After the Wu army's Xia Guoxiang Department and Ma Bao's department met near Wangjiang, there was indeed a voice imitating Lu Fatzi's tactics of bypassing Anqing and attacking Nanjing, and Ma Bao, who was good at wandering operations, also fully supported this proposition, suggesting that Xia Guoxiang give up the original plan of crossing the river to attack Anqing, let his army cross the river and land on the south bank, join hands with Xia Guoxiang to march eastward by land, bypass the strong city of Anqing, and enter the south of the Yangtze River to make a fortune with Lu Fatzi's division, so as to give full play to the strength of the Wu army in field battles and avoid falling into a hard siege battle. [Full text reading]

This suggestion also received a strong response from Du Hui, the commander of the Wu Army's naval division, because Du Hui knew very well that Xia Guoxiang had fought for five months before he fought Nanchang City, where the main force had been destroyed, and it took twelve days to fight Peng Ze Xiaocheng, which was killed by Lu Fatzi in seconds, which is enough to prove that Xia Guoxiang is not very good at attacking fortified positions. However, Anqing City is a well-known and famous fortified city in the world, the city is high and deep and the terrain is dangerous, and the garrison troops and the grain and grass in the city are very sufficient.

Rather than this, it is better to learn Lu Fatzi's attack tactics, bypass Anqing and enter Jiangnan, as long as you can meet Lu Fatzi before the army's food and grass run out, then it doesn't matter if you want the grain road and the back road or something. And more importantly, the main force of the Wu Army's naval division has almost been dispatched this time, which is enough to match the Qing army's naval division in Anqing, and even has a lot of advantages, so even if Du Hui leads the naval division to fight alone, he does not have to be afraid of the pursuit of Anqing's naval division Ghent Baturu, and he is quite confident that he will defeat Ghent Baturu in the water battle.

For the Eastern Expedition Wu Jun, Ma Bao and Du Hui's proposition may be correct, but it is definitely not completely correct, as the son-in-law and right-hand man of Wu Lao Han Jian, and at the same time the current commander of the Wu Army's East Route Army, Xia Guoxiang no matter how much he likes to be good at tackling tough battles, and his vision of the problem is much longer than that of Ma Bao and Du Hui. In Xia Guoxiang's view, bypassing Anqing and going straight to Jiangnan can avoid the shortcomings of the self-army, but after bypassing Anqing and continuing to the east, what if there are any hard nails on the road to Jiangnan? At that time, once the siege of the city cannot be stopped, it will take a long time, the grain and grass weapons will be exhausted, and the throat of the grain road will be tightly choked by the Anqing Qing army, and the Wu army of the Eastern Expedition will not face the danger of annihilation? At that time, Ma Bao and Du Hui, who are deputies, may be able to escape for their lives and break through, and Xia Guoxiang will have to be responsible for the surnames of the soldiers of the Wu army's Eastern Expedition!

In addition, Xia Guoxiang, who was under a secret order, did not dare to bypass Anqing and go straight to Jiangnan, there is another important reason, that is, after Xia Guoxiang's army enters Jiangnan, it must control the dangerous person Lu Fatzi, and must take over the jurisdiction of Jiangnan from Lu Fatzi, if Lu Fatzi refuses to give it, he must eradicate this dangerous fat man and his henchmen! In this case, Xia Guoxiang not only had to keep the army to maintain a certain strength to enter Jiangnan, but also had to ensure that the backup road was completely unblocked, and when the counterinsurgency was unfavorable, he could ensure that the support army of the Wu army would continue to enter Jiangnan.

It is precisely because of this that on the sixth day of the first month of the Great Tuesday year, when the two Wu army teams arrived at Huangshiji one after another, the question of whether they should attack Anqing City has also reached the apex of the dispute among the decision-making level of the Wu army. But at this time, the envoy sent by Anqing City also came to Huangshiji in a small boat with a white flag, and asked to see Xia Guoxiang, saying that there was something important to discuss.

"The messenger of the dog asks to see? Could it be that you are here to ask for surrender? Xia Guoxiang was overjoyed at first, but after thinking about it carefully, he was a little dumbfounded, knowing that it was really unlikely that bannermen like Ni Yahan, Jin Fu and Gent, who were loyal to the Mangou Emperor, would take the initiative to ask him to surrender. But in this way, Xia Guoxiang was inevitably even more curious about the intention of the Qing army envoy, and hurriedly drank the quarrelsome Wu army generals, told them the situation, and ordered to summon the Qing army envoy.

