In the first few days of siege, Chen Yucheng also used a lot of artillery. After three days, Chen Yucheng's artillery rarely attacked on a large scale. Shoot a few shots from time to time, this is still necessary, and Li Hongzhang can't be so comfortable defending the city. However, with more than a dozen artillery pieces bombarded at once, the cost of such a large-scale artillery bombardment was too great for the Taiping army to bear.

Li Hongzhang's main force of the Luo Army was born in the Huai Army, and he was quite familiar with artillery battles, and his level was only higher than that of Chen Yucheng's department. The other party did not shell, and Li Hongzhang immediately stabilized his mind. He spent all day at the East City Gate looking at the stars and the moon, waiting for the rescue of the Liberation Army.

On August 19, when the rescue soldiers finally came, a cavalry company of the vanguard of the Liberation Army appeared outside the east gate of the city, and Li Hongzhang personally went to meet him. The cavalry company commander and instructor looked at the open east gate with suspicious eyes, as well as the Qing army wearing Huai army uniforms led by Li Hongzhang outside the east gate. In the past, when everyone saw the Qing army, they immediately attacked, even if they couldn't kill in the face of prisoners, but at that time, we were outnumbered. At this time, a cavalry company always felt wrong in the face of dozens of times the surrender of troops.

It's just that everyone can only think about it, and the biggest task of the cavalry company is not against Li Hongzhang. The troops passed through the city, and not long after the flag of the Luo army at the head of the city fell, and a military flag of the Guangfu army was waved in the wind on the west gate. And as soon as the city gate opened, the cavalry units of the Liberation Army drove out.

The Taiping army did not attack the city at this time, and Tanma informed Chen Yucheng of the latest changes. After hearing this, Chen Yucheng felt extremely unhappy in his heart. He can understand that Li Hongzhang surrendered to the Liberation Army, and even if Li Hongzhang surrendered to the Taiping Army, there was only a dead end. Seeing that Luoyang, which may be in his hands, has changed into a cooked duck, the sullenness in his heart is naturally conceivable.

"The King! Can't let go of Li Hongzhang! "The subordinates have built yì.

Chen Yucheng also spent a lot of effort to control his feelings, he said: "The Guangfu Army on the other side has come out, let's go meet them first and see if Li Hongzhang is a ghost." ”

As soon as the two sides met, Chen Yucheng knew that this was not Li Hongzhang's ghost. Dozens of cavalrymen on the opposite side were riding unusually tall horses, military uniforms, sabers, and rifles on their backs. If Li Hongzhang could raise such a cavalry force, he would definitely not be beaten into the city like he is now.

After talking, Chen Yucheng understood the requirements of the Guangfu Army, since Li Hongzhang had surrendered to the Guangfu Army, the Taiping Army should go back to Shaanxi.

As soon as this request was finished, Chen Yucheng's subordinates scolded. "Li Hongzhang's people killed our people from the British Palace, did you say let us go, we will leave?"

"You want us to go and hand over Li Hongzhang!"

"Hand over Li Hongzhang, and then let's go!"

Chen Yucheng had actually decided to retreat, but he didn't stop his subordinates from shouting like this, and his British Mansion was killed cleanly, although his family members were stationed in the British Palace's Mansion in Chang'an, Tianjing City, and Hong Xiuquan was taken hostage. But many people in the current British Palace's Mansion have been with him for a long time, and if he can't take revenge, Chen Yucheng also has a thorn in his heart.

The cavalry company commander was not angry, and between Li Hongzhang and the Taiping Army, the Guangfu Army had a better impression of the Taiping Army. The company commander said: "You can't attack Luoyang again, if you have any ideas, wait for our army commander to come over and talk about it." Isn't that good? ”

The Guangfu army did not immediately tear their faces apart, and the generals of the Taiping army also dismounted from their donkeys, relieved the siege of Luoyang, and guarded the camp in the west against possible surprise attacks.

There was no surprise attack, but the commander and commissar came. The two sides talked once at the agreed place, and Chen Yucheng got a condition that he could hardly believe. It was the White Hats who killed the British Mansion in Luoyang, and the Liberation Army agreed to let the Taiping Army take action against the White Hats, including purging the families of the White Hats. But the Han army under Li Hongzhang could not move.

Chen Yucheng and several major generals who participated in the talks looked at the representatives of the Liberation Army and finally couldn't help asking, "Why are you doing this?" "They never believe that the Liberation Army will be so kind, and there must be a plan for the Liberation Army itself.

"King Ying, let me ask you a question, do you think you are a Han first, or a person who believes in God's religion first?" The commissar laughed.

King Chen Yucheng of England did not believe in God worship at all, so a trace of unhappiness flashed on his beautiful face, and then he said angrily: "Of course I am Han first!" ”

Political Commissar Zhengse said: "The first thing for our Guangfu Army to distinguish between the enemy and us is whether or not they recognize themselves as Han Chinese. We all came out of Guangxi, the local Zhuang people, Yao people, Miao people, Li people in Guangxi, if you ask him whether he wants to be a Han or someone with other names, they must say that he wants to be a Han person. As long as they want to live a good life, this is their own people. It's one thing to have a conflict, and if we have a grudge between the Turks in Guangxi, we will kill each other when we see each other. However, some people, at most, say that I believe in XXX, and this is not their own person. You want to seek revenge on them, and we support you. We are all Chinese, we are all the Chinese nation, but there is only one Chinese nation in New China! ”

Chen Yucheng had not received the modern nation-state education of the Liberation Army, and he was not very clear about the last few sentences. But he understood two things very clearly, the Liberation Army accepted the vast majority of people, and the Liberation Army would not accept some people. By extension, the vast majority of the people of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom were acceptable to the Liberation Army. Although he was quite apprehensive in his heart, Chen Yucheng also agreed with the conditions put forward by the Guangfu Army.

