After the bloody and fierce battle, the battlefield of Dashengguan was full of devastation, and there were corpses of Wu soldiers and Taiping soldiers everywhere, many of the corpses were mutilated, mixed with broken flags, abandoned ordnance and tattered weapons, and the roads and fields east of Dashengguan were paved layer by layer, and the blood and water were full of potholes, flowing along the streams and rivers, and slowly flowing into the Yangtze River, dyeing the rivers downstream of Touguan into a faint pink.

The air was filled with the smell of blood and the stench emitted by the burning of the human body, many of the seriously wounded of the two armies were still groaning and begging for help in the corpses, and the soldiers and civilians of the Wu army also carried stretchers in a pool of blood and kept shuttling, rescuing the seriously injured soldiers of the Self-army who were not dead as much as possible, as well as arresting the seriously injured Taiping army generals who were wearing good uniforms. As for the larger number of wounded Taiping soldiers, Wu Junminfu generally adopted an attitude of ignorance, ignoring the enemy's wounded cry for help in pain, and occasionally the wounded Taiping soldiers who could barely move hugged Wu Junminfu's legs and cried for help, but were also kicked away by Wu Junminfu immediately. For these civilians who followed Wu Jun all the way to Nanjing to eat, wasting time to save an ordinary soldier of the enemy who was seriously wounded but did not die is far less affordable than taking the time to search the pockets of the dead of the enemy.

This situation suddenly changed, and a well-dressed Wu army herald rushed into the battlefield of Dashengguan that was being cleaned, holding a banner representing Wu Chaoyue and shouting: "All the soldiers and civilians are listening!" The king of Zhennan has an order, for the long-haired wounded soldiers, you can't ignore them, and you can save them as much as possible! For every three wounded long-haired soldiers saved, one enemy is captured! ”

"King Zhennan is wise! Zhennan Wang is wise! ”

The cheers resounded in the crowd of Wu soldiers and people, although they did not understand Wu Chaoyue's order, but in order to calculate it as a reward for capturing the enemy, Wu soldiers and people still rushed to the wounded soldiers of the Taiping army who no one paid attention to, and rushed to carry the enemy's seriously wounded on stretchers and carried them to the prisoner of war camp for merit. Many wounded soldiers of the Taiping Army who heard Wu Chaoyue's order cried directly, and shouted weakly: "Master officers and soldiers, save me, I surrender, as long as you save my life, you can tell me to do anything." ”

When countless wounded soldiers of the Taiping Army were grateful for Wu Chaoyue's benevolent order with tears in their eyes, Wu Chaoyue also issued a second order related to the Taiping prisoners on his ship, the Wei Lin, saying: "The long-haired prisoners captured this time will be screened, and the long-haired ones below the length of the pawn will be sent to two rice balls to send them away, and the wounds that cannot be moved will also be given to the two rice balls, and they will be carried to the front of the long-haired formation to be released." We are not open to charity, and we can't afford to waste too much food on the hairy captives. ”

"King Zhennan, what if the captives we released return to the Longhair Army? Don't we have to waste ammunition and energy against them again? Zhou Wenxian, a staff member of the army, asked cautiously.

Wu Chaoyue laughed when he heard this, and Dai Wenjie, the chief of staff of the army next to him, also smiled, and said with a smile: "Wenxian, can't you see that this is the purpose of our Zhennan King to release the long-haired captives so quickly?" Our Zhennan King is not afraid that these long-haired captives will go back to Li Xiucheng to serve as a soldier for Da Changmao, but he is afraid that they will leave directly and not go to the long-haired military camp to publicize how we treat the long-haired captives well. ”

"Mr. Wenjie, do you mean that the King of Zhennan wants these long-haired captives to shake the hearts of the long-haired army for us?" Zhou Wenxian understood what Dai Wenjie meant.