After a while, the Qing army envoy was summoned into the Chinese army tent of Xia Guoxiang, who was in his forties, with a mediocre appearance, with a Guangxi accent, but his attitude was very respectful. ”

"Who sent you? What did you send you for? Xia Guoxiang asked directly.

"Back to the general, it was General Niyahan, the general of Zhennan of the Great Qing Dynasty, and Jin Fu, the governor of Anhui of the Great Qing Dynasty, Jin Zhongcheng, who sent a small envoy to greet the general." Deng Chengchun replied honestly: "The general sent troops to the east under the order of the prince of the Great Zhou, and the troops were under the city of Anqing. ”

After that, Deng Chengchun also held the gift box he brought with him in both hands, and said respectfully: "General, this is a small gift from General Ni and Jin Zhongcheng's envoy to the general, and I hope the general will receive it." With that, Deng Chengchun opened the gift box and revealed ten pairs of South China Sea pearls the size of pigeon eggs.

"Are you really here to ask for surrender?" Xia Guoxiang was overjoyed, and hurriedly ordered: "Come here, accept the gift, and then invite Lord Deng to sit." The soldiers followed the order, Deng Chengchun thanked the Prime Minister of Xia for giving him a seat, but after getting up, he refused to sit down immediately, and said to the generals of the Wu army: "Ladies and generals of the Great Zhou, General Ni and Jin Zhongcheng also ordered the little envoy to bring you a small gift, five thousand taels of silver, which is currently placed outside the tent, and the little envoy will definitely give it with both hands after a while, and please don't be too meager." ”

"Niyahan and Jin Fu are quite smart." Ma Bao also felt that Deng Chengchun might have come to ask for surrender, so he nodded and smiled: "Go back and tell them that we will honestly surrender Kaicheng, we promise not to harm them and their whole family, and we will ask the prince for merit and reward for them." ”

"This general probably misunderstood, the little envoy is not here to ask for surrender." Deng Chengchun hurriedly explained: "The envoy came to your military camp today to negotiate with your army, hoping to conclude an armistice peace treaty with your army and not violate each other. ”

"My army has already arrived in Anqing City, what else do you want to conclude an armistice and peace treaty?" Xia Guoxiang was even more curious, and hurriedly asked, "Then what armistice and peace treaty do you plan to make?" Let's hear it. ”

"General Hui, our army hopes to draw a river with your army as a boundary and not invade each other." Deng Chengchun's attitude became more and more respectful, "In addition, the Yangtze River channel is a neutral zone, and the ships of both sides can pass through the Yangtze River, and each other is not allowed to intercept and attack. ”

Xia Guoxiang, Ma Bao, Du Hui and others glanced at each other, and said together that if they want to sleep, someone will send a pillow, and there is such a good thing in the world? There must be some kind of conspiracy involved, right? It seems that in our army, there is such a little fat man with a sweet mouth and a sword who is the best at this, first giving you sweetness and coaxing you, and then stabbing you to death with a knife in the back, so that you don't know who died in the hands of whom.

"Generals, generals." Deng Chengchun observed his words and looks, and hurriedly said sincerely: "The little envoy understands that if he rashly proposes to sign this peace treaty, the general and the generals will definitely not believe it, and they will definitely suspect that our army has no good intentions. However, the envoy can swear to heaven that although our army's move is indeed selfish, it has no malice towards your army, and to say that it is not polite that he wants to take advantage of your army, and only asks the general to investigate clearly and experience the sincerity of our army. ”

"What are you going to do with our army?" Du Hui asked in a deep voice.

"Borrow your army's sword to solve a henchman's problem for our army." Deng Chengchun was not vague, and replied frankly: "Since the defeat of Lord Leer Jin Belle from Guangdong, he has moved his troops to Tongling Mansion in the lower reaches of Anqing, and the grain, grass, military supplies, and heavy weapons are all supplied by our army. However, relying on his status as an imperial prince, Lord Belle not only did not feel grateful to our army, but instead took away our army, like a cow and horse, and arbitrarily bullied General Niyahan and Lord Jin Fu, treating them as slaves, and had long had the intention of driving away General Niyahan and Lord Jin Fu, and planned to force General Niyahan and Lord Jin Fu away, and replace them with his personal confidants to take over Anqing and take sole control of Anhui. Therefore, the arrival of your army is a godsend for our army. ”

"You want to borrow General Ben's knife to take Leerjin's head?" Xia Guoxiang stared at Deng Chengchun and asked.

