Hong Xiuquan was so easy when he hit Nanjing, when he swept the world, he took it down in one go, Hong Xiuquan's regime, on January 12, 1853, conquered Wuchang, and conquered Jiangning on March 19, 1853, except for the rest after conquering Wuchang, plus the thousand-mile journey from Wuchang to Jiangning, it can almost be said that the Tianping Army arrived in Jiangning, fought a little, and then went in, it was so easy.

It's a pity that there is a general trend that sweeps the world, but there is no will to sweep the world, Hong Xiuquan chose to favor Nanjing.

Zhou Lang has not yet swept the world, and it will never be so easy for him to fight Nanjing, this is not an unsuspecting city, but an important place for heavy defense.

All kinds of intelligence have confirmed that the Qing army has been stationed in Jiangning heavy troops, the governor of Liangjiang to Jiangning as the rear base, where the Qing army's heavy troops and grain and grass are concentrated, especially after Zhou Lang's fleet captured Wusongkou, the Qing army continued to strengthen its defenses, at this time the strength here is as high as 100,000, 100,000 people are not an obstacle, the obstacle is Zhu Yuanzhang personally presided over the construction of the Nanjing defense system.

Even compared with Beijing, Nanjing's city defense is not bad at all, and it is the strongest fortified city in Chinese history, even if it is Xi'an, Luoyang and other historical cities, it cannot be compared with Nanjing. The irony is that the fortified city established by Zhu Yuanzhang did not prevent any disaster for his descendants, and his grandson Zhu Jianwen ascended the throne here, and in a blink of an eye, his son Zhu Di who went south took the throne. The small court of the Southern Ming Dynasty sat here, but directly surrendered to the Manchu Qing. On the contrary, it was later that Manchu officials sat here and blocked Zheng Chenggong's Northern Expedition with a small number of troops.

In the face of such a strong city, and there are well-prepared defenders, the city is well supplied, Zhou Lang is embarrassed by this, the first battle to break through the defense of Nanjing in the real sense, in fact, there is only one time, that is, the Hunan army broke through Nanjing, which can start from Zeng Guoquan's siege of Nanjing, and lasted here for more than two years.

Zhou Lang conservatively assessed that he may not need to work as hard as Zeng Guoquan, but it is by no means as easy as the Taiping Army, and what is really worth comparing should be the battle of Zhu Yuanzhang to conquer Nanjing (Jiqing Road).

Zhu Yuanzhang began to launch the Battle of Jiqing Road in September, and only in March of the following year did he conquer the city, during which a series of large and small battles were carried out around the periphery, and Zhou Lang was still acceptable for three months.

So he mobilized the main force to assemble and start the battle of Nanjing, once Nanjing was defeated, then it would be much easier in other places, at this time there was something called the general trend, and there may be a situation that was determined by the legend, and the specific subtle changes were between the hearts of the people.

The defensive task was entrusted to Wang Fuqian to lead the auxiliary soldiers, and Wang Fuqian was ordered to move with a camera, and the auxiliary soldiers also had combat effectiveness and could participate in attack operations, and once the auxiliary soldiers carried out attack operations, they would get the salary of the soldiers, but they had no choice, whether they wanted to attack or not, they had to listen to orders.

Chen Xiaoshou set out from Ningbo, Hong Jiuzhi set out from Suzhou, Gou Quan went down the river from Jiangxi, and the three-way army would attack Nanjing.

Unlike the situation encountered by Zhu Yuanzhang back then, Zhou Lang did not need to worry about the counteroffensive launched by the Qing army from Jiangbei, occupying Zhenjiang and controlling the Yangtze River, he only needed to face the fortified city of Nanjing, of course, Zhu Yuanzhang faced Jiqing Road was much worse than the city defense of Nanjing faced by Zhou Lang.

Gou Quan assembled in Taiping Mansion, and then entered Jiangning Mansion, first along the river to capture Jiangning Town, Banqiao, Dashengguan and other outlying strongholds in Nanjing, and then would sweep Moling Town and other places in the south to cut off the connection between the Qinhuai River and Nanjing; Hong Jiuzhi sat in Zhenjiang, conquered Guazhou City in Jiangbei, and prevented the Qing army in Yangzhou from moving south; Chen Xiaoshou will seize the beach from Yanziji and cooperate with the capture of Pukou in the north of the Jiangbei, and attack Xiaolingwei in the south to besiege the city of Nanjing from the east.

The three-way army is not subordinate to each other, and they lack a commander at this time. Whoever these three people let be the commander-in-chief, the others will not be convinced, because the qualifications and prestige of the three are not enough to form an overwhelming advantage, and there will inevitably be a series of troublesome lawsuits at that time.

Now that all the battles have been concentrated at one point, Zhou Lang can set off and rush to Nanjing with his handsome camp.

When Zhou Lang arrived, the three of them had already completed their respective work, and Zhou Lang directly entered the strategic place of Yanziji and set up the handsome tent here.

Before he could take a breath, the three generals had already entered the account together, and they really came to grab the credit.

Who doesn't want to take the credit for that.

Hong Jiuzhi believed that his troops had only fought peripheral battles, recuperated and had strong morale, while Chen Xiaoshou and Gou Quan had experienced bloody battles on the outskirts of Nanjing, and he should take over the siege; Gou Quan believes that now he has the most troops under the city of Nanjing, and of course he should be responsible for conquering Nanjing; Chen Xiaoshou thought that Gou Quan's troops had fought more than him, and they had just come from Jiangxi, and they had been fighting in Jiangxi for a long time, so they should rest. It was up to his troops to attack Nanjing from both land and water.

Even the artillerymen wanted to take this credit, they thought that the city of Nanjing was so thick that it was necessary to use artillery to attack for a long time, and other troops should prepare positions for the artillery and let the artillery take over their artillery bombardment. The sailors also believed that they could shell the city of Nanjing from the river, as long as they were given infantry all the way, it would be easier to enter the west gate of Nanjing from the mouth of the Qinhuai River.

Zhou Lang's face did not change, and he waved his hand to let Ma Dalei blast these people out.

Can you use artillery to blast the city wall of Nanjing?

If it can be sure, how long will it take to be out of line, Zeng Guoquan's Hunan army is equipped with a lot of artillery, and some of them are rifled guns in the 19th century bought from foreigners, if they can be blasted, it will take two years to besiege the city? Zhou Lang felt that it might be an insurance from digging tunnels and blasting, and it seemed that this was how he entered the city in the end.

However, the role of artillery is still very important, and it is still useful to deal with the outer city of Nanjing, those earthen cities connected with the mountains, which have fallen into disrepair at the end of the Ming Dynasty, and are now even more dilapidated. Zeng Guoquan's later barracks were directly stationed in these places.

Zhou Lang himself considered whether to attack Yuhuatai first, or attack Purple Mountain first, who knows that before he could discuss it with his staff, Ma Dalei came in to report that there was a secret envoy from Nanjing who wanted to talk to Zhou Lang.

This secret envoy has also gone through the process of interrogation and so on, so it seems that he has been in the barracks for a long time.

Zhou Lang decided to meet this secret envoy, because the other party obviously planned to talk, and it was unlikely that he would surrender, but if the other party had always known that Zhou Lang could negotiate, then the heart of fighting to the death would be weaker.

But the news brought by this secret envoy made Zhou Lang very dissatisfied with his intelligence department, and they didn't even hear such a big news as the replacement of the governor of Liangjiang!

The governor of Liangjiang who is now in Nanjing is no longer Funing, whom Zhou Lang knows, but Tatara Su Ling'a, who is undoubtedly a Manchu magnate and a henchman of Heshen.