The history is sparse, I don't know how long the Northern Expeditionary Army of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom has held out in the north in history, and the main force of the Taiping Army in the south retreat suddenly stopped in the small city of Lianzhen, which of course surprised Wu Chaoyue and was completely caught off guard.

Wu Chaoyue has actually been quietly releasing water, originally with the strong mobility of Wu Jun's training and bravery, it is not difficult for the rapid march to forcibly penetrate in front of the main force of the Taiping Army, and even if the main force of the Taiping Army cannot be annihilated at that time, at least the Taiping Army can pay a heavy price for it. But out of sympathy for the Northern Expeditionary Army of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, as well as bitter hatred for the Tartar court, Wu Chaoyue never did this, and always followed behind the Taiping Army without using real strength, and would rather suffer more and make less meritorious contributions to quietly take the Taiping Army, leaving a way for Li Kaifang and Ji Wenyuan and other anti-Qing fighters.

However, the blind man was shown that the Taiping army was still extremely stubborn and stopped in Lianzhen, relying on a thin rammed earth city wall to compete with Wu Chaoyue, and immediately began to dig trenches to build city fortifications, and put on a posture of staying in Lianzhen for a long time. Wu Chaoyue kindly launched an attack, wanting to force the Taiping army to continue to flee south, but was also met with desperate resistance by the Taiping army, paying the price of dead and wounded, and at the same time, Wu Jun Lianyong, who had no time to prepare the offensive weapons, also temporarily took the rammed earth city wall without any way, Deleke Selen's cavalry could not play any role in the battle, Wu Chaoyue had no choice but to temporarily stop the attack, waiting for the arrival of the main force of the Qing army.

On the second night of the Taiping army arriving in Lianzhen, an unknown number of Taiping troops rode on the opportunity that the main force of the Qing army had not yet arrived, and suddenly left the main force and went south alone. When Wu Chaoyue analyzed the intention of the Taiping Army's move, he immediately suspected that the Taiping Army was using the main force to contain itself, and to use the elite to go south first to find a stable foothold, and then the main force broke through to join the partial division, and continued to confront the Qing army in the north for a long time with a stable foothold.

"Why are Li Kaifang and Ji Wenyuan so stubborn? Why didn't they want to think about how far this was from their old nest Nanjing, even if Yang Xiuqing really sent reinforcements to them, it was just a chance for the Manchu court to encircle the point and send reinforcements? Go back to the south and fight steadily, and first take down these grain-producing areas in Jianghuai and Anhui is the king! ”

Gritting his teeth and hating the short-sightedness of the Taiping army's strategic vision, holding the last ray of hope, Wu Chaoyue took the initiative to send someone to contact Seng Greenqin once, and told Seng Greenqin his analysis by letter, asking Monk Greenqin, who had a large number of cavalry, to bite the Taiping army's partial division at any cost, and not give the Taiping army a chance to seize a strong city and gain a foothold. At the same time, Wu Chaoyue forced Delek Selen to lead the cavalry to attack again, striving to bite the tail of the Taiping army's partial division.

Of course, Wu Chaoyue's letter was torn to pieces by the monk Greenqin - the current situation of our monk and prince is a little bad, but it has not yet fallen to the point of listening to the command of a four-grade Taoist platform. After roaring and scolding, Monk Greenqin not only did not listen to Wu Chaoyue's correct advice to follow and contain, but on the contrary, he also led his cavalry to intercept and use the cavalry to fight a positional defensive battle. Outcome......

As a result, of course, suffered a big loss, from Yangzhou all the way to here, the Taiping army has also established a cavalry team, although it is not as good as the cavalry under the command of the monk in terms of horsemanship, but the fighting spirit is high-spirited and firm, all dare to fight white-edged battles, only one charge, the Taiping cavalry riding a horse will be able to crush the monk under the command of those pampered Manchurian cavalry, the monk army defeat can not be controlled at all, the monk prince saw that the situation is not good, and he had to continue to smear oil on the soles of his feet. By the time Deleke Selen finally caught up with the scene, the Taiping army had already run away without a trace of the infantry.

Then the next is naturally a repeat of history, seeing the Taiping army suddenly killed, the Qing army in Dezhou and Enxian County was very conscientious to defend the city, and the Taiping army did not dare to stop and attack the city, but when the Taiping army continued to go south, the Qing army of Gaotang was frightened because of the fear, and actually opened the west gate to escape from the city, Li Kaifang took advantage of the situation to lead the army into the city, and easily took the city of Gaotang City, which was quite strong. The follow-up Deleke Selen was a little late, and when he arrived in the Tang Dynasty, the Taiping army had already controlled the city, so he could only look at the city and sigh, but the monk Lingqin, who was one step later than Delek Selen, was pale, knowing that another big black cauldron was destined to be buckled on his back.

