Although the power of the mortar is far less than that of the 155mm artillery on the armored train, it is better than the number, with a large firepower density and a wide coverage, so the momentum is even more amazing. Although the mortar is not very lethal to the fortress, because it is a fortress built with bricks and stones, it has a very limited lethality, but the threat to the trenches is much greater. First, the firepower is more dense; second, the mortar uses large arc ballistic shooting, which can directly land into the trenches to cause harm to the Qing army. Although the Qing army's trenches adopt curved corner structure, reducing the lethality of shells after they fall into the trenches, the more shells fall can still cause a large amount of damage to the Qing army.

At this time, the Qing army had already begun to become psychologically unbalanced and suddenly suffered such a blow. It could still hold on, so the Qing soldiers from all positions fled one after another. The People's Army took this opportunity to charge towards the Qing army's positions, and eventually captured the Qing army's positions in one fell swoop and completely defeated the Qing army.

After occupying the position, the People's Army took advantage of the opportunity to enter Langfang City and defeated the fleeing Qing army. At this time, the Qing army had no power to resist. The main general Zhang Yongcheng refused to defend and led his personal guards to escape from Langfang and fled towards Beijing. Finally, at around 4 pm, he completely occupied Langfang. This was also the first city of Qing that the East China Government had captured since the troops sent.

This battle annihilated more than 5,000 Qing troops, and captured more than 9,000 people. The People's Army itself only killed 16 soldiers and 53 other soldiers were injured, which could almost be regarded as zero casualties.

At this time, Tieliang had just boarded the train and was about to leave Beijing when he received the news of Langfang's loss. Tieliang was shocked. He never expected that he had spent more than three months to build the Langfang defense line, and more than 20,000 defenders, but he had not even defended for half a day and was captured by the People's Army.

At this time, Tieliang rushed to Langfang again, of course it was useless. Moreover, if he lost Langfang, he had no choice but to get off the car immediately and apologize to Cixi and Guangxu.

After the People's Army captured Langfang, it did not stop in Langfang for much. The 21st Division, which attacked Langfang, stayed to deal with the aftermath of the occupation of Langfang. The 35th Division, which did not participate in the war this time, continued to advance together with the armored train. At around 7 o'clock in the evening, it actually rushed into the Sifang Railway Station barracks of the People's Army stationed in Beijing. It is only about 15 kilometers away from Beijing City. Even the 155mm cannons equipped on the armored train can be directly attacked into Beijing City. It can be said that the troops are coming to the city.

Just as the soldiers on the Eastern Front of the People's Army were as fast as they advanced to Beijing, they also achieved significant results on the Southern Front.

The first target of the southern battlefield was Zhengding Prefecture. The one guarding Zhengding Prefecture was the first town of the Beiyang New Army, and the commander was Fengshan. In addition to other troops, the total strength was more than 22,000.

The defense line of Zhengding Prefecture is almost built at the same time and its design and standards are almost the same. However, the People's Army does not have the firepower support of armored trains on this front, so it is impossible to use the over-visual range artillery of the Eastern Front.

However, since the defense lines between the two sides here are close, no more than 10 kilometers, the People's Army can also prepare for combat early, and the military families, as well as the artillery units under each division also enter the preset artillery position before the battle occurs.

At the beginning of the battle, various artillery fired together and launched violent bombardment on the Qing army's positions. Although the People's Army on the southern front did not have 155mm artillery equipped with armored trains, the total number of artillery in the entire army was more than 500, plus a part of the mortars, so the firepower was strong and the coverage was wide. Even if it was around the world, it was extremely rare.

Although the artillery attack lasted less than 20 minutes, tens of thousands of shells were poured into the Qing army's positions, covering almost every inch of the position. Therefore, after the artillery attack, although there were still many fortresses, most of which were built with bricks and stones, were carried down, the trench positions outside the fortress suffered heavy blows and suffered heavy casualties.

The People's Army then launched an attack on the Qing army's positions. Although the Qing army still occupied many fortresses at this time, the trench positions outside the fortress had almost no resistance. Just relying on a few fortresses, it could not stop the People's Army's attack. The People's Army adopted targeted artillery attacks, assault blasting and other means. Although it took some effort and paid a certain price for casualties, it gradually cleared all the remaining fortresses and eventually occupied the Qing army's positions. It also staged a victory in the attack that was almost as perfect as a textbook.

After capturing the Qing army's positions, the People's Army took advantage of the situation to attack and occupied Zhengding Prefecture. However, after occupying Zhengding Prefecture, the People's Army was temporarily unable to advance, so it could only station in Zhengding Prefecture to repair it.

However, even so, on the first day of the war, the People's Army achieved major victories on both the southeastern lines, and captured Tianjin New City, Langfang, Zhengding and other places, which could be regarded as a dreamy start.

