If it weren't for the sister of Cixi's old witch, Wu Chaoyue would have been defeated in this era!

When he returned to the garrison from the Liangjiang Governor's Office, Wu Chaoyue took a break to visit the young widow Ning Fu, and briefed the story to the young widow who had recovered his original name Fu Shanxiang. Then Fu Shanxiang was of course crying and couldn't stand up in front of Wu Chaoyue, swearing to repay Wu Chaoyue's kindness to her for life. He told Wu Chaoyue her feelings calmly in his words.

Unfortunately, with military affairs in hand and personal soldiers outside the door, Wu Chaoyue failed to seize the opportunity to check whether Fu Shanxiang was really a vague person. Her former husband could not meet her before he died. He could only patiently comfort Fu Shanxiang and promised to visit her again in the evening. Then he hurriedly went up to the city wall to serve as a boss, but there were not one or two Jiangning bosses whom Wu Chaoyue offended. If they caught the handle, there would be only more trouble.

After getting the promise of Wu Chaoyue to visit again in the evening, and understanding the vulgar desire that could not be hidden in Wu Chaoyue's eyes, Fu Shanxiang also accepted his fate and began to prepare to serve Wu Chaoyue. He boiled hot water to serve Wu Chaoyue, changed into new bed sheets and quilts, carefully prepared a few special dishes, and secretly hid a piece of white cloth under the pillow. However, at this moment, Huizheng was about to die and sent his little daughter Yehenara Wanzhen over, and directly sent Wanzhen into Fu Shanxiang's room, announcing Wu Chaoyue's previous promise to her daughter to Fu Shanxiang, asking Fu Shanxiang to serve his daughter as a maid.

Wu Chaoyue knew about this and it was already dinner time. Although he was gritting his teeth in his heart, Wu Chaoyue had to invite Huizheng to enjoy the dinner carefully prepared by Fu Shanxiang with him, and also thanked Huizheng hypocritically. Huizheng waved his hand and said frankly: "Weiting, do you and my brothers need to be so polite? And I have to thank you for this matter, do you know, this morning, Changmao fired a cannon at the inner city, and a shell shot into Wanzhen's yard next to the bannerman, which scared Wanzhen very much, so there was no way. Brother Yu could only send Wanzhen over and ask you to take care of me."

"Changmao fired a cannon at Chaoyang Gate. What is the current situation in the inner city?" Wu Chaoyue asked curiously.

"Oh, what else can it be? Isn't it a mess and the whole city is uneasy?" Hui Zheng sighed and said hatefully: "Brother Yu doesn't understand. How can the eight thousand pounds of heavy cannons in the city not be able to hit Changhai's cannons? I heard that Changhai's cannons were still old cannons hidden secretly in Yuezhou more than two hundred years ago. Why is it just farther than the current cannons in the Qing Dynasty? It's accurate?"

"Nonsense, who told you, the whole dogs to deliberately suppress the development of our Han people's firearms?" Wu Chaoyue muttered in his heart, but asked: "So brother, what can the defenders in the inner city do to deal with it? This will allow Changmao to continue to bombard the inner city, which has a great impact on the morale of the army?"

"What can they do?" Hui Zheng was full of anger and said hatefully: "They don't have the courage to attack Changmao's turret outside Chaoyang Gate. The artillery is not good at bombing. Someone heard that the cannons in the area of ​​Shence Gate were fired accurately, and it is recommended that the gunners be transferred from Shence Gate to control the cannon and fight Changmao's turret. Xianghou not only refused, but also scolded the person who came up with the idea as idiots, saying that once the Han people were put into the inner city, the Han people would definitely take the opportunity to open the inner city gate and put Changmao into the inner city!"

Don’t say this is exaggerated, even more exaggerated in history. During the First Opium War, British warships drove into the Yangtze River and approached Zhenjiang. Hailing, the deputy general of the bannerman guarding Zhenjiang, believed that the Han people would collude with the British to betray Zhenjiang and sent flag soldiers to massacre innocent Han people. In the end, they were praised by the Qing Dynasty as patriotic generals.

Back to the point, Wu Chaoyue was secretly angry and secretly happy when he heard Hui Zheng's words, hoping that the Taiping Army would attack the city as soon as possible to carry out their historical mission. Then, Wu Chaoyue, who knew that Jiangning City had not had much time, said in order to keep Hui Zheng's speech channel that directly leads to Emperor Xianfeng's ears, and said in a low voice against his will: "Brother, I'll say the same thing. If the situation is wrong, don't worry about anything. Come and meet me immediately."

Hui Zheng nodded and whispered: "My brother, I will ask you for everything at that time. In this situation in Jiangning, Brother Yu has completely given up."

As if to verify Hui Zheng's judgment, Hui Zheng had just finished speaking. The sound of cannons were heard in the neighboring Shence Gate City, and the sound of gongs were heard one after another, which scared Fu Shanxiang and Wanzhen, who were chatting aside in a low voice, screamed in shock. Wu Chaoyue had no choice but to cut off the leftovers from the bowl, leave Hui Zheng to take care of the two weak women, and lead his personal soldiers to the city to observe the situation.

