, there were at least tens of thousands of corpses or wounded people lying on the ground. The battlefield after the bayonet hand-to-hand combat was bloodier than the slaughterhouse, so much so that the soldiers who cleaned many of the battlefields vomited while carrying the corpses and the wounded.

"At present, the exact number has not been reported, but at present, it can be basically judged that our army killed at least 3,000 enemies in this battle, and captured more than 2,000 enemy troops, including the wounded!" After Zhu Jianjia said a simple sentence, he said again:

"Our army suffered heavy casualties, not counting the navy side in today's World War I, only the army side has counted more than 5,000 soldiers martyred, and at least more than 3,000 soldiers were injured! On the naval side, about 200 people were killed and more than 300 wounded! ”

"Those who died at or above the rank of colonel are: Major General Xu Bangzhu, Chief of Staff of the Second Division, Colonel Lan Shoubo, Commander of the Fourth Regiment, Lieutenant Colonel Lu Caishi, Commander of the Fifth Regiment, Major Song Chisan, Deputy Commander of the Fifth Regiment, Major Hong Menglou, Deputy Commander of the Sixth Regiment, Lieutenant Colonel Zhou Ren, Commander of the 31st Regiment, Major He Pingchun, Commander of the First Battalion of the Fourth Regiment, Major Bai Chunshen, Commander of the Second Battalion, and Commander of the Second Battalion of the Fifth Regiment......"

"The army lieutenants and martyrs include Captain Liang Qiu, the combat staff officer of the 2nd Division, and the deputy commander of the 2nd Battalion of the 4th Regiment......"

"On the naval side, the martyrs include Colonel Lai Dayi, General Staff Officer of Artillery, Lieutenant Colonel Bo Ping, Combat Staff Officer, and Lieutenant Colonel Wang Anlin, Deputy Commander of the Fourth Heavy Artillery Battalion......"

The casualty list of nearly 100 officers immersed the entire conference room in a very strange atmosphere, although these officers still maintained the composure and sitting posture of soldiers, and did not appear to shout, but looking at the expressions of everyone, they already knew that today's casualties were unbearable for them.

Although everyone was mentally prepared to bear the consequences of huge casualties, after hearing about the casualties of more than 8,000 people, it still made many of the generals present change color in unison.

After half a ring, I saw that Xu Yanqing, who seemed to be more than ten years old overnight, stood up and said: "The second army has suffered a heavy setback in this battle, and I, Xu Yanqing, can hardly take the blame, I will personally go to Pingrentang to ask for his guilt, and ask Your Majesty to punish him!" ”

In this battle, the vast majority of the more than 8,000 casualties of the Chinese army were borne by the Second Army, especially the main force of the Second Infantry Division, and the Second Infantry Division, which was fully manned before the war, is now only less than 3,000 people, and more than half of the middle and senior officers were killed, not to mention the grassroots officers, and no more than one-third survived, and more than 5,000 casualties were enough to crush Xu Yanqing's backbone.

Regardless of whether this battle is a victory or a defeat, but Xu Yanqing's heart is uncomfortable, the 8,000 dead and wounded are the most elite soldiers of the empire, the foundation of the empire, this is a loss of so much, how can this make Xu Yanqing, as a commander, feel good.

At this time, Bing Qusong comforted and said: "Brother Xu is serious, in the face of such a strong enemy in this battle, our army can hold and repel the enemy's attack. It was already a great victory, and after this battle, the enemy army had no strength to attack Wusong. Although tens of thousands of soldiers were killed and wounded for this, they died for the empire. It is the duty of our generation of soldiers to die for the people, and Your Majesty is a soldier, and he can understand the suffering of our people! ”

On this night, few of the Chinese troops who had repelled the Anglo-French forces could sleep well, but the Count of Ergin, who fled back in embarrassment after being repulsed, was even more uncomfortable.

