Chapter Ninety-Nine: Withdrawal and Pursuit

"Twenty-eight of our troops were killed and sixty-six wounded!"

Shi Langyi listened to the captain's reply: "Fortunately, it is less than expected!" ”

"Yes, thanks to Company Commander Wang's cavalry for attacking the artillery position of the thief army, otherwise our casualties would have been much greater!"

For Yu Shengjun, who was defending at the head of the city, it was not the Taiping infantry who directly attacked the city that brought them a large number of casualties, in fact, none of the 4,000 Taiping soldiers who came to attack the city were able to climb to the top of the city, and all of them were targeted by Yu Shengjun under the city.

Occasionally, muskets and bows were used to shoot at the Yu Shengjun at the head of the city, and the casualties caused were extremely limited.

When these artillery shelled the city wall fiercely, the soldiers of the Yu Sheng Army could not hide from the city wall because they wanted to intercept the Taiping soldiers under the city, so they could only carry the Taiping artillery fire and shoot.

Whenever the Taiping army's shells hit the city, they would bring more or less casualties to Yu Sheng's army.

Fortunately, Wang Lüyun and Qian Niubei's cavalry attacked in time and entered the Taiping artillery position, killing and wounding a large number of their artillery, forcing the Taiping artillery to fire due to the lack of gunners.

Later, although Lin Chengting hurriedly dispatched some ordinary infantry to help the artillery unit, these infantry without any training could not win the gunner's work at all, and it was good to be able to barely let the artillery fire, as for the accuracy and rate of fire, there was no need to have any hope.

So in the second half of the battle, the artillery of the Taiping army almost lost its role as it should have played.

Without the artillery suppression of the Taiping army, the soldiers of Yu Shengjun could calmly shoot the Taiping infantry under the city, and finally relied on intensive rifle fire to kill the Taiping army's siege troops.

Looking at the defeated generals of the 3,000 remnants who retreated, and then at the still chaotic artillery positions, Lin Chengting sighed deeply.

He knew that there was no way to continue the siege today, and without the support of a large number of artillery, his infantry would not be able to rush to the foot of the city wall.

It's just that we have to wait until tomorrow or even the day after tomorrow when the artillery unit slows down before attacking, at that time, the main force of the Yu Sheng Army led by Lin Zhe is afraid that it will also arrive, and what I need to conquer at that time is Huzhou City, which is defended by more than 5,000 Sheng Army, and this has no possibility of success at all.

"It's time to go, it's impossible to capture this Huzhou City anyway, it's better to retreat temporarily, and then make plans."

Looking at Huzhou City again, although Lin Chengting's face was full of regret, he still said decisively: "Pass the order, the whole army will bury the pot and cook in advance, and start after lunch!" ”

"Open up? Where to go? A general of the Taiping Army, whose head had not yet turned, asked with a puzzled expression.

Lin Chengting said angrily: "You can still go there and go back to Guangde!" ”

Since this Huzhou city can't be taken, there is no point in continuing to stay here, let's go back to Guangde first, and then say, after a big battle in Huzhou, I also need to rest and recuperate, and then catch some strong men to expand the army, the most important thing is to retrain a large number of gunners, otherwise the thirty or forty artillery pieces are equivalent to scrap copper and rotten iron, and they can't play any role.

Lin Chengting wants to leave, so it is naturally impossible to hide from Yu Shengjun in the city.

At the head of the city, seeing that the Taiping army outside the city was marching, Xu Pengan said: "Brother Shi, do you think we should go out of the city to pursue?" ”

Shi Langyi shook his head: "Didn't you see it?" Even if they retreated, they were very well guarded, and the formation was not chaotic at all, we only had a thousand troops now, and it would be too risky to go out of the city to pursue! ”

Lin Chengting is a veteran, so he naturally knows that retreat can't just leave, his battalion is retreating in batches, and there are always some elite troops on guard in the rear, obviously to prevent Yu Shengjun from taking the initiative to go out of the city to pursue.

