"The siege began, the Taiping army launched another shameless surprise attack, it can be seen that they have been preparing for a long time, I don't know what to do, the time when the pearl of Nebuchu will fall may be tomorrow, the terrible and evil totem on their banner is the mythical beast of this ancient national legend - the dragon, in my opinion, this totem is so hideous, we are hiding everywhere under the enemy's artillery fire, I can only pray to God to let the cold come soon." - Sergeyev, "Memoirs of the War in the Far East"

On the Taiping Army's position on the periphery of Nebuchu, Liu Mingchuan looked at the Manchu general Tepuqin beside him and said, "General Zhang, the enemy's 30,000 cavalry reinforcements have been annihilated, what do you think should happen next?" ”

Tepuqin's original name was Puxi, the word Baixi, Ren'an, surnamed Zhang, the Han army inlaid with red flags, born in Shengjing, his ancestors were the earliest Han people who surrendered to the Manchu Qing Dynasty at the end of the Ming Dynasty, and later was compiled as the Han Army Banner is an authentic Northeast native. This person only took over as the general of Heilongjiang this year, and only temporarily replaced the sick Yishan, not yet the actual military position, but after taking office, he actively guarded against the invasion of the Russians, and later after the Qing court's surrender edict spread to the northeast, he led the army and people under his jurisdiction to surrender to the Taiping army.

After the surrender of Tepuqin, in accordance with the national general order of the Taiping Army, he restored his Han surname and changed his name back to Puxi, becoming the first batch of Manchu generals who were still fighting for the Taiping Army on the front line.

Historically, after Tepchin took over as the general of Heilongjiang, the Russians had already occupied a large area of land outside the Guanwai, and he was ordered to prevent the Tsarist Russia from invading again in times of crisis. He has taken two major measures: First, he has trained his troops. He incorporated the Oroqen people of the Kumar Five Roads into the Jiangyou regiment and added Taika along the river. patrol and watch, vigilant against the enemy; He also selected soldiers from Butha and Morgen and trained them diligently; From Qiqihar, Hulan and other four cities, the preferred flag was moved to Heilongjiang City (i.e., Aihui) to respond to each other. Second, in order to solve the problem of food and salary for officers and soldiers, in response to the Qing Dynasty government's policy of banning the northeast, he put forward the idea of banning the recruitment of people to reclaim the famine, and on July 21, the tenth year of Xianfeng, he went to the imperial court to request the opening of the Hulan Mongol Mountain (in present-day Mulan County) area. Recruit people to reclaim the famine, and get the permission of the Qing court, thus changing the Qing court's ban policy in Heilongjiang for more than 100 years, "great achievements in Jiang Province". The immigration of Shibian improved Heilongjiang's financial situation, and at the same time played an important role in resisting the encroachment of Tsarist Russia on Heilongjiang.

After joining the Taiping Army in this time and space, he was very active in the Northeast Army to dispatch superior forces to attack Tsarist Russia. After listening to Liu Mingchuan's words, Zhang Puxi (later changed to Han name writing) pondered for a moment and said: "The largest reinforcement of the Rakshasa people has been annihilated, and it is impossible for other soldiers and horses of the Rakshasa people to come to help, so we will besiege the city and wait for the strategy of annihilating the enemy's reinforcements." There is little hope of success again, and seeing that the weather is approaching, I think Nebuchu should overcome it as soon as possible in the near future. So that our army in the field can spend the winter in the city. ”

Liu Mingchuan nodded and said, "Tan Shuai also means this, he is leading the soldiers and horses to Chita. The strength of the Russians on the Chita side was also very empty after the 30,000-strong cavalry was annihilated. Tan Shuai wanted to lead his troops and horses to capture Chita and spend the winter in Chita. After we had our side conquer Nebuchu as soon as possible, he would lead the army into the city for the winter, so as not to be caught off guard when the severe cold came. ”

Zhang Puxi said: "That's right, then I'll let the generals of all ministries come to discuss and formulate a plan to attack Nebuchu." After that, Zhang Puxi ordered the heralds to go and notify the generals of the various departments to come to the headquarters for a meeting.

