What made Nie Shicheng and Shao Yanhong feel that something was wrong was still behind, even the cavalry of the Twist Army that swept across the Central Plains and the famous Taiping Army did not dare to fight with the Wu army in the field bar, and the Qing army in Luoyang was reluctant to give up Longmen Town in the south of the city, and still left a regimental training garrison in Longmen Town, which was only protected by a soil fence, and did not give Longmen Town to the Wu army. Pen fun and pavilion www.biquge.info

I don't know how many enemies the Wu army has in Longmen Town, but it doesn't matter, even if the Ruzhou regimental training Li Zhanbu who volunteered to help the battle is excluded, the main force of the Wu army brought to the Luoyang battlefield by Nie Shicheng alone is 8,000 people, well-equipped and with the most advanced rear-loading rifled guns in the world, and it is easy to level Longmen Town. However, on the question of whether to capture Longmen Town and sweep away the Qing army outside the city, Nie Shicheng and Shao Yanhong hesitated.

What made Nie Shicheng and Shao Yanhong hesitate was Longmen Mountain next to Longmen Town, if the Qing army really arranged an ambush outside the city, then the ambush soldiers must be hidden in Longmen Mountain, and the Wu army attacked the Qing army that did not actually have the necessary defense of Longmen Town, and maybe it would fall into the trap of the Qing army.

But if you don't fight, you can't do it, Longmen Town is just stuck in the throat of the road where the Wu army marches into Luoyang, even if the infantry and horse soldiers can bypass Longmen Town and go north, the Wu army's baggage grain team and artillery team have to pass by Longmen Town, and Nie Shicheng, who has a steady personality, certainly can't take this risk. So after thinking about it again, Nie Shicheng gritted his teeth and said, "Fight!" Let's take Longmen Town first, and then take the opportunity to test whether there are really rebellious ambushes in Longmen Mountain! ”

In order to prevent the Qing army ambush that may be killed at any time, Nie Shicheng can only kill the chicken, first deployed the army on both flanks of the position to the Longmen Mountains, and then launched an artillery bombardment on Longmen Town, and was very careful to prepare for artillery fire in Longmen Town for an hour, and finally sent the army to attack the fortified battle.

Contrary to Nie Shicheng and Shao Yanhong's expectations, the imaginary bitter battle did not appear, the regimental training in Longmen Town just dodged the back of the broken earth enclosure and fired a gun, and fired a few shots with the earthen cannon made by Yumen, and then immediately abandoned the town, opened the northeast two gates of the earthen enclosure and fled directly into the Longmen Mountains, and scolded at the Wu soldiers wearing white crowns while running, "White hat thief, if there is a kind, come to chase!" Come to the mountains and fight to the death! White Hat Thief! ”

The enraged Wu soldiers really chased into the Longmen Mountains, but after entering the mountains, the Wu soldiers soon found out that they were fooled - they basically didn't know the road, but the Longmen Town regimental training was like a fish in water in the mountains and forests, and they had the opportunity to shoot cold guns to attack the Wu army, and if they didn't have a chance, they would drill into the mountains.

After the news was reported in front of Nie Shicheng, Nie Shicheng decisively ordered to stop the pursuit, collect his troops and return to the team, and left Longmen Town, which was basically bombed into ruins, to continue north. During this period, Shao Yanhong, who served as a staff officer for Nie Shicheng, also asked the residents of the town about the ambush of the Qing army, but the answers he received were varied, either that the Qing army had already laid an ambush, or that he had never seen the reinforcements of the Qing army, and that more than two Qing armies had rushed to Luoyang to participate in the defense of the city.

The enemy situation was unknown, and Nie Shicheng, who had a steady personality, had no choice but to adopt a conservative strategy, and did not dare to set up camp outside the open Luoyang South Gate City, and chose to set up camp in the southwest corner of Luoyang, far away from the Longmen Mountains, with his back to Luoshui. At the same time, he adopted Shao Yanhong's suggestion, and while discharging scout sentry horses to reconnoiter the surrounding situation, he selected some soldiers who were familiar with the nearby terrain from Li Zhan's Ruzhou regimental training, and asked them to disguise themselves as local people to go into the mountains to reconnoiter and search for the ambush location of the Qing army's ambushes.

