Guan Zhuofan guessed correctly, Hong Xiuquan really refused to leave.

As soon as the bunker city fell, Li Xiucheng, who was exhausted, knew that Tianjing was already undefendable, and for the sake of today's plan, he could only persuade the king of heaven to let the city go, learn from the example of fighting all the way from Jintian in Guangxi to Jiangning, and once again embark on the journey of mobile warfare.

And then the king of heaven is no longer the village school teacher who had nothing. As the Son of God, Jesus' younger brother, the King of Heaven, he could not allow his honor to be lost in the midst of the Majesty. Nor did he want to believe that his Heavenly Father would abandon his once favored son.

"Brother Xiu, why did you say this?" The Heavenly King, who was already old and sick, said weakly, "Tianjing City is the foundation of the great cause of my Heavenly Dynasty and the foundation of Zhongxing!" Ordered by the Heavenly Father and Heavenly Brother, he is the only Allah of all the nations of Kyushu, and there are tens of thousands of demons, what can I do? ”

"Bixia, the Hunan army in the outer city of Tianjing City, not only the Jizi battalion of Zeng Guoquan and Zeng Demon, but also the tens of thousands of soldiers of Bao Chao, Zhang Yunlan, and Feng Zicai, Peng Yulin and Huang Yisheng's Yangtze River Naval Division, also gathered on the river in the north of the city. Guan Zhuofan, who came from Jiangsu, is still just watching from the wall, and once it is put into siege, it will be even more difficult to resist. Li Xiucheng analyzed the current situation to Hong Xiuquan one by one, "Guan Youtou's foreign ships have begun to bombard Beicheng with the huge cannons on the ship, and we have no way to fight it." ”

Hong Xiuquan's face changed color slightly - the Hunan army was besieging the city, and he could only be invisible in the palace, anyway, Li Xiucheng was outside to preside over the city guard. But the huge cannon was fired, and the roaring momentum was like a thunderbolt rolling by. Even inside the Palace of the Heavenly King. It's also clearly audible.

"What to fear!" The King simply closed his eyes. Shook his head, "You are my true loyal military advisor, and the responsibility of guarding Tianjing is all in your body, if you are afraid, go and stay in Ren'er." ”

“bixia！ In Tianjing City, there are more than 30,000 old brothers who have been following Bixia, as long as they break through the fence. With Bixia's wisdom, he will definitely be able to restore the prestige of the kingdom of heaven. Li Xiucheng couldn't stop persuading each other, "How can Xiucheng be afraid of demons?" It's just that you can't go back to heaven alone! For the sake of Bixia, I still have to make a plan as soon as possible, otherwise once the city is broken, I am afraid that it will be too late to leave. ”

This is the truth, because once the city is broken, the target of all the officials and troops will naturally be on Hong Xiuquan, and it will be almost impossible for him to escape at that time.

The King closed his eyes and was silent. After a while, he said a word.

"You don't help. Someone to help you. ”

Speaking of which, there is nothing to say, Li Xiucheng had to bow and withdraw, and went to Nancheng in person, knowing that he could not do it, and he wanted to fight hard with Zeng Guoquan here, which can be regarded as the loyal word in the title of "loyal king".

The reason why it can't be done is not entirely due to the difference in combat strength, and now even the morale is not the same as the Hunan army outside the city.

Although Li Xiucheng is called Zhenzhong Junshi, he is theoretically under one person and above ten thousand people, but in fact, the government of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom is in the hands of Hong Xiuquan's brother Hong Renxuan, and the two elder brothers trusted by Li Xiucheng, "King of Faith" Hong Renfa and "King of Bravery" Hong Renda, are even more useless and misbeneficial, pleading Hong Xiuquan in Tianjing City, and sealing more than 2,700 kings in a row, and he himself has made profits from it, and even the horseman and cook of the Hong family have made the title of a king on their bodies. Later, it was really indiscriminate, and Hong Xiuquan renamed the person who had no merit as "Xiao Wang". So in Tianjing City, "the prince walks everywhere, and the little king is not as good as a dog", and the chaos has reached the point of no return.