Besides, it's one thing that people can't attack Huzhou City that you defend, but you have only a thousand people, and you go out of the city to pursue without the cover of a large number of artillery and cavalry, and you can't guarantee that Lin Chengting will bite you back, and it will be difficult to say who will win and who will lose at that time.

Seeing that Lin Chengting's retreat was very steady and did not leave him any chance, Shi Langyi naturally would not take the risk of going out of the city to pursue it stupidly.

Lin Zhe gave him two orders, the first task was to ensure the safety of the first mixed regiment, and the second was to defend the city of Huzhou, as for how many Taiping troops were killed and injured, it didn't matter at all.

In order to avoid indifferent casualties, he would not risk pursuit.

Moreover, Yu Sheng's army defended the city for several days, especially the battles yesterday and today were quite fierce, and the soldiers' physical energy was greatly consumed, and the tension that had been continuing also needed to be relaxed in time.

Even though the soldiers of Yu Shengjun were trained to be very numb and could fight almost instinctively, this was only an external appearance. In their hearts, these soldiers of Yu Shengjun are still ordinary people, and they are also afraid and nervous, but this kind of personal affection when fighting is suppressed by orders and military discipline, if they keep maintaining this high level of tension, these soldiers will eventually collapse.

Yu Shengjun's infantry did not pursue, but the two cavalry units of Yu Sheng's army outside the city kept up with the Taiping army's retreat, and they did not get too close, just hanging their heads behind.

Dong Yanghong's cavalry troops wanted to send out a sortie to disperse them several times, but at this time, Wang Luyun and Qian Niubei's cavalry had already joined forces, and the four hundred cavalry were really not afraid of the one or two hundred cavalry you sent.

But as soon as Dong Yanghong's cavalry retreated, they caught up again, and Dong Yanghong was not tired of it.

Later, Lin Chengting ordered: "If they want to follow, let them follow, anyway, the march of more than 10,000 troops will not be able to hide from Yu Shengjun's scouts, as long as they don't attack them, then don't care about them!" ”

As a result, the 800 cavalry of the Taiping Army and the 400 cavalry of the Yu Sheng Army walked back and forth like this, occasionally fighting a few small-scale battles between the reconnaissance cavalry, and there were casualties among each other, but the large-scale cavalry battles never happened.

Just when the Taiping army withdrew, Lin Zhe finally arrived in Huzhou City with his thousands of troops!

When entering Huzhou City, when Lin Zhe dismounted, the inner thigh was still hot and painful, he was riding a horse all the way, don't think that you don't have to walk, it is easy to ride a horse, riding on a horse all day is actually more torturous than not doing, and it will even wear out the skin on the inner thigh after a long time.

Although Lin Zhe has been riding a horse for a long time, there is a huge gap between him and other officers in Yu Sheng's army in terms of riding skills and physical fitness.

Don't look at Lin Zhe commanding thousands of troops and thinking that he is a soldier, in fact, he is not a soldier. Before the group exercise, he was a son of the rich family of the Lin family, although he ate and drank well, he was also an ordinary person physically, and it was actually correct to say that he was a delicate son.

Lin Zhe formulated a strict physical training system for Yu Shengjun's soldiers, but he himself never trained according to these systems, at most he only exercised by himself occasionally.

To put it bluntly, among the more than 5,000 victorious troops, Lin Zhe's physical fitness should be within the hundreds, not to mention those soldiers, they are as strong as a cow after training for most of the year, and most of those officers are trained with the soldiers, and their physical fitness is also quite good.

That is, the administrative officers in various departments and bureaus of the military department, because most of them are copywriters or businessmen, their health is worse.

However, after getting off the horse, Lin Zhe, who felt that his body was weak and his inner thighs ached, did not make up his mind to carry out high-intensity physical training every day and train himself to become a strong man, but had the idea that he would not fiddle with any military prestige in the future long-distance march, but had to get himself a carriage and march in a carriage like other administrative officers in the military department.

