It is a coincidence that the day when the Henan Wu army retreated south from Bazhou happened to be the 29th day of January 1862, the last day of the first year of Qixiang and Tongzhi - the 30th day of the lunar calendar. Pen | fun | pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 ｉｎｆｏ

For the Manchu Qing court, which was empty in the capital, the Henan Wu army, which had already entered the capital within 300 miles, chose to take the initiative to retreat, of course, it was undoubtedly great news, so that after receiving this news, Ci'an and Cixi had not dared to sleep for several days in a row, and they cried directly, and they were so excited that they were no different from when the Qing army of Zhili miraculously repelled Shi Dakai's large-scale northern expedition. And the upper and lower levels of the Manchu court were even more jubilant, all grateful for the blessing of the hellish spirits of the wild boar skins of the past dynasties, so that the Manchu court escaped another catastrophe. The fallacy of the Manchu court that the Manchu court was blessed by gods and Buddhas was once again popular in the capital.

However, for the officers and men of the Wu Army who traveled thousands of miles to fight in Bazhou, Zeng Guoquan's decision to retreat was undoubtedly to make their hard work and hardships for thousands of miles to be wasted, not only did the morale of the army suffer a great blow, but there were also complaints in the army, causing countless soldiers to complain behind Zeng Guoquan's blind tossing and turning command, and there were not a few people who were frustrated and disappointed.

In fact, these Wu soldiers really blamed Zeng Guoquan for being forced to withdraw their troops to the south, and the most painful thing in his heart was actually Zeng Guoquan himself, Zeng Guoquan knew very well that this was to make the hard work of the Wu army soldiers in vain, and he also knew that doing so would greatly reduce his prestige, and he knew that after receiving this blow, it would definitely affect the morale and fighting spirit of the Wu army in Henan.

However, there is no way, as the commander of the whole army, Zeng Guoquan must think about the precious lives of nearly 10,000 soldiers under his command, and must consider the overall plan of the Wu army's Northern Expedition. Therefore, Zeng Guoquan had no choice but to choose to let the efforts of the self-army be wasted.

Even so, when leading the army to evacuate Bazhou City, looking back at the small city of Bazhou that was forced to give up only one day after hard work, Zeng Guoquan's eyes still had tears flickering, and his heart was like a knife, with all kinds of mixed tastes, and tears slipped down his cheeks unconsciously.

There was still no local Qing army in Zhili who dared to intercept the Wu army, and Tong Jian, who was sent back to Baoding Mansion from Zhengding, also stayed in Rongcheng honestly with his troops and horses, and did not dare to fight any idea of containing and blocking the Wu army. But even so, walking on the ice-covered North China Plain, the Wu army still gave people a sense of decadence, up to Zeng Guoquan and down to ordinary soldiers, almost everyone was depressed, and there was a frustrating atmosphere everywhere.

Including Zhang Zhidong, who has always been cynical and likes hippie smiles, the same is true, riding a horse and walking beside Zeng Guoquan, Zhang Zhidong's expression is indifferent, he looks back to the north many times, and he wants to speak countless times and wants to speak to Zeng Guoquan, but every time the words come to his mouth, and he forcibly swallows it back into his stomach. - After all, Zhang Zhidong knew very well that Zeng Guoquan would never accept his other proposal.

There is also disgusting Wu Jun soldiers and Zeng Guoquan, when Wu Jun came to the north bank of the Qing River to prepare to cross south, Cui Zhaofei of Baoding Zhi County on the south bank actually sent a messenger to contact Wu Jun, and directly told Zeng Guoquan that they were ready to burn grain, if Wu Jun really dared to attack the city, then when the first Wu Army soldiers entered the city, it was the time when they started to burn grain!

If it weren't for the fact that he had read poetry and books and knew the truth of not cutting the envoy, Zeng Guoquan would definitely have been able to slaughter the envoy of Baoding County with his own hands, but even so, Zeng Guoquan, who was full of fire, still ordered the soldiers to throw the envoy into the Qinghe River, and sent scouts to understand the city defense situation in Baoding County, to see if he was sure to take the small city of Baoding in one fell swoop, and decided that even if he didn't want food, he would cut Cui Zhaofei, who dared to whisker his tiger beard, and execute Ling Chi.

