Baodi Chengtou is undoubtedly a good place to watch from the wall, neither the British and French forces nor the Taiping army put it in their eyes, at this moment the warring sides only have the other party's living force in their eyes, the coalition army needs to step on the corpses of the Taiping soldiers to escape, and the Taiping army needs to kill as many coalition soldiers as possible, and completely defeat them to completely annihilate them. As a result, the people of Baodi, including Zhang Jinwen and others, witnessed a rare life-and-death duel.

Grant and Montauban were very surprised that a large army of the Taiping army would appear in Baodi County, could it be that Michel's feint failed to deceive the Taiping army? But this is no longer the time to regret, they must do their best to defeat the enemy in front of them and rush out, and behind them there are troops led by the King of the West in pursuit, and they may soon catch up.

Under the cover of artillery fire, the British and French troops made a desperate last effort, and more than 12,000 allied soldiers, in addition to artillery and a reserve of 2,000 men, the rest of about 8,000 people lined up in a staggered horizontal formation and began to make a group charge.

The Taiping Army's defense time was short, although the soldiers dug individual pits and connected the nearby individual pits together to form trenches, but the trenches between the front and rear could not be penetrated, that is to say, the trenches between the front and rear could not be effectively connected, and could not form an overall fortification. The barbed wire fence was also less arranged, and it was quickly destroyed by Allied artillery fire, and the Taiping did not carry much artillery, while the Anglo-French had light field guns to bombard enemy positions.

"Oh, why don't the Taiping Army have artillery? I only saw that they were bombarded with artillery by the soldiers, and the officers and soldiers had a lot of artillery. I knew that there were still twelve bronze cannons in our city, and I should have given them just now. Zhang Jinwen was worried about the Taiping Army. Wen Qianhe shook his head and said, "Dongjia, you see that the artillery of the soldiers is far away. We can't see where the artillery of the soldiers is, and our small cannons will hit at most a mile. How can you get soldiers? ”

Zhang Jinwen didn't understand military affairs, so he nodded after listening to Wen Qian's gentle words: "Yes, it's a pity, so many soldiers have to fight with artillery fire, and I don't know how many people will die." Wen Qianhe pointed out again: "Look, the Taiping army's soldiers are all hiding in the trenches, and it is difficult for the soldiers' artillery to hurt them, and they won't be killed or injured too much." "Oh, I said I would dig a pit and hide. It turns out that this is the truth, or the long-haired ghost has many ideas, no wonder he can repeatedly defeat the official army. "The proprietor is cautious, cautious and ......"

When the master and servant were talking, the artillery fire of the coalition army stopped, and the first row of horizontal infantry had already arrived at the front half of the Taiping Army's front, and no one was still silent on the Taiping Army's position to fight back, Zhang Jinwen couldn't help but get nervous: "Why didn't the Taiping Army fight back?" Their muskets are all burning sticks? Wen Qianhe said: "The owner doesn't know, this musket is still accurate within a hundred steps, and it is difficult to say a hundred steps away." The Taiping army is ready to fight again when they get closer, and the fifty muskets used by our salt ding are also used in this way. "I see."

When the coalition forces approached dozens of paces, in the last trench of the Taiping army, only several teams of Taiping troops shuttled through. Rows of wooden shelves were erected on the position, and long poles were arranged on them, and the top of the long poles was a long black iron lump. Zhang Jinwen asked puzzledly, "Mr. Wen." What is it? Rao is Wen Qian and the well-informed have never seen the Taiping Army's new Kangreve rocket, and immediately replied: "The owner." I don't know, maybe it's a firearm. ”

The voice fell. A hurried horn sounded on the Taiping army's position, and I saw the soldiers lighting the tails of those long poles, and in a few breaths, these long poles dragged the long tail flames into the air, and flew straight to the middle of the coalition army's charge, the sky was full of red ballistics, intertwined into a dense fire net over the battlefield, which was extremely spectacular. At this moment, the battlefield seems to be wearing a wide hat woven with fire, which eclipses the high rising sun.

Zhang Jinwen and Wen Qianhe and the people of Baodi also saw this terrible weapon for the first time, and they were all stunned, the explosion power of these long poles was extremely huge, and within a few zhang of earth chips were flying, human body stumps were flying all over the sky, and the soldiers were screaming, or were blown up or burned to death, and everything in the burning fire was in a semi-molten state, and the scene was like purgatory on earth.

The rocket artillery regiment of the Taiping Army concentrated on firing all the last more than 1,000 rockets, and successfully cut the British and French allied charging formation into two ends, and the British and French soldiers in front saw that the follow-up troops were bombarded, and they began to waver, and the British and French soldiers at the end were hesitant to lie on the ground and pray for God's forgiveness.

At this moment, the soldiers on the Taiping army's position began to show their heads and fight back, and the dense rain of bullets shot at the front of the British and French troops at a distance of 100 meters, and there were countless coalition soldiers who fell.

