Huang Zhizheng, the county magistrate appointed by the Qing court, set fire to the county government after the Taiping army broke the city. Fortunately, the fire only burned in the back hall and did not spread to the entire county office, and then the sergeants of the Hujie battalion who entered the county government searched for the Tang newspapers and official documents sent from Beijing, Guangzhou and other places over the years.

Combined with the content of the official document of the Tang newspaper, coupled with the confession of the prisoners and reconnaissance along the way, Zhou Shixiang divided the forces of the enemy and us on the map of Guangdong Province he drew, using red dots to represent the Ming army and black dots to represent the Qing army, and then summoned the generals to discuss.

On the map, there is not much error in the number of red dots representing the Ming army and the number of black dots representing the Qing army, and even the number of red dots is still above the black dots, but the areas where the Ming army is located are remote mountainous and coastal areas, while the Qing army occupies the essence of Guangdong Province, of which Guangzhou and Chaoshan are all black spots, in contrast, the human and material resources controlled by the Ming army are far beyond reach.

"Dong'an Wei Yingdeng, the general army Ye Biao Department, Shaozhou Qingyuan Mountain Wang Han Department, and Qinzhou Longmen Island Deng Yao Department each have hundreds to thousands of soldiers."

"Zhu Tong, the general of Ningfan Zhenguo, Zhou Tengfeng of Haibei Province, Zhangping Bo Zhou Jintang of Shicheng County, Hailing Island of Yangjiang County, Li Changrong, a general of Huben, Wang Xing, a general of Enping County, and Chen Qice, a general of Linghai in Shangchuan Mountain and Xiachuan Mountain in the South China Sea, each department has the same number of soldiers and quality, but they are all signed by naval divisions, so the Qing army has nothing to do."

"These Ming troops and righteous teachers are all owned by the Yongli Dynasty scholar Guo Zhiqi, the governor of Liangguang and the city wall promotion, in addition to Gaozhou and the governor of the four provinces Zhang Xiaoqi, but Zhang Xiaoqi this person has no plan, Gaozhou can not be counted on, now the power that can be relied on is in Qin, Lei, Lian three states, of which Linghai general Chen Qice has just hit the Qing army, can be invoked, in addition to Hailing Island general Li Changrong is closest to us, if he is led straight into the mouth of the Jiujiang River. It can contain the Qing army's Guangdong naval division, and if the Qing army's naval division is defeated, our army can cross the river and cross Xiangshan. ”

"The Green Camp captives confess. There were many activities of the Ming army in the mountainous areas near Xinhui, and these people were left behind when the king of Xining withdrew at the beginning of the year. There are soldiers of the king of Xining, and there are also other Ming army volunteers, and when I went down the mountain with Hu Boss to attack Xinhui, I almost couldn't come back. ”

Speaking of this, Song Xianggong paused, his face showed sadness, obviously thinking of the deceased Hu Quan, and Ge Zheng and the others were also sad when they saw it.

Straighten your face. Song Xianggong put away his sadness and continued: "Lord Qianhu has sent people to contact these defeated soldiers, although these defeated soldiers are mixed, but there are many good men who are bent on regaining their sight, and many of them have been elite soldiers in various towns, let them be scattered all over the place without appeasement, and after a long time, I am afraid that they will either become bandits or really die, so if they can be recruited into our Taiping Army, it will inevitably strengthen the strength of our army, and it can also make these men rekindle hope and compete with the Tartars." ”

Wait for Song Xianggong to finish. Zhou Shixiang got up and said: "The matter of contacting the defeated troops and the Ming army in various places has been sent to do it, and our top priority at the moment is to defeat the attack of the Qing army in Guangzhou, and this is the only way." These defeated soldiers will come to us, and those Han men who care about the Ming Dynasty and don't want to be Manchurian slaves will also come to us! Even if we can't defeat the Qing army, we have to die here, even if we die, we have to die in this Xinhui City! ”

Zhou Shixiang said categorically, and all the generals also knew that the first battle of Xinhui was related to the life and death of the Taiping Army, and there was nothing to say at the moment.