"Exactly." Dai Wenjie smiled and nodded, and said: "The long-haired soldiers under Li Xiucheng's command are mainly Jiangnan soldiers, basically all of them are recruits recruited by Li Xiucheng in Jiangsu and Zhejiang, and their combat effectiveness is not strong and their fighting spirit is insufficient. Will there be the idea of laying down your arms and surrendering to save your life when the situation is not right? ”

Zhou Wenxian finally came to his senses, and hurriedly complimented Wu Chaoyue's wisdom and martial arts, and then comprehended another layer on his own, and hurriedly said: "I understand, I also understand that the king of Zhennan ordered that only the long-haired soldiers below the head of the pawn be released, and the long-haired soldiers who can be the head of the pawn must be long-haired veterans, who are more stubborn and not easy to shake." But the soldiers below the commander must be the recruits recruited by Changmao in Jiangsu and Zhejiang, which are the most easily shaken, and their combat effectiveness is not strong, even if they return to the team and take up arms again to fight us, our soldiers can easily deal with them. Moreover, these long-haired soldiers are numerous, and letting them go will not only reap the good name of benevolence, but also reduce our unnecessary food and grass expenses, killing multiple birds with one stone. ”

Wu Chaoyue smiled and nodded, praised Zhou Wenxian's understanding, and then looked at the battlefield of Dashengguan, which was still full of dead corpses, with a look of emotion, and after thinking for a while, Wu Chaoyue suddenly came out again, saying: "Mr. Wenjie, Wenxian, do you think I should send someone to contact Li Xiucheng and persuade him to put down his arms and surrender with Jiangsu and Zhejiang Changmao?" ”

"Send an envoy to recruit Li Xiucheng now?" Dai Wenjie and Zhou Wenxian were both the same, and then Dai Wenjie hurriedly said: "King Zhennan, is it too early?" Let's not mention that Li Xiucheng's big hair is known as loyal and righteous through the ages, and he is the most stubborn, and the possibility of succeeding in recruiting him is very small, even in the current situation, Li Xiucheng, the big long hair, will never lay down his arms and surrender? ”

"yes." Zhou Wenxian echoed: "Li Xiucheng still has more than 200,000 long hairs under his command, although they are all rabble, it is not difficult to deal with, but it is not easy to eliminate, so for Li Xiucheng's big long hair, he still has the strength to fight, how can he put down his arms and surrender with so many long hairs?" ”

"Of course I know this, Li Xiucheng, the big long hair, has no possibility of laying down his arms and surrendering now." Wu Chaoyue nodded, and said: "I just want to take precautions, show my attitude to Li Xiucheng in advance, let him know that I have no intention of killing him, and let him know that I don't want so many long-haired soldiers to be buried with Hong Xiuquan in vain. ”

Dai Wenjie understood what Wu Chaoyue meant, and hurriedly nodded and said: "That can be a foreshadowing, anyway, we have enough long-haired generals in the prisoner of war camp, and it is not difficult to find a long-haired prisoner who can bring the surrender letter to Li Xiucheng, and it is convenient to surrender in the future, and we will not have any losses if we don't succeed." ”

After that, Dai Wenjie, who knew that Wu Chaoyue didn't like to write autographically, hurriedly asked if he wanted to write it himself, and Wu Chaoyue, who was a mess of classical Chinese and calligraphy, was whimsical, shook his head and said: "No need, I will write this letter myself, you arrange the messenger first, and send it to Li Xiucheng by the way when the long-haired seriously injured are released later, so that Li Xiucheng knows our sincerity." ”

Dai Wenjie agreed, and asked rather insidiously: "King Zhennan, do you want to try to release the news so that Hong Xiuquan knows that we are secretly in contact with Li Xiucheng?" Suspicious of Lee so-sung? ”

"There's no need for that." Wu Chaoyue shook his head again and said: "Hong Xiuquan and Li Xiucheng didn't run in advance, which proves that our discord plan has been successful, and we can't make Li Xiucheng feel that our surrender is ill-intentioned, this time we are simply surrendering, and we don't play other tricks." ”

In this way, the messenger who could bring the letter directly to Li Xiucheng in accordance with Wu Chaoyue's arbitrary order was quickly arranged, and after the Third Route Wu Army's Eastern Expeditionary Army fully landed on the south bank, the screening of Taiping prisoners was also completed. According to Wu Chaoyue's arrangement, the grassroots soldiers of the Taiping Army who were able to act on their own were released on the spot after receiving two salted rice balls, and let them choose their own way out, while those Taiping soldiers who were seriously injured and met the release criteria were also carried by Wu Junminfu to the Taiping Army's Fengtaimen camp with a white flag and released after a simple bandage, shouting for the Taiping Army to send someone out to receive them. The only Taiping Army general who was released by the Wu army was Hong Chunsheng, the brother of Hong Chunyuan, the general of the Taiping Army, who carried Wu Chaoyue's handwritten letter.

