Chapter 341: Investing 2 to Buy a Head

Chapter 341: Investing 2 to Buy a Head

Chapter 341: Investing taels to buy a head

Six days later, Da Nang.

The distance from Saigon to Da Nang is less than 1,600 miles, and the bicycle assault team of the 2nd Infantry Regiment of the Anhui New Army took eight days to travel, which was already very slow.

The main reason was that they had to constantly seize the French army's logistics along the way, which wasted time.

Hearing the rumbling of artillery fire and the constant shouting and killing in front of them, the soldiers were very worried. Liu Yongfu only had 3,000 men. Could they withstand the fierce attack of 6,000 French troops?
Then, we saw 6,000 French soldiers running back frantically, with less than 1,000 genuine French people running in the front.

When they saw the Anhui New Army coming to attack together, they were not surprised. Instead, they acted as if they were finally saved and surrendered to them in a hurry.

The Anhui New Army has never seen a war like this. No, we haven't fired a single shot yet, okay?

Don't you want to test our fighting ability? What if we rush over?
The French soldiers were still frightened after they became prisoners of the New Army.

Huo Daosheng, the leader of the French Eastern Army who took the lead in surrendering, touched the cross on his chest, knelt down to pray, and chanted the name of Jesus Christ, the Merciful One. He looked extremely pious.

Then the soldiers saw a wonderful spectacle.

Liu Yongfu's Black Flag Army was chasing the French army closely. Each of them looked like a ferocious monster. Hundreds of them had bloody heads hanging on their waists. They just stared at the pure-blooded French and passed by the fleeing Black Army and the Jiaozhi vassal army without even looking at them.

On the battlefield, there was a situation where the Black Flag Army, Jiaozhi vassal army and the Black Army were running side by side. What was going on?
Seeing that the French army had surrendered to the New Army and handed over their weapons triumphantly, the soldiers of the Black Flag Army stamped their feet and beat their chests, showing great dissatisfaction.

The commander of the second regiment of the new army was Sun San, the only regimental commander in the Huai Army who was not from Jiangyan. He was born in Dezhou and was the second in command of Hu Liuniang's stronghold. He was recruited by Shao Quanzhong together with Hu Liuniang in Langxiang, Fengyang.

Only after Sun San and Liu Yongfu successfully reunited did they understand the whole story.

The French did not know the combat effectiveness of Liu Yongfu's army, and were worried about the Anhui New Army. In fact, Liu Yongfu was quite capable.

With the latest weapons supported by the Huai Army, Williams rapid-fire cannons and Gatling machine guns were placed on the city walls of Da Nang. The French army, without heavy weapons, had no chance of taking Da Nang.

However, Da Nang is much farther from Saigon than Phnom Penh. Huo Daosheng's tentative attack failed and he retreated ten miles, but he did not collapse. He organized his troops to move forward again, set up camp and confront Da Nang, and prepare to attack after the artillery and machine guns from the logistics arrived.

Originally, this was a very normal battle, with six thousand men attacking a city defended by three thousand men, the fight would be quite stalemate.

However, before the French army's logistics arrived, new weapons arrived in Da Nang.

This time it was not the Huai Army that helped, but the Nguyen Dynasty that sent people, using a large number of livestock and a large number of able-bodied men, to bring a brigade of 210mm Armstrong heavy artillery that was used to attack Da Nang to the city walls of Da Nang.

The Huai Army's heavy artillery brigade was equipped with Krupp heavy artillery, and the useless Armstrong heavy artillery was transported to Hue by Shoigu to attack Da Nang, and then the Huai Army ignored it.

The plan formulated by the Huai Army Staff was that Liu Yongfu would defend Da Nang to the death, pin down the enemy, and join forces with Sun San's troops to attack the French army. The main attack was Sun San's Anhui New Army Second Regiment, and Liu Yongfu would complete his mission if he could hold Da Nang.

The Nguyen Dynasty's soldiers were weak and could not fight, and their national flag surprisingly had a "kneeling figure". But they had been bullied by the French for many years, and they were full of resentment, so they were still motivated to contribute their strength.

King Nguyen Phuc Thi of the Nguyen Dynasty personally led the able-bodied men to transport cannons to Da Nang. He gritted his teeth and promised Liu Yongfu that if he killed a French soldier, he would be rewarded with 150 taels of silver. If he had one bar on his shoulder, he would get an additional 20 taels, and if he had two bars on his shoulder, he would get an additional 30 taels. He would also get a reward for taking the head of the soldier.

That's a pretty high reward, isn't it? Actually, it doesn't cost much. There are about a thousand French soldiers in total, including the officers with bars, and it costs less than 200,000 taels of silver to buy all their heads.

The last time the Nguyen Dynasty ceded land to the French, it paid four million taels in compensation. Now that we have the heavenly soldiers from the upper country to help fight the French, I will spend two hundred thousand taels to buy the head of the French and vent my anger. It's worth it.

Liu Yongfu's soldiers were immediately excited. One hundred and fifty taels per head? Where have we ever seen so much money?
Liu Yongfu had no artillery under his command, and these heavy artillery were fired by the gunners gathered by the Nguyen Dynasty. The gunners of the Nguyen Dynasty had only fired bronze muzzle-loading cannons, and were quite unfamiliar with firing unused breech-loading cannons.

But, but, this heavy artillery is as much as a reinforced brigade, eleven companies, twenty-two guns. The Huai Army has Krupp heavy artillery, and they look down on these guys who are too bulky and slow to fire. In Saigon, it is a heaven-defying existence.

The French army could never have imagined that the Nguyen Dynasty people had to rely on horses to pull people and carry it, using inclined surfaces, levers and pulleys, and did everything they could to get such a heavy cannon to the top of the city wall in such a short time.

