Here, Tao Huan, who returned to Changsha City, was found by the captive army in Changsha City the next day, and under the arrangement of the fine work, the two sides discussed a solution to rescue Zuo Xiaoyu. Pen, fun, pavilion www. biquge。 info

A day later, Mrs. Luo, who believed in Buddhism, took Zuo Xiaoyu and a retinue to Kaifu Temple, which was burned down by the Taiping army last year, to check on the reconstruction of Kaifu Temple. Kaifu Temple is located in the northwest corner of Changsha outside the city, because the fourth division of the first division is still in the west of the river at this time, has not yet set up a pontoon bridge to cross the river, the west of the city is still a piece of tranquility.

Mrs. Luo and Zuo Xiaoyu entered Kaifu Temple, and Zuo Xiaoyu secretly hid from a carefully arranged cellar next to the latrine under the pretext of wanting a little relief.

Mrs. Luo sent someone to search for a long time but didn't find it, so she had no choice but to return to the city and hurriedly told Luo Bingzhang. Luo Bingzhang was shocked, and hurriedly sent someone to Kaifu Temple in the middle of the night to find someone, and at the same time called someone to find Tao Huan, but was told that Tao Huan had disappeared in the afternoon.

Luo Bingzhang understood that there were spies in the city and rescued Tao Huan and others, so he asked the Qing soldiers in the city to take strict precautions and guard the city gate.

The next day, the 4th Division set up a floating ball, drove into the east of the river, occupied a piece of the west of the city, rescued Zuo Xiaoyu, who had been hiding for a day, and sent it to the Chengnan Academy, where she was greeted by her husband Tao Wei and father Zuo Zongtang.

Now, Zuo Zongtang and Luo Bingzhang, who originally had a deep friendship in history, have now become irreconcilable enemies.

The time entered the middle of June of the lunar calendar, and the weather began to get hot.

After besieging Changsha for nearly half a month, more than 30 heavy artillery pieces transported from the direction of Hengzhou finally arrived outside Changsha, and Zuo Zongtang ordered all divisions to prepare for a general attack.

And Chen Yucheng, the commander of the 3rd Division, the most powerful force, looked at Xiang Yong in the trench opposite, and finally began his whimsical strategy to break the enemy.

More than 1,000 people from the two artillery regiments of the 3rd Division pushed 20 heavy guns to the trench, and the part where the artillery was erected in the camp of the Qing army was bombarded.

The artillery fire sounded the general horn of the attack, and Xiang Yong immediately returned fire, but Xiang Yong's heavy artillery was erected on the forts on the four corners of Changsha City and the tower of Tianxin Pavilion, and the large camp behind the trench were some small and medium-sized cupola cannons, earth cannons and three-section copper cannons, etc., the range and power were not large, and they could only watch the artillery bombardment of the captured army.

In desperation, Zeng Guofan ordered Luo Zenan and Wang Xin's two battalions to retreat to the side of the city wall in the east of the city, while the three battalions of Taqibu, Li Yuandu, and Zeng Guoquan moved forward on the spot and rushed into the trench to avoid artillery fire, and at the same time resisted the next charge of the captive army.

Seeing that the Hunan army had abandoned the camp and had no artillery threat, the captives launched a further attack.

I saw Chen Yucheng give an order, and the 400 soldiers of the special operations regiment of the Third Division of the First Division mobilized hundreds of people around them, carrying oval-shaped clay pots, which were filled with weeds soaked in tung oil and vegetable oil, rotten cloth strips, and other things, and then the engineering regiment launched more than 20 small stone-throwing vehicles that had been prepared long ago and erected them more than 100 steps away from the trench.

At this distance, even if Xiang Yong in the trench fires a shotgun, it is difficult to hurt him.

The people put the clay pot into the pocket of the stone throwing car, and under the order of the engineer corps commander, more than 20 jars of clay pots were thrown into the air, crossed a beautiful parabola, and fell into the trench where Xiang Yong was hiding, and the clay pot was broken, revealing the oil-stained grass and cloth bag that was wrapped into a ball inside, and rolled into the trench.