Deng Chengchun nodded, and said very sincerely: "Please check the general, the general will move east into the south of the Yangtze River, and he will inevitably pass through Anqing and Tongling. At that time, no matter whether the general can take Le Baylor's head, Le Baylor will not be able to stay in Anhui, after all, our Anqing army is stationed on the north bank of the Yangtze River, Le Baylor is stationed on the south bank of the Yangtze River, and the general has successfully intercepted our army from the south bank, and the biggest responsibility is Le Baylor, not our General Ni and Jin Zhongcheng. ”

Deng Chengchun's explanation was reasonable and his attitude was very sincere, but when he heard the ears of Xia Guoxiang, Du Hui and Ma Bao and others, it made Xia Guoxiang and others even more puzzled, and they all said in their hearts: "Is there such a good thing in the world?" We just approached Anqing when we encountered a dog infighting, is our luck too good? Could it be that these dogs in Anhui were taken by Lu Yifeng's little fat man, and they also learned to dig pits and jump for people with honey-bellied swords? ”

"General, please believe us." Seeing that Xia Guoxiang and the others were vigilant, Deng Chengchun hurriedly said: "If the general really doesn't believe in the envoy, he can draw a line, as long as General Ni and Lord Jin are not allowed to give up Anqing City and cannot hand over to the Qing Emperor, no matter what other conditions, the general can put it forward, and our army will definitely try its best to meet it to prove the sincerity of the peace talks." ”

"You go down and rest first, and I'll give you an answer later." Xia Guoxiang pondered carefully for a moment, and ordered: "Come here, send Lord Deng down to rest, so that you can entertain you." ”

The soldiers agreed, and hurriedly came up to ask Deng Chengchun to come out of the tent to rest, Deng Chengchun turned around when he came out of the account, and said more sincerely and respectfully: "General, please forgive the little envoy for bluntly speaking, Anqing City is dangerous, the city is high and deep, the defenders are 30,000, and the grain and grass in the city can be used by the whole city for more than a year. ”

Xia Guoxiang's eyes flashed, and he didn't speak, but just waved his hand to let Deng Chengchun out of the account, and it wasn't until Deng Chengchun walked away that Xia Guoxiang turned his gaze to the generals of the Wu army present and asked, "Everyone, express your opinions, what do you think?" ”

The generals of the Wu army looked at each other, and did not dare to speak for a while, for fear of misleading Xia Guoxiang on his back, but Wu Laohan's favorite general Ma Bao was not afraid of this, and first asked: "Old Xia, could this be a trick full of dogs?" Trick us into bypassing Anqing to fight Tongling, and then take the opportunity to cut off our grain road, so that we are in a dilemma, and we are in a dilemma under Tongling City? ”

"Old Ma, haven't you always advocated bypassing Anqing and going east directly? Why is this scared again? Xia Guoxiang asked with a smile.

"I used to advocate bypassing Anqing and going east directly, but Mangou also wants us to do this, of course I have to be suspicious." Ma Bao clasped his hands to his chest, frowned and said: "Although the main force of Leer Jinmangou is stationed in Tongling City, we can also bypass Tongling City and go east directly, but in this way, our grain road will be more dangerous, from Anqing to Tongling This section of the river is all controlled by Mangou, it is easy to cut off our grain road, if we make unfavorable progress, the grain and grass will be ...... exhausted." By the way, Lao Xia, how much time is enough time for our army's food and grass? ”

"Twenty days." Xia Guoxiang didn't want to think about it, so he replied.

"Why? Can't you bring more? Marble complained.

"You still have the face to talk about me?" Xia Guoxiang said angrily: "Originally, my grain and grass were enough for two months, who told you to bring more than 50,000 rabble, it is useless to fight, and eating is more fierce than anyone else, is my grain and grass enough?" ”

Ma Bao was speechless, the food and grass of Xia Guoxiang's army were insufficient, the key reason was that when he and Xia Guoxiang met, his army was already hungry and full of food, and they all relied on plundering people's grain for half a month, not only could not help Xia Guoxiang's grain and grass, but ate a lot of Xia Guoxiang's grain and grass, what would this be shameless to accuse Xia Guoxiang again? In desperation, Ma Bao had no choice but to smirk: "Fortunately, our grain and grass are transported by water, which is much faster and more convenient than by land, and we will definitely be able to catch up with the supply." Besides, my army is not completely useless, at least it can consume some dog-filled defenders during the siege. ”

Xia Guoxiang snorted, too lazy to worry about Ma Bao, Du Hui also opened his mouth, and said in a deep voice: "Although I also advocated bypassing Anqing and going straight to Jiangnan, but now judging from the reaction of the full dog, I am afraid that this plan is a bit dangerous." Lu Yifeng had already killed Mangou by surprise before, Mangou had suffered a big loss, and he couldn't say it without a little experience, so the condition proposed by the Mangou envoy this time was a trap to trick us into bypassing Anqing and advancing eastward, and then cut off our grain route, so that we would starve to death under the Jiancheng City downstream. ”