Expected by the monk and the prince, when the news of Li Kaifang's capture of Gaotang was sent back to the battlefield of Lianzhen, it was just in time for Shengbao to arrive in Lianzhen with the main force of the Qing army to join Wu Chaoyue. In this regard, Wu Chaoyue of course frowned, worried that the Taiping Army would repeat the mistakes of history, but Shengbao was so smiling that he couldn't even close his mouth, and without saying a word, he impeached Monk Greenqin with a broken bullet, and directly deducted the basin that led to the fall of Gaotang on Monk Greenqin's head due to poor interception.

It is still a coincidence, on the same day, the holy decree of the Xianfeng Emperor on the war in Tianjin was also sent to Lianzhen, in the holy decree, the Xianfeng Emperor praised a pass of Shengbao and Wu Chaoyue's strength to break the city, and asked Shengbao and Wu Chaoyue to exterminate the rest of the Taiping Army as soon as possible and return to Beijing to be promoted and rewarded, and at the same time scolded the monk Greenqin who lost the camp baggage for his ineffective operation, and cut off the title of the county king and reduced it to Gushan Beizi, although he still let Monk Greenqin continue to make meritorious contributions in the army, but also clearly told Monk Greenqin that if he poked out anything else, Next time, it won't be as simple as a demotion to the first rank.

After listening to Emperor Xianfeng's holy decree, of course Shengbao was how happy he was to laugh - Emperor Xianfeng didn't know the good news that the monk had lost Gaotang again. Then Shengbao did not discuss with anyone, and immediately issued an order directly, dispatched troops to arrange the encirclement of Lianzhen, and very unceremoniously arranged Wu Jun Lianyong to camp directly south of Lianzhen, and let Wu Chaoyue be responsible for intercepting the Taiping army's southward road. At the same time, he also arranged for all armies to encircle Lianzhen on all sides, dig trenches and build earthen ramparts, preparing to completely trap the Taiping army in Lianzhen City first, and then launch an attack to break the city.

As for Gao Tang's side, of course, Sheng Bao unceremoniously kicked the ball directly to Seng Greenqin, and let Seng Greenqin be responsible for besieging and attacking Gao Tang City - Sheng Bao knew very well that with Monk Greenqin's ability and strength, he would never be able to take Gao Tang City, but this was also the situation that Sheng Bao wanted to see.

Wu Chaoyue was very reluctant to move the camp to the south of Lianzhen - not because he was afraid of being cannon fodder, but because he wanted to leave a way for the Taiping army to survive as much as possible. But there is no way, since Shengbao has already issued this order, Wu Chaoyue, as Shengbao's subordinate, and the relationship with Shengbao is in the honeymoon period, of course, he can only act obediently, and on the same day, he took Wu Jun Lianyong to move the camp to the south of Lianzhen.

Fortunately, Shengbao was also interesting enough for Wu Chaoyue, in addition to arranging for Dexing'a to lead the army to help Wu Chaoyue guard the southern line, the drudgery envoy who built the long trench embankment was not apportioned to Wu Chaoyue, and named Dexing'a's army to be responsible for civil engineering, so that Wu Chaoyue's tired division could rest for future battles. And Dexinga also knew very well that if the Taiping army really broke through to the south, if he wanted to block the Taiping army and gain military merits, he would have to rely on Wu Chaoding to fight a tough battle in front, so Dexinga naturally did not complain, and immediately accepted the task of being a coolie for Wu Chaoyue.

When the Qing army surrounded Lianzhen to overhaul the siege fortifications, the Taiping army soon exposed a huge tactical plan loophole - Li Kaifang and Ji Wenyuan could not make effective contact between the two armies, exchanging news with each other, Li Kaifang sent messengers north twice to contact Ji Wenyuan, so that Ji Wenyuan led the army to break through to the Gaotang Division. As a result, the two messengers were captured by the Qing army on the road, resulting in Ji Wenyuan knowing nothing about the situation in the south, in order to buy time for Li Kaifang to seize a firm foothold, he could only grit his teeth and continue to hold on in the small town of Lianzhen, missing the best opportunity to break through in vain, and also gave the Qing army time and opportunity to build fortifications to surround the Taiping army.

In this scene, Ji Wenyuan did not completely sit blindly and wait for death, taking advantage of the favorable terrain of Lianzhen Town across the canal, twice sent troops from Xilian Town, attacked the Qing army soldiers who were digging a long trench, and caused quite a lot of casualties to the Qing army, but the biggest advantage of the Qing army is that the manpower is almost infinite, and a large number of people around the city are constantly digging day and night, the progress of the project is quite fast, and the trench was built in only ten days, and a wall was built behind the trench, and the battle was condescending. Like an outer city, it completely surrounded the inner city of Lianzhen. At the same time, Shengbao also asked the Qing army to build water barriers at the north and south ends of the canal, and blocked the way for the Taiping army to flee from the waterway.

