Receiving Tan Shaoguang's head sent by Wang Youwei, Li Hongzhang was overjoyed, and Suzhou City, which had been unable to be attacked for a long time, could finally be taken bloodlessly.

"Brother, the bandit is cunning, we can't fall for his trick." Li Hezhang, who was stabbed by Yang Xiaoshan, covered his thigh and said, once he was bitten by a snake for ten years and was afraid of the well rope.

Li Hongzhang looked at his younger brother Li Hezhang limping, his heart sank, and he nodded and said, "You're right, we still have one more mind, don't rush into Suzhou City." ”

So Li Hongzhang summoned the general soldier Zheng Guokui to take two battalions of men and horses to investigate the situation.

After Zheng Guokui entered the city, he found more than 1,000 "old thieves from Liangguang" with slightly longer sideburns and killed them, and came back to report the situation to Li Hongzhang.

"What's going on in Suzhou now?" Li Hongzhang was very concerned about whether Gao Yongkuan and others really wanted to surrender.

Zheng Guokui immediately replied: "This is not easy to say, they handed over the old thieves of Liangguang and Guangzhou, they should have wanted to surrender, but they used the excuse that the governor did not enter the city, according to the fact that they did not shave their hair, and they also concentrated the soldiers in the city, and there were roadblocks on the streets, and they didn't seem to trust us." They said that they could not lay down their arms until they saw the imperial court wearing a flower feather. ”

"Thieves are hard to change! If they want to wear flower feathers, they will give them a feast, and tomorrow they will set up a celebration banquet in Suzhou, and invite all eight of them over to give rewards. Li Hongzhang glared angrily and said loudly.

"But the reward of the imperial court has been returned." Zheng Guokui asked.

"Tomorrow you will bring more people with you, so that they can eat and drink enough and send them on their way." Li Hongzhang was moved to kill.

"My lord, killing prisoners is ominous." Zheng Guokui's mind hadn't turned around yet, and he persuaded.

"Huh?" Li Hongzhang hated and stared at Zheng Guokui's eyes, and his gaze was very sharp.

Zheng Guokui's cold sweat suddenly fell, the governor didn't believe anything, and hurriedly said: "The subordinates know, and the subordinates will go to prepare." ”

The next day, Li Hongzhang summoned Gao Yongkuan and eight others, pretended to host a celebration banquet for them, and rewarded them.

The celebration banquet is very grand, eight large tables, each table is accompanied by the generals of the Huai Army, and the dishes and drinks are very rich.

Li Hongzhang attended in full costume, wearing a new python robe, and a pearl hanging from his neck to personally preside over the banquet. He arched his hand to the eight Taiping generals and said: "Thank you for the friendship of the high ranks, this time the recovery of Fuzhou is all based on the great help of the ranks, and a little wine will be specially prepared, and the rewards of the imperial court will arrive." Everyone eats and drinks first, and must eat and drink to their heart's content. ”

Gao Yongkuan and others saw that Li Hongzhang was personally present, and their hearts were settled. The food in Suzhou has been bad these days, this table of good wine and good food makes their saliva come out, the generals of the Huai Army next to them are very favorable, frequently guessing and persuading wine, and the last vigilance of the eight people has also been put down, and they have eaten nonsense.

When they were almost drunk, they swayed a little when they walked. Li Hongzhang saw that the time was almost up, and waved out, and the eight ceremonial officials walked in with a suit of official uniforms in their hands.

"The reward of the court has arrived, you all come and kneel down and prepare to receive the reward." Li Hongzhang greeted Gao Yongkuan and the other eight people.

Seeing the dazzling beads on the red top and the gorgeous patterns of the purple and black court clothes, the eight people were ecstatic, and from then on they were also members of the court, can they not be happy?

So they honestly knelt in front of the wine table, waiting for Li Hongzhang to issue a reward for them, and the ceremonial officer behind them quickly pulled out his waist knife, raised the knife in his hand, and cut off the heads of eight people, and the celebration banquet became a Hongmen banquet, and the last wine and food were actually their severed head meal.

