"You don't trust the information of the Chinese prince at all, do you?" said Pu Dingcha helplessly.

The British army in Guangdong had a very strange theory, that is, that the so-called contradiction between the Chinese government army and the Chinese rebels was actually faked and deliberately played for the British army.

More radical even believe that the Chinese government army's various methods are to trick the British army into fighting together, and then counterattack at a critical moment, inflicting indelible losses on the British army.

However, this statement is too bizarre to be accepted by the British troops heading north, and even the well-informed Governor Pudingcha cannot be recognized, and can only be regarded as a suspicious ghost after the remaining army has suffered huge casualties.

To be honest, Pu Ding Cha did not believe that anyone could be so deliberately plotting against the British, especially after the Chinese prince had just proved the Chinese government's eagerness to destroy the rebels with huge and stupid casualties.

"I understand your concerns, Your Excellency, but until then, let's do our part. Pu Dingcha can only use his duties to oppress this disobedient subordinate.

"I will fulfill my obligations, but I reserve my opinion. John replied after thinking for a long time, and at the same time sighed deeply, as if he was not optimistic about the progress of this battle.

The Bullpen Gang position is certainly very strong, but if you look at the position as an invisible castle, it is not completely unthinkable to really fight.

According to the European method of warfare, when encountering a strong fortress castle, the first thing is to block the transportation channels of materials and personnel from all directions, then drain the water of the moat, and then dig the trench to advance little by little, and when the trench is close enough to the city wall, send artillery to push the cannon into the trench, and then fire cannonballs at the city wall to suppress and destroy the defenders' artillery, and then destroy the city wall with solid cannonballs, and finally send infantry to attack it.

This complex and effective set of tactics was quite popular in Europe, after the power of artillery continued to increase, and the weight of cannonballs evolved to 30-pounder guns and 68-pounder guns, almost no city walls could withstand the baptism of cannonballs, and finally directly led to the decline of the castle era, making field warfare based on queuing and shooting tactics become the mainstream of warfare.

Although the trench tactics of the defenders of Sanyuanli are very novel, as long as the Qing army and the British army rely on the superiority of manpower, start digging trenches from outside the range of the artillery of the defenders of the trenches, advance little by little, and then engage in hand-to-hand combat with the defenders of Sanyuanli, there is still a high probability that they can occupy this position.

Of course, it would be better if they relied on the abundance of troops and launched an attack from multiple places, leaving the defenders of Sanyuanli to ignore the tail, at least Pu Ding Cha and John thought so.

It's just that in this way, the plan to occupy this position in just two or three days, obtain a large amount of materials, and then use it to deal with Li Xian's main force that has returned to the division to help, will be in vain.

The British army made such a suggestion, but when the six princes heard it, their faces turned blue.

"Did the British make up their minds to grind foreign workers and perfunctory us?" the sixth prince roared angrily.

"These damn foreign devils. The staff next to him were also angry, thinking that these foreign devils were too much.

With the knowledge of the six princes and others, they saw that the British army was fighting very lively, but the losses on both sides were very small, so they naturally thought that the British did not exert their full strength, but were just perfunctory.

"Why don't you send someone to reprimand them and get them to do more?" suggested the staff.

The sixth prince thought about it and vetoed the proposal.

"Forget it, people have fired so many shells, and we can't talk about them yet. The Sixth Prince sighed and said.

"It's just that we were expecting a quick victory here, occupying the entire Sanyuanli, and then attacking the Li Xian army that has lost its base and is flustered, but it seems that it will not work.

I only hope that the means we have arranged earlier can play a role and cause enough losses to Li Xian's side. ”

It must be known that Li Xian did not know that the six princes had colluded with the British army for a long time, so he had already taken the main force of 7,000 soldiers and horses to Humen, and it was still dozens of miles away at this time.

However, there was a fight here, and Li Xian would be able to get the news sooner or later, and then understand that he had been swept away by the Qing soldiers and the British army, and it was inevitable that he would return to the army to help.

Although the Six Princes and the British army had also arranged some main forces to deal with Li Xian before, and wanted to take advantage of the lack of information on Li Xian's side to give people a ruthless blow, but after all, it was not very safe, if it could not cause enough casualties to Li Xian's main force, there would be many more variables in the future.

The Sixth Princes and the commander of the British army were forced by the actual situation to change their battle strategy, and then suddenly became worried again, not knowing whether the means they had previously sent to deal with Li Xian's main force could achieve the results they deserved.

On the other hand, Li Xian would not have expected that if he only left Sanyuanli for one day, the Qing soldiers and the British army would be impatient to attack the Sanyuanli base area, but led his troops to the area of Humen Town on the outskirts of Dongguan as agreed.

When it comes to the Humen Fort, most people think that this is a relatively important large fort, but this understanding is actually wrong.

Humen Fort is not an independent fort, but a series of fort communities distributed on both sides of the Pearl River, a total of 11 forts, Lin Zexu was in these 11 forts to arrange more than 300 cannons, but also to cooperate with the construction of various defense facilities.

Specifically, the Shajiao and Dajiao forts are the first portals, Weiyuan, Zhenyuan, Jingyuan, Consolidation, Yong'an, and Hengduan Qianshan platforms are the second portals, and the Dahu Fort is the third portal, and three lines of defense are organized.

In addition, in Jiangxi, between Rungjie Island and Wushan, two rows of wooden platoons and 372 zhang of large iron chains were set up to intercept enemy ships.

Before the Battle of Guangzhou, the British army defeated the Qing defenders of the Humen Fort and sent troops to garrison it, which has been until now.

Once these batteries fell back into the hands of the Chinese army, the British warships entering and leaving Guangzhou would be threatened by the batteries, and the British troops led by John and others had the possibility of being completely annihilated, so the strategic significance of this battery was self-evident.

More importantly, this is not a single fort after all, but a fort community located on both sides of the Pearl River, the forts are separated by a certain distance, and it is not easy to support each other, the British defenders of the entire Humen fort community are about thousands, but specific to a single battery, there may only be a few hundred.

At the beginning, Li Xian focused his attack on the Humen Fort, which was actually very reasonable, if the Sanyuanli army and the Qing army could really cooperate sincerely, then they would be able to concentrate superior forces to besiege independent batteries one by one, and there would be more room for the special combat capabilities of the warriors, and they could achieve greater results with fewer battle losses.

According to the agreement before departure, Li Xian's troops set out to Humen Town on 13 June, entered the agreed attack position on 14 June, and launched an attack on 15 June.