"Maybe the dog has mastered our weakness of lack of food and grass." Guo Zhuangmou also interjected and said: "When General Ma went south to join us, he robbed the grain and grass in the villages and cities along the way, no matter how stupid Mangou is, he understands that General Ma's team has run out of food, and General Ma's team is so huge, after we will divide with us, it will definitely increase our burden of food and grass, Mangou may have seen through our weakness and deliberately dug a trap for us to jump." ”

"Yes, yes, it must be." The generals of the Wu army nodded in agreement, thinking that Ni Yahan and Jin Fu were both taken by Lu Fatzi, and they had no good intentions, and were ready to trick themselves into stepping into the trap - but it is not surprising that the Qing army and the Wu army have always been fighting for every inch of land before, which will suddenly put forward such preferential conditions to let the Wu army pass, and the Wu army, who had used the peace talks to yin the Qing army countless times, spent the belly of a gentleman with the heart of a villain, and naturally refused to believe the sincere kindness of the Qing army in Anqing.

"Don't make any noise!" Xia Guoxiang, who was quite opposed to risking bypassing Anqing, slapped the table and said: "Let's do it, Zhuang Mou, you go and tell the Mangou envoy, just say that their good intentions are understood by the general, but as a general of the Great Zhou Dynasty and the son-in-law of the prince, it is impossible for the general to make peace with them privately behind the back of the prince, and he will never accept the condition that they draw the river as the boundary, and can only accept their surrender in Kaicheng." ”

Guo Zhuangmou agreed, and Xia Guoxiang ordered: "The rest of the generals immediately began to prepare to cross the river, and the whole army crossed the river and boarded the north bank of the Yangtze River to attack Anqing City." Du Hui, your sailors must be on full alert and strictly protect our army's river-crossing fleet. Zhang Guozhu, you have to pay close attention to the matter of scouts, send more scouts and meticulous work downstream, and closely monitor the every move of Tongling Mangou and Ningguofu Mangou for me, and report it immediately if there is any abnormality. ”

All the generals of the Wu army agreed together, and Xia Guoxiang grabbed a master and ordered: "Write a letter to Wu Yingqi for me, and ask him to quickly send the 50,000 stone grain and grass I wanted, and then be ready to continue to supply our army's grain and grass, at least until our army takes the Anqing granary, and our grain and grass do not need to rely on him to supply." Also, rockets, shells, and gunpowder, ask him for some more. ”

……………………

Kindly prepared to release the water, so that Xia Guoxiang could smoothly enter Jiangnan and Lu Fatzi dog-eat-dog, but in exchange for Xia Guoxiang's whole army to cross north, and attack Anqing City with all his might, the news spread into Anqing City, Tuhai, Shang Shan, Ni Yahan, Le Erjin and Jin Fu all had a feeling of wanting to vomit blood. In desperation, Tuhai and others had no choice but to set out to guard the granary of Anqing with all their might, and on the other hand, they sent envoys to contact Xia Guoxiang, striving to make Xia Guoxiang believe in their sincerity in releasing water, and deliberately mobilized Qing troops from Chizhou and Qingyang to Anqing to help in the war, leaving a big gap for Xia Guoxiang to drill.

The flattering eyes were completely done to the blind man, and the envoys sent by Tuhai and others one after another and deliberately exposed the empty space on the south bank not only did not make Xia Guoxiang and Ma Bao and others believe in their sincerity in releasing the water, but on the contrary, they made Wu Jun more convinced that the south bank was a huge trap carefully designed and arranged by the Qing army, so Xia Guoxiang and Ma Bao and others not only completely dispelled the idea of bypassing Anqing and going straight to the south of the Yangtze River, but also became even more determined to pull out the nail of Anqing. On the seventh day of the lunar month, after the whole army crossed the Yangtze River, on the eighth day of the first lunar month, Xia Guoxiang and Ma Bao's combined army launched an attack on Anqing, Tuhai and others had no choice but to scold Xia Guoxiang and Ma Baoqi as stupid as pigs, while going all out to defend Anqing City - not to defend it, Anqing is the general granary of the Qing army on the Western Front, and it is obviously impossible for the Qing court to give the Qing army on the Western Front a pound or two of grain and grass support, and it is worth it if you lose it?

