Tianjin, a city that makes all Chinese have mixed tastes, once the ferry port of the Son of Heaven, has now become the key point of the Taiping Army to turn the entire war situation, and the battle of Tianjin has written a strong stroke in the history of Tianjin City.

The development of a city needs opportunities, and in the Ming Dynasty, a person's rebellion made Tianjin a city, and this person was Zhu Di. Zhu Di crossed the river from Beidaguan and conquered the military town of Cangzhou, so when he was happy, he named this ferry Tianjin (the ferry of the Son of Heaven). Zhu Di later returned to the north, and thought that something was wrong, Tianjin was too important, if others were like him, they would cross the river in Tianjin and then go north...... Zhu Di thought about it, and cold sweat broke out on his back, so he hurriedly set up three guards in Tianjin, the first guard in the country, with 16,500 people.

Then came the Korean War in the Wanli period, according to records, during the Wanli period, the area of the country's tuntian reached more than 644,000 hectares, most of which were in Tianjin. At the same time, the imperial court was also short of silver, and the governor Wan Shide suddenly discovered that the Tianjin Jiedi was sunny, windy, and was a holy place for drying salt (it should have been discovered a long time ago), so he prospered in the salt industry, frantically collected taxes, and fully supported the Korean front. According to statistics, at that time, the military rations shipped from Tianjin to North Korea accounted for more than 1/3 of the country, and at the same time, Tianjin also paid a large amount of taxes and silver, manufactured a large number of guns, and silently went all out

Support this war. 1,670 cannons were built in the array alone, and 10,000 small cannons were built; Tianjin Qingjiang Factory is one of the two major shipbuilding bases in China, the sea ships built across the Yellow Sea, and there is no shortage of Tianjin ships, Tianjin guns, and Tianjin rice in the battle of Luliang. The officers and soldiers who held the Tianjin Salary and Silver were the most painful victories in Chinese history over Japan. And Tianjin made an amazing contribution to this war. Tianjin's small land is short of one-third of the grain and half of the munitions. What a glory is this for the people of Tianjin?

Now under the rule of the Qing Dynasty, Tianjin is gloomy, although the monk Lingqin once resisted here very stubbornly, but in the end he still lost this Tianzi ferry, and the banner of the British and French troops was planted at the head of Tianjin. And the baptism of artillery that began in the middle of the night seems to herald the arrival of a new life in Tianjin.

The fire at the south gate of Tianjin forced the British General Sutton to retreat, and the British army demolished more than 100 wooden houses near the south gate in the confusion before barely stopping the spread of the fire, and the 1st Battalion of the British Barforth Regiment barely laid out a defensive line in the street near the south gate, while the 2nd Battalion of the Wiltshire Regiment and the 1st Battalion of the East Surrey Regiment were stationed at the north, east and west gates respectively. Although it has lost the defensive advantage of the south gate city wall and moat. But what slightly reassured General Sutton was that under the enemy's surprise attack, the city of Tianjin was still in the hands of the British.

The fire at the south gate forced the British forces back, but it also caused problems for the Taipings, as the three infantry battalions that followed the charge after the artillery fire was prepared failed to pass through the south gate, and they were also blocked outside the city by the fire. All they gained was to capture three ruined batteries, with more than 300 Indian soldiers taken prisoner and the rest buried in the batteries.

Su Ji did not expect that the incendiary warhead rocket would cause a raging fire in the south of Tianjin, and the front-line infantry battalion was unanimously invective. The artillery regiment hurriedly replaced the warheads, they replaced all the incendiary warhead rockets and prepared to continue the extended shelling.

Then Chen Alin, the commander of the 1st Division, came to the forward position of Xiaosunzhuang, after seeing the raging fire at the south gate. He had to order the first corps of the main attack to attack the west gate instead, and the rocket artillery regiment of Su Ji moved its position to cover. The 2nd Infantry Regiment remained outside the South Gate and tried to extinguish the fire at the South Gate with moat water. Let's see if we can save a way.

The 2nd Regiment collected more than 30 water hoses used by the people to fight fires from nearby villages for extinguishing fires at the South Gate, because Tianjin and nearby villages are important places for grain storage and transshipment. Therefore, there are many water dragons in the villages here. As the flames near the city gates were extinguished, it was seven thirty-five in the morning. The burned tin-clad wooden gate at the south gate of Tianjin was cut open by the Taiping army with sharp axes, and the Taiping soldiers in charge of seizing the gate were attacked by muskets from the British soldiers who defended from the barricades 500 meters away.

After losing three soldiers, the 1st Battalion and 3rd Company of the 2nd Regiment quickly returned fire with sandbags and other materials near the entrance of the city gate, while the other companies of the 1st Battalion began to climb the south gate wall with wooden ladders.

Although the soldiers of the 1st Battalion of the East Suri Corps of the British Army in Ximen also used the artillery left by the Qing army to return fire, the British soldiers had doubts about the quality of the Qing artillery, so many times the amount of propellant was placed according to the minimum amount, and the artillery shells could not hit far, so they could not suppress the artillery of the Taiping Army. Soon the British temporary artillery at the head of the city was dispersed by the artillery of the Taiping army, and two of the cannons were blown up because the British soldiers who operated them used their heroic spirit to release more medicine.

