In mid-August, Luo Zenan, Wang Zhu, the main founders of the Hunan Army in Wuchang City, led a cadre of Xiangxiang generals to leave Wuchang and return to Xiangxiang. Pen? Interesting? Pavilion wWw. ｂiquge。 Info Subsequently, Chen Yucheng led the 3rd Division, Peng Yulin led the 7th and 10th Divisions, and Wei Jun and Zhang Zipeng, who surrendered, led the original Taiping Water Division, a total of 45,000 soldiers, to break through Wuchang City in late August. Zeng Guofan committed suicide, but all the officers and soldiers of the Hunan army under the temporary order surrendered to the capture army, except for Bao Chao, Li Xuyi, Chu Ruhang and Xia Luan, the four generals who were loyal to the Manchu Qing Dynasty and all died in battle, the rest of the Hunan army generals all surrendered! In addition, there was also the captured governor of the northern part of the country, Qinglin, who also surrendered to the Holy Kingdom.

Subsequently, at the beginning of September, the 3rd and 7th Divisions and 5,000 Wei Jun Taiping troops marched into Henan together, and now they have occupied Gwangju and Xinyang, and are marching to Nanyang, Runing, and Yingzhou.

In the westernmost land of Sichuan and Shu, Liang Litai led the fourth division and Luo Qiongshu led the sixth division, one north and one south, to attack the city of Qingfu. Along the Yangtze River, they captured Kuizhou Mansion, Chungju Zhili Prefecture, Shiqi Hall and Xuzhou Mansion, Luzhou, Yongchuan Jiangjin and other places, but the city of Lingqing was unusually strong and unusually strong, and by mid-September, it had not been able to conquer it.

On the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal on the East Road, the march of the captive army on this road was the most bumpy and tortuous.

After crossing the Yangtze River, the 3rd and 6th Divisions and the 1st Division led by the Shi brothers, nearly 40,000 soldiers on land and water, were taken refuge by Li Zhenhui, the sailor of the Taiping Army, and defeated the Qing soldiers in the camp of the Sanchao River, and jointly broke through the camp in the north of the Jiangbei River, killing more than 4,000 Qing troops, capturing more than 9,000 people, and capturing countless people. Then, in early September, they besieged the city of Yangzhou.

The two governors of Liangjiang, Yiliang, and the minister of the Qincha, Tomin'a, impeached and attacked each other, which angered Xianfeng, and both were removed from their official positions and retained in their posts.

Because the grain in Yangzhou City was transported to Jiangbei Ying, resulting in a shortage of grain in the city, Yiliang, the governor of Liangjiang who defended the city, and his subordinates, looted money and grain from the people in the city, looted on a large scale, and finally forced the local wealthy people in Yangzhou City to be overwhelmed, and secretly organized the villagers and Tuanyong to act as internal responses, and contacted the captive army outside the city to attack the city together, and with the cooperation of the local villagers in the city, they conquered Yangzhou City in mid-September.

Governor Yiliang of Jiang committed suicide by swallowing gold, Lei Yiyun, the servant of the Criminal Department, and Chen Jinshoucheng, the commander of the Criminal Department, were killed in battle, and the commander-in-chief Chen Shengyuan and Qin Dingsan surrendered to the captive army. And Jiangnan Admiral Hechun took advantage of the chaos to make up and escaped, and defected to Tuo Ming'a, who had fled to Baoying City.

Subsequently, at the end of September, the 3rd and 6th Divisions and the surrendered Taiping soldiers captured Gaoyou, Baoying and other cities all the way, and went north all the way to prepare to besiege Huai'an Mansion.

In order to attack the captive army, the Qing demon actually ignored the area along the canal from Qingjiangpu to Banzha, Yangjiamiaoji and Huai'an Fucheng, where nearly 600,000 people gathered, and brazenly broke the Yellow River and flooded the entire water system around Huai'an Prefecture.

Fortunately, the canal was connected to the Yellow River, and it was only after the sluice gates that the water of the Yellow River began to surge down into the city of Huai'an and the dense river network everywhere. Although there is a barrier restriction of the plate gate, after all, it is the water breach of the Yellow River, even if it is a small breach, it will still submerge the entire low-lying Huai'an urban area.

Fortunately, there were a small number of sailors of the 10th Division and a large number of ships of the Taiping Army's Sailor Li Zhenhui, and the losses of the captured officers and men were not too heavy, but they still caused the 3rd and 6th Divisions to be swallowed up by the flood to nearly 1,500 people, and the military rations and captured property along the way were all washed away by the flood.

The most tragic is the people in the towns and villages outside Huai'an Mansion and along the canal, where tens of thousands of homes were destroyed, tens of thousands of people were swept away by the flood, and thousands of corpses floated on the water. For a time, in the entire Huai'an Mansion, corpses were everywhere, crying everywhere. And, most crucially, when the food ran out, and as soon as the flood receded, there was famine and pestilence, and many more people were afraid of dying.

This decision of the Qing Demon has indeed achieved their goal, and the captive army is unable to continue to march north. The prefect of Huai'an Prefecture, Heng Lian, led his cronies to flee, and Gu Siyao, the magistrate of Shanyang County, led the squires and people to open Huai'an City to surrender and beg for the army. Although it occupied the city of Huai'an without effort, it also took over a huge burden.

