Although the journey from Tongzhou to Beijing was short, the road was complicated, there were bushes everywhere, and it was easy to get lost, and the same was true for the retreat from Tongzhou to the North Canal to Tianjin, so the retreating coalition army marched slowly and encountered considerable difficulties.

The French army decided to stop at a village where the famous glazed tiles were fired, and there were about 10 brick kilns that supplied the capital with bricks and tiles for building houses. It is said that these brick factories belonged to the imperial court. General Montauban ordered the remains of the soldiers snatched from the French generals to be cremated intensively, preparing to bring their ashes back to the mainland for burial, which was considered an explanation for their families, while more French corpses were abandoned on the battlefield in Pony Bridge Town, and there was no time to collect them.

From the top of the brick kiln, you can also see the capital in the distance, which is an endless plain, so you can vaguely see the destination of their expedition. Everyone rushed up to watch, maybe it was just to watch, that mysterious country is so far away!

Montauban and Grant ascended the spiral ladder to the top of the tallest brick kiln together, and admired the towers of Beijing and the peculiar Chinese gabled roofs, and for a long time no one spoke, and finally Montauban broke the silence.

"James, what the hell do you think we're here for? We were left behind by Ronglu's rebels, and we lost the opportunity to enter the capital to control the political situation in northern China, and to go to war with our former best friends in the Far East. "Grant's full name is James. Hope. Grant Montauban would only call him James in private.

Grant also looked worried, after Rong Lu and Mianyu's rebels left some old and sick people to deceive the coalition army. They led the remaining more than 30,000 soldiers and horses to retreat to Tianjin not to the southeast, but to the northeast to Jizhou, and the cunning Rong Lu may have understood. The Taiping army had to completely wipe out this Anglo-French coalition army, and there would be no other end than annihilation with the Anglo-French coalition army. So this cunning Oriental parted ways with the coalition forces early, not giving the coalition forces any chance to use them at all.

"I don't know, the combat effectiveness of the Taiping army is not under our coalition army, they attacked Tianjin and Hexi Town, the purpose is to annihilate all the troops we landed, so that the king of the Taiping army has a bargaining chip with the British and French governments." Grant sighed lightly and said, "Maybe we entered this Chinese civil war at the wrong time, in the wrong place, and at the wrong opportunity. We are not getting any benefit from this, but it will affect our expansion strategy in the Far East. ”

At this time Sir Elgin also came here, and he was panting. He looked very depressed, "Generals, your remarks have completely lost our last hope, and the most pessimistic remarks I have heard are actually from our generals. ”

Grant glanced at the politician with some disgust. One of the biggest mistakes of the coalition was when the military objectives were not yet achieved. He was busy trying to solve the problem by political means, which can be seen in the waste of time in Tongzhou, and if it weren't for Ergin's repeated refusal of Prince Gong's peace conditions and refusal to give up Ronglu's despicable rebel army, the coalition forces might not have been as passive as they are now.

Montauban said unceremoniously: "Sir Ergin, according to the current situation, it is very likely that we will be completely annihilated, which represents a complete mistake in our China policy." Before the expedition, we were not able to thoroughly assess the strength of the Taiping army. This was a fatal mistake. ”

Sir Ergin wiped his glasses and said: "It's too late to say anything, the parliament and the prime minister don't want to see a strong and unified country appear in the Far East, so it is necessary to intervene, but it's a pity that the forces we sent to the Far East are too weak." At this point he paused and continued: "Generals, don't we even have the slightest chance?" ”

Grant smiled bitterly, and finally said: "Maybe we should wait for the news of Major General Michel, if we really can't break through Hexiwu Town and reoccupy Tianjin, then we can only disperse and break through, try to break through to the sea, and our powerful navy will try to withdraw the soldiers on land as much as possible, and then we will go south to threaten the Jiangnan hinterland of the Taiping army." It is only by relying on the Navy that we can reverse the passive situation. ”

Before the words fell, gunfire rang out not far away, followed by an officer shouting under the brick tower: "The rearguard troops and the Taiping army have exchanged fire, and the enemy has caught up." ”

Grant tidied up his attire and said in a deep voice, "Gentlemen, we should go, let's talk to Major General Michelle before we talk about anything else." ”

As the coalition forces continued to march towards the town of Hexiwu, the soldiers were demoralized, and they came lightly, having looted a lot in Tongzhou, but overnight they had to abandon the spoils that might slow down their journey, and retreated in a hurry with only ammunition and food. The Nanyang and Indian coolies they brought with them began to flee on a large scale, many of them surrendered to the Taiping army, and some were killed on the spot by the angry local civilians. These people were more ruthless than the soldiers in the process of robbery in peacetime, so they were regarded as enemies by the people in the Jintang area, and the lonely coolies were basically not all left. Without the support of foreign masters, they can only have such an end.

