Li Xubin on the side saw Wang Minyun leaving, but muttered: "Lord Mintang, what this kid said also has a little truth." www.biquge.info Now that the Manchu Qing Dynasty is in chaos, Liangguang and Jiangnan have been occupied by long-haired thieves, and there are faint signs of mob rebellion in the north, maybe ......"

"Such as nine! Be careful! Luo Zenan, who was on the side, saw his disciple talking like this, and hurriedly stopped him.

"It's okay, Brother Zhongyue! The three of you are all siblings of the country, and you can't talk about anything! It's just that I am the seventieth grandson of my great-son, cultivating and reading heirlooms, and now I am valued by the imperial court, and I am in a second-class high position. Zeng Guofan said solemnly: "This matter ends here, don't say more!" ”

Luo Zenan, Wang Zhu, and Li Xubin hurriedly responded.

Seeing that the atmosphere was embarrassing, Zeng Guofan stirred up the topic and said: "Zhongyue, tell me, how can the Cantonese thieves attack Hengzhou, how to retreat from the enemy?" ”

"Ming Gong, I think, Hengzhou City may not be able to hold it! There are many Cantonese thieves and soldiers, and they are menacing. According to Hengzhou's letter, the Cantonese thieves did not have large artillery, but only tentatively attacked a few times, and Hengzhou City barely held on. Luo Zenan analyzed.

Li Xubin interjected: "Teacher, Ming Gong, give me three thousand brothers, let me meet these Cantonese thieves, I want to see how powerful those Cantonese thieves are!" ”

Luo Zenan said: "Ming Gong, blindly defending the city is not a way, besides, after entering the city, our Xiangyong is convenient for the green battalion soldiers in Hengzhou Mansion to get together, but they are dragged down, it is better to follow what Rujiu said, my Xiangyong camped outside the city, and the city of Fucheng is a horn for each other." ”

"Yes, my Xiangyong Land Division has been training for a few months, and I already have some combat strength. It just so happened that the Cantonese thieves were coming, and it was time for them to go to the battlefield to experience a thing or two. However, either you don't go up, or you will press all the six thousand Xiangyong! ”

Two days later, when they were about to arrive at the capital of Hengzhou, the spies had already come to report that there were 4,000 Cantonese thieves and sailors on the surface of the Xiangjiang River in front of them.

Zeng Guofan ordered 6,000 Xiangyong to set up camp in Xiejiawan on the north bank of the steaming water in the north of the city, and the other 2 battalions were ambushed on the Huxing Mountain next to it.

Li Xubin asked puzzledly: "Why did Ming Gong station his brothers here?" What if the Cantonese thieves ignore us and only care about attacking the city? ”

Zeng Guofan smiled: "No." According to the arrogance of the Yue thief, he will definitely attack us! If not, we will set up another camp until they are too close to take the city. ”

Li Xubin suddenly lost his voice, he knew that Zeng Guofan was Zeng Guofan was a person who advocated "clumsiness", he didn't like clever things, and he didn't believe in any kind of tricky things that could be tricked.

Zeng Guofan saw that Li Xubin didn't speak, and knew that he was a little unconvinced, so he continued to explain: "We and Xiangyong are all children of peasant families in Xiangxiang, and Zeng Mou came out to fight for the imperial court, and Zeng Mou has the responsibility to reduce their casualties!" I believe in a saying, sweat more in peacetime, and shed less blood in wartime! You remember, I, Xiangyong, just want to fight a tough village and fight a dumb battle! Don't engage in those opportunistic things! ”

Li Xubin suddenly remembered the military knowledge of fighting and the strategy of arranging troops and arranging formations that Zeng Guofan usually talked about.

Soon, the tenth battalion Xiangyong chose a slightly higher terrain to camp in Xiejiawan, according to the camping rules formulated by Zeng Guofan, this Xiejiawan is a good place to camp with the mountains and rivers at its back.

Then, at the place where he was encamped, he built a wall and dug a trench, which was eight feet high and one foot thick, and was composed of adobe clods. The trench was one foot deep, and the soil dug out of the trench was moved two zhang away, so as to prevent the Cantonese thieves from easily filling the trench with the excavated soil.

Originally, Li Xubin still had to build a fence, but Zeng Guofan told him that the Cantonese thieves did not have cavalry, so they were exempted from erecting a fence.

According to Zeng Guofan's order, Wang Ju led the Xiangyong to immediately dig the trench, and it only took more than half an hour to complete the excavation. For these farmers from Xiangxiang, this kind of trenching operation was originally their profession, they were originally farmers and farmers, and they had long been accustomed to digging the soil.

In this way, several fortifications were formed in Xiangyong's camp. There was a sub-wall on the innermost side of the camp, and outside the wall, there was a ditch. Zeng Guofan knew that the Cantonese thieves did not bring much artillery this time, and the power was not great, so there were not many tree stakes, and according to his set of camping rules, a lot of wooden stakes had to be erected.

In this way, Zeng Guofan told everyone how to convert the attacking Cantonese thief into a defensive Cantonese thief.

In this way, Zeng Guofan personally led his troops against the enemy for the first time, and presented his own arrangements for the battle.

In fact, in the history of later generations, Xiang Yong's method made them set up camp when they arrived at a place, not to attack, but to wait for others to attack.

How did Xiangyong attack the city? Very simply, after hitting the edge of a city, they began to dig trenches, not fighting with the Taiping army, and dug trenches for every day they were stationed.

It may seem clumsy, but it works! Later generations played a huge role in attacking strategic cities such as Anqing and Jiujiang. One by one, countless and countless roads surrounded, countless roads and countless roads dug up, all the time the city is impassable, it depends on how long the food in the city can last.

