Wang Jingyuan thought that reporting his name would definitely scare this group of prisoners, but he didn't expect everyone to look at each other, Lu Yaoling arched his hand and said: "Taiping Army? Little brother, what is the Taiping Army! ”

Jing Yuan forgot that the "Taiping Army" was a self-proclaimed one, and it was still falsely accused of being a long-haired thief in the vast Qing government-ruled area, so Jing Yuan had to explain simply: "It's the Guangxi long-haired thief!" ”

"Long hair! Yes? The crowd was amazed.

"Isn't that a ruckus over there?" Lu Yaoling was a little puzzled.

Seeing their surprise, Jing Yuan was extremely proud, and said again: "Where is the Qing Demon the opponent of our Heavenly Empire soldiers, Wuchang City was defeated last winter, and at this time, the Heavenly King led an army of 500,000 along the waterway to the east. ”

"Five hundred thousand! So many? Lu Yaoling asked in astonishment.

"More than that! In addition, there are millions of old and young, and the army of our Celestial Dynasty is divided into five roads, each of which is from a row to four, with a total of 20 armies, each army under the jurisdiction of a division commander, a brigade commander, a pawn commander, two horses, and a team commander, and an army of more than 13,000 people, which is only infantry, as well as cavalry, water battalions, and earth battalions. ”

"And cavalry, water battalions?"

Seeing that everyone had been frightened by himself, Jing Yuan simply said: "My Celestial Empire's army has strict military discipline, brave combat, and is invincible everywhere it goes. ”

Long-haired is brave and good at fighting, unstoppable, it has long been spread all over the south of the Yangtze River, Lu Yaoling and they have also heard the jailers talk, this time Jingyuan said it is well-founded, and they can't be allowed to believe it. Yuan Hongmo asked directly: "What is Brother Wang's position in the Celestial Empire Army?" Is it true that there is land and money to work together? Don't lie to me. ”

Yuan Hongmo was originally a poor household in the township, and he rented eight acres of land from the landlord, and the harvest was not good last autumn, so he took the lead in renting it, which had a great impact, and was sent to the provincial capital by the Luzhou government.

"Brother Yuan, how dare I casually deceive such a crime of killing heads" Seeing that everyone is afraid of the Taiping Army, "Everyone, I entered the camp in Wuchang, and I am now the pioneer officer of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom's Wing King's account, and His Royal Highness the Wing King is the sixth prince of the Celestial Empire, because the King of the South and the King of the West died in battle, and now he is the fourth person in the Celestial Empire. This time, His Royal Highness the Wing King commanded the three armies all the way to attack the city and pull out the village, and soon arrived in Anqing. ”

Hearing that the Taiping army was about to attack Anqing, everyone was surprised and delighted, and Lu Yaoling hurriedly asked, "Will the Celestial Empire army let us go?" ”

"Of course you put it away! My Taiping Army is a teacher of benevolence and righteousness! Jing Yuan replied without thinking about it, and Lu Yaoling was released by the Taiping Army in the later generations. At this time, the prisoners all cheered, and their faces suddenly changed to Jing Yuan, and they all referred to General Wang. When he arrived in this prison, he could only count on the Taiping army to enter and release himself. But even so, it is necessary to detain this group of inmates, and multiple people take care of them. So he said, "However, you must help me open the city gates and respond to the Celestial Empire!" ”

In fact, these people who can be imprisoned in the prison of the Prosecutor's Department are some serious offenders, even if they are not sentenced to death, they are exiled, and if they live now, they will miss it. Yuan Hongmo was the first to respond: "We do whatever you want, if you don't listen, I will kill him!" This cut off everyone's back road, Yuan Hongmo was fierce and domineering, and some prisoners were still his fellow villagers, so they all expressed their willingness to listen.

"It's not enough for just a few of us, we have to open the other cells as soon as possible!" Lu Yaoling suggested.

