Zhou Xiuying also recognized Liu Lichuan, and said happily to Li Xuanji at the moment: "Sister Xuanji, this is the helmsman of the Little Knife Society, we killed the Qing demon and the foreign devil together that night, I have seen him." ”

Li Xuanji nodded, and the long knife shouted: "Collect the knife!" The washerwomen put away their knives together, and then squatted down one after another, and continued to wash their clothes.

After Liu Lichuan, Pan Qiliang, Chen Alin and others gathered in the ruined temple in the northwest of Shanghai, they planned to go to Jiading after dark and take refuge in the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. Pan Qiliang was sentry outside, and he saw the Qing army training soldiers and horses coming under the banner from afar, and then saw that those people and horses were all members of the Guan Dao Gang in the city, this Guan Dao Gang used to be suppressed by the Xiaodao Society, and the two factions often fought for territory and formed a lot of grudges, and now the Xiaodao will be exterminated by the official army, and the Guan Dao Gang must have taken refuge in the official army. Chen Alin also understood at this time that the reason why the Little Knife Club was defeated so quickly was that in addition to Lin Afu's defection and the leaderless dragons in the city, there were also gangs such as the Knife Gang and the Ningbo Gang colluding with the government to deal with the Little Knife Club together, and only these gangs knew how to deal with the Little Knife Club, after all, the gangs had been fighting in Shanghai for many years, and many of the tricks played on the rivers and lakes were clear to these gangs.

Under the anger, Chen Alin also understood that the Qing army sent the Guan Dao Gang out to search for people who wanted to get the knife and would flee again, but whenever the people on the rivers and lakes fled, they would always contact some people in the rivers and lakes to help or have a set of rules for escaping, and the Guan Dao Gang naturally knew these joints, and under the search of the Guan Dao Gang, he and Liu Lichuan and others were afraid that it would be difficult to escape, so they had to go back to the temple to report to Liu Lichuan.

After Liu Lichuan got the report, he immediately turned southwest with more than a dozen brothers and fled in the direction of Qingpu. Along the way, they did not dare to enter the village and cross the village, so they sought refuge in sparsely populated places. A broken boat was found in a fork of the Pohuitang River, and everyone hid in the reeds.

In the evening, everyone was hungry and tired, Pan Qiliang took a few brothers out to find food, on the way met three defeated Guandao gang members, took a question to know that in the afternoon Guandao Gang and the Taiping Army fought a battle in the south of the city, Guandao Gang lost extremely badly, and even the female general who led the team, Mu Yinghong, the daughter of the leader of the Guandao Gang, was arrested.

After Pan Qiliang asked, he killed three people and killed them. Come back and report to Liu Lichuan. Liu Lichuan and Chen Alin were surprised and delighted, they didn't expect the Taiping army to come so quickly, and decided to go to Changmao after dawn.

So everyone waited until after dawn before they touched the Taiping Army camp and saw that there were female soldiers of the Taiping Army wrapped in red scarves by the Puhuitang River. And they all crossed the river, and they knew that the women soldiers drew their swords against each other. Fortunately, there is Zhou Xiuying among them. It also saves a lot of saliva to explain.

The female soldiers smiled and watched Liu Lichuan and the others swim over, and when they arrived on the shore, Li Xuanji stepped forward to salute, and after Zhou Xiuying stepped forward to introduce each other, Li Xuanji said: "Chief Helmsman Liu, the King of the West has gone out to kill the demons." Xiwangniang also went to the north gate, why don't you eat first, change your clothes, and then send someone to lead you to meet in front of Xiwangjun? ”

Liu Lichuan and the others were hungry. immediately agreed, Li Xuanji and Zhou Xiuying took everyone back to the camp to arrange meals.

After Liu Lichuan and the others had a full meal, their spirits were slightly lifted, and after changing their clothes, Zhou Xiuying shouted that she wanted to take Liu Lichuan and the others to find the King of the West. Li Xuanji was secretly funny, knowing that this reckless girl couldn't stay behind, she knew Liu Lichuan and others, and she was good at making introductions, so she asked Zhou Xiuying to lead a team of people to lead Liu Lichuan and others to find the West Wang, and at the same time sent someone to report to the West Wangniang.

However, it was said that Hong Yun'er took Yan Matai and other missionaries to the Taiping military camp outside the West Gate, and Li Zuoche and Tang Erniu had already received the news, and the two generals led troops to catch Xiwangniang.

Yesterday evening, after Li Zuoche and Tang Erniu led their troops to the west gate, the Qing army outside the city practiced birds and beasts and scattered, and they all fled back to the camp of the Qing army outside the west gate. The second general ordered the soldiers to rush to repair the barracks, and at the same time ordered the artillery team to set up artillery to bombard the Qing army barracks outside the city.

As soon as the cannon sounded, the city of Shanghai suddenly became chaotic, and through the moat, I saw that the city was in chaos, and the screams in the city rang out, and it seemed that the people in the city began to prepare to flee. Li Zuoche and Tang Erniu continued to bombard, and only fired a cannon at a time when a stick of incense was burned, which made the Qing army in the city worry all night, for fear that the long-haired thieves would attack the city at night.

Hong Yun'er came to the front of the battle to watch, only to see that the camp built by the Qing army outside the city was bombarded by artillery, and there was no one in the camp, so I don't know if he fled back to the city at night. There were several dilapidated canopy boats floating on the moat outside the city, and more than a dozen corpses were floating in the river, and it was not known whether they were Qing soldiers or killed civilians. The city gate of the West Gate is closed, there are clusters of wild grass growing on the wind-blown and nitrate-eroded city wall, and there are more than ten heavy Qing army iron cannons behind the pheasant saucer, and many Qing soldiers are running around in a panic at the head of the city.

