"Then you can't sit still, can you?!"

Since joining the Taiping Army, it was the first time that Li Xiucheng spoke so loudly to Hong Xiuquan, shouting almost like an angry roar: "Rush out now, no matter whether we can escape back to Suzhou or not, we still have a glimmer of hope!" Give up, and we'll have nothing! ”

"There is no hope, there is no hope." Hong Xiuquan groaned and said: "Others may still have hope, you may still have hope, but I don't have any hope, beyond the little demon will not let me go, his demon soldiers will catch up with me no matter what, kill me." ”

"Your Majesty swears to protect you to the death when you go to Suzhou!" Li Xiucheng shouted: "There are other Heavenly Kingdom soldiers who will also swear to protect you to Suzhou to the death!" Even if we fight with the demon soldiers to the last soldier, we must protect your safety! Long live the Heavenly King of our Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, and our Heavenly Kingdom soldiers and courtiers are willing to die for you! ”

Hearing Li Xiucheng's words, Hong Xiuquan's eyes lit up slightly, but unfortunately the light was only fleeting, Hong Xiuquan quickly shook his head again, and said even more weakly: "It's useless, let's not say that you can't beat the demon soldiers, that is, many people around me are already unreliable now, I go out now, I may be captured by them at any time and dedicated to the demon soldiers, in exchange for their glory and wealth." ”

After that, Hong Xiuquan sighed again and said, "Do you know? Not long ago, Mo Aiqing found out that Zhu Zhaoying, the blessing of heaven, contacted some people in Tianjing's army and encouraged them to take advantage of the chaos to capture me and sacrifice it to the Transcendence Demon. You also know Zhu Zhaoying, he is the old man of heaven at the time of the Jintian Uprising, even he can't be trusted, who else can I trust? ”

"There are black sheep there." Li Xiucheng said in a deep voice: "Your Majesty doesn't dare to guarantee others, but Your Majesty dares to guarantee that I have always been loyal to you, Long Live the Heavenly King, willing to sacrifice everything for Long Live the Heavenly King, and willing to swear to protect you to break through and escape for your life, and go to Suzhou and Hangzhou to make a comeback." ”

"It's that easy to make a comeback?" Hong Xiuquan smiled bitterly and said, "Will the Transcending Little Demon give me this chance?" Besides, I'm used to living in Tianjing City, and I really don't want to go there. ”

"Then you just watched the soldiers die for you in vain?" Li Xiucheng yelled again and said angrily: "Last night, in order to give you a chance to break through, how many soldiers did our Heavenly Kingdom sacrifice? Now that you are about to succeed, and you don't want to leave, do you take the lives of our heavenly soldiers? You are used to living in Tianjing City and don't want to leave, but there are so many Heavenly Kingdom soldiers in this palace city, they can't leave if you don't leave, you want them all to bury you with you?! ”

"I don't want to care so much anymore, anyway, I don't want to leave." Hong Xiuquan sighed and said, "If you want to stay with me, you can stay, if you don't want to, just take your army and go." I don't want to be a lost dog, I'd rather die in Tianjing than live like a dog being chased by demon soldiers. ”

After thinking about it for a while, Li Xiucheng made up his mind and shouted: "Okay, you are willing to stay and you stay, but let me take the young king, I will protect him to Suzhou, Hangzhou, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Dongshan to make a comeback!" ”

Fortunately, the sect leader of Hong Da is mean and ruthless to others, but he is not bad to his son, after thinking about it for a long time, Hong Xiuquan finally nodded, and ordered the guards to bring his eldest son Hong Tianguifu and handed him over to Li Xiucheng, and asked Hong Tianguifu to respect Li Xiucheng with the courtesy of the younger generation, listen to Li Xiucheng's words more, and then waved his hand and instructed Li Xiucheng and Hong Tianguifu, who was crying: "Go quickly, the demon soldiers are coming soon." ”

Thinking of the relationship between the monarch and the minister for many years, before leaving, Li Xiucheng still kowtowed to Hong Xiuquan three times, and then left with Hong Tianguifu, who was crying bitterly. And after Li Xiucheng left, Hong Xiuquan first let people pass on his more than 80 princesses, and asked the guards to bring a lot of jewels to decorate the Jinluan Palace left by Zhu Yunwen, and moved a lot of firewood and grass to pile up around the hall, and finally called his other three sons, handed them over to his most trusted Meng Shiyong, and instructed: "Meng Aiqing, I will restore your Youzan King and Lord now, if the demon soldiers break through the palace, you don't care about me, take my three sons and go, you can go there if you want, Try to save their lives for me. ”

Meng Shiyong cried loudly, kowtowed to Hong Xiuquan, said that he was reluctant to leave Hong Xiuquan, and tried his best to persuade Hong Xiuquan to flee with him out of the city quickly, and swore to protect Hong Xiuquan's safety. Hong Xiuquan continued to shake his head weakly and said, "I said, I don't want to leave, don't let me say it again." Besides, with me, you can't leave, only if I stay here, you and my son can hope to escape, your father and son are loyal to me, I owe you too much, I can't bear to burden you anymore. ”