It was almost more than twenty miles from Tongzhou to Hexiwu Town, and after five hours of marching, the coalition forces barely reached here, and they were greeted by Major General Michel and General Collino looking very depressed. Grant and Montauban hurriedly convened a military meeting and inquired about the current state of the war in Hexi.

Since yesterday, Major General Michel's 8,000 allied troops have been continuously attacking the outlying positions of Hexi Wu Town, but the Taiping army has been defending very tightly, and the defense system of barbed wire, trenches and dense rifles and artillery has become a nightmare for the allied army's attack. On the position of the Taiping army, the two sides repeatedly fought for it, but the enemy was very tenacious, and the casualties were replaced by a batch, and the coalition army attacked more than ten times, and several times occupied most of the positions, but soon the Taiping army sent death squads to recapture the position. On the outskirts of the small town of Hexi, the two sides left a total of more than 3,000 corpses. In the end, the coalition forces had to suspend the attack because of the huge losses.

The water battle on the canal was also very fierce, although the four gunboats rushed back from Tongzhou by the coalition forces sank the gunboats captured by the Taiping army in one fell swoop, but the four gunboats of the coalition army were also injured lightly, and then because of the grounding, they were completely sunk by the death squad sent by the Taiping army to install explosives from underwater last night. This meant that the Allied forces lost the possibility of retreating from the canal waterway, and according to the reconnaissance, the Taiping Army began to scuttle the Allied army's grain ships to block the river channel in the canal near Tianjin, and also prevented the Allied Navy from sending ships to break into the inland river to rescue the Allied forces.

Due to the Taiping army's ambush sentry and cavalry searching for and killing the heralds of the coalition army, Major Admiral Michel did not receive any news from the Tanggukou Navy, but Rear Admiral Michel firmly believed that the intelligence navy of the fall of Tianjin must have known about it, and was organizing reinforcements to come to respond.

After listening to Major General Michel's introduction, Grant and Montauban discussed for a while, and Grant said in a deep voice: "Gentlemen, our current situation is very dangerous, we still have more than 15,000 soldiers on land, I hope to bring them back to the south to continue fighting against the Taiping army, so we must be ready to retreat, we can no longer return to Tianjin from Hexi Wuzhen and then retreat back to the sea from Tianjin, because there are layers of fortifications made by the enemy, and we need to consider another route of retreat." Do you have any comments from the gentlemen? ”

Major General Michel said: "But Your Excellency, we are now running out of ammunition, and if we encounter the enemy again on the way back, after one or two battles, our soldiers will face a shortage of ammunition, and there is also a food problem, and the dry rations we carry with us are only five days......

Grant interrupted him and said, "As long as we can get back to the ship, it won't be a problem, and if we continue to stay and attack the target that cannot be captured in a short time, that is to trap the troops to death." ”

General Colino said: "Since the direction of Tianjin is impassable, there are still two ways to consider, one is to continue southeast from the direction of Jinghai to bypass Tianjin, and return to the Tanggu area that we still control to board the ship. This road is a little closer, but there are many Taiping troops here, and it is difficult to break through. The other way is to take the road of the Taiping army, from Yutian, Qian'an, Luanzhou to Shanhaiguan to board the ship, the disadvantage of this road is that it is far, almost more than 140 kilometers away, and it may also be pursued by the Taiping army on the way. Moreover, to retreat to Shanhaiguan, we must send people to the navy in Tanggu to know the retreat route, so that they can prepare to meet us at Shanhaiguan in advance. ”

Grant and Montauban looked at the map for a long time, the large area of mud swamp wetlands south of Tanggu was not suitable for a large army to board and retreat, otherwise the coalition forces would not have attacked Tanggu several times at that time, and the route on the Shanhaiguan side was indeed too far, unless the Taiping army did not expect that the coalition army would retreat to this side, otherwise on the way to retreat, the plain terrain of Pingchuan would make the coalition army suffer heavy losses.

After a moment of silence, Grant and Montauban glanced at each other, and both of them decided, Grant said: "We are retreating to Shanhaiguan, but we need a force as a feint force to break through in the direction of Jinghai, attract the attention of the enemy, and protect the safe retreat of the large army from Shanhaiguan." Finally, Grant said bitterly, "I need volunteers......"

For a while, there was silence in the tent of the coalition high command, and finally Major General Michel bravely stood up and said loudly: "I am willing to lead the troops to break through to the south as a feint." ”

Major General Michael is a very simple soldier, brave in battle, Grant is a little reluctant, but at this time he can't care so much, finally Grande nodded and said: "Go down and select volunteers, the heavy artillery that is difficult to transfer in the coalition forces will also be handed over to you for command." Montauban seemed unwilling to be a martyr for the British alone, he said: "You can choose any volunteers from the French army, the navy will still wait for you in Tanggu, if it is really difficult to break through, after completing the mission, surrender to the Taiping army......" (to be continued......