Just when Daming was burdened with a heavy burden of disaster relief, he sent all kinds of materials, food, medicine and cloth to the disaster area, and sent the victims to other places, the Northeast and overseas. Pen fun and pavilion www.biquge.info

Li Xiucheng's army has been besieging Yangzhou, Li Hongzhang's Huai army is actually not lacking anything, what is lacking is only the morale of the army, at the beginning Li Hongzhang took the method of killing people and rewarding them, killed a group of officers who escaped, cleaned up the military discipline, and issued generous rewards to the troops who held on, and even wrote to the imperial court, and rewarded the foreigner Gordon who had made great contributions with a yellow jacket.

But later, as soon as Li Hongzhang left, military discipline began to deteriorate again, and the battle of Yangzhou was always fought very passively, and was pressed and beaten by the Taiping army, and was besieged to death after more than two months, and the situation was more severe than the last time Wang Haiyang surrounded Yangzhou.

The last time Wang Haiyang besieged Yangzhou, but it was never completely blocked, so Zeng Guofan stayed in Anqing for two years, and finally found an opportunity to attack the enemy, because Yangzhou can always get supplies from the north through the canal, but this time Yangzhou City was completely surrounded, and the canal was also cut off, if there is no assistance, I am afraid it will not last long.

So Li Xiucheng crossed the river in the third month, Zeng Guofan sent troops, but Anqing is too far away from Yangzhou, but it is very close to Nanjing, the only difficulty is that Zeng Guofan's sailors are always not as good as the Taiping Army's sailors, a few years ago the Taiping Army has been built by the Ming Dynasty Ten ironclad ships, and Zeng Guofan's sailors have also been rebuilt, most due to financial difficulties, the warships are mainly self-built wooden ships, but with the efforts of the Anqing Ordnance Institute built by Rong Hong, they have been able to produce their own steamships, And according to the technical design of American engineers, ironclad was added to the wooden ship, which can be regarded as a wooden ironclad ship.

War is indeed the biggest driving force for technological progress, after the continuous construction of wooden-hulled ironclad ships into the naval division, the strength of the Hunan naval division has been greatly enhanced, several battles with the Taiping army, these wooden ironclad ships have played a considerable role, although they can not be bombarded with the pure ironclad ships of the Taiping army for a long time, but they can also hold on for a long time without being destroyed, and even the two sides met on the river again, shelled each other for a day, no ironclad ships were sunk, but the Hunan warships were seriously damaged, And the ironclad ships of the Taiping Army were basically undamaged.

Therefore, the Hunan army's naval division has not yet regained the right to control the river, but it has been able to basically ensure that the waterway from Hankou to Anqing is unimpeded, and can ensure that the huge materials in the Huguang area can be smoothly delivered to the Hunan army.

Without the right to control the river, there is no way to directly threaten Nanjing, and Yangzhou is beyond the reach of the whip, at this time it seems that Zeng Guofan has not many choices, he chose to cross the river to attack Wuhu.

The Hunan army was like a bamboo in Wuhu, because the local defenders were Yang Fuqing's troops, and they had no fighting spirit at all, and they were firmly pressed by Li Xiucheng in this small place in Wuhu in the past two years, even if Yang Fuqing set up cards around to collect taxes, but he still firmly believed that only relying on the little military money given by Li Xiucheng every year could only make his soldiers starve to death, and it was impossible to buy advanced weapons and equipment.

Therefore, Yang Fuqing almost collapsed at the touch of a button, and immediately led people to withdraw from Wuhu and retreat in the direction of Tianjing.

Li Xiucheng's army is still besieging the Huai army in Yangzhou, at this time, where dare to let the Hunan army approach Tianjing, and dare not let Yang Fuqing lead the troops to retreat to Tianjing, at this time, even if it is difficult, he must support immediately, otherwise Yang Fuqing was forced to Tianjing by the Hunan army, it is troublesome for him to let Yang Fuqing enter the city, and it is also troublesome not to let him into the city. Only after the Hunan army was repulsed could there be a reason for Yang Fuqing to return to the station, and as for asking him about his guilt, that would be a matter for later.

Since he decided to rescue, Li Xiucheng can also take out the courage to make a desperate move, using the maximum force he can use, and transferred 50,000 elite soldiers from Tianjing, which is already the limit, and his descendants who stayed in Tianjing are only 100,000 people, and he has to guard against Wang Haiyang in Zhenjiang and Yang Fuqing, so he doesn't dare to transfer anymore, but he sent all the sailors, as long as the logistics of the Hunan army can be cut off, the Hunan army will have to retreat sooner or later.

