Beijing city as 800 years of imperial capital, its city wall defense facilities are very complete, the city wall, the city tower is tall and heavy is also incomparable to other cities, although many times through the Ming and Qing dynasties at the turn of the invasion of the war, but after several repairs to the Beijing city wall tower of the majestic posture of the year, but because of the Qing court more than two hundred years of construction is better than before.

Beijing has a total of four city walls, divided into the palace city, the imperial city, the inner city and the outer city, the whole outline from the air looks down like a "convex" character, the convex part is the palace city, the imperial city and the inner city, the part of the big head is the outer city. From the palace city, the imperial city, the inner city to the outer city, each city has a city gate, the palace city has 4 gates, the imperial city has 4 gates, the inner city has 9 gates (as the saying goes, the nine gates under the admiral of the nine gates), and the outer city has 7 gates.

Miyagi: Wumen, Shenwu Gate, Xihua Gate, Donghua Gate. The inside of the palace is the Forbidden City (Forbidden City), the south gate of the Forbidden City is the Noon Gate, the north gate is the Shenwu Gate (Xuanwu Gate), the east gate is the Donghua Gate, and the west gate is the Xihua Gate.

Imperial City: It is the royal city wall that protects the palace city, built around the Forbidden City, and has four city gates: Tiananmen, Di'anmen, Dong'anmen, and Xi'anmen. Tiananmen Square is the main gate of the imperial city.

Inner City: The inner city is a city built around the imperial city, there are 9 city gates, which are the south: Zhengyang Gate, Chongwen Gate, Xuanwu Gate; East: Chaoyang Gate, Dongzhi Gate; West: Fucheng Gate, Xizhi Gate; North: Anding Gate, Desheng Gate.

It is said that the use of the 9 city gates is different, Zhengyangmen is the gate of the emperor's travel, the emperor goes to the Temple of Heaven every year to worship Zhengyangmen, and now the common people call Zhengyangmen the front door. Chongwen Gate is the gate of the wine car, and the wine car that enters Beijing from other places generally goes through this gate. Xuanwu Gate is the gate of the prisoner car. Normally, death row prisoners were escorted out of the city gate from here to the entrance of the vegetable market for execution. Chaoyangmen is a grain cart, from the south to the Grand Canal to Tongzhou a large number of grains, after loading the car from Chaoyangmen into the city. Dongzhimen is the gate for ordinary people to walk through department stores. At this time, outside Dongzhimen is a rather prosperous market outside the city. Fucheng Gate is the gate of the coal car, and the coal burned in the city is transported from the gate to this gate into the city. Xizhimen is the gate of the waterwheel, the royal nobles living in the Forbidden City do not drink the water in the city, and the drinking water is pulled into the city by the waterwheel from the Yuquan Mountain in the west. Desheng Gate is the gate of the army, taking the meaning of "travel victory". Anding Gate is the gate for the army to return to the court, and it is also the gate for the dung trucks in the city to pull out of the city. The Admiral of the Nine Gates is the highest official in charge of the patrol soldiers of the nine gates of the inner city, and he was a first-class official in the Qing Dynasty.

Outer Castle: The Outer Castle is the residence of the common people other than the royal nobles in the southern part of the inner city. There are a total of 7 city gates, namely Yongding Gate, Zuo'an Gate, You'an Gate, Guang'an Gate, Guangqu Gate, Xibian Gate, and Dongbian Gate.

Song Feng's Guards Cavalry Regiment reached the gate of Anding, but unfortunately there was no Qing army stationed in the periphery of this 800-year-old imperial capital. Originally, the Qing army in the capital that was supposed to guard the surrounding capital all shrank to the three mountains and five gardens.

On the night when Song Feng's soldiers and horses arrived outside Andingmen, Bai Zetang's secret agents in the three outer battalions outside Beijing came to report the news, and there were two people in total, both of whom were dressed as Qing army uniforms. But it was a secret agent arranged by Bai Zetang in the Jianrui camp in the capital.

