Since the Hechun Jiangnan camp was breached, not only the situation of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom has changed, but also the situation of the Qing army. Zeng Guofan was awarded the title of Governor of Liangjiang, holding the power of Jiangsu, Jiangxi, and Anhui provinces, and was in the first rank, and officials below the governor of the three provinces had to obey his orders, and the Hunan army finally became a regular army relied on by the imperial court from a militia force.

The Qing army has finally unified the front by Zeng Guofan, and put forward the strategic concept of "taking Hunan, Hubei, and Jiangxi as the base areas, taking southern Anhui as the breakthrough point, taking Anqing first, and then breaking Jinling", and attacked along the Yangtze River.

Moreover, Zeng Guofan's tactics in Anqing were very vicious, and his land and water army surrounded Anqing and did not rush to capture it, but used the tactic of "encircling the point to send reinforcements" to lure Chen Yucheng's reinforcements to rescue.

Zeng Guofan also changed the fighting style of the Hunan army, proposing to "settle camp tents and fight dumb battles". He did not pay attention to speed or clever tactics in battle, and no matter where his troops marched to a new place, they would be set up in the mountains and rivers at the first time, and they had to do it in an hour, with a wall eight feet high and a foot thick, and a deep trench had to be dug outside. In this way, the defense is the attack, and the Taiping army is not engaged in movement warfare.

He also followed the example of the Taiping Army and purchased a large number of foreign guns and cannons, which further strengthened his defensive ability.

Zeng Guofan was like a big python, holding Anqing to the death, and the camp outside the city firmly blocked Chen Yucheng's reinforcements.

Such a war became a war of attrition, and the Taiping army did not have the strength to wear out with the Qing army. Anhui has been fighting for many years under the fighting of all sides, not only a large number of grain harvests, but also a sharp decline in population. Chen Yucheng has found it difficult to replenish his war losses, even the newly recruited soldiers are not like the old brothers of Huguang, they not only have poor military discipline, but also have very high military salaries, and their combat effectiveness is very weak.

On the other hand, the Qing army became stronger and stronger, and after the hat of the governor of Liangjiang was put on, the money and food were guaranteed, allowing his Hunan army to expand rapidly.

Strategically, he sent Li Hongzhang, a proud disciple and staff member, to Shanghai to organize the Huai army to resist Li Xiucheng. He also sent the powerful figure Zuo Zongtang to Zhejiang to form the Chu army to prevent the Taiping army from moving south. It can be said that the Taiping army was surrounded at multiple points.

After Li Xubin in the Hunan army, there were many talents, and Zeng Guoquan, the ninth brother of Zeng Guofan, was known as Zeng Iron Bucket because he was good at digging trenches and besieging the city. His defense line in Anqing, Chen Yucheng led troops to relieve the siege several times, but he did not break through his defense line.

Bao Chao, who doesn't know a single big word, but is a natural general, has a keen judgment of the situation on the battlefield, every time he leads a charge he must first stand on a high place, with his intuition, find out the weakness of the enemy front, and then attack, often hit a blow. Although there are not many soldiers under him, there are more than 5,000 people in the 5th Battalion of Tingzi, and they were besieged by Chen Yucheng's tens of thousands of troops, and they just broke through from the front, which shows the strength of this person. In the Hunan army led by scholars, he was able to lead an army alone as an illiterate person, which shows how strong his ability is.

Duolonga, a Daur tribe, made good use of the horse team, and once made great contributions to the elimination of the Northern Expeditionary Army under the command of Seng Lingqin. Later, it was borrowed by the official text of the governor of Hubei and placed in the Hulin Wing Army. He and Bao Chao cooperated many times and defeated the Taiping army in several battles.

It can be said that the Hunan army is getting stronger and stronger with the continuous support of government supplies and local heroes.

