Unlike most of the Royal Army soldiers who were from Zhejiang and southern Jiangsu, Xu Shan was a native of Hubei, and when the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom just emerged and swept Huguang and other places, he was also coerced into the Taiping Army, and then forced to become a member of the Taiping Army, and he was also a veteran of many years of war in the Taiping Army.

He was captured in Danyang last year, and then he was incorporated into the 1st Auxiliary Defense Division, becoming a sword and shield bearer armed with a long knife and shield.

His experience is representative of the vast majority of the Chinese Army's Auxiliary Defense Force soldiers.

After joining the First Auxiliary Defense Division, at first because he did not adapt to the strict discipline of the Chinese Army, he was beaten several times for violating military discipline, but later he finally got used to it.

This has been in the auxiliary defense army for a long time, and he also feels that it is much better in the Chinese army than in the Taiping army, although the military law is very strict, and there are many rules, even the usual meals in the canteen must be neatly organized, and a row of people must pick up chopsticks to eat at the same time, and I don't think anyone is allowed to eat first.

Naturally, there are many rules, and it is not so free and comfortable, but at least he can eat a full meal every day, three meals a day, and a dry meal is something that he couldn't hope for before, and since joining the Chinese Army for more than a year, he has not been tossed and thinned by frequent training, but has become stronger and stronger, and the muscles of his arms are bulging.

So although Xu Shan is not working hard to fight in the assistant defense division, he can hide if he can, and save his life as the first priority, but if you want to let Xu Shan escape from the assistant defense division and then join the Qing army or the Taiping army, he will definitely be unwilling!

Now he carried a long knife and shield, and followed the large army to attack Yangzhou City in front again, and when they charged, the artillery positions of the Royal Army in the rear also began to carry out intensive artillery bombardment of the Qing army on the city.

Xu Shan only saw a large number of black cannonballs flying in the sky one after another, and then fell on the city, some of them smashed directly on the city wall, some flew directly over the city and fell into the city, and a considerable part of them fell directly into the city head and exploded or exploded above the city head.

While the grenade bombs that exploded above the city raised clouds of smoke, they also sprayed a large number of iron beads and shrapnel, forming a dense barrage to kill and injure the Qing soldiers on the city.

Among them, several Qing artillery positions that were under key care were hit by multiple grenades or grenade shotguns in a row, which killed and injured many Qing gunners in an instant, and a gun without a gunner naturally could not fire shells.

Seeing that the artillery fire launched from the city was much weaker, Xu Shan was also relieved.

If the Qing army had continued the fierce shelling just now, even if they fought bravely and did not retreat, I am afraid that they would have suffered a large number of casualties in the process of attacking, and it was possible that they would have died at that time.

This is good, let's not talk about whether you can rush to the head of the city to conquer the city wall, but at least you don't have to worry about being artillery by the Qing army on the road.

When Xu Shan and the other First Auxiliary Defense Division launched the second attack, Shi Qingxuan in the rear was also keeping an eye on the battle situation at any time.

Although only a defensive division was now sent to launch a tentative attack, and he did not expect to conquer the city head at once, Shi Qingxuan hoped to see the true strength of the Qing army in Yangzhou City from this tentative attack, find out their defensive weaknesses, and establish a tactical advantage for the subsequent real attack.

"General, you see, the Qing army's firepower at the head of the city has been suppressed by us!" Colonel Bing Qusong, chief of staff of the First Army, pointed to the city of Yangzhou in the distance.

"Well, our artillery units are still working hard and have lived up to His Majesty's expectations of them!" Shi Qingxuan also nodded and said.

After the intensive bombardment of dozens of artillery pieces of the artillery unit, the Qing army on the head of Yangzhou City did not dare to come forward again, and those dozen or so artillery pieces did not fire again, but it is worth noting that the artillery of the Qing army did not fire, not because the shells of the Chinese army directly destroyed these artillery pieces or killed and injured all the Qing artillery.

Rather, because these Qing artillery had already run away or hid in order to avoid the shells, the Chinese army actually directly destroyed only one artillery piece at most, and killed and injured no more than twenty or thirty artillerymen.

However, this is not important, the important thing is that these Qing artillery guns have stopped firing, which will make the attack of the 1st Auxiliary Defense Division face less threat.

