The coalition army strengthened the defense that night, although Montauban thought that unless the Qing general on the opposite side was a madman, he would not order his soldiers to attack the fort that the coalition had just occupied at night after walking through several trenches and muddy roads in such a dark night, but in private Montauban still made his soldiers strengthen their guard and defense.

In the middle of the night, the Qing army really launched a tentative night attack, but it was repulsed by the French army, and after General Montauban's sweet dream was awakened, he cursed loudly that the Qing army general was really a madman! Fortunately, the Qing army saw that the enemy was prepared and quickly retreated.

After the truce in the afternoon, Montauban was ready to continue the attack, but Grant built a night's rest, and finally the French commander accepted it very unpleasantly. The allied doctors treated the wounds of some of the captured Qing soldiers who hung flowers, but the unfortunate ones were immediately removed from the bandages after receiving initial treatment.

In dealing with these captives, the generals of the coalition army were very troubled, and finally they decided to hand over the captives to the Qing allies under Rong Lu to deal with, and later the coalition forces learned that these captives were brutally cut off by their Qing allies, and then hung on the head of the military food city! Afterwards, the Allied Medic Scartano and the paramedics all protested against the atrocity, but to no avail, and the Qing allies claimed that they were carrying out the laws of their own country, and that was it!

At six o'clock the next morning, the coalition forces began preparations to attack the main battery. However, as the coalition forces approached, there was silence on the main battery. General Grant sent Pasha Li to shout with a white flag and call them to disarm and surrender.

But he only got a curse from a Qing officer: "It's just that 3 forts have fallen, and 2 are impregnable." We will defend this place as resolutely as the fort in front! ”

Grant and Collino negotiate a plan of attack. However, while Grant was mobilizing the British artillery, the French could not wait. Without preparing for artillery fire, they rushed along the river and rushed to the fort.

Delors described the assault as follows: "The French marched at a racing pace, rushing towards the battery, which could shoot them down at any moment. The Marines were the first to rush through the first trench, and the assault infantry crawled over the ladder across the trench and over the second. So they rushed to the third and final ditch. Just as they were crossing, the attackers saw the Marines' bayonets between the battlements, and it turned out that they had rushed in from the entrance to the battery facing the White River. They tried to lower the drawbridge. But the door wouldn't open. With the thick rope handed by their comrades, they quickly climbed onto the fort, only to see 4,000 Qing soldiers kneeling behind the wall begging for mercy. ”

In fact, the defenders of the main battery did not put up any resistance. All threw their guns on the ground or set them up. They were concentrated in the corner of the battery. Waiting silently, some sat on the ground and did not move, some seemed to be pleading.

This was the unexpected scene that General Collino and the Marines saw, and the British army was dumbfounded. The two commanders, Montauban and Grant, then entered the fort and asked where the leader of the Qing soldiers who had captured them was. The captives replied "I don't know". But three Qing soldiers with no obvious characteristics stepped forward to explain that their capital was the commander of Zhili, that is, the commander of Zhili, Leshan. He had been killed in the battle of the previous battery, so his subordinates lost their fighting spirit. No more fighting.

The generals guarding the main fort took the initiative to lead the main force to retreat after receiving the general order from Seng Lingqin, leaving them ready to resist. But they had lost their fighting spirit and refused to carry out the orders of the officers who remained behind to guard, and finally chose to wait for capture.

The three also said that the three forts had fallen, and any resistance was futile, which everyone knew, and that the newly arrived General Peng Yulin, the monk queen, had withdrawn, so they had sent a small number of troops to harass the coalition forces last night, and then took the initiative to retreat. They begged to be given a way to live so they could return home to farm.

Grant breathed a sigh of relief, and Montauban blushed, with General Montauban believing that it was the British conservatism that had spared the enemy, while the British were glad that the enemy had retreated and that the coalition had taken the nightmare fortress without much effort.

There were actually more than 4,000 prisoners, what should we do? To the great surprise of the prisoners of war, they were allowed to leave calmly. Colonel Durpan had denounced this leniency as a "mistake" and feared that the men would return to the army of the Monk Gelchen and encounter them in a later engagement. General Blondelle, in his official report on the "expedition" to China, affirmed this approach. "There is a real drawback to such measures taken out of humanity, which is that they will be used by the enemy again to fight us," he noted. And that's exactly what happened. However, due to the lack of food for Yanzhòng, these captives who had lost their ability to resist had no choice but to release them or kill them. ”

In the end, these captives were not freed, and at Rong Lu's strong request, they were handed over by the coalition forces to the Qing allies in the military grain city, and then Rong Lu ordered the officers to be killed, and the ordinary soldiers were forced to be incorporated into his army, so the coalition army was pleased to find that the army of their Qing allies reached more than 9,000 people.