The victory of the East China Government was a nightmare of the Qing court. When Zaitao entered the palace to apologize to Cixi, Tieliangji took a step ahead of him and apologized in front of Cixi because of Langfang's loss. Cixi was shocked after learning about the news of Langfang's loss in Tianjin Xincheng, but it was useless to blame Tieliang at this time. Moreover, it was the time to use people. Tieliang's military capabilities were rare among the Manchus' powerful people. Moreover, Tieliang has always been loyal to the court. At this time, he would be dismissed. Who else could he find to replace him? Therefore, after thinking for a moment, Cixi decided to let Tieliang make meritorious contributions with his crimes, continue to defend Tongzhou, and resist the attack of the People's Army. Tieliang was naturally grateful and vowed to defend Tongzhou on the spot to never let the People's Army break further.

After Tieliang retreated, Cixi also realized that the situation was not good and had the idea of ​​escaping Beijing. At this time, Zaitao entered the palace and apologized to Cixi for failing to arrest the personnel of the Beijing Office of the East China Government. At this time, Cixi was still in the mood to take care of the personnel of the Beijing Office of the East China Government. When Zaitao saw Zaitao, she suddenly had an idea. Although the People's Army has captured Langfang, Langfang is more than 50 kilometers away from Beijing, and there is a Tongzhou card in the middle, so Beijing is still safe for the time being. At least there will be no trouble tonight. If you want to leave Beijing, you have to wait until tomorrow morning. Before leaving, you have to handle Beijing's affairs well. At least you can't escape from Beijing in a hurry like last time. So Cixi ordered Zaitao to rush to the Summer Palace overnight to pick up her and her party tomorrow.

After Zaitao ordered the order to leave the palace, Cixi ordered the recruitment of military ministers and announced that tomorrow morning, the emperor would move to the Summer Palace to be the director. Prince Qing Yili, Prince Chun Zaifeng, Dai Hongci, Yinchang were with him, Zhang Zhidong, Natong, Yulang and Xu Shichang stayed in Beijing. In fact, at this point, everyone knew that Cixi was preparing to run away again. However, no one would say it out loud, so they each took their orders.

At this moment, we heard about the loss of Zhengding. Cixi's face was so cloudy that it was almost raining, but she still forced herself to endure it and said nothing. She asked everyone to retreat. She ordered the people in the palace to pack up and prepare to set off tomorrow morning.

That dinner, Cixi and Guangxu had dinner together, but Cixi had a poor appetite, and Guangxu had no appetite. The mother and son had their own thoughts and were relatively speechless. After a while, Cixi said: "I will get up early tomorrow morning, and the emperor should rest early."

Guangxu also nodded and said, "Dad also rested earlier, my son will leave first."

But before Guangxu could salute, someone came in to report that the People's Army had entered the Sifang Railway Station.

When Cixi heard this, she was not only scared to her face, but subconsciously raised her hand and knocked over a palace maid next to her with a tea tray in her hand. The tea cup fell to the ground and smashed it. The tea splashed the hem of Cixi's skirt.

The palace maid was so scared that she fell to the ground and kowtowed her head repeatedly, her whole body trembled like a sieve, but she couldn't say a word. However, Cixi was furious and said, "Come on, pull out this useless little hoof and beat it to death."

When the palace maid heard this, she was so scared that she was out of her mind and screamed: "Old Buddha is lucky... lucky..."

At this time, a few eunuchs had already come over, grabbed her arms and dragged them out of the hall. Although the palace maid was struggling desperately, the eunuchs had a lot of power and could not break free in the end, and were dragged out by the eunuchs.

The other eunuchs, palace maids, and Guangxu were scared and silent. Not only did they dare not speak, but they even dared to breathe. The entire hall was as quiet as a silence.

Finally, Li Lianying plucked up his courage and said, "God of Lafayette, I'll get up early when I go to the Summer Palace tomorrow! Please ask Lafayette to rest early."

Cixi was silent for a while, finally nodded, got up and left, and turned back to her bedroom. The other eunuchs, palace maids and others were hurriedly following behind, and no one dared to be negligent. Guangxu hurriedly knelt on the ground, holding his head on the ground, waiting for Cixi to leave the hall, and did not dare to get up.

I don’t know how long it took, someone came over, held Guangxu’s arm, helped Guangxu up, and said, “Your Majesty, I’ll get up early tomorrow, so let’s get off sooner.”

When Guangxu looked up, it turned out that Li Lianying had come over. He nodded and said, "Dad Dad..."

Li Lianying said: "Laofu has gone back to the bedroom, and the emperor should go back to rest early."

Li Lianying is now the eunuch general manager. It can be said that in the palace, except for Cixi and Guangxu, even if he is the third person, he does not need to take care of Cixi in his own hands. However, Li Lianying is sleek and although she is trying her best to serve Cixi, she also does her best to take care of Guangxu and does not offend both mother and son. During the Gengzi Kingdom, Cixi and Guangxu fled. He took great care of Guangxu along the way. Later, after returning to the palace, Guangxu felt that if there were no Li Lianying, he would not have the chance to go back to Beijing.

Li Lianying followed Guangxu out of the hall. At this time, two eunuchs who were serving in the room were waiting outside. When they saw the two coming out, they hurriedly saluted and said, "Go back to the emperor, General Li, the execution of the punishment is over."

Guangxu frowned, knowing that the palace maid had been beaten to death, and sighed and said, "Buried her."
Chapter completed!