Li Xiucheng had doubts, but the Hunan army was very resolute, after Zeng Guoquan occupied Guazhou, the Hunan army tried its best to reinforce him, Li Xiucheng was still hesitant to break through the siege, the Hunan army entered Guazhou from all over the country has reached 30,000, when Li Xiucheng was still arguing with the king of heaven for whether to send a sailor, Zeng Guofan even withdrew 30,000 Hunan troops in front of the Great Victory Pass, all of them secretly crossed the river at night and sent to Jiangbei to reinforce Zeng Guoquan. Pen "Fun" Pavilion www.biquge.info

The actions of the Hunan army were more resolute, which was very much in line with Zeng Guofan's consistent character, and after having a goal, he would unswervingly carry it out.

And the Taiping army missed the best opportunity in their hesitation.

The news soon spread to the Ming Dynasty, and Zhu Jinglun was working with the Ministry of War and the General Staff to formulate relevant systems, and to transfer the General Staff, a department directly responsible to the emperor, to the Ministry of War in the future, and to transfer the power of appointing and dismissing officers in the army to the civilian government.

Strictly speaking, this is also a military change, of course, for the sake of safety, it will not be one-size-fits-all, but it will take a year to complete the relocation of the department.

Before completing the relocation of the department, Zhu Jinglun had to deal with various factors of non-cooperation, such as the dissatisfaction of the officers. In the past, the power to appoint and dismiss officers belonged to the army itself, and there was an independent personnel department in the army, and the army believed that the various procedures for appointing and dismissing officers had always been very transparent, and there was no need to transfer them to the ministry to restrain them.

As for the General Staff, it is a department with less opposition, because the General Staff of the Ming Dynasty seems to have the same power as Germany, but Xie Qi's ability and prestige cannot be compared with Lao Mao Qi at all, so Mao Qi can command the entire German army while sitting in the General Staff, and Xie Qi is in the General Staff, so he can't control Wen Yuan, a group of young and strong officers.

It is precisely because it is not a strong department that the General Staff does not have the habit of being strong, so the first department that Zhu Jinglun plans to transfer is the General Staff.

By the time the news came from the north, the procedures for the transfer had already been discussed.

"It's just right, I'll leave this matter to the Ministry of War, and it's just right to run in with the General Staff. It's up to you to decide what measures I take. ”

Zhu Jinglun directly let go and let the Military Department, which had just been given the jurisdiction of the General Staff Headquarters, be responsible for dealing with possible military changes in the Yangtze River Valley, and also let the Military Department and the General Staff Headquarters take advantage of this to run in.

It is the responsibility of the General Staff to formulate a plan of military action, and the plan they formulated before, even if it was just a plan for an exercise, was sent through the name of Zhu Jinglun, while Mao Qi was in Germany, and when necessary, he could directly give orders to the army, and this was the difference.

The Ministry of War has been almost an empty shelf for a long time, and before it was at most given the power to review the budget of the army, or only to review and approve the power of the Ministry of Households, so it is actually meaningless for them to review or not, but now it is okay, after all the troops are under the Ministry of War, the civilian personnel in the army will be directly transferred to the civilian officials of the Ministry of War, although the Ministry of War still does not have the power to approve the budget, but it has directly obtained the power to prepare the budget, so it can be said that in the future, whether to spend money on the army, how much money to spend, how to spend the money, These powers were handed over to the Ministry of War, which was equivalent to pinching the throat of the army, not afraid that they would be disobedient.

The General Staff Department was very cooperative, and soon analyzed the situation in the north, and they judged that Zeng Guofan was planning to have a decisive battle with the Taiping army in Guazhou, and the victory or defeat of this battle, although it would not affect the survival of the two countries, but it was very likely to determine the strength of the offensive and defensive forces of the two countries in the future, and if the Hunan army won, it would once again gain an overwhelming military advantage over the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, and if the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom won, then the heavy army group of the Qing army would fall, and Jiangbei would all become the spoils of the Taiping army. After that, it would be difficult for the Manchus to build a force similar to the Hunan army.

As for what role the Ming should play in it, the Ministry of War itself is not very clear, the Ministry of War Shangshu asked the Secretary of the Book to order Chen Zhiting to judge, Chen Zhiting said that the current urgent task is disaster relief, the Taiping Army and the Qing Army in the Yangtze River area, can not affect the overall situation, the Ming can not interfere.

The attitude of the Ming Dynasty not intending to intervene made the Taiping army in Jiangbei lose the last chance to survive, and it was not so fun to be targeted by the Zeng brothers who didn't know how long they had been planning.

The news of Tianjing had just arrived, and without waiting for the Taiping army to come to the door, Zeng Guoquan took the lead in launching an attack, attacking the outlying camps of Yangzhou guarded by the Taiping army.

The attack was not so smooth, but Zeng Guoquan seemed to have changed his temperament, and he was not in a hurry, but he fought steadily, digging trenches on the periphery, and posing for encirclement, but Yangzhou City was ten miles square, and the Taiping army surrounded the city, and had set up barracks at the surrounding points, dug long trenches, and the encirclement was already hundreds of miles long.

The Taiping army was full of contempt for Zeng Guoquan's tactics, thinking that this guy was stupid, and he didn't know how to fight after not fighting for a few years?

It wasn't until the Hunan army appeared again in the northwest of Yangzhou that the Taiping army understood that Zeng Guoquan had been delaying time.

At this time, the Taiping army found that they had only one way to defend to the death, and it was no longer realistic to attack Zeng Guoquan in the south, because the Hunan army in the northwest would not sit idly by, and if the attack on Zeng Guoquan did not go well, the Hunan army behind them took the opportunity to attack, and they were even more troublesome if they were attacked by the enemy.

