Why do you say that Li Xiucheng doesn't know how to fight the battle in Nanjing?

At that time, considering that it was indeed necessary to take some family members out of the city, and it was also necessary to transfer some mountains of gold, silver and jewelry in Nanjing City to the rear of Jiangsu and Zhejiang University as military expenses, which required time to prepare, although he was reluctant in his heart, Li Xiucheng still agreed to the request of the Sect Master Hong against his will, and also sent people to order Li Rongfa and Fang Haizong and other troops in front of the Sect Master Hong, so that they could turn from offensive to defensive, and seize the time to prepare for street fighting fortifications. In exchange for the nod of approval from Sect Master Hong, the decision-making level of the Taiping Army temporarily agreed.

However, Li Xiucheng did not leave the Tianwang Mansion immediately, because when Li Xiucheng was about to return to his Zhongwang Mansion, Hong Renji, Zeng Lichang and Zhou Lichun, who had been detained outside the Golden Dragon Palace, shouted for help again, crying bitterly and begging Li Xiucheng to lend a hand and save one of their lives, temporarily stopping Li Xiucheng's footsteps.

Of course, Li Xiucheng doesn't care if Zhou Lichun will lose his head, but Li Xiucheng can't care about the life and death of Hong Renji and Zeng Lichang, because Hong Renji understands English and has diplomatic experience, and asked the British and French powers to come forward to mediate the war between the Taiping Army and the Wu Army. Zeng Lichang is a veteran of the Kingdom of Heaven, and he has a lot of prestige and influence in the ranks of the Taiping Army, and losing his head for no reason will definitely affect the morale of the army, and at the same time, Zeng Lichang also has more than 1,000 descendants in Nanjing, and there may be turmoil once there is a change. So Li Xiucheng had no choice but to return to the Golden Dragon Hall and ask Sect Master Hong why he suddenly arrested Zeng Lichang and Hong Renji and others?

"Why did you arrest them?" Sect Leader Hong asked very angrily, and shouted, "Why don't you ask them, how much they have dealings with the Transcendence Demon, and how much contact they have with the Transcendence Demon in private?" ”

"Long live the Heavenly King, they have a private connection with the Transcendent Demon?"

Li Xiucheng asked in surprise, and the sect leader Hong didn't answer, but just asked the female official to hand over a few letters to Li Xiucheng, Li Xiucheng took it and hurriedly read the general content, and saw that these letters were indeed letters written by Wu Chaoyue to Zhou Lichun and others, but the content was just to greet Zhou Lichun as a son-in-law, and told Zhou Lichun to take care of his life, and to catch up with Zeng Lichang and Hong Renji as friends, and persuade Zeng Lichang and Hong Renji to get lost and return to Wu Jun, which is just a very common letter of persuasion. But it was precisely because of this that Li Xiucheng became more and more confused, and couldn't help but ask suspiciously: "These letters are nothing?" Beyond the little demon and Yang Tianyi, they are a bit of old friends, isn't it strange to persuade them to surrender? ”

"Not strange?" Sect Master Hong roared angrily, "Then why didn't they hand in these letters immediately after they received them, and hide them secretly?" Isn't this preparing to surrender to the Transcendent Demon? ”

Li Xiucheng suddenly realized, and did not ask the Great Sect Master Hong why he knew the existence of these letters and found them accurately, but just arched his hand and said: "Long live the King of Heaven, there is a saying in the book, there is no fish when the water is clear, and there are no friends when people are observed, and the little demon is despicable, and he must have written such letters to many generals and officials of the Heavenly Kingdom, and there must be many hidden people who have not handed it in." If they were to be killed for such a thing, these people would definitely be afraid of falling into the same fate, and they would strengthen their determination to surrender to the rebellion. In the opinion of his subordinates, it is best for them to be lenient with Yang Tianyi, so that they can be grateful for your benevolence and calm the hearts of the people of Heaven. ”

"Fart!" Sect Master Hong cursed a foul word and roared: "If you don't take the initiative to report the letter you received from the little demon, and you secretly leave the letter, you are betraying the kingdom of heaven, and you deserve death!" No more spare! ”

Li Xiucheng persuaded again, and also cited the example of Qin Mugong's death from his books, and strongly persuaded Hong Xiuquan to be lenient with Zeng Lichang and others, and give them a chance to make meritorious contributions. However, the Sect Master Hong not only didn't listen to it at all, but was also persuaded by Li Xiucheng to get angry, and roared angrily: "Shut up! I don't want to hear you say anything more, so I'll go back and prepare for a street fight right away! Zhou Lichun, Zeng Lichang and Hong Renji, the three traitors, all lit sky lanterns for me! Light the sky lantern now! ”

