Lin Gao Qiming

Chapter 712 Defense of Guangzhou

The task force stopped at Humen—after crossing the crossbar of Humen, they could reach the outskirts of Guangzhou within three or four days of continuous sailing—but Chen Haiyang was not in a hurry to approach the city of Guangzhou. According to the established policy: his main task was to "show off Force" and "Xuan Fu".Now that the purpose of showing off force has been fully achieved, the key point is to "promote appeasement"-first, the residents of Guangzhou City and the Pearl River should have enough time to spread and understand the news of the fall of Humen.

The task force began to form many small squadrons, each consisting of about 100 men, carrying small artillery, and manned by civilian and surveyors.The small team will take sampans and long dragons along the cobweb-like inland waterways to go deep into the villages and market towns along the Pearl River, collect "reasonable burdens" and post notices.Make a big splash.Of course, at the same time, there are severe punishments for any village that tries to resist them.

Due to the insufficient number of sailors, Shi Zhiqi, who was in charge of this operation, transferred some people from the sailors to strengthen the team.A large part of the navy's sailors are pirates, not only familiar with the waterway of the Pearl River, but also experts in this field.At that time, they also followed the "treasurers" of various gangs and units to go deep into the inland river in small boats, robbing and kidnapping money everywhere.

The news of the fall of Humen reached the city of Guangzhou on the same day.For a time, the four cities shook.The prefect of Guangzhou hurried to see Li Fengjie and asked if the city gate should be closed immediately.

Li Fengjie was taken aback, he didn't expect Humen to fall so soon.As soon as Humen fell, it took three or two days for the thieves to arrive in Guangzhou.Thinking of the Kun bandits attacking Guangzhou, his face turned pale.

"Don't close the city gates for the time being, it will shake people's hearts!" Li Fengjie made up his mind, "You and Nanhai and Panyu counties, send more people to each city gate, and step up the investigation to prevent the thieves from entering the city!"

"Yes, let's do it now!"

The only weapon in Li Fengjie's hand was his own petal.But Fubiao suffered heavy losses in the battle of Chengmai. The 1000 people sent out were either killed in Chengmai and captured or trapped in Qiongshan. So far, none of them have returned.Fubiao currently has less than 700 people available for war.Fortunately, these people are the elite of the bidding. On weekdays, Li Fengjie treats them generously, and at critical times, they are a force that can be relied on.

Li Fengjie is not worried about guarding Guangzhou: Guangzhou is not only well-defended, but also has a large population.When necessary, large-scale recruitment of young men, and the mobilization of [-] young men to the city is also an instant matter.In addition to Fubiao, there are sea defense general Xu Tingfa's troops and some sporadic troops inside and outside Guangzhou. In addition, there are guards stationed in Guangzhou and its surrounding areas. have to.The officers and soldiers of Guangzhou Guards were very famous at that time, and the entire Ming Dynasty was often transferred out to fight against Miao and Yao.

There are three to 4000 of these troops assembled, which is enough to serve as the defensive core of Guangzhou City Defense.But as the governor of Guangdong, one has to consider not only the city of Guangzhou, but also the counties and villages along the Pearl River.If he was killed by the Kun thief, he would be overwhelmed by impeachment by the censor.

Li Fengjie convened officials and staff in the city to discuss countermeasures.The opinions of the people generally start from two aspects: consolidating Guangzhou's own urban defense and strengthening the self-defense capabilities of villages and towns along the river.

Originally, when Liu Xiang was active in the Pearl River Estuary, the Guangdong Province stepped up the implementation of the Baojia Law in various parts of the Pearl River Delta, encouraging gentry from all over the place to organize and practice regiments to practice self-defense.All counties have established public offices, with the county magistrate as the head of the regiment, and local gentry who are famous and willing to contribute as the deputy head of the regiment.The government can lend artillery to those villages and towns who organize and practice bravely, and each village is also allowed to build its own artillery.Watchtowers and fences were built at various intersections and estuaries, equipped with gongs to transmit alarms.And stipulates multi-village joint insurance.When a village is in trouble, neighboring villages must send out their bravery to support them.As for the funds needed, each village was responsible for it: some came from donations from big gentry households, and some came from apportionments to all villagers.Several counties simply levied a sum of money on the land tax as a group training fee for the whole county.

This system has been implemented since the beginning of last year, and it has already achieved initial results.Most of the officials believed that the bandits were not familiar with the place where they were born, so they might not dare to go deep into the various inland rivers along the Pearl River, and the villages along the Pearl River were the most active in fortification and bravery, and Xu Tingfa's navy was generally complete.The Kun thief is not too rampant.

He Chengzong suggested: It is better to guard the river than to guard the city.The Kun bandits have strong guns, but they have few soldiers and dare not move too far away from the ships, so there is no need to worry about them attacking Guangzhou from land. The officers and soldiers only need to defend steadily on the Pearl River, and cooperate with the bravery of the village to consume the Kun bandits layer by layer. spirit.In the end, the goal of forcing the enemy to withdraw from the Pearl River was achieved.

From Humen to Guangzhou, there are many defensive passes on the Pearl River.Among them, Wu Chung is the most important.He Chengzong suggested that most of the troops be concentrated in Wuchong, rush to build sandbag forts, and mobilize more cannons, sampans, and long dragons.

"Wuyong controls the key points of the provincial river. Our army guards here, entering the Pearl River to help defend everywhere along the river, and retreating can ensure the safety of the provincial capital. It is the most important thing."