Although the whole person was exhausted, Lin Zhe, who had just dismounted, naturally did not show an obvious expression in front of the many Huzhou officials and officers and soldiers of the First Mixed Regiment who came to greet him.

I saw that he was wearing a dark blue double-breasted military uniform, and the epaulettes were worn by him, the commander's exclusive epaulettes, the epaulettes were paved with gold wire, and there was a six-pointed star carved in the middle of the six-pointed star, and a blooming peony was carved in the middle of the six-pointed star.

He wore a sheathed jade saber with gold wire around his waist, long leather boots at his feet, a belt fastened around his waist, and a Colt M1851 pistol wrapped in holster under his right hand.

Just judging from his dress and ornaments, it can be clearly known that this person is Lin Zhe, the supreme commander of Yu Shengjun.

Especially the saber, it is even more obvious at a glance, this saber was specially created for Lin Zhe by Han Xiangfang of the Yu Shengjun Ordnance Bureau. The scabbard, handle and spike are made of magnificent materials and workmanship, while the blade is painstakingly crafted by craftsmen over several months.

The style of the knife is the same as the sabers of other infantry officers of Yu Shengjun, which is a typical Western-style command knife, and in detail, it is the British Army's 1845-style command knife.

Yu Shengjun can be regarded as a typical army that admires foreign countries, and a lot of things are directly imitated by foreign troops, whether it is tactics, establishment, or weapons, etc., all of which have strong traces of foreign troops.

The saber is no exception, although most of Yu Shengjun's sabers are made by hired blacksmiths, but the style is imitated Western sabers, and the cavalry sabers are Western-style scimitars, which are very similar in appearance to the hussar sabers of French Napoleon.

The sabers of infantry officers and artillery officers are Western command knives with straight blades and equally straight handles, which are actually imitated from Hunter William's own saber, and Hunter William's saber is the British Army's Type 1845 infantry officer command knife.

The reason why he used the command knife of foreigners was not because Lin Zhe felt that the waist knife used by the Qing army was not good, but because he thought that since he had learned from foreigners to build an army, he should learn it simply, not just learn a little bit, and finally make it a half-hanger like the Huai army.

Lin Zhe dismounted, greeted these officials and generals who came to greet them one by one with a faint smile on his face, and then did not have time to talk nonsense with them, but directly called Shi Langyi over to hear the detailed battle situation before hearing the news.

After learning that Lin Chengting had led the army to evacuate the day before yesterday, Lin Zhe frowned, he didn't expect that he had hurried all the way, and he was still two days late, otherwise he would be able to have a war of annihilation in this Huzhou City, completely dispelling the idea of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom wanting to go south.

However, although Lin Chengting is gone, it has not dispelled Lin Zhe's years of completely annihilating Lin Chengting's department, and immediately snorted coldly: "Think it's okay to escape back to Guangde?" Hmph, he Lin Chengting thought that what kind of place was northern Zhejiang, he could come if he wanted to, and he could leave if he wanted to, and I really couldn't do it when I had 5,000 soldiers in Yu Shengjun's army! ”

After saying this, he turned to the large group of generals who followed him and said, "Tell me to go down, let the soldiers have a good rest, and tomorrow we will go directly north to Guangde!" ”

Behind him, a group of Yu Shengjun officers who were also full of tiredness did not have any expression of complaint at this time, but showed excitement.

What is the purpose of this hundreds of miles to Huzhou? Defend the land and save the people?

Nonsense, they followed Lin Zhe all the way to fight, all they wanted was to get promoted and get rich, if they wanted to be promoted and make a fortune, they had to have military merits, and how did the military merits come about?

Of course, it's by fighting!

If they come all the way to Huzhou and return to Shanghai without firing a shot, then they won't do it, and in this case, they won't run all the hundreds of kilometers back and forth in vain.

They are hungry for battle, a victorious battle!

And as their commander, what Lin Zhe has to do now is to take them to Guangde tomorrow and give them a war!

As for whether they can win or not, it is up to them!