Grant watched the bloody battlefield with red eyes, one valiant soldier after another fell, their lives taken by the enemy in the most rogue way of life, and the charge of the dragoons came to a complete halt after encountering the enemy's feathered cavalry, and the continuous and ferocious fire of the enemy cavalry on horseback tore the glory and discipline of the dragoons to shreds, and it was perhaps time to throw themselves into the last reserve.

Montauban's heart is also very heavy, although the French army has suffered considerable losses in the previous battles, but today's battle is completely based on the British army, but it seems that the British are not comfortable, and the casualties are very heavy, but in order to break through, he had to step forward and said: "James, we should send the reserves, if the dragoons fail, the enemy cavalry will disrupt the infantry formation." ”

Grant also felt that it was time to make a last-ditch effort, and that sending a fresh force might be able to change the tide of the battlefield, but before he could give the order, the herald of the rearguard came in a panic to report that the pursuers of the enemy's Xiwang Brigade were less than three miles away.

The distance of three miles is almost 4.8 kilometers, that is, the distance of about ten miles, according to the speed of the rapid march of the troops, the Taiping army under the command of the king of the west will soon charge the coalition army from behind, and the coalition army will lose the time to make a last effort.

After a long sigh, Grant painfully ordered the reserves to come forward to meet the attacking troops, and then ordered the attacking troops to retreat, and finally the whole army retreated north.

When the retreating trumpet sounded, the coalition infantry retreated, with the British servant infantry running the fastest, and the Indian and Punjab infantry running the fastest. The dragoons were still fighting, but they were soon surrounded and annihilated by the enemy's cavalry, and many Indian cavalry dismounted and surrendered. In the end, dozens of dragoons also dismounted and surrendered as prisoners.

The 2,000 British soldiers in the reserve fought and fended off, resisting the Taiping counterattack, and after a day of fierce fighting, the coalition forces, including less than 7,000 of the reserve troops of the palace, were forced to retreat to the north near a village. The Taiping army of Li Xiucheng's army, which was blocking the coalition army head-on, and the Taiping army of the Xiwang army, which was following the pursuit like sharks smelling blood, followed one after another, and the guards cavalry even outflanked the coalition army in a large area, and surrounded the coalition army in this village called Huogezhuang at dusk of the same day.

Due to the rout of the field battle. The coalition forces lost almost all their pack horses and fallen horses, all their baggage and artillery, and the envoys escaped with their troops. However, almost all of their decent outfit was lost, and even some of the confidential texts carried by Sir Elgin and Sir Gro were left on the battlefield, while their Indian servants and South Sea coolies fled in the confusion with large amounts of their personal booty.

In Huogezhuang, the coalition soldiers robbed the villagers of food and some livestock. The villagers were driven from their homes. Then the tired and hungry coalition soldiers finally got a temporary rest in Huogezhuang. From Tongzhou overnight to Hexi Wu Town, where they did not rest for a long time, and then the next night continued to march to Baodi, and then there was a big battle in Baodi, the soldiers of the British and French troops only felt that it was very hard, so after they reached Huogezhuang, no coalition soldiers could move anymore, so they stopped to rest.

There was nothing Grant and Montauban could do about it. Having lost artillery and a large amount of baggage, they became a group of light infantry. The soldiers were exhausted by the fierce marching for three days and three nights, and the soldiers were in dire need of rest, so they could only let it go. As a result, after dawn, the coalition forces found that they were surrounded by tens of thousands of Taiping troops from east, west, and south in the narrow village of Huogezhuang, which was 1.5 miles east and west, and only 1 mile north and south, and the river Ji Canal was flowing to the north.

The Ji Canal leads directly to the Bohai Sea, and in order to find a way out, Grant once fantasized that he could find a group of ships that would escort grain and grass from the Qing army, so that some of the coalition soldiers could escape, but unfortunately the reconnaissance team sent by the coalition army came back in frustration to report that they found nothing, and the only consolation was to find a boatman. The boatman told Sù Grant that in the middle of the night yesterday, two teams of more than 1,000 men attacked two wharves in the upper and lower reaches of the Ji Canal, gathered all the ships, and at the same time sent troops down the river to the east to capture the Qing army fort at the mouth of the Ji Canal.

Grant was speechless for a long time after hearing the news, he didn't understand very much, the Taiping Army and the allied soldiers continued to fight, why the soldiers of the Taiping Army could catch up overnight, and also divided their troops to raid the docks of the Ji Canal, and even their last glimmer of hope for escape was cut off, could it be that the soldiers of the Taiping Army were all beaten with iron?

Although Grant thought he knew the Taiping Army very well, he didn't know what kind of war experience the Taiping Army First Army had, when they became the earliest, the first battle was to attack the Qing Army's Wentai defense line, and then went south to Fujian, and fought in the typhoon rain in the Ning mud for three months The heroic troops, and then they went south to land in Guangzhou, swept through Guangdong within a month, and then pursued the Qing Army in Guangxi. The iron feet of the officers and soldiers of the First Army of the Taiping Army are comparable to the heroic troops that liberated the whole country in later generations, which is one of the reasons why Xiao Yungui dared to lead the First Army into the capital alone.