It is a pity that the scout's investigation result is that the certainty of quickly taking Baoding County is not large, because of the successive threats of the Taiping army and the Wu army, all the large and small cities in Zhili have strengthened the construction of city defense, and Baoding County, which is directly under the jurisdiction of Shuntianfu, has renovated the city wall, dug the moat and introduced living water, even if the Wu army is sure to take this small city, I don't know how much time it will take, how many soldiers will be sacrificed. So Zeng Guoquan had no choice but to roar angrily: "Cross the river and continue south!" Wait until later to settle accounts with this puppet surnamed Cui! ”

Before the order could be delivered, a personal soldier suddenly rushed to Zeng Guoquan's face, knelt down on one knee and played: "Yu Jiushuai, there is a common man who claims to be the secret envoy of General Nie Shicheng, and he has come to meet you with a secret letter from the king of Zhennan. ”

"Have you identified yourself?" Zeng Guoquan asked very carefully first.

"Back to the ninth marshal, it has been verified that it is indeed General Nie's personal soldier." The soldier replied.

Zeng Guoquan nodded, and then let the soldiers lead people to meet, and the result was very quickly, a young man dressed as an ordinary person was led to Zeng Guoquan's face, after saluting, Nie Shicheng's messenger first asked Zeng Guoquan for forgiveness, and then took off his coat, tore open his underwear, and took out Wu Chaoyue's letter to Zeng Guoquan from the underwear compartment, and presented it with both hands.

took the letter casually, and verified that the fire paint and secret notes were correct, Zeng Guoquan crushed the fire paint stamped with Wu Chaoyue's seal, took out the letterhead and took out a closer look, but probably after reading Wu Chaoyue's letter, Zeng Guoquan opened his mouth wide all of a sudden. After finally coming back to his senses, Zeng Guoquan also subconsciously pointed at Nie Shicheng's messenger and roared angrily: "Take down this chaotic party!" ”

As soon as the words fell, Zeng Guoquan's personal soldiers immediately pounced and held down the messenger Nie Shicheng on the spot, and the messenger Nie Shicheng was dumbfounded and shouted injustice, saying: "Zeng Zhongcheng, how did the small one become a chaotic party?" This and that? ”

"How dare you lie to Ben Shuai?" Zeng Guoquan shouted angrily: "Say, who sent you?" Is it an official document? Or is it Yixin? ”

"Zeng Zhongcheng, what are you kidding? How could it be that the small ones were sent by the official documents or the leaders of the chaotic party? The small one is General Nie Shicheng's personal soldiers, and the little one is sent by General Nie! The small one has an identity waist card and General Nie's handwritten warrant as evidence! ”

Nie Shicheng's messenger's arguments were useless, and Zeng Guoquan still firmly believed that he was a Qing soldier, and threatened that he would be executed if he did not give an honest account. Zhu Hongzhang and Liu Lianjie and other generals next to him were strange, and they all asked Zeng Guoquan why he thought that the messenger was a fine work of the Qing army, and Zeng Guoquan said confidently: "Do you still need to ask?" Do you believe that the king of Zhennan will ask us to go directly to the capital with a letter? ”

"King Zhennan wants us to go directly to the capital?" Zhu Hongzhang and Liu Lianjie and other old people of the Hunan army were dumbfounded, and then immediately woke up, nodded and said: "Can't be wrong, this messenger is definitely pretending to be a mess, trying to trick us into going to the capital to die!" ”

Fortunately, just when Zeng Guoquan's personal soldiers beat Nie Shicheng's messenger to extract a confession, Zhang Zhidong arrived in time, and exclaimed after just looking at the fine work: "Liu Yuan? Why are you here? ”

"Master Zhang, save me, Zeng Zhongcheng and they misunderstood that I was a chaotic party, help me testify!"

"Misunderstanding you are a mess? Are you kidding? Jiu Shuai, do you know that this Liu Yuan is not only the deputy captain of General Nie Shicheng's personal team, but also the cousin of General Nie's wife, the nephew of Lord Liu Qi, and the most reliable of our own people! ”

Or after Zhang Zhidong hurriedly said the background identity of Nie Shicheng's messenger, Zeng Guoquan's personal soldiers hurriedly stopped, and Zeng Guoquan was also dumbfounded and asked: "Is he Nie Shicheng's brother-in-law?" ”

Zhang Zhidong hurriedly nodded to confirm, Zeng Guoquan was even more dumbfounded, and then hurriedly ordered his own soldiers to loosen the ties of Nie Shicheng's brother-in-law, and apologized again and again: "Little brother forgive me, this time it was really a big flood that washed the Dragon King Temple, blame the old man for misunderstanding, and blame the order of the king of Zhennan for being too scary, so that the old man misunderstood that you were a meticulous work sent by the chaotic party, and deceived us to go directly to the capital and send us to death in vain." ”

"Jiu Shuai, the king of Zhennan wants us to go directly to the capital?" Zhang Zhidong heard the reason for Zeng Guoquan's misunderstanding, and was also taken aback.