Li Yuandu didn't see it well, so he hurriedly ordered Xiangyong to throw the oil balls that rolled into the trench, but the grass balls became rolling and scattered, and there were some scattered in the trench, and for a while, where did he have time to throw them all out at once?

At this time, something happened that shocked Li Yuandu and the Xiangyong in the trench!

I saw that in front of the trench, hundreds of small things on fire squeaked and rushed into the trench. All of a sudden, he set fire to the straw bales and strips of cloth soaked in tung oil that had fallen everywhere in the trenches.

Suddenly, the trench intermittently formed into sections of bonfires, blocking the movement of people.

Chen Yucheng was relieved to see these rats soaked in vegetable oil and on fire all over their bodies, rushing into the trench to cause a fire: "Burn to death these Hunan barbarians who can only dig ditches everywhere!" ”

Subsequently, let the four main infantry regiments press on the whole line, rushed up the trench with foreign guns, and saw Xiang Yong rushing out of the trench is a burst of shooting.

Although there were not many fires in the trench, the sporadic fires and smoke produced made Xiang Yong, who was hiding in the ditch, cough violently.

At this time, Xiang Yong in the ditch no longer had his usual calmness, either in a hurry to put out the fire, or in dodging the flames, in a panic, how could he still have the heart to shoot and aim at the rushing enemy? Coupled with the noisy sound and the smoke filling, where can the orders of the battalion sentry officers be distinguished?

Moreover, the trebuchet was still throwing grass balls, which continued to cause the trench to burn even more vigorously. Xiang Yong, who couldn't bear it anymore, withdrew to the city wall under the orders of three sentinels, including Taqibu, Li Yuandu, and Zeng Guoquan. Relying on the forts of the castle tower, he finally stabilized the position.

Zeng Guofan's face was tired, the battle was not going well, and the situation was very bad, so he could only order the battalions to dig trenches again more than 70 steps away from the city wall to block the attack of the captive army.

Even now, he still doesn't want to go into the city and defend it! What he wanted was to cooperate with the Qing soldiers of the city tower and annihilate the enemy under the city wall in the future. Even if the war is not smooth, you can come and go freely and withdraw to Yuezhou. Now Changsha City is no longer his lair, as early as the Guangdong bandits attacked Hengzhou Mansion, he moved the base camp to Yuezhou, everything revolves around training Yuezhou's sailors.

Of course, what saddened him the most was that his hometown Xiangxiang was attacked by Cantonese thieves. The Guangdong thieves took advantage of his defeat and retreat from the capital of Hengzhou, and took advantage of the situation to capture Xiangxiang, he wanted to lead the troops to rescue, but helplessly, Xiangxiang had no city to defend, and the Guangdong thieves were too strong, he knew that he was powerless to resist, and he had no choice but to take his family to Changsha.

When he knew that the ancestral house was insulted by the thief named Chen Yucheng with filth, Zeng Guofan vomited blood at the beginning! He knew that he was invincible, but he also jumped up and led Xiangyong to fight with the Yue thieves, but was stopped by Luo Zenan and others.

Then, the Cantonese thieves prepared for a period of time and came to attack Changsha again, he wanted to secretly send his family to Yuezhou, but the old father who came out of his hometown in Xiangxiang was already very dissatisfied, and he was unwilling to leave the country again no matter what. Helpless, Zeng Guofan could only defend Changsha City, hoping to hold back the Guangdong thieves first and wait for Wuchang's rescue.

At the same time that the battle broke out at the Xiangyong trench in the southeast corner, a large-scale siege battle also began in the south of the city, which was the main direction of attack. Su Sanniang led more than 600 soldiers of the 7th Division to push shoulders and pull three huge cannons up to the high ground of Cai Gong's tomb, while the remaining two giant cannons and six heavy artillery pieces were side by side outside the south gate of the city, and began to bombard the forts in the city tower and the city corner.

Both sides were reluctant to send soldiers to forcibly rush to death, so they each opened artillery bombardment, and for a time the south of Changsha City was full of gunfire and gunsmoke.

At this moment, the Fourth Division in the west of the city, under the leadership of Liang Litai, stormed the only Qing army northwest corner fort outside Changsha City. The Qing army in the city supported one after another, but the 4th Division was extremely brave, guns and cannons were fired, and after a fierce battle, the Qing army was in a strong position, and the fort was crumbling but not broken.

