Time Travel to 1859: The Iron-Blooded Soldier King

Xianfeng's decree had just been issued, and before he had time to leave the court, Senggelinqin's second memorial arrived.

When Xianfeng opened it, he actually requested to mobilize the entire firearms battalion to participate in the war and fight a decisive battle with the British and French forces in the Baliqiao area!

Xianfeng's nose was almost crooked with anger. "Fuck you! Senggelinqin, you've been defeated and humiliated the army, and I haven't settled the score with you yet, and you still dare to ask me for the Firearms Battalion? You bastard, the Firearms Battalion is my lifeblood, my last line of defense. Without it, what am I going to do?"

Xianfeng was furious. He threw the memorial to the ground and roared, "Damn Senggelinqin! He actually wants to transfer the entire firearms battalion. Is he crazy? Send an imperial decree to revoke Senggelinqin's title of Khorchin Prince and demote him to Khorchin Beizi! If he fails to repel the foreigners, he will be punished as well!"

Prince Gong, standing by, quickly picked up the memorial and said urgently, "Your Majesty, the court is in dire straits right now. The Monk King is the only one we can rely on. If you criticize him so harshly, I'm afraid it will cause a sudden change. Then, we will be even more passive. We can only appease him now, not punish him. Also, the battle is raging at the front, and the Monk King lacks artillery and foreign rifles. Facing the foreigners' charge, he is very passive. Without the help of the Firearms Battalion, I'm afraid the Monk King will be powerless to save the situation."

Xianfeng shouted, "What nonsense! Is the war important, but my safety is unimportant? Is the safety of the capital unimportant? If I give him the entire firearms battalion, what will the capital rely on for defense?"

Prince Gong's face turned pale, and he whispered, "Your Majesty, in my opinion, you can allocate four of the patrol troops to the Monk King, and the artillery battalion as well, leaving the other four to be transferred to Your Majesty, to be on the safe side..."

Xianfeng snorted angrily, then calmed down a bit. He shouted, "Alright, issue an edict to reprimand Senggelinqin for his ineffective fighting. He is ordered to repel the Anglo-French coalition forces. If he loses again, don't blame me for being ruthless! I can still give him the artillery battalion, but I can only give him two firearms battalions. I also allocated him thousands of rifles, even more than the number of rifles in the firearms battalion, but he still suffered a crushing defeat. Look at that Liu Ye. He only had more than 2,000 people, but he defeated the Tsarist Russia. What a loser!"

Originally, Senggelinqin was counting on the two firearms battalions to save his life, but now he only got a dozen Western artillery pieces from the firearms battalion, and two firearms battalions with only two hundred people. What can he do with such a force?

At this time, Senggelinqin had already escaped from Tianjin, and together with Shengbao, he led the Beijing Camp, Green Camp soldiers and Mongolian elite cavalry, more than 18,000 people, to retreat towards the capital area. At the same time, Senggelinqin urgently dispatched the Qing army in Rehe, Shandong and Zhili to quickly move towards Tong County to participate in the Battle of Baliqiao!

Now Senggelinqin has learned about the strength of the Anglo-French Allied Forces. There are 5,000 French troops and 8,000 British troops. These are just the vanguard forces. Subsequently, the Anglo-French Allied Forces will have more than 10,000 troops arriving in Tianjin!

With the current 13,000 troops, plus the troops that will arrive later, the strength of the Anglo-French coalition will be close to 30,000. These are all elite foreign troops, all equipped with advanced muskets and cannons!

Senggelinqin felt a chill rising from the soles of his feet to his head. Oh my God, it was enough for him to endure just a few thousand foreigners, and he was badly defeated by them. Now he had to gather less than 30,000 troops. Is there any chance for the Qing army to survive? At least at the moment, this number of troops is definitely not enough to plug the holes in their guns!

Senggelinqin quickly issued an order to mobilize troops from all over the country to go to Beijing to participate in the war!

At this moment, the imperial edict from Emperor Xianfeng and the letter from Prince Gong were delivered to the army almost simultaneously. After receiving the imperial edict, Senggelinqin lost his temper even more. What the hell is this? Damn it! Who is spreading rumors in front of the emperor? Without the participation of the Firearms Battalion, their chances of victory are even slimmer!

Without an elite firearms battalion, he wouldn't even have a single fighting force! Yes, it was true, he still had thousands of guns under his command, but these thousand guns had only just been deployed. It had been less than a month since they were deployed, and they had only trained for half a month. The soldiers hadn't mastered them, let alone mastered them. Even at a target, few could hit the target accurately. How could such soldiers defeat the battle-hardened British and French forces?

Senggelinqin was so sad that he could not even cry. Moreover, the British and French forces had not yet reached the capital. You, a dignified emperor, ran away to Rehe with your tail between your legs. Who of your soldiers would still fight for you to conquer the world?

Shengbao, who was standing by, said in a hoarse voice, "Your Highness, what do we do now?"

Senggelinqin said angrily: "What should I do? How do I know what to do? What else can I do? Withdraw the troops, speed up the withdrawal, and reach Baliqiao as soon as possible. At Baliqiao, we will fight the British and French forces to the death. Even if we are completely annihilated, we must fight this battle and must win. We must not lose. You must know that behind us is Beijing. We don't have the slightest leeway. If we lose and Beijing falls, even death will not be enough to atone for our sins!"

Shengbao shrank his neck. Senggelinqin was right. Behind them was Beijing. The Qing army had nowhere to retreat. Where could they retreat to?

Senggelinqin continued, "Now we can only rely on our cavalry. The emperor only gave us a firearms battalion of 200 people. What can we do with it? Even if he gave us the entire artillery battalion, there are less than 20 cannons. In front of the British and French artillery group, we are not worth mentioning at all. Only the cavalry can fight. We will go to Zhangjiawan and deploy defenses there. You will lead the troops of the Beijing Battalion to defend the left wing, and Lord Ruilin will lead a part of the Beijing Battalion to defend the right wing. I will command the Khorchin cavalry to sit directly in the center. Once the battle starts, you will attract the main force of the foreigners, and my cavalry will quickly launch an attack on the British and French coalition forces, hoping to use a surprise attack to break into the foreign positions. At that time, the combat effectiveness of the cavalry can be fully exerted. Our fate depends entirely on that moment!"

Shengbao nodded. Senggelinqin still had 8,000 cavalrymen under his command. Although their quality was mixed, the combat effectiveness of the main force should not be underestimated. As long as they could charge the positions of the Anglo-French forces, the power of the muskets would be useless at close range, and the foreigners would definitely not be able to withstand the impact of the cavalry.

Senggelinqin sighed bitterly, "To be honest, I don't have any confidence at all. I just hope that Liu Ye can lead his Baoding Town main force back. Maybe he can turn the tide. We? We don't have that ability..."

Liu Ye? Liu Ye was almost vomiting blood from running. It had been over 2,000 miles, and he had reached Shanhaiguan in just half a month. From Shanhaiguan to Tongxian, there were only 500 miles left, but all the soldiers were almost exhausted and could not hold on any longer.