The battle continued until after the sun had set, and the landing force of the Anglo-French troops had advanced only 500 meters, and after dark, the British and French troops chose to stay where they were, waiting for dawn to attack again.

In the evening, the Taiping army launched a night attack, this night attack with bayonet tactics reminded the British and French forces of the Russians in the Crimean War a few years ago, in the battle of the fortress of Sestopol, the Russian army also often launched night attacks, they took advantage of the night to rush into the coalition positions, with bayonets to kill the unprepared coalition soldiers in the trench positions. Now the Taiping army has done the same, but fortunately, the coalition forces have also been prepared, and after the two sides handed over almost the same casualty figures, the Taiping army finally retreated.

As soon as the sky dawned, Dundas and other coalition generals received the casualty figures of last night's night attack, more than 1,000 casualties, almost the same as the casualties during the day, and in just one day, nearly 3,000 soldiers of the coalition army were killed or wounded. The 60,000 soldiers of the coalition army, if this continues, will the entire coalition army have to fight out in more than 20 days?

The coalition generals stared at the map with sad faces, trying to find the weak points of the Taiping army's defenses, but before they could think of a new plan, the coalition soldiers still stormed the two batteries according to the previous plan.

The Sand Horn and Big Horn batteries finally fell after three days, and both batteries had a fatal weakness, that is, they were alone, once the logistics supply line was blocked by enemy artillery, food and ammunition could not be delivered, and the two forts had limited troops, and in the three days of fighting, the soldiers of the batteries were killed and wounded, and the ammunition was used up. When the last group of more than 100 Taiping troops launched a counter-charge against the British and French forces that were storming. Two batteries have actually fallen.

British Corporal James sat panting on the ruins of the battery, and his bodies were strewn all over the inside and outside of the battery. Looking down the hill from the fort, I saw that the coalition army's offensive route was also strewn with corpses. James was very scared. He sat there trembling, but at this moment, the whole mountain shook violently. James was taken aback, he stood up in a panic, only to see flames erupting from the vents of several batteries next to him, and Captain Link exclaimed, "Damn, these Taiping Heavenly Kingdom people have blown up all the cannons in the batteries!" ”

After three days of hard fighting, with more than 5,000 casualties, all the Allied forces got were two broken batteries. The number of enemy casualties is not clear, and the coalition forces only cleared out more than 2,000 enemy corpses and did not capture a single prisoner. But judging from the size of the enemy's forts, the two batteries were garrisoned by a maximum of 3,000 people. It was the defenders of these 3,000 people who caused 5,000 casualties to the coalition army, and this was only the first heavy fort level to attack the front line of Guangzhou, and there were dozens of forts of Humen Fort, Weiyuan Fort, Zhenyuan Fort, Jingyuan Fort, Sifang Fort, and so on.

After conquering the two batteries, the coalition forces temporarily withdrew their forces and quit the battle, and a day later, the coalition forces drew up a new battle plan. They abandoned the plan of the army to cooperate with the navy to attack Guangzhou along the Pearl River, but instead the army made a large-scale landing in the Jinzhou area after the Shajiao Fort, and then the army launched an attack on Guangzhou from the land along Baishazhai, Dongguan, Xintang and other places, and at the same time divided an army to cooperate with the navy to pin down the enemy from the Humen Fort land. If the flank and rear defenses of forts such as Humen are as tight as those of Shajiao and Dajiao forts. Then give up the attack for the time being.

Such is the difficulty in front of the coalition forces, if you attack the enemy's batteries by sea and land, then the casualties will be very large. Avoid the enemy's well-defended forts, as they will lose the cover provided by the navy. But in the end, the generals of the coalition army still chose to take a risk, what if the army could successfully reach the city of Guangzhou? Then the enemy's batteries will be useless.

So on the fifth day after the end of the Battle of Shajiao and Dajiao Forts. The coalition forces began to land in the vicinity of Jinzhou on a large scale, and 50,000 coalition soldiers were sent ashore, and then the coalition forces quickly deployed their forces and began to attack Baishazhai and Dongguan.

As expected by the generals of the coalition army, the Taiping army could not set up troops everywhere, Baishazhai, Dongguan and other places only a small number of local troops stationed, under the large-scale attack of the coalition army, these places quickly fell, local troops did not organize effective resistance, but after they were broken into pieces, they often attacked lone coalition soldiers or baggage teams, so that the British and French soldiers did not dare to act alone.

A few days later, the coalition forces set up a pontoon bridge over the Dongjiang River near Dongguan and began to move north to attack the town of Xintang, but on the north bank of the Dongjiang River, they found traces of the enemy. After the appearance of the Taiping army, the coalition army felt a little nervous, and the situation on the north bank was not clear, and then Sir Sidon sent several reconnaissance teams to the north bank of the Dongjiang River to reconnoitre.

Three of the five reconnaissance teams returned, bringing back information that at least thousands of regular Taiping troops were deployed on the north bank, and they were building positions around Xintang Town, and it seemed that the Taiping Army had sent the first army to meet them after receiving the news of the landing of the allied army troops.

Xintang Town is located on the north bank of the lower reaches of the Dongjiang River in the Pearl River Delta, adjacent to Guangzhou in the west, Xiancun Town in the east, across the river from Dongguan City in the south, and Yongning Street in the north.