When Jing Yuan heard that he was indeed a leader, he immediately asked the prisoners to introduce him to the specific situation of the prison. Originally, the prison was located in the southwest of Anqing City, next to the prison department. The prison consisted of thirty cells, divided into three separate courtyards, which were surrounded on three sides by cells, only one of which was blocked by a high wooden fence. The cells are all made of blue bricks, the walls are deep, and there is a thick cedar door, except for a small window for cooking next to the door, there are two windows for air at about two meters high on the front and back walls, both of which are blocked by iron rods, and Jing Yuan estimates that the possibility of escaping through the window is zero. There were about twenty jailers in the cell, all during the day and three shifts at night. The prisoners also take turns relaxing once every half a month, when the jailer opens the cell door and gives the prisoners an hour to bask in the sun in the courtyard, and the rest of the time they have to be locked in a dark cell.

On the one hand, it was only the third day of the first lunar month, and the Taiping Army was still in Hubei, on the other hand, his buttocks were swollen, and he couldn't get up without a few days of rest. However, the prison is really not a place for people to recuperate, two meals of gruel a day, only one bowl per person, and occasionally a nest head, no wonder Jing Yuan was searched as soon as he came in. But then the situation completely changed, Lu Yaoling tore his broken quilt in half and gave half to Jing Yuan, although it was dirty, but it was undoubtedly a lifesaver for the prisoners who were locked up here and had no beds and could only be wrapped in straw. This reminded Jing Yuan of his father in later generations, although he didn't like to be close to his father, it didn't mean that he didn't understand his father's love. There is also Yuan Hongmo, in order to make Jing Yuan recover as soon as possible, this guy forced each prisoner to hand over half of the wowotou, along with his entire wowotou, to Jing Yuan, which moved Jing Yuan for a while.

After a few days of getting along, Jing Yuan found that these prisoners were not some of the worst traitors. The charges they put in prison are also debatable, Lu Yaoling and the villager Diao Zongge fought over the water source, resulting in casualties, as the main culprit, the two were taken to the province for trial at the same time, but I didn't expect to wait for three years. Yuan Hongmo took the lead in resisting rent, if according to the opinion of later generations, this is still an anti-feudal peasant struggle, but this is a capital crime in the Qing Dynasty, but he will not be beheaded until the autumn, which is why he strongly supports Jing Yuan. And Xie Zhenke had a dispute with the patriarch of the same clan, killed by mistake, and although he spent a lot of money to bribe the yamen, he was finally sentenced to exile in Gansu, just waiting to be escorted after the year. Most of the other inmates in the same room were Yuan Hongmo's co-defendants, so they all looked to Yuan Hongmo's head.

After the tenth day of the first lunar month, the jailers in the prison began to become restless, and sometimes they would gather together in twos and threes, Jing Yuan estimated that the news of the defeat of the governor of Liangjiang might have come, and ordered people to keep an eye on the movements of the jailers day and night. asked Lu Yaoling to inquire about the jailer who delivered the meal, and sure enough, the Qing soldiers suffered a defeat in Huangzhou upstream, and the Taiping army should be about to arrive.

At this time, the city of Anqing outside the prison was like turning the sky upside down, originally after Jiang Wenqing appeased, the people of Anqing had believed that the Taiping army was besieged in Wuchang was at the end of the road, how could the governor of Liangjiang Lu Jianying not fight, defeated in Hubei Mouse Gorge, fled east to Jiujiang, and then abandoned it. Passing by Anqing, Jiang Wenqing invited him to enter the city, and Lu Jianying, who was already frightened, dared to stay and retreated to Jiangning. At this time, Anqing City seemed to have blown up a nest, and they speculated about the battle situation. In less than two days, the Jiujiang rout came with the news that Changmao had broken through Jiujiang on the eleventh day of the first lunar month, and suddenly the whole city was mobilized, backpackers, car-drivers, landlords, merchants, and wealthy hawkers all ran away, and Anqing, which was still immersed in the joy of the New Year, instantly became a dead city, and the rest were thousands of guards and officials, as well as some poor people who did not want to die, who went door to door to collect the property of the rich, and occasionally beat each other for food.

