How many Qing troops are there in Guangdong, as early as when Zhou Shixiang discussed with Song Xianggong when he was in Gaoyao City, and came to the conclusion that the total strength of the Qing army in Guangdong was about 25,000 to 30,000 people, of which the green battalion accounted for most of it, about 20,000 people, and the rest was the Han army banner led by Shang Kexi and Geng Jimao, as well as the Governor of Guangdong, Li Shutai's Governor Fubiao Battalion. Among them, the Han army under Shang Kexi's command was the strongest in the blue flag, with more than four or five thousand flag soldiers, while Geng Jimao, who was under the yellow flag of the Han army, only had two or three thousand soldiers.

Although there are only more than 1,000 people in number, the combat effectiveness is not weaker than that of the two feudal clans of Ping and Jing, and the green battalion of Guangdong is nominally promoted by him, the governor general, which makes him have the confidence to call Banping and Jing the second feudal domain, of course, Li Shuotai's status as a relative of the emperor also played a great role in it. In other words, if someone else is not from the banner people, and there is no one who has a family relationship with the Aixin Jueluo family to be the governor of Guangdong, I am afraid that only the two feudal clans are the first in everything.

On the Ming side, since Li Dingguo's army was defeated and Xinhui withdrew his troops, most of Guangdong was controlled by the Qing army, and the actual area controlled by the Ming army was only all of Gaozhou, Lianzhou and Leizhou, and Qiongzhou, which was across the sea, was still controlled by the Ming army. In these areas controlled by the Ming army, there are dozens of large and small Ming troops (righteous divisions) active, the number of which is thousands, the few hundreds, or even dozens, most of them are commanded by Lian Chengbi, the governor of Liangguang appointed by the Southern Ming Dynasty, and Guo Zhiqi, a scholar, and the combat effectiveness is naturally much worse than that of the Great Western Army commanded by Li Dingguo, and it is much weaker than the green battalion of the Qing army. However, it is commendable that these people can always persist in resisting the Qing Dynasty, and no matter how difficult the conditions are, they will insist on the national integrity and never reduce the Qing Dynasty. Zhou Shixiang also recognized and admired this, otherwise he would not have sent more than a dozen envoys to the outside world, the purpose of which was to contact these anti-Qing soldiers and horses to defend Xinhui, so as to set off a new wave of anti-Qing high in Guangdong. Tide.

Compared with the area controlled by the Ming army, the territory controlled by the Qing army was naturally much larger, but the more territory was occupied, the more dispersed the power of the Qing army became.

As far as Guangzhou Prefecture, which was firmly controlled by the Qing army, was concerned, it had jurisdiction over 15 counties, including Panyu County, Nanhai County, Shunde County, Xiangshan County, Xinhui County, Yangshan County, Lianshan County, Dongguan County, Xin'an County, Sanshui County, Zengcheng County, Longmen County, Qingyuan County, Xinning County, and Conghua County. In addition, it also governs a scattered state and a state.

With the current situation, the Qing army must garrison battalions in every county, otherwise even a few dozen rural farmers can instantly change the banner of a county, let alone the bandits and bandits everywhere. It's just for security reasons. The Qing army must also be stationed in each county, otherwise the county government will not dare to open the door. In this way, there are hundreds of people stationed in each county, and these counties under the jurisdiction of Guangzhou Prefecture alone need nearly 2,000 green battalions to garrison. If this is still the case in Guangzhou, the rest of the prefectures and counties controlled by the Qing army will naturally not be much better. Zhaoqing Mansion, Shaozhou Mansion, Nanxiong Mansion, and Chaozhou Mansion are not under the jurisdiction of more than a dozen counties, so count. The Qing army had to maintain law and order in these prefectures and counties alone to nearly 10,000 troops, in other words, half of the Qing army in Guangdong was divided into tens of thousands of square kilometers!

The Qing army in Guangdong had only more than 20,000 people, half of which were scattered in various places, and only a few thousand mobile troops could be mobilized. When Li Dingguo attacked Guangdong twice, Shang Kexi and Geng Jimao in Guangzhou adopted a countermeasure that concentrated all the battalions scattered in various places near Guangzhou, and then relied on the fortified city to resist the attack of Li Dingguo's army. After Li Dingguo withdrew, the Qing army scattered like locusts and regained control of the territories they had abandoned.

