If Shi Shiran could enter Hangzhou six months ago, Li Xiucheng would be very happy. Six months later, he entered Hangzhou, which was thrown by Zuo Zongtang of "Today's Brightness", and Li Xiucheng did not have the slightest joy on his face. What Zuo Zongtang can think of, Li Xiucheng can certainly think of.

The meaning of the Liberation Army's desire to destroy the Worship of God was clear, and the Taiping Army was facing a much more formidable enemy than the Qing Army. As a member of the Dongwang family, Li Xiucheng had never seen an army that could be better at fighting than Wei Ze's troops in all these years.

In August 1851, the Taiping army broke through the siege of the Qing army in Guiping, marched to Yong'an Prefecture through Pingnan and Tengxian counties, passed through Li Xiucheng's hometown, and gathered worshippers along the way. A month or two later than Weese defected to the Taiping Army. In May of the second year of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom (1852), the Taiping army went out of Hunan, attacked Wuchang, went down to the south of the Yangtze River, and built the capital Tianjing in the third year of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom (1853).

After setting the capital Tianjing, Yang Xiuqing personally promoted Li Xiu to become the commander of the right fourth army, guarding the new camp outside the Taiping Gate, and soon, he was promoted to the fourth supervising army to guard the high bridge outside the Yifeng Gate. Li Xiucheng is diligent and hardworking, upright by nature, and works tirelessly. He did not give up in every light and heavy suffering, and built a camp as a village, all of which were full of heart, so he won the weight of Yang Xiuqing, the king of the East. Later, he followed Hu Yihuang's expedition to the west and made great contributions.

During the period when the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom was thriving, it was not even the Wing King Shi Dakai who really made a great name, but Wei Ze, the King of Qi. Attack Huainan, establish a system, go north to pick up the first wave of the Northern Expeditionary Army, and break through the Jiangbei camp. The young King of Qi commanded an army of 30,000 to support the northern battlefield of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. No matter how defeated the western and eastern fronts were, the northern Huai River defense line of the Heavenly Kingdom was as stable as Mount Tai.

Li Xiucheng is ten years older than Wei Ze, but the young Wei Ze is undoubtedly an insurmountable mountain in Li Xiucheng's heart. When Wei Ze was about to march into Jiangsu and Zhejiang, all the generals of the Heavenly Kingdom believed that Jiangsu and Zhejiang were just around the corner. This is also an important reason why Hong Xiuquan had to hurry up to launch the Tianjing Change. If Yang Xiuqing is allowed to calmly seal long live, wait for Wei Ze to take Jiangsu and Zhejiang, and then return to the division to capture the two lakes, Yang Xiuqing will have an unshakable position. At that time, replacing Hong Xiuquan was just a gesture.

Now that Wei Ze is attacking Hangzhou again seven years after leaving the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, Li Xiucheng has no confidence to defeat Wei Ze at all. As soon as Zuo Zongtang ran away, Li Xiucheng immediately transferred Li Shixian's subordinates, who were monitoring the Jiangnan camp, to Hangzhou.

"I'm ready to withdraw." Lee so-sung said to his cousin Lee Se-hyun.

Li Shixian obviously disagreed with his cousin Li Xiucheng's choice, and he said dissatisfiedly: "Big brother, where are you going to retreat?" ”

Li Xiucheng replied: "I am going to withdraw to Suzhou first. ”

Li Shixian forced him to ask: "Then the Guangfu army has arrived in Suzhou City, do you still want to withdraw?" ”

Li Xiucheng couldn't answer for a while, and Li Shixian clearly pointed out the essence of the problem. The Liberation Army will not stop until it advances to the south of the Huai River. In the face of the Liberation Army, which will not give up until it reaches its goal, where is Li Xiucheng going to withdraw?

