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Volume 1: Fierce Battle in Changsha Chapter 737: Fight at the Dead End

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    Humen Fort, the third gateway to Guangzhou at the Pearl River Estuary, the morning fog in the warm winter morning was gradually blown away by the sea breeze. Several carrier pigeons flew here one after another. The Taiping Army messengers on the fort caught the carrier pigeons and tied their legs.  He took off the small bamboo tube and took out a two-finger-wide note inside, then hurriedly took the note back to the fort headquarters

    After the combat staff of the command headquarters translated the code text with reference to the code text, the staff officer took a look at it and hurried to see the fort commander.

    The Taiping Army guard at Humen Fort was a young man, no more than eighteen years old. After reading the note brought by the staff officer, he just said lightly: "Instruct all battalions and companies to hand in all the suicide notes they have written.  , all locked in an iron cabinet, and when the time comes, Staff Chen, you will lead your people to bury them next to the graves of General Guan Tianpei and his soldiers."

    Staff Officer Chen nodded and ordered the messenger to go and deliver the order. Then the young general took out a suicide note and handed it to Staff Officer Chen and said, "This is my Liu Jintang's suicide note. I hope it can be handed over to my father Liu Housheng in the end."  The staff officer nodded with a complicated mood and took Liu Jintang's suicide note very solemnly.

    This young general Liu Jintang is the son of Hunan Army General Liu Housheng. He joined the army at the age of fifteen and has been in the Hunan Army for three years.  Historically, Liu Jintang joined the army because his father died at the hands of the Taiping Army in Yueyang. However, in this time and space, due to the strength of the Taiping Army, the Hunan Army did not launch the Yueyang Campaign, so Liu Jintang's father did not die.  At the hands of the Taiping Army.

    In the middle of this year, the Hunan Army surrendered to the Taiping Army, and Liu Housheng's family also surrendered with the army. Since there was not much blood on his hands from the Taiping Army, Liu Housheng was appointed director of the Police Department in Changsha, Hunan Province, and took some Hunan troops with him.  The demobilized soldiers formed the local police force, while Liu Jintang stayed in the army for reorganization because of his youth.

    Most of Liu Jintang's troops were transformed from the original Hunan Army. Among the 3,254 officers and soldiers of the Humen Fort, at least 3,000 were composed of the Hunan Army. They were reorganized in Guangzhou.  After four months of training, he had become proficient in all kinds of new weapons issued by the Taiping Army. He was attached to the Sixth Army and was later sent to guard the Humen Fort.

    After the messenger conveyed the news of collecting the suicide note.  Someone suddenly started crying on the fort position. Infected by each other, the crying became more and more frequent.  Liu Jintang was furious when he heard the cry. He quickly walked out of the dome-covered command post with a command knife in his hand and walked towards the gun emplacement.

    When we arrived at the position, we saw Hunan soldiers who were already wearing the new Taiping Army uniforms hugging each other in twos and threes and crying.  Liu Jintang couldn't help but shouted loudly, stood on a cannon and shouted: "Look at how cowardly you are! Do you still look like the elites of Central Hunan?! Do you look like a crying woman worthy of wearing this military uniform?  ?! Are there any eggs in your crotch when you touch it?! Are you still a good Chinese man like me?!"

    After several scoldings, the soldiers of the Hunan Army gradually stopped crying. The headquarters ordered people to hand over the suicide note, which meant that there was a fight to the death here. There was absolutely no luck. The soldiers gathered around and heard Liu Jintang say loudly: "Before  I always hear people say that the new country does not regard our Hunan Army as its own people, and they complain that letting our Hunan Army guard this Humen Fort means that we are going to die!"

    The soldiers all fell silent.  Listening quietly to Liu Jintang's roar: "Those who say these things are a bunch of heartless dogs! You get the same military pay every month as other friendly forces, the weapons you use are as good as the friendly forces, and the military uniforms you wear are even better than those of the friendly forces.  The friendly forces are still new, and the food you eat every day takes care of the tastes of you Hunan children, with chili peppers for every meal, what the hell do you want?"

    Liu Jintang paused, and saw many soldiers gradually lowering their heads, and continued without mercy: "What happened to the Humen Fort? I personally asked the garrison commander for that, because I feel ashamed! The original commander  They want us to defend Guangzhou, while other friendly troops stand on the forts of the triple portal in front. But I feel that the country treats us as national soldiers. Once something happens to the country, we can't hide behind and be cowards! Hum,  I'm not afraid to tell you cowards. I originally asked to guard the Shajiao Fort, the first portal! But unfortunately, the commander only reluctantly agreed to guard us at the Humen Fort, the third portal! Otherwise, there will be more than a dozen of you cowards.  He should have died at Shajiao Fort days ago!"

    "What are you afraid of? Soldiers are bound to die. We are dying for our country now. We are fighting foreign devils. What we are doing is to honor our ancestors. Damn it. At worst, I will die here with you in this battle.  Then our names will be remembered forever by those who come after you! Look behind you at the tombs of General Guan Tianpei and his volunteers. The heroes of the older generation more than 20 years ago are looking at us! You still cry, thank you  Don¡¯t you feel ashamed?! Looking ahead, dozens of miles away at Shajiao and Dajiao forts, our friendly troops who all died in battle are looking at us. Are you ashamed???!  Look over there in Guangzhou, where our Chinese people are looking at us. Where has your courage gone?  !  "

    "Sir, let's stop crying. The worst we can do is die. Let's fight the foreign devils together! Sir, we fought hard and got a big scar on our head! You are right, sir, the brothers from Shajiao and Dajiao are looking at us.  We Hunan people are no more cowards than people from other places!"