This time. If the Qing army in Guangdong wants to take advantage of the opportunity of Li Dingguo's army moving into Guizhou to completely seize Guangdong and Guangxi, it will inevitably have to send a large army to the west, but the Qing army in Guangdong is so small, it is impossible for him to transfer all the Qing troops stationed in various places, so it can only be the main force of the Han army banner under the command of Shang Kexi and Geng Jimao, with a part of the green battalion soldiers marching westward, so as not to shake the foundation of the Qing army in Guangdong.

The problem is, if Shang Kexi and Geng Jimao really want to take the opportunity to move westward, then the only troops they can draw now are the Qing army that encircles Xinhui.

The Qing army failed to attack Xinhui twice, and more than 3,000 corpses were discarded. Later, in order to complete the encirclement, Shang Kexi transferred a large number of troops and horses from all over the country, combined with the analysis of the strength of the Qing army in Guangdong, Zhou Shixiang had reason to believe that these Qing troops outside Xinhui City were the limit of Shang Kexi, Geng Jimao, and Li Shutai.

I want to go west. You have to break the encirclement yourself, otherwise there won't be so many troops moving west, but if you can break the encirclement, you have to worry about whether the Taiping army will take the opportunity to go out and turn the Guangzhou area upside down. Zhou Shixiang dared to expect that veterans like Shang Kexi, who had fought for decades, would make idiotic mistakes, so he thought that if Shang Kexi really wanted to go west, he didn't want the Taiping army to break through. Then he will definitely not withdraw all the besieging soldiers and horses, but will only transfer the soldiers and horses of the Han army, or attack again, take Xinhui at the cost of human lives, and completely pull out this nail, or he will use some tricks to hide the sky and cross the sea, fill the camp with some young people, but secretly transfer the elite away, so as to confuse the Taiping army and dare not act rashly.

In short, no matter what Shang Kexi's plan was, what the Taiping Army had to do was not let him get his way. And there is only one way to achieve this goal, that is, Li Fuguo said to make a big move, make a big move, and make a big move that makes Shang Kexi afraid.

But where do you start?

Zhou Shixiang frowned deeply, and it was difficult to make up his mind for a while. He had only two choices, one was to continue to hold on to Xinhui, but this choice could only hold back a small part of the Qing army, and Shang Kexi could still draw troops from the besieging soldiers and horses to move westward; Another option was to make a desperate bet and concentrate the forces of the Taiping army to force them out of the city and break the blockade of the Qing army in front of them, so that Shang Kexi could not readjust the deployment, and then achieve the strategic intention of containing the Qing army in Guangdong and preventing it from advancing westward.

In the face of the Qing army's layers of blockade and densely built defense lines, it was difficult for Zhou Shixiang to make up his mind to go out of the city to fight, after all, breaking into the Qing army's defense line and the Qing army's storming of Xinhui were the same tragic battles as human lives, with the strength of the five battalions of the Taiping Military Region, Zhou Shixiang did not have the confidence to break the Qing army's defense line, nor could he accept this kind of battle in which 800 enemies were killed and 1,000 were self-inflicted. However, the outcome of not being able to get out of the city was no different for the Taiping army, they were all defeated, one was trapped in the city and perished, and the other was rushing out of the city to fight the enemy to the death. Two different ways of dying made Zhou Shixiang hesitate, he exhaled, and his inquiring gaze fell on the faces of his subordinates.

Obviously, Zhou Shixiang handed over the choice to his subordinates, and let them choose how to die.

None of the generals spoke, they all looked at their thousands of households in a daze, and there was silence in the hall. In the bottom of their hearts, none of them wanted to die.

After a long time, Song Xianggong said: "If you want to drag the Qing army, you may not have to go out of the city, if you want to dispel Shang Kexi's idea of going west, I have a way, you might as well give it a try." ”

Hearing this, Zhou Shixiang was shocked and asked urgently: "What is the clever plan of Mr.?" ”

"Guangdong Sailor." Song Xianggong spit out four words, and his finger fell on Tan Jiang on the map. (To be continued.) )