"No way, our siege plan has to change again."

After reading the urgent information sent by Wu Jun in Shanghai, Wu Chaoyue's expression was quite helpless, and he said to the several accomplices present with regret: "We can't fight slowly, we must speed up our actions and take Jiangning City as soon as possible, otherwise, if Changmao really asks Britain and France to intervene in our decisive battle with them, the variables of this battle will have to increase, and it is not impossible for our previous efforts to be wasted." ”

"King Zhennan, can Changmao really ask foreigners to mediate?" Dai Wenjie was very skeptical of the Taiping Army's diplomatic efforts, and said: "Let's not say that we have a better relationship with foreigners, and we have formal diplomatic relations in accordance with public international law, even if the foreigners can betray us for their interests, what price can Longhair get to make foreigners tempted?" ”

"Don't underestimate the chips in Changmao's hand, and don't underestimate the brazenness of foreigners." Wu Chaoyue shook his head and said: "Most of the rich land on the southeast coast is still in the hands of Changmao, and Changmao has also saved a considerable amount of savings over the years. ”

"And." Wu Chaoyue added: "For the national interest, there is no more favorable thing for other countries to be the referee to decide the outcome of the victory, and it is impossible for the British and French not to understand this, as long as one of them intervenes in our civil war, it will be endless trouble for us." Even if we can ignore their interference and insist on getting rid of the long hair, it may lead to diplomatic disputes, which will not be conducive to our post-war reconstruction and development. ”

The reason why Wu Chaoyue was able to come to such a conclusion was, of course, because he was well aware of China's diplomatic experience and lessons in later generations, and did not want to make enemies with Britain and France, the two major hegemons in the world today, when China's industrial base was still very weak. Although Dai Wenjie and the others are not traversers like Wu Chaoyue, but because they have witnessed the huge advantages of the Western powers in terms of military technology and industrial strength, they are also unwilling to turn their faces and start a war with these invincible enemies, so they all nodded one after another and said: "This point cannot be guarded against, and now our best way is to quickly break through Jiangning City, kill Li Xiucheng and Hong Xiuquan, these big long hairs, and not give foreigners a chance to interfere." ”

Wu Chaoyue didn't say anything more, first asked his staff to ghostwrite a letter to Wu Lao Comprador and Zhou Tenghu and others, asking them to contact Wu Xiaoping, a cheap father in Hong Kong, for him, so that the cheap father would win over Robinson, the new British governor of Hong Kong, at any cost, and continue the relatively friendly relationship between his family and the British official; He also asked the old comprador Wu to come forward and do his best to obstruct the Taiping army's envoys from asking Britain and France to mediate. Then Wu Chaoyue sat next to the map sand table, recalling and summarizing the military information of the Taiping Army collected in the past few days, while calculating and pondering ways to take Nanjing City as soon as possible.

As a result of the calculation, Wu Chaoyue found that his army was actually sure that he would quickly break the city, as long as he used two of the three continental divisions and corps to concentrate his forces on a position on the city wall of Nanjing, and with the comprehensive advantages of Wu's army's weapons and equipment and the quality of his soldiers, combined with the powerful Dana explosives, he had a great hope of directly breaking the city - the great thing was to pay some more casualties. However, it is a pity that if Wu Chaoyue uses this tactic to attack the city, then the Wu army will not have the extra strength to prevent the Taiping army from abandoning the city and breaking through, and once Li Xiucheng protects Hong Xiuquan and escapes to the rear of Suzhou and Hangzhou, the time to completely eliminate the Taiping army will definitely become far away, not to mention, the Taiping army will also have plenty of time to fight to pull the Western powers into the water, which will increase the difficulty of the unification of the Wu army.

In view of this situation, the most ideal method for Wu Chaoyue at present is to break into the city of Nanjing with part of his troops under the condition of ensuring that the Taiping army's breakthrough road is blocked, and gradually eliminate the enemy in the city, so that the Taiping army cannot be contained in the city and is forced to break through, and then use the besieging army to exert force to destroy the enemy who is trying to escape for his life in the field. And in this regard, as long as we can find a way to quickly break through the Taiping army's wall defense line and open up a stable and reliable way into the city, then with the Wu army's superiority in weaponry and the quality of its soldiers, it is not only hopeful but also certain to achieve this goal.

"I still have to find a way to steal chickens, touch dogs, and cheat and win."

