Since the Taiping army was raised in Luoding, because of the baseless place, Zhou Shixiang insisted on strengthening the army in the way of coercion, so everything in the army (soldiers, grain and grass) relied on looting and seizing from the Qing army. After several battles in Deqing, Gaoyao, and Xinhui, the Taiping army obtained enough grain and grass to maintain the needs of the whole army for half a year, but the amount of salt captured was not much. There are two reasons for the scarcity of salt: on the one hand, the prefectures and counties that the Taiping army passed through along the way were not salt-producing areas; On the other hand, it is because the Qing army in these areas has long carried out strict monitoring and blockade of salt.

As a result of the Qing army's blockade of salt, there was no large influx of salt in the places where the Taiping army passed, and the people could only buy it in rations. In this way, the Qing army effectively avoided the influx of large quantities of salt into these areas that the Ming and Qing dynasties repeatedly contested, so as not to fall into the hands of the Ming army, which was also short of salt.

If the Taiping army can continue to follow the policy set by Zhou Shixiang all the way to plunder, with the existing personnel of the Taiping army, there is naturally no need to be afraid of salt shortage. However, after occupying Xinhui, Zhou Shixiang decided to rely on Xinhui to induce the main force of the Qing army in Guangzhou to attack the city in order to avoid the Taiping army's transfer to Xiangshan and be intercepted by the superior Qing army, so as to consume a large amount of the Qing army's vitality in Guangzhou through this fortified city that even Li Dingguo's tens of thousands of troops could not conquer, making the process of advancing south relatively easy.

After all, the Taiping Army was only an army composed of many people, either voluntarily or involuntarily, and it relied on several previous skirmishes to make the whole army condense a certain combat effectiveness. This combat effectiveness can naturally be fought when it encounters a small group of green battalion soldiers, but once it encounters the main force of the Qing army in Guangzhou with cavalry, it is obviously not enough.

Moreover, the Taiping army not only marched and fought with the army, but also carried a large number of old and weak women and children with the army. One is the rogue, and the other is the bandits. The fate of the two is about the same, and I have never heard of anything great. It was done by Li Zicheng and Zhang Xianzhong when they first started the army. But once the scale became larger, they also abandoned this method of coercion. And then develop towards the road of elite soldiers. The remnants of Li Zicheng's Dashun Army and the Daxi Army, which had transformed into the main force of the Southern Ming Dynasty, were the remnants of these elite generals.

Zhou Shixiang, who was involved in the drawbacks of development, did not know how to do it, but he did not have the time or any opportunity to make the scale of the Taiping Army larger, and it could develop towards the road of elite soldiers and strong generals, until he was trapped in Xinhui, and the number of soldiers in the five battalions of the front battalion of the Taiping Army was only more than 2,000 people. Not to mention that such a small number of troops is placed in the whole country, even in Guangdong, it is inconspicuous. It could not control the development of the Ming and Qing dynasties at all. If it weren't for the fact that Xinhui City was really too strong by the Qing army itself, it would have been eaten up by the Qing army several times with the strength of the Taiping army.

In the battle of Guifeng Mountain, the death of thousands of old and weak women and children has sounded the alarm bell of the Taiping Army, Zhou Shixiang is difficult to ride a tiger, and the tone of coercion is set by him, and he also promotes it single-handedly, so he can't throw the rear camp away as a burden now, and then lead the front camp to go straight to Xiangshan lightly. If he did this, the first to disobey him would be his group of officers, many of whom had small families in the back camp!

How many people in this world can be ruthless like Liu Zongmin, the general next to King Chuang. Killing his wife and children to make a "revolution"?!

People must not be discarded at will, in the future, it is necessary to enter Xiangshan to seek development, and if you want to develop, you must naturally have manpower. Without manpower, what kind of development can we talk about?

Therefore, when the threat caused by the Qing army in Guangzhou to the southward advance of the Taiping army could not be completely resolved, Zhou Shixiang did not dare to give up the Xinhui army and transfer to Xiangshan.

The evolution of the war was basically the same as Zhou Shixiang's assumption, but the difference was that the Qing army died down after launching two major offensives before and after, and turned to the method of besieging the city to deal with the Taiping army, which made Zhou Shixiang, who was bent on killing and injuring a large number of Qing troops with the help of the fortified city, quite regretted.

After regret, we can only face reality - the long-term siege of the Qing army caused more and more trouble for the Taiping army, and salt was one of them.

The besieged Xinhui City had no way to obtain salt from the outside world at all, and the commander of the Qing army besieging the city was Shang Zhixin, the son of Shang Kexi, the king of Pingnan, although this guy made Kangxi's rebellion in the future. But Zhou Shixiang didn't whimsically think that this guy was now anti-Qing Dynasty, and he could send salt to the city for the sake of the same anti-Qing lineage.

The Qing army besieging the city was also the elite of the Qing army in Guangdong. There were not only the bannermen of the Han army of the two vassal kings, but also the governor of the governor of Guangdong. Half of the elite soldiers that can be drawn from the Guangdong Green Battalion are also stationed outside the city, and the generals of these leaders are all hardcore "fans" of the Qing Dynasty, and it is impossible for them to have a secret communication with the Taiping Army.

