"The siege has begun, and the Taiping Army launched another shameless surprise attack. It can be seen that they have been preparing for a long time. I don't know what to do. The time when the pearl of Nebchu falls may be tomorrow. The terrible and evil totem on their flag is the legendary beast of this ancient nation - the dragon. In my opinion, this totem is so hideous. We are hiding around under the enemy's artillery fire. I can only pray that God will make the cold come soon. New......" - Sergeyev's "Memoirs of the Far East War"

On the Taiping Army position outside Nibchu, Liu Mingchuan looked at the Qing general Tepuqin beside him and said, "General Zhang, the enemy's 30,000 cavalry reinforcements have been annihilated. What should you do next?"

Tepuqin's original name was Puxi, with the courtesy name Baixi, and the surname Zhang, was named Han army engraved with red flags. He was born in Shengjing. His ancestors were the Han people who surrendered to the Qing Dynasty at the end of the Ming Dynasty. Later, he was appointed as the Han army flag. He was a native of the Northeast. This man only took over as General Heilongjiang this year, and he was only a sick Yishan temporarily. He was not a real military position. However, after taking office, he actively guarded against the Russian invasion. Later, after the Qing court's surrender edict was passed to the Northeast, he led the military and civilians under his jurisdiction to surrender to the Taiping Army.

After Tepuqin surrendered, he recovered his Han surname in accordance with the national order of the Taiping Army and changed his name back to Puxi, becoming the first group of Qing generals to fight for the Taiping Army on the front line. He is currently the General Staff Officer of the Northeast Legion Cavalry, and is also considered Liu Mingchuan's deputy in this siege battle.

After Tepqin took over as General Heilongjiang in history, the Russians had occupied a large area of ​​land outside the pass. When he was in danger, he took two major measures to prevent Tsarist Russia from invading again. First, he trained troops. He incorporated the Oroqen people from the Five Routes of Kumar into Jiangyou Regiment Training, and added Taika along the river to patrol and watch, and be wary of the enemy situation. He also selected soldiers from Butha and Melgen and trained diligently. He selected bannermen from four cities including Qiqihar and Hulan. He moved to Heilongjiang City (i.e. Aihui) to support each other.

In order to solve the food and salary of officers and soldiers, he proposed to ban the Northeast in response to the Qing government's policy of banning the Northeast. On July 21, the tenth year of Xianfeng, he submitted a memorial to the court, requesting the opening of the Hulan Mongolian Mountains (now in Mulan County) area to recruit people to reclaim land, and obtained permission from the Qing court, thus changing the Qing court's ban policy in Heilongjiang for more than a hundred years. "It has been built in Jiang Province". Immigration in the border area improved Heilongjiang's financial situation, and also played an important role in resisting Tsarist Russia's encroachment on Heilongjiang.

After joining the Taiping Army in this time and space, he was very active in the Northeast Legion dispatching superior forces to attack Tsarist Russia. After listening to Liu Mingchuan's words, Zhang Puxi (from this place to Chinese name writing), he pondered for a moment and said: "The largest reinforcements of the Rakshasa people have been annihilated, and other soldiers of the Rakshasa people are no longer able to come to support us. We besiege the city and wait for the strategy of annihilation of the enemy reinforcements. There is no hope of success again. Moreover, seeing that the severe cold weather is coming, I think Nebchu should conquer it as soon as possible in the near future, so that our army in the field can spend the winter in the city."

Liu Mingchuan nodded and said, "Shistor Tan is the same. He is leading the troops to Chita. The Russians on the Chita side are also very empty after the 30,000 cavalry were annihilated. Shuai Tan wants to lead his troops to capture Chita and spend the winter in Chita. He asked us to capture Nibchu as soon as possible and lead the troops into the city for winter so as not to be caught off guard when the severe cold comes."

Zhang Puxi said: "That's true, then I'll let the generals of various departments come to discuss and formulate a plan to attack Nibchu." After that, Zhang Puxi ordered the soldiers to go and notify the generals of various departments to come to the command center for a meeting.

Taking advantage of the time when the generals were not yet fully arrived, Zhang Puxi looked at the soldiers who were still cleaning the battlefield after the war last night, and the red-bottomed golden dragon flag of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom fluttered in the wind. He said with emotion: "I didn't expect that we used to be as afraid of the barbarians as tigers, but now it seems that the barbarians are also vulnerable."

Liu Mingchuan laughed and said, "The Yi people are not three heads and six arms. Like us, there is only one guy who eats." He paused and said, "Now the troops have consumed 40% of the ammunition. I want the first regiment to tentatively attack the city of Nibchu, and the second regiment to attack the dock outside Nibchu. I had thought not to surround the enemy to death. The enemy still felt that the city of Nibchu could still hold on, so I did not capture the dock. Now it seems that there is no need to stay this dock."

Zhang Puxi said with a nod, "The pier outside Nibchu City should be easily captured, so as not to be able to support the escort from the pier when the enemy in the city can't help but take a boat to escape from the pier."

After the two agreed, the generals of each army had arrived. Now there are more than 10,000 regular Taiping Army troops outside the city, plus the North Korean servants, there are more than 13,000 Japanese soldiers and more than 18,000 civilians. After seeing the generals of each army arrive, Liu Mingchuan issued an order. The soldiers of the second regiment first attacked the dock outside the city of Nibuchu. The first regiment and the third regiment attacked Nibuchu from both north and south. The North and the Japanese regiment were responsible for the west and left the east. It was the tactic of surrounding three missing ones, but there was a huge pocket on the east side of Nibuchu, waiting for the enemy to break through.