Li Xiucheng was shocked, and quickly persuaded again, and clearly pointed out that Hong Renji and Zeng Lichang were still of great use to the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, and Meng Shiyong and Qin Rigang, who had received Li Xiucheng's favors next to him, also helped to intercede, and after a lot of effort, he finally made Hong Xiuquan make some concessions, agreeing to spare Hong Renji a small life, and leave him to facilitate contact with the British and French powers. Li Xiucheng refused to be satisfied, and begged Hong Xiuquan to spare Zeng Lichang as well, but Hong Xiuquan glared at him and roared angrily: "Enough!" King Zhong, I have enough face for you today! Zeng Lichang, a traitor, secretly communicated with the demon soldiers, if he didn't kill him, he would be put back in the army, what if he instigated his subordinates to mutiny? Kill! Gotta be killed! ”

Roaring, Hong Xiuquan pointed at Li Xiucheng again, and roared: "Don't let me say it again, go back immediately and lead the army and demon soldiers to fight in the streets, and rush to build the city wall from Qingliang Mountain to Taicheng!" Go now, hurry! ”

"Rush to build the city wall from Qingliang Mountain to Taicheng?" Li Xiucheng's face turned pale, and he said in a lost voice: "Long live the Heavenly King, you didn't make this will just now?" ”

"I'm down now, okay?" Hong Xiuquan said with an angry face: "If you don't hurry up and build this city wall, the demon soldiers will rush directly through the drum tower, how can Tianjing City be defended?" ”

"But the Heavenly King, if we are going to abandon the city, there is no need to rush to build this wall?" Li Xiucheng hurriedly asked again, "Long live the King of Heaven, do you still want to resolutely defend the city, and don't want to abandon the city and break through?" ”

"I said that whether to abandon the city and break through the siege has to let me think again." Hong Xiuquan waved his hand impatiently and said, "Go quickly, there are people in Tianjing City who can be requisitioned, and we will build the city wall first." ”

"Long live the Heavenly King, it's not a question of whether there is enough manpower." Li Xiucheng was so anxious that there was some sweat on his forehead, and said: "If you want to rush to build this city wall, your subordinates must deploy a large number of mobile troops in the north city of Tianjing to fight with the demon soldiers in the streets, and the army on the side of the three gates of Xiaguan cannot be withdrawn." In this case, although we will definitely be able to buy some time, our casualties will certainly not be able to fall there. Only the determination to abandon the city quickly, while preparing to abandon the city and break through, let the army fight and retreat ....... ”

"I just want you to buy a little time, whether to abandon the city or not, I haven't made up my mind yet." Hong Xiuquan waved his hand impatiently and said, "There is still a need to discuss how to abandon the city." Alright, go and do what I want, and drag the demon soldiers in the street battle first. ”

"It's over, I really don't know what to do now."

Li Xiucheng complained bitterly in his heart, but he was helpless, knowing that once the temper of the Great Sect Leader Hong became stubborn, he would not be able to fight with him for three days and three nights, so he had no choice, Li Xiucheng had no choice but to temporarily take a step back and honestly obey the order to retreat. However, Sect Master Hong still refused to let go of Li Xiucheng, and shouted at Li Xiucheng's back: "Remember, start building the city wall immediately!" If you don't have enough manpower, say to Mo Aiqing, let him help you recruit the people to listen! The higher and thicker the walls, the better! ”

The matter was not over, after leaving the Golden Dragon Hall dejectedly, in front of the gate of the Heavenly King's Mansion, Li Xiucheng saw Zhou Lichun and Zeng Lichang, two unlucky people who had been tied to the stake, and heard Zhou Lichun's desperate cry, as well as Zeng Lichang's scolding......

"Long live the King of Heaven, my daughter is with the transcendence demon by herself, she gave birth to a son I didn't know until a few years later, I didn't collude with the transcendence demon, I also fought with him! Treat unjustly! I was wronged! ”

"Hong Xiuquan! You old liar who pretends to be a ghost, Lao Tzu was born and died for you for so many years, in Yangzhou Lao Tzu was so hungry that he ate spiked soles and simmered cowhide boxes, Lao Tzu didn't betray you! Beyond the little demon to write a letter to Lao Tzu, you will kill me, you will burn me alive, you old liar conscience dog eat ....... Beat! Beat! Fight hard! See clearly, the fate of Lao Tzu is your future fate! Follow Hong Xiuquan, that old liar, sooner or later you will end up worse than Lao Tzu! ”

Shaking his head, Li Xiucheng didn't want to look at Zhou Lichun, who was crying darkly, and Zeng Lichang, a veteran of the Taiping Army who had been beaten to the point that his face was covered with blood, and he didn't want to imagine what bad impact this news would have on the Taiping Army. The only thing Li Xiucheng could do was to quickly send people to Zeng Lichang's old ministry to appease the army, so as to prevent Zeng Lichang's old ministry from changing.

