Chapter Twenty-Seven: The Qing Army Attacks (I)

There are more than 5,000 new holy soldiers recruited in the Jianghua area, plus 1,400 maple soldiers led by Zhu Hong, and the team led by Luo Xuan now has more than 10,000 people. Pen ~ fun ~ pavilion www.biquge.info

Luo Xuan hurriedly sent someone to Feng Shaoguang.

Worried about the weakness of the troops on the Daozhou side, Luo Xuan only left 500 people to garrison Jianghua City, which was temporarily commanded by a commander named Lin Qirong. Because he seemed to have heard the Holy King mention that Lin Qirong was good at defending the city, he gave him the task of garrisoning Jianghua City.

Luo Gangqin led more than 9,000 people to rush back to Daozhou. On the one hand, he asked Luo Qiongshu to organize men and horses to transport half of the grain and artillery captured in Jianghua and Yongming City to Fengshu Village for storage, and left three soldiers to garrison Fengshu Village; The other half was brought back to Daozhou City with the army.

Halfway through, I suddenly received an urgent report from Daozhou City from a few exploration horses, and a Qing army came from the direction of Yongzhou to attack Daozhou. The Holy King ordered Luo to divide the Holy First Army into a division to defend the pass leading to Bucheon, and lead the remaining Holy First Army back to Daozhou.

The messenger sent by Feng Shaoguang was headed by Xie Xiangcai. Under careful questioning, Xie Xiangcai told Luo the reason for the matter.

A few hours ago, the one sent earlier lurked in Yongzhou City and sent back important news.

It turned out that as early as April 27, the main force of the Taiping Army attacked in the middle of the night and occupied Qiyang County. After resting for a day, hundreds of fishing boats were seized along the Xiangjiang River, and 6,000 people were coerced to join, and the Taiping army increased its strength and continued to march down the river towards Changsha.

The Qing court hurriedly organized troops from all over the country to accumulate Hengzhou City, and the Qing troops who rushed to Yongzhou from Guangxi also followed along the river. However, the Xiangjiang River in Hengzhou was swollen at that time, and the water flow was fast. The Qing army organized several places on the Xiangjiang River in advance to intercept the chains and boats of the Taiping army on the river, but they were also washed away by the surging river, and the Qing army in the city of Hengzhou watched the Taiping army pass through Hengzhou from the river.

In this way, the main force of the Taiping Army went down the river through the Xiangjiang waterway, all the way to the two counties of Hengshan and Xiangtan, and swept more than 50,000 people along the river.

The Qing court first heard that Daozhou had fallen to a division of Cantonese thieves, and then the main force of the Cantonese thieves attacked Changsha, and ordered to follow the main force of the Heavenly Kingdom, the minister of the Qin Mission, Cezanne, stationed in Hengzhou City, and dispatched troops in the center to quell the chaos. Cézanne sent troops from Yongzhou, Hengzhou, Yuezhou, Qianzhou and other places to rescue the provincial capital of Changsha, and urgently asked the Qing court to successively transfer troops from neighboring Hubei, Guangdong, Guizhou, and Jiangxi to support Hunan.

Rushing from Yongzhou to Hengzhou, the admiral He Chun and Bao Qibao, who had not yet rested, urgently led more than 15,000 troops to follow the main force of the Heavenly Kingdom to pursue all the way and assist in the defense of Changsha City.

On the fifth day of the fifth month of May, the main force of the Taiping army, which was advancing by land and water, arrived in the south of Changsha City, leaving 10,000 troops to intercept the pursuing army, and the main army hurriedly began to attack Changsha. The repair of the Changsha city wall has not been completed, and the troops of other state capitals have not yet arrived, and the soldiers in the city are few and weak, and they are in danger.

Emperor Xianfeng gritted his teeth and gave the governor of Huguang Cheng Zhicai, and issued a decree to arrest the escaped Hunan Governor Yu Wanqing and Daozhou Governor Wang Yiyi, and send them to Beijing to punish the crime, and ordered Cheng Zhicai to recover Daozhou within a limited day, and encircled and suppressed the Taiping army in the Daozhou area.

Cheng Xucai, who was still in Hengzhou, because the troops had been transferred by the minister of the Qincha Cezanne, and the troops in his hands were insufficient, so he sent Zhang Qiren of Hengyongchen Guidao and Xu Jiarui, the prefect of Yongzhou, to lead only 1,500 troops, sit in Yongzhou City, and transfer more than 2,000 soldiers in the city to the unified command of Liu Changqing, the governor of Guangxi, and led a total of more than 4,000 mixed troops of Yongzhou and Guizhou soldiers to attack Daozhou along the Xiaoshui River from Yongzhou.

In addition, he wrote a letter ordering Sun Yingzhao, the chief soldier of Yongzhou Town, and Chenzhou Zhizhou to assist in attacking Daozhou.

