Sushun said so much, but only the last sentence touched Xianfeng. Indeed, if this battle was defeated, Yuan Qi would inevitably be severely damaged. He could join forces with Western countries to uproot Yuan Qi in one fell swoop!

Since that is the case, what else should he worry about? No matter whether he wins or loses this battle, it is not a bad thing for the court. He even vaguely hopes that Yuan Qi will be defeated. However, Sushun said it right. The key to success or failure of this battle is not a land battle, but a naval battle. Otherwise, he would really think about it carefully. After all, for the Qing Dynasty, Yuan Qi's threat was far greater than that of Western countries.

Now we can only wait for the naval war to break out. As long as the naval war is victorious, even if Tianjin is lost, the problem is not big. As for whether to go to Rehe to escape the summer heat, it is still necessary to decide whether to go to Rehe to avoid the heat. Yishizu is not a reckless person. If you dare to take a gamble, you will definitely have great confidence.

Thinking of this, he couldn't help but sigh inwardly. Since its establishment, the Yuanqi New Army has fought against the east and west, and has never been defeated. The Beiyang Navy was at least divided from the Nanyang Navy, and it completely imitated the training methods of the Nanyang Navy. The firearms equipped are not much different. Why is the gap between the two still so big? The Dagukou Fort was actually lost in an hour!

Seeing that Xianfeng did not say anything for a long time, Sushun took off his official hat and bowed gently and said, "Your Majesty, I think, should I test it, does Tianjin need reinforcements?"

Xianfeng glanced at him and said, "Don't you worry about the Western-Armored Alliance destroying the railway, bypassing Tianjin, and directly attacking the capital?"

"Your Majesty, how dare I put the capital in a dangerous place?" Sushun hurriedly said: "The Western-Air Alliance and the Yuanqi New Army both rely on logistics supplies. Moreover, Tianjin gathered heavy troops, so the Western-Airs definitely did not dare to bypass Tianjin to attack the capital." After a pause, he continued: "If this battle can be a great victory, it will definitely be a rare victory. It can not only bring great power, but also greatly improve its relationship with Yuanqi."

If this battle is a great victory, Yuan Qi's position will be further consolidated and his power will be further expanded. The court will have to consider easing the relationship with Yuan Qi. Although Yi Zhizuo is arrogant and domineering, he has never claimed to be king and rebellious. Even though several southeastern provinces have become separatist, they will still pay taxes as usual. They must try their best to ease the relationship with Yuan Qi and try to avoid the situation of Yuan Qi's rebellion or separatist situation.

After thinking about it, Xianfeng said slowly: "Since Tianjin is in danger, why bother to test it? Just transfer 10,000 new troops to reinforce."

"The emperor is wise!" Sushun kowtowed quickly, feeling very happy. It seemed that Xianfeng had indeed made up his mind to try his best to ease his relationship with Yuanqi.

"Print an order." Xianfeng said slowly: "Tianjin is the gateway to the capital, and there is no need to be misunderstood. The 5th, 6th, 7th and 84th Brigades of the New Army immediately reinforce Tianjin and belong to the commander of the General Pingkou Senggelinqin."

Tianjin, Coastal Defense Office, Command Center.

Cao Gensheng walked into the room and said aloud: "The emperor ordered the new army 5, 6, 7, and 84th Brigades immediately reinforced Tianjin..."

Xianfeng actually took the initiative to reinforce the four brigades in Tianjin. Yi Zhizu couldn't help but be stunned. How many troops are there in the capital? Is he taking the initiative to show goodwill to Yuan Qi? Or is he worried about Tianjin's fall? Yuan Qi's defeat?

Senggelinqin's face was a little uncomfortable. Seeing Yi Shizuo looked over, he coughed lightly and explained: "The Fifth and Sixth Brigades have experienced few wars, but they are fully equipped. The Seventh and Eighth Brigades are new recruits..."

After hearing this, Yi Zhizu immediately reacted, "The 7th and 8th Brigade is not equipped with Minnie guns?"

"The Minnie gun of the Eight Banners New Army has always been very nervous." Senggelinqin said with a wry smile: "Although the 7th and 8th Brigade is a new recruit, it has been a military force for two years. Shooting training and live ammunition training follow the standards of the new army, and equipment can be reused."

This is not a reinforcement. This is to ask him to equip and train the new recruits in the Eight Banners. Yi Zhizu secretly felt funny, but he didn't take it seriously. The Yuanqi new army is now changing clothes in large quantities, and there is no shortage of Minnie guns. What is rare is the attitude Xianfeng showed through reinforcement of Tianjin. At least there is no need to worry about the court colluding with Britain and France and stabbing him in the back.

Military Grain City.