At the same time, after receiving the news that Wu Jun was far away from Longmen Mountain and set up camp, Zhang Zhiwan and Zhang Zhidong, the embarrassed cousins, knew that their bluff had succeeded, and they immediately laughed more happily than the other. Yang Xiongfei, Liu Dingfu and Li Xiqi, who were not optimistic about this matter before, but the Qing army and military officers were all stammered, and they all said in surprise: "Really fooled? Wu thief is so stupid, do you really think we have some ambush? ”

"It's not stupid, it's cautious." Zhang Zhidong smiled and said: "Wu thieves have come from an expedition of thousands of miles, and they don't know anything about the situation in Luoyang, even if they send some detailed work to infiltrate Luoyang City to spy on the news in advance, they will definitely not be able to contact the high-level secrets of our army. The situation is unknown, unless the commander of the thief Wu is a rude and reckless man, he will never dare to take it lightly, and can only be cautious. ”

"My Wolong Little Zhuge !" Zhang Zhiwan strangled Zhang Zhidong's neck and praised him, and threatened: "Say it quickly, what should I do next?" How can we make the Wu thief army think that we have no fear and dare not rashly launch an attack on the city? ”

"Needless to say, of course the troops were sent out to harass at night!" Zhang Zhidong struggled and said, "Let go, strangle me to death, and see who gives you ideas." ”

When Zhang Zhiwan finally let go of Zhang Zhidong, Li Xiqi hurriedly asked, "Mr. Xiaoda, you said that you sent troops to harass?" Do you want those regiments who fled into Longmen Mountain to train out of the mountains to fight, can they? ”

"Those group exercises of mine are not good." Liu Dingshi, the chief training officer of the Luoyang regiment, also hurriedly said: "It's okay to ask them to play hide and seek with Wu thieves in the mountains, let them go out to fight in the mountains, and fight head-on with the Wu thief army, they will definitely not be able to." At that time, if they are caught by the Wu thief army and let the Wu thief know the truth in the mountain, then we will be in big trouble. ”

"Who said that the regiment in the mountains should train troops?" Zhang Zhidong rolled his eyes and said with a smile: "Have you forgotten that we still have a relatively safe way to send troops to harass the Wu thief camp?" ”

…………

It was the third watch of the night, in the dead of night, when the tired soldiers of the Wu army from afar basically fell into a deep sleep, the downstream passed through the Luo River under Luoyang City, and suddenly quietly drove a few civilian boats, close to the position of the Wu army, they immediately beat gongs and drums, and set off firecrackers. Frightened, the people in the Wu army camp shouted and neighed, and the soldiers got up one after another to prepare for the battle, Nie Shicheng was also so shocked that he quickly jumped out of bed and rushed into the big tent to understand the situation, but it turned out that Nie Shicheng's front foot had just entered the tent, and the drums and gongs outside the back foot camp suddenly disappeared without a trace.

Halfway through the fourth watch, the Qing army in Luoyang came again, deliberately making a noise to disturb the Wu army camp, the Wu army soldiers suffered a lot, and Nie Shicheng also complained bitterly, so he had to deal with Shao Yanhong. As a result, in the case of unclear enemy situation, Shao Yanhong could only suggest that Nie Shicheng move the camp to the east gate of Luoyang, gain a foothold on the north bank of Luoshui, and rely on Luoshui to prevent the Qing army from suddenly attacking the Wu army camp, build more sentry towers to monitor the enemy's situation, and blockade Luoshui to prevent the enemy from having a chance to repeat his old tricks.

In this way, knowing that time was more precious than gold, Nie Shicheng, who did not dare to take risks, could only put safety first, and spent his precious time on the useless work of transferring camps and building sentry towers on the second day.

Nie Shicheng made a stupid move, there was only one Luoyang regimental training in Longmen Mountain, which was a suspicious soldier, and there was no Qing army ambush, Wu Jun carefully searched the mountain, of course, he could not find anything, and at the same time, because the strength of the Ruzhou regimental training brought by Li Zhan was too poor, the Ruzhou regimental training that went into the mountain to search was also killed and injured one after another under the sneak attack of the Luoyang regimental training, which also completely misled the judgment of the decision-making level of the Wu army, and did not dare to conclude whether the killed and missing Ruzhou regimental training died at the hands of the regimental training in Longmen Town, or whether it was a good thing done by the Qing army's ambush soldiers.

Under Zhang Zhidong's precautionary arrangement, the false news that the Qing army had reinforcements arrived and was ambushed outside Luoyang City had already spread among the people under the deliberate dissemination of the Qing army's non-commissioned officers and Luoyang regimental training, and after the people of Luoyang who were inadvertently dead reported the news to Nie Shicheng, it naturally confused the Wu army's audio-visual hearing.

There is also a very important point that also confuses Wu Jun's judgment, although it shows that the status of Luoyang City has been greatly reduced in the Qing Dynasty, but it is a thousand-year-old city, and the emaciated camel is bigger than a horse, and Luoyang City, which has been reduced to a capital city, still has a dilapidated Tuwei Ziwai Guo - Zhang Zhidong also deliberately did not let the Qing army give up this dilapidated Wai Guo that would fall down as soon as he pushed it, and still divided the precious troops to garrison it, and at the same time deliberately allowed the people living in the city to enter and leave Wai Guo at will, posing a false impression of fearlessness.

