If it is a long-range shooting, the few weapons in the hands of the Dinghai villagers may not be the opponent of the rifled guns in the hands of the British marines, but when the villagers arrived, it was when the British troops approached the embankment position, and the two sides were only twenty or thirty paces apart.

"Behind us is Dinghai City! Our little family is there! The officers of the township corps shouted loudly to boost the morale of the villagers under their command. These village soldiers have also been trained in stabbing every day, but this is the first time to fight, and there are two passes to test a new recruit in the war, one is to endure artillery bombardment, and the other is to see the red with bayonets. The training of the township soldiers may not be as good as that of the regular Taiping Army field troops, but behind them is their homeland, in order to defend their homeland, not to mention that these township soldiers are all young people with strong blood, even if they are more than half a hundred years old, they will burst out with unimaginable fighting spirit at this time.

Dinghai resistance to the British is a tradition, they have done it twenty years ago, and now they are once again standing in front of the bayonets of the British army, but this time there is no Manchu constraint, no Manchu suppression, they are protecting their homeland in earnest!

The bloody battle began, although the fighting spirit of the villagers was very high, but the bayonet skills of the British army were also very fierce, and the British army was generally tall and strong, the villagers had forced the British army back with a sharp spirit, and after a moment of fighting, they began to feel gradually exhausted.

At this time, the 500 Taiping coastal defense troops who rushed from Dinghai City quickly joined the battle group, and the Taiping generals who guarded Dinghai had already determined that the enemy's other two routes were feints, and the focus was still on Zhushan Gate. So reinforcements were quickly sent here. They came at the right time, when the township corps was about to collapse. They arrived and held the front.

The British officer commanding the landing force saw that the Taiping reinforcements had arrived, and the artillery positions behind the embankment began to bombard the support ships on the sea. God knows how many more reinforcements will arrive, and I can't help but start muttering in my heart. In fact, many British officers and soldiers had the same thoughts as their commanders, their limited strength was something that everyone knew, and it was unknown how many enemies they would face when they landed, but as the number of enemies grew, the British soldiers began to drum in their hearts.

With a bang, a naval warship on the surface of the sea that was responsible for supporting the landing operation was hit by a bombardment shell, perhaps just hitting its ammunition depot. The sky-high flames and huge shock wave immediately tore the battleship into two sections, and the people on board did not even have a chance to escape, and the rapidly sinking wreckage of the battleship was swept into the sea.

After seeing this scene, the British army found that the fog they had relied on for sneak attacks had actually begun to dissipate, the artillery fire on the Zhushan Gate was becoming more and more accurate, and the navy began to turn around, and it seemed that they were ready to withdraw from the battle.

The soldiers who landed on the shore were panicked, and the landing commander was quick to make a decision and immediately ordered the soldiers to start retreating. The naval motorboats, boats, sampans and other ships that were still waiting for them under artillery fire on the shore endured the artillery fire and waited there. Finally, the soldiers who landed on the shore retreated, and under the hail of bullets behind them, more than 1,500 British marines managed to escape back to the ship, leaving behind more than 500 corpses.

Small boats and motorboats withdrew from the battle under artillery fire. On the way, several small boats were lost, which were hit by the Taiping artillery behind the embankment, and more than 100 British soldiers were unfortunately killed in the waters here.

Ho Bo after the fog dissipated. Stunned to see this scene, Sima beside him said bitterly: "It seems that the lack of our army troops is a very fatal weakness. We can't completely capture any seaport with naval warships alone. ”

Why don't you understand in your heart? If the landing force had not been 2,000 but 4,000 men, perhaps they would have been able to capture the enemy's embankment positions just now. Then they were able to take the Zhushanmen Fort from behind the Zhushan Gate from behind, but it was a pity that their precious army forces were lost in the Beijing-Tianjin area, and it was already the limit of the war potential of Britain and France in the Far East to be able to make up these troops.

"The perimeter guard ship raised the warning flag, and there are enemy warships in the open sea!" The lookout on the mast shouted down loudly, Uncle He was taken aback, and immediately raised his binoculars to look, only to see that several fast sailing ships on the periphery in the distance had exchanged fire with a fleet of unknown origin, and the artillery battle between the two sides was very fierce!

"Why didn't the alert ships detect the enemy earlier?!" Sima asked loudly, and a staff officer on the side was very sober: "Your Excellency, General, maybe they also took advantage of the dense fog this morning......"

He Bo didn't care about this, he said excitedly: "It must be the main fleet of the Taiping Navy, we are worried that we can't catch them for a decisive battle at sea, since they dare to come, we will have a decisive battle with them in a dignified manner!" ”

Sima nodded and said, "Then we should prepare for battle immediately, and I'll go back to my boat now!" "West Malaysia is the deputy commander of the fleet, because it was an attack on land port targets, so West Malaysia came to Hobo's flagship to watch together, and now the naval battle is about to begin, and the commander and deputy commander of the fleet must be divided into different warships, so as not to lose the unified command of the entire fleet after the flagship is sunk.

After West Malaysia left in a small boat, Uncle Ho immediately ordered all warships to set sail, the wind direction at sea was unfavorable to the British warships, so the steam-powered warships in the British Navy did not raise their sails, but used steam-powered to drive their hulls towards the Taiping fleet, and several other steam-powered sail warships raised their sails and went around parallel positions, intending to make an arc to regain the upper hand.

