Humen Fort, the third gateway of Guangzhou at the mouth of the Pearl River, the morning fog in the warm winter morning was gradually blown away in the sea breeze, several carrier pigeons flew here one after another, the Taiping Army heralds on the fort caught the carrier pigeons, took off the small bamboo tube tied to their legs, took out a two-finger-wide note inside, and hurriedly returned to the fort headquarters with the note.

After the combat staff officer of the command headquarters translated the code text with reference to the code, he translated the code code on the slip of paper into text, and after taking a look at it, the staff officer hurried to see the commander of the battery.

The Taiping Army guard of Humen Fort was a young man, but he was about eighteen years old, and after reading the note brought by the staff officer, he just said lightly: "Tell all battalions and companies to hand over the written suicide note and lock it in an iron cabinet. ”

Staff Officer Chen nodded and ordered the herald to go and pass the order, and then the young general took out a suicide note and handed it to Staff Officer Chen: "This is my suicide note from Liu Jintang, I hope it can finally be handed over to my father Liu Housheng." Staff Officer Chen nodded in a complicated mood and took Liu Jintang's suicide note very solemnly.

This young general Liu Jintang is the son of Liu Housheng, a general of the Hunan army, who joined the army at the age of 15 and has been in the Hunan army for three years. In history, Liu Jintang joined the army because his father died at the hands of the Taiping Army in Yueyang, but in this time and space, due to the strength of the Taiping Army, the Hunan Army did not launch the Yueyang Campaign, so Liu Jintang's father did not die at the hands of the Taiping Army.

In the middle of this year, the Hunan army surrendered to the Taiping army, and Liu Housheng's family also surrendered with the army. Because he did not have too much blood on his hands, Liu Housheng was appointed director of the Changsha Police Department in Hunan. With some demobilized soldiers of the Hunan army, a local garrison force was formed, while Liu Jintang stayed in the army for reorganization because of his youth.

Most of Liu Jintang's troops were changed from the original Hunan army. Of the 3,254 officers and men of the Humen Fort, 3,000 were composed of the Hunan Army, who underwent reorganization in Guangzhou, and after four months of training, they became proficient in all kinds of new weapons issued by the Taiping Army, and were subordinate to the Sixth Army, and then they were sent to guard the Humen Fort.

After the herald conveyed the news of collecting the suicide note, someone on the fort position suddenly cried, and they were infected with each other. The crying grew louder and louder. Liu Jintang was furious when he heard the cry, and he quickly walked out of the headquarters covered with a dome with a command knife in his hand and walked towards the artillery position of the position.

When he came to the position, he saw the soldiers of the Hunan Army who had already worn the new uniforms of the Taiping Army hugging their heads and crying in twos and threes, Liu Jintang couldn't help but shout, standing on top of a cannon and shouting: "Look at your cowardice!" Is it still the appearance of my elite in Hunan Province?! Even your crying and crying girls deserve to wear this military uniform?! Do you still have eggs in your crotch?! Are you still a good Chinese man?! ”

After a few scoldings, the soldiers of the Hunan army gradually stopped crying, and the command ordered someone to hand in the suicide note, which means that there is a death battle here. There was absolutely no luck, the soldiers surrounded him, only to hear Liu Jintang say loudly: "I always heard someone say that the new country does not treat our Hunan army as its own people, and complains that letting our Hunan army guard this Humen Fort is to let us go to death!" ”

The soldiers fell silent. Quietly listened to Liu Jintang's roar: "The people who say these words are a group of dogs with no conscience!" You get as much a month as any other friendly army, you use the same good weapons as your allies, and you wear even newer uniforms than your allies. I eat every day and take care of the taste of you Hunan babies, and there are chili peppers every meal. What the fuck are you going to do? ”

Liu Jintang paused, only to see that many soldiers gradually lowered their heads. He continued mercilessly: "What's wrong with the Humen Fort? That's Lao Tzu, I personally went to ask the garrison commander, because Lao Tzu was ashamed! Originally, the commander wanted us to defend Guangzhou, and the other friendly troops were on the fort of the triple gate in front, but Lao Tzu felt that the country treated us as a national soldier, and once the country had something to do, we couldn't hide behind and be a turtle with a shrunken head! Hmph, I'm not afraid to tell you these cowards, Lao Tzu's initial request was to guard the first gate Shajiao Fort! But it's a pity that the commander just reluctantly agreed to let us stay here at the Humen Fort, the third portal! Otherwise, you cowards would have died in the Sand Horn Fort ten days ago! ”

"What are you afraid of? There is always a death when a soldier is a soldier, we are now dying for the country, we are fighting foreign devils, we are doing the things of honoring our ancestors, damn it, this battle is a big deal I will die here with you, and then our names will be remembered forever by future generations! Look at the old general Guan Tianpei behind you, their grave of courage and the tomb of the soldiers, the heroes of the old generation more than 20 years ago are looking at us! Are you still crying, are you ashamed?! Looking ahead, dozens of miles away, on the Sand Corner and Big Horn Forts, our allies who were all killed in battle are looking at us, are you ashamed?! Look over there in Guangzhou, our Chinese people are looking at us, where has your courage gone?! ”

"Sir, let's stop crying, the big deal is death, let's fight foreign devils together!" "Sir, we're out of the woods, and we've got a big scar on our heads!" "You're right, sir, the brothers of Shajiao and Dajiao are watching us, we Hunan people are no worse than people from other places!"