"Cutting off the enemy's food routes and supplying the enemy, the method is very stupid, but it is very effective, this is the so-called 'dumb war'." Zeng Guofan guided the crowd.

However, the current Zeng Guofan is only a preliminary concept of "fighting a dumb battle", and there is no specific detailed standard, therefore, the standard for camping is still very vague, so camping is relatively simple, and soon, the camp is completed.

Sure enough, as Zeng Guofan expected, the 4th Division of the Capture Army, which besieged Hengzhou City, under the command of Liang Litai, quickly divided 5,000 people and attacked Xiejiawan, where Xiangyong was stationed.

Liang Litai wanted to destroy Xiangyong's camp in one fell swoop, destroy the Qing army that came to help, and completely break the attempt to send reinforcements from Hengzhou City and other places.

Liang Litai didn't take this group from Changsha too seriously, he had encountered group training in Guiyang, Chenzhou and other places, all of them were a group of squires and villagers, there was no training at all, and they were defeated in a battle. Therefore, he listened to the report of the investigators that a group of thousands of reinforcements from Changsha had arrived, stationed in Xiejiawan, so he directly led four regiments of 5,000 captives and rushed towards Xiejiawan.

The battle is on!

What even Liang Litai and Zeng Guofan didn't expect was that the strength of both of them was about the same, and even the weapons were not much different, they were more than 2,000 shotguns, and the rest were knives and spears and other weapons. The only difference is that Liang Litai's side has a configuration of 200 foreign guns, while Zeng Guofan's side has dozens of more guns.

The captives rushed to the bottom of the mound, and Liang Litai couldn't help but feel strange when he saw that the Qing army's camp was still quiet in front of the camp. didn't think much about it at the moment, and commanded the captive army to continue to rush forward. While climbing the mound, suddenly, there was a burst of shouts: "Fire!" ”

The sound of banging and banging continued, and the captives realized that in an underground area only 50 paces ahead, thousands of black shotguns suddenly appeared and opened fire one after another.

The captives fell nearly a hundred people in an instant!

There are trenches?! Liang Litai immediately realized that there were a large number of Qing soldiers in ambush in the trench ahead! He didn't expect that this Qing army was not in his own camp, but out of the camp, dug a trench in front, hid in it, and ambushed himself.

Liang Litai hurriedly ordered the captive army to stop advancing, and climbed on the ground to dodge and return fire.

The battlefield was full of smoke and there was no wind, and soon nothing could be seen clearly.

Liang Litai ordered half of the captive army to attack tentatively from the other side, but found that on the other side, the Qing army had also dug trenches, and a large number of shotgunners and gunmen were stationed in the trenches.

The captives made two tentative charges, both of which were returned by shotgunners, with more than 200 casualties.

With the help of the cover of the trenches, the Qing army basically suffered no losses.

Liang Litai was shocked! He realized that the group training in front of him who could dig trenches was not an ordinary group bravery! It was even more difficult to fight than the regular green battalion Qing soldiers.

Liang Litai mobilized the army to fight for capture, moved out and brought only more than 20 earthen cannons and alphabet cannons, and fired at the trench on the east side from the favorable terrain, and under the cover of artillery fire, more than 100 people were killed and wounded, and finally rushed close to the trench, but found that there was a low earthen wall behind the trench, and a large number of Qingyong ambushes behind the earthen wall kept firing shotguns.

Liang Litai, who could not bear the casualties, had no choice but to order the captives to retreat.

The next day, Liang Litai was much more careful and sent out reconnaissance, but was surprised to find that the Qing soldiers actually dug four more trenches more than 20 steps from yesterday's old trench and surrounded the entire camp.

Liang Litai was taken aback! This group training from Changsha is too ruthless. You know, like yesterday's trench in it, the total length of the four directions is only about 300 steps, but after advancing 20 meters outward, the total length is about 500 steps, and it was secretly dug out in one night. This battle is not easy to fight!

In order to prevent the Qing army from continuing to dig trenches and advance forward, Liang Litai ordered a regiment of troops to take turns on duty, lighting torches at night to illuminate the position, and sure enough, he found that the Qing army secretly continued to dig trenches at night.

Liang Litai sent the second company equipped with foreign guns to step forward, and used the range of foreign guns to defeat the Qing Yong, who organized the defense with bird guns, and for two consecutive nights, the Qing soldiers who were digging trenches were killed and wounded dozens of people by foreign guns. After that, the Qing army did not dare to send people to dig trenches.

But this is only a small local war, and it does not change anything. Qingyong's camp could not be captured head-on by the captive army.

In desperation, Liang Litai had no choice but to lead the captives to evacuate Xiejiawan and continue to surround Hengzhou City.

However, because there are thousands of strong regiments next to them, they have to guard against the other party and the Qing soldiers in the city at any time, and the siege of the city is even more difficult.

A few days later, what made Liang Litai speechless was that at some point that night, this arrogant group of brave men built another camp overnight at a mound next to Hengzhou City on the south bank of steaming water. Directly and Hengzhou City rely on each other. At this time, even the siege of Hengzhou City will not be realized.

Liang Litai, who suffered from the lack of large artillery, completely gave up his plan to defeat the trench defenders after trying to attack with small earthen cannons and sub-mother cannons for a few rounds. Just send troops everywhere to surround the surroundings of Hengzhou City to prevent the Qing soldiers from receiving supplies from Hengzhou City.

As a result, the battle in Hengzhou was stalemate. (To be continued.) )