Of course, Zeng Guofan and Yiwang are also old rivals, they know each other better, although Zeng Guofan's army left Pingjiang City, but did not all go west to block the Yiwang Department, but divided 50,000 troops led by Zeng Guoquan to block the Yiwang, and he himself led the remaining 50,000 people to sit in the Hunan provincial capital, dispatched in the center, organized a new army, and prepared to fight to the death with the Taiping army.

The unimpeded passage along the way made Zhang Suimou a little light, but when two of the scouts he dispersed did not return, Zhang Suimou instantly became nervous.

However, at this time, two brigades of his vanguard army had already entered Zeng Guoquan's encirclement.

Seeing that the Taiping army was about to retreat, Zeng Guoquan decisively launched an attack. Although the Hunan army was vulnerable in the face of the almost saturated firepower of the Wehrmacht, it showed extremely strong strength in the face of the extremely weak firepower of the Yiwang Division.

The two brigades of the Yiwang Division were broken in two quarters of an hour, and when Zhang Suimou's main force arrived, the two brigades lost eighty percent and completely lost their combat effectiveness.

The loss of one-third in the blink of an eye made Zhang Suimou heartbroken, and he immediately retreated from the defense and built a defensive position to prevent Zeng Guoquan from taking advantage of the fire to rob.

To be honest, Zeng Guoquan was also a little stunned, the previous rout all the way made him have a psychological shadow, thinking that all the Taiping troops had become extremely powerful, so he used 30,000 people to ambush as soon as he came up. The reason why these two brigades were not completely annihilated was because the enemy's vanguard and main force caught up, and he instinctively felt that he might suffer a loss in a rash decisive battle, and finally chose to retreat temporarily, losing the opportunity to expand the results in vain.

When he wanted to understand the reality of the uneven combat strength of the various units of the Taiping Army, it was too late to attack.

Zhang Suimou's ability to command operations is not strong, but this person is extremely cautious in leading troops, and is good at defense, when the situation is unknown, this person's ability preserves a lot of strength for the Yiwang Department. Therefore, when he chose a favorable terrain to build a defensive line, Zeng Guoquan was not sure that he would capture it in a short period of time, and had to withdraw his troops.

When the main force of the Wing King arrived, he learned of the defeat at the front line, and his expression was a little dignified.

"The Hunan army is still the Hunan army in our memory, and its combat effectiveness is not comparable to those green battalion soldiers and those newly formed armies in Sichuan. As long as the enemy divides his forces to stop us, half of our strategic goal of containing the enemy will be achieved. Now what we have to do is to find out the surrounding terrain as soon as possible, and soon our old enemy Luo Bingzhang will come, and we must use the terrain advantage to make up for the gap in troops. The Winged King comforted.

Zhang Suimou nodded and sent all the scout troops out. The Yiwang Department entered Hunan and mastered the topographic maps of Hunan, but those were only drawings after all, and some of them were old maps drawn decades ago, which were not accurate. For generals, it is necessary to have first-hand topographical information to ensure that the decisions made are not biased. Therefore, the Wing King must collect the local geography and topographic map whenever he goes, even if the battle is unfavorable, it is easy to evacuate and escape after mastering the terrain.

Zeng Guoquan organized a force of 10,000 troops to attack, and the artillery hit the sky, but the lethality was not large, and several charges they launched were blocked by the Taiping army. If the Taiping army is not afraid of a close-range white-knuckle battle, and even if they really want to fight a white-knuckle battle, they have an advantage. Because most of the 20,000 troops of the Yiwang are from Guangxi, the Gui people are good at fighting, extremely brave, and they have been in battle for a long time, and their strength is extremely strong.

Zeng Guoquan's several attacks did not take advantage, so he could only retreat in a huff. Soon after, the Yiwang Division, which had stabilized the defensive line, launched a counterattack, using shields and thick planks as cover, and advanced to the Hunan defense line many times, although there was no large-scale white-knives melee, but it was enough for the Hunan generals to be frightened.

Both sides retreated and were studying ways to eliminate the other.

Zeng Guoquan had the advantage of his forces, and he divided his forces in two, blocking the way for Yiwang to advance eastward from two directions. At the same time, he crossed the Yiwang Army, and quickly contacted Luo Bingzhang's department, which was advancing dozens of miles away, preparing to wait for its arrival to encircle the Yiwang army.

The Wing King is not stupid, he naturally understands that the old opponent is following behind the buttocks, if he continues to be stupid and confront the enemy, I am afraid that he will be attacked from front to back, and the situation will be really bad at that time.

Yiwang carefully studied the current situation in Xiangxi, and decisively chose to leave the camp. Of course, before leaving, Yiwang organized a larger-scale attack, and the front line of the Hunan army was stormy. After that, the Winged King disguised himself and quickly retreated.

By the time Zeng Guoquan found out that something was wrong, the army of the Wing King had already left more than twenty miles.

Zeng Guoquan jumped like thunder and gathered a large army to pursue.

But his anger was anger, but he was not carried away by his anger, and his two armies marched in two directions, no more than ten miles from each other, ensuring that one side could be attacked and the other could arrive at an extreme time. Zeng Guoquan was also prevented from being broken by the army of the Wing King.

But this is safe, but it is far less fast than the Winged King's army, and the confrontation between the two sides quickly turned into a desperate chase on one side, and a desperate hiding on the other.

