The reason why Gui Zhongxing, the county commander of Luotian County, Huangzhou Prefecture, Hubei Province, invited Weng Xincun's army to fight in Hubei was that in addition to Gui Zhongxing's seeing through Wu Chaoyue's so-called Qing Jun's side was actually a rebellion, another important reason was that Gui Zhongxing was actually Weng Xincun's student, and he was sure to move Weng Xincun to send troops to rescue. Pen, fun, pavilion www. biquge。 info

Weng Xincun, who had a deep enmity with the old Wu family, really had the courage to decide to send reinforcements, and Weng Xincun had more courage to personally draft a crusade against Wu and the thief civilization to the world, calling on the Confucian scholars of the world to come forward and form a regiment to practice against Wu Chaoyue like a crusade against the Taiping Army. At the same time, Weng Xincun also personally wrote letters to several Hubei magistrates around Luotian, encouraging them to learn from his student Gui Zhongxing, change the banner anyway, and return to the warm and broad embrace of the Qing court.

"Soldiers of the Qing Dynasty, rest assured to save Luo Tian! Wu thieves rebelled against the imperial court, unpopular, and the surrounding areas of the territory were full of flames, and the thief army was a little elite and tired, and the support was not enough, and it was long time impossible to transfer any of the main elite troops to deal with the Luotian war! You only need to meet with the group training division of Luotian Guizhi County, and you can be invincible! ”

In order to boost the morale of the army, Weng Xincun also said the above words in front of the three thousand Qing army soldiers who were ordered to reinforce Luotian, but in private, Weng Xincun quietly said to Weng Tongshu, the eldest son of the commander's support army: "If Wu Chaoyue Dog Thief personally leads his Wuchang garrison to fight a decisive battle with you, don't take any chances, you have to retreat quickly, with your military strength, it is difficult to defeat the elite of Wu Chaoyue's rebel headquarters." ”

With his father's entrustment, and also relying on Gui Zhongxing's response, Weng Tongshu, whose official position had been mixed to the point of being registered as an envoy, led 3,000 Qing troops to enter Hubei via Yingshan very smoothly, and also rushed to Luotian before Wu Chaoyue reacted, and met with Gui Zhongxing's hastily formed regimental training division. As a result, Weng Tongshu was secretly happy that Wu Chaoyue, who was in the midst of war around the controlled area, did not dare to use his strategic general reserve Wuhan garrison, but only transferred a thousand Wu troops from the neighboring Daye and went north to Luotian to suppress the rebellion.

"There is hope! As long as I can repel the 1,000 troops of the Wu thieves, our army will not only be able to take the opportunity to gain a firm foothold in Hubei, but the imperial court will definitely give me a promotion! ”

After repeatedly confirming the strength of the Wu army, Weng Tongshu first longed for the miraculous feats of taking the lead in killing Wu Chaoyue's lair base area, and then remembered to ask Gui Zhongxing what the surname of the general of the Wu army was and what his official position was, and Gui Zhongxing, who was familiar with the situation in Hubei, replied truthfully: "Brother Hui and Zhai, the commander of this thief army is called Huang Yuanbao, and his official position is from Sanpin guerrilla. ”

"Nameless rats." Weng Tongshu sneered, and said very proudly: "The Wu thief really has no soldiers to send, and no one is available, so he actually sent such a nobody to fight with this official. ”

"Brother Hezhai, this Huang Yuan Leopard is not a nameless rat!"

Gui Zhongxing was taken aback, and hurriedly introduced carefully: "This Huang Yuanbao's real name is Huang Sansil, and he is the younger brother of Huang Dasha, a famous fierce general under the command of Wu Chaoyue's rebels. Moreover, his soldiers and horses are still Wu Chaoyue's direct line when he was the governor of Hubei, and he is the most trusted army of Wu thieves! The best equipment and the best to fight! ”

"Huang Dasha's own brother?" Weng Tongshu was a little dumbfounded, and hurriedly asked: "Is it the Huang Dasha who dared to lead the army to rush into the Changmao position and shoot within thirty steps of Tianjin?" ”

"That's him." Gui Zhongxing nodded, and said, "Junior brother, I heard that this Huang Yuanbao was also present at the time, and he was still walking in the first row of the line. In addition, the younger brother also heard that the nickname given by Longhair to the Huang brothers was Brother Long and Brother Leopard, and even Li Kaifang, Lin Fengxiang and Wei Jun, such famous generals as Longhair, did not dare to fight their brothers head-on. ”

Weng Tongshu's face changed slightly, but he quickly comforted himself quietly: "It's okay, as long as you don't fight a field battle with this thief general, I don't believe that this thief general can be so powerful and can use a thousand troops to break Luo Tiancheng guarded by the three thousand troops of this official." ”

When Huang Yuanbao rushed to Luotian with the Wu army to quell the rebellion, Weng Tongshu chose to close the city to protect himself, but under the cover of the fierce fire of the Wu army, the Wu army engineers only took more than half a day to directly dig a cave in the wall of Luotian, loaded it with picric acid explosives and detonated, and blew a hole seven or eight zhang wide on the wall of Luotian. Then when Huang Yuanbao gave another order, the soldiers of the First Corps of the Wu Army, armed to the teeth, immediately charged into the city and started a street battle with the defenders in the city.

