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After Qi Hao and the others were hanged in the city, Song Xianggong took care of them and the envoys separately, and then interrogated them separately. This is also a matter of course, Qi Hao did not feel dissatisfied with the Taiping army because of this, in other words, he would do the same, be careful to sail the ship of ten thousand years, after all, no one knows if the Qing army will use the same method to send spies to the city. He remembered clearly that when he was ordered by Li Dingguo of Xifu to guard Hengyang City, there were Qing army spies mixed into the city among the refugees, and then set fire everywhere at night.

Song Xianggong first interrogated the envoys, and then interrogated Qi Hao and his subordinates respectively, and after a few confirmations, there was naturally no problem, but Song Xianggong was still not very relieved, until Qi Hao took out his seal of the chief military officer awarded by the Yongli court of the Southern Ming Dynasty to completely eliminate Song Xianggong's suspicions.

Qi Hao's general soldier seal was issued by the Yongli Imperial Court according to Sun Kewang's report list after the Great Western Army joined the Ming Dynasty to resist the Qing Dynasty, but more often than not, he had nothing to do with the Yongli Imperial Court, and Sun Kewang and Li Dingguo were the ones who could really command him.

After Qi Hao was forced to abandon Hengyang due to the strength of the Qing army, Li Dingguo once took away his post as the chief soldier and served in the army with the rank of general, but this general seal was not recovered. Thinking about it, although Li Dingguo was annoyed that Qi Hao abandoned Hengyang, he also knew that this was forced by the situation, that is, he was not forced to move to Guangdong because of Sun Kewang's persecution, so naturally there was no need for a wicked person to do it to the end. In the final analysis, although Qi Hao is not his descendant, he is also a member of the Great Western Army, and he took the initiative to vote for him Li Dingguo. If he was really too harsh on Qi Hao regardless of his feelings, it would not be good for his reputation Li Dingguo.

The official seal of the Southern Ming Dynasty, Zhou Shixiang naturally also has one. However, compared with Qi Hao's general officer seal, it is much inferior, and it is only a Luodingzhou general seal. This seal was not given to him at the beginning, but was given to Hu Quan by Zhongcheng Bangjun, the staff of the Yongli Imperial Court Military Department, and now that Hu Quan is dead, this seal naturally fell into the hands of Zhou Shixiang, who was already the actual leader of the Taiping Army.

The official level crushed people to death, and the person who came was the chief military officer, but he was only a general who had not yet been officially recognized by the Yongli Imperial Court. This brings a problem, how to deal with Qi Hao, the chief military officer of the Ming Dynasty.

The problem is very easy to solve, related to the power of the Taiping Army's command and his own life, Zhou Shixiang is not ambiguous, in front of Qi Hao and his subordinates, he said bluntly, the Taiping Army welcomes you to vote, and now I am willing to award the post of the general flag of the army, I don't know if you are willing.

I thought that Qi Hao had been a chief military officer after all, but now he can only be a general banner, and the gap is not small. There must be a grudge in his heart, and he didn't want Qi Hao to say nothing after hearing about this appointment, so he happily agreed. Its cheerful appearance made Zhou Shixiang a little embarrassed, and secretly flattered himself to spend the belly of a gentleman with the heart of a villain, just imagine that people followed Zhang Xianzhong in the early years of the southern and northern wars, both in terms of age and seniority are much stronger than their own second generation of talents, and can lead his brothers to persist in resisting the Qing Dynasty when Li Dingguo's retreat to the west has no way out, although I heard the messenger say that they did more bandit work than fighting with the Qing army, and even sat on the ground with some people in the green camp of the Qing army, but in any case, they did not surrender to the Qing. did not turn the muzzle of the gun and stabbed his former colleagues, and resolutely surrendered knowing that Xinhui had been surrounded by the Qing army. That alone is enough to free everything. Such a person, how can he only have fame and fortune in his eyes, and how can he be suspicious.

Last month, a Ming army in Dong'an tried to get closer to Xinhui, but was repelled by the Qing army, and more than 1,000 soldiers from the Zhou Beifeng Division of Haibei Province had taken a boat into the estuary, but did not break through the blockade of the Qing army's Guangdong Naval Division, and hurriedly withdrew from the estuary after folding a few boats. Just half a month ago, I heard that a Ming army had landed on Hailing Island in Yangjiang, but then there was no movement. In addition to these, Qi Hao didn't have much information from the outside world, and this information was still learned by him and the Qing army through the other party's words at that time.

These news made Zhou Shixiang sigh secretly, although he sent more than a dozen messengers to the outside before the siege of Xinhui, but the real hope was Gaozhou, he hoped that because of his arrival in Luoding, the little butterfly wings instigated in Luoding could affect the war in the Ming and Qing dynasties, at least so that Sun Kewang and Li Dingguo would not be fighting at this juncture, but now it seems that this hope is afraid of being wiped out, from the time of time, Sun Kewang is afraid that he is in a hurry with Li Dingguo, and tens of thousands of elite soldiers of the Western Army are fratricidal under the command of the two princes.

