The landing site of the British and French forces was only six kilometers away from the Wusong Fort, which was enough for a few hours, even if it was slow, so when the British and French troops left the landing site, two hours later their forward troops had already arrived at the forward defensive position of the Wusong Fort.

Before their infantry arrived, the Anglo-French fleet had already gone down the river and carried out a second heavy artillery bombardment on the Wusong Battery, and it is worth noting that their target this time was not only the heavy guns on the battery, in addition to continuing to shell the shore defense heavy artillery on the battery, some of their medium-caliber naval guns, such as the twenty-four pounder and twelve-pounder naval guns, were fiercely shelling the infantry fortress on the west side of the Wusong Battery.

The purpose is obvious: to destroy these land fortifications and artillery before the infantry attack!

In the face of the shelling of the British and French fleets, the Chinese army on the Wusong Fort was not to be outdone, and more than 20 rear-loading heavy guns and more front-loading guns on the fort opened fire one after another, making the most fierce return fire on the British and French allied troops who ventured close to the shelling.

For a time, the Yangtze River near the Wusong Fort once again rumbled with artillery, and hundreds of artillery pieces on both sides bombarded each other.

The shelling a few days ago was even larger, but it lasted for ten hours before inflicting hundreds of casualties on both sides, and today's shelling on both sides was just beginning, most of the shells missed, and only occasionally a single shell hit the target and caused some casualties.

When the Anglo-French fleet and the Chinese army's shore defense artillery units were engaged in battle, the land forces of both sides also entered their predetermined positions.

On the Chinese side, the field artillery and mortar artillery of the Seventh Army stationed in the interior and edge of the fortress were already in full array, and these guns were deployed on three small batteries on the surface land.

Naturally, the size of these small batteries could not be compared with those gun emplacements where heavy shore defense artillery was deployed. However, the Chinese army that built the fortifications did not cut corners, and basically built semi-buried gun emplacements for each field gun and mortar gun, which greatly increased the safety of these guns during combat.

Underneath the fort is a system of two consecutive trenches, which are the standard trenches of the Chinese army, with a depth of at least one meter and two. The width is about two meters, and there are anti-artillery holes at intervals, which are not temporary anti-artillery holes in the field, but are prepared in advance.

Basically, thick logs and planks are laid above the trench, and then covered with thick sand, which is enough to effectively resist the threat of fragmentation of grenades, and it also has a strong resistance to 12-pound grenades.

In front of the trench are various obstacles such as wooden stakes and sharpened bamboo strips, and there is a canal several meters deep in front of the obstacles. The canal attracts water from the river.

In addition to forts, trenches, and aqueducts, there are many outbuildings, such as ammunition depots, barracks, etc., which are generally built inside a strong fortress to effectively resist enemy long-range artillery shelling, and it is necessary to attack the fortress to destroy them.

This is a complete fortress defense system of the Chinese army!

In order to construct the Wusong Fort and the infantry fortress on the periphery, the Chinese Empire invested at least one million yuan in materials and labor alone. This does not include the heavy artillery attached above, in order to meet the labor requirements. The Susong Taidao government, in cooperation with the military, recruited more than 100,000 people to participate in the construction.

If the Anglo-French army wants to conquer this fortress by means of a frontal attack, the price it needs to pay is definitely beyond the imagination of the Count of Elgin!

Count Ergin was not a stupid man, and he was not arrogant enough to break away from the support of naval artillery fire and then lead the army to attack alone, in fact, his strategy was very conservative, and his march and attack route were always within a thousand meters of the river. The forces on the far right flank did not exceed two kilometers from the river, so that they could be supported by naval artillery at any time during the battle.

However, this conservative strategy of Count Ergin will also encounter the strongest side of the Wusong fortress defense system, the closer to the shore defense gun position of the Wusong fort, the more complete the various fortress fortifications, and the denser the artillery strength. At that time, not only the army's own artillery will participate in the battle, but some of the navy's shore defense guns will be able to turn their guns and launch artillery attacks on the attacking enemy.

Here, both sides can get the best support, but both face the biggest threats!

Since the Anglo-French fleet launched a large-scale artillery bombardment, the soldiers of the Seventh Army who had entered the defensive positions had to take refuge in the defensive holes, or they would have been killed and wounded by the enemy's naval guns before the infantry could rush up.

The soldiers of the Seventh Army could only hide in the anti-artillery holes, but the soldiers of the opposite Erjin did not dare to come up easily, and they arrived at a trench about two thousand meters away from the Chinese army and stopped one after another, why?

Because if they continue to move forward, they will be bombarded intensively by the Chinese army and some coastal defense artillery!

But it is impossible for the two sides to remain in such a stalemate forever, because the artillery bombardment between the fleet and the shore defense guns of the batteries alone cannot distinguish the winner from the defeat, as evidenced by the massive shelling on June 10, and if the shelling continues in this way, the two sides will have no effect except wasting tens of thousands of shells.