After a turn of thought, Wu Chaoyue found that he was back to square one, if he could find a way to quickly break through the Taiping army's city wall defense, then it would be easy to say anything, but if he couldn't do this, then everything would be empty words. But fortunately, this aspect has always been Wu Chaoyue's strength, and although Wu Chaoyue couldn't think of a specific way to sneak attack, Wu Chaoyue couldn't think of it for a while, but in view of Li Xiucheng's deployment arrangement that the main force of the defenders was mainly concentrated on the Beicheng battlefield, Wu Chaoyue quickly found the opportunity. After thinking for a while, Wu Chaoyue also asked Dai Wenjie: "Mr. Wenjie, if you are Li Xiucheng and see my banner suddenly appear in the Xiaguan area, what would you think?" ”

"What would I think?" After putting himself in Li Xiucheng's shoes, Dai Wenjie replied: "Back to Zhennan Wang, I will be suspicious immediately, although the Xiaguan battlefield is also very important, it is still not as important as the Jubaomen side." Moreover, General Qian Wei is already in charge of Xiaguan, and the King of Zhennan is personally commanding the troops on the side of Jubaomen, and King Zhennan, you have no reason to leave the Jubaomen side to establish a Chinese army camp in Xiaguan, which is completely unreasonable, so I will definitely be suspicious. ”

"Then you wonder what I'm going to do?" Wu Chaoyue asked.

"This ......." The difficulty of the question was a bit great, and Dai Wenjie spent a lot of time thinking before answering: "King Zhennan, if the student is Li Xiucheng, I will suspect that you want to continue to attack the east and west, and induce me to transfer the main force to Beicheng to create an opportunity for you to sneak attack Jiangning Nancheng." But considering that the king of Zhennan, your soldiers have always liked to win by surprise, I will also suspect that you have come to a real place, and you really arrived at the next pass, and suddenly attacked the northern city of Jiangning. ”

"And what will you do?" Wu Chaoyue asked again.

"Respond to change with the same." Dai Wenjie answered this question quickly, and replied: "Unless you adjust the army garrison on a large scale King Zhennan, I will definitely choose to respond to all changes with the same. Because the king of Zhennan, you just moved to Xiaguan to preside over the battle, and did not pose a real threat to the Jiangning city wall in the Xiaguan area, not only is it unnecessary to adjust the army in the city, but it is also easy to make mistakes and expose flaws. ”

Wu Chaoyue nodded slowly, and after thinking about it for a while, Wu Chaoyue made up his mind, slapped the table and said, "Move my Chinese army tent and go to Xiaguan!" ”

"King Zhennan, do you really want to go to Xiaguan?" Dai Wenjie paused, and hurriedly asked, "For no reason, King Zhennan, why did you suddenly decide to go to Xiaguan?" What to do with the Treasure Gate? ”

"Of course, Li Xiucheng was completely confused, and he didn't dare to adjust the army's defense casually, and create an opportunity for us to attack the three gates or the Shence Gate." Wu Chaoyue replied: "As for the Jubaomen side, there should be no big accidents if you don't change everything and don't make any adjustments. ”

"King Zhennan, have you decided to attack the Three Gates of Xiaguan or the Divine Ce Gate? Is there any reason? Dai Wenjie asked again.

"The reason is just two words, troops." Wu Chaoyue replied: "I moved the big tent of the Chinese army and prepared to bring four battalions over, which is not a large number of troops, and it should not arouse the vigilance of Long Mao." But in fact, after I brought four battalions over, plus the 8,000 troops that Qian Wei brought before, as well as Cao Yanzhong's mobile force of about 8,000 men and the Shencemen garrison of 3,000 people, we have more than 23,000 troops to use on the Simen battlefield in the northwest of Jiangning City, and even if we stationed 2,000 troops outside each city gate to block Changmao's escape route, we still have more than 15,000 mobile troops that can be put into the offensive field. Then, as long as you find a way to break through the defense line of the long-haired city wall, so many troops will be enough to decide the outcome of the battle in the city. ”

Speaking of this, Wu Chaoyue paused, and then added: "Also, Xiaguan is adjacent to the Yangtze River, if necessary, we can also urgently dispatch sailors to shore to help in the battle, so as to ensure our superiority in local battlefields." ”

Dai Wenjie applauded and praised: "The clever plan of the king of Zhennan, not only does not arouse too much suspicion of Changmao, but also quietly gathers a large number of troops on the battlefield of Xiaguan to listen to it, as long as Changmao does not transfer the main force to the northwest corner of Jiangning City in advance, we are very likely to kill Changmao by surprise." ”