Li Hongzhang is even simpler, he can even abandon his previous owner, and naturally has no feelings for some of his subordinates who are purely exploiting. So the fate of some people was decided.

As a genuine second-class jinshi, Li Hongzhang has a better understanding of the concept of the Guangfu Army, or the concept of Wei Ze. Weeser can accept internal strife, different ideas. But Wei Ze must not accept that anyone puts other ideas above the idea of "I am first and foremost Chinese", and whoever puts other perceptions above that I am first and foremost Chinese, Wei Ze will not let such people go.

After understanding this concept, Li Hongzhang felt extremely lucky. Originally, Wei Ze's propaganda against the Manchu Qing was a pure propaganda to bring down the Manchu Qing in Li Hongzhang's view, but now it seems that this is just a targeted elaboration of the concept that Wei Ze adheres to. The fact that a future emperor had such a strong theoretical insistence made Li Hongzhang can't help but fall into deep thought.

The Manchu court did not know that its "third-class duke" had completely abandoned the Manchus, and of course the Manchus asked Li Hongzhang to send troops from Luoyang to the east to attack the Guangfu army north of the Yellow River, and the purpose was to send Li Hongzhang to death.

On August 22, Zeng Guofan's Hunan army was less than 100 miles away from the city of Beijing. According to the secret envoy who ran back to report it, Zeng Guofan's Hunan army did not try to fight a decisive battle with the Guangfu army, but retreated to the capital after a short rest in Hebei. Prince Gong was very unhappy after hearing this, and he felt that it was unreasonable for Zeng Guofan to retreat without a fight.

Ci'an commented: "If Zeng Guofan's entire army is annihilated, I am afraid that the Guangfu army will fight all the way to Beijing." What's in it for us? Since he has arrived, let him be stationed in the northwest of the capital. ”

The northwest of Beijing is the direction leading to Chengde, and seeing that Ci'an is fully prepared to go to Chengde, Prince Gong Yixun can only obey Ci'an's arrangement.

Although Zeng Guofan retreated quickly, the speed of the Guangfu army's march was not slow. It's just that seeing that Zeng Guofan has retreated to Beijing City to participate in the defense, the mixed army also feels a little headache. The best strategy at this time was naturally to annihilate Zeng and other local Manchu forces north of the Yellow River, and then gather forces to attack Beijing, which had little experience in warfare. Once the Hunan army, which has actual combat experience, converges with the Eight Banners in the capital, it will encounter great problems in defense. After all, the number of mixed troops is only 20,000 people, and this army is more than enough to harass and poke next to Beijing, but it is completely insufficient to really attack the city of Beijing.

The comrades of the mixed army have all studied at the Army Academy in Nanjing, and everyone knows that Nanjing has the largest city wall system in China. Beijing is slightly worse than Nanjing. After seeing Nanjing, everyone knows how difficult it is for 20,000 people to occupy such a large city. It is even more difficult to annihilate the enemy in Beijing in one fell swoop.

Therefore, the troops stopped for a while, and while they used carrier pigeons to transmit the news, they hoped that the follow-up troops would come up early. After the number of troops exceeds 50,000, it will almost be able to implement the combat method of besieging Beijing.

Thanks to the mixed communication system of the Guangfu Army, Wei Ze only knew the situation more than half a day later than Lei Hu in Kaifeng. Wei Ze had an impression of the Manchu Qing Dynasty, and the members of this bandit group were born thieves, and their perception of danger was far beyond ordinary people. At that moment when only one wrong step is killed, they can soften themselves more than anyone else. Xianfeng fled the capital, Cixi and Guangxu fled the capital, and these people never cared about Beijing.

Therefore, Wei Ze hurriedly ordered Lei Hu to speed up his march to Beijing and block the possibility of the Manchu Qing escape as much as possible. Through the efforts of the communication system, Lei Hu's first military order arrived at the mixed army six days later. On September 6, the mixed army marched rapidly for two consecutive days to the city of Beijing. However, two days ago, on September 4, the core members of the Manchu Qing Dynasty, such as the Empress Dowager of the Two Palaces, the Little Emperor, and Prince Gong Yixun, had already gone to Chengde under the escort of the 50,000 Eight Banner Army led by Wen Xiang and the more than 30,000 Hunan troops of Zeng Guofan, who had arrived in a hurry.

The mixed army did not find out this information at this time, they just blocked the gates of Beijing and waited for the follow-up troops to arrive.

On 6 September, the Liberation Army and Navy were not hindered in any way, and easily landed in Tianjin and sent the first batch of 30,000 troops ashore. The troops went straight to Tianjin, which was already undefended, and then marched towards Beijing despite fatigue.