Chapter 210: The Northern Expeditionary Army is destroyed

Lin Fengxiang built a wooden city in Lianzhen, dug a deep trench to block tens of thousands of iron horsemen from monk Lingqin outside the city.

Relying on the deep trenches and fortifications to maneuver with the Qing army, the Qing army failed to break through Lin Fengxiang's defense line for several months, and the scorching offensive and defensive battles made Lin Fengxiang gradually transform from a fierce general who charged into battle into a wise general who was good at defense.

"Young man, yes, this is the head of the Qing Demon General, what's your name?" Lin Fengxiang found a young player in a defensive counterattack.

"His subordinate Tan Shaoguang turned out to be a swordsman next to King Xi." Tan Shaoguang is not very old, the young man is dark-skinned, very strong, and extremely brave in battle.

"How old are you?" Lin Fengxiang continued to ask.

"Just turned seventeen." Tan Shaoguang said embarrassedly, because he had dark skin, and most people couldn't tell his age.

"Still so young!" Lin Fengxiang sighed.

That night, Lin Fengxiang summoned three or four hundred children under the age of 18 in the army and said loudly to them: "Prime Minister Li Chengxiang has lost contact with us, and now I will give you a task, and you will now go south to find Prime Minister Li Cheng." If you find it, you will go south with Prime Minister Li Cheng, and if you can't find it, you must also go south, go back to Tianjing to report our situation, and don't come back. Lin Fengxiang plans to entrust these children to Li Kaifang.

"Prime Minister Lin, if we don't leave, I still have to fight with everyone!" Tan Shaoguang was older, and he knew that Lin Fengxiang was driving them away.

"Tan Shaoguang, these children will be handed over to you, this is the seed of our Western King Xiao Chaogui's old department." Lin Fengxiang grabbed Tan Shaoguang's shoulders tightly and entrusted these children to him.

"Prime Minister Lin Cheng 。。。。。。" Tan Shaoguang wanted to say something.

"Don't talk about it, bring more food and save some food on the way. Change all the costumes of the Taiping Army into the clothes of the common people, and I will let people cover your breakthrough later. It's so far away from Tianjing, you must go back alive. That's an order! Lin Fengxiang said emotionally.

After bidding farewell to Tan Shaoguang's hundreds of children, a cronie military commander next to him couldn't help but ask: "Prime Minister Lin, is there no reinforcement coming?" ”

"We're all old brothers, I don't want to lie to you, there should be no reinforcements coming, and the deep ditch dug by the Qing Demon outside the city is almost complete, and we won't be able to break through immediately." It doesn't matter if we are loyal to the kingdom of heaven, those children can't die here, let them tell the king of heaven and the king of the east that our Northern Expeditionary Army has done its best, remember to burn some paper money for us in the future. "Lin Fengxiang has realized the degree of difficulty in the future and is ready to sacrifice.

"Prime Minister Lin, our brothers don't want to be born in the same year and month, but to die in the same year and month, let's come out of Guangxi together, everyone is here today, if you want to bury it together!" The commander responded.

As Lin Fengxiang expected, Seng Lingqin dug a deep ditch and began to divert water from the canal in Texas upstream to irrigate Lianzhen.

At first, the Taiping army's stronghold in the villages on the outskirts of Lianzhen was flooded, and they had to retreat to the city of Lianzhen, but the river continued to pour in. Lin Fengxiang's supply line was cut off, the grain was soaked in water, and it was soon soaked, and the Taiping army began to run out of food.

Once the army ran out of food, the morale of the army began to be unstable. Monk Lingqin seized the opportunity and distributed death-free cards everywhere, as long as those who surrendered with the sign were exempt from death. In the face of the temptation of the Qing army, a small number of recruits recruited in Henan, Anhui and other places began to surrender one after another, among which the spy Shi Shaoheng also told the monk king the contact code of Lin Fengxiang and Li Kaifang.

As a result, Lin Fengxiang saw the code, thinking that Li Kaifang came to help, and was deceived out of the city and was ambushed by the monks and kings, and lost many brothers.

In such a difficult environment, the Taiping army ate tree bark, grass roots, and even the corpses of the Qing army without food, and resisted for another three months.

During this period, Monk Lingqin constantly let the surrenderers rush to the front and be cannon fodder. Later, seeing that the effect was not great, I knew that it was already this time, and those who were willing to surrender had also surrendered, and these people had no use value, so they killed all the hundreds of rebels who surrendered in one go.

Lin Fengxiang took the last 2,000 old brothers who ran out of ammunition and food to fight desperately with tens of thousands of Qing troops, but they were outnumbered, and everyone fought until the last moment, half of them died under the sabers and guns of the Qing army, and half of them committed suicide by throwing themselves into the canal.

Lin Fengxiang was seriously injured and unable to move, so he was hidden in the cellar by his subordinates and escaped for three days. In the end, he was found by the Qing army who dug three feet into the ground, and Seng Lingqin was unwilling to catch a dead man, so he sent a military doctor to treat him and renew his life. Then put it in a prisoner cart and sent it to the capital, and Emperor Xianfeng ordered Ling Chi to be executed.

Lin Fengxiang's demeanor was calm when he was executed, and the executioner scraped his flesh with a knife, but he didn't groan, nor did he look afraid, nor did he say a word of begging for mercy, until the flesh was cut off and the blood was drained, and he was not a good man in the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom.

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On the other hand, after Li Kaifang saw Tan Shaoguang and others, he understood what Lin Fengxiang meant, and wanted to leave seeds for the Western King and the Northern Expeditionary Army. He also asked Tan Shaoguang to take two or three hundred children under the age of eighteen in his army to leave and go south to Tianjing. Then he turned around and continued to fight Katsuho, who was besieging him.

This Shengbao is playing tricks, and the battle is far inferior to that of Monk Greenqin, and there is no way for tens of thousands of foot cavalry to take Li Kaifang's more than 1,000 people, and they can't attack Gaotang for a few months. Every day I write about some non-existent victories and fool Emperor Xianfeng.

After the fall of Lin Fengxiang of Lianzhen, the imperial court made a comparison, reprimanded Shengbao, who had made no progress, removed him from his post as a messenger, and let the monk king take over his team and continue to attack Gaotang.

Monk Greenqin still uses the old method of diverting water for irrigation. However, the water here is not very easy to channel, and it is far from the canal. But the monk didn't care, he mobilized tens of thousands of people, dug for more than a month, and finally succeeded in diverting water.

After more than a month of repeated attacks, Li Kaifang, who had run out of ammunition and food, finally couldn't resist it, and in the end there were only more than 80 people left, and they were captured by Monk Greenqin.

His ending was the same as Lin Fengxiang, he was put into a prisoner car, sent to the capital, and executed by Ling Chi. After the Taiping Army, important generals were captured, and the end was Ling Chi's execution, which shows that the Qing court hated the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom to the core.

The Northern Expeditionary Army held out in the north for such a long time, it can be said that they did their best to deal with the Qing army, and in the end, the whole army was destroyed, and Lin and Li could not be blamed.

The cold climate in the north is difficult for southerners to adapt to, the Great Plain of North China is not conducive to infantry-based Taiping army field battles, the north is close to the imperial city, it is difficult to communicate languages, and the mass base is weak, so it is impossible to get sufficient supplementary support. The time, place, and people were not in the Taiping Army, and the number of people was only more than 20,000, and there was no leading marshal to take unified command, this was a battle that was bound to be lost.

In the history of China before this, only Zhu Yuanzhang, the founding emperor of the Ming Dynasty, won from the south to the north, and finally won.