The military information reached Tianjing, and this time Li Xiucheng did not hesitate, and immediately ordered the army to retreat and retreat along the Yunyan River to Nantong.

The salt river in northern Jiangsu goes directly from Yangzhou to Jinsha, Lusi and other seaside salt farms, and also communicates with Nantong County, and the salt of the seven major salt farms in Nantong is continuously transported to Yangzhou through the salt river, which can be said to support the development of Yangzhou's salt industry, but it is a pity that this war has made this canal deserted again.

Taixing, Rugao and other places along the way of the Salt River are controlled by the Taiping army, so the retreat channel is quite smooth, as long as they can be prepared to retreat, the armies alternately cover the retreat, and they may not be able to retreat from Yangzhou City, the army only intends to withdraw to Nantong, where to receive supplies, and then stationed on the spot, not to let them come back directly.

As long as he controls Nantong, the Taiping Army still has a chance to make a comeback, and even as long as he can still maintain a place in Nantong, he Li Xiucheng can also say that the Northern Expedition is not over, and he will not create opportunities for those political enemies, or give himself time to stabilize internal affairs.

Li Xiucheng thought so, and Zeng Guofan probably thought the same way, he couldn't give Li Xiucheng a chance to retreat and give him the last chance to rectify.

Also along the Yunyan River, but it was a unit from the north to the south, before the retreat of the Taiping army, suddenly landed from the sea in the area of Fenglichang in the eastern part of Yangzhou Prefecture, and raided the small town on the Yunyan River through the Yunyan River, which is a rich town that relies on salt trade to develop, and the county seat of Hai'an County in the Tang Dynasty is in this town.

The river network here is dense, the transportation is convenient, there is a canal to the south to Rugao, and there is a canal to the west to Taizhou, the same reason, to occupy here, it is equivalent to cutting off the retreat from Taizhou to Rugao.

At this time, Li Xiucheng knew that the Zeng brothers had been plotting against him for a long time, and maybe from the time he started to go north, the other party began to plot, and he realized at this time that he had committed a big taboo - going deep alone!

He has not been able to effectively prevent the actions of Zeng Guofan's Hunan army, although they are far away in Anqing, it does not mean that they are completely unable to rescue, as long as there is time, Zeng Guofan can even go north to the Yellow River through Anhui, from the Yellow River to the sea, detour south.

Zeng Guofan really did it.

The Zeng brothers calculated themselves so deeply, so Li Xiucheng couldn't help but break out in a cold sweat, and he couldn't hesitate, no matter how people had to withdraw, even if they would suffer heavy losses, but the way to retreat had been lost, and they could only fight their way out.

Ordered the army to set off immediately, and to open up Hai'an at any cost, regardless of the attitude of King Hong, he arbitrarily dispatched a detachment of four ironclad ships to Nantong immediately to meet him, and dispatched the army led by the two sons who had deterred Daming in the former French Concession to rush to Nantong, so that they could march north along the river and rush to Rugao to respond.

Just like Li Xiucheng thought, it was not so simple, the Yangzhou army did begin to retreat, but at this time, from the city of Yangzhou, from the Hunan army in the northwest of Yangzhou pursued at any cost, and the Taiping army attacking Hai'an could not be attacked for a long time, obviously the Hunan army had made up its mind to annihilate the Taiping army's Northern Expedition army in Yangzhou.

For a time, there was smoke in Yangzhou, who won and who lost, all kinds of news flew all over the sky, and the major newspapers that focused on disaster relief during this time also began to report intensively on the war, but they got very different news, and there were many contradictions.

Even the news received by the Ming army was full of contradictions, some said that the Taiping army had won, and some said that the Hunan army had won, and there was no letter for a while.

Zhu Jinglun was also very concerned about this battle that was not large-scale, but it might determine the future situation of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom and the Manchu Qing Dynasty, he was not optimistic about Li Xiucheng's Northern Expedition from the beginning, and it was taboo to go deep alone, and the Taiping Army was not able to fully coordinate its internal forces at this time, which means that after this army went north alone, it could basically only fight alone.

And the Xianghuai Army Group, no matter what, Zeng Guofan has the ability to carry out unified coordination, in the general righteousness, Zeng Guofan and Li Hongzhang are very clear about the division between master and apprentice, they are more rational, even if there is a power struggle, it will not cause the situation within the Taiping Army.

It is not clear about the battle situation, but it is already clear that the Hunan army sent three troops to support Yangzhou, one crossed the river from Wuhu to Dasheng Pass, this is obviously a feint of troops, only 20,000 people are left at present, and the others have gone to Jiangbei to support Zeng Guoquanbu, and one is from the land, appeared in the northwest of Yangzhou troops, from Anqing to here, the most convenient path is to take the Huai River waterway, and finally enter Hongze Lake, and then through Gaoyou Lake to Gaoyou, and then go south, the number of this force is about 100,000, The raid team that crossed the sea and headed south was probably divided in the area of Hongze Lake, and it is unknown whether it used the waterway of the Yellow River or the canal waterway of Huai'an Province to go to sea.

According to the intelligence, Zhu Jinglun was shocked to find that Zeng Guofan's troops used to encircle and annihilate Li Xiucheng's army this time had reached more than 150,000 people, Zeng Guoquan had 50,000 people in the blockade of Guazhou, and 100,000 people in the northwest of Yangzhou, and the number of troops that attacked Hai'an was unknown, but I am afraid that it would not be less than 10,000 people, otherwise it would be impossible to block the Taiping army.

And Zeng Guofan also left 20,000 people under the Great Victory Pass, so how many troops remained in Anqing to garrison?