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Volume 1: Fierce Battle in Changsha Chapter 736: Thin Red Line

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    Lin Qirong stared at the battlefield with a stiff expression. The Fifth Army had no reservations from the beginning. Now except for the soldiers of the artillery regiment and his own guard battalion, there was no reserve team around him.  The commander of the First Division Zeng Jin angrily came to the headquarters to see him in person. The commander's words still resonated in Lin Qirong's ears: "Commander Lin, if you continue to fight like this, the elite of the Fifth Army will be wiped out like this. An infantry regiment under my command will pull up."  They were all gone in less than an hour, and the other two are already disabled. Do we really want all the brothers to die here?"

    Lin Qirong's answer was cold and ruthless. He grabbed the division commander's collar and angrily shouted: "What does it matter if the Fifth Army is all gone? What does it matter if the entire Guangzhou Corps Headquarters is all gone? Even if the entire Southwest Military Region is all gone, it doesn't matter.  What the heck! Our friendly forces in other military regions can still protect the country! They can still make the enemy surrender! They can still defeat the enemy! Remember, I don¡¯t want casualty numbers now, I just want time!¡±

    Yes, now the Taiping Army and the Allied Forces are competing for time to see who can waver and collapse first. Once Lin Qirong's troops are defeated earlier, then the Allied Forces will have time to calmly return to their divisions.

    But the division commander also cried loudly and unceremoniously: "Commander Lin, if you let Hu Linyi, a Hunan Army guy, command the Sixth Army, they won't arrive in time. He just wants to see our Fifth Army die!"

    After hearing this, Lin Qirong silently let go of the commander of the First Division and said slowly: "I believe Hu Linyi will lead the Sixth Army to arrive in time." After a pause, Lin Qirong ordered: "You  Go up with my guard battalion, and then go up and stabilize the front. Even if all two divisions of our Fifth Army are here today, we will still hold back the enemy!"

    The division commander stamped his feet and led Lin Qirong's guard camp away with tears in his eyes. Lin Qirong looked to the west and murmured: "Hu Linyi, Hu Linyi, don't let me down."

    At the same time, in Gangwei Village more than ten miles away, Hu Linyi looked at the map with red eyes and said loudly to several division commanders of the Sixth Army: "Thousands of enemy troops are guarding our front. You charged three times but told me to charge."  Do not move?!"

    A division commander said with a look of shame: "Commander. We marched here in a hurry, but the artillery was still behind and couldn't catch up. The enemy has the terrain advantage, so we have difficulty charging"

    Hu Linyi interrupted him unceremoniously.  He said angrily: "Don't talk about difficulties. Five kilometers away, the brothers of the Fifth Army are desperately entangled with the enemy. They are facing enemies twice as many as themselves. How dare you talk about difficulties when you are facing thousands of people?! No matter what you want  What can I do? Charge through the enemy's blocking position. Half an hour later, if we haven't rushed over yet, I will personally go into battle to lead you through!"

    Hu Linyi was also furious. More than 4,000 British and French rearguards set up a blocking position two kilometers outside Gangwei Village. Since there is a river on one side and Gangwei hills on the other side, the coalition forces took advantage of the location.  The artillery of the Taiping Army was still on the way, so the Taiping Army failed to capture this place after three charges.  And was blocked here.  Hu Linyi knew very well that once his Sixth Army could rush through here and join the battlefield in Xiancun Town, the battle situation would be significantly reversed for the Taiping Army.

    The Sixth Army began to organize the fourth charge. This time they ignored casualties, and the battalion company commander took the lead in the charge. Opposite them stood the British 93rd Highland Infantry Regiment, which was famous in the Crimean War.  The British and French allied forces deployed more than 4,000 troops here, with the British 93rd Highland Infantry Regiment as the main force. They were all elite troops good at defense. Among them, the British 93rd Highland Infantry Regiment was the most famous during the Crimean War.  It was this infantry regiment that blocked the charge of the Russian superior cavalry with two rows of infantry, earning it the nickname Thin Red Line.

    But today their commander saw a more tenacious army than the Russian army. The former commander of the 93rd Highland Infantry Regiment of the British Army and the current major general commander of the British 2nd Guards Regiment was responsible for commanding this rear-mounted force.  Lin Campbell saw the fourth enemy charge.  His hands couldn't help but tremble a little, "God, they still have the courage to charge. If they were Russians, they would have collapsed in the first two charges."

    Campbell¡¯s concerns are justified, given the first three blocks.  The three highland infantry regiments of the British and French allied forces were barely completed. The soldiers were exhausted and their ammunition was about to run out. The most important thing was that they began to fear the enemy's fearless spirit. At least more than three thousand people fell in front of them.  There was only one corpse, but the enemy's fourth charge also came. Like the first three charges, the enemy's charge became more and more determined and fearless.

    Amid shouts reaching the sky, the Taiping Army's fourth charge soon began. They impacted the coalition's defense line like a wave. The British 93rd Highland Infantry Regiment assumed the center position of the defense line. The pressure on them was extremely huge.  , the grenadiers of the Taiping Army were very powerful. Dozens of them often threw grenades at the same time, causing great damage to the 93rd Highland Infantry Regiment.

