Zeng Guoquan's army and Shu Baojun not only inadvertently robbed a large number of Russian munitions, but also because the Qing army's infantry cavalry went all out to rescue Weichuan, and even more unexpectedly obtained the opportunity to fight a decisive battle with the main force of the Qing army in Xuzhou. Pen, fun, and www.biquge.info

After the failure of reinforcing Weichuan, if Tuo Minga decisively withdrew his troops and returned to Xuzhou, then with the strong city defense of the thousand-year-old city of Xuchang, then the Qing army in Xuzhou could continue to deal with Zeng Guoquan.

However, it is a pity that at the critical moment, Tuo Ming'a, who was disturbed by the robbery of the munitions, made a faint move, neither retreated decisively, nor forgot to inform the infantry brigade behind to stop advancing, and once launched a strong attack on the Weihe ferry held by the Wu army, not to mention greater casualties, and consumed more physical strength, and finally retreated to the town of Dongcun, which the Wu army did not care about at all, to join the infantry brigade, rested for half a night, and did not make a retreat decision until the early morning of the next day.

Diametrically opposed to the dizzy Tuo Ming'a, Zeng Guoquan, who usually only fights in a daze, seized the fighter at this moment, and just found out that the main force of the Qing army did not immediately withdraw when the sky was twilight, Zeng Guoquan decided to launch a decisive battle regardless of the fatigue of the soldiers, and only took 2,000 infantry and Shu Bao's army to run south to find Tuo Ming'a desperately, and successfully seized the precious opportunity to avoid the city defense and the enemy's decisive battle in the field.

To say that Tomin Ah was not confused to the end, after finding that Zeng Guoquan was leading the army to the south again, Tuo Ming'a, who was unwilling to fight in the field, also hurriedly ordered a retreat, but unfortunately the Wu cavalry strode up, biting the tail of the Qing army's brigade, slowing down the retreat of the Qing army, and gaining precious time for the pursuit of the Wu army's infantry. In the end, when the infantry of the Wu army appeared in the field of vision of the Qing army, Tuo Minga had no choice but to grit his teeth and turn around for a decisive battle.

In the flying snowflakes, on the plain with an unobstructed view, the Wu army, which was inferior in strength and physical strength, took the lead in launching an attack, with a battalion equipped with a firing pin gun as the vanguard, head-on attacking the infantry position of the Qing army.

At this moment, Tomina also proved to some extent that his position as General Jiangning was not picked for nothing, although the infantry battlefield was at a disadvantage, Tomina did not panic much, and calmly divided the cavalry into two, one was specifically responsible for entanglement of the small number and very tired Wu cavalry, and the other Qing cavalry was personally led by Tomina to return to the back of the Wu army's pin gun battalion to attack, and successfully forced the Wu army's pin gun battalion to stop advancing, and changed the formation into a hollow phalanx to change the attack to defense.

At the same time, taking advantage of the fact that the Wu army's pin gun battalion was no longer able to attack, the Qing army's infantry brigade also attacked the flank of the Wu army, which was also only equipped with arquebuses, in a vain attempt to defeat the flank of the Wu army, which was roughly equipped, and create fighters for the cavalry to assault Zeng Guoquan's main formation.

To say that the Qing army in Henan was still a long face for Tuo Ming'a and the Manchu court, even if it was attacked by the grenadiers of the Wu army during the attack, it did not break up, and still continued to charge in strides with a tactic similar to a skirmish line that naturally formed. However, it is a pity that these Qing soldiers encountered an arquebus tactic that they had never seen before - offensive multi-stage shooting!

At the sound of the order, the Xinxiang sergeants of the first horizontal team opened fire collectively, and then did not retreat, but stood on the spot to charge and reload; At the end of the team, the Hunan sergeant of the fourth horizontal team strode forward, stood and shot past the first horizontal team, and then did not retreat and reloaded on the spot in the same place; After the second horizontal team finished shooting, the first horizontal team that was already standing in the last row had also loaded the ammunition and rushed to the front to shoot, so that the continuous stacking, maintaining firepower while continuing to attack forward, narrowing the distance with the enemy, the shooting effect was naturally better.

The book explains that this is by no means a fictitious arquebus tactic, but an offensive tactic pioneered by the Thunder Battalion of the Hunan Army in history, and it was also imitated by many other Hunan Army units after its invention. As a result, as soon as this strange new tactic came out, the Qing army in Henan was immediately killed and caught off guard, and the morale of the casualties was greatly reduced, and the offensive was suddenly extinguished.