But I didn't expect that the Hunan Army Naval Division changed the practice of trying not to fight a decisive battle with the Taiping Army Naval Division in the past, and this time it fought to the death and did not retreat, and fought viciously with the Taiping Army Naval Division on the Yangtze River, trying to ensure that the port of Wuhu was not lost, and repelled the offensive of the Taiping Army Naval Division many times.

As a result, the Hunan army continued to advance, Yang Fuqing continued to retreat, Li Xiucheng reprimanded him many times, and Yang Fuqing replied that the Hunan army had strong firepower, and his subordinates were all old and weak soldiers, and there was a shortage of weapons, ammunition and even food and grass, so he almost scolded Li Xiucheng for treating his soldiers badly.

Yang Fuqing retreated from Wuhu to Taiping Mansion, and then retreated from Taiping Mansion to Dasheng Pass, which was already close to Tianjing City, when Zeng Guoquan surrounded Tianjing, the outer encirclement was even located here, Li Xiucheng felt that there was no way to retreat. Therefore, Li Xiucheng's 50,000 elites were stationed at Dasheng Pass, and they closed this checkpoint to death, that is, to block the Hunan army, but also to prevent Yang Fuqing from retreating to Tianjing.

But Yang Fuqing was in front and the Hunan army was behind, so the first thing he blocked was Yang Fuqing's retreat, which immediately made Yang Fuqing indignant and dissatisfied, and the two kings of the Taiping army brought the lawsuit to Hong Xiuquan.

In the case of paying heavy losses, the Hunan Army Naval Division continued to advance, and the Taiping Army Naval Division retreated one after another, and considering the safety of the land route, it had to retreat directly to Xiguan.

According to this situation, it may develop into another siege of Tianjing, when Li Xiucheng led thirteen princes, gathered 600,000 troops, equipped with hundreds of thousands of muskets and a large number of artillery, in the case of absolute strength and absolute firepower, it also failed to break the defense line of 10,000 or 20,000 people led by Zeng Guoquan, so Li Xiucheng must not take the risk of being besieged in Tianjing again, so he was transferred back to the water division, with the water division there, the Taiping army always has a passage to the outside world, and can get assistance from the outside world. The Ming Dynasty refused to sell supplies to the Taiping Army, and there were foreigners in Shanghai who were willing to do this business.

However, Yang Fuqing's troops were really vulnerable, 100,000 people were defeated by a mere 50,000 Hunan troops under the victory pass, scattered in the four fields, and could not form an army, Li Xiucheng's elite was indeed very strong in combat, and they firmly held the offensive of the Hunan army to ensure that this level was not lost.

The Hunan army's attack this time was believed to be Zeng Guofan's plan to encircle Wei and save Zhao, and in the case of not being able to directly rescue Yangzhou, they threatened Tianjing to let the Taiping army take the initiative to retreat, while Li Xiucheng did not retreat.

But everyone is wrong about Zeng Guofan, attacking Tianjing is really not about encircling Wei to save Zhao, of course, it is not really trying to take advantage of Li Xiucheng's main force to sneak attack Tianjing, the purpose of attacking Tianjing, just to confuse the public, just when the Hunan army was still confronting Li Xiucheng's elite under the Great Victory Pass, suddenly a unit without any banner appeared in the north of Yangzhou, Gaoyou, which is connected to Yangzhou by the Grand Canal.

This unit was also quite fierce, and even broke through the defense line set up by the Taiping army along the river and broke into the city of Yangzhou.

However, the number of this army was too small, a total of only five or six thousand people, even if it attacked the fortified city, it was just a few thousand more souls waiting to die in the lonely city, and the Taiping army immediately completed the siege again, and strengthened the defensive line, thinking that it was just a carelessness, and did not pay too much attention to this matter.

But half a month later, when an army suddenly appeared near Guazhou, it was too late for the Taiping Army to pay attention.

Because this army is holding the Jizi banner, it turned out to be the ace elite of the Hunan army, Zeng Guoquan's Jizi battalion!