He himself led the only remaining 3,000 men and horses made up of Minzhuang officials to rush to Changsha to rescue. He knew in his heart that once Changsha was lost, not only would it be difficult for him to keep his position as the governor of Huguang, but he would also have to move his head to eat.

As for Daozhou, it's just a remote place. The anti-thieves over there are just a partial division, and it's just a strange thing, the timid and hateful Yu Wanqing and Wang Yi are one or two, but now that both of them have been escorted to Jingshi, he has no target if he wants to punish them.

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"So, the Qing court has insufficient troops, and thinks that our Taiping Holy Army is just a small number of partial divisions, so only let the Qing demon leader Liu Changqing lead part of the troops to recover Daozhou?"

Figuring out the situation of the Qing demons who came to attack, Luo Xuan couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief. However, he still did not dare to slack off, and immediately ordered Luo Qiongshu to lead 3,000 people to rush to the pass leading from Jianghua to Fuchuan, in order to prevent the Qing army from attacking from the north and south. At the same time, he ordered Lu Shunde, who was still stationed in Yongming County, to leave only 500 reliable holy troops to defend the city, recruit and train troops on the spot, consolidate the city defense, and the rest rushed to Daozhou City.

At that moment, the main force of more than 6,000 Holy First Army on the march was ordered to march with all their strength and rush to the outside of Daozhou City within one day.

The next day, outside the city of Daozhou, the Holy First Army, which came in the dust, was led by the Holy King Feng Shaoguang to personally guard the camp and others, with the female guards and others, out of the city for three miles to greet them, and the celebration banquet was opened.

To reward the empty time of the army, Feng Shaoguang told Luo Outline the latest news. It turned out that as early as when the main force of the Taiping Army besieged Hengshan County, Yang Xiuqing, the king of the east, sent Xiao Chaogui, the king of the west, to lead another 2,000 elite soldiers from Guangxi to attack Changsha by fast boat.

At that time, in Changsha City, the former governor Luo Bingzhang, the new governor Zhang Liangji, and the Hubei governor Luo Huandian, who was in the city, saw that the Taiping army was approaching Changsha, and hurriedly supervised the construction of the earth city at the south gate, starting from Baisha Street in the north and ending at Dachun Bridge in the south. Before it was ready, Xiao Chaogui, the king of the West, led 2,000 elite soldiers to arrive suddenly. Helplessly, Luo Bingzhang and others led thousands of troops to the city to resist the Taiping army.

Several damaged city walls in Changsha that have not yet been repaired, Luo Huandian and others assisted Zhang Liangji, mobilized the people in the city, and temporarily used wooden planks and earthen bags to enclose them slightly.

Xiao Chaogui was overjoyed when he saw this, and led his troops to attack twice, but because the artillery fire in the city was too fierce, he did not take it, but the temporary city wall was also crumbling.

Luo Bingzhang mobilized the big officials and gentry in the city, sent private guards to guard, and gathered more than 3,000 soldiers to defend the city. For two days, although the troops were excellent, the Taiping army, which was small in number, could not attack the flawed city wall.

Xiao Chaogui originally wanted to slowly figure it out, so he used the method of digging tunnels to attack the city.

Unexpectedly, Luo Bingzhang, the former governor of Hunan, set a trick and sent the wealthy families in the city to pretend to surrender, and deceived Xiao Chaogui and others into the city gate in the middle of the night.

More than 1,300 Taiping troops outside the city, fighting to the death, wanted to recapture the body of the king of the west, but they lacked a command, and only relied on their bravery, and were used as a target by the condescending Changsha Qing army, and the casualties were not counted. In the end, only more than 200 people were dissuaded by Zeng Shuiyuan and retreated to Xiangtan. The vanguard of the Taiping army suffered heavy losses and was almost completely annihilated.

Hong Xiuquan, Yang Xiuqing and others, who had just captured Xiangtan County, learned the news of the death of the King of the West, and despite the dissuasion of Shi Dakai and others, they slaughtered the Qing army that had surrendered in Xiangtan. Hong and Yang immediately led the expanded army of 50,000 to attack Changsha by land and water, wanting to avenge the king of the west.

Fortunately, Yang Xiuqing led the main force of the Taiping Army to attack Changsha on a large scale, attracting most of the Qing army's forces in Hunan. Otherwise, as in the history of the previous life, the Qing army dispatched a total of more than 20,000 people to encircle and suppress the Taiping army entrenched in Daozhou. And the weapons also have sticks, knives and forks, although the combat effectiveness of the Qing army's green battalion soldiers is also low, but the outcome is still unpredictable.

However, the Qing army that invaded Daozhou was not only the 4,000 Qing army led by Liu Changqing, who was the first to be detected.

According to the latest report, Sun Yingzhao, the chief soldier of Yongzhou Town, and Deng Shaoliang, the deputy general, led 2,000 local soldiers who were seconded from Chenzhou to make a detour to Ningyuan and attack from the east of Daozhou, preparing for the two armies to join Daozhou and carry out "encirclement and suppression."