The Qing Dynasty is about to end

Chapter 458: England, my Qing dynasty is still fighting to the death, why are you running away first? (Please subscribe, please vote)

"Lieutenant Colonel, it looks like we've been defeated. Should we consider withdrawing from this disaster?"

Li Taiguo was the one who was more quick-witted. He quickly recovered from his extreme shock and started thinking about how to clean up the situation.

"Impossible, absolutely impossible. How could our glorious British Army lose to those Chinese? And lose so miserably." Lieutenant Colonel Michel still looked like he was about to collapse. His face was pale, his fists were clenched tightly, and his voice was trembling. He looked like he was not only stimulated, but also frightened.

"Lieutenant Colonel, our British Army did not lose! It was the Eight Banners Army of the Qing Dynasty that lost." Li Taiguo saw Michel's almost collapsed look, reached out and grabbed his arm, shook it hard a few times, and shouted at the top of his voice, "And those Eight Banners Army did not lose to the Chinese, they were defeated by the Crusaders of the Roman Catholic Church! It was the Crusaders!"

"Yes, Crusader?"

Michelle seemed to have come to her senses a little, but the look in her eyes when she looked at Li Taiguo was indescribably complicated.

Li Taiguo thought that the British Army lieutenant colonel had a block of wood and didn't understand what he meant, so he started to explain to him why the British Empire couldn't break off relations with the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom at this moment. But Michel interrupted him with a wry smile and said, "Horace, I know everything you said. Maybe we shouldn't have started that trade war. It would be in the best interest of the empire for them to continue to close their doors to the outside world and sleep forever! It's only been a few years, and their army can defeat the British and Indian army of similar size! If they were given another twenty or thirty years, I dare not imagine what the world would become."

"Ding. Ta-da-da-da."

Lieutenant Colonel Michel, who had participated in the Opium War more than a decade ago, had not yet finished his sigh when the charge horn sounded again. Then, the shouts of killing came, shaking the earth!

Michelle and Li Taiguo looked at each other and sighed at the same time. Michelle waved to the guards and staff officers around him, asking them to bring their horses over immediately. Then he and Li Taiguo jumped on their horses and ran away like a gust of wind, surrounded by the guards and staff officers.

At the same time, in the battlefield southwest of Banzhang Mountain and on the east bank of Qianshan Waterway, the British Indian Army and the Qing Army were defeated like dominoes. The morale of the Crusaders was greatly boosted. Nearly 4,000 people, holding rifles and bayonets, drove the enemy, who numbered less than 2,000, all the way north and soon chased into Banzhang Mountain.

On the other side of the battlefield, the soldiers with the "Union Jack" flag ran away first, but Jilhang'a and Ye Mingchen were still there, holding on tightly.

The 14,000 to 15,000 men they commanded had just suffered a great defeat! But they were only defeated, not like Michel's British army, which was smashed to pieces by the enemy in one fell swoop and was completely hopeless.

There are four main reasons why their armies did not collapse. First, they had more people. The Crusaders commanded by Luo Yaoguo had only three regiments plus some artillery, totaling only about 6,000 people, while the troops under Jierhanga and Ye Mingchen had 14,000 to 15,000 people. It was like a snake swallowing an elephant, and they couldn't swallow it in one bite!
Second, Jierhanga held the six thousand Eight Banners New Army firmly in his hands as if he was protecting his lifeblood, and placed them behind the regiment and the Green Camp to hold the line. The Guangdong regiment and the Green Camp soldiers were dizzy from the opponent's accurate shooting, bombing with shrapnel, bombing with grenades, and a round of bayonet assaults, and almost fell apart. Fortunately, as soon as the Crusaders' charge weakened, Jierhanga's Eight Banners soldiers blocked them in time, stopped the regiment and Green Camp soldiers who were running around like headless flies, and put them together again.

As for the third, Jierhanga and Ye Mingchen had people build a large camp near the two adjacent villages of Tanjiawei and Xiaochangwei. With this support, if the Qing army's attack failed, they could retreat and turn from offense to defense.

The fourth and most crucial reason was that the more than 10,000 Qing troops, including Jirhanga and Ye Mingchen, had a mysterious confidence in the 1,500 foreign soldiers led by Lieutenant Colonel Michel.

I always feel that with the foreign soldiers here, the fake Crusaders on the other side are bound to lose! So as long as we grit our teeth and hold on, we can turn defeat into victory.
"Hold on, hold on! Lord England's elite soldiers are about to cut off the retreat of those crossbows! If you hold on a little longer, we will definitely win! You pass on my order, as long as you can hold on, when you return, each officer will be given 200 taels of silver, and each soldier will be given 10 taels of silver, just for holding on!"

