With the 10,000 cannon fodder dragging Chen Yucheng's army behind, Brown finally left the battle with 50,000 remaining soldiers.
Chen Yucheng would not let Brown go just like that.
The Feilong army, which had just settled the battle, pursued them non-stop.
The Feilong Army was followed by the New Gurkha Army, and the two armies followed Brown one after another.
Brown had to divide his force of 10,000 again to block the pursuers behind him. Otherwise, the infantry he led would not be able to outrun the Holy Army cavalry.
Originally, he should have retreated from the river, so that he wouldn't have to worry about pursuing troops.
However, the Feilong Army and the New Gurkha Army happened to be blocking the only way for the British and Indian troops to retreat to the river.
In desperation, Brown retreated by land.
After leaving 10,000 people behind again, Brown had less than 10,000 soldiers in his hands.
Knowing that Rajshahi was surrounded by a Burmese army of 50,000, Brown led his men to retreat to the city of Angiri Bazar along the river.
The fleet assigned to him has also gathered here.
At this time, Brown felt relieved. Usually when he was by the river, the Holy Army would not take the initiative to attack him because of the support of gunboats.
In this battle, he was overwhelmed by the endless back-ups of the Holy Army. The British and Indian troops suffered heavy losses, and he lost nearly 60,000 troops.
If such a failure were to spread back home, Brown's reputation would be ruined.
Maybe he will have to go to a military court and be tried by those sanctimonious guys in wigs.
Thinking of this, Brown felt a little regretful as to why he chose to come to the northern route in the first place.
A battle like General Robert's on the southern front, with only the Tamils as his enemy, would be much easier to fight.
Here, he not only has to deal with Indian rebels, but also those cunning Chinese troops and those ferocious Burmese troops.
But it's too late to say anything now. War is originally a matter of life and death.
English Bazar cannot be defended either. He does not have enough troops, and there are a full 50,000 to 60,000 troops chasing him.
After a hasty repair in the city, Brown took the remaining soldiers on board the ship and prepared to continue towards Calcutta.
When the people in the city learned that the British and Indian troops had been defeated, they all rushed to flee out of the city.
When Brown and his men boarded the boat, a group of local people came over for some unknown reason.
Most of these people are local nobles or prominent figures.
Brown's fleet was barely able to carry his soldiers, and there was no room to carry those people.
So, Brown ordered the soldiers to shoot and scare these people back.
The fleet finally set off and headed downstream along the Ganges River.
Having just left English Bazar, Brown can finally breathe a sigh of relief.
However, things didn't go as planned, and the back-up plan deployed by the Holy Army was not over yet.
Brown's fleet advanced less than seventy kilometers before encountering the oncoming Canglong Army.
In the distance, the British and Indian river fleet discovered the gunboat formation flying the flag of the Holy Army.
Each gunboat formation trailed a long column of smoke, and it was impossible not to see it.
The escorting gunboats in the British and Indian fleet rushed to meet them. They wanted to protect the troop transport ships.
"Damn it, why did the Holy Army's warships get here?" Brown couldn't help but curse.
There are only ten gunboats on our side, and the others are troop carriers.
From the telescope, Brown could easily find that all the opponents were warships. It looked like there should be twenty or thirty ships.
Brown has not yet seen the combat effectiveness of the Holy Army's warships. Now he can only see that the other side is also a steam-powered gunboat, and he still doesn't know how powerful the other side's artillery is.
Out of his long-standing confidence in water power, he felt that the warships of the Great Empire would be stronger than the other side.
Based on this confidence, Brown did not even order the soldiers on the ship to temporarily hide on the shore.
They just sat on the boat and waited for their warships to teach those rebels who didn't know the strength of the sky and the earth a lesson.
"Boom, boom, boom..." The gunboats from both sides started firing at each other on the river from a long distance away.
Clouds of gray-white smoke floated up from the gunboat. The broad Ganges River was soon shrouded in smoke.
Now that we are about to enter the rainy season, the southeast monsoon is still blowing in India.
This direction is obviously more powerful against the Canglong Army coming from the south.
The southeast wind blew the smoke from the Canglong Army's side to the British and Indian Army's side, blocking the sight of the British and Indian Army's gunners.
The Canglong Army can at least distinguish the opponent's position through the firelight in the smoke.
Brown's confidence comes from the fact that the British gunboats have also had their breech guns replaced in the past two years.
Because the Indian region has always been in a state of war, the British did not hesitate to send good equipment here.
Now Armstrong's arsenal has produced large-caliber breech guns used by ironclad ships.
The small-caliber breech guns used on this kind of gunboats have been manufactured for a long time, and have been given priority to the inland fleet of the Ganges River in India.
So now the British gunboats are equivalent in firepower to the Holy Army gunboats.
However, the Holy Army's gunboats are equipped with protective turrets. This is a technology passed down from the Renaissance Army, but not from the British Army.
The thinking of the British has not yet changed. If it weren't for Dong Shuheng's personal knowledge, the ship designers of the Renaissance Army would not have thought of special shooting turrets.
Because the turret will affect the number of cannons carried by the ship. People in this era still think that the more cannons the better.
The Holy Army gunboats were sometimes fine after being hit by a few bullets, but as long as the British gunboats were hit by bullets on the deck, even if the ship was fine, it would cause heavy casualties to the gunners on the plywood every time.
The water battle between the two sides lasted for nearly an hour. The Holy Army lost one gunboat and three gunboats were seriously injured.
On the British and Indian side, three ships were sunk, and two more ships lost their combat effectiveness.
The first round of confrontation between the two sides was a decisive one.