But would the Qing army watch the soldiers of the 1st Auxiliary Defense Division rush directly through the open space outside the city, and then climb to the top of the city?

The answer is no!

At the same time, on the west city wall of Yangzhou City, Li Hongzhang bent down and climbed the city wall with a group of generals, and then looked out from the gap.

At this time, many soldiers dressed differently from other Qing troops also went to the city one after another, and these soldiers wore the uniforms of those Chinese soldiers outside the city, all of which were single-breasted tops and trousers, and they did not write a big soldier character on their chests like the green battalion, nor did they write a brave character like the Hunan army or other regimental exercises. However, the color of the military uniform is light blue, and he also holds a light blue cloth strip on his head, and he holds a foreign gun in his hand, and a bayonet hangs from his waist.

These soldiers are Li Hongzhang's Jianghuai New Army!

As a new army modeled after Yu Shengjun, the Jianghuai New Army is very similar to the early Yu Shengjun in all aspects, from the style of military uniforms to tactics, it is actually a copy of Yu Shengjun.

"Pass the order, put it close and fight again!" Li Hongzhang looked at the Chinese troops outside the city who were only less than 300 meters away from the gap, and thought about the generals around him passing orders.

At this time, the city wall was already full of soldiers of the Jianghuai New Army, but they did not lean out directly, but hid behind the city wall and began to load the foreign guns in their hands under the orders of officers at all levels.

It's just that they can dodge the direct fire of the Chinese army, but they can't dodge the grenades and grenades that fall into the city.

Every grenade that fell on the city would kill a few or more than a dozen soldiers of the Jianghuai New Army.

However, unlike the soldiers of the Green Battalion who had retreated from the city before, they still stood in place to reload and make final preparations for battle, despite the continuous casualties.

Just by taking a look, Shi Qingxuan outside the city frowned, although it was the first time to contact the Jianghuai New Army, but just looking at the fact that this Jianghuai New Army could stand up to its own artillery strikes without wavering, this ability was far from being comparable to the ordinary Taiping Army or the Qing Army.

And the next battle also proved Shi Qingxuan's conjecture, I saw that when the soldiers of the First Auxiliary Defense Division rushed to a distance of about 100 meters below the city, they saw the Jianghuai New Army on the city head shooting in unison, and with the sound of dense gunfire, when the smoke was filled with the city, the soldiers of the First Auxiliary Defense Division under the city fell a large piece.

Although the officers of the 1st Auxiliary Defense Division continued to shout for the soldiers to continue to rush forward, the Jianghuai New Army at the head of the city soon fired a second round and a third round of guns, causing heavy casualties to the soldiers of the 1st Auxiliary Defense Division in a short time.

Seeing this situation, Shi Qingxuan knew that he couldn't let the First Auxiliary Defense Division continue to rush, otherwise he would be wiped out alive under the city wall.

This kind of thing has been done by the Chinese army itself, and it knows very well that under the dense platoon of guns, the troops armed with cold weapons will not be able to attack the city at all.

As the gong sounded to represent the retreat, the 1st Auxiliary Division retreated faster than it had charged.

These two exploratory attacks before and after caused the First Auxiliary Defense Division to lose more than 200 people, especially in the second attack, due to the intensive fire attack by the Jianghuai New Army, nearly 200 people were killed or wounded.

After paying 200 casualties, Shi Qingxuan and other senior generals of the Chinese army came to a conclusion that the tactics used in the past to suppress the enemy with long-range firepower and then send soldiers of the auxiliary defense force to the city for hand-to-hand combat were no longer applicable.

In the past, when dealing with the Taiping army, due to the weak long-range firepower of the Taiping army, the Chinese army could completely suppress the enemy's firepower at the head of the city, so that the hand-to-hand combat troops of the auxiliary defense army could easily climb to the head of the city.

As for Lin Chengting's department, which had strong firepower in the Taiping Army, in the First World War of Changzhou last year, because the original Yu Shengjun was mainly besieged, he did not launch a large-scale attack, and later Lin Chengting took the initiative to withdraw the army, and even left hundreds of thousands of taels of silver to buy the road, so strictly speaking, the new army trained by Lin Chengting has not fought with the Chinese army on a large scale.

