No. 8 Youfu West Street, Wulaocun Street, Qinhuai District, Tianjing. There is a Western-style building. Its building is a four-story Western-style brick-walled building. It was built in 1856 and completed in 1857. This is the office building of the Tianjin Telegraph Bureau, the capital of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. In addition to office spaces, there is also a telegraph hall specializing in providing civilian telegraph services.

The Telegraph Bureau building faces north and south, with four floors above the ground, one floor underground, and a white wall floor on the slope roof. The people of Tianjing call it the Qinhuai Bailou. The telegraph mailing room with the highest confidential level in the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom is located on the underground floor. This is done to prevent the outbreak of war. If the Telegraph Bureau building is bombarded, the underground floor can ensure normal telegraph sending and receiving on the underground floor.

It was already late at night, and the Telegraph Bureau building was pitch black, while the confidential telegraph room on the underground floor was brightly lit, with kerosene lamps hanging around, illuminating the entire basement. Several confidential radio operators in the room were nervously receiving telegraph messages from Shanghai and other places, and then translated it into Chinese according to the password book.

Next to the desk, Zuo Zongtang, Li Kaifang, Ji Wenyuan, Xu Naizhao, Li Shourong and other important officials of the Heavenly Kingdom who were left in Tianjing surrounded here, waiting anxiously for the latest battle situation sent back in front of them.

After receiving news from the sea outside the Yangtze River estuary at around 9 o'clock in the morning that the anti-smuggling ships encountered a large number of British and French naval warships, Zuo Zongtang and others knew that the war had begun. For the powerful naval forces of the British and French coalition forces, although they had made careful arrangements and arrangements in advance, the Kingdom of Heaven was still worried, and no one knew what the war would be like.

At the same time, Zuo Zongtang and others were also eager to wait for the latest developments of the British and French navies. In previous deductions, after the British and French navies headed south, there were four most likely targets to attack. Tianjing, Zhenjiang, Shanghai, and Dinghai. Defeating the Dinghai is a safe way, which can give the British and French navies a foothold. Attacking Zhenjiang is also to gain a foothold and then threaten Shanghai or Tianjing. Attacking Shanghai is to rescue the concession first, and fighting Tianjing is a desperate adventure of the British and French navies.

Although the possibility of the British and French navy attacking Tianjing as soon as they came up was not high, Zuo Zongtang still mobilized the Second Army stationed in Tianjing and the vast number of rural soldiers to defend Tianjing. At the same time, he asked Xiwangniang to go to Hangzhou to attend the opening ceremony, hoping that Xiwangniang, who was pregnant with Liujia, could avoid the war.

At about 1:00 p.m., the latest battle report was sent back in front of the front. The British and French coalition forces began to break into Wusongkou with twenty-four warships as the leader. The remaining warships gathered near Jigu Reef outside the Yangtze River estuary. There was no sign of other ships breaking into the inland waterway of the Yangtze River.

After receiving the news, Zuo Zongtang breathed a sigh of relief. It seemed that the British and French navy planned to open up the connection with the concession first, which was very consistent with the judgment of the General Staff. Since this was the case, on the Huangpu River, the Taiping Army had prepared a big gift for the British and French navy and was waiting for them to come to the door. Then Zuo Zongtang moved his office to the underground floor of the Telegraph Bureau, waiting for the news ahead at all times. The real-time telegraph transmission method of the telegraph has quietly changed the command mode of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, between Shanghai and Tianjing. In the past, the message was transmitted at the fastest time, but now, as soon as the telegraph was sent, the message could be received immediately. Various instructions from Tianjing could be delivered to the front more quickly.

The following telegrams sent by Wang Yiyun, Pan Qiliang and Tao Enpei jointly told the progress of the war. According to the combat plan of the General Staff, when the British and French naval forces broke into Wusongkou, the two sides of the turrets will not fight back. They have to wait for the British and French naval ships to break into the Huangpu River. At night, the water ghost troops affiliated with the coast guard team were sent to arrange mines. The arranged mines were mainly anchor mines to close the Wusongkou. Then the upper reaches of the Huangpu River began to cast the drifting mines. This mine would drift downstream with the water, and then the drifting mines could be used to strike the British and French fleets. If the British and French fleets turned around and retreated, the mines at Wusongkou plus the artillery on both sides of the turrets could give an annihilation blow to the British and French fleets, so that the vital forces of the British and French navies could be eliminated to the maximum extent.

But this plan also has obvious flaws, that is, the Wusongkou fort is not fired, which will inevitably arouse the alert of the British and French navies. At the same time, if the two sides of the Wusongkou are not occupied by the British and French coalition forces, the British and French navies will not dare to go deep into the inland. Therefore, the General Staff formulated a bolder supplementary plan, that is, when the British and French navies sent landing troops, the Taiping army of the two sides of the turrets voluntarily gave up the fort. After the British and French navies broke into the Huangpu River, the Taiping Army's land forces quickly launched a counterattack on the fort after the sun sets and retakes the fort.

