"Bang!"

Henry knocked out a Vietnamese soldier with one shot. He and Bernard had left the fortifications, and only two of the five French soldiers in the fortifications survived.

Henry hid in a room and shot out of the window, while Bernard stood guard in the doorway, pulling the trigger of his rifle with all his might. Without looking to see if he had hit the target, Henry buried his head in the chamber of the gun, pulled out the loading compartment, quickly stuffed a bullet into it, and then pushed and sent it with his wrist, the chamber was closed, and then he pulled the bolt again, and aimed at the Vietnamese who were scurrying around.

"Bang! Bang! ”

A volley of bullets shot out of the darkness and hit the wall of the window only a few centimeters away from Henry's head, and Henry's face was covered in blood from the slamming bricks, and he was so frightened that he quickly fell down.

"Ah......h Just as Henry was in shock, Bernard was shot through the shoulder and fell to the ground screaming. "Oh, shit. Henry, I'm hurt......"

"Damn Chinese, damn Chinese......," Bernard cursed incessantly. This is a phrase that seems to be completely incompatible with the battlefield in Vietnam. But soon after the war began, this phrase spread throughout the French army. It was not the Chinese who sold muskets and cannons to the Vietnamese, it was not the Chinese who helped train the new army in Vietnam, how could the French have suffered so many casualties?

The number of dead alone exceeded 300!

"Shoot, Henry! Kill these Vietnamese monkeys......" Bernard howled in fear and urged his friend.

"Artillery bombardment! Retake the front and take all the bayonets! "Francis. Garnier roared loudly.

The French soldiers reacted quickly, they were elite and well-trained soldiers. Even if they panic in the face of a sneak attack at night, they will not run or retreat in the face of the enemy rushing towards them.

The pride of Europeans, the white race, and the discrimination and contempt for the Eastern peoples, like a spine made of steel, support their faith. They will not flee in panic like the Blue Ribbon soldiers. So when Francis. Garnier stood up when Francis. When Garnier led his guard troops out of the headquarters, all who saw this force and all heard Francis. The French soldiers who were called out by Garnier would follow themselves.

The Vietnamese soldiers' 'overwhelmingness' was quickly contained. They failed to rush to the center of the town, the French headquarters.

The flaming smoke of the explosion of a cannonball finally rose outside the town, indicating that the attacked French army had overcome the initial panic and had now restored their basic order.

At the head of Hue City in the distance, Wu Zhongping's expression dimmed the moment he saw the shell explode.

And just as he had confirmed, after the explosion of a shell, the dark night sky was immediately illuminated by the shuttle shells, which cut a red trajectory on the dark night, and then the roaring explosion engulfed the corpse of a Vietnamese soldier.

Hundreds gathered at Francis. The French soldiers beside Garnier, armed with bayonet rifles, crossed hands with the Vietnamese soldiers who rushed over.

Vietnamese soldiers poured in, and in the midst of the undulating explosions, what was decided was actually the grinding of sharp bayonets and blades.

Bernard died, and Henry escaped from the house, which had a back window. Now he was leaning on the roof, condescendingly shooting with his rifle, and on the battlefield not far away, more than five Vietnamese soldiers had been killed by his rifle fire.

Skrtel jumped in front of his opponent with an arrow, his strong body was extremely explosive, and the saber in his hand stabbed into the body of the Vietnamese soldier who had just killed a French soldier. With another twist, he dodged a spear stabbed diagonally, drew his saber, and slashed his backhand at the head of the spear owner.

In a close-range white-knuckle fight, except for the 100-man vanguard carefully selected by Wu Zhongping, the rest of the Vietnamese officers and soldiers were not at all opponents of the tall French soldiers. Not to mention the French soldiers who are equipped with breech guns, they can also take advantage of the gap to reload and fire.

The fighting lasted more than an hour, and the town fell silent when the last few Vietnamese soldiers who surrendered were stabbed with bayonets by the French. Francis. Garnier patrolled the battlefield, bounded by the long breastwork wall, which was littered with the bloody corpses of soldiers, pillows of Vietnamese and stiffened French soldiers.

Stumps and severed arms were everywhere, and the spears that pierced the bodies were still on the corpses of the French soldiers, straight to the sky. The sandbags were covered with blood, flesh and brains.

Early in the morning, the sun rises. Francis. Garnier got the exact battle damage report. French soldiers lost more than 100 casualties in the night attack, and the overall casualties exceeded 300. That is, Francis. Garnier lost twenty percent of his men. In addition, there were the Blue Ribbon soldiers, these Vietnamese natives, who lost more than 1,000 people. Huang Van Chin's stronghold was completely bloodbathed, and his own head had been hung on the city gate of Hue. In addition, there are many escaped puppet soldiers, Francis. Garnier's Blue Ribbon troops, more than 5,000 men, lost more than a quarter.