But after all, the British and French forces are also troops that have been tested by blood and fire, although the soldiers in the front line are panicked, but soon under the constraints of the officers, almost subconsciously according to the content of the usual training in response, they are two rows of horizontal formation, the first row squats, the second row stands, and then raise their guns together, under the order of the officers, they fire at the Taiping Army together, and then collect the guns and reload, then raise the guns to aim, fire again, and so on and so on.

Although in the process of the coalition soldiers returning fire, some soldiers were constantly hit and fell to the ground, but the other soldiers were unmoved, still doing their own movements mechanically, maybe they were numb in the face of death, or maybe this is the iron discipline, which is even more crazy than their queue shooting tactics.

The forward forces of the Taiping army gradually could not suppress this group salvo tactic of the coalition army, they were free fire, and could not create the group momentum of the coalition army's salvo, although they killed more enemies, but the coalition army had an advantage in the scene.

The smoke of gunfire became more intense, almost impossible to see, the accuracy of both sides began to drop, the officers of the coalition forces gave the decisive command to charge, the shining bayonets shone brightly, and the shouts of the soldiers heralded the beginning of a brutal hand-to-hand combat.

Seeing that the coalition forces began to charge and prepare for hand-to-hand combat, the Taiping officers at the front raised red flags and ordered the soldiers at the front to retreat decisively, while the Taiping soldiers on the second line put on their bayonets and began to rush forward. This is a tactic arranged by Li Xiucheng, because the Taiping army came from afar, and the soldiers dug trenches non-stop, and the body was a problem, so he arranged for the Taiping army on the front line to grit their teeth and fight with the enemy first, and the soldiers in the back rows rested in the trenches, so the soldiers who rushed up at this time were the soldiers who had passed through a short period of body.

When the first row of Taiping soldiers ran back to the second trench, the coalition soldiers and the second row of charging Taiping soldiers collided fiercely, both sides were fighting with bayonets, only paying attention to physique, skill and courage, shouting, hysterical screams resounded over the battlefield in an instant.

Blood is flying all over the sky, wailing is endless, when witnessing the tragic battlefield scene, Zhang Jinwen couldn't help but bend down and vomit heavily, he has eaten most of his life, he didn't expect that a person could kill another person so cruelly, and this is not two people fighting, but hundreds of people are fighting, the smell of blood is so strong that it can be smelled in Baodi City, so Zhang Jinwen vomited like many Baodi people who watched the battle in the city, most of them may never forget this scene for the rest of their lives.

Li Xiucheng, who was in command in the trench behind the Taiping army, calmly watched this qiē, he was a general who came out of the sea of blood in the corpse mountain, and he was also used to seeing the cruelty of this qiē, and soon he raised the red flag and ordered the cavalry hidden under the city of Baodi to attack.

On the coalition side, Grant also had to send his last remaining cavalry into the battle, and he needed cavalry to detour the enemy's flank and create conditions for the infantry to crush the ground in front of him. At this time, the cavalry of the coalition army concentrated the last dragoons of Major General Michel's department, together with the surviving coalition cavalry on the battlefield of Tongzhou, to form the last coalition cavalry, among them the dragoons as the main force, flanks were a small number of surviving Indian cavalry, Sikh cavalry and North African cavalry, and all the cavalry Grant who could still fight on horseback were sent out, numbering more than 1,000 people. The last reserves were also ready to go, waiting for the cavalry in front to tear the gaps, and the infantry reserves to attack.

The cavalry on the side of the Taiping Army was more than 1,000 guards cavalry led by Song Feng and also mounted their horses to attack, and their targets were also the enemy's two wings, and the tactics of the two sides were the same, so the cavalry on both sides invariably attacked together again.

Major Van Na led the last of the British dragoons to charge in the front line, the cavalry scimitar in his hand shining brightly, Major Van Na saw the cavalry rushing from the opposite side, the red suit and the annoying helmet let him know that he was facing the elite cavalry of the enemy who had fought in front of him. Major Fanner raised his sword under the banner and shouted: "It's the enemy's feathered cavalry, rush up and kill them!" "The dragoons roared, their blood and glory were stirred up at this moment, and they wanted to defend the glory of the dragoons with their blood and lives, even if it was a final elegy, to impress the enemy.

The cavalry of the Taiping Army is still a usual tactic, their horse rifles shoot bullets quickly at a long distance, after a bullet tube is finished, quickly take out a pistol and a sabre, this is their housekeeping skill, the right hand sabre, the left hand holds the revolver, wielding the saber at the same time, the revolver can give the enemy enough pressure and damage at close range. Although many of the coalition cavalry were armed with pistols, they were not very many, and they suffered a lot in firepower at close range.

Major Fanner's horse was hit by a bullet, he fell on the way to charge, he hid on the side of the horse's corpse, fortunately dodged the trampling of the horse's hooves, but when the cavalry rushed over, he stood up and saw that the flag of the dragoons had been ruthlessly cut down, and with the wind blowing to the ground, Major Fanner sat on the ground and never got up again, until he became a prisoner of the enemy...... (To be continued......)