The bloody and brutal battle did not stop, and the closer you got to the ancient capital of the empire, the more fierce this resistance became, and the Qing army in the Battle of Bali Bridge fell into a frantic rhythm from the beginning. At the beginning of the campaign, on this white marble bridge stood a particularly tall Tatar soldier, presumably the standard-bearer of the banner of Monk Grinqin. He held high the apricot yellow banner with black letters written on it, and kept signaling in all directions. Obviously, all the generals are watching the handsome banner of General Monk Greenqin all the time, because the handsome flag transmits orders to the whole army.

When the army was already in full retreat, when the battlefield and the bridgeheads guarded by elite divisions were strewn with corpses, this Tatar soldier was still standing, always alone, still conveying the last order of the commander-in-chief. He didn't move as bullets whizzed past him, shells rumbled around him. His courage is so noble to us. Even Montauban couldn't help but exclaim: "Ah! What a hero! I wish I hadn't beaten him. Why didn't the hell leave with the others? Get him out of here! Several soldiers rushed forward and tried to capture him. Just then, a burst of gunfire rang out, hitting him, knocking him down, destroying him. And the flag flew away, and disappeared with his twitching arm that was clutching the flagpole.

The fall of Shuai Qi seemed to be an incomparable blow to the morale of the Qing army, and the Bali Bridge also fell into the hands of the coalition army, and the rest of the matter was already very simple, but soon the generals of the coalition army found that things did not go in a simple direction. As the Yellow Dragon Banner appeared in the Qing army camp behind the bridge, the already depressed Qing army seemed to be injected with some mysterious power. The morale rose sharply again, and the bridgehead of General Colino and others, who had crossed the bridge, suddenly felt unusually great pressure.

The stragglers of the Qing army were organized, and the cavalry of the Qing army began to fight under the banner of unity again. The scattered rangers began to storm General Colino's bridgehead line again, this time the attack was different, the Qing cavalry was scattered and did not concentrate on a dense attack.

They swarmed like bees, but kept their distance, and rushed in dense enough to take advantage of the sea of people, and General Collino shouted loudly and ordered his soldiers to return fire. But there are always a few fish that slip through the net and rush in front of you, and in the past, coalition soldiers would easily take out these individual soldiers at close range with bayonets and guns, but this time it was different.

The corpses that fell from their horses were wrapped in gunpowder bags. The light of the fire above is a sign of death, oh my God, these Qing cavalry actually wrapped explosives around themselves!

Several loud noises were accompanied by explosions of fire and air waves, and the Qing cavalry that rushed close to the coalition front inflicted losses on the coalition forces. With the chaos that the explosion brings. More Qing cavalry still launched a suicidal charge without fear of death, and this time their charge was very effective!

General Colino had to order a retreat across the Bali Bridge, he didn't want to be blown up by a group of madmen, General Montauban understood this retreat, after retreating across the bridge, the Qing cavalry would not be able to launch a loose formation attack, and the guns and shells of the allied soldiers would be more likely to hit the target.

As a result, the Bali Bridge only belonged to the coalition forces for less than an hour before it became Qing again, and the coalition troops retreated about seven or eight hundred meters before establishing a stable firing line. As a result, the white marble bridge was full of stone chips, and the Qing cavalry could not pass through the narrow bridge deck to continue the pursuit. After losing dozens of cavalry on the bridge deck, the Qing cavalry retreated.

On the way back, people fell from their horses from time to time, and from time to time the gunpowder bags on their bodies were detonated by coalition shells.

After repelling the coalition forces, there were huge cheers from the Qing camp, and they were indeed worthy of cheering, for this was the first time they had repelled the coalition forces in a frontal field encounter. General Montauban was not discouraged, and he ordered the artillery and infantry to continue to press steadily upward, to establish a line across the canal and the bridge on the bank, and to prepare the tools and materials for the pontoon bridge, and to cross the river in the midst of the battle.

It was noon, and the battle lasted for more than five hours from 7 o'clock in the morning, and the two sides were stable on both sides of the canal, and after the Qing army drove the coalition forces back to the other side of the canal, they began to consolidate their camp on the riverbank.

They are digging trenches on the ground like gophers, and the so-called royal guards of the Qing Empire have no knightly style, they will only hide behind to dig trenches and build camps, Wu Shili complained about why the Qing army didn't come up to fight a battle in a dignified manner, but Rong Lu said to himself: "This is their experience in fighting with the Taiping army, the front team resists, and the rear team builds a base, it seems that Peng Yulin has woken up, and I don't know who commanded the firearms battalion to reinforce Seng Lingqin." ”

Because of the transportation of shells, Montauban and Grant had to order a reduction in the density of artillery fire, at least before the rear shells were transported to the front line, they had to have the artillery prepare a few basic numbers of shells, just in case, they did not want the artillery to run out of shells when the Qing army suddenly went crazy and stormed the other side of the canal.