Without Li Dingguo's third eastward advance, the situation in Xinhui would be a dilemma, and it would be foolish to expect those ineffective Southern Ming miscellaneous troops and sailors who could only dominate on the water to solve the crisis of the Taiping Army. What's more, few of the generals of the Southern Ming army scattered throughout Guangdong seem to be able to see the impact of the Taiping army's occupation of Xinhui on the situation in Guangdong, otherwise why would only one or two troops and horses move, and not see other generals moving towards Xinhui.

It is better to ask for others than for yourself, and it seems that the dilemma of Xinhui has to be solved by the Taiping Army itself, but how to solve it?

The encirclement of the Qing army outside the city with three layers and three layers outside the city made Zhou Shixiang at a loss, on the premise of not abandoning those old and weak women and children, he almost had no possibility of breaking through, but if he really abandoned those old and weak women and children, and expected those wives and children to follow him in the city, this is even more damn unrealistic than an idiot's dream.

Fortunately, the Qing army no longer had the courage to forcibly attack Xinhui after suffering two losses, and the food in the city could last for three or four months, and the only trouble was the matter of eating salt. Concerned about eating salt, Zhou Shixiang naturally asked Qi Hao how they entered the city and whether there was a way to go out of the city along this road to transport salt back.

Qi Hao and they can come in, and naturally they can go out, as long as the number of people is small, this passage outside the West City can be said to be the only channel that the Taiping Army can communicate with the outside world. But it's easy to get out, but where can you find salt? They can't go to the Qing army to grab salt, if they really want to make a disturbance, the Qing army is not stupid, naturally they know that there must be a mistake in the defense line, and when the time comes, the road on the river will definitely be broken, and Xinhui City will really be a lonely city at that time.

Qi Hao had a headache for a while, but one of his brothers suddenly said that it was not impossible to transport salt to the city, but the price was afraid to be greater.

Hearing this, Zhou Shixiang and Song Xianggong's eyes lit up, and they both asked about this person. According to this person, he and Qi Hao had been looking for food everywhere when they fell on the grass in the mountains, and they had no intention of getting on the line with a person from the Guangdong Sailor, although this person was a sailor, but he was also mixed in the road, and he was famous for his boldness, and he only recognized the silver in his eyes, and if the silver was enough, he was afraid that he would be able to slaughter his own wife. At the beginning, they went down the mountain to get some goods, and most of them were handed over to this person. Speaking of this, the man and Qi Hao's faces were a little embarrassed, and their words were mostly vague, but Zhou Shixiang and Song Xianggong couldn't hear it, thinking that they would go down the mountain to kill people and grab things, and then hand over the looted things to the people of the water master to sell in exchange for the food they needed.

Zhou Shixiang has never done this, but how Song Xianggong has not done it, and the bald Jiang He and Ge Zheng have not done it! To be a bandit is to have the consciousness of a bandit, to be a bandit is to have a way to live as a bandit, not to kill people and set fires, what do you want this bandit to do?

In the troubled world, human life is like ants, killing people and setting fire to the gold belt, two lives, Zhou Shixiang has long seen it, this day the world is not peaceful, this kind of thing will not be broken for a day, the difference is only which one is dead.

Seeing that Qi Hao's face was ashamed, Zhou Shixiang hurriedly diverted his words, and asked him if there was a way to contact the water master to see if he could buy the salt urgently needed by the Taiping Army from him, it didn't matter if the other party's heart was dark, silver was not a big deal, as long as there was salt, the price was not a problem, I was afraid that there was no salt!

That's it, Qi Hao and the others rested in the city for two days, and then sneaked out of the city in the middle of the night along the road they came, and used the connections they had made when they were bandits in the past to talk to the water master, and the other party heard that they were asking for salt, and they didn't say anything, and directly gave the price, one hundred taels and a bag of salt (50 catties).

This price is really ridiculously dark, although it is a troubled time, the price of salt is much higher than that of the peaceful year, but a bag of salt is at most ten taels of silver, but this person has risen tenfold at once, and Qi Hao is so angry that he scolded this guy for having a son without a fart. eye, but after scolding, he still went back and reported it to Zhou Shixiang. Zhou Shixiang didn't have such an excited reaction from him, and as soon as he groaned, he asked him to go to the back camp to find Song Xianggong to go to the public treasury to get a thousand taels of silver and bring it, and go out of the city at night, and tonight no matter what, ten bags of salt will be transported into the city.

Zhou Shixiang didn't care about money, and Qi Hao naturally didn't care, so the problem of the Taiping Army's lack of salt was solved by the black-hearted figure of the Qing Army's Guangdong Water Division. Basically, Qi Hao has to take people out of the city every three days, it's not that he doesn't want to buy more at a time and come back, but there can't be more people out of the city, otherwise the Qing army will find out and there will be nothing.

The problem of salt was solved, the firewood was barely demolished, the drinking water was barely enough, and the food could be supported for a period of time.

The Qing army outside the city was also determined to trap the Taiping army to death, and after a few months, there was no withdrawal, but there was no increase in troops, but the city could often see a large number of grain and grass transported from time to time in the Qing army camp. At present, the competition between the two sides is the material, and whoever has more food will be the final winner. (To be continued)