In Suzhou, although it was already late at night, Liu Mingchuan, who was staying in Suzhou, was still awakened by a burst of rapid knocks on the door. A tired messenger was carried in by two soldiers.

"Taizhou urgent report, Taizhou urgent report." The messenger almost used his last little effort to scream hoarsely:

After receiving the letter from the messenger, Liu Mingchuan quickly read it.

"Come." Liu Mingchuan shouted:

"Yes." Liu Mingchuan's correspondent replied:

"Tell me the order, and the troops gathered urgently." Liu Mingchuan ordered:

"Yes, sir."

"Wait, let the seventh company commander come to see me immediately. Send someone to send this letter to Shanghai as quickly as possible overnight."

"yes."

After a while, the company commander of the 7th Company rushed to Liu Mingchuan's room.

"Zhang Youfu, the company commander of the 7th Company, came to report and ask the chief for instructions."

Liu Mingchuan immediately ordered: "Company Commander Zhang, take your seventh company and set off lightly, arrive at Jingjiang as fast as possible, occupy the ferry, prepare the ship, and I want your head if something goes wrong." Liu Mingchuan's voice was extremely harsh.

"Ensure the task is completed." Zhang Youfu made a standard posture of standing attentively and saluting.

"Go."

Zhang Youfu saluted again and turned around and left.

Taizhou, west gate, and on the city wall. Yang Yi stood in the city gate tower and quietly watched the Taiping Army approaching. Lai Hanying seemed crazy and did not prepare for artillery fire in advance, so he ordered a charge. However, it seemed that the Taiping Army was well-trained, and the offensive troops lined up into several neat squares. The ones rushing in front were squares holding shields. It seemed that years of battles had allowed the Taiping Army to accumulate a certain amount of experience in tough battles. However, these experiences were only applicable to the category of combat with cold weapons.

There were about 3,000 Taiping Army participating in the first wave of attacks, and ten platoons were arranged. The front platoons were holding shields and carrying a ladder to quickly approach the city wall.

"General, open the fire." The first battalion commander Liu Mingli was anxious.

"No hurry, wait."

Fifty meters away,

Thirty meters

"Order the troops, prepare for grenades." Hidden under the battlements, but the soldiers suddenly stood up.

"Blast drop." Grenades flew from the city wall to the Taiping Army siege.

Outside the city, Lai Hanying in the distance found that a defensive soldier suddenly appeared on the city wall, and suddenly became nervous. He quickly took out the monocular telescope he bought from the British man to observe, and found that only a hundred people were about to be relieved. When the soldiers on the city wall threw grenades down, Lai Hanying wondered strangely, what is this? Such a small thing can kill people?

"Boom, boom, boom." The continuous explosions kept blowing the Taiping Army soldiers to the ground. Lai Hanying was shocked. After rushing to the front, more than half of them fell in an instant. More than 3,000 Taiping Army participated in the first wave of attacks, and suddenly became a group of people. Although there were huge casualties, some brave soldiers still approached the city wall, set up several cloud ladders, and some Taiping Army began to climb up the ladders. Some remaining archers also shot loose arrows on the city wall. "Boom, bang. bang." After a burst of rifles, the Taiping Army on the cloud ladders landed one after another, and other Taiping Army under the city wall were also blown down by grenades that fell one after another. The first attack wave of the Taiping Army was basically declared failure. The battle situation did not develop in the direction Lai Hanying expected.

Lai Hanying, who was far away, saw it and secretly cried out in his heart. "Ming Jin to withdraw his troops." Lai Hanying issued an order to retreat.

The dense squadrons arranged by the Taiping Army made the grenades exert their maximum lethality. Only one thousand soldiers were safely withdrawn. Although Lai Hanying had been through the battlefield for a long time and had seen many bleeding and injuries, he was also frightened by the shocking casualties and sweating.

I thought there were only one thousand soldiers in Taizhou City, and most of them were regiment training. One charge should be able to solve the battle, but I didn’t expect that most of the troops would fall down before they could reach the foot of the city wall.

Under the city of Taizhou, several ladders that were broken by grenades fell alone on the edge of the wall, with weapons such as dead bodies and messy swords and guns thrown all over the floor.

"Is there any movement in other directions?" Yang Yi asked the commander of the first battalion next to him. In this battle, Yang Yi asked the three companies of the first battalion to guard the west, north, south, third gates, and the fourth and fifth companies of the second battalion as reserves, and the sixth company maintains order in the city and is responsible for guarding the east gate.

"Report to the general that there has been no battle in other directions."

"Very good, company commander, report on the casualties of the troops."

"Eleven minor injuries, no serious injuries, no death."

"Beautiful work, how is the ammunition?" Yang Yi continued to ask:

"The bullets are not consumed much, and the grenades are basically gone?"

"Order the troops, be careful to save ammunition."

"yes."

Lai Hanying had long heard that there was a new army of Qing demons in Shanghai, all equipped with weapons bought from foreigners. When the Shanghai Xiaodaohui uprising, it suppressed the uprising of tens of thousands of people in Shanghai with only 3,000 troops. The huge casualties in front of him made Lai Hanying easily think of this army. Lai Hanying had seen the power of foreign guns, and Shi Dakai had hundreds of foreign guns under his command. Lai Hanying thought that if he encountered the new army, he would have to be cautious in fighting this battle. Lai Hanying, who had been through many battles, quickly got out of the chaos. He originally planned to save a few shells, but it seemed impossible. In Lai Hanying's view, although the new army's weapons were advanced, the number of people was too small after all, so it would be a matter of time before it was captured by Taizhou.
Chapter completed!