According to the general statement among the captives, there were at least more than 10,000 officers and soldiers who originally besieged Jingmen City; Zhou Huai'an was also worried that Liu Jurong, who had fled back, would regroup and become a new obstacle and resistance to the Taiping Army.

Only then did the remaining few hydro ships, which had obviously been overused, risk disintegration and loss at any time, and quickly head north with a full load of pursuers to seize the opportunity. How could they all surrender after taking the village overnight?

However, after seeing these surrendered officers and soldiers with his own eyes, Zhou Huai'an was basically relieved. Obviously, the army under the command of Liu Jurong from Shandong Jiedu is not something that can be conjured up in vain. Especially the soldiers and armor lost in the strategy the year before last are not so easy to make up.

Therefore, when his main army attacked Jingzhou City, the besieging troops under the gate city were gradually transferred and replaced by him batch by batch, the old, weak, sick and disabled in the real sense.

Therefore, almost all the temporary prisoner camps against the wall are all kinds of yellow-faced and thin-skinned people, who are holding dry food paste and potato flour soup with skin provided by the Taiping Army.

There is even a conspicuous mixture of gray-haired old men and hairless teenagers with few taels of dry flesh. Obviously, while Liu Jurong maintained the army, he also brought out all the male laborers he could recruit to participate in the attack.

However, in comparison, Jingmen City, which has changed hands twice and has become a dilapidated moat, is not much better; In the end, there were only less than 1,000 people who were able to stand up and meet the large army.

And the person who was responsible for leading the team was only a regimental lieutenant in the original three battalions. As for other beings who are higher or equal than him, they are basically either dead or wounded or missing on the battlefield; And he was the only one left who could still be alive.

Zhou Huai'an summoned this lucky warrior to inquire about the enemy, only to find out that his name was Du Hong, a person from Yuezhou who had defected to the rebel army by a local Tutuan.

Later, after the Taiping Army went north, it was annexed along with the miscellaneous subordinates of the Righteous Army; After being dispersed and re-established, because of his positive performance, he became a captain of the supplementary battalion, and then accumulated seniority in the battle and was promoted to brigade commander and lieutenant.

is a fairly representative figure under the rule of the Taiping Army.

Then all the way down, the Taiping army, which regrouped and made persistent efforts, attacked by land and water, and there was already not much defensive strength, or many cities such as Changlin, Lexiang, Yiqing, Shidao, and Nanzhang that were extremely empty after all the escapes;

After spending a small price to take the only Caoyun water and land key point that had hundreds of officers and soldiers to defend and resist, Xiangyang, the capital of Xiangzhou Prefecture and the place of affairs of Shannan Province, completely opened its arms to the armed forces of the Taiping Army.

Just standing on a smoothly moving boat and seeing the Xiangyang City faintly presented on the banks of the rushing river in the sky, the first thing Zhou Huai thought of was literary works such as "Huang Rong Xiangyang Postscript" and "Women in the Barracks".

Well, put aside these nonsense. According to the homework done in advance, this city first originated in the Beijin Shu of the Spring and Autumn Period of the Chu State, and later after the late Eastern Han Dynasty Jingzhou Thorn Shi Liu Biao, the Eastern Jin Dynasty Liangzhou Governor Zhu Xu and other dynasties repaired and added, only then did it have the current weather and pattern.

Although it is not the "iron-beaten Xiangyang" that was built back and forth in the late Southern Song Dynasty. However, there is a pattern of nine miles in circumference and eight gates on land and water, and it is also a rare big city and a strong city in the land of Jingchu and Jianghan. Bai Juyi once had a poem "Three Songs of Sending Micro" clouds: Xiangyang Jiuli Guo Lou Lianyun Tree.

On the east and south sides of the city, there is the Han River, which flows down from north to south and turns to the east, as well as several tributaries that converge around the city; The large countryside to the north and east is sheltered by mountains such as Zigai Mountain, Lumen Mountain, Wanshan Mountain, and Da Hyeon Mountain.

