Zhang Feng and Zhang Yun's troops were indeed ambushed, and it was Chen Yucheng's troops who ambushed them, and they were Chen Yucheng's main force!

In fact, Chen Yucheng's ambush was premeditated, but the imaginary enemy at the beginning was not Zhang Feng and Zhang Yun, but the reinforcements of Wang Sanwu's department, that is to say, it was originally to deal with Jiang Yun, but the two of them just collided in advance.

If you want to talk about it, you have to start from the beginning.

It turned out that before attacking the Jingwu Army, Chen Yucheng knew that the main force of the Jingwu Army was not only powerful in firepower, but also had something called a bicycle, which was second only to the cavalry in terms of mobility.

Chen Yucheng also felt quite a headache for this kind of highly mobile, high-firepower, and high-organization troops, because as far as he knew, even if the main force of the Jingwu Army was only three or four thousand people, once the opponent was arrayed into a momentum, it would basically be equal to invincibility, and if he fought head-on, he would not be able to defeat the opponent with thirty or fifty thousand.

In this regard, there have been too many examples, especially Li Xiucheng's defeat in Suzhou, which is particularly memorable.

In the end, Chen Yucheng thought about it and felt that if he wanted to defeat the Jingwu army in the wild, then he could only fight more and less, forcing the other party to fight close combat with him, and not letting them give full play to their firepower advantage!

If you want to do this, the only way is to ambush, and you must ambush the opponent during the march, and fight with them as soon as they come up, so that they can't play with their foreign guns and cannons in peace!

However, if you want to fight the ambush of the elite army, it is not easy to say, first of all, the target must be selected, the location must also be selected, and the timing is also very important, whether it can be achieved in the end depends on luck.

chose and chosen, and in the end, Chen Yucheng still chose Wang Sanwu's troops, and he had to take Wang Sanwu's troops first!

The reason for this. Because Wang Sanwu's battle line is the longest, from Yangzhou to Xuzhou, and even to Jinan, almost all of them are Wang Sanwu's sphere of influence, because he has to fortify everywhere, which also causes his troops to be the most scattered and unable to gather together.

On the contrary, although the units of Zhang Wei's Second Division were also scattered everywhere at that time and had not yet been concentrated, they were all stationed on the mainland. Most of the local people are focused on the Jingwu army, and there are a large number of garrison troops, and the battle line is also short, and the reaction speed is faster than Chen Yucheng's troops, so the difficulty of ambushing is naturally higher.

After choosing the target, Chen Yucheng began to fight Zhenjiang first, and then crossed the Zhenjiang River to fight Yangzhou, looking like he was going to defeat Yangzhou and then threaten the rear of the Jingwu Army's Northern Expeditionary Army.

But actually. Chen Yucheng's attack on Yangzhou was a feint at all, otherwise, he had an army of 50,000, and because of the strong support of the British and French before. The unit is also equipped with a large number of foreign guns and artillery, both in terms of weapons and equipment and military morale, it can be said that it is the most capable unit in the Taiping Army at present.

Such a powerful force has no intentions. If you really want to fight, it is impossible to defeat the Yangzhou defenders who have no main force stationed, so Chen Yucheng and Lu Tianming are in a tug-of-war. It's just a bait, and the original intention is to encircle the point and send reinforcements, just to find a way to lure the opponent's reinforcements over, and then hit the opponent's ambush.

Therefore, when Chen Yucheng attacked Yangzhou, he only sent a small number of troops to attack, but the large army had already laid an ambush at the predetermined ambush site, dug tunnels and defensive positions in advance, and also made various camouflages.

In this way, Chen Yucheng sent a small number of troops to appear under Yangzhou City with his handsome flag, and continued to play with the Yangzhou defenders as bait, while he led the main force to rest assured at the ambush site, patiently waiting for Wang Sanwu's rescue troops to take the bait, and wanted to fight the other party in an ambush.