Analyzing the situation is the greatest ability of Zhou Shixiang. It is also analyzed in great detail, and it is better to seek others than to seek oneself. Since Luo Ding started his army, Zhou Shixiang has always believed in this. Therefore, he gave up the idea of going west to Li Dingguo, and instead created his own situation with the power of Hu Quan, saying a thousand ways and ten thousand, his own life must be controlled by himself, and even death must be decided by himself!

Everything has been arranged externally, and the "people" in the city are also on the side of the Taiping army, with a strong city to rely on, and the whole battalion to fight to the death

The Taiping Army was established, 20 soldiers were a team, five troops were a team, five teams were a battalion, and 20 soldiers were equipped, so a battalion of soldiers was 520 people, and there were five battalions of Xiongwei, Hujie, Zhenjiao, Trapping, and Guards.

After the battle of Guifeng Mountain, all battalions were killed and wounded, and after supplementing the green battalion prisoners, now the full battalion is now full of guards, traps, and tigers, and the two battalions of Xiongwei and Zhenjiao are each lacking dozens of personnel, so that the total strength of the five battalions of the front battalion of the Taiping Army is less than 2,500.

With 2,500 troops guarding Xinhui City, the strength of the army is definitely safe, and the number of recruits and prisoners in each battalion accounts for more than half, and there is no training, and the combat effectiveness is dangerous. In addition, the loyalty of the new prisoners in the camp was also doubtful, and the Taiping army remained strong, and these prisoners did not dare to move, and if the Taiping army was weak, it was inevitable that they would rebel. Although the act of killing the flag soldiers can temporarily stabilize people's hearts, it is really a matter of life and death, and it is indeed doubtful how many green camp captives will be allowed to think about whether the Qing army will let them go after the rebellion. After all, when the head is about to hit the ground, even if they know that it is a straw for life, there are still many people who reach out to grab it.

Zhou Shixiang has no time, and there is no need to prevent potential dangers, whether he can make the prisoners return to his heart, whether he can make the recruits become veterans, it is useless to say a thousand things and ten thousand, and it is the most practical to do a real battle. Whether or not Xinhui can be held depends on whether it can repel the first attack of the Qing army, and if it wins, there is no danger, and if it is defeated, what danger can we talk about.

The shortage of troops must be made up by weapons, and more than a dozen Hongyi general cannons and dozens of large and small bronze cannons in Xinhui City have become Zhou Shixiang's decisive bargaining chips.

There are only a few dozen people in the Taiping army who can operate artillery, for this reason, Zhou Shixiang pressed the idea of killing prisoners, after the city wall was repaired, more than 100 Han troops with blue flags were driven to the city, just when these Han soldiers thought that the Taiping army was going to kill them, Zhou Shixiang gave them a choice, either to serve the Taiping army and operate the artillery, or to jump off the city himself.

The result did not surprise anyone, all the Han troops chose to serve the Taiping army, and none of them hesitated. In order to be on the safe side, each cannon Zhou Shixiang was equipped with two knife hands, and these knife men had only one task, to supervise whether these Han soldiers could not contribute to the work, and if they found that the Han soldiers were emptying the cannons, they would be directly hacked to death.

With dozens of cannons in hand, the Taiping army was a little more confident that they could hold Xinhui. In terms of other weapons, they are also very sufficient, thanks to the Qing army in the city, the Taiping army got 250 firearms, 16 large pole shotguns, in addition to 72 standard long knives, 1362 spears, 460 bows and arrows, nearly 6000 arrows, 8 iron armor, 180 cotton armor.

The weapons of the five major battalions have been fully equipped, the iron armor has been issued to officers at all levels, and the cotton armor has also been issued to the Zhenyu battalion, so that Ge Zheng's Zhenyu battalion has become the only battalion of the Taiping Army with armor.

Although there were many bows and arrows, the Taiping army could not shoot arrows, and finally selected 100 green battalion soldiers as archers, and the bow corps of the guard battalion was expanded into an arrow team and stood by as a mobile force. There are not many war horses looted in the city, only more than 20, these war horses were assigned to Zhu Er's cavalry team, Rao is so, the cavalry team is only a few dozen people, and it is not worthy of an independent combat force at all, let alone fight against the possible Han army flag cavalry. (To be continued)