Wu Chaoyue's good friend, Shi Dakai and Yang Xiuqing's beloved confidant, the loyal soldier of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, the guide of the Anglo-French alliance, the loveliest person in the minds of the soldiers of the Twist Army, the most terrifying enemy of the coup group in the capital, and the monk Lingqin Monk Wangye, in fact, he was only close to helping the Taiping Army take the capital and destroy the Manchu court. Pen × fun × Pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 ｉｎｆｏ

Under the almost artistic tactics of the monk and the prince, the Qing army Shengbao Department stuck to Shi Dakai's main butt like kraft candy, the Shandong New Army that threatened Shi Dakai's army at all times like a ghost, and the Chen Guorui Department of the Zhili Qing Army that ran around the Taiping Army from time to time like a mouse.

The three Qing army teams, which were delaying and interfering with the Taiping army's march and marching and attacking the city and seizing food all the time, had relied on the supply and garrison advantages of the home battle, the witty and flexible harassment and sluggish tactics, and the brave battles that saw the seams, had dragged down Shi Dakai's main force, and even hoped to directly drag Shi Dakai's main force down.

As a result, because of an order from the monk and the prince, he had to take advantage of the weakness of the completely different mobile speed of his cavalry and infantry, and took turns fighting with the Taiping army, which always kept advancing on foot and horse, forcibly dispersing his own strength that was inferior to the Taiping army, and resisting the Taiping army's iron fist with one finger at a time.

When the Taiping army had already built a temporary defensive position, he had to charge the dense formation of the Taiping army with tears in his eyes, and resist the bullets fired by the Taiping soldiers with firing pistols, mini guns and flintlock muskets with his flesh and blood; Use the Ritch rifle, which must be kept standing to reload, and compete with the firing pistol, which can be loaded while crouching and lying on the stomach, and line up to be shot; Take the primitive arquebus to attack the position of Wei Junbu of the Taiping Army, which has been confronted by the elite corps of the Wu Army for many years; He also used cavalry to storm the Taiping army's fortifications, and let the Taiping soldiers with high-precision Mini guns in their hands shoot one by one.

After the two decisive battles were fought, the monk army, which was full of cavalry, ran fast and suffered little loss, but the Shengbao army and the Shandong New Army, which once entangled Shi Dakai, were in tears and couldn't cry. Up to Sheng Bao, the commander-in-chief of the Qing army in Shandong, Zhang Guoliang and Yuan Baoheng, the famous generals of the Qing army, and down to the Qing soldiers at the grassroots level, no one does not think so - let the monk and the prince command it, if it is fast, it will take ten days, and it will not be more than half a month, and the banner of the Taiping Army can definitely be planted on the top of the Forbidden City, above the imperial city!

It's a pity, it's because there are still ten days and half a month left, the monk prince who accidentally suffered from beriberi was invited back to the capital by the Manchu court to recuperate, and the former enemy commander-in-chief of the Qing army was replaced by Wu Chaoyue's old boss Guan Wen, and at the same time, the command brain of the Taiping army also became Yang Yuanqing, so the battle situation in Zhili, which had gradually become clear, had countless variables, and the balance of victory that was already obviously inclined to the Taiping army was ......

In fact, like Luo Bingzhang, Guan Wen is also not good at battlefield command, let alone the courage to go to the front line to boost the morale of the army, but like Luo Bingzhang, Guan Wen is good at thinking with his brain, can listen to the correct opinions of his subordinates, can use people dare to use people, and can maximize the use of power in his hands. -- Because of this, Wu Chaoyue willingly served as an accomplice and lackey for Guanwen for more than a year.

"The official commander, now the long hair who has gone north from the sea and land has joined the division, the momentum is big, the morale is booming, the last general thinks that you must not fight with it, the battle will be lost! This is not that the last general is greedy for life and afraid of death, but that we are inferior to others, our army is demoralized after consecutive defeats, and the military spirit is also very depressed. ”

"There are two tactical options for Changmao's next step, the first is to go west and fight a decisive battle with us, kill us first, and then calmly attack Tianjin and Beijing. The second option was to take Dagu Pass first and open the way for their naval division to march under the city of Tianjin. But no matter which choice Longhair makes, we can no longer risk fighting them, we can only avoid their edge, and choose another ideal battlefield to try to defeat the enemy. ”