In the street fighting, the officers and men of the First Corps of the Wu Army, who had been idle for many years by Wu Chaoyue, also exposed some problems, such as the lack of actual combat experience among the grassroots soldiers, and most of the recruits who had not been trained in the corpse mountain and the sea of blood were afraid of war and death, and the offensive was not very smooth for a while. Under the command of the old man Wu Jun, the officers and men of the Wu Army who were directly transferred from the arsenal encountered resistance, not to mention that they spoke with bitter acid grenades and grenadiers, so that only the ghosts of the Anhui Qing Army carrying guns and arquebuses in their hands cried wolf howls, hugged their heads and scurried, and also blew up Weng Tongshu and scolded, "Wu Jun dog thieves, how can there be so many foreign guns and cannons?" ”

After a fierce battle for more than an hour, the soldiers of the Wu army gradually attacked the vicinity of the Luotian County Ya, the temporary headquarters of the Qing army, and the Qing troops guarding the gates of Luotian opened the city gate one after another to flee for their lives. Seeing that the situation was not good, Weng Tongshu quickly decided to retreat with his own soldiers, and at the same time, he persuaded Gui Zhongxing to flee with him. However, the nerd Gui Zhongxing kept in mind the responsibility of the magistrate to defend the land, not only refused to flee for his life, but also persuaded Weng Tongshu and himself to fight with Wu Jun to the end and repay the country with death.

The reason why Weng Tongshu was impeached by his younger brother Li Hongzhang in history was because he was greedy for life and afraid of death, and he fled for his life and lost Dingyuan City. Seeing Gui Zhongxing's resolute attitude, Weng Tongshu of course did not hesitate to throw him down and run, and changed into the clothes of ordinary Qing soldiers early to flee the city for his life, while Gui Zhongxing ordered the officials to carry firewood and grass, and prepared to set his family on fire and die in his post.

Because the official also ran out, Gui Zhongxing's self-immolation was unsuccessful, and the whole family was captured alive by the Wu army soldiers, but for some special reasons, Huang Yuanbao did not kill him, but while personally leading the army to chase and kill Weng Tongshu's defeated army, he loaded Gui Zhongxing's family into a prisoner car and escorted them to the provincial capital to sacrifice prisoners to Wu Chaoyue.

After Gui Zhongxing and his family were escorted to the provincial capital, considering that Gui Zhongxing's official reputation was not too bad, and there were few clean and honest officials in this era, Wu Chaoyue also gave him a chance to live, and took time out of his busy schedule to meet him in person, and persuaded him to surrender and promise to be promoted. However, Gui Zhongxing, who was stupid in reading, still categorically refused, and insulted Wu Chaoyue in every way, saying that he would not be an accomplice and lackey for Wu Chaoyue.

In order to prevent other local officials from learning from Gui Zhongxing, Wu Chaoyue wanted to directly push Gui Zhongxing out and cut it several times, but every time the words came to his mouth and forcibly swallowed them back - because Huang Yuanbao also asked people to come to Gui Zhongxing's list of homes by the way, in Gui Zhongxing's home of the county order, Wu Jun's soldiers only found eleven taels and five yuan of silver, a pile of books and a pile of shabby clothes, a set of patched seven-grade official uniforms, and a letter of all the people of Luotian gentry begging Wu Chaoyue to pardon Gui Zhongxing.

"It's too hurtful to kill such a clean official."

Sighing secretly, Wu Chaoyue still ordered Gui Zhongxing to be put in prison and ordered not to be abused, and at the same time ordered Gui Zhongxing's family to be released in front of Gui Zhongxing to return to his hometown, and also took out 200 taels of his own incorruptible silver and gave it to Gui Zhongxing's family as travel expenses. Gui Zhongxing didn't believe it at all, and scolded Wu Chaoyue for leaving with his head held high.

…………

Fortunately for Wu Chaoyue, there is only one official in Hubei who is so stubborn, Gui Zhongxing, or forced by Wu Jun's obscenity, or seeing Wu Chaoyue's great power and wanting to take advantage of the dragon, none of the local officials in Hubei dare to follow Gui Zhongxing's example, and they all chose to obediently change their banners and surrender, so that Wu Chaoyue completely mastered the entire territory of Hubei in the real sense.