As for the pontoon bridge of Hanjin Shu on the river, it is connected to Fancheng Town on the other side of the Han River; As a result, the north and the south are mutually relevant, and the advantages of sound and gas communication are formed.

At least compared to the several large cities that the Taiping army had plundered before; For example, the Songping (Daluo) city of Jiaozhou, Annan, which is surrounded by three rivers and rivers in the back lake, or the Dantu town of Runzhou, Jiangdong, which is surrounded by a group of embankments and two mountains, etc., are all unyielding and victorious.

It can be said that in this kind of terrain, if you want to besiege it, it is not impossible, but you have to pay a great price with the cooperation of waterways; However, if you want to carry out a siege, the scope for deploying troops and equipment on a large scale is quite limited.

Therefore, it has also successively served as the governor's office of the Sui Dynasty, the governor's office of the early Tang Dynasty, the Xingtai Shangshu Province, the pacification envoy, the interview and disposal ambassador of the Central Tang Dynasty, and the Shandong Jiedu envoy, the observation envoy, the transfer envoy, and the station and place of the Salt and Iron Patrol Institute in the late Tang Dynasty.

It is usually claimed that there are 47,780 households and 252,010 mouths. It's just that after most of Liu Jurong's Shandong camp soldiers and horses were wiped out under Jiangling City, I don't know if there are still few remnants of garrison force left in this city.

Because Liu Jurong, who is the commander of the official army, can be called shrewd and promising in the local office, and his methods are fierce; The control of the city is also quite tight, and even adopts a strict attitude of preferring to indulge in it.

Therefore, although there were peripheral forces of the Taiping Army before, and they harassed the city from time to time, there has been little progress in the investigation of news and other intelligence work in Xiangyang City.

For a long time, Jiangling only had some business travelers who secretly came and went, and they could provide second- and third-hand indirect information to make inferences and judgments. Despite this, Zhou Huai'an, who was holding on to a big victory, still had the corresponding interest and confidence, and weighed and calculated the length of the tens of thousands of tigers under his command after the reorganization.

"Pass me the order,"

Thinking of this, Zhou Huai'an interrupted.

"The subordinates are here."

Suddenly there was a chorus of voices standing on the left and right.

"Order Wang Chongba's naval army to block the river, cooperate with the five battalions of the Fourth Army under the command of Wu Xingchen on the left to cross the water first, and then use the formation and fire throwers to support and strengthen."

"The camera took Fancheng Town in Anyang County, thus cutting off the connection and support of Xiangyang north of Hanshui."

"Obey the orders of the army."

Wu Xingchen, the left-hand general who was dressed in a drape and looked more and more thin and small-eyed, instantly exchanged glances with excitement among several other people, and immediately bowed down with joy.

After all, these days, the old subordinates of these angry old camps have all moved with the general trend, and most of their performances are good, and there are basically no outstanding places and opportunities.

Therefore, seeing that the soldiers under the command of the Taiping Army are becoming stronger and stronger and all kinds of talents are gathered, these old rebels from the Angry Wind Battalion can't help but secretly have a sense of urgency and crisis.

Although this leader has always shown that he cares about the old feelings, he is also kind to those old brothers who have followed and contributed to his side. Even if you are injured and retired, you really can't do anything, you will be given a place to eat and drink, and it is not a problem to ensure that you can spend the rest of your life without worrying about food and clothing.

But the problem is that Wu Xingchen is still young, and there are still a lot of years to make a difference; It was far from what he wanted to get him to be relieved of his military duties, to retain his military status and treatment to the rear, and to have a leisurely and comfortable position of dignity and privilege.

Therefore, he must not only conscientiously do his true colors, but also show a resolute attitude of leading the way and looking forward, which is different from those who are newly attached to the service; We must also find ways to seize every opportunity that can make contributions to demonstrate and reflect the value and usefulness of our old brothers.