It was noon, and the British and French soldiers, who had already had lunch in advance, finally began to move, not their large number of infantry, but the many artillery pieces they had brought ashore with great difficulty.

I saw them dragged by horses, or simply pushed by soldiers to push one gun after another into position, and then set up positions on the spot, these guns had the most common twelve-pounder front-loading guns, and also some nine-pounder front-loading guns, in addition to some rear-loading rifled guns, and even large-caliber mortars that were moved from warships, that is, thirty-two-pounder and sixty-four-pounder mortars, and then there were several eighteen-pounder ship-borne cannons.

Many of these guns were removed from warships and then temporarily equipped with gun mounts and wheels, which is also the common situation in modern naval support for landing operations.

As their artillery came forward and built artillery positions, the land-facing artillery of the Chinese army finally opened fire for the first time, with many army 12-pounder front-loading guns, 32-pounder mortar guns, and a small number of naval shore defense guns. Twenty-four pounder cannons, sixty-four-pounder mortars, etc., began to fire intensive artillery fire at the artillery positions of the British and French forces.

At the same time, the naval guns of the British and French forces also began to divert their firepower, and a large number of heavy guns were no longer aimed at the shore defense guns on the batteries, but fiercely shelled several small batteries on the left side of the Wusong Battery, that is, the army batteries.

Time. Once again, the artillery battle between the two sides escalated in scale, and both sides adjusted their response tactics.

At the time of the Battle of Guangzhou, the artillery of the British and French forces was able to stare at the artillery bombardment, push the artillery up and fire back while building a position, which is enough to prove that these artillery of the British and French forces were not Qing troops or Taiping troops, and they would not turn around and flee because of the shells that kept falling around them.

This time they were the same, under the cover of their own naval guns, they quickly set up temporary artillery positions, and even many artillery guns did not have positions, after arriving at the predetermined position. Directly on flat ground and shelling. At the same time, many of the soldiers or sappers who accompanied them built temporary gun emplacements for these guns during the rumbling of the guns, mainly piling up a parapet wall in front of each gun, and at the same time building a ramp behind the guns to speed up the return of the guns after firing.

Seeing that the artillery of the British and French forces on the opposite side was still smoothly deployed and fired back under the intensive artillery bombardment of their own side, this made Bing Qusong, who was there to watch and command, frown.

Zhu Jianjia on the side also sighed: "If it is the pseudo-fresh army that comes, it is estimated that this burst of artillery bombardment can directly collapse them!" ”

Although the subtext of the words was not spoken, it could be heard by others present. That is, these Anglo-French coalition forces in front of them are very strong, compared to the old army of the Manchu Green Battalion and the new army of Jianghuai that they have encountered before. The training army and the Taiping army are stronger, and the guns are not a little bit, but a lot.

You must know that at this moment, the density of artillery concentrated on the Wusong Fort can be said to be the strongest in the history of the Chinese army, and the navy and army have more than 200 artillery pieces combined.

But these British and French troops in front of them can advance with intensive artillery bombardment. And smoothly launched artillery to return fire, this ability to resist strikes alone is not comparable to second- and third-rate armies.

In this way, it is no wonder that a group of Chinese army generals who watched the battle did not look very good!

This is not an ordinary army, one is the world's boss Britain, needless to say that its strength in all aspects is swept across the world. However, it is estimated that the combined military power of other countries in the world will not be able to land on the mainland.

One is France, which swept through Europe during the Napoleonic era and has initially completed the industrial revolution under the leadership of Napoleon III.

How terrifying is the power of Britain and France combined? The most obvious is the Crimean War a few years ago, when the Russian army, known as the European crusher, was ruthlessly crushed by the British and French forces, and Nicholas I was angry to death.

In the face of such a strong enemy, even if the senior generals of the Chinese army are confident, they are still full of worries in their hearts, and now they see that the will to fight of the British and French forces is really expected, which makes them even more pessimistic in their hearts.

Regardless of this pessimism, it is also beneficial, and naturally it will not be like those arrogant people who think that they have defeated the Qing army and defeated the Taiping army and will be the first in the world, so they will not take the Anglo-French alliance to heart.

The pessimistic attitude of the Chinese army towards the British and French forces, or a certain degree of fear, made them tend to be cautious and cautious when making various strategic and tactical choices.

And war, it is this kind of prudence that is needed!

Not to mention that the Chinese army is extremely cautious, even Count Ergin, who led the LinkedIn and French coalition forces, did not underestimate the enemy because of his own huge fleet support, or because the quality of his army in all aspects is very good, in fact, Count Ergin has maintained a very cautious attitude from the beginning of the war to the present, including the original dispatch to Guangzhou.

It's just very interesting that this kind of caution on both sides has led to the fact that both sides have chosen to confront each other on the frontal battlefield where they have the greatest advantage and the greatest threat, and have not chosen some strange and risky tactics.

And once this head-on confrontation happens, then it will be the toughest confrontation! (To be continued......)