"What? Beyond the little demon has already seen through our siege plan? ”

Shi Dakai, who was also taken aback, completely forgot the oath of never believing that Wu Chaoyue's subordinates would surrender, and directly snatched the letter from Duan Pei, the general of the Wu army, brought by Zhang Suimou, and opened it to find that sure enough, at the beginning of the letter, Duan Pei did directly report that Wu Chaoyue saw through the Taiping Army's underground siege of the city was just a bluff. Pen | fun | pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 ｉｎｆｏ

Then, Duan Pei also reported Wu Chaoyue's countermeasures and defense strategies, saying that Wu Chaoyue expected that the Taiping army would inevitably launch a surprise attack on Jiujiang City within two to three days, and arranged strict countermeasures. At the same time, Wu Chaoyue also clearly asked the Wu army in Jiujiang to be prepared to hold the city for a long time, and make every effort to contain the main force of Shi Dakai's department in the area of Jiujiang and Hukou, so as to gain time for the main force of the Wu army's eastward expedition to attack Anqing and reduce the pressure.

In addition, of course, Duan Pei explained the reason for surrender and specific plans, saying that after he officially joined the Wu army with Liu Mingchuan, he found that Wu Chaoyue's rewards and punishments were unclear, and he blindly favored and reused his cronies, old generals and in-law generals, and was very sorry for General Duan Pei in terms of official positions, titles and rewards; At the same time, Liu Mingchuan was too unrighteous, only caring about his own promotion and making a fortune and ignoring the life and death of his old brothers, and he was also very sorry for Duan Pei, so General Duan Pei made up his mind to defect to Shi Dakai who had treated him well again, and was ready to secretly open the gate of Jiujiang City to welcome the Taiping army into the city, as a meeting gift to atone for his sins and return to Shi Dakai's account.

After reading the letter, Shi Dakai was shocked, of course, he was a little skeptical, and asked Zhang Suimou: "What else did this messenger sent by Duan Pei say?" ”

"Say that as long as we agree to accept their surrender, Duan Pei will immediately start preparations in the city." Zhang Suimou replied: "After everything is arranged, we will be notified of the time, signal and specific methods, and then we will do it together, he will open the door, and we will enter the city." ”

Shi Dakai groaned, and only after a while did he ask, "Really?" Or is it fake? ”

"I can't tell yet." Zhang Suimou replied: "But whether it's true or not, our plans to repair the plank road and secretly cross Chen Cang have been seen through by the Transcendence Demon, and if we want to break the city, we can only find another way." ”

Shi Dakai was silent again, and after thinking for a while, Shi Dakai also decisively ordered Duan Pei's envoy Duan San to be passed to him, first comforted him with kind words, and then carefully inquired about the specific situation in Jiujiang City, and found that there were no flaws, Shi Dakai also gave Duan San some rewards, and personally promised to accept Duan Pei's invitation to surrender, and asked Duan San to go back and tell Duan Pei to make arrangements for the city sacrifice as soon as possible to help the army take Jiujiang City. At the same time, Shi Dakai also solemnly promised, saying that as long as he successfully took Jiujiang, he would reward Duan Pei and his subordinates with 20% of the capture in Jiujiang City.

Duan Sanhuan, who was frightened a lot, happily accepted Shi Dakai's reward, kowtowed repeatedly and thanked him before leaving, and Shi Dakai sent him off with a smile. As a result, it was also after Duan San left, Zhang Suimou next to him asked, "The Wing King is eight thousand years old, what's the matter?" Are you taking a gamble? ”

"I haven't made up my mind yet." Shi Dakai clasped his hands to his chest and said: "But no matter whether Duan Pei's surrender is true or not, we have to give it a try, if he really surrenders, of course, it is the best, if he is a fake surrender, we can also adapt to local conditions and adapt to changes, maybe we can receive better results." ”

Zhang Sui made a promise, and suddenly had an idea, and hurriedly said: "The Wing King is eight thousand years old, since the Transcendence Little Demon has already expected that our tunnel siege is a feint, then why don't we turn fiction into reality, and really continue to dig down the tunnel, if we can really use the tunnel to blow up the city wall, of course, it is the best, even if it fails, it can also hit the prestige of the Transcendence Little Demon, and distract the attention of the Jiujiang Demon Soldiers?" ”

After carefully reading the Wu Army's countermeasures reported on Duan Pei's letter of request, he saw that there was no such thing as a buried ground to listen to the location of the tunnel, and Shi Dakai, who didn't need to dig in the tunnel himself, didn't think much about it, so he immediately nodded and said: "Okay, just continue to dig, order the earth camp, speed up the excavation, and be sure to dig the tunnel under Jiujiang City within three days." ”

In this way, the established tactic of preparing to blast the city gate with gunpowder on the second night was unconsciously abandoned by Shi Dakai, and the plan to retreat to Hukou immediately after the failure of the surprise attack was naturally postponed, and the main force of more than 20,000 Taiping troops continued to be stationed outside Jiujiang City for the time being, and there was no longer any major action.

