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Volume 1: Fierce Battle in Changsha Chapter 732: Bloody Day

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    Off the coast of Macau, Admiral Dundas, commander-in-chief of the British Naval Expeditionary Force, looked into the distance with disappointment and said to Sir Elgin: "What on earth are the Portuguese thinking? Don't they understand that only by uniting with us can Macau maintain its current status?"  status? Why don¡¯t you agree to our request to station our army and fleet in Macau?¡±

    Elgin smiled bitterly and shook his head and said: "The Portuguese in Macau have been frightened by the Taiping Rebellion. Macau is closer to the mainland than Hong Kong. As long as the Taiping Rebellion wants to, their flag can be planted on Macau early tomorrow morning.¡î  ¡ú¡î¡ú, in 1845, the Queen of Portugal declared Macau a free port for Portugal, and ships from any country importing goods to Macau were exempted from tariffs. Unfortunately, this status only existed for less than ten years. The Taiping Army was conquering Guangzhou  After that, the Portuguese were forced to sign a new treaty. Macau was just a treaty port, and the Portuguese living there still had to abide by all the laws of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. Macau failed to obtain the status of Hong Kong."

    Dundas said strangely: "Isn't that just right? Don't the Portuguese understand that the military strength of our coalition can win Macau's legal status?"

    Elgin said: "The Portuguese Governor of Macau accepted the official appointment of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom two months ago. He accepted the official position very happily. It is said that the Portuguese in Macau are negotiating nationality with the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. The Portuguese hope that the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom will recognize it.  Dual nationality, which means that the Portuguese do not resist becoming citizens of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, while the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom only recognizes single nationality, and the two sides are still negotiating. However, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom requires Portugal to remain completely neutral in the war between us and the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. If the soldiers of our expeditionary force  Once they appear in Macau, the Taiping Rebellion¡¯s troops will not hesitate to enter Macau to maintain the integrity of their so-called territorial sovereignty. Therefore, the Portuguese had to deny us access to Macau¡¯s land, or even the use of their port.¡±

    Dundas suddenly realized: "I understand, it seems that the Portuguese still lack confidence in our military strength." Sir Elgin said sadly: "Actually, a month ago, I and the Portuguese Governor of Macau would meet  However, the governor who holds the position of magistrate of Macau County told me that the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom was not the previous Ming Dynasty government. It was not the Qing Dynasty government. If he wanted to keep Macau, he had to remain independent. He described to me the situation in Guangzhou and other places.  , saying that the people there are very enthusiastic about resisting our invasion. There are many Taiping troops and local troops, and there are even more migrant workers to help them build fortifications. He suggested that we had better end the war in the form of peace talks."

    Dundas sneered and said: "The timid Portuguese, no wonder they have lived in Macau for three centuries, but they have not been able to make Macau become Hong Kong. You must know that it only took us three years to acquire Hong Kong." Elgin  He was slightly startled and added: "Your Majesty General, that was obtained from the Qing Dynasty."

    Dundas waved his hand and turned back to Lieutenant General Ho and other naval admirals: "After a week of investigation, do you have anything to say?"

    He Bo said: "We can invade Guangzhou, but we must pay a considerable price, perhaps a higher price than conquering Sestopol Fortress."

    Dundas looked at Uncle Huber and said, "Lieutenant General, your courage seems to have been lost due to constant setbacks and failures. It's really sad." Uncle Huber blushed and was speechless.

    Dundas waved his hand and said: "Ignore the Portuguese, let's start the attack according to the original plan!"

    In the early morning of the eighth day after the Allied Expeditionary Force arrived in Hong Kong, the British and French forces launched their third campaign to attack Guangzhou.  Different from the previous two times, this time their opponent was the Taiping Army.

    Guangzhou has several gates. The first one is the Shajiao and Dajiao forts at the outermost edge of the Pearl River Estuary. The two forts were built on Shajiao Mountain and Dajiao Mountain respectively. After the Taiping Army occupied this place from the Qing army, they have been reinforcing and building the forts.  , now the two forts are built like fortresses, with solid bluestone walls. The forts are set in the middle of the mountain, and the beaches are covered with mines.  There is an infantry tunnel position on the side and rear, the shooting boundary has been cleared on the beach, and all the trees have been cut down.

    At ten o'clock in the morning, the British and French warships first fired at the two forts.  The bombardment lasted for a full hour, and both forts were shrouded in thick smoke, but the strange thing was that no artillery on the forts fired back.

    At eleven o'clock sharp, the landing troops of the British and French forces, under the cover of warships, began to rush towards the beaches of the two forts. Halfway through, the two troop transports were first attacked by shore artillery.  The artillery of the Taiping Army, which had been patient until now, finally began to roar, and then the warships covering the landing also began to be attacked by artillery.