This plan is very bold and if you are not careful, you will shoot yourself in the foot. So at the beginning, Zuo Zongtang did not let Pan Qiliang in front of him implement it immediately. When it was around 3:00 pm, the front sent a telegram, saying that the British and French navy had carried out an hour-long shelling and stayed outside Wusongkou and did not dare to go deep into the Huangpu River. At the same time, they sent landing craft to carry soldiers to land and seize the fort. Pan Qiliang felt that he should take a risk, so he generated a power and asked for an order.

After discussing it over and over again, Zuo Zongtang and Li Kaifang and others decided to take a risk, so he sent a telegram to Pan Qiliang and asked him to act as planned. The Taiping soldiers of the two sides of the Taiwan Strait's fortresses made a little resistance and retreated after arriving at the coalition landing forces, giving up the fortifications of the two sides of the Taiwan Strait.

The French army was Major General Napier, who led the two thousand infantry retreating from Dagukou to land on the West Coast Fort, British Brigadier General Revi led 800 British Marines to land on the East Battery. Originally, the two generals were ready to fight hard, but unexpectedly, after a less intense battle, the Taiping Army retreated. During the hasty retreat, even the artillery and shells on the fort were missing.

Some were not sure whether the Taiping Army was luring the two generals of the enemy to stop chasing and consolidate the defense of the turret, and at the same time passed the news back to the surface ships. The Taiping Army's actions also confused the British and French naval generals, and they were somewhat unsure whether they should enter the Huangpu River immediately. In the end, Massimogri decided to let twelve warships enter the Huangpu River first, and the warships behind followed one after another, leaving a fleet of four ships at the Wusong entrance to assist the defense of the turret.

At around 5 pm, the British and French navies finally began to advance towards the inland waterway of the Huangpu River. Twelve ships entered the Huangpu River near the concession without encountering the attack from the Taiping Army. So the subsequent ships followed one after another, leaving four French sail gunboats to defend themselves at Wusongkou.

When they saw the flags of the British and French navy in the afterglow of the sunset, the British and French military and civilians who had been trapped in the concession for ten days covered their faces and started crying. The mercenaries of Gordon and others from the foreign gun team even fired guns to the sky to celebrate, and their suffering finally passed.

The British and French navy then shelled the positions that were leased to the Outer Taiping Army, but the Taiping Army had already avoided artillery after seeing the British and French warships, so the artillery was not effective. At this time, the British commander Seymour, who led the squadron, and Brigadier General Bröd, were a little weak. Although the naval naval artillery was powerful, infantry still needed to occupy the position after the artillery was bombarded, but they no longer had infantry. One or two hundred sailors could be gathered on all ships to land, but they believed that this number of people could not repel the Taiping Army.

After Gordon of the Foreign Guns boarded a British warship to meet Seymour, he claimed that he had organized more than 500 foreign Guns to stand by, and at the same time, he could draw out 500 people from the Marines and Police Forces that protected the concession. Adding to the Shanghai Army's sailors, more than 1,000 people should be able to repel the Taiping Army.

So Seymour agreed to Gordon's plan. The British major Gordon, who was born in an engineer, began to organize his commando team. Two hundred sailors landed on the shore to cooperate with the operation. The navy continued to shell the Taiping Army's positions. The shelling destroyed many houses and warehouse buildings, but failed to hurt many Taiping Army. Their positions were covered with trenches and anti-aircraft holes.

After Gordon organized the commando, he found that it was already dark and the commando was not good at night battles, so Gordon decided to launch an attack after dawn. But the thick night gave Seymour and Brode a very bad premonition, but they couldn't say anything.

The weapon of mine is usually defined as a defensive weapon, but the Shanghai Manufacturing Bureau of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom broke the routine during its development. Several young R&D personnel were inspired after communicating with Wei Yuan. Why can't mines be actively attacking weapons? But they later found that they could not solve the power problem of mines, that is, they could not let the mines move on their own to attack the enemy. They could only rely on the power of the water flow to move towards the enemy in a specific water flow environment. This limitation is very great.

Some people then proposed to install sails on mines, or use long poles to clamp them on the front of the boat, and move towards the enemy ship with the power of the boat. In fact, the researchers at these manufacturing bureaus did not know that the weapon they conceived was another surface weapon - torpedo.

Although the technology from mines to torpedoes is not yet mature, the mines are made into drifting mines or pole mines carried by small boats. Their imaginary enemy is the British and French navy, which has always been stronger than the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Navy.

On that night, the ships entering the Huangpu River from the British and French Navy were moored in the waters of the Huangpu River outside the concession. Several miles upstream, the Taiping Army's boats released hundreds of floating lightnings with pole thunders. These floating lightnings were equipped with sheepskin airbags to increase buoyancy and drifting power. So the dense mines on the water surface began to float to the British and French warships downstream with the current. Then dozens of small pole thunder boats also began to sail downstream under the control of the suicide squadrons.

It seems difficult to pass every minute and every second. It is also the hottest season in Jiangnan. The basement of the Telegraph Bureau is sultry and hot. When the wall clock points to three o'clock in the middle of the night, a noisy Didi Tower sounded constantly. A moment later, a radio operator stood up happily, raised the recording paper in his hand and said loudly: "There is news coming from the front that the mines broke out successfully, and the naval ships that broke into the Huangpu River in Britain and France were severely damaged..." (To be continued, please search for astronomy, the novel is better and faster!
Chapter completed!