"The loss of more than five thousand people, which the empire will never allow to accept!" Although Count Ergin had been prepared for a hard battle before the battle, he still could not predict that the Chinese army on the opposite side would resist so stubbornly, and today's large-scale general attack, but he had been preparing for several days to carry out.

First, the tactics of luring were used to paralyze the enemy army. Then he used 3,000 troops to directly attack to attract the attention of the enemy, but on the other side, he directly mobilized the main force of more than 10,000 people to bypass the heavily defended position near the Wusong Battery, and launched a general attack towards the position far from the Yangtze River, he wanted to directly defeat the enemy's defensive forces with the army's own strength.

In his opinion, when both sides have lost the support of naval guns or shore defense artillery, what remains is a duel between the armies, but only a duel between the armies, and he Count Ergin is confident that he will crush the enemy on the opposite side.

It was true that the early days of the battle had developed like this, and the current Count of Ergin was still muttering in his heart. At that time, it was almost like that, and the last point, if the enemy reinforcements had arrived a few minutes late, then his troops would have been able to directly crush the enemy forces in front of them. Then meet the enemy reinforcements.

Instead of being able to completely crush the enemy's frontal defense, as in the case, enemy reinforcements arrived and joined the melee. In the end, the Anglo-French army lost its numerical superiority and was attacked both frontally and flanked. led to a chaotic formation and finally fell into a melee.

After that, the battle between the two sides was a war of attrition in which 1,000 enemies were killed and 800 were lost, and the two sides fought until more than half of the losses of both sides were separated.

After more than fifty percent of the casualties were killed. The initial bloodiness of the soldiers on both sides had been exhausted, and then they entered a meaningless war of attrition, and Count Ergin had no doubt that if he continued to fight, none of the 10,000 men he sent out would return.

When the two sides entered the last moment, the Count of Ergin had to order the artillery units to take the initiative to carry out a large-scale artillery bombardment of the melee battlefield, and at the same time issued an order to retreat, under the cover of the artillery fiercely, the remaining more than 4,000 remnants of the British and French troops retreated.

In fact, even if the British and French forces do not carry out artillery cover, the Chinese army is powerless to pursue, because their situation is worse than that of the British and French forces, although the remaining troops are more, but there are more soldiers who have fallen than the British and French forces, after a brutal battle, even if the officers shout, but these surviving soldiers will not continue to pursue, because even if there is a cruel military law, but the soldiers are still instinctively unwilling to send to death.

After retreating, the Count of Ergin, fearing a counterattack by the enemy, retreated directly to a landing camp several kilometers away, and at the same time asked the fleet of West Malaysia for protection and support.

As long as they are within range of the ship's guns, then they are safe.

And since Count Ergin took the initiative to retreat, it basically meant that the battle of Wusong had come to an end, because he no longer had enough strength to launch a second round of large-scale offensive operations.

Of course, the unwilling Earl Ergin still asked Xima to send a fleet to continue along the Jiangxi River, and then to Jiangyin, but after arriving in Jiangyin, he found that the Jiangyin Fort was more difficult to fight than the Wusong Fort, and it could only be symbolically shelled to stop the shelling and then return to Shanghai.

However, the British and French forces did not say that they would retreat directly, although they said that they did not have enough strength to take the Wusong Fort in a short time, but it did not mean that they would leave in disgrace, they sent a small force to the surrounding areas to collect supplies and people, etc., and then built a fortress at the landing site.

Bing Qusong and others were also a little helpless in this regard, they were covered by hundreds of naval guns, and even if they sent tens of thousands of people to counterattack, it was estimated that they would be bombarded, and there was not even scum left, so they could only let go of the counterattack and lick their wounds.

In a few days, Lin Zhe of Nanjing Pingrentang got the relevant report of the battle of Wusong, and when he saw that his side had killed and wounded at least 6,000 enemy troops at a low price of 10,000 casualties, he did not have the same sad face as those generals, but chuckled with joy on his face, and said hello three times in a row! (To be continued......)