The tired Liu Yongfu retreated to the north of the village, and in the sneak attack just now, his son Liu Chengliang was also unfortunately killed. But he didn't have time to be sad, he was not willing to give up the embankment, and he didn't have enough troops to fight back, which was really a dilemma.

At this time, the smoke and dust rose from behind, and Liu Yongfu was shocked: "Could it be that the French army has outflanked the back road?" I'm dead! While panicking, the soldiers reported that reinforcements from Shanxi had arrived.

It turned out that the city of Shanxi had been eagerly concerned about the progress of the war in Fusha Village, and Shao Youlian repeatedly persuaded that "if Fusha is not protected, Shanxi City will be difficult to defend", so Cen Yuying transferred a regiment from Wang Xiaoqi's troops outside the city, plus a remaining infantry regiment in the city, commanded by Dong Fuxiang, to reinforce Liu Yongfu again.

Liu Yongfu saw that a large number of reinforcements had arrived, and his spirit suddenly perked up, and he said to Dong Fuxiang: "The French army thinks that it has repelled our army's sneak attack, and if we simply sneak attack again, we will definitely be surprised." Dong Fuxiang thought so.

After preparation, everyone wrapped their arms with white cloth to make it easy to identify in the dark, Dong Fuxiang's two regiments were on the left, Liu Yongfu and Huang Zuoyan were on the right, preparing to attack from both sides and join the river embankment next to the village.

With the sound of a gunshot, a large number of Chinese rushed into Fusha Village from two directions, and the French camp immediately sounded a military trumpet.

This attack was a big surprise to the French army, originally the 1st Brigade thought that after repelling the sneak attack of the Chinese, it could sit back and relax tonight, take a good rest, write love letters to distant lovers or something, and many tired soldiers had already fallen asleep. Unexpectedly, before the ass was lying hot, the Chinese killed again, and it seemed that the offensive was more fierce.

Porier was also shocked, he already had a "fear of counter-attacking", and tonight's two sneak attacks greatly aggravated his condition. After the fierce battle, the ill-prepared French army was a little unable to resist for a while, and gradually withdrew to the river embankment.

Seeing that there was hope for victory, Liu Yongfu shouted: "Meritorious service is today!" While leading people to rush to the river embankment, he was heartbroken for his son's death, and he had already saved his desperate heart.

At the same time, the other Dong Fuxiangjun also successfully killed in front of the river embankment and joined Liu Yongfu!

At this time, the French army also showed superb tactical literacy, stopped retreating, organized a strong counterattack, and the two sides fought hard at the front of the river embankment.

By this time, the sky had already brightened and the sun began to rise slowly.

Battalion commander Zhu Bingqing was the most courageous, with a gun in his hand and a white cloth tied to his left arm, and was the first to rush onto the embankment. He raised his left hand high, shouted loudly to beckon the people behind him to come up, the eye-catching white cloth fluttered in the morning breeze, the rising sun sprinkled all over his body, the whole person was full of heroic and sacred brilliance, and victory seemed to be in sight.

At this moment, a series of cannon-like sounds sounded from the direction of the river, and then a series of splashes extended from the river surface and flew straight to Zhu Bingqing's feet, and a thought flashed in Zhu Bingqing's mind: "This seems to be a French machine gun." ”

This was an idea he had on this shijie, and then his body was torn in half by a ferocious fire from head to waist and abdomen, and his flesh and blood flew and fluttered in the faint morning light.

The French river flotilla is coming!

After a whole night of hard work, the French army finally opened the river, and the French river fleet, which had been waiting, quickly passed through the narrow section and approached the village of Fusha.

In the French river fleet, three gunboats were annihilated by the Chinese Kunlun and Canghai during transportation, and the remaining 14 gunboats, including "Dilxi", "Amirin", "Antelope", "Leopard", "Raid", "Turkish Scimitar", "Carbin", "Javelin", "Big Axe", "Short Gun", "Ma Su", "Harpoon", "Throwing Spear", "Mallow", etc., are still a terrible liliang, and it can be said that there is no opponent in the inland river network of Vietnam, However, the commander Morlepoyo was removed from his post because he failed to protect the transport ship, resulting in the killing or capture of 1,200 French soldiers, and the new commander was Lieutenant Colonel Berto.

Seeing that fierce fighting was going on the shore, Berto immediately ordered the fleet to exert all its firepower and fiercely attack the Chinese army.

The ship's 140mm naval guns bombarded the shore continuously, especially the 37mm five-barreled guns of Habekaisi on each ship, which showed the most terrifying power at this moment.

The machine gunners shook the handle that drove the barrel rotation of the machine gun as if it were clockwork, and the five barrels rotated at high speed, and the dense fire poured down on the Chinese army, in the words of a military proverb, "Such fierce firepower is probably not enough for even the most well-trained soldiers to be calm!" ”

In the face of this grim situation, everyone understood that they could no longer continue the offensive, and that any further insistence would result in the annihilation of the entire army. Liu Yongfu and Dong Fuxiang had to order the whole army to retreat, and under the rain of enemy bullets, they blocked the attack while retreating to Shanxi City.

