Liu Kunyi, the future governor of Liangjiang, was still under orders under Jiang Zhongyuan, the ancestor of the Hunan army, in early 1854. In fact, Jiang Zhongyuan was not only the ancestor of the Hunan army, but also formed a local regiment to train as a landlord and soldier, and obtained a high position step by step by relying on military merits, which was the path pioneered by Jiang Zhongyuan. From this point of view, Jiang Zhongyuan is the common ancestor of the three local armed forces, the Hunan Army, the Chu Army, and the Huai Army.

In December 1852, the Taiping army left Changsha and went straight to Wuchang, and theoretically, Jiang Zhongyuan should follow Xiang Rong, who had been the governor of Guangxi, to pursue him. However, Jiang Zhongyuan is a person with a temperament, and he has dealt with Xiang Rong in Guangxi for more than half a year, and he is extremely disgusted with Xiang Rong. In addition, Zhang Liangji, the governor of Hunan, tried his best to keep him, and Jiang Zhongyuan stayed in Hunan to rectify his "Chu Yong". At this time, Jiang Zhongyuan reunited with his old friend Zeng Guofan.

Zeng Guofan originally followed the path of Mu Zhang'a, the minister of military aircraft, and his teacher Mu Zhang'a advocated peace negotiations during the Opium War, framed Lin Zexu and other main war factions, and presided over the signing of a series of unequal treaties. After Emperor Xianfeng succeeded to the throne, he re-appointed Lin Zexu and others, dismissed Mu Zhang'a, and never used him.

Therefore, Zeng Guofan's once good future was gone, and his mother passed away, so Zeng Guofan went home in 1852.

Jiang Zhongyuan had a good relationship with Zeng Guofan when he was in Beijing, and since he got acquainted with the right attendant of the official to the Ministry of Rites and the right attendant of the Ministry of War, Jiang Zhongyuan lived in the home of his good friend Zeng Guofan in Beijing. This time the two reunited, Jiang Zhongyuan naturally liked it.

In April 1853, Xianfeng thought that Jiang Zhongyuan was loyal and brave, so he asked him to go to Xiangrong's Jiangnan camp to help with military affairs. Jiang Zhongyuan didn't want to see Xiang Rong, who he hated very much, but the emperor personally ordered it, and Jiang Zhongyuan had to make a move. So he took Chu Yong out of Hunan slowly and began to move towards Nanjing.

In June 1853, Jiang Zhongyuan traveled to Jiujiang, heard that Nanchang was besieged, so he went to the imperial court, asked for aid to Jiangxi, and led 1,300 people to Nanchang. Zhang Fu, the governor of Jiangxi, awarded Jiang Zhongyuan with the banner of the king's order and asked him to command all the wars. Jiang Zhongyuan had fought dozens of battles with the Taiping army, large and small, and was very familiar with the Taiping army's siege strategy. He burned down the houses outside the city, killed the deserters, and personally stationed in Zhangjiangmen, supervising the battle day and night, defending the city for more than 9o days, and repelling the attack of the Taiping army.

Although at the beginning of January, Jiang Zhongyuan met Shi Dakai, the commander of the Taiping Army's Western Expedition, at Hukou and suffered a big defeat. Jiang Zhongyuan was impeached and demoted to four levels to remain in office.

The demotion order did not discourage Jiang Zhongyuan's will to fight, and after the defeat in Jiujiang, Jiang Zhongyuan thought that the Taiping army was going to attack Wuchang again, so he led his troops straight to Wuchang. As Jiang Zhongyuan expected, the Taiping army sent troops to attack Wuchang, and Jiang Zhongyuan led Chu Yong and the Taiping army to fight several bloody battles, thwarting the momentum of the Taiping army's attack on Wuchang.

At the beginning of November, less than a month after Jiang Zhongyuan's order to be demoted by four ranks, Xianfeng appointed Jiang Zhongyuan as the governor of Anhui and asked him to go to Suzhou to rectify the mess of Anhui affairs.