Although it is true that there are many Taiping prisoners who voluntarily returned to the team or were forced to return to the team, but after these Taiping prisoners returned to the various camps of the Taiping Army, they immediately became volunteer propagandists of the Wu Army's prisoner policy with their own dry food, and were forced or self-confessed to the friendly soldiers and soldiers about their capture, as well as the specific encounters in the Wu military camp, which made countless Taiping soldiers in Jiangsu and Zhejiang who had already begun to waver even more shaken. There is no determination to fight to the death with the Wu army, the morale has declined, and the army's morale has been shaken even more seriously.

There were also some Taiping generals who provided assistance to Wu Chaoyue, and after the seriously wounded Taiping Army released by Wu Army returned to the camp of the Self-Army, because a considerable number of people were injured and had no rescue value, in order to save medicine and food, several Taiping Army generals in charge of the army directly ordered that the seriously wounded who could not be saved should be treated, and these seriously wounded were left to fend for themselves. As a result, it was natural that after gradually understanding the above intentions, these seriously wounded soldiers of the Taiping Army were of course so angry that they cried out one after another, scolding their bosses for being wolf-hearted and dog-hearted, and treating themselves as well as the enemy and treating themselves, and after the other Taiping soldiers saw these bloody examples, the morale of the rabbit and fox was even more affected without explanation, and there were more and more soldiers who were unwilling to work for the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom to the end.

Li Xiucheng did not know about these situations in the army at the first time, the reason was that the size of the ranks of the Taiping Army in Jiangsu and Zhejiang was too large, and it was difficult for Li Xiucheng to quickly know these grassroots reasons, and there was also a reason that Wu Chaoyue's handwritten letter brought back by Hong Chunsheng - although Li Xiucheng was extremely suspicious that this letter was the same as the letter that Wu Jun's envoy Mo Xiangzhi deliberately let Hong Xiuquan see, and he was uneasy about any good intentions or bad intentions. But after holding back the curiosity in his heart, after learning about the before and after the fiasco of Dashengguan from Hong Chunsheng, Li Xiucheng finally couldn't help but pick up the letter brought by Hong Chunsheng and opened it, and took out the letterhead to read it.

"Fuck it, the shit Zhennan King who paid off the demons, I heard that he was born rich and drank foreign ink, and his writing is even uglier than me, who has only read books for two years!"

Like many people who have seen Wu Chaoyue's calligraphy, Li Xiucheng also laughed at Wu Chaoyue's ignorance and ghost-drawing calligraphy. However, after carefully reading Wu Chaoyue's letter written in the vernacular, the disdain and ridicule on Li Xiucheng's face gradually disappeared, and he faintly had a different kind of thought for the first time............

The full text of Wu Chaoyue's handwritten letter is as follows: "Brother Li Xiucheng, junior brother Wu Chaoyue, I have admired your name for a long time, like thunder, but unfortunately I have never had the opportunity to meet you, it is really a great pity." I hope that this Jiangning War will have the opportunity to meet you, let me see with my own eyes what the world-famous loyal king Li Xiucheng really looks like, and it is best to sit down and have a glass of wine with you, and talk about our ambitions and ideals.

Don't talk nonsense, let's get down to business, now the situation on the battlefield in Jiangning, your brother Li must be very clear, you have no hope, although you still have more than 200,000 troops and camps to defend, but in the face of my foreign artillery shells, it is simply vulnerable, defending the camps will only give me every opportunity to break through, and attacking reinforcements is even more in vain, no matter what you do, you are dying, and you can't see any hope. Unless Hong Xiuquan allows you to retreat into Jiangning City with the army to defend the city, then maybe you will still block my opportunity for a long time, but you must know better than me in your heart that Hong Xiuquan will never allow your army to enter the city.

Of course, you still have the option of quickly retreating to the rear of Jiangsu and Zhejiang University with the army, to keep some troops and continue to struggle to the death, but first, Hong Xiuquan will not agree, and second, Brother Li, have you thought about it, if you do this, how much more difficult will it be for your soldiers to die innocently? How many more sins will the innocent people of Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Suzhou and Hangzhou suffer, and how many more will they die?