For the rest of the night, Li Xiucheng was completely caught in an embarrassing dilemma, wanting to devise tactics to let several main forces in the north retreat to the south city in a battle and retreat, fearing that the leader of the Hong Great Sect would not make up his mind to abandon the city, giving the Wu army the opportunity to quickly advance to the hinterland of the city, so that the Taiping army could no longer move calmly. In order to meet the requirements of the Sect Leader Hong, while rushing to build the city wall, he fought with the Wu army for an inch of land in the northern city, and was worried that the main forces of Li Rongfa, Ji Qingyuan and Fang Haizong would suffer heavy losses in the street battle, which would seriously weaken the combat strength when breaking through. Dilemma, inconsistencies, and the choice of tactical guidelines are even more of a headache than Wu Chaoyue, who has a serious shortage of mobile forces in his hands, and he doesn't know how to fight at all.

In the end, unable to resist the repeated urging and persecution of Hong Xiuquan's confidant Mo Shixuan, Li Xiucheng could only adopt the compromise suggestion of the think tank Li Shuxiang, and decided to temporarily meet the will and requirements of the sect leader Hong, while mobilizing the people to rush to build the city wall and prepare to retreat, while no longer sending additional troops to the northern city, so that Li Rongfa, Ji Qingyuan and Fang Haizong and other armies held the barricades on the spot and wore down the enemy in street battles. Then take it one step at a time, improvise and act on the opportunity – in other words, hit where it goes.

On the 25th day of September of the Gregorian calendar and the third day of the eighth month of the lunar calendar, just after seven o'clock in the morning, under the personal command of Wu Chaoyue and the personal leadership of Cao Yanzhong, the heavy general of the Wu army, 6,000 well-equipped Wu soldiers divided the soldiers into two routes, respectively from the Shence Gate that had been re-dredged and the gap in the city wall next to it, and launched an attack on the barricade positions of the Taiping army in Nanjing, officially opening the prelude to the street battle in Nanjing.

At the same time, the Wu army had stopped its feint attack on the battlefield of the dragon's neck, and all the troops were used to monitor the twelve city gates of Nanjing except for the Shence Gate, rushing to build blocking fortifications at the exit of the city gates, digging trenches and laying mines, and arranging artillery to block the roads, so as to prevent the Taiping army from abandoning the city and breaking through at all times. Almost all of the sampan fleets of the Wu Army's sailors also sailed into the Qinhuai River, patrolling the river endlessly, ready to help intercept the Taiping army's troops leaving the city. At the same time, in order to prevent accidents, Wu Jun was also ready to blow up the moat bridges in Nanjing City at any time.

At 7:21, the battle officially began, and the soldiers of the Wu army, who entered the city in two ways, continued to act separately, led by Liu Kan, the general of Cao Yanzhong's department, and launched an attack on the position of Li Rongfa of the Taiping Army along Liuxiang, with the aim of taking Taicheng and directly threatening Hong Xiuquan's Tianwangfu; One route was personally led by Cao Yanzhong, marched east through Hongmiao Street, and launched an attack on the position of the Taiping Army's Jiqing Yuan Department, with the aim of defeating the Jiqing Yuan Army and receiving the Wu Army's Qian Wei Department outside the three gates of Xiaguan to enter the city.

Yang Xiuqing is really not completely in Menghong Xiuquan, the street battle of the Wu army in the city is indeed very hard, every step forward may be conspired by the cold guns in the courtyards of the houses on both sides of the street, can only be cautious while clearing the lurking enemies on both sides of the street, while slowly advancing forward; They were also hindered by the Taiping army's overnight rush to repair the barricades, and were forced to use slow-moving heavy artillery to bombard the road, and the advance speed was very slow, and the casualties were obviously more than in the field battles outside the city, and the ammunition consumption was even greater.

The most difficult to advance is Liu Kan's road, because the Taiping army is organizing the city to make every effort to repair the new city wall from Taicheng to Qingliang Mountain, the Taiping army can be said to have concentrated heavy troops on the road of Liuxiang, Li Rongfa and Fang Haizong The two armies guarded Liuxiang, and Yuan Dehou on Matai Street also sent a small army to harass Liu Kan's flank, plus the Taiping army on the city wall also kept shooting, Liu Kan's department soon fell into the dilemma of being attacked on three sides, forcing Wu Chaoyue to send troops to the west along the city wall, and advanced with difficulty at the top of the narrow city wall, Help Liu Kan share the pressure. However, even so, Liu Kan's troops still had to pay the price of blood for every step forward, and the speed of advance was surprisingly slow, and it was only at noon that less than a third of the streets of Liuxiang were taken, and the number of casualties among the soldiers exceeded 200.