Half a month later, the Qing army's siege fortifications were successfully completed, considering that the New Year was approaching, in order to curry favor with the Xianfeng Emperor to be promoted to become rich, Shengbao also naturally shouted out the arrogant slogan of annihilating the Taiping army in Lianzhen before the New Year, and began to arrange the siege of the city at the same time, he couldn't wait to ask Wu Chaoyue to send artillery to bombard the town, destroy the civil fortifications built by the Taiping army and the houses in the city, so that the Taiping army could not accommodate in the town.

Unable to resist Shengbao's repeated urging, and in a very reluctant situation, Wu Chaoyue finally sent troops to launch an artillery battle against Lianzhen. Ten breech-loading rifled guns roared continuously, bombarding bitter acid shells into the small city of Lianzhen, and soon turning the periphery of Lianzhen into a sea of fire. Although the Taiping army also took out the artillery captured in the camp of Seng Lingqin to return fire, the gap in weapons was too great, and the technical superiority of the Wu army's artillery also completely offset the experience advantage of the Taiping army's gunners.

After killing the Taiping artillery with a portable grenadier, and then when Wu Jun Lianyong transported ten mortar cannons to the front to participate in the artillery battle, the Taiping army had no room for resistance, the cannonballs fired by the mortar parabola could directly cross the rammed earth city wall into the city, which could maintain a certain accuracy, and the charge was larger, only a few rounds of salvo fire turned the town into a sea of fire, the bitter acid flame that could not be extinguished by water was burning, and even the houses in the town collapsed one after another, and the Taiping soldiers ran to extinguish the fire in the sea of fire, but it had no effect. As a result, countless grains and grass were burned.

Unable to bear the situation of being completely abused by the Wu army's artillery, Ji Wenyuan once mustered up the courage to send troops to attack, attacking the Wu army's artillery position in a vain attempt to prevent the Wu army from continuing to open artillery. But it's a pity that Wu Jun Lian Yong is not afraid of the last thing is to fight a field battle with the Taiping Army, as soon as the hollow hedgehog array comes out, it has already made the Taiping Army who have suffered enough before the battle, even if he musters up the courage to rush to the front of the Wu Army's formation, it is only a chance to give Wu Jun to practice his marksmanship in vain, far away Wu Army snipers snipe the Taiping Army generals with Mini guns, close to the warm hospitality of the Pin Gun, and rush to the front of the Wu Army Formation at any time, and may be killed by Wu Jun Lian Yong's continuous fire revolver at any time. The formation is too loose, even if it rushes to the front of the Wu army, it can't stop Wu Jun Lianyong's bayonet stab, the number is too dense, Wu Jun Lianyong specially uses grenadiers and grenade shells to entertain, no matter how much the charge at any cost is a moth to the fire, except for leaving corpses all over the ground.

In the first battle of the same day, the Wu army's artillery fire almost leveled the interior of Lianzhen and the small city, and at the same time killed more than 800 soldiers of the Taiping Army in the field battle, but none of the soldiers were killed, and only less than 20 people were wounded. In the face of this overwhelming situation, Shengbao and Zaiyuan and other Qing army civil and military forces of course laughed, and Yifa firmly believed that Lianzhen would be able to break through before the New Year, and the morale of the Qing army was also high, and the morale of the army was excited. On the contrary, the Taiping army was depressed, demoralized, and the new soldiers who were not strong enough were even more desperate.

In the face of this situation, Shengbao was quite reasonable, and did not rush to cut off the heads of these surrendered soldiers, but also ordered to treat these surrendered Taiping soldiers well, and organized these surrendered soldiers to shout outside the city to persuade their comrades in the city to go out of the city and surrender. As a result, this hand naturally received satisfactory results, and after seeing the surrender, he could also save his life, not to mention that the new attached soldiers fled even more frantically, and even some veterans began to waver, and even began to appear in the bad behavior of officers leading non-commissioned officers to surrender out of the city.

In this regard, Wu Chaoyue, who originally wanted to deliberately release the water, had no choice but to quietly lament: "Ji Wenyuan, it's not that I don't want to let you go again, it's that you don't want to be angry, and you can't blame me." Forget it, let's find a way to help you get rid as soon as possible, so that you can die happily, and I will also borrow your head to promote more officials, and lay the foundation of a warlord as soon as possible. ”

Perhaps the despair was too early, but on the same day that Wu Chaoyue made up his mind not to show mercy to his subordinates, a far-reaching event suddenly happened in Shengbao's Chinese army tent......