Jiang Zhongyuan created a miracle in the officialdom of the Qing Dynasty, completing the out-of-print "five-level jump" of the Qing Dynasty in one year, and the official became the governor, and the grade passed that of Zeng Guofan. In return, Jiang Zhongyuan strongly supported Zeng Guofan's plan to build a naval army, and also supported Zeng Guofan. However, Xianfeng was the emperor in power after all, and although he valued Jiang Zhongyuan, he did not immediately agree to Jiang Zhongyuan's construction, but only ordered Jiang Zhongyuan to go to Anhui to preside over the affairs quickly.

For the time being, he can't help his good friend Zeng Guofan, and Jiang Zhongyuan can only go to Anhui to take up his post. After arriving in Anhui in December 1853 with an army of about 2,000 people, Jiang Zhongyuan was stunned by the situation in Anhui. The bandits who had made Jiang Zhongyuan suffer a big loss on the battlefield had already taken control of Anhui and built a preliminary tax system through guò "paying taxes on grain". Jiang Zhongyuan was a representative of the Jingshi School in the middle of the Qing Dynasty, and he did not like to play the tricks of the sour Confucians, but liked to read books on specific affairs.

If a sour Confucian who "reads poetry and books" learns about Wei Ze's policy of "paying taxes after completing grain", it is probably a scolding sentence of "Mu Monkey and Crown", thinking that Wei Ze, a rebel born with mud legs, actually wants to play taxation. But Jiang Zhongyuan saw things completely differently, and he knew very well that Wei Ze now had the ability to initially control the situation in Anhui.

Paying taxes is a very real thing, the output of the peasants is so much, after paying taxes to the Taiping army, there is no excess grain to pay taxes to the imperial court. The imperial court had no taxes, so naturally it could not afford to raise soldiers. Moreover, Wei Ze's policy was open, and "paying taxes after completing grain" was also compiled into a small song and sung in Anhui. "Those who have more land pay more taxes, and those who have less land pay less taxes, and if they don't have land to be tenants, the poor don't have to pay taxes and sleep peacefully."

As an outstanding figure of the Jingshi faction and an outstanding representative of the landlord class of the two lakes, Jiang Zhongyuan was frightened by this reactionary song. At this time, Wei Ze's name had already spread to Anhui, and Jiang Zhongyuan never mistook the name of his opponent again. Paying taxes after completing grain is not only a tax collection action, but also a whole system behind it.

According to the information obtained by Jiang Zhongyuan, Wei Ze dispatched township officials and village officials in every village and township, and every time there was a temple fair and a township fair, Wei Ze vigorously publicized one thing, "The current situation in Anhui is fought by war, if the villagers want to let such days continue, then the villagers will support our Taiping Army, and the Taiping Army will definitely not let the villagers down!" We're not going to let the demons come back and collect taxes from everyone! ”

And Wei Ze also condensed the propaganda into two sentences, "Taiping taxes are good!" Manchu taxes are bad! ”

In all fairness, although Jiang Zhongyuan was extremely hostile to Wei Ze, he intuitively felt that Wei Ze had indeed grasped the key point of the current social contradictions, and the current tax system was very unfair to the poor. Weeser and the others reversed this unjust system with the weapons in their hands. After realizing this, Jiang Zhongyuan's hostility towards Wei Ze rose even more.

Wei Ze is now going straight to Suzhou, and Jiang Zhongyuan is naturally worried about what Wei Ze is going to do. Is it preparing to lay down Suzhou, or is there something else? At this time, after Jiang Zhongyuan's expansion of the local Tongguò regimental training, there were 5,000 troops in Suzhou City, and it was almost enough to defend the city.

In the area of Suzhou, it is already a plain area, and new news keeps coming, Wei Ze's troops forced Suzhou City, and the team did not mean to approach the county seat, but actually wanted to pass through the county seat to the north.

"Cantonese bandits are going north?" Jiang Zhongyuan was very puzzled by this. If it were other Manchu officials, the Cantonese bandits would not attack the county seat, but just pass by honestly, they would definitely think that the situation was very good, but Jiang Zhongyuan had already made plans to pursue the Cantonese bandits.