"It also depends on whether we can suddenly break through the Jiangning city wall." Wu Chaoyue sighed, still didn't come up with any good way to break the city suddenly, but Wu Chaoyue had no choice but to wave his hand and said: "First move my Chinese army tent over, how to break the city, wait until I get to the next pass." I'm more familiar with the situation over there, and I have a better grasp of it there than on other battlefields. ”

Wu Chaoyue did not relocate his Chinese army headquarters to Xiaguan on the same day, the reason is that the relocation of the headquarters involves a lot of people and takes time to prepare, and the second is that Feng Sanbao suddenly sent someone to report, saying that it was Feng Sanbao's fortieth birthday in two days, although Feng Sanbao himself didn't want to bother with such a trivial matter, but the dog-headed military division Ding Baozhen offered a plan to lure the enemy, and was ready to use Feng Sanbao's corps to recruit a large number of local people to dig siege trenches, and there must be many Taiping troops lurking among the people to do this. Lure the Taiping army to attack out of the city on the day of Feng Sanbao's birthday, and secretly set up an ambush to meet the Taiping army's troops out of the city, and try to weaken the enemy in the field battle. Feng Sanbao thought that it was a solution, so he began to arrange a plan to lure the enemy, and at the same time reported the matter to Wu Chaoyue.

Wu Chaoyue was very appreciative of Ding Baozhen's plan to lure the enemy, and in order not to arouse Li Xiucheng's vigilance, Wu Chaoyue temporarily postponed his plan to transfer the headquarters and fully cooperated with Feng Sanbao's plan to lure the enemy. - The reason for the postponement is also very simple, if Wu Chaoyue relocated the headquarters of the Chinese army and went to the northwest of Nanjing City in person, and Feng Sanbao suddenly celebrated his birthday with great fanfare in Xiaolingwei, which is directly east of Nanjing City, Li Xiucheng would definitely suspect that this was Wu Jun's trick to lure the enemy.

Ding Baozhen, a famous minister and famous foodie in the late Qing Dynasty, did not disappoint Wu Chaoyue, and after receiving the news that Feng Sanbao celebrated his 40th birthday with great fanfare, Li Xiuguo was fooled, and while laughing at Feng Sanbao's nouveau riche behavior, he arranged two elite soldiers to ambush in Chaoyangmen and Hongwumen, and took advantage of the opportunity of the Wu army's Feng Sanbao Corps to celebrate and suddenly went out of the city, and used the night cover to sneak attack Xiaolingwei, in a vain attempt to take advantage of the opportunity of the Wu army's lax defense, and teach the weakest Feng Sanbao corps in the Wu army a hard lesson.

It is true that Feng Sanbao's corps is the weakest among the three continental war corps of the Wu army, but no matter how weak its strength is, if it ambushes the Taiping army that did not carry heavy weapons when it has been prepared for a long time, it is still difficult for Feng Sanbao's corps to win the battle. After a fierce battle, the two Taiping armies who ventured out of the city to sneak attack were both defeated, the Taiping army general Lian Yekun who led the army to attack from Chaoyangmen was killed, and less than 2,000 people fled back to the city with more than 6,000 people, and the Taiping army's Haizong Department that attacked from Hongwumen also suffered a lot of losses, and more than 3,000 soldiers were killed and captured and fled by opportunity, two Tianan-level generals were killed, countless ordnance was lost, and even valuable mules, horses and donkeys were captured by the Wu army more than 400 horses.

After the news of the ambush defeat of the army out of the city was delivered to Li Xiucheng, Li Xiucheng's face was of course how ugly and ugly it was, and he not only felt guilty for his mistakes in judgment and decision-making, but also extremely regretted that he had lost so many elite reserves at once, which seriously weakened the mobile force in his hands. However, the matter was not over, just the next morning, news came from outside the city, saying that the Wu army had relocated the headquarters of the Chinese army, and Wu Chaoyue personally led about 2,000 Wu soldiers to move north through the Jiangdong Gate.

It was too far away to see too much valuable information in the telescope, so the only thing Li Xiucheng could confirm after personally observing it on the city wall was that Wu Chaoyue's Wu-character banner was indeed striding north. But it is precisely because of this that Li Xiucheng has a feeling that he is even more confused, and he can't understand why Wu Chaoyue suddenly moved to the headquarters and left Jubaomen for no reason.