The information sent by the visitor is very useful. The strength and deployment of the Qing army in the capital at this time were introduced in detail. The Yuanmingyuan Guard Camp in the capital, the Jianrui Battalion, and the Fanzi Battalion are the three outer battalions, which originally had camps and their respective camps and dangerous places stationed outside the capital, but since the martial law in the capital, Prince Gong of the Qing Dynasty ordered the soldiers and horses of the outer three battalions to shrink, and the three battalions of soldiers and horses such as the Guardian Battalion and the Jianrui Battalion and the Fanzi Battalion were all stationed in the three mountains and five gardens outside the capital.

The rest of the soldiers and horses mobilized from various places were all stationed in the capital, and a total of the following troops were gathered in the city: the Eight Banners Advance Army, 12 battalions of the Beijing Protector Army, 15 battalions of the Shenji Battalion, 25 battalions of the Shaanxi and Gansu reinforcements, and 20 battalions of the Qing Army contracted near Gyeonggi, with a total of 80,000 regular troops. 785 artillery pieces, plus the Qing troops stationed in the periphery of the Old Summer Palace and other three mountains and five gardens. A total of nearly 120,000 Qing troops gathered in the capital. Of course, this does not include the 50,000 monks and Qing troops of the Qing army who fought fiercely with the British and French forces at the Bali Bridge in Tongzhou.

After hearing this, Song Feng laughed and said, "More than 100,000 Qing troops are waiting for us here, it seems that we still have a lot of face." After saying that, all the generals of the Guards cavalry laughed, and then Song Feng's face changed: "But since we are here, let's wait for the enemy to come to the door, scatter all parts, attack everywhere, contain and entangle the Qing army with a small force of cavalry, and find out the truth of each part of the Qing army, if the enemy attacks, resolutely strike!" ”

In the early morning of the next day, the Qing army also seemed to know that the cavalry force of more than 1,000 people of the Taiping army had arrived, and the Qing army of the outer three battalions sent a cavalry of more than 3,000 people to test it, and the two sides fought an encounter in Longdao Village in the north of the city.

Longdao Village on the bank of the Qinghe River, under the morning sunshine, the Qing army swarmed like a rolling tide, they wore gray wraps, gray uniforms, blue breeches, black riding boots, a horse pistol on their shoulders, a pair of bows and arrows on the saddle, and a saber at their waists, and rushed straight towards them with murderous energy. On the opposite side was a reconnaissance cavalry squad of more than 100 people from the Taiping Guards Cavalry Regiment, and the two sides discovered each other very early.

Seeing the cavalry reconnaissance squad of the Taiping Army, the vanguard of the cavalry of the Qing army whistled, and a cavalry team of more than 500 people came out of the crowd, roaring loudly in their mouths, and galloped towards the detachment.

The more than 100 cavalrymen of the Taiping Guards cavalry were not polite, and immediately divided into fans to meet them, and at a distance of hundreds of paces, the Taiping cavalry pulled the bolts one after another, and the Lianzhu guns in their hands began to shoot. I have to say that the accuracy of the marksmanship of the Guards cavalry, a hundred steps away, more than 60 people of the Qing cavalry were shot and fell off their horses, which is also inseparable from the mountains of training bullets in the Guards Cavalry Training Camp, if you want to become a cavalry of the Guards Cavalry Regiment, first you have to be an accurate infantry shooter, and then a long-term horseback training, and then relearn archery on horseback, the cavalry of the Guards Cavalry Regiment often stay on horseback for a whole day, and even eat and sleep on horseback in the training subjects. Strict training has created the elite of the Guards cavalry, but the cost is also huge, training one Guards cavalry costs the cost of training five field division cavalry.