When it was dark, the French and Western troops of the brigade began to enter the already empty military ration city. As soon as the French Army Major General Montubang walked into the temporary command center, he asked: "How far is it from Tianjin?"

Adjutant Davis hurriedly said, "General, there are still fifty miles away from Tianjin. We will march quickly at night and be in five hours."

After five hours, Montauban slowly shook his head. The Beitang Fort defenders were defeated and were chased by them like ducks. They had already been defeated. Even if they marched at night, they would not pose any threat to them. However, his troops pursued them for a long time and were exhausted. Even if they chased Tianjin overnight, they would not have any strength to attack the city.

The Qing army would give up small cities like Military Grain City. Tianjin, as a transportation hub and gateway to the capital, would never give up easily. Moreover, if the pursuit was too urgent, the artillery could not keep up. If there was no artillery attack in Tianjin, it would mean a large casualty!

What made him even more unsure was that they knew nothing about the situation in Tianjin. According to previous information, the Qing army had 200,000 troops in the north, of which the Eight Banners New Army and the Beiyang Navy, which had strong combat power, had 50,000 or 60,000. Now it is not clear how many troops there are in Tianjin.

After pondering for a moment, Montauban said: "Send an order to station on the spot and march towards Tianjin early tomorrow morning."

Tianjin, Laolongtou Railway Station, peripheral positions.

As soon as the sky was dawn, Wu Yundong, who was sleeping in his clothes, turned over and got out of the bed and walked out of the room. He wiped his face a little randomly and rushed to the front line to inspect. He knew very well that the railway station was the key target of the enemy's attack and would also be the focus of the competition between the two sides, and the battle might start in the morning.

Wu Yundong had hardly experienced decent actual combat in recent years and had serious lack of practical experience. However, Yi Zhizu gave him such an important task to guard Lao Longtou. One reason was that his 201st Brigade built a position outside Lao Longtou after arriving in Tianjin. The other reason was that his troops were the most well-equipped, not only were they equipped with artillery regiments, but also all were rear-mounted guns.

As soon as he arrived at the front line, the regiment commander Zhu Sheng quickly came up and saluted: "Military Gate--."

After glanced at the crisscrossing trenches, Wu Yundong said: "How is the position construction?"

Zhu Sheng said loudly: "Return to the military gate, the position has been built."

After entering the trenches and checking, Wu Yundong said with satisfaction: "The battle may not start until noon, so hurry up and take a break."

Afterwards, Wu Yundong turned back from the front line to inspect the artillery position. He brought a lot of artillery this time, and equipped their brigade with an artillery regiment, four artillery battalions, one artillery battalion and eighteen artillery guns, one colored rear-mounted rifled artillery, and an overall copper shell.

After wandering around several artillery positions, Wu Yundong returned to the command center in a relaxed mood. With the configuration of their 201st Brigade, he was not worried at all even if he was besieged by the 20,000 coalition forces.

As soon as he walked into the command yard, he found that the officers and soldiers in the yard were looking at the sky with their heads raised. What are they looking at? He was puzzled and looked up and saw an extremely huge balloon emerging from the city. He couldn't help but smile. It was a hot air balloon. It was obvious that the shopkeeper was planning to use the hot air balloon to observe the entire battlefield.

Hot air balloons are definitely rare in the Qing Dynasty. Almost all inside and outside Tianjin were attracted by this huge balloon. The news spread and everyone came out to watch the Western scenery. In the coastal defense office, Senggelinqin also stared at the hot air balloon that was rising into the sky with shock. When he saw soldiers in the hanging frame, he realized, "Use this to observe the enemy situation?"

"Yes, you can use flag language to convey messages in time and understand the enemy's movements in time." Yi Zhizu said slowly. In fact, this thing is not very useful in his opinion, and it is more of a gimmick.

Yan Yangtian, who had just left the train station, also saw this hot air balloon. However, he did not stop for a long time and hurried to the coastal defense office and entered the command center. Seeing Yi Shisu, he stepped forward with an excited look on his face and saluted, "Subordinate Yan Yangtian comes to report!"

Seeing him coming in time, Yi Zhizu smiled, "I came in time, how many troops did I bring."

"Two regiments." Yan Yangtian said loudly: "There are six regiments that should be able to arrive before dark today."

Yi Zhizuji said first: "Go to the camp to rest first..."

"I am waiting for the train to rest." Yan Yangtian said hurriedly. But he heard that the Dagukou Fort and the Beitang Fortress had fallen yesterday afternoon. He thought that the four-nation coalition forces could arrive in Tianjin at noon or afternoon, so they would not be able to rest.

Yi Zhizu smiled and said, "Go and arrange the troops before rushing over."

Yan Yangtian brought him away, and Senggelinqin said in surprise: "Did Yan Yangtian come from Guangzhou?"