Seeing Li Xiucheng's unwarlike appearance, Li Shixian said loudly: "Big brother, how do you know that you can't fight if you don't fight?" ”

Li Xiucheng's heart moved, and his words really aroused his fighting spirit. However, this excitement only lasted for a moment, and Li Xiucheng's reason prevailed. He said slowly: "We have fought with the Hunan army, although the Hunan army is not easy to fight, we can also fight with him." But where is the Hunan army now? Almost let King Qi kill it all. We fought with the left demon head, and the number of wins and losses in the fight was five or five. But now that the Guangfu Army is coming, the left demon head threw Hangzhou away and ran away. These people are not incompetent, and they are not stupid. ”

Li Shixian is not stupid, but he knows better if he blindly retreats. Where can we go in the end? Lin Fengxiang sent a letter saying that the Guangfu Army would conquer the south of the Huai River in the short term. Tianjing City is almost 1,000 miles away from the Huai River, and the north of the Huai River has never been the territory of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. Even the Taiping army north of the Huai River did not have too many people.

"Let's retreat. Bring everything you can. When I arrived at Tianjing City, I discussed with everyone. Li Xiucheng continued, "Actually, when Zeng Demon Tou came with his troops, I felt that Tianjing City was really undefendable. Even if King Qi doesn't come over, we may not be able to gain a foothold here. ”

Li Shixian still can't accept Li Xiucheng's statement, but if he doesn't fight, he will have to withdraw, and there is no more choice. Li Shixian finally agreed with Li Xiucheng's statement.

At this time, the Liberation Army was not far from Hangzhou. The Northern Expeditionary Force of the Liberation Army was divided into the Lianghu Corps, the Jiangxi Corps, and the Fujian Corps. The Fujian Corps is divided into two branches, land and water. While the navy used leapfrog tactics to attack coastal areas, land routes relied on marching capabilities to capture cities in mountainous areas.

When the navy had not yet entered Shanghai, the 18th Army, the vanguard of the Jiangxi Corps, took the lead in breaking through the mountains and approaching Hangzhou. Army commander Sun Chongyi had two choices, either to attack Hangzhou directly, or to attack Lin'an directly and annihilate the Jiangnan battalion troops of the Qing army there. Among the objectives of the Northern Expedition, the Qing army was the most priority target. Therefore, Sun Chongyi did not make his own decisions, and he led his troops to attack Lin'an, where the Jiangnan battalion was stationed with about 70,000 horses.

Because the Qing army was relatively weak, this battle was actually quite calm. The basic tactic is to capture the key points, and the follow-up troops take over the vanguard to control the city, and then advance to the periphery. And the vanguard continued to attack. There is no reason why the Liberation Army must organize the main force to be inserted to the end and then turn back and outflank.

The reason why there are two considerations of taking the Yangtze River as the end point and the Huai River as the end point is largely due to the weather factor. The abundant rains in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River during the annual plum rainy season moistened the land, but also greatly hindered the war. The rainy days will basically last for nearly a month, and even though the weapons of the Guangfu Army are already the most capable weapons in China to withstand the rainy season, the Guangfu Army is fighting on the outside this time. The advantage of internal operations lies in the supply, stationing, and transportation, which can be arranged calmly, while the requirements for camps and supplies are too high for external operations. Now this is the first time that the troops have entered Zhejiang, and no matter how much reconnaissance there is beforehand, it will only be reconnaissance. Once it rains continuously, the non-combat losses of the troops will not necessarily be less than the combat losses.

The large-scale military training postponed the march to November, and without this factor, the Northern Expedition could have been brought forward to at least September. Since it had to start in November, the troops could only speed up the progress.

For more than two months, the troops had been marching and fighting, and the troops had basically not rested much, and they were extremely tired at this time. Originally, I could march 60 miles a day, but now I can have 50 miles. It's just that it was too easy to surround the Qing army, and the Jiangnan battalion didn't react at all. The Liberation Army occupied the key points outside the city and built fortifications.

"Commander, let's wait for the follow-up troops to come up and fight." At the meeting of the party committee, the military political commissar put forward the proposal.