As soon as the guns rang out, some of the Qing cavalry fell off their horses, and their equestrian skills were also top-notch, and hundreds of Qing cavalry whistled, bending their bodies down and hiding on the side of the saddle, but the speed of galloping did not decrease at all, and they still rushed forward. They were the Qing army reinforcements transferred to the capital from Heilongjiang, Jilin and other places, and at least in terms of horsemanship, they maintained the fierceness of the Eight Banners back then.

The Guards cavalry was not in a hurry to rush forward to fight, but turned the horse's head, ran to the east, and turned back from time to time to put a shot, although the Qing cavalry hid on the saddle side, but the huge target of the horse was still a good moving target, and the Qing cavalry horses were constantly hit, and after the war horse fell, the cavalry on the horse also fell off the horse.

The cavalry of the Qing army saw the cavalry detachment of the guards going east, and did not dare to catch up, so they rode back to their own team, and they did not expect that those cavalry came back in a circle, and put their guns far away, but they did not approach, relying on the long range of their muskets, and constantly harassed the cavalry of the Qing army of more than 3,000 people.

When the commander of the Qing cavalry saw this scene, he couldn't help but be furious, and ordered more than 1,000 Qing cavalry to divide into a huge fan and chase after him.

This Qing cavalry is different from the Eight Banners in the pass, they are always the armored people stationed outside the pass, they still maintain superb riding skills in the harsh environment outside the pass, with tacit understanding, the cavalry on both wings quickly outflanked.

The commander of more than 100 guards cavalry is a company commander, named Zhang Xin, after seeing this, he shouted to his soldiers in a deep voice: "Damn, this group of Qing cavalry is really not covered, but if you want to outflank us, it depends on whose speed is faster!" ”

After finishing speaking, more than 100 guards cavalry roared to attack the left flank, and the bead guns kept releasing non-stop, and soon the Qing cavalry charge formation on the left flank was scattered, and the Qing army's horse pistol could only be fired once, and it was difficult to load the breech on the back of the galloping horse, unless you stopped, but once there was a pause, it was the best target to shoot.

After seeing that the Qing army formation on the left flank was scattered, Zhang Xin whistled, and the guards cavalry put away their guns one after another, took out their revolvers and sabers, held their guns in their right hands and knives in their left hands, and continued to rush towards the left flank with their sabers.

Soon more than 100 guards cavalry approached the Qing cavalry, revolvers fired at close range on horseback, six bullets per person beat the Qing army into more confusion, and finally the guards cavalry raised their sabers and rushed into the enemy formation. The blood mist soared into the sky, the neighing of war horses, the screams of cavalry, and the shouts of killing were everywhere, and on a mottled bloody road, more than 200 Qing cavalry on the left flank collapsed instantly.

After defeating the left flank, the Guards cavalry made a perfect arc and made a detour to the center, where more than 400 Qing cavalry were so frightened that they almost collapsed under the first three rounds of gun fire. The Guards cavalry had already changed the barrel of the Lianzhu gun on the way back to the center, and the long-range shooting caused heavy casualties to the Qing cavalry in the center. In the end, the Guards cavalry rushed to attack the panicked Qing cavalry on the right flank, and the battle was quickly ended.

Within half an hour, the 1,000 cavalry of the 3,000 Qing cavalry were defeated by more than 100 cavalry guards, and only fled back less than 400 cavalry, the commander of the Qing army was stunned for a long time, until the cavalry of the guards did not stick up, and opened fire with a continuous gun, and the Qing army standard-bearer was shot down from his horse, and the commander of the Qing army came to his senses and ordered a retreat immediately.

Then this Qing army retreated to its own camp and never dared to come out to invite the battle again, and the rest of the Qing army also suffered from exhaustion, the cavalry could not beat others, and the infantry did not dare to fight, and they could not catch up with others at all. Song Feng's Guards Cavalry Regiment was also very cunning, and would never attack the heavily guarded camp or the Beijing city wall. As a result, under the city of Beijing, except for the area near the city wall and the camp of the Three Mountains and Five Gardens, the rest of the places became the territory controlled by the Taiping army. (To be continued......)