When the Allied Army generals received the news, they immediately ordered their troops to speed up and cross the river, they did not want to see the enemy reinforce the fortifications before the army attacked.

The day after the reconnaissance team returned, coalition forces began to cross the river on a large scale, and three pontoon bridges were erected over the East River. When the coalition forces were building pontoon bridges, in the upper reaches of the Dongjiang River, the local troops of the Taiping Army also released dozens of floating mines down the river, intending to let the mines destroy the pontoon bridges of the coalition forces. This time, however, the Coalition forces had learned their way, ordering their soldiers to drive small boats upstream of the pontoon bridge to connect fishing nets to a long interceptor net to stop the mines that were flowing downstream.

After this move of the coalition army was discovered by the local troops of the Taiping Army, they no longer wasted their strength and mines. The coalition forces also found that there were often local civilians around the barracks, only to discover later that these civilians were here to spy on the coalition forces, resulting in the fact that once local civilians wanted to get close to the coalition camps or positions, they would be driven away by the coalition forces.

The day after the Allied forces crossed the river, the Allied Army, led by three French regiments, began to attack the town of Xintang. The Taiping army set up field fortifications here, mainly dense trenches and barbed wire. Xintang Town is located in the Pearl River Delta Plain region. Although the terrain was not conducive to defense, the Taiping army still put on a stubborn posture here.

But the Taiping Army, like all thermal weapons units, had a fatal shortcoming. That is the problem of supply, once the army is besieged and the ammunition cannot keep up, the combat effectiveness of the troops will plummet. After the Taiping army in Xintang repelled several battles of the coalition forces, the coalition forces began to surround the small town, intending to wait until the Taiping army ran out of ammunition and food to take it in one fell swoop.

During the siege of Xintang Town, the generals of the coalition army were also wondering a question, the regular army of the Taiping Army stationed in Guangzhou numbered tens of thousands, where did their main force go? Could it be that he is afraid that Guangzhou will be lost? So stand still? Once Xintang Town is besieged, it will be a place of death, and anyone with a little military common sense understands this truth, so why did the Taiping Army send more than 5,000 people here to die?

After the start of the battle in Xintang Town, the coalition generals had to start paying attention to one problem, and that was their own supply lines. From Jinzhou, Dongguan to Xintang Town, the supply line of the coalition army has been more than 80 kilometers long, which also includes the crossing of two rivers and one river, and sometimes the baggage teams transporting supplies will be attacked by the local troops of the Taiping Army, while the troops surrounding Xintang Town are very strong. But it is already showing signs of fatigue. Moreover, the coalition forces must always be on guard against the main forces of the Taiping army, that is, the longer the encirclement, the more unfavorable it will be to the coalition forces. Thereupon. Three days later, when the ammunition had been replenished, Baron Sidon finally decided to storm the town of Xintang. After quickly removing this obstacle, the coalition forces immediately attacked the outskirts of Guangzhou.

The coalition forces storming the town of Xintang began to prepare for artillery fire in the morning. Hundreds of allied army artillery shelled the town of Xintang for several hours, and almost every piece of land was cleared with artillery fire. Under these circumstances, the Coalition commanders decided that it was no longer possible for the town to be alive. But when the allied stormtroopers were hit by enemy fire, the allied commanders present were shocked. Let. Jacques. As Perissier watched the French soldiers constantly fall under the enemy's accurate fire, he couldn't help but mutter: "The era of platoon guns is over, we are faced with a new difficult problem, and the enemy's rifled muskets are on a par with the attacking troops in range and accuracy, what should we do?" The enemy was hiding in the trenches, and the charging soldiers had to face a dense barbed wire barrier, and such casualties were unacceptable. ”

And Field Marshal Seadon Baron John. Colburn felt incredulous: "Why can the enemy survive under such heavy artillery fire, is there any magic that the Chinese can't do?" He did not know that in later history, there was also a coalition commander who made such an exclamation at the Songgu Peak in North Korea, and that mountain had also been attacked by the coalition army's heavy artillery fire, but that heroic unit still dealt a fierce blow to the coalition army after the artillery fire.

The battle began again with a bloody baptism, both the coalition and the Taiping, the soldiers of both sides fought to the death inside and outside the town of less than ten square kilometers, the coalition army relied on artillery fire and numerical superiority, and the Taiping army relied on the desperate will to fight and the barbed wire fence of the trenches. In many cases, when the coalition forces broke through a position, the Taiping army would immediately organize counterattack troops to rush forward, even by fighting bayonets, to retake the position. The battle was beyond the imagination of the allied generals from the outset, and attacking the enemy's heavily defended positions was a very difficult task for any army.

But after all, the coalition forces have a huge numerical advantage, several elite troops take turns to attack, while the Taiping army only has one force, and gradually their ammunition began to run out, and the Taiping army in some places has run out of ammunition, they can only wait for the enemy to rush up and fight with the enemy bayonets.

Just as Baron Sidon said, "We will be able to annihilate the enemy tonight." "Just when he was full of ambition, the cavalry lieutenant general, Earl James of Cardigan. Thomas. Brudnell walked quickly to him and said, "The scouts have reported that tens of thousands of enemy troops have appeared in the ...... north of Dongguan" (to be continued......