At this time, Brown quickly ordered the soldiers on the transport boat behind to disembark.
Otherwise, you will have to be a target for others on the boat later.
But when we disembark here, the location is very awkward.
If we land from the east coast, the closest place to here is Rajshahi. But there are 50,000 Burmese troops there.
Brown had no choice but to land on the west bank, but there were no fortified cities on the west bank, so they could only take a detour back to Calcutta.
In this way, the city of Rajshahi can only be abandoned. The defenders of Rajshahi City can only resign themselves to their fate.
The Holy Army's warships destroyed the British gunboats, and all the remaining transport ships surrendered without a fight. They themselves had no combat power.
The only regret in this battle was that Brown escaped with his men.
After the Canglong Army cleared the enemies on the river, they divided their forces into two groups and searched all the way upstream to clear out any enemy water forces that might exist in the upper reaches of the Ganges River.
As long as it was not one of his own ships, Qi Han ordered them to be sunk or captured.
Taking advantage of the fact that the British maritime fleet has not returned, the Canglong Army wants to seize the initiative on the Ganges River.
Once the blue dragon appears, everything will turn upside down!
In addition, a gunboat was detached to take the transport ship south to support the battle in Rajshahi.
The flying dragon army in hot pursuit crossed the other side of the river via a transport ship and continued to pursue Brown's remaining army.
However, the main forces of the Gurkha Army and Chen Yucheng's Army went directly south along the river to join the Burmese army.
Chen Yucheng took the first step on a navy transport ship with an elite force.
At this time, the Burmese army was still violently attacking Rajshahi, but had not yet captured the city.
The corpses of the Burmese army were piled up under the city wall, which shows how fierce the battle was.
However, the Burmese army failed to capture Rajshahi despite a fierce attack for so long.
As Chen Yucheng led the army, they came to join the Burmese royal army.
Together with the new Gurkha Army, the total strength of the three parties reached nearly 100,000.
The defenders in the city could no longer support themselves.
Chen Yucheng's army also carried a large number of artillery.
Wait until the Canglong Army and the Army attack Rajshahi from the water.
The last straw finally fell for Rajshahi.
After the Burmese army fought hard for several days, the fortified city finally fell.
The Burmese were so angry that they looted the city.
Except for some poor Mon people who took refuge with the Tiger Regiment, a servant army under Chen Yucheng, there were almost no chickens or dogs left in the city.
The combined total of one hundred thousand troops was greater than the total population of the city. The entire looting process only lasted half a day.
Very efficient!
During this period, Chen Yucheng discussed the next strategy with the generals of the Myanmar Royal Army and the commander of the Gurkha Army, Liao Xiangdong.
The three parties finally decided to proceed to Calcutta by water route.
The holy king had always wanted to capture the city of Rajshahi, but he had never succeeded.
Finally capturing this fortress this time is equivalent to opening the door to the enemy's home.
Chen Yucheng has no reason not to go in and take a look.
As a result, a hundred thousand troops advanced by water and marched towards the city of Calcutta in a mighty manner.
This great empire is located in the Pearl of the Orient, known as the London of the East.
At this time, the city was in chaos, and news of the defeat on the front line reached Calcutta before General Brown's defeated army.
The spread of failure among the people will be infinitely magnified, which is the terrible nature of rumors.
In the luxurious palace-like Governor's Mansion, Ramsay fell into his seat after hearing the messenger's report. There was an unfinished cigar placed on the blue and white porcelain ashtray on the table.
He even forgot to curse Brown, the defeated general.
Several senior colonial officials gathered in the office were also silent.
Everyone knows what this means.
The Great Empire would never show mercy to colonial officials who failed.
But everyone here also knows that the current situation is not Ramsay's fault.
The governor was decisive in killing and never hesitated when facing the enemy.
However, there are too many enemies appearing now and they are too cunning.
This also exposed a problem in the British colonial process, that is, there were too few people in the colony.
If we could immigrate a large number of people to the Indian region and bring various princely states under direct jurisdiction, we would not give the enemy so many loopholes to exploit.
But Ramsay also knew that this was impossible. The entire mainland had a population of tens of millions, but the colonial area controlled by the British was hundreds of times that of the mainland, and the population it controlled was nearly ten times that of the mainland.
Under such circumstances, the Great Empire could only adopt such a rough colonial governance method.
"Issuing an order from the Governor's Palace, declaring that Calcutta has entered a state of war, and all adult white men must report to the Volunteer Corps." Ramsay said after a moment of silence.
"Send a telegram to the south and ask General Robert to mobilize some troops to go north. Also ask where the second batch of reinforcements sent from the mainland are. Ask them to speed up." Ramsay said, and at this time he actually calmed down.
"In addition, by sending people to negotiate with the French and asking them to cooperate with us in suppressing the rebels, we can appropriately transfer some benefits to them."
The French have recently sent a large fleet to the east, or they may be able to win over it.
It's just that Ramsay knows that these French guys are eager for Britain to suffer here.
It was the British who compressed the French colonies in India into two points.
Fortunately, there was a second batch of reinforcements. But Ramsay knew that the more reinforcements sent from home, the greater the investment.
In the end, he failed, and Ramsey would be punished even more severely.
After Prime Minister Temple sent the first batch of reinforcements, he added a second batch of reinforcements based on the domestic public opinion situation, which left him with a hawkish image in the minds of the people.
But if Temple knew that half of the first batch of reinforcements he sent had been lost, I wonder how he would feel?
ps: The second update is coming today, please give me monthly votes and recommendation votes! If you find any mistakes, please wake up in time, I will correct them as soon as possible, thank you!