Inside the battery, the British found some large-caliber cannons with the english "Moore-Woolwich" (Moore-Woolwich). Woolwich). Originally dropped during the defeat of the British Navy last year, these cannons were later incorporated into the British artillery.

Pashali and Rowhenry followed the orders of the British commander-in-chief, and immediately went to the last fort to negotiate with the white flag. Three officers of the French army, Major Compnon, Adjutant Ondeku and Coles, Adjutant General Colino, asked to accompany them. Once on the right bank, the coalition representatives first met a Chinese interpreter surnamed Wang. The young officer, who spoke fluent English, trained at the U.S. Mission in Shanghai and traveled to Britain and the United States. During the peace talks in 1856, he was one of the Chinese interpreters who assisted Wittoma.

Pashali knew him, but he treated him rudely and aggressively, claiming that it was better for the other party to order the surrender of the Qing army at the last fort, along with the artillery and armory, without the slightest condition, but in a commanding tone.

However, the young official was unmoved, and repeatedly demanded that the coalition forces protect the lives of the soldiers and allow the soldiers to withdraw peacefully from their positions, and so on, and the long-winded talks or secret talks took a long time, about four hours.

The two sides insisted on their own words, Pashali insisted on unconditional surrender, and the Chinese only hoped to cede their positions, and then to no avail. Despite the crushing defeat in the morning, the Chinese generals who remained at the last fort still did not give an inch. He knew very well that handing over the fort would mean losing his official position and even risking the death penalty.

And Pashali, when he said goodbye to the general, showed his negotiating skills. Pa Xiali asked the general with the rank of general if the people of the whole city had evacuated Dagu and Tanggu Town.

"No, why would they do that?" The general was a little worried.

"Oh my God!" Pashali was also surprised and said, "Tell them to flee for their lives quickly, and don't delay for a moment." Shrapnel from artillery fire will fall on that place like a storm, and no one will ever get out alive. We do not want to harm innocent residents, women and children, the elderly or the disabled. You are obliged to urge them to flee as much as possible. We are only targeting the army and officials, and we are going to eliminate them. ”

I didn't think of a few words, but it had a big effect. When the general heard this, his face changed drastically and he looked very nervous. Then, he made up his mind and said to Pashali: "All right, then please dismount!" Let's talk about it. ”

In this way, when it was dark, an agreement was reached between the last fort on the south bank and the surrender of Tanggu Town. The condition is that the people of the city are respected and their property protected. The general was also allowed to send someone to recover the bodies of the Qing army dead. After he saw Rong Lu, the general loudly scolded Rong Lu for being a traitor, and was finally ordered to be executed by Rong Lu.

Pashali was furious at this, because the general's life was also included in the agreement and was protected by the agreement, and Rong Lu did so to blatantly put him in a position of no credit, and the British, who had always valued reputation, were very dissatisfied. In the end, under mediation, Rong Lu made a public apology, but that's all.

No sooner had the military operation ended, and a terrible rainstorm slammed down on the battlefield, flooding the plains. Braving the pouring rain, the officers and men retreated with great difficulty, and walked with heavy steps on the 8-kilometer muddy road between the Tanggu camp and the Xinhe camp. They returned to the camp, all submerged in water, and it was impossible to make a fire. The soldiers didn't eat anything all day, just chewing biscuits and stuff...... A miserable night awaited them. The British artillery tried their best to pull the two siege guns back to the base, so they had to give up and lay down next to the artillery for the night.

For several days, the plain was flooded and turned into swamps. Just a few hours away, the capricious weather could change the course of this fateful day. "If the rainstorm had come a few hours earlier, it would have been difficult for our artillery to move, and it would have been impossible to capture the Dagu Battery," Du Pan believed. Elisson also pointed out: "On that day, if it had rained a few hours earlier, the expedition to China would have been defeated." "The Anglo-French forces are really lucky!

But Grant and Montauban didn't think so, they lost the opportunity to pursue the main force of the Qing army, the Qing army took the initiative to retreat because it deliberately abandoned the Dagukou fort, and the subsequent rainstorm covered their traces, where would they retreat? How will Seng Lingqin and Peng Yulin arrange the following actions? The reconnaissance team sent by the coalition army found nothing, and even the two remaining Qing army camps outside the military grain city were abandoned, and the Qing army had no news.

Rong Lu had no way to do this, for a few days, neither Hengfu nor his eyes in the court had any news coming, no news of Monk Lingqin's performance, no news from the military aircraft department, and Rong Lu had no way to judge the movements of the Qing army. Rong Lu was even more worried that the news cut off might mean that something big had happened in the capital, or that Cixi had already sensed and made up her mind to start a purge?

A few days later, Rong Lu got the news of Hengfu, he sent someone to bring a very bad news, after listening to Rong Lu's face was even more gloomy, the news was very simple, that is, the capital was under martial law...... (To be continued......)