"The last general's suggestion is to immediately withdraw the troops and withdraw to Tianjin, not to give Changmao a chance to fight a decisive battle with us in the field, and force Changmao to fight Dagukou first and then Tianjin. Then, while making every effort to strengthen the defense of Tianjin, on the other hand, some cavalry were used to contain and harass the back of Changmao, share the pressure for General Leshan in Dagukou, try to delay time, consume Changmao's grain and grass, and then respond to General Leshan's breakthrough at the appropriate time, take the initiative to abandon Dagukou, and concentrate troops to fight a decisive battle with Changmao on the battlefield in Tianjin. ”

"In this way, we not only stuck the throat of the long-haired army in the capital, so that the long-haired division did not dare to throw the water division and take the capital directly, but also relied on the city defense fortifications in Tianjin to maneuver with the long-haired army, and raised the length of our army's grain and grass baggage, and the short-term shortage of grain and grass from the long-haired division, when the veterans of the long-haired division are tired and the grain and grass are exhausted, our army will see the opportunity to fight back with all its might, and we will be able to win a big victory!"

If the monk is still the commander of the Qing army, then needless to say, the saliva of the monk will immediately spray on the face of Yuan Baoheng, who is greedy for life and afraid of death. However, it is a pity that the current commander of the Qing army has been replaced by an official document that can even listen to Wu Chaoyue's opinion, so after listening to Yuan Baoheng's suggestion to take the initiative to give up Dagukou, the official document not only did not jump like a thunderous thunderbolt like a monk and a prince, but also seriously considered it, and then asked: "Is it a pity to take the initiative to give up the Dagukou Fort?" Why can't you go all out to defend Dagukou and fight with Changmao at Dagukou? ”

After asking, the official text hurriedly added a sentence and said: "The old man is not familiar with military affairs, but he also knows that in the eighth year of the emperor, we even won the battle against foreigners in Dagukou. ”

"Official, in the eighth year of the emperor, we were lucky, and we caught up with the foreigners to underestimate the enemy, so we won by luck." Yuan Baoheng said unceremoniously: "That time, the foreigners wanted to take advantage of the opportunistic situation, advanced to Haihe and then landed on the pinching battery, which happened to fall into our ambush, and we used hidden artillery to severely damage the foreigner's fleet first, and only then did we win the victory." ”

"Longhair won't give us such a good chance." Yuan Baoheng said: "The foreigners are strong on the water and weak on the land, and the long-haired ones are strong on the land and weak on the water. ”

"There are not enough fortifications and walls at Dagukou to house all our troops, and we also have to rely on Tianjin for food and grass." Zhang Guoliang also said: "In the decisive battle with Changmao at Dagukou, not only is it much more difficult for us to fight a defensive war than in Tianjin, but the grain road is also in danger of being cut off by Changmao. ”

"I also think we should fight in Tianjin." Shengbao rarely expressed a correct opinion, and said: "Fighting in Tianjin, although it is not conducive to the operation of our cavalry and horse team, we can completely put the cavalry on the periphery as a mobile team, prevent Changmao from dividing troops to attack other cities in Zhili, and put the main infantry force in Tianjin to defend the city, which is equivalent to choking Changmao's neck, unless Changmao is willing to throw away their steamship fleet, otherwise we will never dare to go north alone and take the capital directly." ”

Guan Wen stopped talking, leaned back in the chair with his hands on his chest and pondered, and didn't say a word for a long time. Over there, the monk and the prince left Qingqi and Na Ma Shan and other generals were full of strange words, saying that the cub selling the master Tian was not distressed, and the Dagukou fort that the monk and the prince had managed to keep was willing to throw it away. However, the strange words were useless, and after thinking about it for a long time, the official text suddenly slapped the table and shouted: "The whole army will withdraw to Tianjin immediately!" ”

Hearing this, Yuan Baoheng and Zhang Guoliang and other people of insight in the Qing army were of course smiling, but Qingqi and Na Ma Shan and other monks and old generals shouted loudly and asked: "Guan Dashuai, do you really want to give up the Dagukou Fort?" ”

"When did the official say that he would give up the Dagukou Fort?" Guan Wen smiled and asked, and then said: "This official said that he would withdraw to Tianjin first, so as not to take the opportunity to go west and fight with us." How? General Qing, that general, do you want to fight Changmao head-on? If that's the case, how about you guys hit the vanguard? ”

Qingqi and Na Ma Shan and the others quickly shut up, and the official Wen also repeated the order again with a smile, asking the Qing army to immediately pull out the camp and go north, and withdraw to Tianjin at full speed, and at the same time deliberately arrange for the monk and the prince's descendant to give the really reliable Shandong Qing army a chance to rest and recover.