At the very least, we must keep our current position, so that no one will give more choices to those who come after us, or even replace them. You must know that in the increasingly complex system of the Taiping Army, there are various factions with various origins and related relationships.

They not only work together under the concept of "Taiping Tianmu System", "Shengku System" and "Taiping Strategy", etc., under the common banner, goal and proposition; Under the subtle differences in their respective demands and specific positions, they have maintained a situation of competition and checks and balances.

At the beginning, in addition to the angry old camp brothers who were the first to follow the beginning, there were also Qu Chengyu, Zhang Biao, Qiu Eun, Fan Hui and the Annan local faction; Coupled with the soldiers gathered together in Lingnan, the children of Wuling are formed; Among them, there is a nuance between the old school of Chaoxun and the new school of Cantonese origin.

In addition, there are still Zhong Yi and Zhao Yinggong as representatives of the so-called Guangfu faction who abandoned the darkness and turned to the light; With more and more officers and soldiers who surrendered, were captured, and were reformed, they grew stronger. Among them, they are naturally divided into two groups: the Long March soldiers of guest nationality and the local Wuguan old genus. Each of them has an inextricable relationship with the local school of Annam.

Later, as the army of the Yellow King went north, the Taiping army went out of Guizhou and conquered Hunan, and successively collected and reorganized many old subordinates of the righteous army. In particular, Wang Chongyin, Cao Shixiong, Zhu Cun, Zhang Juyan and other old and military generals of the righteous army have successively handed over their troops to join them, which has made the competition situation they face more complicated.

Therefore, even if Wu Xingchen is still one of the first six master books appointed by the leader, he is also the crane tail with the strongest sense of crisis.

After all, Chai Ping, who has the highest status in Master Liu's book, has carried the natural kindness of that person when he was down, and as long as he doesn't make a big mistake, he is one of the well-deserved deputies;

And Lao Guan and Cheng Da Bite, who stayed in the ridge, although they were born with the lowest qualifications and had nothing outstanding, but they were the first old men among the old people who followed the saddle and the horse when he first joined the rebel army.

Su Wuming, who belonged to the back formation, secretly took refuge in and hugged this thigh early, and he obeyed everything and belonged to a candidate who would not be easily changed if he used it easily.

and Lu Fang, another captain of the shooting voice, is an old acquaintance who cooperated well in the early years, and is basically content with the status quo and does not fight for anything; It is estimated that when the time comes, he will retire to the rear to accompany the head Wang Pan.

Just like the last Liu Liumao is much stronger than him, because he is not only from the personal army of General Wang, but also the only general of the horse army in the early rebel army, even if there are more candidates to be added in the future, it will not be able to match his qualifications and prestige.

So after thinking about it, it seems that he is the last to show kindness and attitude, and he is no longer the indispensable one. If he doesn't get the best of luck and a chance to perform.

In addition, it was also because he secretly inquired about a clue about something, which prompted him to make up his mind.

As everyone knows, the chief officers who have now completed the eight military orders are currently only serving as a part of each of them, and there is no direct appointment to anyone. In addition, only a few people have been appointed to the local garrison officers.

With the great cause of assisting the Yellow King in the Eastern Expedition and the Northern Expedition, the dust has basically settled; Coupled with the repacification of Hunan and Jingnan; It is imperative to reward meritorious deeds and appoint corresponding duties.

Although he firmly believed that the great cause of the righteous army would be successful, and that the theories and propositions of the Taiping army would inevitably change the way of the world, it did not hinder his desire and longing to go one step further for his own sake.

If you miss this last opportunity to make contributions on the battlefield, you may be left behind for a long time in the future. Therefore, he did not hesitate to beg Chai Ping, Su Wuming, and even Lu Fang to pass on and express his position for him, just asking for the position of the first striker.

(End of chapter)