However, the captive army, led by the generals led by Lin Qirong, organized a rescue. Hundreds of boats came to the rescue of the people who were shipwrecked and moved the flooded people of the city to higher ground.

Fortunately, Gu Siyao, the magistrate of Shanyang, was regarded as a Qing official of the people, and he was extremely disappointed that the Qing court behaved like this, regardless of the people's deliberate breach of the Yellow River, and saw that the soldiers of the captive army treated the people very much, so he led the villagers to cooperate with the soldiers of the captive army to maintain law and order in the city, and actively pacify and rescue the people.

Huai'an Prefecture had a natural burst of the Yellow River four years ago, when Hongze Lake and Liutang River overflowed, and the highest water level of Hongze Lake also let Huai'an City enter the water, and Xianfeng began to have a great drought in the north, the canal was cut off, the ditch and pond were waterless, the surface was cracked, and the wilderness was burning. The Huaihe River valley was plagued by locusts again, the flying locusts covered the sun, the black pressure was pressing, the black was heavy, rolling into hidden thunder, the teeth and teeth were gnawed at the transit, and the grass seedlings and trees were exhausted.

After the disaster, Huai'an has not recovered until now, and in the face of this flood, the people thought that there was no way to live, and did not want to be actively relieved by the army, and even half of the general's rations were taken out to provide disaster relief, and countless people were alive, so that the people in Huai'an had countless lives.

So, the countryside ran to tell each other, everyone was angry at the brutality and crime of the Qing court, praised the generosity and kindness of the holy country, and treated the people well, for a time, the capture army was greatly boosted, the villagers provided Manchu intelligence to the capture army, and the Tangxun sentinels stationed in various places were captured and seized by the villagers and handed over to the capture army for processing.

When the flood receded, the army stationed in the area of Huai'an Fucheng for half a month joined more than 20,000 young men from Shanyang to serve as brave and strong soldiers, and accompanied them all the way to the north.

Lin Qirong and others led the soldiers of the captive army to fight out from Hongze Lake and the canal, entered the Yellow River, and defeated the Qing soldiers of less than 10,000 led by Shengbao. With the support of the people around Huai'an, the captured army was divided into two routes, respectively along the Yellow River and the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal to the west and north, marching to Shensu, and the third division and more than 10,000 Taiping troops attacked Xuzhou Fucheng; The 6th Division and Li Zhenhui's Naval Division, together with Shanyang Zhuangyong, captured Suqian and Pizhou all the way and entered the Shandong boundary.

Feng Yunshan watched the march of the soldiers of the southern army, and while he was overjoyed, he was angry at the fact that the Qing demon had dug up the Yellow River.

"Xianfeng, Shengbao, you are really digging your own grave when you do such a miserable thing!" Feng Yunshan said angrily. He was really angry, he tried every possible way to rush to the Yellow River, to prepare for the disaster relief of the Yellow River in the coming year, the Manchu Qing Dynasty was good, but in order to attack the enemy, the Yellow River was artificially broken.

Zuo Zongtang also said angrily: "Your Majesty is compassionate and compassionate, and he is really the lord of benevolence. Now Weichen has realized His Majesty's painstaking efforts to conquer the Yellow River in the first place when he was desperate to go on a northern expedition. ”

Feng Yunshan waved his hand, signaling Zuo Zongtang to stop patting on the back, and said directly: "It seems that the number of my captive army is no longer enough. There are many places occupied, and troops must be used everywhere, and the troops are stretched. Moreover, I want to pacify the Central Plains as soon as possible and completely sweep away the Manchu forces. Ji Gao, what is your best plan? ”

On his side, only Zuo Zongtang is full of strategy, and the rest, even Shi Dakai and Luo Xuan, although they have a good tactical vision, they still lack strategy. As for other generals such as Lin Fengxiang, they could only lead their troops to fight.

Therefore, Feng Yunshan was naturally overjoyed when he learned that Zeng Guofan committed suicide and ordered his subordinates to return to the Holy Kingdom before he died. His men are full of talent, but they are all proven by later history. It is most suitable to recruit him as a staff member, and now that he has ascended the throne as the emperor, he is not afraid of his refusal.

The original hatred for Zeng Guofan's killing of Zeng Tianyang also decreased a lot with his suicide and the final surrender of the generals of the Hunan army.

"Your Majesty, Weichen thinks that now, on the one hand, we can take advantage of the great opportunity of the new dynasty and Your Majesty's accession to the throne to recruit troops in the original southern provinces, expand the scale of the army, and at the same time order the arsenal to hurry up the production of firearms and arm the army. As long as a number of local garrisons are recruited, all the original local garrisons such as the Guangdong Military Region and the Munan Military Region will be upgraded to field armies, and the combined troops will be converted into second-class divisions, so that the problem of insufficient troops can be quickly compensated. ”

"Second, it is to go all out to recruit the local officials of the Manchu Dynasty! This is a move that kills two birds with one stone. ”

…… ps: I recommend a book by the great god Crimson Moon: Ge Song.