In fact, Qin Rigang really wronged Yang Xiuqing, the eastern king of Tianjing. Pen, fun, pavilion www. biquge。 info

When occupying Tianjing City, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom claimed to have an army of more than 500,000, but in addition to more than 300,000 at the end of the card, the actual number of soldiers who could fight was only more than 160,000 in total.

The Northern Expedition sent nearly 40,000 horses in two batches, and the Western Expedition sent more than 23,000 people, plus more than 30,000 horses guarding Yangzhou and Zhenjiang, and 30,000 horses and horses on the surface of the Yangtze River.

Yangzhou City was broken and occupied by the Jiangbei camp a while ago, and Tianjing City was directly attacked by the Jiangbei camp and the Jiangnan camp. Although there are nearly 20,000 Taiping troops who fled back from Yangzhou, the defenders in Tianjing City have increased to nearly 70,000 at once, and in the past few months, Yang Xiuqing, the king of the East, has recruited and trained 30,000 new soldiers in Tianjing City, although it is not yet possible to go out, but it is no problem to defend the city, so that the Taiping army in Tianjing City has reached nearly 100,000 people in total.

As soon as he received an urgent report from Qin Rigang asking for help, Yang Xiuqing had just mobilized tens of thousands of elite soldiers to capture Yangzhou again, and transferred Wei Changhui, the king of the north, to lead 20,000 elite soldiers to preside over the westward expedition and capture Anhui and Jiujiang.

And the only Taiping army in Tianjing had to guard against the Jiangnan camp that was eyeing the south of the city. Then, it was found that Tianjing had no troops to send, so he could only delay for a while.

But when he heard that Qin Rigang and other Northern Expedition soldiers were trapped in Jinghai City, Yang Xiuqing realized that the matter was serious. At this time, Xia Guanzheng Prime Minister Zeng Lichang led more than 10,000 troops to attack the Jiangbei camp, but could not be attacked for a long time, Yang Xiuqing ordered Zeng Lichang, as well as the mobilization of the Beijing Defense Army and Yangzhou to withdraw part of the army to Tianjing, and from the Anhui Western Expeditionary Army to draw part of the army to form the Northern Expedition reinforcements.

Soon, at the end of October, more than 15,000 people were gathered, led by Zeng Lichang, the prime minister of Xia Guanyouzheng, Chen Shibao, the deputy prime minister of Xia Guan, and Xu Zongyang, the deputy prime minister of Dongguan.

Yang Xiuqing confessed that he would save his old brother, and there was no need for the Northern Expedition to save him, so he hurried back to Tianjing.

Zeng Lichang also knew that his brother in Jinghai was in critical condition, so he immediately went north, and in early November, he set off from Pukou via Chuzhou, and went all the way north, going straight to Tianjin to rescue Qin Rigang and others.

At this time, the Qing soldiers were concentrated in the camp in Jiangbei, and most of the others were transferred by Shengbao to the area of Tianjin to encircle and suppress Qin Rigang and other Northern Expeditionary Taiping troops.

After a few days of effort, the Taiping army reinforcements passed through Anman Suzhou, and then conquered Xiao County and Dangshan County in Qisu, crossed the Yellow River from the two ferries of Panlongji and Baojialou in Feng County, and entered the boundary of Shandongdong.

At this time, due to the defeat of the Twisted Army and the Qing Army in northern Anhui and eastern Henan on the way, the hungry people in northern Jiangsu and southern Lunan, and the unemployed people joined one after another, the number of reinforcements in the Northern Expedition had surged several times, reaching 50,000.

After conquering Fengxian Hou, Zeng Lichang led 50,000 Taiping army reinforcements and entered Shanxian County, Shandong.

At this time, Lu Chao'an, the county commander of Shanxian County, heard the news and gathered the landlord regiment to train their arms and went to block the attack. Lu Chao'an's reinforcement brigade had passed, and he attacked the reinforcement rear team in Liu Ji and Cao Ma. Reinforcements rushed into battle, sacrificing hundreds. The brigade "turned back to take over the battle" in time, and the township was defeated and more than 300 people were killed, and the remnants fled back to the county under the leadership of Lu Chaoan.

Zeng Lichang led his troops to attack Juye County, and Zhu Yunchang, the magistrate of Juye, and Xin Benqi, a scholar, led a regiment to practice and defend. Zeng Lichang relied on his superior forces to launch a fierce attack, and finally broke through the city gate. Zhu Yunchang and Juye County's teachings, canonical history, foreign commissions, generals, and regimental training leaders were all captured and killed by the Taiping army.