The official text made the right choice, in fact, the Taiping army had just found out the information that the Qing army was about to change its commander, and Shi Dakai strongly suggested that Yang Yuanqing take the opportunity to launch a decisive battle on land first, and then calmly attack Dagukou and Tianjin. It's a pity that Yang Yuanqing, who had just restrained Shi Dakai's army, was worried that Shi Dakai would take the opportunity to get rid of his control, so he refused to agree, and adopted Yang Fuqing's suggestion to besiege the city and send reinforcements, and decided to fight Dagu first to lure the Zhili Qing army to a decisive battle in Dagu, and as a result, the Zhili Qing army was given the opportunity to transfer calmly. Shi Dakai sighed again and again, but he was helpless, and he could only comfort himself by saying that Yang Yuanqing's tactics were not wrong, and the effect was not much different.

After withdrawing to Tianjin with the main force of the Qing army, although the Taiping army was approaching Dagukou, the cronies left by the monk also deliberately instigated him to personally lead the army to reinforce Dagukou. However, Guan Wen smiled and suddenly announced a startling decision, that is, to appoint Katsuho as his deputy, let Katsuho command all the cavalry and horses, and give Katsuho the right to arbitrarily decide on the spot.

The decision was announced, Shengbao naturally smiled as happily as he could, but Qingqi and Na Ma Shan, who had helped the monk and the prince deliberately make things difficult for Shengbao, turned slightly pale, knowing that the future would definitely not be easy. And then, when the official document announced in public that it had adopted Yuan Baoheng's tactical suggestions, of course, the accomplices and lackeys of the monk and prince did not dare to openly shout against it, so they could only swallow their anger and honestly accept the order.

In view of the topographical characteristics of Dagukou, the official document adopted the suggestion of Sheng Bao and Chen Guorui, who were familiar with the situation at Dagukou, and decided to adopt the method of slowly abandoning Dagukou to delay the Taiping army's attack, and ordered Leshan, who was guarding Dagukou, to adjust his tactics and preemptively turn the artillery of the south bank of Dagukou, which was bound to be attacked first by the Taiping army, to use it to deal with the Taiping army that was preparing to attack the fort, leaving only the north bank battery to deal with the Taiping army's naval division, and appropriately covering the position on the south bank with firepower. Then try to guard the fort on the south bank of Dagukou as much as possible, use fortifications and artillery to consume the Taiping army and delay time, and then abandon the position on the south bank when forced to do so, and withdraw to the north bank to continue guarding.

In addition, the official document also used Wu Chaoyue's method when he trained the sailors, and preemptively sent a large number of gourds and air bags to the defenders of Dagukou, so that the Qing troops on the south bank could jump into the river and swim to escape if necessary, so as to solve the worries of most of the Qing soldiers who were not able to pass through the water, so that they could fight with peace of mind.

When Yang Yuanqing and Shi Dakai led the Taiping army to the south bank of Dagukou, the first thing they saw was that the three forts on the south bank of Dagukou had been surrounded by waist-deep thick mud, and there were three deep trenches filled with water behind the muddy ground, and there were stone walls behind the deep trenches. The overall defense cannot be said to be impregnable, but it can also be said to be terrifyingly strong.

The generals of the Taiping Army frowned at the strong defense of the Dagukou Fort, but Yang Yuanqing, who did not need to go into battle in person, immediately dispatched troops and unceremoniously handed over the heavy task of attacking the fortification to Wei Jun's headquarters of the Taiping Army. Wei Jun defended a few words and said that there were many sailors in his army, and it should be good steel to be used on the knife edge to be responsible for crossing the Haihe River, but Yang Yuanqing immediately pointed to the huge muddy ground under the Dagukou fort, and said with a heartfelt voice: "It is because there are many sailors in your army that this task is assigned to you, see?" It's all water. ”

"Water fights in the mud?" Wei Jun wanted to cry without tears, but he didn't dare to openly disobey the military order, so he could only surrender his order under the gloating eyes of Li Shixian, Zeng Lichang and other Taiping warlords, and take over the task head-on.