When a regiment of infantry charged after the artillery suppression, the British infantry at the head of the city soon began to return fire. When the Taiping artillery bombarded the city, the British infantry withdrew the city head and took refuge under the corner of the city wall to avoid artillery fire. The rifled muskets of the British army caused a lot of trouble for the Taipings, but fortunately, the 1st Battalion of the East Surrey Corps was only two companies stationed here, and they were inferior in numbers. Although these soldiers from Surrey, England are very brave, but the firepower of the Taiping Army is not weaker than them, and they are attacked by the few elite troops in the Taiping Army, the first army of the Taiping Army has a lot of outstanding marksmanship, and the shooting accuracy of ordinary soldiers is also very accurate, when a battalion of Taiping Army suppresses the British army at the head of the city, both sides feel the courage of the opponent.

In the smoke of fire, the Taipings had the upper hand, with two or three Taiping soldiers raising their guns at each battlement, and the British would be attacked as soon as they showed their heads. Another battalion of Taiping troops took advantage of this opportunity to break through the moat and began to erect wooden ladders to climb under the city.

At 8:57 a.m., the first Taiping soldiers stepped on the city wall at the west gate of Tianjin, and soon a regiment of Taiping infantry and the British on the city wall engaged in a brutal hand-to-hand bayonet battle.

On the other side, the second regiment at the south gate was in trouble, and the soldiers who climbed the south gate city wall had to retreat, just because the south gate city wall was very hot because of the scorching fire, and the soldiers could not settle on the ground of the city wall where they could burn raw meat, and the surrounding oxygen was also thinned because of the fire.

The second regiment had to spray the moat water on the head of the city to cool down the head of the city. Here I have to say that the design of the ancient water dragon is precise, the whole water dragon is an iron-wood structure, it is a brown oval, the middle part is a wooden barrel, about 100 kilograms of water, and the two sides of the bucket are engraved with the words "water dragon of a certain village" and "a certain village front protection" respectively. Above the barrel, there is a long, thick wooden stick with a pressurization device in the center and two pistons on either side for pumping and pressurizing, the principle of which is similar to that of the pump wells seen in later life.

The Taiping soldiers formed two teams, one of which was mainly responsible for carrying water from the river with buckets and pouring water into the buckets; The other team carries the empty barrels to the river and circulates them in turn. On either side of the water dragon, there are several strong soldiers, pumping water hard. A bamboo water pipe came out of the wooden barrel of the water dragon, and the soldiers connected a section of iron pipe to the water pipe, and the water in the bucket sprayed out of the pipe. The scene of more than a dozen water dragons spraying water together was very spectacular, and the soldiers of the second regiment jokingly said that thanks to the brothers of the rocket artillery regiment, they became firefighters before they entered the city.

The river water was sprinkled on the scorching wall tiles and floor tiles, and the water turned into steam and dispersed in the air, and soon the entire south gate was shrouded in thick water vapor, but as the water vapor dissipated, the high temperature gradually dissipated. Following in the footsteps of the first regiment, at 9:27 a.m., the first soldier of the second regiment stepped on the wall of the south gate again.

The two companies of the 1st Battalion of the Baphos Corps, which were blocking the barricade not far from the South Gate, were quickly suppressed by the fire of the Taiping Army from the head of the South Gate, and after a moment of firing at each other, the two companies dropped more than a dozen corpses and retreated to the second barricade line.

General Sutton watched the battle from behind the second barricade line, and when he saw the Taiping soldiers climbing the wall of the South Gate, which was still surrounded by embers, he couldn't help but praise his opponent, "What a terrible group of madmen." ”

Major Belham hurriedly said: "General, the soldiers of a company can't resist, the enemy is attacking with at least two battalions, and Simon also needs to be rescued, and Major Winston over there is almost unable to support it." ”

General Sutton waved his hand and said: "Let Winston withdraw with the boys of Surrey, and the 2nd Battalion of the Wiltshire Regiment at the North Gate will also abandon the North Gate, and we will fight street battles with the enemy in the city, as long as we can hold until noon, reinforcements from Tongzhou will arrive!" ”

Belham soon gave the order, and the British troops of the 1st Battalion of the Baphos Corps and the 1st Battalion of the East Surrey Corps resisted street by street and gradually withdrew from the area of the city walls, and the 2nd Battalion of the Wiltshire Regiment also arrived to support, and the two sides engaged in street fighting in the city near the South and West Gates.

At 10:21, two infantry regiments of the Taiping Army completely occupied the South Gate and the West Gate, and began to fight the British army for the streets of the city. The Taiping army was not afraid of street fighting, and the Taiping soldiers of the First Army had rich experience in street fighting in the south, although the opponent was the Qing army, but the British army was not much stronger than the Qing army in street fighting.

The Taiping army, which was skilled in street fighting, often used a group of soldiers to go up to the roof, and a group of soldiers to the street, so that they marched up and down at the same time to cover, and the streets on the left and right sides marched like this, forming a three-dimensional crossfire, and the British army had no advantage in numbers, and was relatively rigid in the tactics of street fighting, and soon fell into a passive and inferior situation.

Seeing that the soldiers around him were constantly being killed, and the area controlled by his own soldiers was shrinking, General Sutton looked at the pocket watch in his hand very anxiously, the hour hand was already pointing to eleven o'clock, it was almost noon, but where were the reinforcements? (To be continued......)