Daijiazhuang is a small Zhuangzi more than ten miles west of Gaomin Temple, as the name suggests, this Zhuangzi is the place where the surname Dai gathers. Pen "Fun" Pavilion www.biquge.info

The flag of the fifth town of the Taiping Army was raised on a high slope in front of Zhuangzi two days ago, when there was not a single person in the Zhuangzi, or not a single living person. The Fifth Town found more than 100 frozen corpses from the Zhuangzi, and it can be seen from the kicked down doors in the Zhuangzi that the Zhuangzi had been looted. Who ransacked this small village, it is self-explanatory. After burying the dead villagers, the 5th Town Brigade A marched into the village, the B Brigade began to build a ring fortification on the north side of the village entrance, and the C Brigade built a simple fortification on the east side.

In the afternoon of that day, the sky suddenly darkened, and then dark clouds were seen rolling up from the northern sky to the south. The clouds were very dark and dark, and it was not long before the sky was dark, and the wind gradually rose, and the air was full of leaves and dry grass blown by the strong wind. In the sound of "woo" wind, the land of Huaiyang is as terrible as a disaster world.

The sound of pots and jars blown down by the wind is everywhere in Daijiazhuang, and from time to time the roof is blown up by the strong wind, and the tiles and hay on it fall in bundles and bundles. There was a panic in the Zhuangzi, the soldiers of the A Brigade were desperately fixing their tents under the strong wind, and the soldiers living in the houses were also scrambling to hold on to the wooden planks and block the windows. The soldiers, who were building fortifications at the entrance of the village, put down all the work at hand, and took the shovels they were allotted to dig hard into the frozen ground in the wind. The officers feared that there would be heavy rain soon, and if the drainage ditch was not dug in time, the fortifications would be flooded by the rain, and all the hard work would be wasted.

Thousands of Taiping soldiers were working desperately against the strong wind, and Liu Zhiwu, a hundred households commanding under the northernmost tuyere, was blown down by the strong wind, and hit a log hard, and a big bag suddenly rose on his forehead. His face and ears were red, but he was not smashed, but frozen. After getting up from the ground, Liu Zhiwu waved his hand again and again to signal his subordinates to leave him alone and hurry up to work, otherwise everyone would suffer at night.

After a busy period in the gale, the fifth town finally rushed to build fortifications, fixed the camp, and arranged neatly and staggeredly. Then the soldiers in their robes appeared in the gale, and let the wind howl in their ears, they remained motionless, their eyes fixed on the distance.

In the fierce wind, there was the sound of hooves, but several horses were scattered out one by one. These scouts are the eyes of the whole town, and they are responsible for the vigilance of the enemy situation in the whole town, and their presence and their efforts will ensure that when the enemy soldiers sneak in, their comrades can organize to meet the enemy in the shortest possible time. Although the wind is very strong, it may rain heavily, and it stands to reason that there can be no sneak attack by the Qing soldiers in this weather, but they still ride on their mounts and travel in the gale, all this because they are soldiers, just because they are the Taiping Army, just because they are the continuation of the Qi family's army, just because of the strict and almost cruel military law.

The town general of the fifth town, Shizhong, stood under the eaves of the porch with his hands in the wind, frowning and looking at the dark clouds in the sky. Not far away, the banner of the word "Qi" was crackled by the wind, and from time to time there were debris blown by the wind to slap on Shizhong's face, but he did not take a step into the eaves of the corridor, and always stood there motionless and looked into the distance.

Li Kuangming, the deputy general of the fifth town, is not a descendant of the Qi family army like Yu Shizhong, but a descendant of the white pole soldiers. His father had accompanied Qin Liangyu to quell the "Banzhou Rebellion", and later disappeared with the Qi family army in the far north of the Hunhe River. So emotionally, Li Kuangming has deep feelings for the white pole soldiers and the Qi family's army, which makes him, as Yu Shizhong's deputy general, have a very tacit understanding with Yu.

Seeing that the wind was so strong, Yu Shizhong didn't enter the house under the eaves, Li Kuangming couldn't help but persuade: "Brother Yu, the wind is too strong, let's go into the house to avoid it." ”

Yu Shizhong's body moved, but he didn't enter the house, but asked Li Kuangming: "What did you find in Tanma?" ”

Li Kuangming shook his head and told Yu Shizhong that he had found nothing. Yu Shizhong thought about it for a while, and instructed Li Kuangming to send more horses tonight, and all brigades and battalions should also add more guards, not only the open posts, but also the secret posts, because his eyelids were always jumping, and he always felt that something big would happen in this wind and rain.

Li Kuangming agreed to arrange this, after he left, Yu Shizhong was still under the eaves of the porch and did not enter the house, his body seemed to be fixed, but his eyes fell on the "Qi" flag swaying in the wind. He is very proud that he will be handsome Qi and continue the bloodline of his father and brother in the Taiping Army. He is also very grateful to Zhou Shixiang, if it weren't for Zhou Shixiang, he Yu Shizhong would probably still be an embarrassed person who was driven by the Qing soldiers and had nowhere to go, where would he rebuild the Qi family's army, and where would he have the status of a marquis today. But at this moment, Yu Shizhong faintly complained about Zhou Shixiang, because he didn't understand why Zhou Shixiang couldn't listen to the advice of his subordinates more and more, and why he was so murderous.