This old city of Shanghai is nowhere near as grand as the Oriental Magic City of later generations, and the old city of Shanghai is located on the west side of the Huangpu River, limited to the current Huangpu District. The place enclosed by the city wall is almost the same place where Shanghainese lived before modern times. Over the past 100 years, Shanghai has grown from a small county town to China's largest metropolis, and its area and population have increased dozens of times, but now it is just an inconspicuous small city.

The circumference of the Shanghai city wall is only ten miles, and the height of the city is eight meters. When it was first built, there were five city gates, namely the Great East Gate (Chaozong Gate), the Small East Gate (Baodai Gate), the South Gate (Cross Dragon Gate), the West Gate (Fengyi Gate) and the North Gate (Yanhai Gate). At the end of the Ming Dynasty, a small south gate was added. During the Xianfeng period of the Qing Dynasty, another barrier river gate (i.e., the new north gate) was added. Outside the city of Shanghai, there is a moat with a width of 6 zhang, a depth of 1.7 zhang, and a circumference of more than 1,500 zhang. The river is overgrown with reeds, and in autumn, it rustles. The west of Shanghai city is the Huangpu River, there is the Suzhou Creek in the north, the Suzhou Creek can also be directly connected to Suzhou, there are small rivers such as the Puhuitang River in the south, since the beginning of the construction of the city, there are rivers dug through on all sides of the Shanghai city, directly together with the moat, there are many small merchant ships and canopy boats on the moat.

Li Zuoche, Tang Erniu and the second generals have already obtained the order of the king of the west, and today they will continue to build camps, bombard the west gate of Shanghai, block the moat and Suzhou Creek outside the city, and do not make a big siege move for the time being.

After Hong Yun'er instructed the second general a few more words, Tang Erniu brought more than 300 people as guards, escorted Hong Yun'er and the others and turned to the north gate.

Half an hour later, everyone arrived outside the north gate, and from a distance, everyone smelled a strong and choking smell of blood. The Qing army outside the north gate was so frightened that they retreated into the camp outside the city when they saw the banner of the Taiping army, and they did not dare to fight.

Outside the north gate of Yanhaimen, the Qing army dug more than a dozen big pits, the pits were full of corpses, the old and weak, women and children, the Qing army only filled a few pits, and the rest of the big pits had not had time to be buried, all of which emitted a foul smell under the exposure of the sun.

Rao is Hong Yun'er has already seen the tragic and bloody fighting, and at this time, when she sees a bloody corpse full of flies and mosquito bites, she can't help but secretly gag. The twelve foreign missionaries were not so patient, and without exception knelt on the edge of the pit and vomited in the dark.

Hong Yun'er ordered someone to help them to the back, and after drinking some water, the foreign priests were shocked for a while. Yan Ma Taitie blushed and shouted angrily: "This is a barbaric massacre! It's a crime! There was a three-year-old child in the burial pit! Wu Jianzhang is a vicious executioner! He is not an honest man, he is the embodiment of Satan the Devil! ”

Luo Weilin's face turned pale, and he said in a trembling voice: "God, what do I see? Is this hell? ”

Weng Yige's face turned pale, his lips trembled, and he said for a long time, "Gentlemen, should we do something?" ”

The missionaries nodded, stood up together, resisted the urge to vomit, and each pit went to a person, and they knelt on the edge of the pit and muttered prayers, hoping that the souls of the deceased would be at peace, and that after death they would go to heaven and no longer suffer from human suffering.

After Hong Yun'er and the Taiping army also prayed silently, she ordered Tang Erniu to lead people to fill more than a dozen pits with soil and bury them.

After reading the prayer in a daze, Mai Dusi watched the Taiping soldiers fill the pit with mud, and finally couldn't help but kneel on the ground and cry bitterly. No matter how strong-willed a person is, seeing such a bloody and tragic scene, he will reveal the most fragile side of human nature.

Hong Yun'er stepped forward with a tense face and said to Yan Matai and Weng Yige: "Fathers, I think you should go back and ask Wu Jianzhang how many of his so-called rebels were killed by him. As you have seen, most of the women and children in the pit are old and weak, and there are very few adult men, so are those old and weak women and children also what he calls bandits and robbers? And are the mercenaries formed by your countries to slaughter these unarmed people? ”

Yan Matai immediately said: "Our mercenaries must not know about this situation, we will immediately go back and report everything we have seen to the consulates of various countries, and we hope to keep in touch with your army." ”

Hong Yun'er nodded and said, "I hope you can bring us good news when you go back." ”

In this way, Yan Matai and others returned to Shanghai City from the north gate, Hong Yun'er looked at more than a dozen newly filled haode soil pits, turned back to Tang Erniu and said: "Make a mark here, and after the Shanghai City is laid, a monument will be erected for these victims." ”

Tang Erniu gritted his teeth and said: "Queen Xi, let your subordinates immediately lead people into the city, kill all those dog officials to avenge these innocent people!" ”

Hong Yun'er said lightly: "At this moment, there are still thousands of Qing Demon troops in the city, and there are foreign soldiers to help, we still have to set up a camp, steady and steady, you especially have to pay attention to the direction of Suzhou, although Suzhou still has Mr. Zuo leading troops in the siege, but I am afraid that the Qing Demon in Jiangbei will send troops to come to the rescue, we must build a camp on the south bank of Suzhou Creek, so that the Qing Demon can not break through the defense line of Suzhou Creek, and then we can wait for the news from the West King." ”

While he was talking, the herald of the southern battalion arrived and brought the news of Li Xuanji, and when she heard that Liu Lichuan from the Little Knife Society had come to take refuge, Hong Yun'er showed a smiling face: "With the Little Knife Club who is familiar with the city to join, our hope of conquering Shanghai has increased greatly." (To be continued.) )