Chong'en, the acting governor of Shandong, hurriedly reported to Xianfeng, saying that the Taiping army was strong and unstoppable, and urgently asked for reinforcements.

But how can there be soldiers to send at this time? Unless the Shengbao army besieging Qin Rigang or the Mongol iron cavalry of Monk Lingqin were sent, but in this way, wouldn't Qin Rigang's Northern Expeditionary Army be released? Xianfeng naturally wouldn't do this, so Xianfeng issued a holy decree in succession, urging Shengbao and Seng Lingqin to forcibly conquer Jinghai City at any cost, and strive to exterminate the Taiping army of the Northern Expedition as soon as possible, and then return to the south to annihilate the Taiping reinforcements.

At the same time, Xianfeng officially appointed Chong'en as the governor of Shandong, and ordered him to supervise the prefectures and counties in Shandong to organize regimental training and jointly attack the invading Taiping army reinforcements. At the same time, more than 5,000 local soldiers were also mobilized from Henan, plus more than 20,000 local green battalion soldiers and regimental training in Shandong, and they were arranged on the front line of Zhili and Lubei to block the northern expeditionary reinforcements from going north, so as to gain time for the Northern Expeditionary Army of Seng Lingqin and Shengbao's army to enter Jinghai.

When Zeng Lichang went north along the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal, and the Qing soldiers in this area only had a small number of local battalions and militia groups to support the defense line, the troops were extremely weak, and the reinforcements repeatedly attacked the city and captured more than ten prefectures and counties, occupied Liaocheng, the seat of Dongchang Mansion, and went north to attack Linqingzhou City.

Shanlu, the general of Suiyuan, and Chongen, the governor of Shandong, joined forces, totaling nearly 30,000 people, and saw that the Taiping army had 50,000 reinforcements, and they did not dare to fight head-on, so they all withdrew into Linqing City.

More and more reinforcements from the Taiping army have reached more than 60,000 people, approaching Linqing City. And some of the green battalion soldiers in Linqing City, when they heard that the Taiping army reinforcements were coming, they were in a panic, and dozens of people fled every day.

Seeing this situation, Chong'en, the governor of Shandong, knew that Linqing City could not be defended, but he received a detailed report that among the 60,000 reinforcements, only 15,000 were the original real Taiping army, and the rest were the twisted army and the blind stream of hungry people who were absorbed all the way. So, I came up with an idea.

On the same day, the governor of Shandong, Chong'en, and the general Shanlu, the general of Suiyuan, led 30,000 Qing soldiers in the city and took the initiative to withdraw from Linqing City. In addition, before leaving, he also threw all the money, silk cloth and other things in the official treasury of Linqing around the city, causing chaos.

When Zeng Lichang and others led 60,000 Taiping troops into the city, nearly 40,000 of them had only joined the Taiping Army for a few days.

Zeng Lichang and others ordered all of them to be handed over, but no one paid attention.

Because most of these recruits retained their original organizations and leaders, they were unwilling to obey the command and restraint of the Taiping army leaders, and wantonly undermined military discipline.

In Linqing City, not only looted the property on the ground, but also looted the people, rushed into the houses, killed the residents in the city, robbed the property and women, and even attacked the Taiping Army inspectors who came to stop it.

The recruits who grabbed the money no longer wanted to go north, but "secretly made a pact with each other, thousands of groups, and absconded one after another." The Taiping soldiers pursued and persuaded them, but they were injured instead.

In the end, there were less than 30,000 Taiping troops left in Linqing City, and nearly half of them fled.

At this time, the food and gunpowder in Linqing City had already been hidden or moved away by the troops led by Chong'en and Shanlu, and the food and gunpowder of the Taiping Army's reinforcements were "increasingly scarce", resulting in a serious shortage of supplies, and the continuous escape of new soldiers made matters worse.

When the governor of Shandong, Chong'en, and the general of Suiyuan, Shanlu, led people to ambush in a dangerous place in the Beijing-Hangzhou Canal, the only way to reinforce troops in the north, Zeng Lichang, Chen Shibao, and Xu Zongyang were divided into three armies in the front, middle, and rear respectively through the ambush, and the Qing soldiers opened artillery ambushes on both sides of the river valley, cutting off the Chinese army from the middle, and the guns and cannons were fired together. (To be continued.) )