(Ask for a recommendation ticket on Monday~)

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Tan Shaoguang was able to gain Li Xiucheng's trust and entrust the army to him, which naturally had his own merits, and he did not rely on blind bravery. The fierce battle under Songjiang City gave him an accurate judgment of the Xuan army that was defending Songjiang - there were many people, good guns, well-trained, able to fight and dare to fight.

The official army has never had such a fierce firepower, and even the world-famous Hunan army has not reached such a level. Under such firepower, unless there are more than ten or twenty foreign cannons bombarding the city at the same time, it is difficult to come up with effective siege means even if it is close to the city wall, unless it is to dig tunnels, dig horizontally under the city wall, and use a large number of explosives to blow up an entire section of the city wall.

"Big brother, dig a tunnel!" Gao Yongkuan suffered a big loss and was already red-eyed.

"Digging a tunnel is not a matter of ten days and half a month." Tan Shaoguang said coldly. He was deeply dissatisfied with the performance of Gao Yongkuan's soldiers in front of the battle today.

In the Taiping Army, there was an Englishman named "Tianyu", named Savage, who turned out to be a captain of the British Royal Infantry Regiment, and last year for some reason, he went to Suzhou to take refuge in Li Xiucheng. He pointed out to Tan Shaoguang that the smoke in front of the trench today was not a demonic method, but a "stinky crockpot" - as long as the wind blew, it could be dispersed, and there would be no great harm. In this way, Gao Yongkuan's subordinates broke up in front of the battle, impulsing the whole army, causing all the shield cars to be burned by the Xuan army, which is particularly unforgivable.

What's more, digging tunnels here is not a simple matter. The location of Matsue Prefecture is covered with a dense network of water, and sometimes water seeps out of the ground when digging three feet into the ground, so the excavation process must be difficult, and it will take double or even three times more effort than usual to dig a tunnel. And it took a long time, Liu Zhaojun's partial division was lonely on the northern front, and I don't know what will happen, so the proposal to dig a tunnel was rejected by Tan Shaoguang without hesitation.

"Divide the troops!" Tan Shaoguang made a decision categorically, "Among the demons, only Xuan Jun can fight." Now that the Xuan army has placed its heavy troops in Songjiang, the other cities must not have such a strong resistance! Rong Fa, you take Ji Yuanqing, Wu Jianying, and Liu Yulin, take the southern route, and fight eastward. Yongkuan will follow me, take 8,000 people to attack Qingpu, as long as Qingpu is captured, you can contact Liu Zhaojun. Pass the order, cook the three watches tonight, and pull out the camp on the fifth watch! ”

The one who was called "Rongfa" was Li Xiucheng's second son, named Li Rongfa, although he was only seventeen years old, but because of his father, he had a very high status in the army. Tan Shaoguang's arrangement is equivalent to handing over 17,000 people to him, which shows that he relies on it a lot.

The actions of the Taiping Army, when necessary, can become very rapid. That night, according to Tan Shaoguang's military order, everything was packed up, and in less than five watches, the two armies had already set off from their respective camps, and at this time in Songjiang City, nothing was known about it.

The surging waves of the Hong Army finally collided on the reef of Songjiang City and split into two halves according to Guan Zhuofan's thoughts. Li Rongfa's all the way, crossing the Pujiang River to the south, immediately rushed eastward, and rushed towards Nanqiao Town, twenty miles away. The 8,000 people led by Tan Shaoguang went north and attacked Qingpu County.

The battle began after dawn. With the onslaught of the Taiping army, the weak defenders in Qingpu City soon showed signs of weakness. What's even worse is that Ding Xianda, who assisted in the defense of Qingpu, did not lead more than 200 soldiers under his command into the city, but fought on the side for a while, only killed and injured one or two hundred long hairs, and then retreated to Sijing. The Xuan Army horse team, which was stationed in Sijing as a mobile one, was not dispatched at all.

By the time Ding Shijie in Songjiang City received the news, the matter was no longer possible, and Qingpu only resisted for an hour before falling. This time, Guan Zhuofan's "Twin Cities Plan" on the Western Front couldn't be sung.

Ding Shijie, who was red-eyed, Pegasus rushed from Songjiang to Sijing Town, and as soon as he entered the town office, he roared loudly: "Lao Zhang, how did you do it!" ”

Daniel Zhang, who has always been hot, is very abnormal, smoking sullenly with his head down, silent. Ding Shijie turned his head and saw Ding Xianda, whose face was pale, standing up from the little vulture to salute him, so he pointed at the horsewhip and scolded: "Ding Xianda, I'll fuck your mother!" You're going to get back in a good way, where's Qingpu City? I'm going to get court-martialed against you! ”

"Hey, Lao Ding, don't worry, you can't blame Xianda for this." Daniel Zhang on the side finally spoke, "I have the boss's electric order, you can take a look first." ”

Ding Shijie took the telegram handed by Daniel Zhang, swept it at a glance, and then froze on the spot.