Finding that the situation was not right, Tomin also adjusted his tactics again, immediately gave up entanglement with the Wu army's pin gun team, and led the cavalry to return to the back of the Wu infantry who were using offensive multi-stage shooting to attack, and once again successfully forced the Wu infantry to stop advancing and switch from attack to defense.

However, even so, Tomina still found himself in a very embarrassing situation, the cavalry did have a certain advantage, and could intersperse detours at any time to force the Wu infantry to change formations; However, pressing the gourd to float the scoop, this side had just held down the arquebus battalion of the Wu army, and the pin gun battalion of the Wu army over there launched an attack on his infantry position, and continued to beat his infantry to the point that it was difficult to parry.

What's worse is that relying on the advantage of the revolver, the cavalry of the Wu army has successfully defeated the cavalry of the Qing army who is responsible for entanglement, and turned around to attack the Tomina army, and Tomina has no time to take care of the arquebus battalion of the Wu army during his dying struggle, and the arquebus battalion of the Wu army, which was formed by the old men of the Hunan army as the backbone, took the opportunity to continue to step forward and help the pin gun battalion attack the Qing infantry position, making it even more difficult to parry the Qing infantry who were not the opponents of the Wu army.

Affected by the fatigue of the soldiers, the battle of the Wu army was actually a little difficult, and even if it had the upper hand, it was unable to deal a fatal blow to the Qing army because it did not have enough physical strength. However, fortunately, the Wu army now has a characteristic that the battle is not going well can be smashed by weapons, Zeng Guoquan sent a battalion to protect the grenadier team to join the battle, relying on the crazy smashing of cannonballs, the Wu army finally completely defeated the Qing infantry brigade, turning the advantage into victory.

After the breakout, the Qing infantry fled all over the mountains, and the morale of the Qing cavalry also lost the courage and determination to continue to fight to the death. In the end, Tomina had no choice but to cry and flee for his life, the main force of the Qing army collapsed together, although the casualties were not too many, the morale and morale of the army were seriously hit, and even Tomina himself had no confidence to continue to hold the important town of Xuzhou.

After this bitter battle, the overtired Wu army rested for four days in Weichuan before returning south to Xuzhou. When they returned to the Xuzhou battlefield again, of course, the officers and men of the Hunan army had changed their shotguns, all the arquebuses had been replaced with front-loading flintlock pistols, which were still relatively advanced on the Chinese battlefield, and one battalion was also equipped with the most advanced Lizhi rifles in the Russian army, and the overall equipment had achieved an overwhelming advantage over the Qing army in Xuzhou.

By the way, because it was too cumbersome and huge, the artillery that Russia aided to the Manchu court was not sent to the Henan front, but was transported to the Dagukou Fort for installation to prevent the Taiping army, which was already likely to go north by sea, so Zeng Guoquan's army was not able to capture the Russian artillery.

But this is enough, just seeing the soldiers of the Wu army holding Russian weapons under the city of Xuzhou, the frightened Tuo Ming'a and Shen Baozhen have no courage to fight again, and they have made up their minds early on to abandon the city as soon as the Wu army launches an attack on the city. And Chen Zhaoyong, the governor of Xuzhou, secretly sent someone to secretly contact Zeng Guoquan, expressing his willingness to surrender, and even said that as long as he had the opportunity, he would immediately open the city gate to welcome the Wu army into the city.

At the same time, because a large amount of military rations had been captured in Xiangcheng before, Zeng Guoquan, who was currently very abundant in grain, grass and ammunition, did not rush to attack the city immediately, and chose to familiarize the army with Russian weapons while recruiting the surrounding counties, intending to sharpen his knife and not chop wood, first make the preparations that should be prepared sufficient, and then launch an attack.

Accidents also appeared during this period, just as the Xinxiang army was sharpening its knives and preparing to fight Xuzhou, a twisted army of more than 20,000 people took advantage of the opportunity of the heavy losses of the Qing army in Xuzhou, and suddenly flowed from Chenzhou Mansion into Xuzhou. Li Zhaoshou, the leader of the Yellow Banner of the Twist Army, also took the initiative to send people to get in touch with Zeng Guoquan and expressed his willingness to help attack the cities of Xuzhou............