When Meng Shiyong cried even more, the sky was already light, and Li Xiucheng hurriedly organized the last Jiangsu and Zhejiang Taiping troops in the inner city of Nanjing, protecting Hong Tianguifu and launching a charge against the gap in the city wall. At the same time, the Nanjing Taiping Army led by Qin Rigang had already rushed out of the city, and launched a hand-to-hand battle with the Wu army on the other side of the moat, effectively restraining the Wu army's blocking army, so although Li Xiucheng's troops were extremely embarrassed, they still rushed to the opposite bank of the moat with the corpses piled up on the moat, and rushed to the direction of Xiaolingwei in a mess.

There was really nothing to be done, and Feng Sanbao, who had no hands to stop him, could only hurriedly send someone to order Li Hezhang, so that Li Hezhang could organize the wounded soldiers and people who stayed in the camp to go out of the camp to intercept Li Xiucheng, and at the same time, the cavalry battalion of the Wu army that had rushed to help before also hurriedly mounted his horse and launched a pursuit against Li Xiucheng's department, which still numbered thousands. And Cao Yanzhong, the Wu army who had already entered the inner city, had already found out that Hong Xiuquan was still in the palace, so he could only blockade and surround the palace with all his might, and at the same time could not spare his hands to pursue Li Xiucheng, so whether he could stop Li Xiucheng could only depend on whether Li Hezhang and the only Wu army cavalry battalion could create a miracle.

The young and vigorous and somewhat pretentious Li Hezhang fantasized more than once about how he could create a miracle and establish a great cause, but when the opportunity really came, Li Hezhang never dreamed that he only had a few hundred wounded and more than 1,000 people available, but even so, Li Hezhang still refused to miss this opportunity, and after hastily assembling this poor combat force, Li Hezhang did his best and delivered a speech to stimulate morale.

"Soldiers, brothers, I know that this is to drive ducks to the shelves, and you are either wounded soldiers, or people who are driving carts and carrying sacks, and it is very difficult for you to go into battle to kill the enemy. But there is no way, now you can still go to the battlefield, Long Hair is rushing towards us, I don't know if there is Hong Xiuquan in the Long Hair Army, but there must be an important Big Long Hair, whether it is caught or killed, it is a great achievement, the opportunity to be promoted and make a fortune is in front of you, whether you can seize it or not, it depends on you! If you want to be an official, follow me! If you want to be poor anymore, follow me! If you want your children and grandchildren to thank you forever, follow me! For your children's sake, for your family's sake, follow me! Kill ——! ”

"Kill ————!"

Li Hezhang's hurried speech was not very good, but it was still affected by Li Hezhang's effect, under Li Hezhang's demagogy and incitement, more than 2,000 wounded soldiers and civilians of the Wu army still shouted one after another, followed Li Hezhang's horse with high morale, and launched a charge against Li Xiucheng's defeated brigade, which was already in sight. At the same time, the only cavalry battalion of the Wu army in the east had already bitten the tail of Li Xiucheng's troops, and was struggling to slash and shoot the defeated soldiers of the Taiping army.

A crucial but extremely strange battle began, more than 2,000 wounded soldiers of the Wu army who were still wrapped in gauze and Wu soldiers and civilians with miscellaneous weapons met the Taiping soldiers of no less than six or seven thousand people head-on, guns and spears and axes, desperately killing the oncoming enemy, while the Taiping army, which was far better equipped than the Wu army's miscellaneous army, was not willing to fight, and the swords and axes were cut in front of them and only dodged without fighting. and even more chaotic to seize the road to the east, in the scuffle, you pushed me, trampled on each other, and countless people died. Li Xiucheng, who had already changed into ordinary soldiers' clothes, also only cared about protecting Hong Tianguifu and fled eastward, and had no intention of directing the battle at all.

After all, the Taiping army was outnumbered, and no matter how the Wu army slashed and blocked, it couldn't stop the Taiping army's brigade from rushing through their blocking positions in a chaotic manner. However, at this time, a miracle appeared, and the direction of the dragon's neck in the northwest of the battlefield suddenly thundered, and a battalion of Wu cavalry was like a divine soldier descending from the sky, and unexpectedly quickly pursued to the near of the blocking battlefield. And behind the Wu cavalry, there were no less than four battalions of Wu infantry chasing after them. Seeing this scene, Li Xiucheng's face suddenly changed color, and he exclaimed: "So fast? Beyond the little demon is far outside the Shence Gate, how can he send out pursuers so quickly? ”