In such a situation, if you want to defend Tianjing, it is tantamount to a fantasy, and Li Xiucheng's efforts are just talking about personnel. He mobilized tens of thousands of people on the city wall around the dragon's neck to boost morale, and while firing at the Hunan army outside the city with guns, he made every effort to deal with the tunnels dug by the Hunan army.

The city wall of Jinling is known as the first in the world. The city wall is 96 miles long, the city base is granite, and the city wall is a special giant brick, which is cemented with lime and river rice, and it is extremely strong. On the city wall, two carriages can be allowed to drive side by side, which shows the thickness of the city wall. Therefore, in order to break the city wall, it is necessary to dig a tunnel to blast it, and this tunnel cannot just be dug to the edge of the city wall, it must pass through the city wall, extend inward, and then expand into a basement under the city wall to place enough explosives.

Digging tunnels is the specialty of the Hunan army, and Li Chendian's letter battalion is the most powerful. However, Li Xiucheng also has a unique way to deal with authenticity.

His method was to order people to bury a large water tank in the city wall near the Taiping Gate, every three zhang, and the defenders attached their ears to the wall of the water tank, as long as they heard a slight vibration, it was the tunnel of the Hunan army under the excavation. The location is fixed, and then start on both sides of the water tank, dig two shafts respectively, and most of them can dig through the tunnels coming in from outside the city, and then immediately throw the ignited gunpowder packets down, not only destroy the tunnels, but also suffocate the soldiers digging the tunnels alive inside.

Later, when the gunpowder was exhausted, it was poured with iron sticks, boiling water, and even dung. Relying on this method, none of the dozens of tunnels of the Hunan army succeeded, and thousands of people died in the Xinzi battalion just by digging tunnels. The inside and outside of Jiangning have been dug up by both sides of the enemy, and they are as dense as ant nests, which is a wonder.

However, after a hundred dencies, there was finally the largest tunnel, because it was dug very deep, and at the same time, it happened to be covered by a tunnel next to it, and it was not detected by the water tank, and it was dug into Jiangning City from under the dragon's neck. Li Chendian was overjoyed and ordered to fill the medicine, so in the basement under the city wall, thousands of bags of gunpowder were filled.

It's time to break the city. Zeng Guoquan, who hadn't slept for two days, gathered all the generals and asked in a hissed voice: "Who wants to be a pioneer?" ”

The first to ascend is the richest reward, which is something that everyone knows. But there is another one, once the city wall is damaged, Li Xiucheng will definitely line up the rebels at the gap and fight back desperately, so whether the person who ascended first has the life to inherit the reward in the future is questionable.

Therefore, for a while, these fierce generals were silent. Zeng Guoquan didn't speak, just looked over one by one with a fierce gaze. Wait to see Zhu Hongzhang. This Guizhou man couldn't help it.

"Damn. I'm a hero on weekdays, but now I don't speak! Zhu Hongzhang looked at the people left and right, and spat on the ground, "Jiu Shuai, my Huanzi Camp is willing to be a pioneer!" ”

"Good! Give your soldiers a night's rest and storm the city tomorrow at noon! Zeng Guoquan strode over and patted Zhu Hongzhang's shoulder vigorously, "I have a unicorn tonic for you!" ”

*

*

The next morning. Guan Zhuofan, who received the news, took more than 100 cavalry soldiers, together with Wall, Forrest and Bai Qiwen, and rode to the Jingwang slope seven miles away from the Taiping Gate to see this zuihou duel.

The artillery of the Hunan army kept ringing, and Guan Zhuofan knew that this was an artillery bombardment specially done to paralyze the Taiping army in the city. However, what can't be concealed is the momentum of the charge. Looking away with a clairvoyant mirror, at a distance from the city wall. The Hunan soldiers squatting on the ground are brave, one after another. Dense and endless, like an ant array, I am afraid that there are not as many as 20,000 or 30,000 people.

Such a situation must not be hidden from Li Xiucheng's eyes, and no matter what, he can guess that the Hunan army is going to attack the city on a large scale. However, it is impossible to guess under which section of the city wall the gunpowder of the broken city was placed, so I can only wait quietly in uneasiness. Guan Zhuofan thought to himself, this kind of scene is really amazing.