Suzhou broke its promise and killed the general, Guazhou killed the prisoner, Bian Jiahekou killed the prisoner...

Yu Shizhong couldn't understand more and more what the young marshal who led them all the way from Guangzhou to here thought, he was not present about the matter of Suzhou, he saw the matter of Guazhou in his eyes, and he stopped it at the mouth of the Bian family, but it was useless.

The young marshal seemed to be becoming more and more stubborn, thinking that a bloody killing would drive the Manchurian Tartars out of the land of the Han Chinese, but he did not know that this almost barbaric massacre would make the resistance of the Qing army more and more fierce, and add too many unnecessary casualties to the Taiping army. If we can make good use of those captives, we can at least add a new town of soldiers to use, instead of being as tight as we are now.

Just killing prisoners, Yu Shizhong can bear it, after all, Zhou Shixiang's consideration is not completely wrong, there are still heavy troops in Shunzhi, and it is indeed inappropriate to contain more than 10,000 prisoners at once. However, knowing that Shunzhi had mobilized heavy troops to encircle him, Zhou Shixiang still insisted on going north, which was a bit arrogant. Could it be that high morale can really offset the huge disparity in military strength between the two sides?

Yu Shizhong did not think that with the current more than 30,000 soldiers and horses, he could defeat the Qing army with tens of thousands of cavalry in one fell swoop, he believed that after two great victories in succession, the main force of the Taiping army should immediately withdraw south, disengage from the Qing army, only stabilize Guazhou, and the rest of the towns should withdraw to the south of the Yangtze River to rest, and then remobilize the army to the north when the spring flowers bloom next year. After all, the Taiping army was supported by Jiangnan money and grain, but the Qing army did not. Shunzhi stayed in Yangzhou for one more day, which would only drag the Manchus into the abyss of destruction, and on the premise that everyone in the world knew that he was unable to cross the river to the south, there would always be people on the Manchu side who jumped out to be the second "thief showman", maybe Wu Sangui, or someone else. Maybe in the future, there will not be a decisive battle, and the Manchus will collapse and perish on their own, and then the Taiping army can surrender without a fight, and recover the north and south of the river without a fight. The most important thing is that it will kill a lot of people.

Xing, the people suffer; Death, and the people suffer.

For more than ten years, too many people have died in the north and south of the river, and Yu Shizhong can't bear to see the Han people who survived to suffer again and again, so he knelt in front of Zhou Shixiang that time, begging Zhou Shixiang to withdraw his troops, and then he personally led the fifth town to recover the two provinces of Zhejiang and Fujian, completely integrate the southern provinces, and accumulate strength for the Northern Expedition next spring.

However, Zhou Shixiang did not adopt Yu Shizhong's opinion, but ordered him to lead his troops as the left wing of the whole army, and sent it far away, as if he wanted to be out of sight and out of mind.

Zhou Shixiang even issued a strict order, and if there are any people in the army who dare to withdraw the army, military law will be involved. This order made no one dare to withdraw the army in front of Zhou Shixiang. With his strong prestige in the army, Zhou Shixiang single-handedly led the decisive battle. He placed the new 1st and 5th towns on the two flanks, and he himself led 14,000 men from the first, second, and 3rd towns, and a brigade from the third town in the center, with the Iron Man Guard and 3,000 cavalry drawn from each town as reserves.

Gaomin Temple is the decisive place chosen by Zhou Shixiang for himself, and it is also the decisive place chosen for Shunzhi. He believed that Shunzhi would definitely come. Yu Shizhong also believed that the Qing army would definitely come to the decisive battle as the marshal thought, but at this moment, he couldn't help but sigh in his heart, he was really not optimistic about this decisive battle. Now we can only hope that the attack on the fifteenth town and the new third town of Yizhen can contain part of the strength of the Qing army, so that there may be hope for a draw in this decisive battle.

After another long sigh, Yu Shizhong shook his head, although he did not agree to the decisive battle, he was not optimistic about the decisive battle, but he still decided to do his own thing, even if he died in battle, he would firmly block the Qing army from the left flank for the Chinese army.

Suddenly, a drop of rain fell on the eaves of the porch on Yu Shizhong's head, and then more raindrops fell, and soon, the sky and the earth were white. The heavy rain poured down and fell on the land of Huaiyang. The wind dragged the raindrops and flew diagonally, and the banner with the word "Qi" was hit by the raindrops in the wind.

In the wind and rain, Yu Shizhong's eyes were retracted, and at the moment when he turned around to enter the house, he suddenly shivered, and a thought that he had never thought of came to his mind: Could it be that the reason why Zhou Shixiang insisted on a decisive battle was that he wanted to gamble, and then take advantage of the power of the Manchu Qing Dynasty to take the Ming Dynasty? (To be continued.) )