Chapter 96: Going North: The goal is to kill the emperor
The naval battle at the Pearl River Estuary lasted all day and night.
In this battle, the Ming Dynasty mobilized more than 50,000 soldiers to participate in the battle, and countless people from both sides of the Pearl River came to help.
Sixty percent of the fireboats that burned British ships were provided by these common people and organized voluntarily.
After all, they have suffered enough from the domineering British for more than ten years.
This time I can fuck a British guy seriously, no one will be reluctant.
In the end, sixteen British warships were burned, eight were sunk, and the rest were all captured.
Also captured were 3,000 navy and 10,000 army soldiers.
As well as almost 80% of the British military officers, headed by Navy Commander Pottinger and Army Commander Lore.
I have to say that these people have some ability to be able to sit in such high positions now.
The artillery fire continued all night last night, but it was a miracle that all these people survived.
For these British guys, although the officers led by Pottinger and Lore all hoped to pay the ransom and redeem themselves.
But Zhu Yuanzhang did not accept this trick. With a wave of his hand, he directly dragged all these people to the mines to mine.
In Lao Zhu's words, it is to dig for ten years to see how it performs.
Those who can do it will be left to dig for another ten years, and those who can't will be killed directly to avoid wasting food.
Lao Zhu has always had a bad attitude toward invaders, not to mention that these are foreigners.
After doing this, Lao Zhu patted his butt and went back to the early Ming Dynasty to rest.
Speaking of which, he hasn't been back for a while because of this battle. If he doesn't go back and take a look, he won't be able to interact with the girl!
As for this, let me leave it to my son to take charge of the overall situation for a while.
Anyway, there should be no more wars in Guangdong for a long time to come.
Also leaving with Zhu Yuanzhang were Deng Yu's 20,000 infantry and Chang Yuchun's navy.
However, they did not return to the early Ming Dynasty, but went north.
At the same moment last night when the overall situation of the naval battle at the Pearl River Estuary was decided, Zhu Yuanzhang immediately dispatched Chang Yuchun and Deng Yu to go directly north with the elite of the Ming Navy and a troop transport carrying 20,000 infantry.
This trip has no other purpose, it is to promote the return of the king of the Ming Empire.
Let everyone know that the once glorious Han Dynasty is back.
One day later, the fleet passed Hong Kong Island.
However, Chang Yuchun only glanced at it lightly and then withdrew his gaze.
With the complete destruction of the British Navy, no fleet on the entire southeast coast could be a match for the Ming Navy.
The British on Hong Kong Island can only be said to be the turtle in the urn, the kind that can be taken down at any time.
Chang Yuchun was not anxious at all.
He led the fleet to continue northward, sailing at full speed, passing through Fujian, Zhejiang, Jiangsu, Shandong, and entering the Bohai Sea. Two months later, he directly arrived at the Dagukou Fort in Tianjin.
"Bring out the sun and moon battle flag of the Ming Dynasty. Everyone will wear my Ming Dynasty battle armor and red scarves. This battle will let everyone in the world know that the Ming Dynasty... is back!" Chang Yuchun stood there.
The bow of the ship spoke in a deep voice.
"boom……!"
The artillery burst suddenly very early in the morning.
The defenders of Dagukou Fort were caught off guard and were stunned by the fierce artillery fire without any reaction. When they realized that this was an enemy attack and wanted to occupy the fort to counterattack, Mu Ying, who also came with the army, came with
His Tiger Battalion has already moved in.
The battle came to an end within an hour.
The Qing army left more than 200 corpses behind and then collapsed.
Deng Yu began to land with 20,000 troops, while Chang Yuchun led the navy to patrol the entire Bohai Bay to guard against the Qing navy that might attack them.
One day later, Tianjin was captured, and Qi Shan, the governor of Zhili, fled in panic at the last moment and fled back to the imperial capital in embarrassment.
"Leave a thousand men to defend the city, while the rest continue to advance, aiming for Peiping!"