When the hands of the foreign watch pointed to the moment of noon, the sound of artillery suddenly calmed down, and in the formation of the Hunan army, the officers began to roar loudly, and the squatting soldiers, Huo Ran got up, and the spears and broadswords shone brightly in the daylight.

Then I heard a muffled sound, and a section of the city wall on the east side of the Taiping Gate trembled slightly, and then Xiangshang arched slightly, as if a person who was sleeping, was woken up, reluctantly moved his body, and wanted to continue to sleep. However, what followed was an earth-shattering loud noise, as if the earth was bursting, the rubble erupted, and in the smoke and dust in the sky, a whole section of the city wall with a length of thirty zhang actually rose into the air, and then it seemed to be struck by a giant hand, and it was torn apart, and it seemed that it took a while before it fell around, and the smoke and dust stirred up, like ripples in the water, quickly expanded to all sides.

Guan Zhuofan, who saw this scene from the clairvoyant mirror, had a thrilling feeling, and the well where they stopped was looking at the slope, and the ground under their feet also shook violently, and the war horses also neighed uneasily.

Tens of thousands of soldiers of the Hunan army shouted in unison, like a fan, with the Huanzi battalion as the lead, and began to charge towards the inverted mouth of the city wall. The first battalion rushed into the mouth, six hundred men, all killed. Most of the 1,000 people who rushed in the second wave were killed. It wasn't until the third batch of 2,000 people led by Zhu Hongzhang personally rushed in that they could be regarded as gaining a firm foothold around the mouth.

So the rear team continued to go up, rushed in the middle, and outflanked the left and right roads, and finally defeated more than 10,000 Taiping troops near the Taiping Gate.

"Jiang Ning is broken." Guan Zhuofan put down the clairvoyant mirror, said something to himself, and then waved his hand and beckoned everyone to get on the horse, "Everyone return to the camp and do things." ”

Back at the station, Wall urged Forrest and Bai Qiwen to implement Mr. Guan's military order of "picking up the missing and filling the gaps, not allowing them to slip through the net", leaving only Guan Zhuofan, sitting alone in the big tent, not knowing what he was thinking.

When it was dark, after a hurried meal, he took out the foreign watch and put it on the military case, and listened to the sound of the camp with restlessness, while sitting quietly and waiting. This sat until late at night, until the fourth watch had been beaten for a long time, and then I heard the sound of hooves gradually coming from the southwest, and when it approached the outside of the camp for a while, the sound of hooves was like thunder, which was particularly amazing in the quiet night.

It was a sentry cavalry who came, and the escort was an officer sent by Ding Shijie. He was led by Túrin, sweating profusely. Seeing Guan Zhuofan, he nodded on one knee and took out an envelope from his arms.

"Dashuai, this is Ding Junmen's paperwork, I can deliver it within one point!"

Guan Zhuofan was silent, took it and tore it open, took out a piece of letterhead, swept it slightly, looked up and said, "Tulin, prepare the horse!" ”

The pro-military battalion had been waiting for this order, so they got on their horses with a bang, and together with the sentry horse team, led the way by the material officer, surrounded Guan Zhuofan, and galloped towards Fang Mountain.

Halfway through, another cavalry sent by Daniel Zhang was greeting, and when they arrived at the barracks of the Kezi regiment, Ding Shijie, Daniel Zhang, and Iksan were all waiting outside the camp gate, and their faces were full of irrepressible excitement.

"Where?" Guan Zhuofan asked briefly.

"I'll take the boss there." Ixan led the way, and the group followed behind them to a tent on the west side of the barracks. Ixan slapped the curtain and let Guan Zhuofan in.

On a chair in the tent, there was a thin and slender middle-aged man, with a white face and beard, with clear eyebrows, surrounded by eight personal soldiers guarding him.

When the middle-aged man saw Guan Zhuofan's outfit, his eyebrows raised, a look of surprise appeared on his face, and he didn't speak. Guan Zhuofan didn't speak, stood in front of the chair, and looked at it silently for a long time.

"Li Xiucheng," he sighed softly and said calmly, "I am Chengnan Guan San. ”

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(On Monday, please vote for the Lions.) ）

*(To be continued......)