Everyone knows that "Su Songtai" is the richest place in the world, but this sentence is a little unpleasant in Li Hongzhang's ears.

The seven counties of Songjiang are roughly in the hands of the Xuan army, the entire territory of Suzhou is in the hands of Li Xiucheng, and only Jiading and Baoshan, which belong to Taicang Prefecture, are considered to be in the hands of the Huai army, and this is still the defense area let out by Guan Zhuofan. Therefore, now he wants to take advantage of the momentum of the great victory, send troops to sweep, and recover Taicang Prefecture first, which is also a matter of course.

On the third day of the great victory in Jiading, Pan Dingxin led the Huai army's "Ding" battalion of 2,500 people, the "Lin" battalion of 1,500 people, Li Qingchen's green battalion of 4,000 people, and Liang Anbang's regiment of 1,500 people.

Along the way, the battle was very smooth, the Taiping army was newly defeated, the morale was very sluggish, several small battles, were a touch of the collapse, simply could not stop the sharp edge of the Huai army, the third day of the army, Zhenyang County was a big tribe into the hands of the Huai army.

"This time, Pan Qinxuan is going to make a great contribution," after receiving the news from the front, Li Hongzhang happily said to his younger brother Li Hezhang, "You also have to hurry up and prepare, and when you wait for Taicang, you will have no worries on the flanks, and you will go to Suzhou." ”

Pan Dingxin did not live up to Li Hongzhang's expectations, only stayed in Zhenyang County for one night, and in the early morning of the next day, the whole team was in the dark, planning to take down the Taicang Prefecture in one go.

This time, there was some resistance in Banqiao Town, ten miles outside Taicang. As the vanguard, the brothers Teng Silin and Teng Siwu led the "Lin" battalion to fight the Taiping army outside the town.

The gunfire was very intense, but this was also expected by Pan Dingxin, and the Taiping army always refused to hand over the Taicang Prefecture to themselves in vain. So he urged the brigade to speed up. Finally when the sky was slightly bright. Rushed to Itabashi.

In the water town south of the Yangtze River, the sky in July is full of fog. Pan Dingxin sent someone to call Teng Silin and inquire about the battle situation ahead.

"This long hair is very hard, at least two or three thousand people, and the fortifications are also strong." Teng Silin frowned and said, "Siwu led people to rush twice, but they were all beaten back. ”

The Teng brothers, these three battalions. When it was in Anqing, the "dowry gift" given to Li Hongzhang by Zeng Guofan was completely the foundation of the Hunan army, and since they said so, it seems that it is true that it is difficult to fight.

"It's okay, let's put the cannon up first." Pan Dingxin said with full certainty, "The long-haired trapped beast is still fighting, and it has to fight with us after all." ”

In addition to the frontal attack, Pan Dingxin sent Li Qingchen to outflank from the left flank, and sent Liang Anbang to lead a battalion of Huai Army and 1,500 regiments. Outflanked from the right flank, intending to eat the Taiping army in front of him in one bite.

It didn't take long. Gunshots rang out on the left and right. Pan Dingxin ordered the firing of artillery and intensified the frontal attack.

Unexpectedly, the Taiping army also had artillery, and the intensity of the attack was even more fierce than that of the Huai army. The charging Huai army was repeatedly suppressed by artillery fire and could not raise its head, not only suffered many casualties, but also had no hope of breaking through the enemy formation.

"your mother, there's a ghost!" Pan Dingxin was puzzled.

And that's not all. After a while, Li Qingchen and Liang Anbang's two roads actually retreated, saying that both sides encountered the resistance of Changmao and could not rush through.

This time, Pan Dingxin panicked - long hair didn't seem to be as simple as "trapped beasts fighting". He made up his mind, ordered the front to stop the attack first, sent Teng Silin with a thousand men, and quickly searched backwards, and must keep the retreat open, thinking to himself: Don't you want the eighty old lady to be a child and be surrounded here by long hair.

I'm really afraid of whatever I want, and before I can make up my mind, there was a sudden gunfire in the rear, which shows that Teng Silin and Changmao are fighting again. Then, on the front and on the left and right sides, the sound of killing was everywhere at the same time in the dense fog, and the Taiping army was not only not on the defensive, but really surrounded on all sides, and began to press towards the Huai army in the middle step by step.

"Hold on!" Pan Dingxin shouted, "Long Mao is a bluff, with their strength, they want to eat our nine thousand people, that's a dream!" Wait until the fog clears, and smash at him! ”

His words had a very calming effect on the army, so the Huai army contracted its front, turned from offensive to defensive, and slowly stabilized the situation by relying on the fierce fire of foreign guns. In the thick fog, it was difficult to see each other's reality, and the Taiping army's attack was not as powerful as the momentum created. Pan Dingxin made up his mind, commanding on the one hand, and wondering on the other: How can Changmao still have such combat power under the defeat?

When the sun rose, the fog began to gradually disperse, and Pan Dingxin was not in a hurry to be happy, only to see a personal soldier beside him, pointing to the left, with a frightened face, unable to speak.

On a high slope in the distance on the left, in the mist, a certain large bright yellow sedan chair slowly appeared.

"Sedan chair!" Among the Huai army, many people shouted out in a lost voice.

Pan Dingxin's heart was cold: Li Xiucheng is here.