And Chen Yucheng was constantly lost by a war of attrition like Zeng Guofan, and his supplies could not keep up. In order to prevent him and Li Xiucheng from monopolizing military power, the Heavenly King Hong Xiuquan made their subordinates kings one after another. For example, Li Shixian was named the king of servants, Yang Fuqing was named the king of Fu, Lai Wenguang was named the king of Zun, Wu Ruxiao was the king of Gu, Lan Chengchun was the king of Hu and so on.

Although Hong Xiuquan's large number of feudal kings boosted the morale of these generals, it caused unimaginable damage to the Taiping army. The military power of Chen Yucheng and Li Xiucheng was dispersed, and the originally clenched fist, with the continuous sealing of the king, became independent fingers, which were dug up by the Hunan army one by one.

In addition, unexpected changes also took place in northern Anhui, Li Zhaoshou of Chuzhou once again rebelled against the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, this Li Zhaoshou did evil in Chuzhou, openly bought and sold opium, and resisted Chen Yucheng to reorganize his troops. He reverted to his old ways in Chuzhou, arranging local officials and collecting taxes, like an independent kingdom.

Chen Yucheng couldn't tolerate him, so he prepared to kill him. This Li Zhaoshou knew that Chen Yucheng was going to attack him, so on the one hand, he begged Chen Yucheng for mercy, swore that he would correct it, and wrote a letter to Li Xiucheng to intercede for himself and stabilize Chen Yucheng, on the other hand, he secretly took refuge in Shengbao in Henan, and mortgaged his parents, wife and children to Shengbao in exchange for him not to disclose his identity as a traitor for the time being, to be a traitor hidden in the Taiping Army, and nominally maintain the identity of the Taiping Army.

After obtaining Shengbao's permission, Li Zhaoshou secretly corresponded with Shengbao on the one hand, betrayed the front-line intelligence of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, offered advice, and sabotaged the front-line war, and on the other hand, hid from Chen Yucheng, for fear that he would see his flaws and attack him.

And Miao Peilin, another chameleon in northern Anhui, was the opposite of Li Zhaoshou, this time he rebelled against the Qing court. He was born in the Twist Army and took refuge in the Qing court after the Tianjing Incident, but when he heard the news that the British and French invaded Beijing and Emperor Xianfeng fled to Chengde, he felt that the Qing court might be exhausted.

Chen Yucheng is facing the heavy pressure of the Hunan army at this moment, so of course he can't ask for Miao Peilin's "return", so that he will have one less enemy in northern Anhui and less pressure. Although he also knew that Miao Peilin was a capricious villain, he had no choice at this moment, so he recommended Miao Peilin to the Heavenly King and conveyed Miao Peilin's request.

The king also knew that the situation in Anhui was not good, and according to Chen Yucheng's suggestion, he did not blame Miao Peilin for the past, and named him a "king of music" who listened to the propaganda and did not listen to the tune, in order to show his popularity.

In the chaos, Li Zhaoshou and Miao Peilin, the two chameleons, have become a landscape of this era, they are a grass on the wall, the wind blows on both sides, the dragon wins to help the dragon, and the tiger wins to help the tiger, all trying to obtain their own interests in the chaos.

Chen Yucheng failed to rescue Anqing four times, and Anqing finally fell into the hands of the Hunan army, and the southwest gate of Anhui was finally opened by the Hunan army. The next target of the Hunan army was Chen Yucheng's Luzhou.

And Chen Yucheng faced the fierce pursuit of the Hunan army, a little more than enough but not enough, he knew that if Luzhou was lost, Tianjing would be directly threatened by the Hunan army, so he decided to defend Luzhou himself.

Because Anhui's military resources were close to exhaustion, he ordered his generals to follow the kings Lai Wenguang, Hu Wang Lan Chengchun, Qi Wang Liang Chengfu, and Fuwang Chen Decai to expedition to Henan, Shaanxi and other places, and recruit troops there, and then come back to help the Kingdom of Heaven.

It's a pity that there isn't much time left for him.