In addition to racking their brains to study the terrain and discuss the tactics of breaking the city, they also sent a large number of scouts to conduct detailed reconnaissance in all directions, keeping an eye on the Wu army's naval division stationed in Xingzigang, Nankang Prefecture, and also strictly guarding against the upper reaches of the Yangtze River, which may come to the enemy at any time, and keeping in touch with the Anqing battlefield at all times, so as to guard against the sudden large-scale return of the main force of the Wu army.

The situation on the Anqing battlefield made Shi Dakai happy and worried, and the good news was that the main force of the Wu army confirmed that it had been staying in the Anqing battlefield all along, and there was no sign of a large-scale return to the Jiujiang battlefield. The worry is that the battle situation in Anqing is more critical than they fear, the beachhead that the Anqing Taiping Army has placed high hopes on was broken through by the main force of the Wu army to adopt the tactics of land and water attack, and the Daguanting and Mashan Heights that supported the shoal position were lost, and the Wu army landed on the north bank in a big way, and the Taiping army outside the city was forced to retreat to Jixian Pass, but the Wu army did not take care of Jixian Pass at all, and only sent a small number of troops to monitor the Taiping army in Jixian Pass, and the main force sharpened its knives Huohuo, just preparing to storm Anqing Jiancheng.

"I can't imagine that the generals who surpass the little demon are so bold and confident in their troops, and they don't even want to fight Jixian Pass, which can cut off foreign aid in the north of Anqing, but they are directly preparing to attack the city, crazy enough, bold enough, and confident enough."

Secretly sighing at the strong self-confidence of the main force of the Wu army, Shi Dakai was very worried, worried that there would be something wrong in Anqing, but he had no choice but to put the situation in Anqing aside for the time being, and pay attention to the situation in the upper reaches of the Yangtze River. The result was not bad, although the Wu army fleet in Jiujiang immediately blocked the channel after withdrawing to Tianjia Town, cutting off the Taiping army's message transmission channel, but just before the Wu army fleet blocked the channel of Tianjia Town, Daye's Taiping army sent the last piece of information, reporting the important situation that Daye's Wu army did not have any changes.

"Beyond the little demon sent a clipper to warn Daye, even if it doesn't stop day and night, it will take more than a day to send the news from Daye to Wuchang, and this is not counting the impact of wind and waves and climate rain."

"It will take at least one day for the rear army to assemble and dispatch, the troop carrier is too heavy to go too fast, it will take at least two days to rush from Daye to Jiujiang, and it will take at least four days to rush from Wuchang to Jiujiang."

"That is to say, in the next two days, only a small group of reinforcements from Daye will come to reinforce at most, which will not change the situation in Jiujiang. The rear army of Wuchang's brigade arrived in Jiujiang, and it would be five days later at the earliest, and we still had time. ”

It was precisely because of the optimistic estimation of time that Shi Dakai spent the third and fourth days of the Jiujiang battlefield with peace of mind, and then, as Shi Dakai expected, it was only on the morning of the fifth day that Shi Dakai received a detailed report that a small fleet of Wu troops had arrived in Tianjia Town on the evening of the fourth day.

Through the analysis of the number of Wu army's ships, the first batch of Wu army reinforcements to arrive was only between two or three battalions at most, Shi Dakai was even more relieved, but he did not take it lightly, and still ordered Hong Ronghai's Taiping army, which had been deployed in Chopping Cable, to let Hong Ronghai take advantage of the favorable terrain with a shallow beach in the north of Chopping Cable, and attack the Wu army's troop carriers with beachhead shore artillery and small pulling flotilla as much as possible, and make every effort to weaken the reinforcements of the Wu army.

It was also a coincidence that not long after the order to cut the cable was sent out, there was good news from the earthen camp, saying that the tunnel would definitely be completed within today, and the gunpowder could be detonated at night.

Tunnel blasting has always been the Taiping Army's forte, it didn't take much time, a very perfect siege plan was prepared, Shi Dakai also immediately rose to the tent general, arranged and arranged the night battle preparations, decided to gamble with all his might tonight, and strive to take the Jiujiang City, and also decided that if the siege was unfavorable tonight, he would immediately withdraw to Hukou tomorrow.

By the way, although Duan Pei, who took the initiative to surrender, never contacted the Taiping Army again, Shi Dakai still had some hope for him, looking for him to take the initiative to initiate an internal response when the self-army attacked the city, and help the self-army increase the chances of breaking the city.