After the soldiers were reprimanded by Liu Jintang, their courage and morale began to burst out, and the Chinese army has a very good tradition for thousands of years, that is, death is not important, and if you are afraid, you are afraid of being looked down upon.

Liu Jintang shouted loudly: "Okay! Then hurry up and hand over your suicide note, and then each army will prepare separately, and the active artillery positions will all aim the muzzles behind us, this time the foreign devils will come from the sea and land, let's copy the guys and these robbers desperately! ”

Sun Tzu's Art of War has a cloud: "There is no reluctance in the pan land, there is no friendship in the land, there is no Jedi left, the siege is plotting, and the death is fighting!" "Now the Taiping army composed of this group of Hunan people on the Humen Fort is in a dead land, and there is only one way in front of them, and the dead place will fight!

The soldiers were busy, they prepared weapons and ammunition, the original 28 gun emplacements of the Humen Fort had all been moved into the ground or covered with roofs in the later renovation, and then more than 30 mobile gun emplacements were added to other locations of the Humen Fort. The guns on the movable emplacements were all movable guns with huge iron wheels, and now the soldiers on the batteries turned them around. The muzzle of the gun was aimed at the land route behind them.

Then they raised a huge bright red banner under the banner of the Golden Dragon, the national flag of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, on the position. Above is a huge white tiger, this is the most admired totem between Xianghu Lake, and it is also one of the flags that the Hunan army has always loved to use.

At one o'clock in the afternoon, the first rumbling cannon sound was heard on the sea, and in the fierce battle of more than ten days before, the British and French navy successively conquered the second gateway Jingyuan and Weiyuan and other two forts, and more than 2,000 Taiping troops stationed on it were all killed. Of course, the losses of the coalition navy were not small, more than 1,500 marines were killed in the battle, more than 1,000 were wounded, and then the navy sank six capital warships, and more than 500 naval casualties.

Under the sound of artillery, the officers and men on the Humen Fort were hiding in the tunnels or underground gun emplacements silently eating dry food, they were recuperating, waiting for the enemy's landing force to fill the beach in front of the fort, and then they would be able to inflict maximum damage on the enemy.

The sound of the Allied Navy's artillery continued for an hour before gradually subduing. The soldiers at the observation post reported that the enemy's small boats were carrying foreign devils up, and Liu Jintang gave an order, and the artillerymen who fixed the gun positions stepped forward one after another to prepare, and the soldiers who blocked the position also began to come out of the tunnel and enter the position. A bloody battle is about to begin.

The Humen Fort was the last nail on the way back of the landing coalition forces, and if it was not cleared first, the heavy coastal defense artillery on the Humen Fort could cover a large area of the surrounding beach. That would cause great trouble for the Coalition forces to retreat and board the ship, so the Coalition Naval Commander-in-Chief, British Admiral Dundas, decided to conquer the area first. But the Navy has already fired first. And the land has not yet seen the shadow of the coalition army, it seems that the army is late again.

Dundas concentrated more than 50 capital warships and bombarded the Humen Fort for more than an hour. Although there were no visible batteries or gun emplacements, the coalition warships still bombarded all the batteries very carefully. Compared with the Qing army's kind of fort to the open air, the Taiping army's artillery emplacements are very cunning, they built a thick roof for the fort, and also camouflaged it with soil, trees, shrubs, etc., the original Humen Fort can clearly see the artillery position from a distance, and now it is good, from a distance it is a green mountain forest and shrub scene, and it is impossible to distinguish the artillery position. This is the same as the previous allied forces attacked several forts, and it can only be said that the military camouflage of the Taiping Army has reached an extremely high level.

After the artillery fire was prepared, the coalition forces still released the marines, although the powerful navy was powerful, but the occupation of land targets always required the landing of soldiers, so hundreds of small boats, sampans in the two thousand British and French marines rushed to the beach.

Up to the present time in the campaign, it was not the army or navy that was most persecuted, but the marines of the coalition forces, whose number had plummeted sharply from 8,000 before the war to more than 2,000, and the forts of Shajiao, Dajiao, Jingyuan, and Weiyuan became the graves of the marines. These Marines were constantly battered by the triple blow of mines, artillery fire, and enemy positions on the beach, and they felt like a bunch of cannon fodder sent to find out the enemy's firing points and consume the enemy's ammunition. But there is no way, they are the Marines, and now the army is inland, and this bloody work can only be done by them.

In today's attack on the Humen Battery, Dundas did not hold back, he sent out all the remaining more than 2,000 marines, hoping to put enough pressure on the enemy, and he prayed to God to bless the army to launch an attack on the rear of the battery on time, at least not too late.

The first salvo was fired from more than 20 fixed gun emplacements at the Humen Fort, half of them were aimed at the large coalition warships covering behind the landing ships, while the other half were aimed at the landing boats that were weak and could not help the wind, and the first salvo caused three coalition warships to be shot, and the small boats were even more pitiful, more than a dozen landing boats were either hit or overturned by the waves caused by the huge air wave shock wave.

Seeing this, Dundas sniffled and muttered, "The bloody day has begun again, God forbid ......" (to be continued......)