I have to admit that although the weapons and equipment are slightly inferior, Wei Junjun, who has been confronting the elite of the Wu army at the forefront of Hukou all the year round, is obviously much stronger than other Taiping troops in avoiding the decline in the quality of soldiers. Even if it was drudgery and dirty work, Wei Junjun's soldiers still launched a charge offensive against the Dagukou artillery without hesitation, prostrate with their weapons held high, and advanced with difficulty in the face of the Qing army's bullets and intensive artillery fire, and their demeanor of not fearing dirty and bitter death was just like the elite soldiers of the Taiping Army in their heyday.

But it was useless, the reason why the Taiping army in its heyday swept the Qing army, in addition to the Taiping army's own struggle, another important reason was that the Qing army, which had been absent for a long time, was too incompetent. Now the Qing army guarding the Dagukou Fort not only has morale and fighting spirit, but many of them have also been tested by the fire of war with the British and French forces.

Especially the terrible muddy land formed by the tide, the muddy land that made the British and French troops suffer a lot in history, on such a terrain, the Taiping soldiers not only had to pay attention to the waterproof guns, but also no matter how much physical strength they paid, they could not increase their speed, and even a simple sideways dodge was difficult, and they completely became a live target in the mud pool.

The dense guns and bullets of the defenders of the fort hit the mud, constantly splashing the smelly mud, and also splashing blood flowers from time to time, and the soldiers of the Taiping Army who were carrying their guns were shot one after another and fell to the ground, and the sound of being injured and screaming came and went. At the same time, the artillery of the Qing army, which had already turned its muzzle in advance, also continued to open fire, bombarding heavy shells into the crowd of the Taiping army one by one, constantly smashing out waves of mud that soared into the sky, and from time to time hitting the soldiers of the Taiping Army who were struggling to advance, directly smashing the poor Taiping soldiers to the point of breaking their tendons and bones.

Of course, the sea and land artillery of the Taiping army are also constantly firing artillery, bombarding the south bank battery of the Qing army at the mouth of Dagu, but the effect is always not great, because the Qing army is directly subordinate to the commander Leshan personally visited the south bank battery of the main position as usual to command and supervise the battle, the high morale of the Qing army soldiers is to fight to the death and not retreat, even if the Taiping army soldiers have touched the edge of the trench and are building a temporary bridge on the trench, the Qing army on the south bank battery does not show the slightest sign of defeat, and has always been frantically shooting at the Taiping soldiers.

The artillery batteries on the north bank of Dagukou are also constantly firing artillery, and the target of the bombardment is the Taiping army's steam gunboat fleet on the water, and it also relies on intensive firepower to from time to time Mengzhong Taiping Army's naval fleet, leaving new wounds on the Taiping army's steam gunboats, which were already scarred, and the Guangshou, which suffered the most in the last fierce battle, was forced to withdraw from the battlefield because of one after another guns.

Seeing this scene, Shi Dakai, who was in charge of commanding the land battle, suddenly felt a deep sense of powerlessness, and some did not dare to imagine how much the self-army would pay if he took the north and south forts at the mouth of Dagu, and then thought of the information that the Qing army was frantically preparing for war on the battlefield in Tianjin, Shi Dakai was even more worried, like a thorn in his back......

"We should give up the tactic of hitting Dagukou first and then Tianjin, the sailors will stay at sea and wait, and the land division will fight Tianjin first, so as not to give the Qing demon more time to prepare for the war. It's not too late to fight Tianjin first, and then come back to fight Dagukou. This is the suggestion made by Shi Dakai after Wei Junjun's failure to attack the fortification.

"No! You can only hit Dagukou first, and then advance by land and water, and take Tianjin together! This was Yang Yuanqing's categorical reply, because Yang Yuanqing was not at ease with leaving the precious fleet of steam gunboats alone, and he was even more unwilling to let Shi Dakai control the infantry army.

When Shi Dakai and Yang Yuanqing were blushing and their necks were thick, none of the Taiping generals present opened their mouths to participate, and their faces were gloomy, because they all had a very ominous premonition in their hearts, and I am afraid that this Northern Expedition will be bad again......

In fact, after receiving the news of the change of the commander of the Qing Army in Zhili, Wu Chaoyue, who was far away in Hubei, also sank in his heart, and suddenly felt that the situation was not good, because Wu Chaoyue knew too well the ability of the official document, and it was indeed not good to fight, but the ability to play tricks and fight was not under the two old foxes of Hua Shana and Luo Bingzhang. What is very unfortunate is that the Taiping Army's Northern Expedition has many problems with the allocation of generals, and there are places everywhere that can be started.