The Jizi battalion that suddenly appeared, like a tiger descending from the mountain, launched a fierce attack on Guazhou without pause, and it only took one day to capture here, so that Li Xiucheng couldn't come to the rescue, of course, if he could be rescued, he wouldn't be captured, both sides were in danger, they were gambling with their lives, and Zeng Guoquan won the gamble.

In this way, the situation in Jiangbei suddenly reversed, and it was the Taiping army that was attacking before, but now the rear road of the attacking troops was suddenly cut off, leaving them in a dilemma.

Li Xiucheng wanted to send a sailor to attack Guazhou, but the Hunan army's sailor held on tightly, and even if the sailor could pass, how could he capture the strong water village controlled by Zeng Guoquan.

Li Xiucheng realized at this time that Zeng Guofan had never thought of encircling Wei to save Zhao, and Zeng Guofan's goal was to target his 100,000 elites who crossed the river from the beginning, and he planned to hurt his ten fingers rather than cut off one of his fingers, and wanted to remove one of his Li Xiucheng's arms.

At this time, Li Xiucheng had two choices, taking advantage of the fact that the Taiping army encircling Yangzhou had not yet fallen into the counter-encirclement, and immediately broke through the siege, Guazhou was cut off, and then retreated east from Nantong. Another option is to take Yangzhou in one go. Then Li Xiucheng made a desperate bet, pressed all his troops, and asked the king of heaven to send a decree to Wang Haiyang's ministry to go north, maybe through a big war, annihilated the two henchmen of the Hunan army and the Huai army, so that the entire Jiangbei region was at his fingertips, I believe that in this case, Yang Fuqing and Wang Haiyang are very willing to go north.

But Li Xiucheng is in a dilemma and can't choose, choosing the latter, the risk is too great, once Yangzhou cannot be defeated in the short term, the siege troops are exhausted, there is only one way to collapse, this is all his lineage elite, the tough veterans who were pulled back from the edge of death in the siege of Tianjing, all folded here, what will Li Xiucheng do in the future to continue to control the dynasty.

But this time in the north, he just wanted to take advantage of the rare natural disaster that broke out in the north, take the opportunity to annihilate the forces of the Huai army, and restore the prestige that had declined after the last Northern Expedition. Returning now, even if you get out of the way, will put yourself at a political disadvantage.

At this time, King Hong, who had never been in charge of affairs and might not be able to see him even if he asked to see him, suddenly summoned Li Xiucheng and told Li Xiucheng that Heavenly Father had issued a decree to Li Xiucheng to order the troops in Yangzhou to immediately go south to Guazhou, and they must annihilate Zeng Guofan, the great Qing demon.

Heavenly Father has moved out, Li Xiucheng is really hard to dissuade, and the current Hong Tianwang is very paranoid, although he rarely makes decisions, but once he makes a decision, it will definitely not change, whether it is Li Xiucheng or the kings surnamed Hong, they are persuaded not to move.

However, Li Xiucheng felt that Hong Xiuquan's order was not a solution, it was better to break through from Guazhou, as long as Zeng Guoquan was defeated, maybe he didn't need to break through, and he could continue to go north to fight Yangzhou again.

It's just that there is always a shadow in his heart, so that he didn't even think about fighting Guazhou before, and would rather choose to take a detour to Nantong.

Because he has suffered too much from Zeng Guoquan, there is no army that has made them feel so powerless, whether it is other Hunan troops, Chu troops, or Huai troops, even if it is a foreigner's army, it has never made him feel that way, it is an army that has branded him with spirit.

But an excellent commander will not be frightened by this psychology, but Li Xiucheng is still ready to go all out, not only asking the Yangzhou army to go south, temporarily abandoning the strong fortress surrounding Yangzhou, and concentrating the largest forces to deal with Zeng Guoquan, but also plans to use all the sailors to bombard Guazhou from the Yangtze River and attack Zeng Guoquan on both sides.

At this time, the king of heaven issued a decree again, asking the sailors of Tianjing not to move, and told Li Xiucheng that if the land division was used to attack the Qing demon, there must be heavenly soldiers to help, and the sailor broke the spell.

Li Xiucheng, who was just going to kill the chicken with a knife, was suddenly extremely depressed by this order of the Heavenly King, and repeatedly pleaded against the attack, but Hong Xiuquan didn't listen at all, and even stopped seeing him after the first time.

How did Li Xiucheng know that in Hong Xiuquan's heart, Zeng Guoquan left a deeper imprint than in Li Xiucheng's heart.