Gao Yongkuan and others probably didn't expect Li Hongzhang to poison them before they died, and they swore to ensure their safety, and they also swore an oath with arrows, and also asked foreigners to vouch for them, but Li Hongzhang lied to them all this.

Li Hongzhang was unimpressed, but the Englishman Gordon was furious. Knowing that Li Hongzhang had killed Gao Yongkuan and others, the Englishman actually wanted to duel with Li Hongzhang, believing that he had reversed course and damaged his reputation. Westerners attach more importance to the spirit of contract, and Gordon feels that his credibility is more important than his life.

However, Li Hongzhang thinks that Gordon is a psychopath, in his opinion, the traitor is not a human being at all, there is no need to talk about any credit, not only is there a problem of credibility, but a kind of wit, outwitting Suzhou. After killing Gao Yongkuan and others, Li Hongzhang's butcher's knife had not yet been put down, and after tricking the remaining Taiping troops into laying down their weapons, he carried out a massacre in Suzhou City, killing all those who could not speak the local Suzhou dialect, and continued to kill tens of thousands of Taiping soldiers.

There is a river of blood in Suzhou City, if Gao Yongkuan and the others knew that this was the end, would they easily surrender? Historically, most of the people who accepted Zhao'an did not end well.

Li Hongzhang of Suzhou opened a killing ring, so that when he attacked Wuxi and Changzhou, he encountered great resistance.

The defender of Wuxi was Huang Zilong, the king of Chao, he was the son-in-law of Li Xiucheng, although there were not many soldiers in his hands, but he still showed the bravery of the Taiping army, fought until the last moment, and was defeated and captured and then executed.

Chen Kunshu, the protector of Changzhou, is Chen Yucheng's elder brother and an old brother in Guangxi, and his combat ability is much stronger than Huang Zilong's, and he led 20,000 Taiping troops to resist more than 100,000 Huai troops in Changzhou for five months, which can be said to have done his best.

In the end, Li Hongzhang still used the heavy artillery of the Changsheng army to blow up more than ten zhang of the north and south city walls of Changzhou, tens of thousands of Huai troops swarmed in, the protector Chen Kunshu led people to block the city wall with the old wooden coffin, in the face of the Huai army's dense foreign guns and bullets, resisted to the death, but the Qing army's artillery fire was fierce, after his subordinate Zhiwang was killed, Chen Kunshu started a street battle with the enemy after breaking the city in Changzhou, and then led the remaining soldiers of the Taiping Army to retreat from the small north gate to the palace of the protector, and then set up a stone card, built a fortress to resist, and continued to fight to the death with guns.

When the artillery fire stopped, all the Taiping troops under the command of the protector Chen Kunshu were killed, and the Qing army began to pour into the palace.

When the protector Chen Kunshu was escorted to Li Hongzhang, he stood tall and refused to surrender, and angrily pointed out: "If it weren't for the foreigners' army to help you fight, I would have made it impossible for you to take this city from me." ”

After Chen Kunshu was killed, the Qing army hung his head on the flagpole to deter everyone, but at dawn the next day, the head was gone, and some people said that it was stolen by Chen Kunshu's old department and buried it.

After Li Hongzhang captured Su Xichang, the Taiping army lost its territory in southern Jiangsu, and at this time Tianjing had not been defeated by Zeng Guofan, and Yang Xiaoshan carried the last breath of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom to support in Tianjing. Fortunately, Li Hongzhang knew that Zeng Guofan wanted to take Tianjing alone, so on the one hand, he asked the Huai army to stick to the cities in southern Jiangsu, and then sent the main force south to attack the Taiping army in Zhejiang, so as not to compete with Zeng Guofan.

Although the Huai army did not come to Tianjing, the Hunan army in Tianjing was enough for Yang Xiaoshan to drink a pot, is he still capable of turning the tide?