Zeng Guoquan nodded, and then handed over the letter of Wu Chaoyue, which was almost torn by himself, to Zhang Zhidong and everyone to watch, but after carefully reading Wu Chaoyue's handwritten letter, Zhang Zhidong was also dumbfounded, and he almost suspected that he was in a dream. Then after pinching his thigh to prove that he was not dreaming, Zhang Zhidong also immediately cheered, "King Zhennan is wise and far-sighted!" Strategize in the middle of the battle, and win thousands of miles away! ”

When Zeng Guoquan, Zhu Hongzhang and the others looked at Zhang Zhidong in surprise, Zhang Zhidong also had no scruples, and said loudly: "Jiu Shuai, to be honest, in fact, since you decided to retreat yesterday, I have always wanted to persuade you to change your course, give up retreating south and go north directly, and attack the capital directly!" Because I very much suspect that this time the chaotic party has not been in a hurry to return to the capital, it may be an empty city plan! ”

"Empty city?" Zeng Guoquan asked in surprise: "Do you suspect that Beijing is an empty city with no defenders?" ”

"That's right! And even if there is a little chaos in the city, there will definitely not be too many! ”

Zhang Zhidong nodded vigorously and pointed out: "The main force of the chaotic party is gathering troops in Zhengding, not only intending to prevent our friendly army in Shanxi from advancing eastward, but also trying to take advantage of our eagerness to meet the eastward advance of the friendly army in Shanxi, and fight a decisive battle with us on the battlefield of Zhengding, desperately fighting on two fronts. ”

"Also, the chaotic party is likely to aim at the nine marshals you and the king of Zhennan do not dare to take risks, knowing that the king of Zhennan has always been cautious in using troops, and even more aware that Jiushuai is more cautious in using troops, so after we resorted to the plan of transferring the tiger away from the mountain, we deliberately refused to mobilize an army back to the capital to aid the capital, on the contrary, we also transferred troops from the capital to reinforce Tianjin, creating the illusion that there are enough defenders in the capital, and we dare not peep into the capital even more!"

After the analysis, Zhang Zhidong sincerely admired: "The king of Zhennan is really worthy of being the dragon and phoenix among the people, even if he is thousands of miles away, he still sees through the true face of the chaotic party in the capital at a glance, and decisively sends a letter to order, as long as we follow his orders, we will definitely win a big victory!" ”

"Wait." Zeng Guoquan hurriedly interrupted Zhang Zhidong and said, "King Zhennan only suggested in his letter that we should consider the tactics of attacking the capital directly, but he didn't ask us to do so. ”

"That's because King Zhennan doesn't know about the changes in the military situation on the front line, so he gave Jiu Shuai the right to maneuver independently." Zhang Zhidong explained: "Otherwise, if the king of Zhennan issued a decree requiring us to march into Beijing, but the rebel party rushed back to the division to reinforce during this period, it would really force us to die." ”

Zeng Guoquan hesitated, and Zhu Hongzhang next to him persuaded: "Nine Marshal, the stakes are very high, we had better think twice, I propose that the whole army set up camp for the time being, and it is not too late to make a decision after careful discussion." ”

"Can't set up camp!" Zhang Zhidong said categorically: "We are in the hinterland of the enemy, we are all enemies, we must not waste half a moment of hesitation and hesitation, we can only make a decision immediately, either listen to the tactical suggestions put forward by the king of Zhennan himself, and turn around and go north directly, or we will decisively go south and continue to retreat!" Otherwise, once there is a new change in the enemy's situation, we will not only miss the God-given opportunity to attack the capital directly, but also may fall into the dangerous situation of running out of food and no help! ”

"A major matter related to the life and death of our entire army, you asked Jiu Shuai to make a decision?" Zhu Hongzhang asked angrily.

"But we're really running out of time." Zhang Zhidong defended: "Once we stop and set up camp, the rebellious party will immediately guess that we have wavered, and want to go back to the capital, not to mention, the rebellious party Tong Jian, dozens of miles to the west, may immediately return to the division to reinforce the capital!" And then....... ”

"Needless to say!"

Zeng Guoquan rudely interrupted Zhang Zhidong, and signaled Zhu Hongzhang, Liu Lianjie and other old people of the Hunan army to also shut their mouths, and then said coldly: "Order the whole army, the front team will become the rear team, the back team will become the front team, turn around and go north, and go straight to the capital!" ”

"Jiu Shuai, do you really want to risk ......?"