If you want to pursue the Cantonese bandits, you have to break or stumble on the Cantonese bandits under the city of Suzhou first. This force of Cantonese bandits has about 3,000 people, and it is not easy to defeat them in a short period of time. Jiang Zhongyuan finally decided to stay in the city with 2,000 people, and he led his 3,000-strong troops to pursue it. If you can attack the transport team of the Cantonese bandits, it will naturally be great.

The force of 3,000 men soon saw the large carts in the distance, and if they hadn't seen them, Weezer might have been disappointed. The troops guarding the convoy were only more than 3,000 people, which was not much different from Jiang Zhongyuan's strength.

Jiang Zhongyuan just looked at the terrain and knew that if he wanted to attack effectively, he could only go parallel with Wei Ze's troops first, and when he ran to the front of Wei Ze's troops, he would turn around and attack from the front of Wei Ze's baggage troops. However, this parallel road did not make Wei Ze's troops have any frightening appearance, and the Qing army moved forward, and the baggage troops also moved forward according to their own marching degree. After walking like this for about ten minutes, Jiang Zhongyuan's subordinates, who had caught up all the way, were not able to pass the baggage team.

At this time, Jiang Zhongyuan also felt that something was wrong, he really had never seen such an orderly baggage team. Their existence seemed to be mocking Jiang Zhongyuan's Qing army. Moreover, Jiang Zhongyuan also knew that time was not on his side, and if he followed this approach, it was only a matter of time before Wei Ze's other troops came to help. The 3,000 Qing army had no chance of winning against the 20,000 Taiping army.

But without firing a shot, he retreated like this, and Jiang Zhongyuan was not reconciled. At this time, Jiang Zhongyuan could only order his troops to lean over and prepare to fight the baggage troops of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom.

"Is this guy finally ready to come up?" Liang Changtai, the division commander in charge of the battle, sat on the cart and couldn't help yawning. He was born in the navy, so he has his own views on the formation. Seeing Jiang Zhongyuan's troops rushing towards the side of the baggage troops marching in columns, Liang Changtai smiled and said, "Stop!" Get ready for battle! ”

The cart came to a halt, and the horses were untied and led aside. This army took care of its own affairs as if it didn't see the Qing army rushing over.

"Withdraw!" Jiang Zhongyuan shouted. He had already understood that something was wrong at this time, and his troops seemed to be attacking the side of the Taiping army, but this was just an illusion. Under Guanyang City, under Changsha City, the Shu Yue bandits under Wei Ze are best at fighting in horizontal columns. The side that Jiang Zhongyuan faced was only a front for the Taiping army.

Jiang Zhongyuan's subordinates trained well, and with the order of the drum and trumpet, the Qing army that rushed forward had begun to stop and begin to retreat.

"Let them withdraw quickly!" Jiang Zhongyuan continued to roar.

Behind the Qing army, the Taiping infantry had already crossed the ranks of the carts and began to form their own horizontal columns. And behind them, some of the big wheels were unloaded from the baggage trucks, and the cannons from other large cars were put on the wheels. The mules and horses that had been pulling the carts were also assembled on the left and right of this army, and the cavalry mounted their mounts one after another. I'm about to attack.

Although Jiang Zhongyuan is very brave, he is not stupid at all. Seeing the orderly style of the Taiping Army, he completely gave up his plan to fight with it. He commanded the Qing army under his command to begin to retreat with all his might, and even a part of the rear team dragged far behind the entire brigade and did not care.

Seeing Jiang Zhongyuan's choice, Liang Changtai also ordered the troops to close the team.

"Master Shuai, if we catch up, we will definitely be able to win a big victory." There is a brigade marshal to build yì road.

"We are only responsible for the back road, but we are not responsible for fighting the Qing Demon. Wouldn't it be nice to scare them away? Liang Changtai said with a smile, "If you want to fight, there is an opportunity!" ”rg

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