So, when the honest people of the Nguyen Dynasty were bullied severely, they could also burst out with superhuman strength.

Once the cannons were fired, the French army had a lot of fun. They had not considered that the enemy could fire such a long distance when setting up camp. The result of the Nguyen Dynasty's artillerymen's inexperience had another effect. The heavy artillery aimed at one place ended up hitting everywhere, and it was all over the French camp. The 180-pound heavy artillery, which was made of TNT explosives, could clear dozens of square meters of the surrounding area with one shell. Just one round of salvos caused chaos for the French army.

Liu Yongfu was a famous general of his time who was an expert in military tactics. Others did not know this, but Shao Quanzhong did, so he made him the commander of the feint attack on the eastern route.

Seeing that the French army was in chaos, how could he miss this opportunity? With a wave of his sword, he led the Black Flag Army out of the city.

Originally, the French army was led by its vassal troops, followed by the Black Army, with the French hiding at the back.

There was chaos now, and the Black Flag Army, stimulated by the bounty, ignored the vassals and servants who were running around, and went straight to the French army behind them.

If the Black Flag Army attacked the vassal first, with the French army as the backbone and supervising the battle from behind, the battle could still be fought in a balanced manner.

The Black Flag Army took advantage of the chaos in the front of the French army and went straight to the rear camp. Their eyes were red and they chopped off the heads of any French they caught, resulting in a situation of hand-to-hand combat between three thousand people and one thousand people.

The French army was frightened by the brutality of the Black Flag Army and turned around to flee. Well, without the French general to supervise the battle, the Black Army vassals and Jiaozhi servants were simply unwilling to fight. When Sun San led his men to the battle, they encountered this situation.

When the new Anhui army arrived, they knew that the French colonial soldiers were not good and were far behind the local regular army in combat effectiveness, but they did not expect them to be so incompetent.

The first regiment at least managed to lie on the ground and fire a few shots, but our side won without firing a single shot. Liu Yongfu's Black Flag Army became famous in this battle.

In fact, when the British and French allied forces attacked the capital, they all transferred troops from the mainland. They themselves did not trust the colonial army, so it is not surprising that this effect occurred.

In the eyes of others, it might take several years to capture Saigon, but the Huai Army ended the battle in eight days because of sufficient prior reconnaissance, perfect planning of the General Staff, and the proper use of personnel by Shao Quanzhong, as well as the performance of Feng Zicai and Liu Yongfu that exceeded expectations.

This also has a lot to do with the fact that Shao Quanzhong equipped the Anhui New Army with bicycles regardless of cost.

Of course, the French are outsiders to Annan, and without popular support, they are easy to fight. If there are guerrillas shooting from the jungle, then the battle here will definitely be a bad one.

Fortunately, the local Annanites who are now capable of fighting jungle guerrilla warfare are on our side.

On August 1870, 8, Shao Quanzhong personally led the Nanyang Navy, escorting 12 thousand-ton transport ships, and arrived off the coast of Da Nang. The battle here had just ended.

The fleet was divided at Sanmen Island. Zeng Xiaoyi led the Haiqi and five small ironclad ships of 1,300 tons to escort fifteen transport ships carrying the Anhui New Army to capture Saigon.

Shao Quanzhong loaded a large amount of arms on Sanmen Island and went to Guangzhou, where he met the new troops from Guangdong and Guangxi gathered and rushed to Da Nang.

Originally, I thought that if it was difficult to fight here, I would provide support. Now - I just need to transport troops. By dividing the troops, we can easily capture Saigon, and it doesn't delay the time for the western expedition to Europe at all.

Shao Quanzhong received the last batch of equipment shipped here by Hailing at Sanmen Island - a simple steel helmet designed by him personally.

I was a little worried because Shao Hengzhong's new army had not been equipped with helmets yet and was fighting the French in Saigon. But I found that none of Shao Hengzhong's men were injured...

Shao Quanzhong submitted a memorial in Da Nang, recommending Feng Zicai as the minister to Siam and Cambodia, to lead 20,000 soldiers to garrison the two countries, maintain public order, and safeguard the commercial interests of the friendly countries Britain in Siam and the Americans in Cambodia.

He recommended Wu Xiaowu Ziren, the governor of Youjiang Province in Guangxi, as assistant ministers in Annan and Nanzhan, and recommended Liu Yongfu as the general of Nan'ao Town to assist in military affairs in Annan and Nanzhan.

Liu Yongfu has been promoted several levels since he was promoted to general. That Wu Xiao, ahem, is the second brother of Wu Ci and Wu Ziyi, and the only hope of the Wu Wenxi family. He has been promoted from a state official to a fourth-rank prefecture governor step by step for many years, and now, with the recommendation of Prince Rui, he has suddenly become a second-rank high-ranking official.

After the Indochina Peninsula was settled, Shao Quanzhong arrived at the waters off Saigon two days later and joined the forces of Zeng Xiaoyi and Shao Hengzhong. The fleet was huge, with warships and eighty transport ships carrying all 50,000 regular Huai Army troops, a large amount of equipment, ammunition, and food, and headed for Europe.

In the Franco-Prussian War, both sides mobilized more than 1.5 million troops, and the Huai Army sent 50,000 troops to the battle. It seemed that the role they could play in this muddy water was very limited.

Doesn’t Shao Quanzhong know this himself?
Even if he knew that Prussia could win, would he be able to get enough benefits if he did not make enough contribution in the war?
Is he just seeking revenge?

Have you ever seen Master Shao fight a losing battle? Hehe...

(End of this chapter)