    After the soldiers were reprimanded by Liu Jintang, their courage and morale began to burst out. The Chinese army has had a very good tradition for thousands of years, that is, death is not important, as long as you are afraid of being looked down upon.

    Liu Jintang shouted loudly: "Okay! Then hurry up and hand in your suicide note, and then each army will prepare separately. The mobile artillery positions will all aim their muzzles behind us. This time the foreign devils will come from the sea and land together.  Let¡¯s fight these robbers hard!¡±

    Sun Tzu's Art of War goes like this: "There is no place to retreat, and the whole area is connected, and there is no place left. Encircle the area and plan, and fight when the place is dead!" Now the Taiping Army composed of the Hunan Fort on the Humen Fort is trapped in a dead place.  There is only one way in front of them, fight to the death!

    The soldiers got busy. They prepared weapons and ammunition. The Humen Fort originally had 28 gun positions. During the subsequent transformation, all of them were moved underground or covered with roofs. Then more than 30 positions were added to other positions of the Humen Fort.  Movable artillery positions. The artillery on the movable artillery positions are all movable artillery with huge iron wheels. Now the soldiers on the fort turned all these artillery guns around and pointed the muzzles at the land road behind them.

    Then they raised a huge bright red flag under the golden dragon flag of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom on the position, with a huge white tiger on it. This is the most worshiped totem in Xianghu and one of the flags that the Hunan Army has always loved.  , flying this flag expresses the determination of this Hunan army to fight to the death.

    At one o'clock in the afternoon, the rumbling sound of artillery was first heard on the sea. In the previous ten days of fierce battles, the British and French naval forces successively captured the second forts of Jingyuan and Weiyuan. More than 2,000 Taipings were stationed on them.  All the troops were killed in the battle. Of course, the losses of the coalition navy were also not small. More than 1,500 Marine Corps officers and soldiers were killed in the battle, and more than 1,000 people were injured. Then the navy sank six main battleships and more than 500 people.  of naval casualties.

    Amidst the sound of artillery, the officers and soldiers of the Humen Fort were hiding in tunnels or underground gun emplacements, eating dry food silently. They were recharging their energy, waiting for the enemy's landing troops to fill the beach in front of the fort, and then they would  Can inflict maximum damage to the enemy.

    The artillery fire from the coalition navy lasted for an hour and then gradually weakened. The soldiers at the observation post reported that the enemy's small boats were carrying foreign devils. Liu Jintang gave an order, and the artillerymen at fixed gun positions stepped forward to prepare to block the soldiers.  They also began to come out of the tunnel and enter the position, and a bloody fight was about to begin.

    The Humen Fort is the last nail in the road for the coalition forces to retreat. If this area is not cleared first, the heavy coastal defense artillery on the Humen Fort can cover a large area of ??the surrounding beaches, which will bring great difficulties to the coalition forces' retreat and boarding ships.  It was a huge trouble, so the British Admiral Dundas, the commander-in-chief of the Allied Navy, decided to conquer here first.  But the navy had already opened fire first, and there was no sign of the coalition army on land. It seemed that the army was late again.

    Dundas concentrated more than 50 main warships to bombard the Humen fort for more than an hour. Although there were no forts or gun positions visible, the coalition warships still bombarded all the forts very carefully.  Compared with the Qing army, which left its forts in the open air, the Taiping Army's artillery emplacements were very cunning. They built thick roofs for the forts and camouflaged them with soil, trees, shrubs, etc.  In the original Humen Fort, the position of the artillery could be clearly seen from a distance, but now, from a distance, it is a scene of green mountains and shrubs, and the position of the gun cannot be distinguished at all.  This is the same as the several forts attacked by the coalition forces earlier. It can only be said that the Taiping Army's military camouflage science has reached an extremely high level.

    After preparing the artillery fire, the coalition forces released the Marine Corps. Although the powerful navy was powerful, the goal of occupying land still required sending soldiers to land. Therefore, hundreds of small boats and sampans were deployed by more than 2,000 British and French Marines.  Rush to the beach.

    Until now, the most difficult situation in the battle is not the army or the navy, but the Marine Corps soldiers of the coalition. Their number has dropped sharply from 8,000 before the war to more than 2,000. Shajiao, Dajiao, Jing  Several forts in Yuan and Weiyuan became the graves of Marines.  These Marine officers and soldiers always have to withstand the triple blow of mines, artillery fire, and enemy positions on the beach. They feel like a group of cannon fodder sent to detect the enemy's firepower points and consume enemy ammunition.  But there is no way, they are the Marine Corps, and now the Army is inland, so they can only do this bloody job.

    AndDuring the attack on the Humen Fort on the same day, Dundas did not hold back. He sent out all the more than 2,000 remaining Marines, hoping to put enough pressure on the enemy. He prayed to God to bless the army to attack on time.  Attack from behind the fort, at least not too late.

    The more than twenty fixed artillery positions of the Humen Fort began the first round of salvo fire. Half of them had early targeted the large coalition warships covering behind the landing ships, while the other half had aimed at the weak landing boats.  Three coalition warships were hit by one shot, and the small boats were even more pitiful. More than a dozen landing boats were either hit or overturned by the waves caused by the huge air shock waves.

    Seeing this scene, Dundas sniffed and murmured: "The bloody day has begun again, God bless" (To be continued.)
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