Shi Dakai burned down the Yuelu Mountain Academy completely on orders, and according to Hong Xiuquan's order, he wanted Shi Dakai to completely destroy the Yuelu Mountain Academy. And Shi Dakai just burned the academy casually and smashed Confucius's tablet. If Shi Dakai knew how strong the resentment this caused among the literati in Changsha City, he might feel very aggrieved. Because Shi Dakai is a real subordinate, if he follows Hong Xiuquan's order, there will not even be a scum left in Yuelu Mountain Academy.

But Shi Dakai didn't think about what the scholar thought of him at all, he was a general of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, and the purpose of crossing the Xiangjiang River was to gain a foothold on the west bank of the Xiangjiang River and collect grain. After building a pontoon bridge on the Xiangjiang River during the dry season, Shi Dakai was able to easily travel back and forth between the two sides of the Xiangjiang River, and a large amount of grain was also transported to the Taiping Army camp under Changsha City.

Wei Ze also received an order from Yang Xiuqing to move the camp north. Wei Ze's troops were in the east of Changsha City, and the distance to transport grain was the longest. So after Wei Ze broke through the camp of the Qing army outside the northern city, he also began to build pontoon bridges over the Xiangjiang River. On the one hand, it ensures that its troops can operate in a larger space, and at the same time, it also ensures that its troops can get food supplies from the west of the Xiangjiang River.

After the battle on the school field, the Qing army no longer refused to send troops to fight Wei Ze. The army of tens of thousands of people was still defeated by Wei Ze, and no one wanted to find himself unhappy again. So throughout late October, and even early November, Weeser had a relaxed day. For almost a month, Wei Ze practiced his army in the north and east of the city, and from time to time sent troops further east to collect food. It is also necessary to often attack the north and east of Changsha City.

It's just that Wei Ze didn't really move, at this time, the regular army of the Qing army in Changsha City, as well as the armed forces recruited from all walks of life, numbered almost 100,000 people. After several battles, the defense system of Changsha City also matured. In October, the Qing army at the head of the city was still quite scattered. In November, the Qing army in Changsha City looked decent. There are Qing troops guarding every battlement, and Wei Ze has been to the city many times to observe, and now the Qing soldiers do not talk to each other, let alone play and fight. It is like a stake standing at the head of the city to defend.

Weeser's troops excelled in field warfare, and the defensive warfare that Weeser himself knew was trench warfare in World War I and fighting under the weapons of World War II. For a big city like Changsha, Wei Ze felt that casting some large-caliber artillery and forcibly blasting the city wall should be a more reliable way. Even if the sapper is carried out, it is necessary to produce high gunpowder, not to use black powder to blow up.

During this rare period of recuperation of the troops, Wei Ze used more than 100 captured war horses to form a small cavalry unit. The cavalry charge of the Qing army made a deep impression on Wiese. In the old guard of Napoleon I, the cuirassiers were much discussed, but without exception, everyone agreed that they were very effective troops.

The cavalry of the Qing army certainly did not have the combat effectiveness of the French cuirassiers more than forty years ago to break through Weese's infantry array. Weese was a cavalry layman, and he didn't think he could train a good cavalry unit, so this new cavalry unit was mainly an imaginary enemy. Use this unit to practice how to respond to cavalry attacks in battle.

The main direction of the attack on Changsha fell on Yang Xiuqing, the king of the east in the south of the city. The Qing army did not dare to attack Wei Ze, but they still dared to touch Yang Xiuqing. In late January, the Qing army in Changsha City made several sorties, but was defeated by Yang Xiuqing.

Then Yang Xiuqing began to implement the method of crypt siege. Relying on the miners who surrendered from Chenzhou, Daozhou and other places as the backbone, the Taiping army began to implement a large number of tactics of digging tunnels and blasting city walls.

The Qing army in Changsha was-for-tat, digging many trenches horizontally and filling them with water. Once the Taiping army dug a trench, the water in the trench would be poured into the tunnel in large quantities. The lives of the soldiers in the tunnels will certainly be lost, and the tunnels that have entered the water will not be able to be used again.

Even so, the Taiping army completed several successful blasts. However, the Qing army had 100,000 people in the city, and the density of troops was large, even if a considerable part of the troops had to defend Wei Ze in the north of the city, they could still gather a considerable number of their troops in the south of the city at any time. The main force of the Taiping army attacked several times, but ultimately failed.