The reason why the Shence Gate defenders fired fire made Wu Chaoyue so angry that they smoked from his seven orifices. Only dozens of Taiping troops swam around the city, which scared the defenders on the city to fire quickly. In addition, although there were a large number of red lanterns on the Da Chaozhou Mountain, as if the Taiping troops were gathering, Wu Chaoyue observed carefully with a telescope and was extremely suspicious that the Taiping Army tied the lanterns to trees or donkeys and horses, and used a small amount of troops to drive out donkeys and mules to march, creating the illusion of preparing for a night attack, and tricking the Shence Gate defenders to waste a lot of precious ammunition.

The Taiping Army's bluffing was actually just helping Wu Chaoyue directly, so that at least Wu Chaoyue would not have to worry about being transferred from the safest Shence Gate by Lu Jianying, Xianghou and others. Therefore, while Wu Chaoyue never pointed out the tactical intentions of the Taiping Army, he also secretly began to prepare a retreat plan, using the excuse that the soldiers were prepared a lot of marching food, and strictly prohibited the wasting of firing needles, guns and bullets. He also quietly prepared some red cloth to pretend to be the Taiping Army and confuse the enemy when needed.

In the next two days, it took two consecutive days of heavy rain in Jiangning, which had been clear for many days. Although it seriously affected the combat effectiveness of Wu Jun's army's courage, fortunately the Taiping Army did not seize this opportunity to attack Shence Gate. It just seized the time to completely flatten the hindrance houses outside Shence Gate, which made Wu Chaoyuebai worried about the firing guns and revolvers that used paper-shell bullets for two days, and the Minni gun that was flintlocked with fire. The most feared thing was rain.

The heavy rain in the past two days also helped the Taiping Army a great favor, that is, it seriously affected the reconnaissance effect of the Qing army in Jiangning's reconnaissance effect of the tunnel of the Taiping Army. He always suspected that the Taiping Army's real main target was Zhang Jigeng, the iron-core traitor of Yifeng Gate. He spent a lot of effort to convince Qi Suzao and Shangyuan County Magistrate Liu Tongying to dig deep pits in Yifeng Gate, burying water tanks to lay the ground to listen, and let the Qing army soldiers with a quick ears sit in the tank and listen quietly to find the location of the tunnel of the Taiping Army. However, due to the heavy rain in the past two days, the ground to listen became a false sense. (Historical fact, the heavy rain in Jiangning did exist in the past two days.)

It was obvious that Wei Changhui was somewhat underestimating the enemy, but Yang Xiuqing, who had not had a good relationship with Wei Changhui in private, was too lazy to talk nonsense to him anymore. He just turned to Li Kaifang, who was responsible for the main battlefield of Yifeng Sect, and reminded: "Prime Minister Li, I know that you deeply hate surpassing the little demon to the bone, but you must remember that taking down Jiangning City is our primary goal. Therefore, after blowing up Jiangning City Wall, you must not directly enter Shence Gate for revenge. You can only give priority to defending our army's road to the city and open the road to the city for my subsequent army!"

Li Kaifang sang a promise, and felt extremely regretful that Shence Sect was not suitable for the good things done by the groundwater in the area of ​​Xuanwu Lake, so the only thing Li Kaifang could do was to pray secretly, "Beyond the little demon, don't run away! The fallen soldiers of the heavenly kingdom, your spirit in heaven must bless me to avenge you with my own hands!"

…………

It's fine to sneak attacks and surprise attacks. If you prepare to launch a large-scale war, you can still not reveal any clues. That is not even the US imperial army in the 21st century can do it. So how did the Taiping Army block the internal and external traffic in Jiangning City? They actively prepared for the war and launched a large-scale attack, but they still failed to hide the eyes of some people in Jiangning City, including Wu Chaoyue and Zhang Jigeng, a die-hard traitor who has experience on the battlefield and is above Wu Chaoyue.

Wu Chaoyue and Zhang Jigeng both analyzed the enemy's upcoming attack through the preparation of the Taiping Army's siege weapons. In order to prepare for siege weapons these days, the Taiping Army has been cutting down wood near the barracks, transporting them to the camp day and night, creating thousands of uptown flight ladders and river bridges. On the evening of the eighth day of the second month, the Taiping Army suddenly stopped this work. At the same time, the number of smoke in the camp suddenly increased, and the duration was far beyond the usual period, showing signs of being rushing to make dry food. Wu Chaoyue and Zhang Jigeng immediately concluded that the Taiping Army was likely to launch a large-scale attack the next day! Of course, due to the serious lack of intelligence support, neither Wu Chaoyue nor Zhang Jigeng could judge that the real general attack time of the Taiping Army was on the third day.

To draw this conclusion, Wu Chaoyue of course quickly asked Wu Jun Lianyong to prepare for the war and make preparations for the breakout early. Zhang Jigeng went to the Liangjiang Governor's Office overnight to pay a visit to Lu Jianying to report the situation, and urged Lu Jianying to prepare for the war immediately, withdraw Wu Jun Lianyong, the most capable in Jiangning City, back to the city and use it as a reserve force, and at the same time strengthen the defense of Yifeng Gate. But unfortunately, Lu Jianying still refused to listen and refused to adopt these correct suggestions. Zhang Jigeng, who knew that his death was approaching, was so anxious that he burst into tears, but he could do nothing.