At the same time, the local prefectures and counties of Hunan and Sichuan also continued to change banners and surrender, and the actual control of the Wu army gradually became a piece, and continued to expand to the surrounding Manyan, to the north has reached Nanyang, to the south to Guizhou border, east to Poyang Lake, west to the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, and the Taiping army control areas to completely cut off the Manchu court and the land road connection between Liangguang, Yunnan-Guizhou and southern Jiangxi.

Under these circumstances, Wu Chaoyue of course began to ponder the march to the south, further expand the control territory to consolidate the rear, and also decided early on to annex Guangxi from the southwest of Jiangxi, encircle Yungui to avoid the Taiping army, and at the same time use his Guangdong hometown to expand eastward, and compete with the Taiping army for Guangdong territory.

Wu Chaoyue's strategic plan won the unanimous approval of Zhao Liewen, Yan Jingming, and other confidants, and at the same time, Li Hongzhang also sent a letter from Hunan, suggesting that Wu Chaoyue should first attack Guangxi, and not waste the precious mobile force in Guizhou, where there are no people. However, what Wu Chaoyue never expected was that Zuo Zongtang suddenly sent a letter, advocating that Wu Chaoyue first attack Yungui, and then go east to Guangxi or launch a northern expedition.

Zuo Zongtang explained in his letter the reasons for his proposition, first of all, the current war situation in Yunnan and Guizhou provinces is becoming more and more serious, and the fact that the bandit armies of all walks of life are splitting in the name of opposing the Qing Dynasty, and it is difficult for the Yunnan-Guizhou and Qing armies to support it, and if they do not get foreign aid and help, it will definitely be difficult to stop the Yunnan-Guizhou thief army like Li Lan's thief army from cutting land and becoming kings and splitting the territory. If the Han people in Yunnan and Guizhou provinces were slaughtered or assimilated because of this, it would be difficult for the Central Plains army to recover Yunnan and Guizhou.

Just like the roundworm in Wu Chaoyue's stomach, Zuo Zongtang also guessed that Wu Chaoyue would definitely target Guangxi, and also admitted in the letter that Wu Jun could encircle Yungui if he took Guangxi, which was a strategic move. However, Zuo Zongtang also warned Wu Chaoyue that Guangxi was the hometown of the Taiping Army, and that there were countless clans and pro-parties of the Taiping Army in Guangxi, and that Wu's march into Guangxi was not only destined to fail to get their support, but on the contrary, it might lead to the remnants of the Taiping Army in Guangxi and let the Taiping Army reap the benefits. It is believed that instead of weakening the Qing army in Guangxi and giving the Taiping army a chance to turn over with salted fish in the remnants of Guangxi, it is better to let the Qing army in Guangxi fight with the Taiping army first, and then pick peaches.

In view of these two important reasons, Zuo Zongtang suggested that Wu Chaoyue adopt a policy of appeasing the Qing army in Guangxi, try his best to get along with each other, and even give some support to the Qing army in Guangxi to help them exterminate the remnants of the Taiping army in Guangxi. He also strongly advocated buying and winning over the Yunnan-Guizhou Qing army, and made every effort to make the Yunnan-Guizhou Qing army take the initiative to change its banner and help them deal with all kinds of thief armies in Yunnan-Guizhou, so as to consolidate the Han people's control over the Yunnan-Guizhou provinces.

At the end of the long letter, Zuo Zongtang added a sentence like Lao Tzu teaching his son, "Don't remember to hang on to your hometown in Guangdong, covet what to return to your hometown and glorify your ancestors, that's a fool like Xiang Yu." To learn from Liu Bang to buy people's hearts, after entering the customs, the gold and silver treasures will not be taken, and the beautiful women will not ride, that is the real heroes and heroes, and the people will be strong! ”

After reading Zuo Zongtang's letter, Wu Chaoyue didn't close his eyes for a whole night, and turned over in Feng Wanzhen's bed just to calculate Zuo Zongtang's proposition. Early the next morning, Wu Chaoyue summoned Zhao Liewen, Yan Jingming, Shao Yanhong, Dai Wenjie and other cronies and staff officers, handed Zuo Zongtang's letter to them to read, and asked them for advice.

