The most infuriating thing is not these, some people actually proposed that the terrain in the Henggang area is dangerous, and you can build a city there to resist the enemy, I don't know that Henggang is in the easternmost part of Bao'an County, the enemy wants to come from the west, and you are defending in the easternmost place, don't you just want to escape.

It's not wrong to say that you want to run away, and if you can, I want to run away, but if you say it so unlevelly, it tastes like an insult to everyone's IQ.

After listening to it for a long time, Yang Fang knew that he was counting on the group of people under his command to be hopeless, so he could only interrupt them in a loud voice.

"You are all right, if these strategies are implemented, they will definitely deal a heavy blow to the rebels and solve the great trouble of the imperial court, and we will continue to discuss the specific combat methods.

By the way, virtuous son-in-law, do you have any good solutions?" Yang Fang turned his head and asked with a pleasant face about one of the generals on the left.

This general, with golden hair and blue eyes and a hooked nose, can be called a wolf-eyed eagle, but he is not an Easterner, but a Westerner, an American to be exact.

The general's name was Wall, whose full name was Frederick Townsend Wall, and he was a student at the American Liberal Arts and Military Academy, but dropped out before graduating, and then fought in the Mexican and French armies, and then somehow ended up as a first mate in a merchant ship in Hong Kong.

A few months ago, Yang Fang wanted to form a group of foreign officers to form a foreign gun team to resist the rebels, but the American consul introduced the captain named Wall.

After Yang Fang inspected Wall, he felt that this person was proficient in warfare, especially respectful, and could be of great use, so he accepted a distant niece in his clan as a righteous daughter and married Wall, so the two sides had the righteousness of Weng and son-in-law.

After taking office, Hua Er was also very dedicated, helping Yang Fang to buy a large number of smoothbore guns from the Americans at a low price of 100 taels of silver, and to form and train more than 1,000 Chinese troops who could use this kind of foreign guns, commonly known as the foreign gun team, which was the most effective army under Yang Fang.

Wall knew that his identity was embarrassing, and he rarely took the initiative to speak at the military meeting, and only then did he say his strategy when he heard Yang Fang take the initiative to ask.

"When the rebels arrive, we can only fight in the field, and we must not defend the city. As soon as Wall said, it was completely different from the ideas of other generals.

When the generals heard this, they were silent for three seconds before they all erupted.

Some say that Wall is inexperienced, some say that Wall doesn't understand the comparison between friend and foe, and even sarcastically say that if you want to fight a field battle, Wall will do it himself, and everyone will not accompany him, even Yang Fang's face is not very good-looking.

In fact, everyone weighed the current situation, and their hearts were like a mirror, there were rebels pressing in front of them, and Huo Huo sharpened his knives in the imperial court, and it was not possible to withdraw directly without fighting at all, but it was also a move to find death with the rebels.

The best way is to use the city to symbolically fight with Li Xian, and then pretend that you can't retreat, and finally evacuate Bao'an, or even the whole of Guangdong, which is the best.

Even if the court wants to investigate it later, it can't cut off all the heads of the big guys, after all, the six princes also fought and lost the battle, so they just relied on a few masters to protect them and hurriedly escaped from the battlefield.

As for going out into the field to fight the rebels, this is something that all generals should try to avoid.

"Why can't you defend the city, can the virtuous son-in-law explain?" Yang Fang felt that his cheap son-in-law's statement was a little different from what he expected, but he also had to show the demeanor of a general and let people speak clearly.

"In the era of cold weapons, relying on the city to fight a war can be well protected and is a good strategy, but in today's large popularity of gunpowder, this approach is not suitable.

Not to mention anything else, if our army retreats into the city, then the rebels can completely prevent the defenders from going out of the city to fight as long as they besiege the city on all sides and block the exit of the city gate with one or two cannons, which is bad.

I heard that the rebels have a lot of artillery, as well as chain shells, flowering shells, rocket artillery, etc., and when the time comes, they will aim their artillery at the city gates, and bombard them as long as the people inside want to come out, and who can stand it when the time comes.

As for relying on the city walls, IMHO, the city walls of Bao'an County are not strong, and ordinary solid shells, such as thirty-pounder guns and eighteen-pounder guns, can make a gap, which is almost meaningless.

As long as the rebels block the city gate with a small number of artillery pieces, and then fire all kinds of projectiles into the city, we will not have the slightest strength to fight back, and we will rely on our flesh to carry it, who can stand this.

It is said that a year ago, the British attacked a city called Zhenhai, and they also blocked the city gate and fired a large number of flowering bullets inside, so that thousands of defenders inside were wiped out, and the flesh and blood were blurred, we can't make this mistake. Wall said.

Of course, Wall has not been in China for a long time, and he is not fluent in Chinese, and there is a translator next to him who is desperately translating so that the big guys can understand it.

However, this time, the big guys all understood, and then they all changed color, and then they realized that they were a little taken for granted.

These generals still think that in the era of cold weapons, they think that having a city wall is more or less beneficial to defense, but they did not expect that in the era of gunpowder weapons, it will limit the deployment of the defender's troops, and they cannot spread out to avoid artillery fire, so it is harmful and useless.

Zhenhai was a tragic war in the Opium War, when the Qing army defenders in Zhenhai still wanted to fight desperately, and closed the city gates and held on.

As a result, after the British army arrived, they did not use traditional siege methods such as climbing the city wall, but set up artillery outside the city and fired rocket artillery and flowering shells inside, so that the Qing army, which was crowded in the narrow alleys and only waited for the decisive battle after the British army attacked the city, became the best target for artillery bombardment, so that thousands of officers and soldiers were killed, and flesh and blood were everywhere.

It is said that the British soldiers who went into the city to collect the corpses afterwards couldn't stand it, and some squatted down and vomited at that time.

These generals have heard about Zhenhai to some extent, and then analyzed the current situation, and suddenly understood that if they retreated into the city and held on, they were afraid that it would be a copy of Zhenhai.

The most important thing is that Wall made it clear that once his side defended the city, it would be easy for the rebels to block the city gates, and it would be much more difficult to escape than in the field.

"The virtuous son-in-law is also reasonable, so how should this battle be fought, do you have any ideas?" Yang Fang is also an old man in war, and he understood that Wall's words made sense, and immediately became pleasant.

"Naturally, it's a head-to-head approach in the wild.

According to our Western method of warfare, we use artillery to control the four directions, and then use foreign guns to fight in formation, relying on the superiority of musket fire to advance step by step, and wait until the two sides are close to within a few tens of meters before starting to shoot, the competition is morale, will, and courage.

Our foreign rifle team is equipped with the best smoothbore guns in the United States, and under my training, the combat ability of the soldiers has also been greatly improved, and we should be able to stick to the rebels and shoot at them.

Thinking that the rebels must not be a regular army, that is, the bandits are first-class, how can they understand the essence of this kind of regular warfare, when a few rounds of muskets are fired, the morale will inevitably drop greatly, turn around and flee, and mess up their formation, then we can chase and kill with all our strength and win a complete victory. Wall said with a fluttering eyebrow.