The chief of staff agreed with this view, "Yes, maybe we will fight Hangzhou again." Since it is surrounded, I am not afraid that the Jiangnan camp will still be able to run away. Take at least two days off. ”

Of course, the commander knew the current situation of the troops, but he was worried about whether the follow-up troops would be able to keep up. The 400,000 troops of the Liberation Army look like a lot, and as soon as they disperse to Lianghu, Jiangxi, and Zhejiang, these troops will not be a big deal. An army has nine infantry regiments, each of which is stationed in a newly captured county, and 90 counties need 200,000 troops from 10 armies. The Liberation Army did not recruit rebels, and the troops on the front line were fighting fewer and fewer.

In the plan, with the stabilization of the rear, the local troops will also be gradually reduced. However, it has only been more than two months now, and the local government is far from stable enough to be able to reduce the number of troops at will. The army commander finally agreed to the construction of the party committee, and temporarily surrounded but did not fight. However, he couldn't help but envy the Lianghu Corps, the two lakes did not need to completely seize the territory north of the Yangtze River, and half of Hunan was already in the hands of the Guangfu Army before the departure, not to mention that there was a waterway of the Yangtze River in the Lianghu area that could quickly transport troops. In comparison, the mountainous area of Fujian is a nightmare.

Lei Hu, the commander-in-chief of the Two Lakes Corps, didn't know that anyone was so envious of him, and at this time, Lei Hu had already moved his headquarters to Anqing to command the battle nearby. At this time, there were more than a dozen people dressed as ordinary people standing in front of Lei Hu and Shen Xin, crying and confiding in Lei Hu and them.

Anqing is where the Guangfu Army really started, and from Anqing, Wei Ze officially got the opportunity to be in charge of one aspect of the battle. Of course, the Hunan army knew that Anqing was important, but it couldn't send thousands of people to defend the city. Sending tens of thousands of people to defend the city is tantamount to a decisive battle with the Liberation Army here. Zeng Guofan simply did not send any troops, and the Huai army guarded Anqing. The Huai army, which had been waiting for more than 6,000, was killed in two days, and Anqing returned to Wei Ze nine years later.

When he left Huainan seven years ago, Wei Ze took people who were willing to follow him. At this time, in front of Lei Hu were all locals who refused to leave at that time, and they cried and accused the same locals, and even many of them were relatives.

In China, a village and a township are basically a little related. For example, a small landlord named Shen Lirong is a relative of Shen Xin's five suits. Although Shen Lirong and Shen Xin are about the same age, they have to call Shen Xin uncle.

Shen Lijin, the big landlord in the township, was black-hearted, and killed countless people in order to ask the government for an official body. The local township officials were captured by him and sent to the government, and there were people in the local army who were in the army, and he led people to raid those families and seize the land of those people. Even if I have nothing to do with the kingdom of heaven, he will not let it go. Because they took a fancy to my family's few acres of good land, they said that my family colluded with heaven and took away my family's land. Shen Lirong said while crying that he originally just wanted to farm at home, and whoever was in power was asking everyone to pay money and food, and when the Taiping Army was here, life was far better than when the Manchu Qing Dynasty was in power. Shen Lirong naturally didn't want to be a bird. If it weren't for the fact that the fields were seized, he would not have heard the news that the army of Wei Ze, the king of Qi, had returned, and immediately rushed to Anqing to ask for help.

Shen Lirong's situation is a microcosm of Huainan, after the Hunan army and the Huai army joined forces to recapture Huainan, the Hunan army was rushing in the city, and the local landlords, who had long been extremely dissatisfied with the Taiping army, immediately counterattacked. The grassroots organization of the Taiping army at the local level was completely destroyed, and because of their ability to collude with the Hunan army, the big landlords completely grasped the real power at the local level. These people did not collude with the Hunan army to serve any imperial court, they naturally used these powers to expand their own interests.

The people who ran to Anqing for help were basically small and medium-sized landlords, because those who followed the Taiping Army closely had been killed by the regimental training formed by these big landlords.

After listening to the cries of these people, ask the staff to take them down first. Lei Hu asked, "Secretary Shen, what do you think?" ”

Shen Xin said thoughtfully: "Riesling, don't you think this is a good opportunity for conscription?" ”R1058