The person who caused this incident was a banner general named Yukun, who turned out to be a subordinate of the former governor of Zhili, Nar, who returned to Shengbao's command after losing the Linwei Pass, and his performance under Shengbao's account was mediocre, and he was not very popular, but this day Yukun didn't know what medicine he had taken wrong, and when he asked to see Shengbao, he actually asked the Chinese army herald to bring Shengbao a silver ticket with five hundred taels of silver, Shengbao was of course overjoyed to see the silver ticket, and immediately met Yukun in person, and handed the silver ticket back to Yukun with pretenses, and said: " General Yu is too polite, how can Ben Shuai afford such a valuable gift? ”

Of course, Yukun didn't take back the silver ticket that had been given away, he just begged Shengbao to accept it, and Shengbao resigned a few words of hypocrisy, so he naturally smiled unceremoniously, and then asked Yukun directly: "Say, what do you want?" ”

"Commander, the last general is brave and wants to ask for a chance to participate in the war." Yukun was also very polite, and said with a smile: "The last general wants to ask the general to officially launch the siege of the city, so that the general will also lead the men and horses of the headquarters to participate in the attack on Lianzhen Changmao, kill thieves and make meritorious contributions, and serve the court and the commander." ”

Shengbao almost didn't laugh out loud when he heard it, and said in his heart that your kid is really insatiable, just five hundred taels of silver, you want to buy a commander to break the city, and you want to be beautiful! After pouting, he had already decided to give these credits to his obedient henchman, Shengbao, knocked on Erlang's leg, shook and said: "Let's talk about it then, the long-haired army is already depressed, and the people who are falling are continuous, wait for another day or two, and after the morale of the long-haired army completely collapses, Ben Shuai will think about how to launch an attack, and then Ben Shuai will naturally consider letting you lead the army into battle." ”

"Thank you, thank you." When Yukun heard the great joy, he quickly thanked him again and again, and then pleaded cheekily: "Dashuai, the last general will not dare to covet the first credit for breaking the city, the last general knows that the credit belongs to Lord Wu, and the last general will not dare to fight or rob, just ask the general not to let the last general go to cover Lord Wu's siege of the city, so that the last general will also have a chance to lead the army into the city, and the last general will be satisfied." Please also rest assured that after entering the city, half of the captured ...... will be captured. ”

"Wait!" Sheng Bao interrupted Yukun's sycophancy and asked suspiciously, "What did you mean by what you just said?" Who said that the first credit for breaking the city was Lord Wu's? ”

"Dashuai, isn't this credit to Lord Wu?" Yukun was very surprised and asked: "It has already been spread all over the barracks, Lord Wu, he has long said that he is the first to break through the Changmao of Lianzhen, and we also know that Lord Wu is brave and good at fighting, and he is a big celebrity in front of you and Zai Wangye, so none of us dare to rob him." ”

"Wu Chaoyue really said that?" Katsuho's face changed slightly.

"The last general also heard about it, but I don't know if it's true or not." Yu Kun didn't dare to say it to death, and then said cautiously: "But the last general and others all know that since Lord Wu led the army to the north, our army has swept away the bad luck of the previous successive defeats, and the long hair has been broken repeatedly in successive battles, and every battle is Lord Wu as the vanguard to take the first credit, not to mention that the marshal you and the prince leaned on him as the Great Wall, even the emperor also favored Lord Wu, and specially sent an order to reward Lord Wu's army." Therefore, the last general and others also think that you should give up the first credit of Lianzhen to Lord Wu. ”

Shengbao's face began to be a little ugly, and after thinking for a while, Shengbao casually sent Yukun away with a few perfunctory words, and then said secretly in his heart with a gloomy face: "Whether it's true or not, there are too many credits for Weiting, and if he goes on like this, if he really breaks his long hair, captures Li Kaifang alive, and captures Ji Wenyuan alive, wouldn't Ben Shuai be completely trampled under his feet?" In the future, when he returns to the capital in triumph, what will the emperor and the court think of him? What do you think of Ben Shuai?! ”

"No! Lian Zhen's ability to defeat the enemy can no longer be given to him! can only be given to Ben Shuai's own people! Anyway, it's a sure win now, it's the same with him or not! ”

When Shengbao made up his mind in the Chinese army's big tent, Yukun also left Shengbao's Chinese army camp, and directly found Tong Jian, a sworn friend of Seng Lingqin, and whispered to Tong Jian about the experience of meeting Shengbao. Tong Jian listened patiently, and then hurriedly asked, "How is Shengbao's reaction?" ”

"Quiet on the surface." Yukun, who is very good at observing words and feelings, replied truthfully: "But I can see that he must be a little unhappy in his heart." ”

"Well done!" Tong Jian was overjoyed, patted Yukun's shoulder heavily, and said with a smile: "Don't worry, the monk can't treat you badly, the newly appointed military department is a protégé of Hui Wangye (Mianyu), and when this matter is completed, at least get you a deputy general." If you're lucky, it's not impossible to get a general soldier. (To be continued.) )