Zeng Guoquan waved his hand again to interrupt the exclamation of Zhu Hongzhang and the others, and said viciously: "If you don't enter the tiger's den, how can you get the tiger?" It's all come to this point, no matter whether the capital is an empty city plan of the rebellious army, we have to give it a try anyway! ”

"Nine Marshal, but what if it's not an empty city plan? Our food and grass won't last for a few days! Liu Lianjie asked in horror.

"Then we will reroute to the northwest, go to Xuanhua to get food, break through Zhangjiakou and return to Shanxi!" Zeng Guoquan's voice was even more fierce, and he said with a hideous expression: "I don't believe it, the chaotic party can clear the walls of Xuanhua Zhangjiakou and kill all the cattle and sheep outside the fortress!" ”

When Liu Lianjie, Zhu Hongzhang and other old people of the Hunan army had no choice but to shut up, Zhang Zhidong smiled at Zeng Guoquan and said: "Nine handsome and wise, it turns out that you want to take this risk more than the lower officials." ”

Zeng Guoquan's expression calmed down slightly, and replied: "If it weren't for the fear of being sorry for King Zhennan, I would have made such a decision yesterday for his well-planned Northern Expedition. Since the king of Zhennan also agrees to take this risk, then I don't have any worries. ”

As if it was a joke of history, at the original historical level, in 1862 AD, Zeng Guoquan ignored Zeng Guofan's strong opposition, ignored the lack of troops and the lack of deployment in place, and led his headquarters to go deep and directly hit Nanjing, the capital of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, when the fighters were far from mature.

And on the historical level of being stirred up by the wings of Wu Chaoyue's demon moth, it was also in 1862, the same insufficient troops and deployment were not in place, and the fighters were far from mature, Zeng Guoquan, who had already retreated south, suddenly turned around and led more than 10,000 soldiers and horses to go directly north, and the soldiers pointed directly at the lair of the Manchu court-the capital!

This is an unpredictable surprise attack, in order to strive for victory, Zeng Guoquan also did his best to boost the morale of the army, in addition to adopting Zhang Zhidong's suggestion, claiming that he had received accurate information, there are only a few thousand old and weak defenders in the capital, and the important generals of the Qing army have secretly asked to surrender and prepare to sacrifice the city, but also openly issued an order, announcing that after entering the city of Beijing, half of the captured will belong to the soldiers!

"Set foot in the capital! Capture the Dead! King Qin protects and rebuilds the Qing Dynasty! This is the marching slogan shouted by Zeng Guoquanjun on the bright side, which is high-sounding.

"Break into the capital! Grab the treasury! Grab the inner library! Confiscate all the property of the rebellious party! This is the real slogan of Zeng Guoquan's army inside, shouting out the true voice of countless old Hunan soldiers, and also inspiring countless Wu soldiers to boil their blood and shoot green eyes.

The distance was only less than three hundred miles, and the good news that Zeng Guoquan's army suddenly returned to the division to fight the capital was sent to the capital late that night, and was sent to the devil who was already asleep. As a result, when he heard the good news, the sleepy-eyed devil Zi Liu's face was colorless on the spot, foaming at the mouth of his mouth, and he fell asleep with the Fujin Guerjia clan next to him, and immediately smelled a pungent smell of urine......

The distance was the second farthest, in the early morning of the next day, Wu Chaoyue's old boss Guan Wen, who was having breakfast in Zhengding Mansion, also received the good news, and the result was natural, of course, the exquisite breakfast that had just been eaten in his mouth immediately choked on Guan Wen's throat, and almost took the old fox Guan Wen's life on the spot, dancing with his hands and feet, and scared the maids next to him shouted, "Come on, the old man is crazy about smoking the sow!" Our lord suddenly smoked the sow and went crazy! Help me! ”

The most direct reaction was the farthest away from another Manchu old fox Luo Bingzhang, after receiving the good news that Zeng Guoquanjun really went to fight the capital, Luo Lao Fox simply spurted out a mouthful of blood, and even more neatly passed out directly, and was rescued by Liu Rong and others in a hurry, Luo Lao Fox cried directly again, "The old man mistook the court!" Mistaken! ”

Of course, the Manchu court also has a ruthless character who does not change his face when Mount Tai collapses in front of him, and when he heard that Zeng Guoquan turned around to fight the capital, our monk and prince not only did not panic at all, but also laughed wildly, "Finally, it is the turn of this king to show his skills!" Zeng Guoquan, Zeng Laojiu, you traitor, let the horse come, see how this king takes your dog's life this time, how he kills you to the fullest, and there is no piece of armor left! ”