In a mountain temple a mile outside Huogezhuang, Xiao Yungui sat on the top spot, and many generals of the First Army gathered on both sides, and the generals of the Taiping Army were all beaming, although they were also tired, but that smile was from the heart. Facts have proved that the Taiping army can defeat the elite troops of Britain and France, and can also defeat the opponent in frontal field battles, although the Taiping army has always had a good relationship with Britain and France, but Xiao Yungui since the reorganization of the army, the imaginary enemy is no longer the decadent and backward Manchu army, their imaginary enemy has always been the country of their former instructors and teachers. At this time, starting from the night of the declaration of war, after three days and three nights of continuous fierce fighting, the Taiping army relied on surprise and numerical superiority to win victories at all points of engagement from Tianjin to Tongzhou, although the loss of troops was also quite large, but it was always less than the British and French army.

Xiao Yungui was not too happy, he was still waiting for the news of continuing to advance eastward, he was very worried, that is, if the Taiping army could not quickly raid the Qing army fort at the mouth of the Ji Canal, and the coalition navy sent ships along the Ji Canal north to support the coalition army, then the Taiping army's encirclement and annihilation battle would come to naught, and if a large number of coalition army soldiers were released to the south, then the battle in the south of the Yangtze River would be difficult to fight.

After dawn, the Taiping army had already taken control of the wharves on both sides of the Ji Canal, gathered the boats, and the more than 6,000 remnants of the coalition army trapped in Huogezhuang would almost be a turtle in the urn if there was no foreign aid, but the only variable was whether the mouth of the Ji Canal could be closed along the lì.

In the anxious waiting, at dusk, several guards cavalry finally rushed back to report that the Guards cavalry regiment that raided the mouth of the Ji Canal took several Qing army batteries at the mouth of the Ji Canal along the way, this news made Xiao Yungui breathe a sigh of relief, and the guards cavalry fell to the ground after completing the task and fell asleep, they were too tired, and their war horses screamed, foaming at the mouth and fell to the ground, tired to death.

The water depth of the Ji Canal into the sea, the terrain is complex, the bends are many forks, the tide of the river and the sea is blocked to form a rapid whirlpool, there is a small "Bermuda" title, it is the place where the soldiers of all dynasties must fight. With the help of its natural advantages, the ancestors of the hometown built forts on both sides of the Ming Dynasty in order to defend against the invasion of Japanese pirates.

That is, due to the complicated water flow at the mouth of the Ji Canal, the British and French forces did not choose this place as the landing site in the first time, but chose Dagukou as the landing site. When Seng Gelinqin was in charge of the defense of Jintang, he rebuilt two large forts and two small forts with a height of five zhang in this place, and settled an iron cage in the middle waters, and used thick steel wire cables and iron rods to be wound into various types of traps and various forms of tips, hooks, chains, etc., so as to prevent the British and French ships from going north along the river.

When Grant and Montauban led their troops to retreat north, they sent several groups of messengers hoping to bypass the Taiping defense line and deliver the news to the navy in the Tanggu area, perhaps with the blessing of their biological mother Maria, and finally two messengers made a detour back to Tanggukou.

Inside the fortress of Beitang, the messenger met with the British naval commander, Admiral Massimogri, and the French naval commander, Rigaud. De Genuilli and Massimogli succeeded Admiral Hober, who had returned to Shanghai to recuperate from his wounds, and would take command of the British Navy. The two naval commanders were surprised when they received the messenger's news, they did not believe that the coalition forces could be defeated so quickly.

The Allied Navy and the local garrison in the Tanggu area received the news of the declaration of war all day late, until the morning of the second day of the capture of Tianjin. Derenuyili had only learned the accurate news from the Allied soldiers who had escaped from the siege of Tianjin, and the messenger sent by the Allied Forces, Second Lieutenant Schmidt, had been taken prisoner by the Taipings, so it was too late when the navy learned the news.

After receiving the news of the fall of Tianjin, the two naval commanders discussed with the French General Napierre, who remained in Tanggu, and decided that General Napier would transfer more than 1,500 British and French troops guarding Beitang, Junliangcheng and Dagu Fort to form a westward reinforcement corps in an attempt to recapture Tianjin, while the navy would send some shallow water ships as much as possible to support.

But soon this operation was aborted, according to the reconnaissance, the Taiping army occupying Tianjin was more than 10,000 people, and the 1,500 men drawn by General Napier from the 2,000 defenders of Tanggu were almost sent to death, and among the remaining ships of the navy, the gunboat Linton, which had the shallowest draft, was also stranded in the river, which means that the navy had no suitable ships to reinforce the inland coalition forces except for the shallow gunboats that had already been in Tianjin, Hexiwu, and Tongzhou.

After the failure of the reinforcement operation, the navy and General Napier in Tanggu spent two anxious days, they were cut off, and none of the messengers and heralds sent out could return, and this day finally waited for the messenger sent by the main force of the coalition army, but the news was that the main force was forced to move from Shanhaiguan in the north and needed the navy to go to the north to support. (To be continued......)