The book explains that the reason why the Wu army was able to cross the dragon's neck so quickly and send troops to pursue was because Wu Chaoyue had expected that the Taiping army was likely to break through to the east before the war, although he was not completely sure, Wu Chaoyue still sent a battalion of cavalry outside the northern city to the dragon's neck area early to wait for his life, and ordered the Wu army, which had feinted to attack the dragon's neck, to prepare for it, and once it found that the Taiping army rushed out of the city, it immediately launched a pursuit, so there was the above scene. - Of course, Wu Chaoyue also made a lot of mistakes during the period, he was too greedy for the opportunity to completely annihilate the Taiping army, and he didn't dare to risk sending a large number of mobile troops to Dongcheng to wait for his life, and he only gambled that the Taiping army would break through from the east gate, and he didn't expect Li Xiucheng to blow up the city wall from the inside, so it was difficult for the Wu army Feng Sanbao to fight, otherwise, it would be difficult for Li Xiucheng to get out of the city.

To get back to the point, it is both a cavalry and a new force, of course the Wu cavalry who came from the northwest will not be stupid enough to rush directly into the crowd of the Taiping army to fight a melee, and decisively chose to take a detour forward, rushing to the front of the Taiping army brigade to intercept it head-on, Li Xiucheng gritted his teeth and ordered the army to charge in a cluster, the Wu cavalry of this battalion was not in a hurry to start a close combat, and adopted a mangu tactic similar to the archers, while trotting forward to keep a distance from the Taiping army, while constantly turning back and shooting the enemy, not giving the Taiping army a chance to fight in close combat, The cavalry of the other battalion of the Wu army slashed behind the back with a saber, and joined forces with friendly forces to weaken the strength of the Taiping army little by little, delay the enemy's flight for life, and buy time for the infantry to pursue.

The four battalions of the Wu army chased from the dragon's neck were the new force, and the more than 2,000 miscellaneous troops organized by Li Hezhang were also strictly speaking the new force, and after the interception failed to turn around and pursue, the miscellaneous army under Li Hezhang always caught up with the defeated brigade of the Taiping Army again, and was entangled with Li Xiucheng's defeated soldiers again, and when the four battalions of the Wu army's fresh force also hurriedly caught up with Li Xiucheng's department, Li Xiucheng completely lost the opportunity to escape from the formation, and could only order with tears in his eyes: "Scatter and flee for your life, if you can escape, one will be counted as one." ”

When the order was issued, the Taiping Army Brigade, whose morale had long been extremely low, suddenly dispersed and fled in all directions, and Li Xiucheng also led a few personal soldiers on horseback with tears in his eyes, protecting Hong Tianguifu, who was also riding a war horse, and fled to the northern mountains. But Li Xiucheng soon found that he had made a big mistake - he shouldn't have ridden a horse, and the cavalry of the Wu army, who was determined to catch a big fish, stared at the knights of the Taiping army to chase, so although Li Xiucheng and others fled relatively quickly on war horses, they became fireflies in the dark night and became the key pursuit object of the Wu cavalry.

"You shouldn't be riding!"

After waking up, Li Xiucheng once wanted to abandon his horse and walk, but the Wu cavalry had already stared at Li Xiucheng and his party, and there was no large group of infantry around him to cover, Li Xiucheng abandoned his horse and walked at this time, which was equivalent to looking for death, so there was no way, Li Xiucheng could only urge the horse to hurry as much as possible, wanting to escape into the mountainous area of the Purple Mountain first and then abandon the horse to escape.

In history, the reason why Li Xiucheng was captured alive by the Hunan army was because he gave his good horse to Hong Xiuquan's son Hong Tianguifu when he broke through, and he rode an inferior horse and fell behind, and was found alive by the local Qing army training. At this historical level, it was still Hong Tianguifu who affected Li Xiucheng - in the gallop, Li Xiucheng's personal soldiers who supported Hong Tianguifu missed because of the bumps, and Hong Tianguifu, who had never been out of the Heavenly King's Mansion since he was born, was knocked by a horse, and immediately fell off the horse, and broke a leg on the spot!

"Young Heavenly King!"

"King Zhong, the demon soldiers are coming, let's go!"

"Let go of me! I can't leave the Young Heavenly King alone! ”

Regardless of the well-intentioned opposition of his own soldiers, Li Xiucheng insisted on reining in the war horse, jumped off the horse to check on Hong Tianguifu's situation, but after a little delay, the cavalry of the Wu army had already caught up, and while shooting Li Xiucheng's personal soldiers, he immediately surrounded Li Xiucheng and Hong Tianguifu, holding his guns and shouting: "Put down your arms, surrender and don't kill!" ”

Looking down at Hong Tianguifu, who was already crying loudly in pain in his arms, Li Xiucheng first sighed with mixed feelings, and then raised his head and said to the Wu cavalry who surrounded him: "I am Li Xiucheng, the loyal king of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, Chitose, I surrender, but I have one condition, immediately treat the child in my arms." ”