Wang Sanwu took the bait, knowing that Yangzhou was attacked and the inner city was not lost, he quickly decided to send reinforcements and let Jiang Yun lead a regiment of A to support quickly.

Originally, one of Jiang Yun's regiments should have arrived three days earlier, but because they happened to encounter a dizzy Qing army on the way, they were delayed for some time after fighting and chasing.

It can be said that Chen Yucheng had been staring at the north all the time, and the ambush location was also the only way for the other party to come to Yangzhou, so it can be said that he put all his energy on the ambush point, and as a result, he took the south lightly.

In fact, Chen Yucheng can't be blamed for this, because Zhenjiang is in the south, and Zhenjiang has Hong Renda's 50,000 troops, as well as other miscellaneous troops.

But who knows, Hong Renda actually led the army to leave Zhenjiang and wanted to attack Danyang, but as soon as Zhang Wei's second division, which was quickly assembled, rushed over, after a little contact, Hong Renda led his troops to flee to Nanjing, without greeting the people behind him at all.

Immediately afterwards, in order to grab the credit, Zhang Wei led his troops to attack Zhenjiang quickly, and while personally leading a regiment to fight Zhenjiang, he sent two regiments to cross the river overnight to attack the bait army under the banner of Chen Yucheng under the city of Yangzhou, thinking that his two brothers would kill or capture Chen Yucheng alive, so as to share a little credit.

In fact, the matter has gone wrong enough, and the result is even more bizarre, that is, the bait troops that were originally under Yangzhou City actually got the news that Hong Renda retreated without a fight under Danyang City the night before yesterday, and the Zhenjiang garrison was empty.

After learning the news, the decoy troops under the banner of Chen Yucheng were shocked, afraid that the back road would be cut off, so they led the troops to retreat overnight, wanting to go back to find Chen Yucheng.

When this army retreated, it was indeed retreating to Chen Yucheng's ambush point, but at that time, the lights were blind, and in order not to attract the attention of the Yangzhou defenders, this unit did not light the torches when they left, and as a result, they got lost when they walked, and actually left the official road halfway and turned onto a small road.

In fact, there are traces of this, but because the traces of Chen Yucheng's retreat were more obvious before, Zhang Feng and Zhang Yun brothers chased the traces of the large army all the way, and as a result, they had already diverged from the decoy force.

In the end, the troops of Zhang Feng and Zhang Yun brothers were all bicycle troops, and the speed was not comparable to that of ordinary infantry, but this was the wrong way, and they ran directly to the back of Chen Yucheng's ambush point.

Just when Zhang Yun noticed that something was wrong and discussed it with Zhang Feng. Chen Yucheng's back road scouts had already discovered this situation, so Chen Yucheng made a decision and directly ordered the reserve troops that were originally placed in the rear to attack backwards, which caught Zhang Feng off guard.

Although Chen Yucheng did not attack Zhang Feng at the preset location, because Zhang Feng's troops were marching at the time, they formed a long snake column in front and back, and their defense capability was very low, and because of fatigue, they did not find an ambush in advance.

Chen Yucheng is different, although he is dispatched by the rear troops. But these troops had also been deployed in advance, and they were in a frontal attack formation, and they found that Zhang Feng's troops were earlier, and the artillery had already turned around on the spot, so Chen Yucheng's troops were the first to attack, and the advantage was very obvious.

Sure enough, it was just a wave of attacks, and Zhang Fengtuan, who was running at the front, suffered heavy losses and was shot by the opponent. More than 30 people were put down at once.

Fortunately, this is a well-trained Type A unit, and it has conducted many drills on the sudden attack before, so after encountering a sudden attack, he did not wait for Zhang Feng to give an order. The officers and men of each unit subconsciously lay down on the ground, and then while firing guns indiscriminately in front, they looked for cover, and began to look for cover, depending on the rank. Automatically regroup into small teams.