Unable to obtain salt from the outside world, the nearly 10,000 people in the city have to eat salt every day, even if there is no guarantee that the rear camp and those Xinhui people will have salt to eat every day, but the front camp must always have salt to eat with knives and guns, and those prisoners who are forced to do coolies must also give a symbolic little salt, otherwise people will walk and float, where will they have the strength to work?

In early July, Song Xianggong made a count of the existing salt goods in the public treasury, and then Zhou Shixiang convened the generals to discuss with the camp elders and set the salt distribution system. This distribution system is not much different from the distribution method of wells, in that the amount of water used by the army is guaranteed first, and then it is returned to the rear battalion.

The generals and the elders of the battalions are very clear about the current situation, whether it is food, water, or salt, they must all go to the front camp first, otherwise without these sword-wielding defenders, the old and weak women and children will not become the meat on the swords of the Qing army in the blink of an eye, let them be harmed, let them poison.

Even so, the salt stored in the public treasury could not last for half a month, so Zhou Shixiang still asked everyone to think of a way in line with the principle of brainstorming, and some people proposed a way to scrape some nitrate around the pit and boil it to eat. This proposal reminded Zhou Shixiang that when the Red Army was on Jinggang Mountain in later generations, it seems that because of the lack of salt, they would collect the kind of nitrate attached to the wall around the pit to eat.

Regardless of whether this nitrate can be eaten or not, it is always good to have a salty taste in the mouth! Zhou Shi rewarded the proposer with ten taels of silver, and asked Liao Ruixiang to organize the people of the county government to collect it. As a result, Liao Zhixian became the first county lord in China to lead people around the pit all day long in a thousand years, and only wronged the old master.

Practice has proved that this nitrate is indeed edible, but the amount is still limited, and it can't help much at all. Zhou Shixiang asked everyone to find a way again, he also let it go, and took out a heavy reward, regardless of the white cat or black cat, if you can catch a mouse, you are a good cat! As long as anyone can solve the problem of salt and become an official, Bai Ding will directly raise the general flag, ask for silver, and reward a hundred taels!

It is often said that there must be brave men under heavy rewards, but after seven or eight days, there is no news at all, and no one from the county yabang posted in Houying and Xinhui people's residential areas has been exposed.

There is no new salt coming in, how to sit and eat the mountain empty! If you really wait for the salt to be broken, let's wipe your neck with a knife!

After Zhou Shixiang and Song Xianggong discussed together, they decided to choose another dead soldier and Chen Mo led him out of the city late at night to grab salt in the Qing army camp.

This is an adventurous operation that is destined to kill many people, because since the last time Chen Mo led the dead soldiers to destroy the east and west forts of the Qing army in the middle of the night, the Qing army obviously had more eyes, not only completely blocked the tunnels they had dug themselves, but also dug two trenches in front of the camp, and the ditches were full of bamboo tips, and if people fell into it, they would not die or be disabled.

Not only that, the Qing army also laid a few fences outside these trenches, each fence was repaired to death, the Qing army sentry post was separated by three or four zhang on one, and the Qing soldiers patrolling were almost a small half pillar of incense time to go back and forth, so that people had no gap to take advantage of. Hugh said that it would be extremely difficult to cross the two trenches, and I don't know how many lives would have to be piled up to cross a ditch!

Chen Mo, the death row prisoner who instructed his subordinates to take advantage of the fire to rob that day, had been promoted to the general flag of the Guards Battalion for his meritorious service in destroying the Qing army's east and west forts, and when he received Zhou Shixiang asking him to go out of the city again to seize salt, he was silent for a moment, and then nodded wordlessly. At that time, the indescribable dead silence on his face obviously knew that he was going to die nine times for the rest of his life.

Seeing this, Song Xianggong sighed and didn't say anything. Zhou Shixiang was also uncomfortable in his heart, and just wanted to encourage Chen Mo to say a few words, but the bald Jiang He came over to ask for a meeting, saying that there were anti-Qing people outside Xicheng who defected at night.

Xicheng is garrisoned by the Xiongwei battalion, compared with the other three directions, the strength of the Qing army stationed outside the Xicheng is obviously weak, judging from the banner alone, only the green battalion is guarding. But the weak defense does not mean that the Taiping army can open a gap from Xicheng to get in touch with the outside world, because Xicheng is facing the Tan River, and less than three miles out of the city is a wide river, and if you want to cross the river from here, there is no door!

It was precisely because Xinhui Xicheng was facing the Tan River, and the Taiping army in the city did not have a naval division to respond on the river, so the defense of the besieging Qing army on Xicheng was weaker than the other three directions. Whether it is Shang Zhixin or Zhou Shixiang, there has never been the idea that the Taiping army will break through from Xicheng, and the Taiping army really wants to break out of the city from Xicheng.

Before the Qing army besieged the city, Zhou Shixiang had sent several messengers outside the city, intending to contact the remnants of the Ming army scattered in the mountains near Xinhui after Li Dingguo's withdrawal, but because the Qing army came too quickly, not only did not scatter the Ming army to defect, but even none of the people sent came back. At first, Zhou Shixiang still had illusions, but after a month or two, he didn't expect anything outside, and now he suddenly heard Jiang He say that someone came to defect, which made him suddenly a little surprised, and he couldn't sit down, so he personally took people to Xicheng to see what was going on. (To be continued)