Deng Yu grinned and spoke for the first time about another goal of his trip.
In Zhu Yuanzhang's original words: "Deng Yu, go to Peiping and capture the Tatar Emperor for us. We will personally chop off his head."
"Your Majesty, it's not good, it's not good!"
"The Pseudo-Ming Dynasty is here!" Qi Shan fled all the way back to Peiping, entered the Forbidden City, and met Emperor Xianfeng.
As soon as they met, they started crying.
"What?" Emperor Xianfeng was eating breakfast at this moment. Hearing this, his chopsticks fell to the ground with a clatter.
"Didn't it mean that the foreigners have agreed to attack Pseudo-Ming for us?"
"I have just received a memorial from Li Hongzhang, which states that the fleet of the British Empire is mighty and majestic. This time it will be invincible and sweep away Guangdong."
"He also said that after the matter is completed, he will bring Zhu Hongwu's head to see me." Emperor Xianfeng murmured to himself.
"My lord!"
"Then Li Hongzhang mistook me for the Qing Dynasty!"
"I was still sleeping last night when I suddenly heard the sound of cannon fire. Before I could get up to check, the city of Tianjin was captured. If I hadn't Ji Ling, put on Han clothes and escaped from Tianjin, I probably wouldn't have seen it.
Your Majesty."
As Qi Shan spoke, he began to wipe his tears with his sleeves.
He was acting for a third of the time, but mostly he was scared to tears.
The rumbling sound of cannons last night really scared his soul away.
He originally thought they were British, but when he sent someone to investigate, he found that all those attacking the city were Chinese, wearing red armor and flying the banner of the Ming Dynasty.
This almost scared him to death.
He had been running away like crazy for his life, but he didn't feel much at all. Now, standing here, he suddenly felt the urge to cry loudly for the rest of his life.
It’s not easy to survive by yourself!
"What should I do? What should I do?" Emperor Xianfeng looked around anxiously.
"Your Majesty, don't panic, our Qing Dynasty has elite Eight Banners to defend the imperial capital. They were able to beat the shit out of that fake Ming Dynasty two hundred years ago, and they can still do it now!" Qi Shan hurriedly put forward his opinion.
"Yep!"
"Quickly, summon me, Seng Gelinqin, the greatest warrior of the Qing Dynasty, and lead him to command the Jianrui Battalion, the Firearms Battalion, and the elite cavalry of the Eight Banners to fight against the puppet Ming army. We must drive them out of Tianjin no matter what."
At the critical moment of life and death, the decaying and old machine of the Qing Dynasty finally began to operate at high speed. Soon, 50,000 elite troops, commanded by Seng Gelinqin, rushed to the battlefield.
On the other side, Deng Yu led 19,000 elite new army troops and also marched in the direction of Peiping.
Eventually the two sides met in the Tongzhou area.
"Du Tong, there are almost 20,000 people on the other side!"
"We are carrying muskets and artillery." His scouts quickly reported.
Hearing this, Seng Gelinqin had a serious look on his face: "So what, why do we, the Eight Banners warriors, fear these?"
"Besides, it's not like we don't have firearms and artillery!"
"Keep moving forward, I want to make it clear to the hypocrites that even after two hundred years, our Eight Banners warriors are still no match for them."
"The opponent's weapons are very backward!"
"I feel like I was fighting with Nurhachi in the late Ming Dynasty!"
Deng Yu stood on the hillside and used a telescope to check the opponent's position. The more he looked at the expression on his face, the more surprised he became.
In two hundred years, have all these Manchu and Qing Tatars lived like dogs?
Firearms really have not improved at all, and they still use matchlock guns.
The artillery has changed somewhat, becoming bigger and bigger, but unfortunately it is still the Hongyi cannon that can only fire solid iron bullets.
At this moment, the equipment in his army was exclusively breech-loaded rifled field artillery, and they also used more powerful explosive shells.