"Beyond the little demon took the wrong medicine, headless and brainless, how could he suddenly think of transferring the camp of the Chinese army?" Li Shuxiang, a powerful staff officer, also didn't understand Wu Chaoyue's intentions, and said suspiciously: "The battle line on the side of Jubaomen is already long, and we have the most chances to break through in this direction, and the army arrangement that surpasses the little demon is clearly trying to trap us, why does he want to leave this position and go to the direction of Xiaguan in the north?" ”

Li Xiucheng thought hard, and only after a while did he say very carefully: "The banner of surpassing the little demon is to leave the treasure gate and go north, but is he himself with his banner?" ”

"Zhongwang Chitose, do you suspect that the little demon is just going north under a false banner, he himself did not leave, and he is still outside the treasure gate?" Li Shuxiang understood what Li Xiucheng meant.

"With a person who surpasses the little demon, he can definitely do this kind of thing!" Li Xiucheng replied categorically, and said: "After all, the city wall on this side of Jubaomen is the longest, and if you want to win by surprise, this side of Jubaomen is the best choice." ”

Li Shuxiang nodded, and also suspected that Wu Chaoyue was still attacking the west, leaving the Treasure Gate on the surface, but in fact he was still hiding outside the Treasure Gate and preparing to steal chickens and dogs. Then, Li Shuxiang also considered another layer, and said: "Zhongwang Chitose, it's best to guard a little more against the side of Jubaomen, our mobile forces in Nancheng were only severely damaged by the demon soldiers last night, the morale of the army was frustrated, and the strength of the reserve team was also weakened. ”

Li Xiucheng nodded, quickly made up his mind, and said: "Don't make any adjustments, respond to all changes with inconvenience, and first find out the intention of surpassing the little demon to move to the camp." Also, from tonight onwards, the South City side will double the patrols and sentry posts! ”

In this way, he was guessed by Dai Wenjie, the chief of staff of the Wu army, who was not very good at military affairs, because he was afraid of Wu Chaoyue's treachery and scheming, and he really couldn't judge the reason and purpose of Wu Chaoyue's sudden relocation of the headquarters, Li Xiuguo chose to respond to all changes with the same, and did not dare to easily mobilize the defenders to adjust the deployment. The Wu army quietly completed the northward shift of the center of gravity without much action, and secretly chose the main battlefield in the area of Xiaguan Sanmen and the Shence Gate that Wu Chaoyue personally guarded.

But there are also things that make Wu Chaoyue unexpected, when Wu Chaoyue came to Xiaguan with two thousand Chinese troops, before the Wu army soldiers established a new Chinese army camp, Zhang Dejian, the head of the Wu army's spies, hurriedly came to Wu Chaoyue's front and said: "The king of Zhennan, the long-haired general Wu Jianying, got in touch with us, saying that he has successfully returned to his old army, and asked us to send troops to his defense area as agreed, help him gain Li Xiucheng's trust, and regain control of the old army." ”

"Where is his defense?" Wu Chaoyue asked casually.

"King Yuzhen Nan, in the Shence Gate."

"Shence Gate?!"

Zhang Dejian's answer made Wu Chaoyue exclaim once, and a sense of intimacy rose spontaneously. It's a pity that Zhang Dejian couldn't understand Wu Chaoyue's mood, and just continued: "Li Xiucheng's confidant Ji Qingyuan is in charge of the five gates of Dinghuai, Yifeng, Zhongfu, Jinchuan and Shence, Wu Jianying's old department was assigned to obey the orders of Shencemen, and the army was also divided into two by Ji Qingyuan and handed over to Wu Jianying's two old subordinates, Liu Yulin and Fang Youcai, to be in charge respectively, and directly obeyed the command of Ji Qingyuan. Wu Jianying is currently serving in Fang Youcai's army, helping Fang Youcai pacify the soldiers and handle some chores in the army, although there is no way to directly command the troops, but there are still some people who continue to listen to him. ”

"It's really a god, it's really fate."

Wu Chaoyue smiled again, quite surprised by his indissoluble bond with the Divine Ce Sect. However, after careful consideration, Wu Chaoyue found that the Shence Gate side may not be his opportunity, and maybe he may delay his plan to break the city. Because first of all, the first point is that Wu Chaoyue can't judge the truth of Wu Jianying's surrender, and he is worried that if Wu Jianying surrenders by fraud, once he makes a fuss about him, he will immediately completely expose his main battlefield for siege. The second is that even if Wu Jianying really surrendered, Wu Chaoyue sent troops to attack and deliberately give him a chance to make meritorious contributions, which may expose his real main attack target, so that Li Xiucheng noticed that Wu Jun could gather heavy troops at any time to launch a siege on the battlefield of Xiaguan......