"Not bad." Yi Zhizu said first: "Worried about insufficient troops, he specially transferred four brigades from Guangzhou to travel from Changsha to Nanchang, Jiujiang, and to Jiangning to take a train."

"Rail transportation is really convenient!" Senggelinqin said with emotion. If it were before, it would have been something that could not be imagined. The army of 20,000 to 30,000 troops from Guangzhou to Tianjin would never be able to arrive in less than two months.

As for the reason why Yi Zhizu spent such a huge price to mobilize troops from Guangzhou, he also knew that he was worried that the Eight Banners New Army would not cooperate. He secretly felt glad that fortunately the Eight Banners New Army adopted an active cooperation attitude, otherwise it would be possible that Yuan Qi would be annoyed.

"We have too few railways in the Qing Dynasty. If the railway is opened from the capital to Guangzhou, it will be truly convenient..." Yi Zhizuo looked up and saw Zai Zhao coming in quickly. He did not greet him and asked directly: "What are the casualties?"

"The casualties are not big." Zai Zhao said quickly: "Tianming has counted, and there are more than 1,200 casualties in the Beiyang Navy. It is difficult to count the Green Camp, so the difference is probably not big." After a pause, he asked with concern: "What is the situation of the Beitang defenders?"

"Shi Rongchun has not appeared yet." Senggelinqin said angrily, "However, the reaction of the defeated soldiers raised should be quite serious, but don't worry, there are not many casualties in Beiyang Fuchun's troops, only more than 600 people."

After hearing that Fuchun's army suffered little casualties, Zaizhao felt relieved and smiled bitterly: "Dagukou, Beitang was lost too early, and it would not affect the major operation?"

"It doesn't matter. The emperor has drawn four brigades of new soldiers from the capital to reinforce Tianjin." Yi Zhizu hurriedly comforted him. He heard that more than 1,200 casualties in the Beiyang Navy in Dagukou were killed or killed. He was also secretly shocked. The casualties were so great in more than an hour, which shows how fierce the battle was.

Senggelinqin said, "What is the result of the battle?"

"It's not bad." Zai Zhao was obviously excited, "Sinking nine enemy ships and damaging fifteen. The opponent's casualties should be around 2,000."

There are different sizes of warships, and the number of troops loaded is huge. For example, the number of troops of steam gunships is only 75, and a third-level battleship has more than 600 people. It is incomparable at all. Yi Jingzuo will certainly not be serious. After all, it is not his own army, and the other party is his brother-in-law. He immediately said: "The other party should have more than 2,000 casualties, at least about 3,000."

At 2 pm, the French army departed from the Military Grain City slowly arrived in Tianjin. At a glance, Montauban felt a bad premonition that they might have encountered the worst situation - Yuan Qi sent troops to Tianjin!

Near the Laolongtou Railway Station, when I saw a lot of train cars parked on the railway from the telescope, Montauban confirmed his conjecture that the new army of Shanghai's Yuanqi did send troops to reinforce Tianjin. These empty cars parked on the railway outside the platform are the best proof - there are too many trains from Shanghai and cannot be transferred in time, so they will be parked on the tracks outside!

After hesitating for a while, Montubang ordered with a gloomy face, "Camp on the spot and build a position."

The British army who arrived at the southern suburbs of Tianjin from the south bank of the North River also realized something was wrong. Grant ordered camping on the spot and sent a small team to plunder the people everywhere to investigate and investigate the situation in Tianjin. He soon learned that there were a large army in Tianjin, with at least 40,000 to 50,000 troops, and it was mainly the Yuanqi New Army.

After confirming that the information was correct, Grant's first reaction was to camp on the spot, build a position, and return it quickly, waiting for the order.

Coastal Defense Office, Command Center.

Yan Yangtian tentatively said: "Principal, although the enemy's troops are large, they have not yet established a stable foothold. Should they take the initiative?"

"What's the hurry?" Yi Zhizu lit a cigarette slowly, "The other party is not in a hurry. Why are we anxious? It's better to consume energy for two days."

Senggelinqin is also eager to start a battle. Now, the Eight Banners New Army alone has more than 30,000 troops in Tianjin City. In addition, the Yuanqi New Army has more than 20,000 troops, and the total strength is close to 60,000. The coalition forces have only 40,000 to 50,000 outside the city. They have completely advantage in terms of force, not to mention that they are waiting for their leisure, and the other side has a foothold. Once the war begins, they have an absolute advantage!

After pondering for a moment, he said: "The other fleet is surfacing the water..., we should at least destroy the old dragon-headed French army first."

"The other party cannot be stalemate with us. They have only two choices, one is to take the initiative to attack, and the other is to retreat or transfer." Yi Zhizu said slowly: "It's the meat that has fallen into the bowl, there is no need to be anxious. It's not worth burning your mouth."
Chapter completed!