He Chengzong vigorously advocated his theory of Wu Yong's certain victory.Most officials and staff also agree with him.But Xu Tingfa, who saw the powerful firepower of the Kun bandits with his own eyes, expressed his opposition.

Guangzhou's defense must be stepped up. "Xu Tingfa was temporarily stationed in Huangpu after his defeat from Humen, and the core of his department was still complete-the original main force was the navy, and the navy only lost some ships to be repaired in the Battle of Humen. The main ships and soldiers were all He retreated. He sent people along the river to appease the defeated soldiers. The soldiers who escaped from Humenzhai and other places have returned to the army one after another in the past few days, and he has nearly 2000 troops in his hands again.

"Villages along the river can at most protect themselves, and they cannot stop the thieves from going up to Guangzhou. As for Wuyong, what do you gentlemen think compared to Humen?" Xu Tingfa said.

The construction of the Humen Fort began in the Wanli period, and it has been greatly repaired and refurbished in the past year. Regardless of the strength of the fortifications or the number of artillery pieces, it is impossible to compare it with the Wuyong Fort that has not yet been written and is about to be built hastily.

It was such a fort, guarded by 2000 soldiers, that collapsed in less than a day of fighting.This psychological impact was extremely huge for Xu Tingfa.He saw very clearly that with the quality and weapons of the officers and soldiers, they were no match for the Australians with strong ships and guns.

Therefore, Xu Tingfa's suggestion is to directly defend Guangzhou, concentrate most of the troops that can be collected in Guangzhou itself, build additional forts on Yuexiu Mountain, and at the same time station heavy troops at Dongsheng Temple in the east of Guangzhou and Fenghuanggang in the west. .

As for other key points along the provincial river, such as Liede, Pazhou, and Qinzhou, it doesn't matter whether they are fortified or not, because it is impossible for the hastily built forts to withstand the enemy's shelling, which will only increase casualties in vain
Only the city of Guangzhou itself, relying on the high walls and deep trenches, has been in operation for a hundred years, and has countless strong people as support, it can probably survive the onslaught of the Kun bandits.
"Could it be possible to let the gun captain of the Kun thief drive straight in and reach the city of Yangcheng?" Li Xijue said dissatisfied.He is now attending the meeting as a representative of the governor's yamen—after all, Wang Zunde is the highest military officer in the two provinces, and military attaches in Guangdong and Guangxi are under his control. of.

Li Xijue had seen the gunfire of the Kun bandits, so he could somewhat understand Xu Tingfa's fear of fighting, but after understanding, he could not help but despise this person, thinking that he was greedy for life and afraid of death, and refused to fight to the end.

But he couldn't be tough in his tone. First of all, when he escaped from Humenzhai a few days ago, he also took the lead and ran away holding the horse's neck; secondly, the only decent team around Guangzhou is Xu Tingfa's governor Guangzhou. The sea defense generals are under the command, so they have to pretend to be a little bit.

Xu Tingfa suggested that instead of building useless sandbag forts everywhere that are vulnerable to the gunfire of the thieves, it is better to choose a place on the provincial river leading to Guangzhou with a narrow channel and a lot of silt to block the channel, and at the same time place wooden rafts on the river. Chains lock the river.

"Most of the thieves' ships have been modified, and there are many soldiers on board. The draft is heavy. When we block the river, the enemy ships will be afraid of being stranded on the rocks, and dare not go deep into the provincial river."

But Xu Tingfa's suggestion was denied by Li Fengjie.First of all, he was unwilling to let the Kun bandits' ships appear at the foot of the provincial capital-it would be handed down to others if they spread it to Beijing. Secondly, he believed that Xu Tingfa's so-called "Kun bandits' "ships are strong and powerful" is exaggerated: as long as they are defeated However, the officials and generals in charge always speak 12 points about the enemy, and many of them are false.Li Fengjie is an old magistrate, how could he not know this trick?He took Xu Tingfa's suggestion as a general's "fear of war" and didn't care.

The final decision of the governor's yamen meeting was to strengthen the defense of the inland river, and at the same time practice the courage of the regiment to "strengthen the prestige".For this reason, a special regiment bureau was set up in Guangzhou, and enthusiastic and powerful local gentry were called to handle regiment training affairs.In addition, the prefectures and counties in the Pearl River Delta were informed, ordering the counties to quickly set up regiment bureaus to handle Baojia.

Xu Tingfa was stationed at Wuyong, an important pass into the Guangzhou inland river.Immediately built a sandbag fort in Wuchong urgently and placed 18 Hongyi cannons.At the same time, according to Xu Tingfa's suggestion, several old ships filled with gravel were sunk in Wuchong, Liede, Ershawei, etc. to block the waterway, and civilian workers were hired to drive wooden piles in the narrow part of the river.As for the long iron chain that blocked the river, there was nowhere to look for it, so we had to send people to Foshan Starry Night to build it.

There are 1200 troops stationed in Wuyong.All 40 navy ships under Xu Tingfa gathered near Wuchong, ready to be on call for reinforcements at any time.At the same time, sandbag fortresses were urgently built and Hongyi cannons were placed in key provincial and river locations such as Qinzhou, Pazhou, Liede, Ershawei, and Dahuangjiao.

　The places listed in this chapter are all key passes of the inland river in Guangzhou.Forts were built in the Qing Dynasty.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)