"General Zeng, please rest assured, our Li Daqi absolutely does not have any intention of taking advantage of your army, when attacking the city, our army is not only willing to send twice the strength of your army to participate in the siege, but also let the troops participating in the siege accept your command. Although we have suffered some losses in doing so, in order to show our sincerity in working hand in hand with your army, we Li Daqi are willing to do so. ”

Not to mention, at the beginning, the envoy of the Twist Army sent by Li Zhaoshou really said something about Zeng Guoquan, not only made Zeng Guoquan have the idea of using the Twist Army as cannon fodder, but even started the idea of absorbing Li Zhaoshou's department. However, when Zeng Guoquan asked Li Zhaoshou what conditions he had for doing this, the envoy of the Twisted Army replied: "Back to General Zeng, we Li Daqi don't have much, no matter which city of Xuzhou is captured, we only need forty percent of the money, food, weapons and women in the city." ”

Li Zhaoshou found the wrong partner, although the price he offered could be bargained, but everyone knew who the old people of the Hunan Army led by Zeng Guoquan were, so before Zeng Guoquan, whose face was immediately gloomy, refused, the other old men of the Hunan Army present had already roared angrily, "Forty percent? You want to be beautiful! Even those of you who break guns and men dare to share the money and food from us?! ”

I didn't expect the reaction of the generals of the Hunan army to be so fierce, and the words were so ugly, the envoy of the Twisted Army was dumbfounded, so he had to take the initiative to give in, and said: "General Zeng, if you think that forty percent is too high, how to divide the money and grain can be discussed, we can only ask thirty percent." ”

"One percent can't do it! The rebellious army in Xuzhou has long been beaten by us, and it is a matter of one sentence for us to take the city of Xuzhou. I don't need your help, we will fight the city of Xuzhou by ourselves! ”

Zhu Hongzhang's shout was unanimously approved by all the generals of the Hunan army, who all believed that there was no need to let the Twist army help -- and this was exactly what happened. And Zeng Guoquan was due to his personality, and secondly, he couldn't make the public angry, so he also made it clear to the envoy of the Twist Army, and said: "Go back and tell Li Zhaoshou that we are not interested in joining forces with him to attack the city, and we don't need his help to fight Xuzhou." If he is willing to serve Wu Dashuai, he can bring the team over to accept our reorganization, join us to fight against the rebel army and fight against the chaos in the capital, if he is not interested, forget it. ”

After sending away the envoy of the Twist Army, Zeng Guoquan didn't take this matter to heart at first, but what Zeng Guoquan never expected was that the Twist Army under Li Zhaoshou refused to give up, and launched an attack on Linying County, where the Qing army was the weakest in Xuzhou. As a result, Zhang Bingtao, who had been hesitant about whether to surrender to the Wu army before, had no choice but to choose the lesser of two evils, and immediately sent someone to submit the surrender table to Zeng Guoquan, asking Zeng Guoquan to send troops to rescue, so as not to break through the county town and bring ruin to the people of Linying.

Zhang Bingtao's request for help found the right person, although he knew that accepting the surrender of Linying would lead to contradictions between the Wu army and the Twist army, and even lead to armed conflicts, but Zeng Guoquan, who would rather die than suffer losses, only thought about it for less than ten minutes, and decided to take advantage of the loophole of Wu Chaoyue's alliance treaty with Yang Xiuqing, and immediately divided an army to go south to take over Linying City, which surrendered to the Wu army, and asked the Twist army, which was honorably subject to the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, to follow the covenant of who will return quickly, and immediately withdraw to stop attacking Linying.

Li Zhaoshou, who was already very dissatisfied with Zeng Guoquan's refusal to join forces, of course would not watch the cooked duck fly away, not only categorically refused Zeng Guoquan's request, but also divided his troops to stop Liu Lianjie's troops of the Wu army who went to take over Linying, and in turn asked Liu Lianjie to withdraw his troops, otherwise he would have to fight with the Wu army. After a few words, Wu Jun really fought with the Twist Army in the northern suburbs of Linying County.

The result of the fire merger was, of course, that the Wu army, which had just been equipped with flintlock pistols, won, easily defeated Li Zhaoshou's rabble who dared to break ground on Tai Sui's head with a few broken guns, and also successfully entered the city to take over Linying County, which took the initiative to surrender. However, Li Zhaoshou, who was thunderous, still refused to give up, and launched two strong attacks on Linying City, although he was repelled by the Wu army twice, he was still robbed of a fine light by the castle town outside Linying City, and wantonly ransacked the town outside Linying City, forcing Liu Lianjie to send troops to fight with the Twist Army, and Li Zhaoshou's army fought upside down on the battlefield of Linying, and the sun and moon were gone.

…………

It was only after Luo Shifeng, the guard general of Ye County, of Wu Junye County made a small report, that Wu Chaoyue learned that Zeng Guoquan and the Twist Army had done it in Xuzhou, and as a result, Wu Chaoyue immediately frowned, knowing that if this matter was not handled well, it would not only definitely lead to more armed conflicts between the Wu Army and the Twist Army, but also may lead to a conflict between the Taiping Army and the Self Army, which had a close relationship with the Twist Army.