    Judging from the firepower of the two forts, there were at least dozens of cannons deployed. The warships began to flexibly avoid the shells and fired back at the same time, but some warships still began to be hit.  an outer vesselThe deck of the new battleship covered with iron armor was hit by a cannonball, but apart from the explosion of the cannonball that killed several sailors, there was not much damage to it.  Dundas nodded with satisfaction and said to Uncle Ho and other generals: "Did you see it? This is the empire's new armored warship. Now we and France are developing the latest armored warships. This kind of armored warship will be made entirely of steel.  . Look at this Courage, it is only covered with a layer of armor, and it is already able to withstand such fierce artillery fire."

    Massimogli hesitated for a while before saying: "Your Excellency, we fought against the East China Sea Fleet of the Taiping Army. They also covered several important warships with armor. We suffered a lot during the last naval battle.  "

    Dundas's eyes widened, feeling a little incredible. Before he finished speaking, several more shells from the Taiping artillery on the shore hit the Spirit. The Spirit avoided most of the shells, but was still hit by one on the starboard side.  When everyone still thought that the Spirit would be safe and sound like last time, something strange happened. The shell did not explode on the side, but instead made a hole in the side. Then the shell penetrated into the hull and caused  There was a violent explosion.

    The huge fire and explosion instantly wiped out the side of the Spirit. The turbulent water immediately poured in, and it quickly began to sink within a few minutes.  Dundas put down the telescope in shock and asked: "What's going on? What's going on?" Uncle Ho and others were also very surprised. What kind of shell was the Courage hit?

    At the No. 11 gun position of the Shajiao Fort, several Taiping artillerymen cheered and an artillery sergeant shouted happily: "It's hit, you see it, I just said to use armor-piercing bullets, the last one  A burst bomb hit it, and the guy just had a cold war with nothing, which means that this guy is an armor-covered warship like the flagship of our East China Sea Fleet! It's best to use armor-piercing bullets to deal with it!"

    An artilleryman cracked his mouth and said with a smile: "You're right, boss, we killed a big ship" Just before he finished speaking, several sharp whistles came, and the sergeant's expression changed drastically and he shouted: "  Enemy artillery fire" He trailed off as a shell accurately hit the artillery launch port of No. 11 gun position. The burst of shrapnel and shock wave heat wave smoothed everything in the gun hole.

    The Taiping Army carried out armor-covering modifications on naval battleships. Of course, if there is a shield, there must be a spear. The military industry department has already started research on armor-piercing projectiles while the battleships are undergoing armor-covering modifications.  Historically, armor-piercing bullets also appeared in the 1960s, but they were not used in actual combat for the first time.  Several Taiping artillerymen at No. 11 Battery of Sand Point Battery used the assigned armor-piercing shells in actual combat for the first time, and achieved a record of sinking a British armored battleship, HMS Courage. However, they were then intensively attacked.  None of the five artillerymen survived the artillery fire, but their names were remembered by military history fans in the end. It was the first time that the five of them used armor-piercing projectiles in actual combat.

    Although the Taiping troops on the two forts resisted desperately, there were so many British and French ships on the sea. After the forts hidden in the mountains opened fire, they were constantly hit by superior firepower. Although most of the shells were hit by the mountains and roof fortifications,  Blocked, but the artillery launch port still caused casualties to the Taiping Army's coastal defense batteries under the intensive shell attack.

    After the artillery battle lasted for two hours, the first batch of British troops landed on the beach of Shajiao Fort. The first three hundred British troops quickly began to form an attack formation on the beach.  Captain Mills commanded this force. He loudly ordered the soldiers to run quickly. They planned to rush across this large open beach area as quickly as possible.

    The landing force only traveled two hundred meters when a violent explosion sounded beside Captain Mills. Two soldiers had their legs broken and fell to the ground screaming. Captain Mills shouted: "Attention, there are still people on the beach."  There are mines!" It is hard to imagine that there will be mines remaining on the beach that has been bombarded by intensive naval artillery fire. Captain Mills does not know how many mines the enemy has laid on this beach, and he does not know what the probability of this is. He  Now all I can think about is rushing over as quickly as possible.

    The British army hesitated in their footsteps. They were afraid of being killed or injured by the remaining mines. They seemed to be gambling with the God of Death, and they could only resign themselves to their fate to see whose luck was better.

    Soon, behind a palm forest at the end of the beach, a dense rain of bullets sprayed towards them. A dozen British soldiers were shot at the same time. At a distance of three to four hundred meters, the enemy's muskets had already begun to cause damage to them.

    Captain Mills shouted: "Lie down, take cover!" Then several rockets struck the beach with beautiful tail flames. Those rockets were fired from the army position behind the enemy's palm forest. There was no explosion after the explosion.  How much shrapnel was produced, but it triggered a sea of ????fire.

    "It's the enemy's incendiary rockets! God, they are going to burn us to death!" The British soldiers panicked.The gunfire from a naval warship began to hit the palm forest, and the huge palm tree fell down with the fire. After the smoke cleared, the British soldiers found that they were still under enemy fire.

    The bloody battle only started for three hours. Nearly 3,000 soldiers from both sides fell. After seeing the bloody killings of the British troops who landed on the two beaches, and warships being hit and on fire from time to time on the sea, Deng Deng  Das opened his mouth wide, and said after a long time: "Oh God, what a bloody day" (To be continued.)
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