I know that it may seem ridiculous to outsiders that I am trying to persuade you with these reasons, that everyone is a merciful man who does not command the army, and who cares more about the number of soldiers and civilians who die? But I know you won't laugh, because my meticulous work reported to me, saying that your brother Li was very popular with the people when he governed the people in Jiangsu and Zhejiang, and had the reputation of loving the people like a son, and the people of Suzhou in order to thank you for your benevolent government, specially set up a white jade stele for you outside the city of Suzhou, and there are many folk songs to thank you for singing your praises. The common people will not lie to me, so I believe that you will not laugh, because you, like me, are the people who have the people in mind.

Brother Li, the people love you so much, you can't bear to repay them with the continuous war? You can't bear to do it for the sake of your so-called eternal loyalty and righteousness, for the sake of Hong Xiuquan, who pretends to be a god and a ghost all day long, to harm so many innocent people, is it worth it?

Brother Li, I know that you still have the strength to fight now, and you can survive for a while, and it is absolutely impossible to accept my surrender, but I still want to advise you, for your own sake, and for the sake of the soldiers under your command who followed you from birth to death, as well as the innocent people who love you and support you, consider laying down your arms and surrendering to me in the future. I can guarantee the safety of your life and property, as well as the safety of the soldiers under your command, even Hong Xiuquan, whom you are loyal to, as long as you surrender, I can also consider letting him live.

Also, I can tell you clearly, I have already thought of a way to settle you and your soldiers, the Japanese wolf ambition, and now they are invading our Chinese vassal state of Ryukyu since the former Ming Dynasty, and the Ryukyu country has asked me for help, I have promised, after you and your soldiers surrender, if you want, I can send a fleet to send you to Ryukyu to fight the Japanese Japanese invaders, or I can directly send you to Japan to exterminate the Japanese army, so that you can gain a foothold in Japan, and also make you an anti-Japanese hero like Qi Jiguang, Our Chinese national heroes are immortal and immortal.

That's all I have to say, Brother Li, please think about it carefully, no matter when you lead the army to surrender, I will meet you. Also, there are no eyes on the battlefield, Brother Li, you must take care of yourself, don't be accidentally injured by the guns and bullets of our soldiers, and leave me with eternal regrets. Brother Wu transcended and bowed. ”

Looking at Wu Chaoyue's vulgar and straightforward letter repeatedly, Li Xiucheng wanted to laugh several times, but every time the words came to his mouth, he stopped by himself, he didn't speak much for a long time, his mind was still a little blank, and he didn't dare to recall the content of Wu Chaoyue's letter. However, Li Shuxiang next to him came up and opened his mouth after reading the letter, and said with a sneer: "It's so arrogant to surpass the little demon, even his father-in-law on the Yuhua Platform didn't save him, and he actually has the face to dare to surrender us." ”

Li Xiucheng still didn't say anything, and just asked himself in his heart: "Beyond the little demon has already won the big victory pass and the head pass, and then he only needs to break through our two camps in Fengtaimen, and he can get through the connection with the Yuhuatai demon soldiers, if the beyond the little demon really does this, how long can I hold out in the two camps in Fengtaimen?" After being taken by the demon soldiers and opening up the connection with Yuhuatai, what kind of hope can my army have? ”

When I asked myself, a personal soldier suddenly came in outside the tent, knelt down to Li Xiucheng and said that Hong Xiuquan sent Mo Shixuan, the official of the Criminal Department of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, as an envoy, and came to read Hong Xiuquan's holy decree in his hand. I was worried that the Transcendence Demon was uneasy and well-intentioned to do so, and I wanted to take the opportunity to plant spies in your army, so I sent Mo Shixuan to your army as a supervisor to help you identify and capture the demon soldiers sent by the Transcendence Demon. Chin this. ”

Very helplessly glanced at Mo Shixuan, the prison soldier who was forced by Hong Xiuquan, and even more helplessly glanced at Li Shuxiang, a close confidant, Li Xiucheng kowtowed to the order, but the matter was not over, after Li Xiucheng got up, Mo Shijun actually asked with a smile on his face: "Loyal King Chitose forgiveness, on the way into your camp, your subordinates accidentally heard such a thing, saying that it was beyond the little demon and let our captured generals bring you a letter, and your subordinates dare to ask more, is this matter true or false?" ”

Li Xiucheng was silent, still wanting to laugh in his heart, and said secretly: "For the great cause of the kingdom of heaven, I have been loyal to this point, long live the king of heaven still can't believe me, he can't believe me." ”