The battle in the west of the city was fierce. Emperor Xianfeng had already ordered that if Xiang Rong in Guilin refused to lead troops, he would be sent to Xinjiang to replenish his army. Xiang Rong had to leave for Changsha. Although he was named the commander-in-chief, Xiang Rong fought west of the Xiangjiang River. At the beginning of November, Xiang Rong had a battle with the Wing King Shi Da in Niutouzhou, but Xiang Rong was ambushed, and almost all of his 3ooo subordinates were wiped out. Xiang Rong was able to escape only by relying on a "good horse". Since then, the Taiping army has moved freely on the two pontoon bridges erected on the Xiangjiang River, and the Qing army has been trapped in the city and camp, and does not dare to move at all.

On November 2o, Yang Xiuqing ordered Wei Ze to go to the camp in the south of the city to discuss military affairs. There are not many people who came this time, all of them are real high-level generals, Wei Changhui, the king of the north, Shi Dakai, Hu Yihuang, Qin Rigang, Chen Chengying, Zeng Shuiyuan, Lin Fengxiang, Li Kaifang, Luo Xuan, and Wei Ze.

Yang Xiuqing didn't talk nonsense, "Now there is a tunnel leading directly to Kuixing Tower, and the city will be attacked in five days." If we can break the city this time, we will break the city, and if we can't break the city, we will leave immediately. ”

Wei Ze didn't expect Yang Xiuqing to be so decisive, he would fight when he said he would fight, and he would leave when he said he would go. However, he has no opinion on this, after all, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom is to build the capital of Nanjing, if Changsha is conquered at this time, the capital of Changsha will definitely be built. And Wei Ze does not believe that history cannot be changed, but with the current ability of the Taiping Army, Changsha cannot be defeated. Even if they can use their last bit of strength to capture Changsha, the surrounding Qing troops will vigorously counterattack. At that time, the Taiping army could not hold Changsha City.

In this case, it is better to leave Changsha early. Moreover, Wei Ze also had his own plans, and when he occupied Nanjing, he wanted to see if he could buy new muskets from Europe. Wei Ze knew some of the history of weapons exhibitions, and in this period he took the military industry department to research weapons, and many ideas appeared very simply. And these ideas correspond to historical terms, and many ideas of "new weapons" also appear.

But these weapons have a problem, they need a stronger barrel as a basis for modification. The barrels of the arquebuses of the Qing army were too poor, and Weeser wanted to use the flint guns with bayonets as the basis for the modification. But this requires the ability to get flint guns first, and if you shrink in Changsha, it is impossible to buy weapons from the British.

In addition to Wei Ze, the only ones who could keep calm were the few generals who were in charge of digging the tunnels. Everyone else was quite surprised, they didn't expect Yang Xiuqing to be so decisive.

But Yang Xiuqing's order cannot be refused, starting from Xiao Chaogui's raid, it has been 7o days since the siege of Changsha, and it is still impossible to attack Changsha City. The Taiping army's gunpowder, lead, and salt were all at the bottom. Everyone had been in Yong'an, but there was really no gunpowder, lead, and salt at that time. At that time, it was Wei Ze who attacked the grain road of the Qing army and grabbed things, and now the Taiping army has more than 50,000 people, even if they can grab things, it is a drop in the bucket.

In the end, the winged king Shi Dakai proposed a building, if it was really not laid, then it might as well send someone to Changsha City to play fake surrender, saying that the Taiping army had dug an extremely long and hidden tunnel into the city, ready for a larger-scale blasting. After using false information to fool the defenders of Changsha, the Taiping army was able to retreat calmly.

After discussing the strategy, the Taiping army began to prepare. Wei Ze's task was to begin to harass the Qing army in the north of the city as best he could, to attract as many Qing troops as possible to the north of the city.

Weeser returned to the camp and began to arrange. He ordered his troops to start building a long wall outside the north of the city, approaching the Changsha city wall. And every day he sent troops to beat gongs and drums in the middle of the night to scare the Qing army. Wei Ze, on the other hand, sent troops to the west of the Xiangjiang River along the pontoon bridge at night, and let these troops take advantage of the pontoon bridge to go west of the Xiangjiang River to the north of Changsha during the day.