The war situation has reached such a point, and Jiang Wenqing, as the supreme commander of Anhui, can do nothing. Jiujiang was lost, and Anhui lost the last barrier, like a naked virgin exposed to the presence of a long-haired thief, who did not dare to resist but also resisted. He hated the menacing Long Hair, and even more hated Lu Jianying, who ran away in a hurry, a dignified and first-class official, the governor of the three provinces, and fled without a fight, if he Jiang Wenqing would never be able to do it. At the same time, he sent Zhang Xiyu, the envoy of the inspectorate, to lead the governor to garrison Xiaogu Mountain, and on the other hand, he recruited regiments from all over the country to practice, build city walls, and prepare to defend Anqing City.

However, Zhang Xiyu is not a thing, when the long-haired navy crossed Xiaogu Mountain on the fourteenth day of the first month, he only fired one cannon and retreated in a comprehensive way, burying Jiang Wenqing's last hope. He was the third of the high-ranking officials in Anhui, and his retreat undoubtedly caused the morale of the defenders to drop again and again. The Taiping army was in one go, breaking through Pengze and Dongliu in a row, and approaching Anqing.

On the fifteenth day of the first lunar month, the annual Shangyuan Festival, various activities are held all over the country to celebrate, only this Anqing City is lifeless. Most of the inhabitants of the city have long since fled, and only some of the old and young are sick and disabled, and they can't eat, so they can't care about the holidays. Compared with the very few civilians, Anqing, which is about to face a big war, has the most green battalion soldiers, most of them are Jiangsu green battalion soldiers brought by Wang Pengfei, the chief soldier of Langshan Town, and some of them are just recruited local regiment training soldiers. These Qing soldiers had just received double the money for defending the city, and they were now thinking not about the Taiping army that was about to fight, but about where to buy big cigarettes, for whom smoking guns were much more important than long guns.

There is only one place that is the most lively on the night of the deserted Anqing City, and that is the governor's yamen. In order to boost morale, Jiang Wenqing specially ordered people to put up lanterns, set up a banquet with wine, entertain all the generals, and let the general and above go to the governor's yamen for a banquet. The invitation of the supreme governor of a province made those rural landowners who had never seen the world happy, and more than 100 people poured into the governor's yamen.

In the governor's compound, there were countless banquets, the voices of the people were boiling, and after a while, several main lords came out together, the governor Jiang Wenqing sat in the main seat, the chief soldier Wang Pengfei occupied the guest seat, and the political envoy Li Benren and the prefect Fu Jixun sat in the accompanying seat, and several people sat in the arena and hurriedly bowed and saluted.

Jiang Wenqing saw that hundreds of generals had come, and he was very satisfied and ordered to sit at the table. I saw plates of fatty meat, big fish, wine and delicacies, which were everything, and these masters who had been away from their hometown for more than a month were so hungry that they couldn't wait to eat immediately. However, everyone knows that the superiors must have some instructions before the meal, how dare they move chopsticks. I only heard Jiang Wenqing say: "At this time when the country is in trouble, the soldiers are working hard!" ”

The superiors sympathize with the subordinates, which will undoubtedly be supported by the subordinates, and so are the leaders of these green battalions, each kneeling on the ground and shouting: "It's not hard! "Its voice is as strong as thunder, its breath is like a rainbow, and it is quite heroic.

On the guest seat, Wang Pengfei was naturally happy to see his subordinates supporting himself so strongly in front of the leader, and he also knelt down and said: "The governor loves the people like a son and is sympathetic to his subordinates, we dare not to die!" ”

Li Benren seemed to be infected by Wang Pengfei's determination, and praised with appreciation: "General Wang is worthy of being my fierce general of the Qing Dynasty!" ”

"Lord Jiang is strategizing, Lord Li is resourceful and decisive, and the last general is just following orders."

"Both of them are pillars of the country, and with two auxiliaries, the Cantonese bandits will be broken!" Jiang Wenqing saw that the initial effect had been achieved, so he might as well give his subordinates another boost.

The generals of the superiors made peace, so that the subordinates seemed to have the confidence to break the enemy, and I don't know who shouted "The Guangdong bandits will be broken!" All of a sudden, everyone shouted, and for a while, the whole audience was boiling. Jiang Wenqing smiled proudly: "Our army's morale is strong, and this battle will be won!" The men shouted again, "Victory!" Jiang Wenqing then ordered the banquet to open. In the blink of an eye, everyone left their ambitions behind, feasted and devoured them.