This response prevented further expansion of the damage and survived the initial panic. The officers and men of the 2nd Regiment of the 2nd Division immediately discovered the enemy's location.

After discovering that the enemy had already charged at him, he still didn't need Zhang Feng's order, and the newly formed small teams immediately launched free fire on the spot under the leadership of their new squad leaders, taking advantage of the high rate of fire and long range of the Sharps rifle, and began to shoot a large number of Taiping soldiers who charged over.

However, these Taiping troops are Chen Yucheng's elite, fearless of death, plus Zhang Feng's second regiment is still a long snake formation, the width of the frontal attack is not large, the density of firepower is small, and there is no time to organize artillery or grenadiers, so the lethality of musket shooting is actually not strong, at least it cannot make the charging Taiping army shaken by this.

After discovering that the Taiping army continued to charge at him after falling a wave of people, he saw that he had crossed a distance of two hundred meters, and was about to rush in front of him, but he didn't know who blew the piercing high-frequency whistle first, and then heard a high-pitched hoarse roar suddenly erupt from a small team: "Get on the bayonet!" Long live the Elite Army! ”

With this roar, the small team suddenly erupted in an astonishing roar, and then loaded their rifles with bayonets, and took the lead in launching a counter-charge!

This time, he reminded the other elite soldiers, and they all roared angrily, and then they didn't play any formation, inserted bayonets into their rifles, and under the leadership of their respective squad leaders and platoon leaders, they roared forward and launched a bayonet attack.

The Jingwu Army also attaches great importance to the practice of bayonets, and although the current Second Regiment of the Second Division is lined up in a long snake formation on the official road, that is, a column all the way, the width is not enough, and it cannot give full play to the advantage of firepower, but the depth is very thick.

Once such a force begins to charge forward, it is easy to cut through the broad front of the Taiping army that rushed over, and then the soldiers of the elite army in the rear continue to follow up, and face to face with the other party to carry out bayonet charge.

Although this kind of bayonet charge was a little chaotic at the beginning, but when the melee was together, the rank system and team consciousness of the Jingwu Army were re-exerted, and they began to subconsciously form a group of three or two bayonet groups in the vicinity according to the previous training, and then took the group as a unit, holding the bayonet to surround and kill the Taiping soldiers.

Later, even some small officers such as squad leaders, squad leaders, and platoon commanders who reacted took out their revolvers and cooperated with the bayonet team to start killing each other at close range.

In this way, the Taiping army that attacked was immediately unbearable, and these Taiping troops under Chen Yucheng may not have low morale, or their personal skills and tactics are also good, but in the face of troops whose morale is also not low, but the organization is stronger, and the weapons are more advanced, in the face of the combination of bayonets and pistols, they will soon be unable to support it.

In this way, the first wave of the Taiping Army's charging troops only fought with the vanguard bayonet troops of the Jingwu Army for a short period of ten minutes, and they began to collapse, and they were simply beaten back by the bayonet charge of the Jingwu Army.

However, before the vanguard of the Jingwu Army could cheer, they found that the second wave of the Taiping Army's attacking troops had already pressed over.

It turned out that Chen Yucheng didn't expect a wave of charges to crush the Jingwu army, so after ordering the first wave of infantry to rush forward, he had already prepared the second wave of troops, but he didn't expect the first wave of troops to lose so quickly, let alone that the Jingwu army dared to fight in close combat, and the melee combat was quite powerful. There is no such thing as a rush to collapse.

Chen Yucheng's second wave of troops is just as elite, they are all carrying big knives, screaming and rushing forward, whether it is the elite army or the compatriots who have fled, they all slash through with a knife, without mercy!

In this case, the vanguard of the elite army had no time to rest, so they could only continue to shout again and continue to stop the bayonets. and the second wave of the Taiping army that attacked again.