The painful choice was put in front of Nie Shicheng, knowing that the reinforcements of the rebellious party in the capital must be rushing to Luoyang day and night, and continuing to waste time will definitely increase the difficulty of attacking the city, and may even lead to the complete failure of the plan to attack Luoyang. However, the enemy situation is unknown, and the legendary Qing army ambush outside the city cannot be found alive or dead, and it is indeed difficult to make Nie Shicheng make up his mind to attack the city with all his might.

"Is it a gamble and an all-out siege at any cost? Or is it prudent to take only half of the forces to attack the city, leaving half of the army to protect the camp and prevent the enemy from ambushing? In doing so, what if the siege fails due to lack of strength? Wouldn't that kill and wound the brothers in vain? ”

When he couldn't make up his mind, there was an accident - the next night, when the patrol sentry Wu Jun was patrolling at night, he inadvertently caught a Qing army messenger who was going north out of the city, and found Zhang Zhiwan's memo written by Zhang Zhiwan to the rebellious party in the capital, and sent it to Nie Shicheng with a book.

Zhang Zhiwan wrote to the rebellious party in the capital once made Nie Shicheng very happy - on the recital, Zhang Zhiwan claimed that the Qing army in Luoyang City was less than 1,000 soldiers, and the regimental training was only three or four thousand, and the ammunition was scarce, and the equipment to defend the city was lackluster, saying that if the Qing army reinforcements could not arrive in Luoyang before the Wu army attacked the city, then Luoyang was likely to be defeated by the Wu army in a battle, and he was left with the only choice to die for the country. So at the end of the twist, Zhang Zhiwan simply made it clear that this may be his legacy.

Contrary to Nie Shicheng, who was overjoyed, Shao Yanhong was full of doubts after reading the excerpt, and asked Nie Shicheng: "Gongting, have you found this a little strange?" If Zhang Zhiwan's rebellious party really wants to go to this fold, why don't you send it away before our soldiers come to the city, and only take the risk to send it out when we have already killed Luoyang City? He is not afraid of bad luck, he was intercepted by us halfway, and he knows his real and false background? ”

Nie Shicheng just has a simple personality, but he is not stupid, after being reminded by Shao Yanhong, Nie Shicheng quickly woke up, and asked in surprise: "Do you suspect that Zhang Zhiwan deliberately let us intercept his twists?" ”

"It's possible." Shao Yanhong nodded, and after thinking about it a little, Shao Yanhong proposed: "Interrogate that messenger carefully to see what the situation is,"

The horse's feet were soon exposed, although the Qing army messenger insisted that he was the personal follower of Zhang Zhiwan, a native of Zhili, but his thick Henan accent was completely exposed. After Shao Yanhong, who found the flaw, ordered torture again, the messenger quickly told the truth - in fact, he was just a Mengjin official sent by Zeng Zhao of Mengjin County to contact Luoyang, and was sent to the city by Zhang Zhiwan to deliver the excerpt, and said that if he was intercepted by the Wu army on the way, he must pretend to be Zhang Zhiwan's personal entourage, and he would be rewarded after the fact.

Nie Shicheng, who was almost hit, was shocked and angry, and when he hurriedly tortured the situation in the city, he also discovered Zhang Zhiwan's ruthlessness - this messenger turned out to be an outsider who only stayed in Luoyang City for a day, and after sending the letter to Luoyang, he had been left in Zhang Zhiwan's Qincha Xingyuan and could not go out, so no matter how Wu Jun tortured, this unlucky messenger could not explain a word about the enemy situation in Luoyang to Wu Jun.

"The dog is a mess, it's too cunning!"

Nie Shicheng was so angry that he scolded, but he was helpless, and at the same time, he was even more confused about the situation of the enemy in Luoyang City. And Shao Yanhong, who was completely taken to the gutter, was even more miserable, so much so that he had such a thought, "Zhang Zhiwan is doing this, is he deliberately luring us to attack the city?" ”

That night, Nie Shicheng and Shao Yanhong stayed awake all night, sitting with big eyes and staring until dawn, or when the sky was slightly bright, Nie Shicheng, whose eyes were red, asked Shao Yanhong: "Mr. Yanhong, what should I do?" Do you sweep the outer Guo first, or attack the city directly? ”

Playing with the brain really can't play Zhang Zhidong, who can publish a collection of poems and essays at the age of twelve, Shao Yanhong had no choice but to give Nie Shicheng a bad idea, and said hesitantly: "Let's clean up the outer Guo first, open up the siege road, and then act at the opportunity." ”

Nie Shicheng adopted Shao Yanhong's bad idea, and the soldiers of the Wu army also wasted most of the day cleaning the periphery, tearing down the ground-breaking enclosure outside the Jianchun Gate at the east gate of Luoyang, opening the siege city, razing the houses and streets outside the Jianchun Gate, and establishing a siege position, without rushing to attack Luoyang City, which was actually completely vulnerable.