The Taiping navy did take advantage of the dense fog in this raid, and after the location of the British fleet was learned yesterday through the intelligence of the shore troops, the Taiping East China Sea Fleet immediately gathered all its ships and rushed towards this sea area. The Admiral of the East China Sea Fleet is a Tongbao monk, who commands two sister ships, Jingyuan and Weiyuan, and has nine fast sailing ships and more than 70 red single boats, fortune ships, and sand ships.

After a few battles on the side of the British fleet, there were a lot of losses on the side of the warship, and now there are less than 30 warships left, but compared to the Taiping Navy, it is still a very difficult bone to gnaw. Monk Tongbao's original intention was to use his familiarity with the sea area of this generation, plus the cover of fog. Led the fleet up to give the British fleet a surprise blow, but it backfired. The fog faded away after the sun came out, and the guard ships on the periphery of the British fleet spread far away. So they were discovered.

Seeing this situation, the monk Tongbao knew that the current situation was no longer a sneak attack, but a direct decisive battle against the British fleet, which was inconsistent with the sea guerrilla strategy set at that time, but now in the fleet under his command, many ships are not steam-powered, and if they rely on sail operation, some ships may be caught up by the enemy fleet, and the strong man will break his wrist at the moment. Leave some ships to block the enemy and let the fleet get out of the battle, or the whole fleet will fight to the death and fight the enemy in advance!

Monk Tongbao did not hesitate for long, and he ordered the flagship to raise the red seahorse flag, which represented a decisive battle, which was a tradition unique to the East China Sea Fleet, because a large part of the crew of the East China Sea Fleet was originally the Seahorse Gang active in this area.

After the battle order was issued, the two sister ships Jingyuan and Weiyuan immediately began to adjust their combat positions, and the nine fast sailing ships quickly gained the upper hand. The remaining more than 70 red single boats, fortune boats, and sand boats are also ready for their own ones.

The five guard ships on the periphery of the British fleet were the first to be shelled by the Taiping fleet, although these warships were fast, but their firepower and tonnage were obviously not the opponents of the Jingyuan and Weiyuan, and the nine fast sailing ships in the Taiping fleet were outflanked, and these five British ships were quickly defeated. They skillfully dodged and fought back, and quickly approached the British fleet's main position.

In the course of the pursuit, the sail masts of two British warships were destroyed. The speed of the battleship that lost power quickly slowed down, and the swarming Taiping warships unceremoniously and quickly sank the two ships. The captain of the ship did not have time to consider raising the white flag and surrendering.

The other three British warships also fled back to their home camp with wounds, and the escort Ho Bo saw the strength of the opponent's fleet clearly. Except for the Jingyuan and Weiyuan, which were originally 2,700 tons of French first-class warships, the rest of the Taiping warships do not seem to be worth mentioning, a red single ship has a tonnage of hundreds of tons at most, and there are only a pitiful more than ten guns on board, which is not as powerful as a large British armed merchant ship. But He Bo seems to have forgotten one thing, and that is that quality can be changed when quantity reaches a certain level.

The Battle of Zhoushan began, the British fleet first concentrated a few capital battleships and Jingyuan, Weiyuan for artillery battles, the guns of both sides are equally deadly, but Jingyuan and Weiyuan have a little advantage that can be made up for a little, these two battleships were transformed last year, the Taiping Army in Shanghai Shipyard to the two battleships above the waterline covered a layer of ten centimeters thick armor, which greatly strengthened their protective capabilities, but the only weakness is the open porthole gun emplacements on both sides of the hull, once the shells hit these places, Bombardment shells with incredible destructive power will still make a big hole in the hull.

Jingyuan and Weiyuan withstood the siege of eight main warships, including the flagship of He Bo, occupying the upper hand position and pulling up the sails, plus the two battleships driven by steam power were faster and could flexibly avoid the enemy's shelling, and the armor on the hull ensured their protective ability, so they could barely resist for a while, but the heroes could not stand the enemy's fleet of guns, and the British gunners were very skillful, and the time interval between their artillery firing was very short, while the gunners of the Taiping Army were not as good as them, so they could withstand more artillery fire.

On the other side, nine fast sailing ships and more than 70 red single boats, fortune ships and large sand ships stood together with more than 20 British ships, and almost ten good ships or large sand ships were sunk in a single photo, and they fired only one round of shells at the enemy. Fortunately, there were many of them, and the British ships had to come one by one even if they wanted to shoot mosquitoes, and although the survivability of the Red Dan Boat, the Fu Ship and the Sand Boat was enough to choke, the guns they were equipped with were deadly enough, even if Ho Bo's flagship was hit by the bombardment cannon on the Red Dan Ship, the wooden hull would be damaged.

As time passed, the British ships gradually gained the upper hand, they lost five warships, but sent more than thirty Taiping warships to the bottom, although the Jingyuan and Weiyuan were still struggling to support, but after the sail mast was destroyed, the speed of the ship slowed down even more, and the monk Tongbao saw this scene and knew that unless a miracle occurred, his fleet would sink a few more enemy warships at most and then be completely annihilated.

At this moment, a lookout excitedly shouted: "Look, to the south, that's the flag of the South China Sea Fleet......" (to be continued......