This action made the Qing army very nervous, they were already afraid of Wei Ze's troops, and they were very frightened when they saw the continuous "increase of troops" in the north of the city. All units of the Qing army demanded to increase the defense of the north of the city.

Hunan Governor Zhang Liangji thought the same, but Zuo Zongtang sang the opposite. "My lord, I don't think the Cantonese bandits will attack from the north of the city."

"Why?" Zhang Liangji was very unconvinced of Zuo Zongtang's judgment.

Zuo Zongtang replied: "The Shu Yue bandits are the elite of the Yue bandits, and in my opinion, they are only 5,000 people. But every time they came from the pontoon bridge, it was a bundle of Cantonese bandits, and I looked at it, and in the past two days, during the day, at least three or four thousand new Cantonese bandits had arrived. Do they have so many bundles of Cantonese bandits there? ”

"Oh!" Zhang Liangji suddenly realized that if there were really more than 10,000 bundles of Cantonese bandits, he was afraid that Changsha City would have been defeated long ago.

"Besides, I send people to investigate every day, Shu Yue bandits have been rectifying and training their troops, if they wanted to attack Beicheng, they should have built siege equipment and trained to climb the wall. But what I found out about the bandits was the queue and how to prevent the cavalry from attacking the queue. They categorically did not suddenly start the siege. I'm afraid that the last time I fought with the Shu Yue bandits, they had lingering fears about the impact of the cavalry, so they trained desperately! Because of the defeat in the last battle, many people were suspicious of Zuo Zongtang, so Zuo Zongtang had to strengthen the intelligence he had found to prove that he had really posed a huge threat to the Shu Yue bandits.

Zhang Liangji didn't want to apologize for misunderstanding Zuo Zongtang, so he didn't hear the hidden topic. However, the two points of view put forward by Zuo Zongtang are quite strong support: Shu Yue bandits will not attack from the north of the city. If Zuo Zongtang was not wrong, he should strengthen the defense of the south of the city now.

Within two days, it was November 25th, and it was stormy for the past few days. The line of sight was very poor, and the Qing army was not able to observe the movements of the Taiping army. The tunnel dug by the Taiping army to the bottom of Kuixing's tower was stuffed with gunpowder, and after the blasting, the earth shook. A hole more than eight zhang wide was blown out on the wall on the side of Kuixing Tower. The Qin Ri Gang Department immediately began to attack with a long ladder.

The Qing army had already focused its defense on the south of the city, and immediately some Qing troops began to rush up the collapsed city wall, dragging the long ladder with a long hook and pulling it down from the side. The attack was thwarted, coupled with the sight that the Qing army in the city was well prepared. Qin Rigang immediately led his troops to retreat. The Qing army wanted to get some cheapness, so they pursued it. Qin Rigang had already set up an ambush, and when the Qing army was approaching, the ambush soldiers immediately attacked, and the guns and artillery were fired, and the Qing army was forced to retreat to Changsha after suffering hundreds of casualties.

Yang Xiuqing did not wait, and after learning of the failure of the blasting, he immediately ordered the troops that had been prepared to be ready to go out at any time. At this time, it happened to be a rainy day, and retreating on a rainy day was already a specialty of the Taiping army.

Wei Ze's troops also got the news, and on the third watch, both the northern and southern troops went straight to the pontoon bridge on the Xiang River. In the past few days, in order to confuse the Qing army, Wei Ze's troops have become accustomed to discrediting the pontoon bridge. Even the more than 100 war horses were transported to Jiangbei at night a few days ago. The troops quickly retreated along the pontoon bridge, and the Qing army did not realize it at all.

Looking back at Changsha City, which was not visible clearly in the night and rain, Wei Ze suddenly remembered the word. I drank Changsha water and ate Wuchang fish. Thousands of miles of the Yangtze River crossed, and the eyes of Chu Tianshu were extremely eye-catching. Regardless of the wind and waves, it is better than a leisurely stroll, and today you have to be free. The son said on the river: The deceased is like Sifu!

Recalling the deceased King Xiao Chaogui, Wei Ze couldn't help but sigh. He turned to the guards beside him and said, "Bring me a single knife." ”

The guards quickly got a single knife, and Wei Ze threw the single knife into the Xiangjiang River. This has no other meaning, just Wei Ze's tribute to Xiao Chaogui, the king of the West. It's ruthless to say, this is what Wei Ze really remembered to pay tribute to Xiao Chaogui's spirit in the sky.

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