It was also a coincidence that in the afternoon of the same day, the good news of the Qing army came from Mengjin, saying that the reinforcements sent by Huaiqing had rushed to the north bank of the Yellow River at the Mengjin ferry to start crossing the river, and unless the Wu army sent troops to intercept it, it would definitely be able to rush to Luoyang the next day to help the battle. Zhang Zhiwan was overjoyed when he heard the news, and hurriedly announced the good news to Luoyang Wenwu, and the officials in Luoyang cheered and were ecstatic, all admiring the Zhang brothers' empty city tricks, and finally deceived the Wu army and waited for the arrival of reinforcements.

Only Zhang Zhidong remained calm, and after carefully thinking for a long time, Zhang Zhidong also said to Zhang Zhiwan: "Brother, for the sake of prudence, we can't let this support army go directly south to Luoyang to help in the war, we can only let them go south to Anle Village and set up camp. ”

The sound of cheers stopped abruptly, and when everyone looked at Zhang Zhidong in surprise, Zhang Zhiwan was also surprised and asked, "Brother Xian, what do you mean by this?" ”

"We can't expose the reality of our empty city." Zhang Zhidong replied: "If our reinforcements go directly south to Luoyang at any cost, then the Wu thieves must understand that they are fooled, and they will attack the city with all their strength before our large reinforcements arrive, and we will still be at a disadvantage at that time, and we are still not sure that we can hold Luoyang." ”

After that, Zhang Zhidong turned to the civil and military forces in Luoyang again, and said in a deep voice: "Ladies and gentlemen, I know that you are all looking forward to the reinforcements coming to the rescue as soon as possible, but don't forget, because of insufficient preparation in advance, Huaiqing only sent us 2,600 reinforcements, even if this reinforcement enters Luoyang City, it will still not be able to stop the Wu rebel army equipped with foreign guns and cannons, but it will expose the true situation that we are actually vulnerable." ”

"Rather." Zhang Zhidong paused, and then said: "It's better to come to a hypocrisy, deliberately not in a hurry to let the Huaiqing reinforcements go south into the city to help the battle, and let them temporarily camp in Anle Village, which is more than 20 miles away in the north." In this way, the Wu rebel army will definitely believe that we are well guarded and have sufficient troops in the city, and they will not dare to easily launch an all-out siege of the city, which will not only allow us to get the opportunity to wait for strong reinforcements, but may also be cowardly and leave without a fight! ”

If Zhang Zhidong said this without establishing his own prestige, then Luoyang Wenwu would definitely scold Zhang Zhidong for having no hair on his mouth, not doing things well, and talking nonsense in Huangkou. But there is no way, Zhang Zhidong's performance in the past few days has completely convinced the Qing army in Luoyang, so at this moment, not only did no one dare to say a word, but after being silent for a long time, Yang Feixiong, the deputy general of Luoyang who had been very hostile to the Zhang brothers, also took the lead and said: "That's right, I support this!" Anyway, the reinforcements from Huaiqing's side won't help much when they enter the city, and they may be intercepted by Wu thieves on the road, so it's better to let them be stationed at a distance outside the city to contain and intimidate the Wu thief army, so that they can't figure out our reality at all! ”

Yang Feixiong, who once hated the Zhang family brothers to the bone, trusted Zhang Zhidong so much, and of course the other civil and military forces in Luoyang also nodded, thinking that Zhang Zhidong's risky method was the most appropriate. After thinking hard for a long time, Zhang Zhiwan finally personally wrote an official letter to Dai Ying, the deputy general of Huaiqing who led the army to help, ordering him to garrison Anle Village as a messenger and not to go south directly to Luoyang, and arranged for Mengjin County to provide grain and grass for Huaiqing reinforcements.

It was only after Zhang Zhiwan sent a reliable messenger to send the official document away, Zhang Zhidong said: "Our danger has not completely passed, if the Wu thief also receives the news that the Huaiqing reinforcements are about to arrive, maybe they will jump over the wall in a hurry and launch an attack overnight, before our Huaiqing reinforcements rush to Anle Village to set up camp and completely confuse the enemy, we are still in danger." ”

"What then?" Zhang Zhiwan hurriedly asked, "How can I stabilize the Wu thief for another day?" ”

Zhang Zhidong smiled, and smiled very easily and happily............