At noon, the exhausted army withdrew into the city of Shanxi.

In the defense of Fusha Village, the Sixth Division invested a total of four regiments of troops, including Vietnamese troops, with a total strength of more than 8,000 people, but Zuihou still failed to keep Fusha Village after paying a heavy price.

The Sixth Division suffered nearly 2,000 casualties, especially the infantry regiment commanded by Liu Yongfu, which almost lost its combat effectiveness. And Huang Zuoyan's "Kokang Battalion" is almost exhausted.

But to make matters worse, the French cleared the embankment of the embankment, and the French river fleet could go up the Red River, approaching the city of Shanxi from the northeast, and directly bombarding the city walls with naval guns.

The French naval artillery group was extremely powerful, and Liu Yongfu and others had fought with the French army many times, and they had lingering fears about this, and Cen Yuying, Shao Youlian, and others didn't know what to do for a while.

After some rest, on January 24, the French army really began to attack Shanxi City from the northeast, and the French river fleet approached Shanxi City from the river, and a large number of naval guns continued to bombard the positions outside Shanxi City, almost all the fortifications were flattened.

On January 25, the French heavy artillery also joined the attack, and under such dense artillery fire, the troops of Wang Xiaoqi and others outside the city had to withdraw into the city in order to avoid huge casualties.

Beginning on January 26, the French army stormed the city of Shanxi. The eastern city wall was smashed out of big holes, and the cannonballs even flew into the city with a whistling fire, and the flames broke out everywhere, and the screams and cries of the common people, women and children rang out in one piece, and the shrapnel was all over the place, and the screams were repeated again and again.

Cen Yuying's command post was also full of flying sand and rocks, and the dishes and pans in the kitchen were all shaken down and shattered. Black smoke billowed over the city, and birds flew in fright.

The French army also concentrated four 120-mm 1878 long-barreled heavy cannons and bombarded the east gate of Shanxi City. This gun was finalized in 1878, although the caliber is not particularly large, but because of the long barrel, the maximum muzzle velocity of the shell reached 525 m / s, and the firing range also reached an astonishing 12,400 meters, and the power was also very good.

At dusk, the tower of the East Gate was collapsed by heavy artillery of the French army.

The battle situation has developed to this extent, and everyone already knows it: Shanxi City can't hold it for long.

But Cen Yuying knew that it was impossible to retreat now, the French army was eyeing the side, as soon as the sixth division came out of the city, the French army would launch a trailing pursuit, and it was very likely that the army would be defeated and the whole army would be annihilated, and continuing to hold on would only become more and more disadvantageous.

Now we have a difficult choice.

At noon on January 27, when the French army was ready to begin the general assault on Zuihou, Miller stood on a dirt slope with a telescope, looking at Shanxi City from afar, and the commander of the 1st Brigade, Porier, stood next to him.

Miller turned his head and asked Porier: "Look, can you capture Shanxi City today?" ”

Porier nodded and shook his head again: "There is this possibility, but we must always beware of the counterattack of the Chinese." ”

Mi Le was puzzled: "Oh, what do you mean by that?" ”

"For the past two days, I have been studying ancient Chinese military philosophy. I found that the Chinese traditionally like to defend and counterattack, which is in line with the national personality of the Chinese, first salute and then soldier, and then strike. There is an old saying called one drum and then three times exhausted, saying that in ancient China, there was a general, in the face of the enemy's attack, hold the position, wait until the enemy begins to fatigue, counterattack and win, which shows that since ancient times, the Chinese have blood flowing in their bodies to fight back. ”

Porier quoted scriptures and talked a lot about the "theory of China's counterattack threat," which made Miller cry and laugh a little, and he had already heard people say that Porrier had become a little nervous in being vigilant against the counterattack threat of the Chinese army.

At this time, the artillery preparations of the French army in the distance were in full swing, and the artillery group of the army and the naval gun group of the fleet bombarded with all their strength, blowing up the inside and outside of the east gate, which had already collapsed, and a large gap of several hundred meters wide appeared in the city wall.

Then a large number of French soldiers shouted and rushed in through the gap, first in dozens, then in hundreds, and the resistance of the Chinese army was clearly crumbling.

Miller turned to Pourier and teased: "It seems that this time, your Chinese friends who are obsessed with fighting back are going to disappoint you after all." ”

Before Pollier could answer, there was a sudden "boom", a deafening loud bang filled his eardrums, and in the distance around the east gate of Shanxi City, a red pillar of fire rose into the sky, and a huge cloud soared into the sky.

Even if Mi Le and the others had already stood far enough, they could still feel a heat wave coming, and the shock wave of the explosion was so huge that the surroundings were like a hurricane suddenly coming, and suddenly the sand and rocks were flying and the sky was dark.

Everyone was shocked by the unexpected turn of events, but Porrier was the first to come to his senses, and he shouted to Millet: "Sir! Sir! You see, I'm right! China will fight back! There will be! ”

Miller yelled at him, "Shut the fuck up!" ”