There were still about 1,500 Russian garrison troops on the wharf of Nebchu City. The Taiping Army did not attack the city for more than ten days, so it was a little relaxed in defense. Early that morning, the Taiping Army suddenly launched a surprise attack on the wharf. After a round of artillery fire, the soldiers of the Second Regiment successfully entered the wharf.

The pier was basically without any solid fortifications. After the infantry broke in, they fought with the enemy for more than an hour, and basically eliminated the Russian garrison troops at the pier. Three small Russian gunboats docked at the pier fled in panic and prepared to sail to the Heilongjiang River, but were soon destroyed in the river by dense artillery fire from the Taiping Army on land.

There were also piles of grain and ammunition in several warehouses on the dock, which made the second regiment commander very happy. It seemed that after the siege began, the Russians were afraid that the transportation passage would be blocked by the Taiping Army artillery fire, so they did not transport the materials into the city. In fact, they did not have this opportunity.

In the evening, the various infantry regiments were ready to attack the city, but in the afternoon, the Russians launched another counterattack to leave the city. Also under the attack of the Taiping Army's fortifications, guns and bayonets, the Russian army left more than 200 bodies and retreated to the city of Nibchu to defend, and dared not get out again.

Although Nebchu City is a city, it has been built according to important military fortresses before, so the fortress’s defense system is still very complete. If you want to conquer such a strong fortress, the Taiping Army is still preparing to launch a siege at night.

After dinner on the starting position, the night fell early, and at around 8 o'clock in the evening. More than a hundred artillery groups of artillery regiments began to spit out angry flames at the city of Nebuchu on time. After many days of besieging the city, the Taiping artillery had basically figured out the visible fortifications of the city of Nebuchu and fired guns according to the preset coordinates. The Russians in the city complained. They never found the accurate position of the Taiping Army's artillery, so when the artillery counterattacked, the shells could not hit others, but instead exposed the location of the artillery and were removed by the Taiping Army artillery.

In the chaos, Sergeyev shouted loudly to order his infantry to be on guard. After the artillery attack, the Taiping Army would definitely send infantry to attack. There were originally more than 14,000 infantry in his hands, and there were only more than 5,000 regular troops, and the rest were temporarily armed exiles, criminals and outlaws. More than 1,500 of them were guarding the dock. Judging from the smoke and shouts of killing from the dock this morning, the more than 1,500 people at the dock were finished. Last night and afternoon, more than 3,000 casualties were casualties, and less than 9,000 people were left in the city. The troops began to be stretched.

Sergeyev knew that the opponent's firearm was fierce. He originally thought that after nightfall last night, he would go out to the city to attack the Taiping Army at night. Relying on the fierce stinging technique of the Russians, he used the night to offset the opponent's firearm's advantage and gave the enemy a major blow. However, he did not expect that in the night attack last night, the Russians were repelled by the enemy in the way they were best at - bayonet charge. It seems that the enemy is also familiar with night battles and bayonet battles.

After the shelling, Sergeyev discovered that the Russian firepower points in the Nebchu Fortress were basically destroyed, and all kinds of fortifications were also severely destroyed. After fifty minutes of artillery preparation, the Taiping Army artillery began to extend and shoot into the city of Nebchu, which was an indiscriminate shelling, because the Taiping Army knew that the Russian strongholds and there would be no Chinese civilians in the fortress, because they were all killed by the Russians.

And at this moment, the Taiping soldiers in the trench at the departure position were ready. With the loud charge, thousands of Taiping infantry shouted loudly, and quickly charged towards the city of Nebuchu in a scattered line.

The sky above the city of Nebuchu was filled with thick smoke and baptism of blood and fire, allowing this ancient city to accept the pain before the phoenix's Nirvana. The artillery fire was well prepared, and the broken brick and wood structure did not block the footsteps of the Taiping soldiers too much. Half an hour after launching the attack, the huge red-bottomed golden dragon flag was inserted at the head of Nebuchu.

Thousands of Russian soldiers in the city wore bayonets to carry out street battles with Taiping soldiers on various streets. After a brief firefight, the Russian soldiers were finally able to fight with the enemy in hand, but they did not defeat the enemy with brave bayonets as they imagined. The Taiping soldiers' thorn fighting skills were more skillful. They were in groups of three, defending each other back to back. The three Taiping soldiers were able to retreat seven or eight Russian soldiers, and most of the collapsed Russian soldiers fell under the guns of Taiping soldiers.

After fighting for two hours, an enemy broke out to the east, but was ambushed by a pre-arranged pocket formation outside the city. More than 3,000 Russian soldiers fell here. Then the Taiping Army troops in the east took advantage of the situation and rushed into the city and joined the battle to clear out the remaining enemies in the city.

After a night of fierce fighting, the remaining more than a thousand Russian soldiers were surrounded in the square of the Nebchu City Hall. Sergeyev found that he was surrounded. His soldiers looked at him desperately but expectedly. Finally, Sergeyev made a difficult decision to surrender. At dawn, the last thousand Russian troops in the city surrendered in the city hall.

After clearing away the remaining enemies in the city, after a simple entry ceremony, Liu Mingchuan and others received an exciting news. A large number of silver ingots were found in the warehouse in the city of Nebuchu, which made several Taiping soldiers overjoyed and hurried to the warehouse with silver ingots to see. The warehouse was located in the basement of the backyard of the Nebuchu City Hall. The entire room was filled with huge silver ingots, each silver ingot was 50 taels, and there were tens of thousands of silver ingots here, which made several people stunned. Liu Mingchuan hurriedly ordered the dispatch of heavy troops to guard the city, and sent the news to Tan Shaoguang and Beijing along with the news of the capture of Nebuchu City. (To be continued.)
Chapter completed!