In desperation, Liang Litai was about to order a retreat.

There was a sudden violent explosion next to the south gate of the city, but it turned out to be Su Sanniang's Seventh Division, and finally dug a tunnel from the south of the city academy to the city wall. Ignited explosives and blew down the city walls.

It turned out that Su Sanniang dug three tunnels in the south of the city, but Luo Bingzhang, the governor of the city guards, is very old-fashioned, he summed up the lessons of digging tunnels when the Taiping army captured Changsha last year, and let people dig soil pits at intervals of more than 100 meters under each section of the city wall early, and bury large urns in the soil pits, so that people listen day and night, and when they hear the sound of excavation, they dig holes to fill sewage and smoke poisonous smoke.

As a result, Su Sanniang's two tunnels dug into the city were destroyed. Not only that, Luo Bingzhang also ordered people to patrol day and night, find out where there is something unusual in the city in time, and discover the excavation tunnel as early as possible.

However, even so, the rest of the soldiers were led by the engineer regiment of the 7th Division of the First Division to quietly dig a crypt and go straight to the city wall.

After the city wall was blown up, the two main infantry regiments of the Fourth Army took the lead, holding foreign guns and rushing towards the city wall, while the soldiers of the Seventh Division of the First Division, under the leadership of Su Sanniang, also rushed to the breach of the city wall.

Hundreds of green battalion Qing soldiers blocked the city wall, but from a long distance, they were fired directly by hundreds of foreign guns from the rushing captive army, and they all threw themselves on the ground and screamed. The rest of the green battalion soldiers saw that the firepower of the begging army was so fierce, they shouted in unison, and they scattered and wanted to flee in all directions, at this time, a battalion of Xiangyong, under the leadership of Li Yibin, killed from the side, took the initiative to rush out of the gap in the city wall, armed with shotguns and spears, and rushed towards the oncoming begging army.

Xiang Yong's brave fight, although he put himself in danger, also prevented the captives from rushing into the city.

At this time, hearing the news, Luo Bingzhang hurriedly arrived and shouted: "Plug the gap for this official!" Whoever carries a stone to block the gap in the wall will be rewarded with nine hundred copper coins, both in the people and in the brave soldiers. ”

Suddenly, the people in the city carried stones to block the city wall, at this time, someone in the crowd suddenly shouted: "Don't listen to the dog official, the heavenly soldiers said, go home separately, if anyone helps the government defend the city, after breaking through Changsha City, it will be the same crime as the Manchu Tartars!" ”

Someone also mixed in the crowd and shouted: "Yes, the money has been spent by the dog officials, where is the money to be rewarded?" It's all a lie to us, unless you give money first! ”

Luo Bingzhang hated, where could he get the money first at this time? He hurriedly shouted: "Come on, arrest this thief and traitor!" ”

But I saw several people in the crowd yelling: "The dog officer wants to arrest people and send them to death!" Run! "But it was Zhou Guoyu, the leader of the Zhengyi Hall who had joined the captive army, and others who took the opportunity to create chaos. Where can the people around them tell which sentence is true and which is false? I just felt that the people who shouted this were all Changsha local accents, and the villagers believed it, so everyone fled in panic, and the city was in chaos.

At this time, the 500 people of the Xiangyong Battalion led by Li Yibin outside the city had been killed by the First Regiment of the 3rd Division of the First Division, which enjoyed the power of being shot in line, and Li Yibin, who was red-eyed, felt great pain in his heart. A few days ago, his brother Li Xubin was killed by the captive army, and now hundreds of his brothers have died tragically under their guns, so it is better to fight with them.

At this time, a guard next to him shouted: "General Li, your lordship let us protect the family in the city, how can we send them to death in vain, Changsha City can't hold it, it is better to hurry back to the city to protect the adult's family out of the city." ”

Li Yibin remembered his mission, roared angrily, and unwillingly led the remaining more than 100 Xiangyong to flee into the city.

The soldiers of the 3rd Division followed closely behind, swarming in from the collapsed city wall and rushing into the city of Changsha. (To be continued.) )