Taking advantage of the fact that the generals had not yet arrived, Zhang Puxi looked at the soldiers who were still cleaning the battlefield after last night's battle not far away, and the hunting Taiping Heavenly Kingdom national flag with a red background and a golden dragon flag was waving in the wind, and said with emotion: "I can't imagine that we used to be as afraid as tigers, and now it seems that the people are also vulnerable." ”

Liu Mingchuan said with a smile: "Yiren is not three-headed and six-armed, just like us, there is only one guy who eats." He paused and said, "Now that the ammunition of the troops has been consumed forty percent, I want the first regiment to test the city of Nebuchu, and the second regiment to attack the dock outside the city of Nebuchu." Previously, I thought about not surrounding the enemy to death, so that the enemy still felt that Nebuchu City could still hold on, so he didn't capture the dock, and now it seems that there is no need to leave this dock. ”

Zhang Puxi snorted and said, "The dock outside Nebuchu City should be easy to build, so that the enemy in the city will not be able to support the escape from the pier by boat after seeing the siege begins." ”

After the two agreed, the generals of the various armies had also arrived, and now there were more than 10,000 regular troops of the Taiping Army in the outer cities of the city, plus more than 13,000 Korean and Japanese soldiers and horses in the servants, and more than 18,000 civilians accompanying the army. After seeing the arrival of the generals of each army, Liu Mingchuan issued an order, the soldiers of the second regiment first hit the pier outside the city of Nebuchu, and the first regiment and the third regiment attacked the city of Nebuchu from the north and south, and the Korean and Japanese legions were responsible for the west, leaving the east, which was the tactics of encircling three and missing one, but a huge pocket was arranged on the east side of Nebuchu, waiting for the enemy to break through and annihilate it.

There are still more than 1,500 Russian garrisons on the pier of Nebuchu City, and the Taiping army has not attacked the city for more than ten days, because its precautions have been slightly relaxed. Early that morning, the Taiping troops suddenly launched a surprise attack on the pier, and after a burst of artillery fire, the soldiers of the 2nd Regiment successfully entered the pier.

There were basically no strong fortifications on the dock, and after the infantry broke in, they fought with the enemy for more than an hour, and basically cleared the Russian garrison at the dock. The three small Russian gunboats docked at the pier fled in panic and prepared to sail to the Heilongjiang River, but were soon destroyed in the river by the intensive artillery fire of the Taiping Army on land.

In several warehouses on the wharf, there were mountains of food and ammunition, which made the second regiment commander very happy, it seems that after the siege began, the Russians were afraid that the transportation channel would be blocked by the Taiping army's artillery, so they did not transport the supplies into the city, in fact, they did not have this opportunity.

By evening, the infantry regiments were ready to attack the city, but in the afternoon, the Russians launched another counterattack out of the city, and under the same fire of the Taiping army's field fortifications, guns and bayonets, the Russians left more than 200 corpses and retreated to the city of Nebuchu. I don't dare to get up again.

Although the city of Nebuchu was a city, it had been built as an important military fortress. Therefore, the defense system of the fortress is still very complete, and it is necessary to conquer such a strong fortress. The Taiping army was still preparing to launch siege warfare at night.

After the armies had eaten dinner on the starting position, night fell early, and at about 8 o'clock in the evening, more than 100 artillery pieces of various types of artillery of the artillery regiment began to spit angry flames towards the city of Nebuchu on time. After many days of siege, the Taiping artillery had basically figured out the visible fortifications of Nebuchu City and fired according to the pre-set coordinates. The Russian soldiers and civilians in the city complained bitterly, they never found the accurate location of the Taiping army's artillery position, so they fired back. The shells could not hit people, but exposed the position of the artillery, and were cleared by the Taiping artillery in a dense rain of bullets.