From last year to the beginning of this year, in the battles of Danyang, Zhenjiang, and Nanjing, the Chinese army fought ordinary troops in the Taiping Army, and when facing them, the Chinese army was basically invincible.

But obviously, in the city of Yangzhou can no longer replicate the previous tactics, Shi Qingxuan knows that he must change the tactics of siege, in the old words, although he can also take Yangzhou City, but I am afraid that these soldiers of the auxiliary defense army will also suffer heavy casualties.

Although the positioning of the Chinese Army for the Auxiliary Defense Force is a cannon fodder unit, even if it is cannon fodder, it is valuable to sacrifice, and it cannot be killed or injured too much.

The ability of these Allied Defense Forces to withstand casualties is far beyond that of the Royal Army, and if they are forced to launch a death charge, the casualties will be too large and it will completely collapse, and then it will not be easy to deal with.

In order to deal with the defenders of Yangzhou, who had a lot of long-range firepower, Shi Qingxuan developed a number of tactics, the most important of which was to use artillery, especially large-caliber artillery, to destroy these damn city walls.

Without the city wall to stop them, how could they stop the pace of their army, and when the time came, they would either dig trenches like the Taiping army or hide in the ruins and wait for the Chinese army to approach and engage in hand-to-hand combat, or directly compete with the Chinese army for firepower.

If it is the former, the Chinese army's auxiliary defense force will be able to come in handy, although they can't withstand the dense firepower of the platoon guns, but they can barely fight hand-to-hand combat.

As for the competition for firepower, the Chinese army has never been afraid of anyone.

In order to destroy the city wall, on the one hand, it used large-caliber artillery to bombard continuously, and on the other hand, it also sent soldiers to dig tunnels directly, and then buried a large amount of gunpowder under the city wall, once successfully detonated, it was enough to blow up a large section of the city wall into the sky.

At that time, the Chinese army will be able to rush in through the gap in the city wall, and whether it is direct hand-to-hand combat or firepower between infantry, Shi Qingxuan will have the certainty of victory.

After sending the 1st Auxiliary Defense Division to launch two exploratory attacks, the Chinese army suspended the large-scale siege of the city and began to carry out a larger-scale intensive artillery bombardment, while also secretly sending soldiers to dig tunnels.

And in the city, after seeing that the Chinese army stopped the large-scale offensive, Huang Zonghan and Li Hongzhang and others were also relieved, because the previous defense of the city relied on the Jianghuai New Army to repel the attack of the Chinese army, so everyone had a lot of compliments on Li Hongzhang.

Zhang Guoliang even said: "Li Futai's Jianghuai New Army is worthy of being a first-class strong army in the imperial court, and the rebel army that fought with only one counterattack did not dare to attack, and I am afraid that only the Jianghuai New Army has such combat power in the world!" ”

Li Hongzhang smiled, and naturally said modestly: "There, there are only more than 10,000 people in my Jianghuai New Army, and this important task of sticking to Yangzhou has to rely on General Zhang's army!" ”

Watching these two people praise each other, although Dexing'a was dissatisfied in his heart, he didn't speak, the combat effectiveness of the Jianghuai New Army is there, and whether he can hold Yangzhou City in the future really depends on Li Hongzhang's Jianghuai New Army, so he is not as cold as before.

Zhang Guoliang even said that the enemy army could not attack Yangzhou for a long time, and the soldiers must be tired and demoralized, and when the time comes, they can go out of the city to attack the rebel army, as long as the rebel army is annihilated, then they can directly cross the river from Guazhou, kill Jiangning, and capture Lin Zheyunyun alive.

And just when they made bold statements, thinking that Yangzhou was impregnable, within a few days, there was an earth-shattering noise from the west city wall of Yangzhou.

Even the people in the city far from the west wall could look up and see the huge pillars of smoke rising from the west, and the people near the west wall could see countless bricks, stones, and sand flying into the air.

If you walk into the explosion site at this time and take a closer look, you can find that the middle of the originally tall and thick city wall has been missing, and a huge gap of more than 20 meters wide has appeared in the smoke and dust.

Although Li Hongzhang in the city has not yet learned the details, he just looked at the column of smoke that rushed to the sky, and when he heard this earth-shattering noise, he had a very bad premonition in his heart! (To be continued.) )