At dawn, the sailors of the Taiping Army in the West Hall had already arrived at the mouth of the Suzhou Creek and the Yunzaobang branch, and met the small boat of Lin Qirong's navy who was going to Suzhou to deliver news.

Xiao Yungui's sailors and generals were all there, Lu Shunde, Zhao Shunping and others saw that after the king of the west read the letter, their faces began to look ugly, and after handing the battle report to Lu Shunde, they walked to the map alone and looked at it.

Lu Shunde and the generals hurriedly gathered around to watch, many of them were not literate and could not understand when they came around, but the generals were concerned about the battle situation in Shanghai. Since the king of the west returned to Suzhou, the generals of the navy division got the news that Lin Qirong led the Shanghai Taiping Army to win successive battles, and successively won the battle of Wusong, the battle of Yunzaobang, and the battle of Gaoqiao, but with the arrival of the heavy rain in Suzhou, it seems that the situation has begun to reverse. After the land division set up camp, the water division guarded on the water, and step by step, the water and land men covered each other, and never divided the troops, so that Lin Qirong and others were useless in how to set up ambushes.

The Hunan army's land and water divisions advanced along the Yangtze River, and when the land division arrived at a new place, it must first build a camp and encircle the camp with the water, while the water division relied on powerful firepower to control the river surface and ensure the water supply channel of the land division. The Hunan army Zeng Guofan played the tactics of fighting hard and fighting to the death, this tactic was not the first of Zeng Guofan's creation, Yuan Chonghuan also played at the end of the Ming Dynasty, he played a big deal, Yuan Chonghuan even wanted to build a city all the way to Huang Taiji's hometown. Then with the city and the barracks, the emperor Taiji was besieged. It's a pity that the cost of this tactic is too high, and Yuan Chonghuan has not built many cities before he has dragged down the Ming Empire.

Zeng Guofan was more practical, the method he adopted was to build a hard village, the Hunan soldiers did not arrive in one place, the first thing to do was to dig deep trenches, dig camps, ring the camp several heavy trenches, and stabilize the camp, just waiting for the Taiping army to attack. This tactic also has a flaw, that is, it is very afraid that its supply lines will be cut off. In the Battle of Three Rivers, Li Xubin, a fierce general of the Hunan army, was surrounded by more than ten times the superior forces of the Taiping army after the lone army went deep, and after cutting off the supply line, he was jointly exterminated by Chen Yucheng and Li Xiucheng.

Therefore, if the Hunan army's tactics are carried out along the river. The supply line is supported by a naval force on the water, and the power is quite huge. The Qing army of Hechun was like a turtle staring at a hard shell and slowly advancing along the Huangpu River. Lin Qirong couldn't play any tricks, so he could only fight hard with the Qing army to prevent the Qing army's reinforcements from approaching Shanghai, if the Qing army broke the siege of the Taiping army's Shanghai periphery, then the battle of Shanghai would be very difficult to fight, and the war would drag on for a long time. If the three-month period that Britain and France and other powers can endure are exceeded, no one knows what variables will be.

Lu Shunde also frowned after reading the letter, the latest battle report on the letter was very bad, and the Qing army was advancing by land and water. Lin Qirong and other generals led their troops to fight to the death, but there were Qing army land divisions fighting with soldiers and horses on the land, and Guangdong naval divisions on the water often went around to the flanks and attacked behind, and the artillery fire on both land and water was fierce, and the two armies completely fell into a situation of fighting for attrition. Last night, the Qing army and the Taiping army fought all night, Lin Qirong and others couldn't support it, so they had to retreat to Hongkou, Yangpu and other places, behind them was already the outer camp of Shanghai City, the situation was already very critical, Lin Qirong had to send someone to report to Suzhou.

After Xiao Yungui looked at the map for a long time, his fist slammed on the table, and then turned back and said loudly to the generals: "The Qing army is advancing by land and water, which seems to be seamless, but in fact, it is also full of loopholes, let's not go to Shanghai, divert Yunzaobang and kill directly to Baoshan and Wusongkou, and together with Zhou Lichun's troops stationed in Jiading, recapture Baoshan and Wusong in one fell swoop, cut off the back road of the Qing army, and as soon as the back road of the water army is broken, the Qing army will be unable to fly!" ”

The generals' eyes lit up, the Qing army's battle line was like a long snake, only controlling Baoshan, Wusongkou and a few miles on both sides of the Huangpu River, and the supply of the army was all supplied by the ships of the naval division, once the water and land were cut off, the Qing army could not jump for a few days.

At the moment, Xiao Yungui gave Zhou Lichun of Jiading an order to the general, asking him to immediately raise troops to attack Baoshan, Xiao Yungui led the water division to highlight the Huangpu River from the Yunzaobang River to attack Wusongkou, and ordered Chen Yucheng's Taiping Army land division to rush to the fork of the Huangpu River in Yunzaobang to ambush, arrange artillery arrays and cross-river chains, and prepare to intercept the Guangdong Navy Division warships that turned back to rescue Wusong, and ordered people to go to Gaoqiao after disguise, and told Gaoqiao to guard Chen Zhiming to wave his troops westward to attack the fort on the east bank of Wusongkou, and at the same time ordered Lin Qirong and others to be sure to defend Hongkou, Yangpu and other places for three days. As long as Xiao Yungui led his troops to take down Wusong and complete the battle to secure his pockets, the Qing army along the Huangpu River could only wait for death.