The situation on Cao Yanzhong's side is better, but it is not much better, the Taiping Army Jiqing Yuan Department that did not participate in the melee of Shence Gate last night is all a new force, the army is complete, the physical strength and ammunition are sufficient, and there are also Chen Decai's army on the street of Sanpailou to help harass Cao Yanzhong's flank, and it is also with the street fighting fortifications that effectively block Cao Yanzhong's footsteps, so that Cao Yanzhong's advance is also extremely difficult, and the casualties are quite large.

Fortunately, Cao Yanzhong has quite a lot of experience in street fighting, he is never in a hurry whenever he encounters obstacles, and he will not take human lives to fill indiscriminately, but he just exchanges time for space, and uses heavy artillery to bombard the barricades of the Taiping army, directly blasting the road with picric acid shells, slowly and unshakably advancing to the west of Hongmiao Street step by step, and successfully hit the edge of Jinchuan Gate just after noon, sending a signal for the Wu army outside the city to launch an attack.

At this time, Ji Qingyuan, the general of the Taiping army, made a command mistake, in order to hold the Jinchuan Gate and prevent the Wu army outside the city from entering the city for reinforcements, Ji Qingyuan took the risk of urging the army to come forward, in a vain attempt to repel Cao Yanzhong and keep the Jinchuan Gate. As a result, it was natural that Cao Yanzhong's sudden dense bombardment of grenadier shells immediately blew up Ji Qingyuan's army, and the ghosts cried wolf, and the intensive fire of the firing pin guns knocked down the Taiping troops who charged in clusters in rows, so that Ji Qingyuan's counterattack not only failed to receive any effect, but also severely damaged the Taiping army's counterattack.

After defeating the counter-charge of the Taiping army, the grenadier team of the Wu army turned the muzzle of the cannon again, fired continuously at the Jinchuan Gate, densely covering the Jinchuan Gate Tower, although the defenders of the city resisted stubbornly, but still parried the fierce offensive of the Wu army, and after a fierce battle for more than half an hour, the Wu army opened the Jinchuan Gate from the inside, and the Wu army outside the city cheered into the city, and victoriously captured the second Nanjing City Gate.

The news of the loss of Jinchuan Gate did not surprise Li Xiucheng at all, on the contrary, Li Xiucheng was also very surprised that the Jinchuan Gate next to the Shence Gate was able to survive until the afternoon before being taken by the Wu army, and after carefully asking the details of the battle at Jinchuan Gate, Li Xiucheng couldn't help but say in surprise, and said: "The demon soldiers are advancing so slowly in the city? Is it really a drama for us to fight with them in the streets? ”

"Judging from the fighting style of the demon soldiers, they are worried about the casualties and losses of the soldiers, so they don't dare to rush too hard." Li Shuxiang also said: "If we continue to fight like this, we may really be able to build a strong city wall between Qingliang Mountain and Taicheng to block the demon soldiers again." ”

Li Xiucheng nodded thoughtfully, and then quickly made up his mind and said: "Give orders to all the armies in Beicheng, continue to resist in turn room by room, lane by alley, delay the attack of the demon soldiers, use cold guns to injure the enemy, and use small troops to guerrilla battles." Without an order, you must not launch a counterattack with a scale of more than 1,000 people without authorization! ”

After that, Li Xiucheng also added another sentence in his heart, and said: "Maybe the East King is nine thousand years old, Beyond the little demon is too greedy to annihilate us in Tianjing City, and can't send too many mobile troops into the city, as long as we can exhaust the demon soldiers in the street battle, not only can we hope to hold Tianjing City, but at least we can force the little demon to make tactical adjustments, and send the besieging army into the city to participate in the battle, so that we can abandon the city and break through more certainly." ”

When Li Xiucheng's hope was rekindled, and tens of thousands of Nanjing people were also forced by the Taiping army to rush to build the city wall from Qingliang Mountain to Taicheng, our Hong Xiuquan Hong Great Sect Leader was still hesitating in the Christ Temple behind the Golden Dragon Palace......

"The omnipotent Heavenly Father Emperor God, the mighty Heavenly Brother Jesus, you let me go down to the earth to save the world, and now that the demon soldiers have entered the Tianjing City, should I let the city leave and abandon the city to break through? Please also send down your divine power and give me some guidance ...... maze. ”