In the midst of the commotion, Sergeyev shouted loudly and ordered his infantry to be ready for battle, and after the shelling, the Taiping army would definitely send infantry to attack, and he originally had more than 14,000 infantry in his hands, of which there were only more than 5,000 regular troops, and the rest were temporarily armed exiles, criminals and outlaws. More than 1,500 of them stood guard on the pier. Judging from the smoke of gunpowder and the shouts of killing coming from the direction of the dock this morning, the more than 1,500 people at the pier have finished up. Last night and afternoon, more than 3,000 people were killed or wounded in the counterattack out of the city, and there were less than 9,000 people left in the city. The forces are starting to stretch out.

Sergeyev knew that the other party's firearms were fierce, and originally thought that after night fell last night, he would go out of the city and attack the Taiping army at night. Relying on the fierce stabbing skills of the Russian soldiers, they used the darkness to offset the advantage of the opponent's firearms. Give the enemy a major blow. But I didn't expect that in the night attack last night, the Russians were repelled by the enemy in the way they are best at - bayonet charge. It seems that the enemy is equally familiar with night battles and bayonet battles.

After the shelling, Sergeyev found that the firing points of the Russian army in the Nebuchu fortress were basically destroyed, and all kinds of fortifications were also badly damaged. After fifty minutes of artillery preparation, the Taiping artillery began to fire indiscriminately into the city of Nebuchu, because the Taiping army knew that there would be no Chinese civilians in the Russian stronghold and fortress, because they were all killed by the Russians.

At this moment, the Taiping soldiers in the trench of the starting position had already been prepared, and in the loud trumpet of the charge, thousands of Taiping infantry shouted loudly, forming a scattered line and quickly charging towards Nebuchu City.

The sky above the city of Nebuchu was filled with thick smoke, and the baptism of blood and fire made this ancient city accept the pain before the phoenix's nirvana. The artillery fire was well prepared, and the dilapidated brick and wood walls did not stop the footsteps of the Taiping soldiers too much, and half an hour after the attack, the huge red background gold dragon flag had been planted at the head of the city of Nebuchu.

Thousands of Russian soldiers wielding bayonets and Taiping soldiers engaged in street battles on various streets, this time after a short exchange of fire, the Russian soldiers were finally able to fight the enemy hand-to-hand, but they did not use heroic bayonets to defeat the enemy as they imagined. The Taiping soldiers were more skilled in stabbing skills, they worked in groups of three, back to back to defend each other, and the three Taiping soldiers were able to kill seven or eight Russian soldiers, and most of the scattered Russian soldiers fell under the guns of the Taiping soldiers.

After two hours of fighting, a group of enemies broke through to the east, but was ambushed by a pre-arranged pocket array outside the city, where more than 3,000 Russian soldiers fell, and then the Taiping troops from the east took advantage of the situation to rush into the city and join in the battle to clear the remaining enemy in the city.

After a night of fierce fighting, the remaining more than 1,000 Russian soldiers were surrounded in the square of the city hall of Nebuchu, Sergeyev found himself surrounded, his soldiers were desperate but expectant to look at themselves, and finally Sergeyev made the decision to surrender with difficulty, so at dawn, the last thousand Russian troops in the city surrendered in the city hall.

After clearing the remnants of the enemy in the city, after a simple ceremony to enter the city, Liu Mingchuan and others got an exciting news, a large number of silver ingots were found in the warehouse in the city of Nebuchu, which made several Taiping army leaders overjoyed, and hurriedly went to the warehouse with a pile of silver ingots to see, only to see that this warehouse is located in the basement of the backyard of the Nebuchu City Hall, and the whole room is full of huge silver ingots, each silver ingot is full of fifty taels, and there are tens of thousands of silver ingots here, which makes several people stunned. Liu Mingchuan hurriedly ordered to send heavy troops to guard it, and at the same time sent the news to Tan Shaoguang and Beijing along with the news of the capture of Nebuchu City. (To be continued......)