Fortunately, at this time, the Jingwu army behind had also reacted, some soldiers launched an attack formation on the spot, shooting in the back to support, and the other part of the soldiers took out grenadiers and did not aim carefully, just aimed at the rear of the Taiping army's attacking troops, and the waves of messy but violent explosions made the Taiping army's attacking troops chaotic at once. The sharp momentum of the first wave of shock troops is no longer over.

Due to the timely fire support of the rear troops of the Jingwu Army, the second and third waves of the Taiping Army's troop charges were stopped, and once the opponent's cold-weapon charge was contained, then they would no longer have a chance to rush over for close combat.

Really. There are more and more elite troops in the rear, and they don't need any command at all, and they spontaneously start firing or hitting grenadiers, and the fire network is becoming denser and denser. And when the mortar units in the rear also began to fire mortars, the whole situation was completely stabilized.

There was a burst of gunfire, and the Taiping army paid for thousands of corpses. Finally, he began to retreat non-stop, and he no longer dared to stay within the range of the elite army's firepower.

At the same time, Zhang Yun's 3rd Regiment, which had rushed from the rear, also began to form infantry phalanxes in the rear, marching neatly and slowly outflanking from the rear under the accompaniment of the "Hunting March".

The reason why this is so is more to stabilize their own military morale, and they don't really expect to succeed in outflanking, because as long as the Taiping army is not stupid, they will not let the other side outflank it.

Sure enough, seeing the heavy casualties in front of him, and the opponent's fresh forces began to outflank him again, Chen Shirong immediately persuaded Chen Yucheng: "Your Royal Highness, you can't fight like this!" Withdraw, if we continue like this, we will be annihilated! ”

"Damn it!" Chen Yucheng gritted his teeth, "How could this battle be like this?" How did they come out of behind us? Why wasn't it discovered in advance? ”

"His Royal Highness!" Chen Shirong yelled again, "These things will be talked about later, now we can't wait any longer!" We're so old-fashioned, we can't all lose it here! Don't forget, we are not just the enemy army in front of us, the reinforcements of Wang Sanwu are also coming! ”

Chen Yucheng took a deep breath, and finally waved his hand: "Withdraw!" ”

After speaking, Chen Yucheng turned around first and never looked behind him again.

And with Chen Yucheng's order, the Chinese army immediately whined and blew the horn, which was an order to retreat.

Hearing this order, Chen Yucheng's department, which was already slowly retreating, immediately turned around and ran backwards lifelessly, and when they ran back, there were rows of musketeers with foreign guns in the rear, their purpose was to stop the pursuit of the Jingwu army.

The most interesting thing is that the Taiping troops who ran backwards actually had a tacit understanding to run away next to these musketeers, and did not collide with these musketeers, it seems that they had already practiced, even if they ran away, they did not dare to run into these musketeers.

However, at this time, the Jingwu army also suffered heavy casualties, the primary purpose was to rearrange the formation, treat the wounded, and tens of thousands of people suddenly came out behind the other party, and the black pressure was overwhelming, and it was terrible to look at, for fear of being ambushed again, so they watched the other party retreat safely, and did not pursue.

In any case, the first duel between the most elite troops of the Jingwu Army and the most elite troops of the Taiping Army ended in a hurry.

Both sides were elite, and on the surface it looked like the Taiping army had ambushed the Jingwu army, but in fact it was an encounter that neither side expected.

The Taiping army won because of the large number of people, and the preset ambush caught the opponent off guard, while the elite army won because it was well-trained, had strong firepower, and attacked from the rear, and did not fall into the opponent's real ambush circle.

Although on the surface, it was the Taiping army that took the initiative to retreat first, but the strength of the Taiping army was not damaged, and the number of elite troops was too small, and they suffered heavy casualties in the previous conflict, and because of the forced march for days, and a high-intensity fierce battle, they were exhausted and lost the strength to continue the attack, so this duel actually did not distinguish a winner or loser, but only an undefeated game. (To be continued......)