There is no truly seamless plan in the world, or maybe there is really the blessing of the Heavenly Father, when the Taiping army began to prepare for the night siege, as the time passed rapidly, some clues were gradually exposed in front of Shi Dakai, first there was a detailed news from the Xingzigang side of Nankang Prefecture, saying that the Wu army's sailors were acting abnormally, and it seemed that they were preparing to attack; Then there was an urgent report of the military situation, saying that the Wu army fleet that had arrived in Tianjia Town last night was slowly moving eastward, and was gradually approaching the Jiujiang battlefield under the protection of the last steam gunboat on the outer river.

"How can it be so coincidental? Could it be that there is an agreement in advance? ”

Shi Dakai was also suspicious for a while, but unfortunately, the tunnel that was about to be completed and the internal response in Jiujiang City, as well as the optimistic estimation of time, combined with a serious blinding of Shi Dakai's eyes, and also buried the important key information sent by the Taiping Army at the risk of his life, and even made Shi Dakai not consider the option of retreating to Hukou at all, but only made two quite conservative decisions.

First, he ordered the Hukou Water Division of the Taiping Army, which had been stationed in Majiayan in Duchang, to tell them to keep an eye on the Wu Army's Naval Division's partial division, and when they found that the Wu Army's Naval Division was leaving the port, they immediately attacked to prevent the Wu Army's Naval Division from going north to destroy the Taiping Army's hypothetical pontoon bridge crossing the lake at Hukou.

Second, go to order Hong Ronghai's department to cut off the cable, so that Hong Ronghai can continue to respond to all changes with the same, and if he can stop the Wu army's troop transport fleet, it doesn't matter if he can't stop it, anyway, the Wu army has not many reinforcements, and the Taiping army still has plenty of strength to deal with it.

…………

In fact, Shi Dakai didn't need to give orders to the Cutting Cable, because the first batch of small troops of the Wu Army who rushed to Jiujiang for reinforcements were as timid as a mouse, and they didn't dare to approach the Cutting Cables directly.

The news was sent to Hong Ronghai, who was on duty to cut the cable, Hong Ronghai laughed, and once planned to take the initiative to send troops west to meet the battle, but seeing that it was not early, Hong Ronghai could only temporarily dispel this idea. However, to Hong Ronghai's great surprise, he dispelled the idea of attacking because of the lack of time, and the Wu army reinforcements who had just arrived made a slight adjustment in the area of Wanshou Palace, actually strode eastward directly, and rushed directly to the side of the cable cutting by land, and at the same time, the last steam gunboat of the Wu army west of Jiujiang, the Wei Lin, also whistled and marched eastward, putting on a posture of preparing to attack the cable with land and water.

"Strange? When has this been? How can the reinforcements beyond the little demon still come to cut the cable? ”

Some were confused by the strange behavior of the Wu army, and Hong Ronghai did not dare to mess around, in addition to preparing the army to meet the battle, he hurriedly sent a clipper to warn Shi Da. However, when the news was delivered to Shi Dakai, it was already half past five in the evening, and the soldiers of the Taiping Army who were preparing to attack the city at night were already eating dinner and receiving dry food torches for night battles. ”

Shi Dakai may have missed the opportunity to save himself again, because at five o'clock half an hour ago, the Wu Army's Naval Division stationed in Nankang Xingzi Port suddenly set out, and under the leadership of Xu Lai, the general of the Wu Army's Naval Division, Zhang Fan went north, and came towards the mouth of Poyang Lake with a fierce momentum.

During this period, although the Taiping army hidden in the area of Xingzigang sent news to the Jiujiang battlefield through various channels at the first time, they suffered from the fact that the means of communication were too backward, and it was impossible to send the news to Shi Dakai before it was completely dark, regardless of whether it was by water or land. On the other side, the Hukou Water Division of the Taiping Army stationed in Majiayan, Duchang, also reacted after more than an hour, and all of them went north to pursue the Wu Army Water Division.

At six o'clock, the Taiping army was ready for the night battle, and the tunnel leading to Jiujiang City was successfully completed. But what Shi Dakai never dreamed of was that at the same time on the battlefield of Chopping Cable, the battle had already started first, and it was the soldiers of the Wu Army who made the first move!

"Boom! Bang! Bang! ”

In the deafening artillery fire, the Wu army's steam gunboat Luo Weilin first opened fire with a 40-pounder cannon on the bow of the ship, and then bombarded it with a 32-pounder gun and a 20-pounder gun on the side of the ship, bombarding the Taiping army's chopping cable position one after another, trying its best to destroy the Taiping army's fortifications. The Wu infantry lined up on the west bank of the turbulent water, patiently waiting for the fighters to appear and the order to attack.