After the allied artillery was sparse, the Qing army organized their defense system more cheerfully, and there was no danger on the plain, so they had to increase the trenches to form a defensive position. The coalition also needed sappers to erect a few more pontoon bridges to increase the speed of their projection of troops, so that they could gain a foothold on the other side after crossing the canal and then form a complete blocking front.

In this way, both sides were engaged in engineering operations, and the rest of the soldiers were resting, and after two hours, the coalition troops began to prepare to cross the river, and the French engineers were very efficient, they built five pontoon bridges over the canal, and the Qing army rangers on the opposite bank tried to come up and destroy them several times, but were repelled by the allied shooters on the opposite bank. The coalition forces relied on accurate rifled guns to control a range of 500 meters, and the Qing troops entering this area would be fired at by the coalition shooters, and there were enough shooters on the shore to calmly hit the enemy who tried to attack on the opposite bank, ensuring the operation of the engineers.

As General Collino organized his soldiers, several sharp shells whistled over their heads, landing exactly behind, and several shells exploded in the middle of General Ranman's artillery squad.

Three Armstrong cannons were blown up, and the young artillery captain Brabazon and a dozen artillery and coolies were killed on the spot. The British army was shocked, the French army was dumbfounded, for a long time, the Qing army's clumsy appearance of artillery made the coalition army begin to forget the fact that the Qing army also had artillery, it seems that after the fall of Dagukou, the coalition army no longer regarded the Qing artillery as a threat, and now they have suffered, because the reinforcements coming from the other side are the guards of the Qing emperor, they also have artillery and artillery, and they are also the artillery purchased from the foreign powers at a high price, and their gunners are skillful in operation, and they also know how to hit the target!

The death of Artillery Captain Brabazon made General Montauban regretful, and he still remembered the heroic appearance of this young man when he was performing artillery exercises in Weihaiwei, which was a pity. For the first time, General Montauban felt a hint of hesitation, how many more young men would he take back to France when the war was over?

General Grant's eyes cracked, and General Ran Man roared loudly, like a bull: "Hurry up and shift your position, the damned Qing people are already aiming at us!" "It's no wonder that the British are arrogant and arrogant, after the emperor's army reinforced the Qing army of the Seng Lingqin Division, they have not fired artillery, they have been holding back, allowing the coalition artillery to bombard themselves with a single shot, and only after the location of the coalition artillery position is roughly calculated, they began to attack.

After the war, the generals of the coalition army figured out that the soldiers reinforced by the Qing army were cavalry and infantry first, and the few artillery soldiers followed the troops to the front line for ranging observation, and the artillery team arrived at the battlefield two hours later.

The other artillery units of the coalition army began to return fire, and at the same time they were also attacked by several shells, the Qing army general who commanded the Qing artillery on the opposite side was very cunning, he seemed to divide the Qing artillery positions very scattered, there seemed to be only a few guns in each direction, the suppression of other artillery positions of the coalition army was never completely effective, after several rounds of artillery battles, the Qing army still had shells that did not come to the coalition front.

The fierce artillery battle lasted until five o'clock in the afternoon, because of the relationship between the Qing artillery, the coalition army did not dare to launch infantry to attack the opposite bank, Montauban believed that there must be Qing artillery aimed at a few pontoon bridges, and his intuition told him that the Qing commander on the opposite bank waited for the coalition infantry to swarm across the river, and then he would calmly order to blow up a few pontoon bridges, and then the next thing was to besiege the infantry who crossed the river, which was a very dangerous thing!

Moreover, it was getting late, and Grant did not want the allied soldiers to camp overnight on the other side of the dangerous canal without achieving absolute superiority, so the allied and Qing troops were deadlocked on both sides of the Bali Bridge and the canal, and they faced each other like this, the artillery was still fighting, and the infantry began to rest.

After nightfall, the coalition forces implemented the control of lights for the first time, and the Qing troops on the other side did not raise fires, and the commanders on both sides were very cautious, and Rong Lu understood this. Peng Yulin was a general who had many years of experience in fighting with the Taiping army in the south, and he knew that raising fire at night would give the artillery a direct target, and he believed that he must have suffered from the Taiping army's night shelling many times in the past.

Grant and Montauban sat very dullly in the tent, and at this moment, the rear convoy arrived, carrying a lot of guns, shells, food, medicine, and other supplies, and the bodies of the wounded and dead soldiers were sent back to Tianjin with the convoy, and the naval liaison officer who arrived in Tianjin at noon was followed by the convoy.

The naval liaison officer brought very bad news to the two commanders of the coalition forces: the Taiping troops stationed in Dalian Bay had left the port five days earlier, and hundreds of ships had sailed in the direction of Shanhaiguan and Jinzhou, north of Jintang...... (To be continued......)