A day later, Luo Bingzhang led the army into Hunan, and after receiving the battle report sent by Zeng Guoquan's fast horse, he immediately participated in the pursuit of the encirclement of the Yiwang.

The encirclement of the three armies suddenly made the situation of the Wing King precarious. Their space for activity was constantly compressed, and several attempts to cross the enemy's blockade and advance eastward were blocked back by the quickly reacting Zeng Guoquan using the army, so several times, the living space of the Yiwang army was constantly compressed, and the room for maneuver became smaller and smaller.

Faced with this situation, the army of the Wing King finally stopped running, they were stationed, and the officers above the division level were all called up by Shi Dakai.

"This king is ready to choose one of the enemy's three armies as the main direction of attack." The Winged King whispered to the map in front of him.

"My lord, among the enemy's three-way army, Luo Bingzhang has the largest number of troops, with 80,000 people, followed by the main force of the Hunan army led by Zeng Guoquan with 30,000 people, and the other partial division also has 20,000 people, and none of them can be swallowed in a short time. And once we are entangled by the enemy, I am afraid that we will give the enemy a chance to join in. Zhang Suimou thought about it and felt that the decision of the Wing King was too risky. After all, the enemy is not stupid, and he will not guess that the Wing King may have to make a move.

The military commander Lai Yuxin felt that he should fight, he thought that the persimmon picked up the soft pinch, and advocated fighting the Hunan army, a partial division of 20,000 people.

Another military commander, Fu Zhongxin, agreed with Lai's new idea.

But the Wing King thought about it and finally shook his head. said: "It's right to pick up soft persimmons, but the 20,000 partial divisions of the Hunan army are not soft persimmons." According to the number, among the 20,000 partial divisions, there are ten battalions of Zeng Guofan's personal troops, equipped with a very large number of firearms, which is definitely not easy to handle. Compared with it, Luo Bingzhang, who has the largest number of people, is the weakest. Of their 80,000 people, only 30,000 of the new army have combat effectiveness, and the remaining 50,000 are strong men who are forcibly pulled. ”

Regarding the analysis of the Wing King, everyone nodded after thinking about it.

"However, with Luo Bingzhang's cautious temperament, I am afraid that 50,000 Tian Yong will be the vanguard, and if we want to fight his new army, we must find a way to solve this 50,000 Tian Yong."

"It doesn't matter, this king already has a plan. This time, we must teach this old guy Luo Bingzhang a bloody lesson! The Winged King said in a deep voice.

After that, under the order of the Winged King, the Winged King's army was reduced to pieces and quickly disappeared into the vast mountains of northern Xiangbei.

This situation was quickly reported to Zeng Guoquan and Luo Bingzhang by the Qing army scouts. The two chose to ignore at the same time, and the army continued to compress the encirclement according to the previous fixed plan.

The two naturally understood that in this group of mountains, it was impossible to encircle and compress them with their forces, but it was impossible for a large-scale force to escape. As for the enemy breaking through to pieces, both Zeng Guoquan and Luo Bingzhang are extremely happy to see it. The army of the Wing King Shi Dakai was extremely difficult to exterminate, and even if they had an absolute advantage, they did not dare to say that they would definitely be able to leave Shi Dakai behind. As long as Shi Dakai didn't jump over the wall in a hurry and fight them all the way, even if he led a small group of troops to sneak out, it was nothing. As long as they try to eliminate Shi Dakai's living force, even if he escapes, it will be difficult to do anything.

Under the use of this kind of thinking, the three armies moved more quickly, and on the premise of not dividing their troops, they continued to compress towards the center from several aspects.

Soon, some unlucky small units of the Taiping army were discovered by the Hunan army, and the two sides exchanged fire in the mountains, and from time to time a Taiping army was discovered by the Hunan army and Luo Bingzhang's army, and these Taiping troops fled in the face of the enemy, and surrendered immediately if they could not escape. From these surrenders, Zeng Guoquan and Luo Bingzhang successively obtained the deployment of the Wing King. They prepared to break up and escape from the encirclement, and then regroup outside the city of Lixian outside the encirclement of the Hunan army.

A Taiping Army squad said this, Zeng Guoquan and Luo Bingzhang were skeptical, but several, more than a dozen were like this, so the two slowly believed that this was the strategy of the Yiwang.

Luo Bingzhang took the battalion as a unit, scattered the 50,000 Tian Yong, and acted in all directions to capture the small troops of the Taiping Army. The Taiping army is a team of more than a dozen people, dozens of people as a team, even if the team of 500 Tian Yong cannot be taken down, as long as the enemy is entangled, other surrounding battalions can be summoned to help. With such a good opportunity for meritorious service, Luo Bingzhang will naturally not let it go.

Zeng Guoquan still had doubts in his heart, he did not divide his troops, but sent a large number of scouts into the encirclement to investigate, except for Tian Yong, who can be seen everywhere in Sichuan, there is no trace of the Taiping Army at all.

Just when Zeng Guoquan was exploring with all his might, outside the encirclement, thousands of Taiping troops appeared in more than ten miles to gather troops, among which the banner of the Wing King was flying high.

When the news came, Zeng Guoquan gritted his teeth and led 30,000 main forces to pursue. When it was determined that the number of Taiping troops assembled was nearly 10,000, Luo Bingzhang led 30,000 new troops to follow up, trying to assist Zeng Guoquan in exterminating the main force of the Taiping army.