After the order was issued, Xiao Yungui led the soldiers and horses of the water battalion to divert the route to Yunzaobang and went straight to Wusongkou.

In the early morning of the next day, the sky was just overcast and bright, and the merchant ships and sand ships of the Qing army transporting grain, gunpowder and ammunition were still asleep at the mouth of Wusong.

The merchant sailor rubbed his eyes and looked over, only to see that the flags on them were all long-haired flags, so frightened that he sat on the ground and urinated on his own crotch.

"Long, hairy fleet!" The mournful shouts of the sailors pierced the dim sky, and the Qing army lookouts on the shore also saw this menacing fleet from the wooden watchtower, and immediately sounded the gong to warn them. But the sound of his gong only struck a few times, crackled a few times, and several muskets fired at him in the reeds by the camp of the West Fort, and the Qing army fell down from the watchtower with a scream.

Outside the West Fort, dozens of banners of the Taiping Army were erected, more than 1,000 Taiping soldiers shouted loudly, and rushed to the camp of the Qing army in the West Fort, but this army was led by Tang Erniu, last night at the third watch, Tang Erniu led a thousand Taiping troops to go ashore a few miles away, sneaked to the outside of the Qing army camp to ambush by night, and saw that the Qing army found the fleet of the sailors, and immediately launched an assault on the Qing army camp of the West Fort.

The Qing army's military discipline was lax, and it was gradually approaching Shanghai City in the past few days, and most of the Qing army sentries stationed in the west fort of Wusongkou were sleeping, and most of them were solved by Tang Erniu and people in their sleep, and the Taiping army unconsciously touched the edge of the camp and ambushed it, and now the next order is issued, the Taiping army is like a god general, crossing the trench and rushing to the wooden fence of the Qing army camp.

There was a rush of chickens and dogs jumping in the Qing army camp, many Qing soldiers came out of the camp tent in clothes, the soldiers could not find the generals, the generals could not find the soldiers, and a few wooden bars had been broken by the Taiping army, and the tide of the Taiping army rushed to the camp with dense banners, and the Qing army did not know how many soldiers and horses the Taiping army attacked, and at a glance at the dense array of Taiping warships on the river, the Qing army suddenly fled for their lives like a fried pot.

Tang Erniu led more than 1,000 Taiping troops to rush into the Qing army camp, and encountered little resistance, and the Taiping army shouted: "Surrender on your knees to avoid death!" While rushing forward, a Qing army general gathered dozens of Qing troops to come to the battle, and was immediately surrounded and killed by more than 100 Taiping troops, and the Qing army was even more pitiful and hacked to death with a knife. Some timid Qing soldiers knelt on the ground and begged for mercy, but all the Qing troops who were still standing up straight were killed on the spot by the Taiping army, and when they arrived at Zuihou to capture the fort, the entire camp was full of Qing troops holding their heads and begging for mercy.

The battle on the river is somewhat difficult, the Guangdong Navy Division left dozens of fast crab boats and sand boats to defend Wusongkou, and dozens of merchant ships and sand boats were mixed in it. Lu Shunde and Zhao Shunping led their fleets to rush up to intercept the Qing army's naval divisions to fight, the artillery fire on the big ships rang out in unison, and the sailors on the small boats released muskets and rockets one after another, and the flags waving on the two or three miles wide river, the whistling shells, the raining rockets and the misty gunpowder smoke suddenly filled the entire river.

The Qing army's naval division suffered a sudden attack, since the war, the Taiping army's naval division has not participated in the battle, the Qing army's naval division is rampant on the river, except for the land Taiping army's artillery has some threats, the threat from the water The Qing army has basically not encountered, so the Guangdong naval division is extremely arrogant, and Wusongkou is such an important place to leave only some fast crab boats and sand boats to defend. When the Taiping army fleet suddenly appeared, the Qing army sailors were in chaos, and they rushed to raise their sails and oars and fled out, and the Qing ships crowded together, blocking each other's waterways, and became a mess.

Due to the dense ships of the Qing army, the artillery on the big ship of the Taiping Army hit the past, and it can always hit a ship, and the gunners of the Taiping Army sailors are happy to fire the cannons, and there are also mistakes in the busy, the guns on the Taiping warships are fixed, unlike the British and French gunboats that have unloading pulley tracks, and the guns automatically retreat and unload the recoil after firing. Ten guns on the side of a Taiping warship were fired together, the propellant and the cannon were all purchased foreigner artillery, the power was huge, and it was a fixed gun mount, and the ten guns were fired together, and the hull could not withstand the huge recoil, and the hull was torn apart.

Xiao Yungui had been watching the battle on the boat, and when he heard the exclamations of the guards around him, he hurriedly turned his head to see that the warship had a big hole in the middle and began to sink. Xiao Yungui was stunned and thought about it and knew the reason, and scolded: "These losers, the foreigners' artillery is huge, and we are a fixed artillery mount, how can we fire the cannon at the same time?" The order goes down, and each ship is not allowed to fire several cannons at the same time! Damn, the demons don't have the power to fight back, we also sank a big ship, and it was passed out to laugh off the big teeth of the demons! ”

By noon, almost all of the Qing army's naval fleets were surrounded and annihilated at Wusongkou, and the Taiping army captured eleven fast crab boats, eight sand boats, and seventeen merchant ships carrying grain, and only a few Qing ships fled to the mouth of the Yangtze River, and the river was full of Qing troops falling into the water and burning ship planks, and the Qing army flag had been lowered from the Wusongkou fort. (To be continued......)