In order to unite the overall situation, after careful calculation, Wu Chaoyue could only send his accomplice Zhou Wenxian to Nanjing to explain the reason for the matter to Yang Xiuqing, and ask Yang Xiuqing to come forward to restrain the Twist Army, and at the same time, in order to appease the Twist Army, Wu Chaoyue also promised to give Li Zhaoshou's army 500 arquebuses to show his sincerity in hoping to turn enemies into friends.

Fortunately, the alliance between the Wu army and the Taiping army is now in the honeymoon period, and Yang Xiuqing, who had just received Wu Chaoyue's favor in the Aspen fleet incident, also knew that he would repay virtue with kindness, not only did he not take advantage of this to make things difficult and harsh, but also agreed to mediate the matter on the spot, and through the Yellow Banner of the Twisting Army, he advocated Lexing to restrain Li Zhaoshou and force Li Zhaoshou to withdraw immediately. In the end, Yang Xiuqing confiscated Wu Chaoyue's thank-you gift, and only made a small request to Wu Chaoyue -- hoping that Wu Chaoyue could sell him a batch of firing pin guns and supporting ammunition.

The firing pin gun is the treasure of the Wu army, and it is also the key weapon of the Wu army to suppress the Qing army, the Taiping army and even the Russian Lizhi rifle on the battlefield. Fortunately, Yang Xiuqing didn't force Wu Chaoyue to agree on the spot, and said directly: "Go back and tell Brother Wu that in fact, his kind of fast-firing foreign guns, this king also bought some from foreigners, and this king has not equipped the heavenly army over there at the mouth of the lake, just don't want him to misunderstand, so that he understands this king's kindness to him." ”

"This king bought a gun from him, and he is not going to use it to fight you, this king is going to launch another northern expedition soon, and he wants to increase his firepower. This king also knows that you don't have many fast-fire foreign guns in your hands, so if you really don't sell guns, I won't force it, but that kind of paper shell bullet must be sold to this king for 50,000 rounds. ”

Yang Xiuqing's request was indeed not excessive, Wu Chaoyue also found through the spy reconnaissance of the Hubei Intelligence Bureau, knowing that Yang Xiuqing was likely to launch an attack on Dagukou by sea after the beginning of spring next year, even if the crimping pin gun bullets were sold to Yang Xiuqing, the Taiping Army would definitely be used on the battlefield of the Northern Expedition first. Therefore, after Zhou Wenxian brought Yang Xiuqing's request back to Hubei, Wu Chaoyue also sold Yang Xiuqing 20,000 rounds of ammunition on the spot, and gave another 10,000 rounds for free.

"Dashuai, the firing pin gun is our most useful weapon, you directly agreed to sell and give it away, isn't it ......?"

Wu Chaoyue's generosity frightened Zhou Wenxian, but Wu Chaoyue waved his hand to interrupt Zhou Wenxian's persuasion, shook his head and said: "It's useless if you don't sell it, as long as Yang Xiuqing gives up the silver, there is a way to buy a pin gun and bullets from foreigners." Instead of offending Yang Xiuqing for this bullet, it is better to be a favor. ”

"Yes, Xia Guan understands." Zhou Wenxian nodded and didn't dare to persuade again, and then said cautiously: "But Dashuai, Xia Guan still wants to remind you that most of the long-haired army on the Jiangning side has been replaced with foreigners' guns, and now Longhair even has our shotgun guns, and if it goes on like this, I'm afraid that our gun advantage on the battlefield will be gradually offset by long-hair." ”

"There's no way around it." Wu Chaoyue said with a wry smile: "Not only is Changmao's side reloading foreign guns and cannons on a large scale, but the same is true of the rebel army in Liangguang, as well as the rebel army in the capital, it is estimated that it will not be long before a large number of Russian guns will be equipped." ”

"Dashuai, what should we do then?" Zhou Wenxian hurriedly asked.

"Don't worry too much." Wu Chaoyue replied: "On the battlefield, if the guns and weapons are roughly equal, then the competition is discipline, tactics and experience and technology, in this regard, we still have a great advantage, so even if the long-haired and chaotic armies are all equipped with foreign guns and cannons, we will not easily suffer losses on the battlefield." ”

While comforting the accomplice, Wu Chaoyue's heart was somewhat worried, and he said secretly: "Tactical discipline and experience and technology are indeed still the advantages of my army, but if this continues, even if I can continue to maintain these advantages, the casualties and ammunition consumption will definitely increase exponentially." We must find a way to solve these problems as soon as possible, otherwise the longer it drags on, the more unfavorable the future war will be for us. ”