On the seventh night of the second month, after the third update, he patrols the city from Shuixi to Hanxi, and to Yifeng, and the sky was clear. There were not many soldiers guarding the city, and the local lords had not even come to the city. The lord of the north city slept soundly in his tent. This was the original record left by Tang Yifen, the deputy general of Yueqing, Zhejiang who helped defend Jiangning City.

Under such a slack situation, when the Taiping Army soldiers suddenly launched an attack on the Thirteenth Gate of Jiangning, the haste and chaos of the Qing army in Jiangning was certainly conceivable. Before the Taiping Army officially launched an attack, they had already fired fire and bombarded the open space. They wasted gunpowder without any effect in killing the enemy. Lu Jianying, Xianghou and Fuzhu Hong A were all so scared that they shrank at home and did not dare to step into the city. Only the governor Qi Suzao climbed to Jubao Gate to supervise the battle with illness, but they caught the Taiping Army's cannons arranged in Bao'en Temple to intensively bombard the city tower. The tiles and wood were broken and dust flew, Qi Suzao's heart was cracked, and he vomited blood again, and fell into a coma again.

After being lifted back to the official office and woke up, Qi Suzao, who knew that his life was not long ago, took advantage of the fact that he could still move and quickly picked up his pen to write the record and accused the Qing court and Emperor Xianfeng. However, the record had not been finished yet. Suddenly, he heard that Lu Jianying and Fuzhu Hong Adu refused to go to the city to supervise the battle. In anger and worry, Qi Suzao, the only reliable boss in Jiangning City, immediately sprayed blood on the record, kicked his legs, and died on the spot!

In fact, Qi Suzao was already lucky. If he went to Shence Gate to supervise the battle, he would probably not even have the chance to be carried back to the official office, and he would be scared to death on the Shence Gate on the spot! The Taiping Army attacked other city gates with heavy thunder and little rain, but it was a real fierce attack on Shence Gate. Ji Wenyuan, the general of the Taiping Army who was ordered to restrain and consume the Wu army's courage, took advantage of the cost. In just one morning, he launched six ant-attachment attacks on Shence Gate. At the same time, he concentrated artillery fire to bombard Shence Gate. Without building a turret, he fought against Shence Gate.

If it weren't for the Shence Sect that Zhang Jigeng, a relatively reliable comrade-in-arms, Yang Xiuqing's purpose of consuming a lot of Wu Jun Jian Yong's ammunition would have been successfully achieved. Thanks to Zhang Jigeng, a hard-core traitor, who fought desperately to defend the city, and led the Lian Yong, who he had formed, to fight around. With his condescending advantage, he had to attack the ant soldiers of the Taiping Army head-on. Wu Chaoyue had the confidence to order his subordinates to prohibit the use of ammunition that could not be replenished. Mini, who could barely obtain some supplies, could kill the enemy. He also shamelessly used silver to buy Geng Luo, so that Wu Jun Jian Yong would steal the convex gun from the Qing army's green camp soldiers to save the most important bullets.

Another very important point is that British warships helped Wu Chaoyue train those Wu army gunners for free. With these gunners operating the artillery, the sixteen artillery on Shence Gate was able to fully demonstrate its power, effectively disrupting the Taiping Army's siege queue, making it impossible for the Taiping Army to use its superiority to attack a certain wall section in a dense manner. It could only disperse its forces and attack it in a separate way, giving the Shence Gate Guard some time to breathe. However, what made Wu Chaoyue cry was that due to the quality of the Qing army's artillery, the artillery fired too much continuously and the gun body was overheated, causing a cannon to explode suddenly, killing a Wu army gunner and two Qing army gunners who were helping next to him, which also caused a considerable blow to the morale of the Shence Gate Guards.

At noon, after finally repelling the sixth Ant Attack of the Taiping Army, Wu Chaoyue ordered the soldiers to hurry up and drink water and eat, and he quickly grabbed the water hyacinth and poured water into his mouth. His eyes continued to look at the Taiping Army outside the city with vigilance. When he saw that the Taiping Army still had no sign of retreat, he was actively mobilizing troops and preparing to launch the seventh attack, Wu Chaoyue suddenly complained, "Oh, if you continue to fight like this, even if you can defend the Shence Sect, my training strength and ammunition will be consumed in large quantities, and it will still be difficult to break through at that time. You must think of a solution quickly, temporarily stabilize the Taiping Army and give me training more rest time."

It has never been difficult for Wu Chaoyue to cheat. After turning his eyes a few times, Wu Chaoyue rushed to Zhang Jigeng and Geng Luo who were also panting, and whispered to them the delaying plan he had come up with in a hurry. Although Zhang Jigeng and Geng Luo felt a little incredible when they heard this, considering that their soldiers were already very tired of training, even if they were fighting for a moment of rest, they nodded in the end and said, "Try it! Whether it succeeds or not, try more rest time first!" (To be continued.)
Chapter completed!