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After all, Li Hongzhang still made the old mistake of "wave war", thinking that under the new defeat of Changmao, he lost the strength to fight back, and rashly let Pan Dingxin, a lonely division, go deeper, but he didn't know that the "loyal king" Li Xiucheng had been waiting in Taicang for three days.

After Li Xiucheng's vanguard Gao Madman was defeated, he expected that the Huai army would inevitably take advantage of the situation to pursue, so he led the 15,000 elite soldiers of his Chinese army, plus more than 10,000 people who retreated from the front, to rush to Taicang from the direction of Suzhou, and secretly assembled in the Banqiao area. He saw the problem of the Huai army's strong defense and weak attack, and knew that "it is better to cut off one of its fingers than to hurt its ten fingers", so he ordered the Taiping army along the way to make only the smallest resistance to the Huai army's attack, and did not hesitate to give up Zhenyang County, showing weakness to others, and finally introduced Pan Dingxin into the pre-set haode ambush position.

For this battle, Li Xiucheng not only concentrated several times the strength of the Huai army, but also concentrated quite strong firepower, transferred six or seven out of ten cannons in his hands, and nearly 10,000 foreign guns of various types, forming an overwhelming advantage over the Huai army.

In the fog, the Taiping Army's firepower advantage was not obvious, which was the Taiping Army's consistent practice - saving bullets. Since the foreigners in the Shanghai Concession broke with the Taiping Army, the source of bullets and shells for the Taiping Army has become difficult, although they can be bought by smuggling, and there are also arsenals in Suzhou and Jiangning that can be manufactured, but in the end the equipment is poor, the output is limited, for a large military operation, it is only a drop in the bucket, so the whole army cherishes bullets extraordinarily. In the fog, the guns were not on target, so they refused to let go and fire.

Now that the fog has cleared and the arrangements of both sides are clear at a glance, the situation is different. The Taiping army's hundreds of foreign artillery and earth cannons opened fire at once, completely overshadowing the more than 20 cannons of the Huai army, and shattering the improvised positions prepared by the Huai army in a hurry.

Under the suppression of such artillery fire, Li Xiucheng used the reorganized former Li Wenzhao troops to strangle the retreat of the Huai army, so that Pan Dingxin's several attacks were in vain, and at the same time, he used his own elite of the Chinese army to violently attack the two wings of the Huai army, and until noon, Li Qingchen's green battalion finally could not withstand it and collapsed first. The Taiping army entered from this, divided and surrounded the battalions of the Huai army, and squeezed them on all sides.

This time, the situation of the war can no longer be reversed, this 9,000-strong Huai army troops, almost all the army annihilated, from Pan Dingxin down, Teng Silin, Teng Siwu, Li Qingchen, Zhou Shilian, Liang Anbang and other Huai army and green battalion generals all killed, only Wang Guo'an with 300 people, just out of a gap in the encirclement, panicked, in Zhenyang and intercepted by the Taiping army for a while, Zuihou left more than 100 remnants, embarrassed to flee back to Jiading City.

As soon as the bad news came, Shanghai was terrified, and Li Hongzhang was even more at a loss for a while - he had just sent an excerpt to report the victory, but he was immediately defeated by this fiasco, so where to put the faces of the Huai army and the Hunan army?

However, it is no longer time to think about face. Li Xiucheng took advantage of the power of the new victory and made a comeback, with a total of 40,000 Taiping troops, and surrounded Jiading and Baoshan. The Huai army was caught off guard, the second was a big setback, the barracks outside the two cities were all occupied by the Taiping army, only outside the west gate of Jiading, there was still a base called "Huaisheng Fort", which was still struggling to support.

When the battle came to this point, even if he was as arrogant as Li Hongzhang, he had to put down his shelf and ask Xuanjun for help.

The telegram asking for help arrived, begging the Xuan army to draw out a group of people and rush to Jiading for reinforcements.

"In the end, you still have to come to beg us Xuanjun!" In the side hall of the clan secretary's yamen, Daniel Zhang read the telegram, his eyes lit up, "Boss, shall we save them?" ”

"What words! Do you understand the cold lips and teeth? Guan Zhuofan said slowly. Sitting in the side hall were Ding Shijie, Hua Er, Daniel Zhang and Liu Xuan, all waiting for his orders when they heard Guan Zhuofan say this.

"Shijie, I think it's better to send Gordon's second foreign gun regiment."

"Yixuan, the second regiment of foreign guns...... With only two battalions of people, will it be a little less? Wall asked, not without concern.

"As long as reinforcements arrive, the morale of the Huai army will be boosted, not to mention that the Second Foreign Regiment is also quite capable of fighting." Guan Zhuofan sighed, looked at a few people, all of them were his confidants, and he could tell the truth, "Let's tell you the truth, Li Xiucheng is in Shanghai, and he won't stay long!" The long-haired Jiang Ning was surrounded, and Hong Xiuquan urged Li Xiucheng three times a day, and Ba looked at him to go back to save him. Li Futai lost 9,000 people in Taicang, and was frightened by Li Xiucheng, in fact, as long as the Huai army withstood the current formation, Li Xiucheng himself would have to withdraw from the siege and go back, so why should we send more people to increase casualties? But when he left this room, he never mentioned it again. ”

I see! Everyone had a sense of enlightenment, but there was also a question: if that was the case, why send Gordon over again?

"Gordon has a big heart." Guan Zhuofan said faintly, "When he went to Li Futai, he could just show his strength." ”

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(Two more will be served.) ）

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