      Twenty minutes after the fourth charge started, the thin red line of the 93rd Infantry Regiment began to show signs of collapse. Campbell was extremely anxious. His reserves had been used up in the first three enemy charges.  They were all sent to plug the gap, and now he no longer had any troops except for some civilian personnel, staff officers and guards.

    Sure enough, the messenger of the 93rd Infantry Regiment brought depressing news, "General, we can't hold it any longer. Commander Sterling requested to retreat."

    Campbell knew the fighting style of the 93rd Infantry Regiment. Their commander would not ask for a retreat until the last minute.  Just when Campbell was about to order the messenger to bring the order to hold on, more than ten screams pierced the air, and more than ten artillery shells accurately landed on the coalition's defensive position. Campbell hurriedly raised his telescope and looked, only to see  Seeing pieces of smoke rising into the sky in Gangwei Village occupied by the Taiping Army, he saw the artillery regiment of the Taiping Army arriving in the smoke. Some small field artillery began to fire first, and the heavy artillery was still being unloaded from the carriage.  .

    Campbell put down the telescope in pain and said: "Retreat, we have tried our best, the enemy's artillery is coming, retreat across the board, tell the soldiers on the front line that if they cannot retreat, they are allowed to surrender to the enemy after firing their bullets"

    At 6:45 p.m., the Sixth Army of the Taiping Army broke through the blocking position of Gangwei Village of the British and French forces and defeated more than 4,000 British and French rearguard troops led by the British 93rd Highland Infantry Regiment.  After breaking through the enemy's position, the pursuit began. Along the road less than three kilometers from Gangwei Village to Xiancun Town, the bodies of British and French coalition soldiers were lying everywhere. More than a thousand coalition soldiers finally knelt on the roadside and begged for mercy.  In the end, only less than 500 of the more than 4,000 coalition troops escaped, and more than 1,300 people, including Campbell, became prisoners.

    After Hu Linyi's Sixth Army broke through the enemy's position, the sky had darkened. However, he did not order the soldiers to rest but continued to press forward regardless. At this moment, the Taiping Army's situation of flanking the main coalition forces from the east and west had taken shape.  The fate of the coalition's defeat has been doomed.

    After receiving news about the coalition soldiers who had escaped from Gangwei Village, Baron Seton knew that the main force of the Taiping Army in Guangzhou had pressed over. The only way left in front of him was to retreat. When he saw that the counterattack forces ahead were about to achieve major results,  He had to order the coalition forces to retreat across the board. He arranged for several infantry regiments to hold positions around the pontoon bridge, and the large forces began to shrink and retreat south.

    That night, the coalition forces were constantly raided by the Taiping Army during their retreat. Fortunately, the bravery, tenacity and steel-like discipline of the coalition soldiers ensured that they did not collapse, and the night protected them well. After dawn, the main force of the coalition forces  They retreated to Daoyao Town in the west of Dongguan County, where the coalition forces gathered their soldiers and reorganized their organization and found that there were only more than 20,000 coalition soldiers left.  In the battle of Xiancun Town, at least more than 7,000 coalition soldiers were killed. In addition to the losses of more than 3,000 people in Gangwei Village, more than 20,000 soldiers did not return to the main force during the last night's retreat. They may have been annihilated by the enemy.  Maybe they got separated, maybe they got lost, or maybe they surrendered.

    The misfortune of the coalition forces is not over yet. The defeated defenders of Dongguan brought bad news. After a day and night of fierce fighting last night, the three thousand heavy troops guarding Dongguan were lost in Dongguan County. Mountains of ammunition, food and various military supplies were piled in the city.  Supplies became spoils of war for the Taiping Army, and the coalition forces lost their most important supply base.

    Bad news came one after another. The reconnaissance team reported that after the enemy's cavalry division captured Dongguan County, it then moved southward and swept all the way south along the path of the coalition forces after landing, cutting off the connection between the coalition forces and the Jinzhou landing site. More than 20,000 remaining soldiers  The coalition forces were in danger of being trapped inland.

    Baron Seton and a group of coalition generals were arguing around the map. What they were discussing now was no longer how to continue to invade Guangzhou, but how to safely bring the remaining coalition troops back to Hong Kong.

    An hour later, a Marine Corps came here from the waterway and found them. The Navy already knew the news of Dongguan's fall last night. Admiral Dundas brought a suggestion, suggesting that the coalition forces assault in the southwest direction, and then in  The navy ships boarded at Humen were withdrawn to Hong Kong, because apart from the more than 3,000 Taiping troops stationed at the Humen Fort, there were no other Taiping troops in the southwest, and the coalition forces should be able to escape smoothly.  And if they want to return to Hong Kong, all they need to do is to eliminate the three thousand Taiping Army in Humen. Admiral Dundas believes that under the attack of the navy and army, the Taiping Army in Humen should be easily annihilated.

    Baron Seton didn¡¯t think about it for long. He almost immediately agreed to Dundas¡¯ suggestion, and the other commanders didn¡¯t have many objections, because this was their best choice at the moment.  So at eight o'clock in the morning that day, the remaining 20,000 coalition forces began to move toward the tiger.Marched quickly in the direction of ?.  (To be continued.)
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