In the ancestral hall in Tanjiawei Village, Ye Mingchen was gathering together a group of dejected Green Camp generals and militia leaders, and cheering them up like injecting chicken blood.

While he was giving a speech, the sound of gunfire like frying beans came from the southern front line. It was the foreign riflemen of the Eight Banners New Army who were responsible for blocking the Crusaders exchanging fire with the approaching enemy. The gunfire was getting closer and louder, like a death drum beating in Ye Mingchen's ears.

Ye Mingchen was panicking, knowing that the battle for the defense of Tanjiawei Village and Xiaochangwei Village was about to begin. But where had the English soldiers gone to? Why hadn't they cut off the escape route of those damned Crusaders? He was about to send someone to check when he heard hurried footsteps outside the ancestral hall, and then saw Jierhanga coming in angrily.

"Lord Ji, you are English." When Ye Mingchen saw Jilhang'a's miserable appearance, he knew that something bad was going to happen.

"Escaped, escaped!" Jilhanga's face was as white as a piece of paper, and his lips trembled for a long time before he squeezed out these few words from between his teeth.

"Who escaped?" Ye Mingchen asked hurriedly with his eyes wide open.

"It's the English! Those English were beaten to a pulp by the Roman Crusaders and fled in panic. Now the Crusaders have already rushed to the Banzhang Mountain Heights and are about to cut off our retreat. What should we do?"

As soon as Jirhanga uttered these words, the people in the ancestral hall felt as if their acupoints were pressed. They all felt that a disaster was about to happen, as if there was a huge rock hanging over their heads, ready to fall down at any time.

You know, those were England's "heavenly soldiers and generals", a total of 1,500 people. Back then, only a few thousand British soldiers made the Qing Dynasty in chaos and embarrassed. Such powerful heavenly soldiers were beaten to a pulp by the Crusaders on the opposite side.

It seems that the Roman Crusaders are simply even more powerful "super heavenly soldiers"! With the help of the Roman heavenly soldiers, will the world be renamed "Tai" (Taiping Heavenly Kingdom)?

At this moment, the loyalty of the Green Camp officers and militia leaders in the ancestral hall to the Qing Dynasty was like glass, shattered to the ground.

Ye Mingchen wanted to struggle a little, looking at Jierhang'a eagerly. Just when he wanted to discuss with him how to defend Tanjiawei Village and Xiaochangwei Village, Jierhang'a waved his hand and said impatiently: "Ye Zhijun, forget it, let's retreat quickly, it will be too late if we don't run now!"

"Retreat?" Ye Mingchen's head buzzed when he heard this, and he almost blacked out. At this time, how many Qing troops in Xiangshan could still escape?
Moreover, even if some people could be withdrawn to Guangzhou, once the news spread that the Roman soldiers were helping the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom to establish its empire, the Guangdong militia that originally supported the Qing Dynasty would most likely immediately turn against it and join the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom.

Without the help of the militia, how can Guangzhou be defended? No, this is not a question of whether it can be defended or not. By then, I’m afraid that by then, I’m afraid that even if I want to run away, I won’t be able to!
Ye Mingchen was just thinking about it and wanted to have a good discussion with Jirhanga, but when he looked up, hey, the Guangzhou general disappeared without a trace. What a guy, before he knew it, he slipped away!
Ye Mingchen stood there blankly, muttering, "Why did Jierhang'a run away too? He is a bannerman, and he also has a share in the Qing Dynasty. Why did he run away first?"

"Ye Zhijun, let's run away quickly. At least we can run back to Guangzhou first so that we can have a safe place and not run out of firewood!"

The speaker was Zhang Jingxiu, the Guangxi Provincial Surveillance Commissioner. Although his militia suffered heavy losses in the previous battle, Jierhanga still had more than a thousand men. These were strong and healthy young men who did not smoke opium. They would definitely run faster than those Green Camp soldiers who were skinny from smoking opium. Who knows, they might even be able to leave the Eight Banners soldiers who ran ahead behind.

Besides, Ye Mingchen is now a "treasure", which is quite "valuable"!

Seeing that Ye Mingchen was still hesitating and undecided, Zhang Jingxiu gritted his teeth, waved at the panicked Geshaha of Ye Mingchen, and shouted, "What are you standing there for? Hurry up and protect Ye Zhijun, and fight back to Guangzhou with me!"

These Goshahas were at a loss as to what to do, when suddenly, a deafening roar of artillery fire was heard!
The Crusaders' artillery must be firing at Tanjiawei Village. If we don't leave now, we will be surrounded and killed!

"Hurry, hurry up!" Zhang Jingxiu shouted again. The Geshaha were quick now, and rushed forward, carrying the completely bewildered Ye Mingchen, as if carrying a sedan chair, and hurried out of the ancestral hall.

(End of this chapter)