Chapter 58: Fuliang City

  Wei Zhi-jun's troops were originally divided into twelve battalions, and before they set out, everything had been carefully planned. Now that they had entered the city, the soldiers quickly occupied the key points of the city walls, and all four city gates were under the control of Wei Zhi-jun's troops.

  At this time, Zhu Yipian also realized that the situation was unfavorable, and just as he was about to order his troops to be on guard, Li Mingfeng had already given the order: "Fire the cannon"

  The cannon fired, and the troops received the signal. The soldiers who were originally defending the Floating Bridge City were all beheaded, and the four city gates immediately fell under the control of the foreign gun squad. However, some soldiers saw the opportunity early on, some escaped, and others ran into the inner city.

  Although Zhu Yidian didn't understand what was going on, it was clear that Wei Zhijun was not a friend. Li Mingfang had thought that after seeing the city gate being controlled and the power of the foreign gun squad, Zhu would definitely surrender. But unexpectedly, under the protection of his personal guards, Zhu killed his way down from the city wall and escaped into the inner city, not only refusing to surrender but also organizing a crazy counterattack with the Taiping Army.

  The four gates of the inner city were closed, and Zhu Yigui hastily organized his men to defend the city walls. All this happened in a flash, and the foreign gunners entered the city and reached the four gates in less than two minutes. The killing of the guards at the four gates and Zhu Yigui's retreat into the inner city took less than one minute. In fact, within a short period of 40-50 minutes, most of the Taiping Army still did not know what had happened.

  At this time, Li Mingfeng was a bit at a loss. The large cities of the Qing Dynasty were generally divided into inner and outer cities, and the inner city was not high and easy to break through. However, there were thousands of civilian households living between the inner and outer cities, mixed with Taiping soldiers who had not retreated into the inner city in time, and fighting these people in the alleys was the most troublesome.

  Moreover, there were at least 4,000 Taiping soldiers in the inner city, who occupied the city walls and had the ability to hold out for several days. Not to mention several days, even if it was just one day later, Yang Xiuqing understood what was going on, and when the main army retreated, the foreign gun squad would be in trouble.

  "Andrew, Palando, it's time for you to show your skills. Use the Prussian cannons left behind to blast open this city gate for me." Li Mingfeng ordered.

  The Chinese in the Foreign Gun Unit have so far been trained only in the use of firearms and will not be able to handle artillery.

  On one side, the foreigners used cannons to bombard the inner city, while on the other side, Wei Zhi-jun did not stop, and in the outer city and inner city, a large-scale purge of the Taiping Army was carried out. By the time Li Ming-feng realized the situation was unfavorable, Wei Zhi-jun had already killed tens of thousands of people.

  Li Mingfeng hastily summoned Wei Zhijun and questioned him: "Your subordinates have killed indiscriminately, and some ordinary people have also been mistakenly killed."

  Wei Zhi-jun said calmly: "It was not a mistaken killing. I ordered that regardless of whether they were soldiers or civilians, all should be killed."

  Li Mingfeng's eyes widened in shock as he asked: "Are you crazy? Why kill innocent people?"

  "The Taiping Army has changed into civilian clothes, just like the ordinary people. We must eliminate them all, otherwise there will be endless troubles later on. Our army can slowly distinguish between soldiers and civilians when we have an advantage in military strength, but now we cannot leave any hidden dangers behind, or else how can we capture Jingdezhen with our already inferior military strength?" Wei Zhi-jun said with a straight face and confidence.

  Li Mingfeng, although not a saint, could no longer bear the indiscriminate slaughter of innocent people. He wanted to say a few more words, but after a moment's thought, he closed his mouth and remained silent. Wei Zhijun held a powerful army, nominally under his own command, but in reality, only listened to him. Thinking again about his elder brother, Bei Wang Wei Changhui, who was also a ruthless killer, had killed Dong Wang, Yi Wang, and Tian Wang, Li Mingfeng suddenly felt that incorporating Wei Zhijun was not as advantageous as he thought.

  Wei Zhi-jun was unclear what Li Ming-feng was thinking, he only cared about the war situation. Under the iron-blood policy, all soldiers and civilians between the city and the outer city were slaughtered by the foreign gun team within two hours, and it is estimated that at least 30,000 people were killed after the event.

  The dozen or so cannons brought by the army were all from Prussian warships, with extremely powerful firepower but not very accurate. Andrew and Parland led 800 Western soldiers, and after two hours of bombardment, they failed to breach the inner city walls, but instead killed a group of Taiping Army soldiers on the city tower. Looking far away, the inner city was shrouded in thick smoke, and it seemed that the cannons had also caused significant damage to the inner city.

  A loud crash, the north gate of the inner city was blown to pieces. Before Wei Zhi-jun could rush in, Zhu Yi-dian rushed out with his body covered in blood.

  "Vest twelve, you actually betrayed the King of Heaven! Since we rose up in arms together at Golden Field, I never thought of living. But what I least expected was to fall into your treacherous hands! Today, I'll fight it out with you!"

  Zhu Yidian's troops were recruited by Hong Xiuquan during the Jintian Uprising and were the most loyal and skilled in battle. They were later assigned to garrison Tianjing. When Shi Dakai defected, he summoned them out of the capital under the pretext of being the commander-in-chief of the central army. Zhu Yidian dared not disobey. Although his heart remained loyal to the Heavenly King, he was dragged by Shi Dakai to fight in the south and north.

  Later, he was assigned to Yang Fuqing's unit and helped Yang capture the northeastern part of Jiangxi. After Yang occupied Jingdezhen, he declared his independence from the outside world and returned to the command of the Heavenly King, refusing to be led by Shi Dakai. Zhu Yihuang strongly supported this decision, so Yang sent him to guard the North Gate of Jingdezhen - Fuliang City.

  Zhu Yi Dian led the way, wielding a large knife and killing his way out. Behind him followed over a thousand Taiping soldiers. Although Li Ming Feng appreciated Zhu Yi Dian's loyalty, this was not the time for sentimental feelings. With one order, sixteen hundred guns fired several rounds, and Zhu Yi Dian's troops were almost completely annihilated. Wei Zhi Jun was shocked by the foreigners' powerful firearms, but he did not forget to give the order to attack.

  After entering the inner city, Wei Zhi-jun had no choice but to listen to Li Ming-feng's orders and stop the slaughter, only searching for the whereabouts of the Taiping Army. After a night of turmoil, by dawn the next day, the situation was finally stabilized, with all 7,000 people basically cleared out except for a small number of Longhairs who had escaped at the beginning.

  Tens of thousands of ordinary people were killed, and on the second day, many households in the city went out to collect bodies. They didn't have any extreme behavior, since the Taiping Rebellion, two provinces and three provinces had reduced their population by 70%, such things had happened too many times, they had become numb.

  After checking our military losses, the foreign rifle team never went to the front line to fight from start to finish, and not a single one died. The newly reorganized Wei Zhi-jun's unit had approximately over 2,000 deaths and several hundred injuries.

  Rescue the wounded, tidy up the city defense, announce to comfort the people, most soldiers are allowed to rest on the spot, and everything is gradually stabilized until noon.

  Soldiers are precious, Li Mingfeng ordered to leave Wei Zhijun, General Zhou Jingtong and his two battalions under his command to garrison Fuliang, while the rest of the army continued to march south.