After reading the letter, Zhao Liewen, Yan Jingming and others, who had already expressed their support for attacking Guangxi first, were silent, or under Wu Chaoyue's repeated requests, Dai Wenjie, the accomplice left by Hua Lao Fox to Wu Chaoyue, opened his mouth first and said: "Weiting, I think Mr. Ji Gao's proposition is more reasonable, we should put the general righteousness first, and help the Yungui official army who is willing to submit to us to destroy the thief army in Yungui first, and not give the thief army a chance to split the territory." ”

"I also know that we should put justice first and make every effort to safeguard China's territorial integrity." Wu Chaoyue nodded, and said with a sad face: "But it's not cost-effective to fight Yungui first, even if these two ghost places are defeated, they can't collect much tax, and they have to post money and grain to restore people's livelihood first, appease the people, and do loss-making business." ”

Zhao Liewen, Yan Jingming and the others remained silent, because they knew very well that Wu Chaoyue's words were true, and taking Yungui first was indeed a loss-making deal that outweighed the losses. After Dai Wenjie hesitated for a moment, he suddenly said loudly: "Even if it is a loss-making transaction, you have to do it!" ”

"Weiting, have you forgotten that only those who win the hearts of the people can win the world, if you take advantage of the losses and take advantage of the profits, ignore the dangerous Yungui compatriots, sit back and watch them be slaughtered by the thief army, and sit back and watch the Chinese territory be divided by the thief army, how will the people of the world think of you?"

"Have you forgotten that the year before last, the Yunnan thief army surrounded Kunming, forced to death Hengchun, the governor of Yunnan and Guizhou, and scared away the governor Shu Xing'a. The thieves are in chaos here, if you deliberately don't save Yungui in order to care about money and food, and let the thieves take advantage of the situation to recover, how can Yungui still be my Chinese territory?! ”

It was Wu Chaoyue's turn to be silent, and Dai Wenjie said louder and louder, and said: "Besides, take Guangxi first, is it really a money-making deal?" I don't think so! If you are Yang Xiuqing Shi Dakai and see you send troops into their hometown Guangxi, what will they think? Will you think that you are deliberately grabbing land with them, will you be more wary of you? Will the main forces be used in the army controlled by the rebel party in the capital? ”

"But if you hit the two poor provinces of Yunnan and Guizhou first, what will Yang Xiuqing and Shi Dakai think?" Dai Wenjie paused for a moment, and then continued: "Do you think that you have no ambitions and just want to be the king of the southwest and the king of Pingxi?" Will it be against you day and night, and will you go north with all your confidence? ”

"Fighting Yungui, what you lose is only money, food and ammunition, but what you can earn is the hearts of the people of the world! The full support of the people of Yungui! When you fight Guangxi, all you earn is money, grain and taxes, but what you lose is the righteousness and popularity of the people, as well as the hostility and hatred of the Taiping Army! ”

Listening to Dai Wenjie's resounding words, Wu Chaoyue, who had already been extremely shaken, finally made up his mind, slapped the table and said: "Change the strategic plan, take Yungui first!" I'm done with this loss-making deal! ”

Zhao Liewen, Yan Jingming and others did not say a word, but just surrendered their hands to Wu Chaoyue, and then Wu Chaoyue immediately ordered to make a letter to contact Wu Zhenqi, the governor of Yunnan and Guizhou, Sang Chunrong, and Liu Yuanhao, the governor of Guizhou, to persuade them to change their banners and return to obedience, and expressed their efforts to help them exterminate the thief army in the territory. At the same time, it was also spread to Yunnan and Guizhou provinces, making it clear that no matter what prefecture, county, city and army generals, as long as it is to quell the thieves, they can ask for assistance from the Wu army, and the Wu army will definitely go all out to rescue!

The letter and the text were quickly prepared, and when discussing the choice of envoys to contact the governor of Yungui, Dai Wenjie, who helped Zuo Zongtang to resolutely advocate saving Yungui first, volunteered and expressed his willingness to risk his life to go to Yungui to contact Wu Zhenqi and others. However, Wu Chaoyue considered that this matter was too risky, and categorically rejected Dai Wenjie's request, and decided to send only ordinary envoys south. Dai Wenjie didn't insist, but suddenly said: "By the way, Weiting, why don't you release Gui Zhongxing, who we arrested a few days ago, and let him serve as the messenger to contact Liu Yuanhao, the governor of Guizhou, and send us this letter." ”

"How could that old stubborn agree to be my messenger?" Wu Chaoyue shrugged his shoulders helplessly.

"If I try to persuade him, I will definitely be able to move him." Dai Wenjie volunteered again, and said with a smile: "Also, you may not know about Weiting, Gui Zhongxing is actually a native of Guizhou Zhenyuan, and it is about his hometown fathers, and he will definitely not refuse if he thinks about it." ”

Wu Chaoyue was overjoyed when he heard this, and immediately nodded and said: "Then him, let him see if I really let his family go, and let Liu Yuanhao and Guizhou civil and military officials take a look, how magnanimous I am, and repay grievances with virtue." ”