The Vietnamese also paid the price in blood. There were seven or eight hundred corpses of soldiers left on the battlefield, and counting the fighting at Huang Wenqin's place, the loss was more than 1,000. Can Francis. Does Garnier need this number jù? Even the lives of 10,000 Vietnamese people cannot be exchanged for the lives of 100 French citizens!

In the previous battle with Hoang Ji Yan's Vietnamese New Army, the huge casualty rate shook the entire French Expeditionary Force. Looking at it now, Wu Zhongping is not a soft persimmon that is easy to handle. Francis. Garnier had a bad feeling about his future fate.

Governor of Saigon, Mali. Jules. Du Bailei soon received a battle report from Hue City. Because he is now leading the navy in Da Nang. "Stupid army, how many lives of French citizens are they going to pave Vietnam with and dye their own medals?"

Du Bailei was furious. One hundred and seventeen soldiers were killed, and the French army had lost more than four hundred lives in Vietnam since the beginning of the war. How many people did you lose ten years ago when you fought Vietnam? Thirteen years ago, the French army entered the capital of China, and how many people did they lose in total?

More than 400 people were killed, the war was not over yet, and France would become the laughing stock of the entire European continent! He will also become a laughing stock in people's mouths.

"Order General Garnier to seize Hue at once and capture the king of the Vietnamese."

No dignified general can tolerate himself becoming a laughing stock in the mouths of others. And after the guards who delivered the order went down, Mali. Jules. Du Bailei stood in front of the map of all of Vietnam and smashed her fist on the city. "Damn Chinese, damn Chinese—"

If it weren't for the Chinese, if it weren't for the fact that they sold Mini rifles to the Vietnamese and trained the new army for the Vietnamese, how could the French army have suffered so much in this war?

……

Beijing.

After two months, the Vietnamese court's distress letter to Beijing finally arrived in the Forbidden City. The Empress Dowager Cixi frowned, and Prince Gong looked at the national letter of Vietnam, like a hot yam. If it weren't for the sake of face, he really wanted to kill the Vietnamese envoy halfway.

Today's Qing Kingdom is not the same as it was ten years ago. At that time, the two crows had just ended, and the entire Qing Dynasty was silent about France, and the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom in Nanjing, Shi Dakai in the southwest, the Twist Army in the hinterland of the Central Plains, and the Huihui Riot* in the northwest had not yet been pacified. At that time, the Great Qing Kingdom couldn't do it even if it wanted to rescue Vietnam.

But now? The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom is gone, the Twist Army has been pacified, the Great Northwest has been pacified, and looking around the thousands of miles of rivers and mountains, only Shi Dakai in Yunnan is still jumping. But even if Shi Dakai has the support of the British behind him, he can support the current front, but it is absolutely impossible for him to sweep the entire southwest again.

In this case, what reason could the Manchus have to refuse the pleas for help from their subjects? You must know that although Liu Xian has raised a large army to enter Hongji City, it is not nominally to resist the French, but to exterminate the remnants of Changmao.

Historically, the French invasion of Vietnam in 1873 and the signing of the Second Treaty the following year had a profound impact and great losses on Vietnam. But one fact cannot be denied - even in the midst of the invasion, France did not fight as much as it does now, sending three or four thousand troops!

That's because of the original time and space, at this time, the southwest of China had been pacified by war for many years, and the economy continued to recover, which attracted the covetation of the French who were greatly injured after the Franco-Prussian War. In addition, the French discovered that the Lancang River in the upper reaches of the Mekong River was not suitable for boating, so that their calculations that they had been making for many years collapsed. At the right time, the French merchants who were trading in Beiqi and Yunnan-Guizhou and Guangxi in southwest China brought back a piece of news - that is, Beiqi, there are many rivers in Beiqi It is more convenient to go to Yunnan, China.

Therefore, the French Governor-General of Saigon sent Miller, De. The two of them went to Beiqi to discuss trade with Le Jun, the minister of the Nguyen Dynasty stationed in Hanoi. Li Jun repeatedly delayed on the grounds that he had not received an order from the imperial court. He then suppressed French businessmen operating in the Beiqi region and arrested one of them.

Emperor Duc ordered Le Jun and Nguyen Van Xiang to go to Saigon and ask the Governor's Office to punish Di Pha Shang. Governor of Saigon, Mali. Jules. Rear Admiral Du Bailei took the opportunity to turn around and decided to send troops to occupy Beiqi and sent Captain An Ye to Hanoi with 170 French soldiers.

The Vietnamese officers and soldiers are so inexperienced that they may not even have the level of the waste green battalion. As soon as Hanoi accompanied the capital, it was beaten down by 170 French soldiers. Subsequently, the French launched their own contacts in Beiqi, and in just a few days, they gathered tens of thousands of puppet troops. However, until Liu Yongfu led the Black Flag Army to kill An Ye at the paper bridge, France did not send a large force and officially intervened in the war!

Naturally, Vietnam will not write to the Manchus for help, and the Manchus at this time in the original time and space, as well as the troubles in the Great Northwest and the threat of the Russians, have not been resolved! R1152