"The first word camp did not enter the city, and immediately returned to Sijing. The horse team was not allowed to leave Sijing. Forrest foreign guns of 400 people, and then galloped back to Zhoupu by boat. Ding Shijie can guarantee the first line of Songjiang. Xuan word. ”

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Wu Xu had already sent people to fly to Governor Xue Huan by boat after the battle report of the "Great Victory in Songjiang", and the ensuing loss of Qingpu gave him a big blow. However, in comparison, Songjiang is a government after all, which can be regarded as a "big victory", while Qingpu is only a county seat, which can be regarded as a "small defeat", so there is still room to speak.

However, the situation next turned out to be more and more wrong.

Qingpu fell on the morning of the 20th, and in the afternoon of the same day, the town of Nanqiao on the southern front was also conquered by Li Rongfa's vanguard. On the 24th, Li Rongfa's army set out from Nanqiao and stormed Fengxian County to the east. Tan Shaoguang, the commander in Qingpu, sent an additional 3,000 men to cross the Wusong River to the north to meet Liu Zhaojun's troops in Jiading, and he himself led 5,000 Chinese troops to sit in Qingpu and monitor the Xuan army in Songjiang.

The situation became very clear, the Taiping army was on the North Road, 12,000 men under the command of Liu Zhaojun, using Jiading as a base, preparing to march to Baoshan and Wusong; The eastern road of the Taiping Army was 16,000 men of the young marshal Li Rongfa, who were stationed in Fengxian, and were eyeing the south, and then they would sweep along the coast, and finally point to Gaoqiao, trying to meet with the North Route Army at the mouth of the Huangpu River and complete the encirclement of Shanghai.

Under such circumstances, Guan Zhuofan's military orders to the Xuan army were still unrelenting: in addition to sticking to the line of Songjiang-Sijing-Qibao-Shanghai, other counties and towns were not allowed to enter the city to hold on, and were only allowed to attack and harass from the side.

Li Hengsong, who was stationed in Nanxiang, also received this request, and he, like the senior officers of the Xuan Army, could not understand this order. Moreover, Li Hengsong also believes that Guan Zhuofan is tantamount to teaching the truth and putting himself in a very dangerous situation, and once the war is finally lost, there will be no excuse to absolve himself of responsibility.

"I don't know what Lu Dao Yixuan thinks," Li Hengsong said to Jiang De worriedly, "Is it to preserve his strength and bet on the First World War in Shanghai?" ”

"My lord, we are in front of the loss of Jiading, close ...... Mr. Guan's military order is behind. Jiang De said hesitantly, "Now that we say that killing and injuring is meritorious, then let's attack and kill." ”

Li Hengsong was reminded. When he lost his good fortune, he didn't have the saying that "he was not guilty of losing his land", so he still waited for his sinful body, and didn't make some merit to make up for it now, but when? So he personally brought Jiang De's battalion of people, and set out every day to make a fuss around the periphery of Jiading, which was very cheap.

Another active mover is Wall. Speaking of which, he was the most opposed to Guan Zhuofan's order, but as a career officer, he still obeyed it against his will with his duty to obey the order. He took Zhoupu as his base, relied on five small steamers, and sailed through the Huangpu River, between Nanqiao and Fengxian, and fought back and forth. Among the battalions of the Xuan Army, the foreign gun team has the strongest combat power, so the harvest is also the greatest, and a sneak attack on the third night was almost captured by him.

Although the Taiping army had a headache for these attacks and scattered killings, the established plan remained unchanged. On the day of the 30th day of the first month, the East Road and the North Road were launched together, and they fought for nine days in a row, and the momentum was like splitting bamboo, Baoshan and Wusong on the North Road, Nanhui, Chuansha Hall and Gaoqiao on the East Road, were conquered in the first place, and the two Taiping armies, between Gaoqiao and Wusong, looked at each other across the river, and finally regarded as a "teacher".

By the ninth day of the first month of February, except for Songjiang Mansion, which was still in the hands of the Xuan army, all the counties around Shanghai had fallen into the hands of the Taiping army.

Shanghai is besieged.

After receiving this news, the Taiping troops in various cities were naturally overjoyed, but the officials and gentry and people in Shanghai had a feeling that a catastrophe was coming, only Guan Zhuofan, who was sitting in the county office, and the old god was there, calm as usual, but a smile slowly appeared on his face.

Tan Shaoguang, Xie Lu, thank you for picking Lao Tzu for meritorious service.

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(Today, the whole station is strongly promoted, Xie Lu thanks everyone for supporting me, step by step to the present.) ）