After the Anqing offensive and defensive battle began, Xia Guoxiang, who had no good intentions, deliberately let Ma Bao's team play the vanguard, and went to Anqing City to consume the Qing army's troops, ammunition and city defense materials, as well as the cannon fodder and rice worms in Ma Bao's team, and although Ma Bao was very aware of Xia Guoxiang's vicious intentions, he didn't care at all - anyway, General Ma Da's best thing is to form a rogue team, as long as the elite seeds of the Wu army in the team are kept, even if more than 50,000 recruits all defeat General Ma, he will not feel distressed, As long as General Ma is given a little room for flow and development, General Ma can pull up a team of 100,000 people at any time.

In this way, the Anqing offensive and defensive battle was carried out extremely tragically, under the coercion of the Wu army supervision team, tens of thousands of cannon fodder troops pushed and carried a variety of siege weapons, and launched wave after wave of crazy impact on the Anqing city wall, the artillery of the Wu army was uneasy and kind behind the continuous cannon, crazy bombardment of the Qing soldiers and Wu army cannon fodder above and below the city, the cannonballs and arrows in the sky came and went into the locusts, the heads of people on the ground were like ants, and the tide surged up wave after wave, the corpses of soldiers on both sides of the war and various siege weapons, Almost on the first day, the moat was filled, and the blood stained the city walls red, and the blood water flowed down the moat into the Yangtze River, and dyed large areas of the Yangtze River pink.

There are more ants to bite the elephant, the blessing of General Toma, Xia Guoxiang finally has enough cannon fodder in his hands this time to consume, and he can invest in the siege infantry without hesitation, and gnaw the city wall of Anqing little by little. In this way, it will be bitter for the Qing army defenders in Anqing City, especially after the moat is filled, even if there is a strong city to defend, the casualties of the Qing army in Anqing have begun to expand rapidly, although Tuhai and Niyahan and others know that this fight will only cheapen Lu Fatzi in Nanjing City, but because Anqing is too important to give up, they have to continue to invest in the defense of the city, and the cannon fodder army in the hands of Xia Guoxiang is exhausted, so that the Qing soldiers shed blood and sacrifice for Lu Fatzi's home and nursing home.

From the eighth day of the first month to the fifteenth day of the first month, the Wu army launched four sieges on Anqing City, consuming more than 20,000 cannon fodder troops, although it failed to capture Anqing, but at the expense of blood investment, it also made the Anqing Qing army pay more than 4,000 sacrifices, and basically gnawed away the fortifications on the periphery of Anqing, and once attacked the city wall of Anqing, so that the Wu army saw the dawn of breaking the city. And as the cannon fodder army of the Wu army became more and more sophisticated, no longer stupidly rushing to the city to die, Xia Guoxiang, who was not completely brave and unscrupulous, also began to adjust the siege tactics, ordered to stop the siege, and began to make every effort to build siege weapons, a large number of siege weapons such as ladders, cloud platforms and siege vehicles, and also sent sappers to dig tunnels, prepare to advance in several ways, and capture Anqing City in one fell swoop, and at the same time issued an order to disband the military discipline for three days after breaking the city, so as to boost morale.

It was also taking advantage of this short truce opportunity that Tu Hai, Niyahan and others hurriedly sent envoys to contact Xia Guoxiang, striving to make Xia Guoxiang understand their sincerity in releasing water, but each time they were ruthlessly rejected by Xia Guoxiang, and the last Qing army envoy simply didn't even see Xia Guoxiang's face. On the eighteenth day of the first lunar month, when there was nothing to be done, Tuhai thought about it again and again, so he had no choice but to make a heart, slapped the table and shouted: "Lao Tzu personally went to see the dog thief of Xia Guoxiang and persuaded him to give up attacking Anqing and go straight to Jiangnan!" ”

"Master Tu, are you crazy?" Shang Shan, Ni Yahan and the others present all exclaimed, "You are the important general of our Southern Expedition of the Qing Dynasty, what if Wu Gou finds out your identity?" ”

"Of course I'm not crazy!" Tu Hai gritted his teeth and said: "And I will not go incognito to negotiate with Xia Guoxiang's dog thief, and I will clearly tell Wu Dog Army that Lao Tzu is Tu Hai!" It is the former scholar and general of the Qing Dynasty, the current squire of the military department, and the governor of Jiangsu-Ma Jiashi. Tuhai! ”

"Then what should you do if Wu Dog is not good for you?" Sang-sun asked in exclamation.

"It's amazing that the head falls to the ground, what's the big deal?" Tu Hai's face was gloomy, and he stroked his broken leg and said slowly: "I was originally a wasted person, my wife and children were killed by Lu Yifeng's dog thieves, and my only daughter was hanged when I was put in prison for the third time, and I was completely carefree." Now in my heart, except for looking for revenge on Lu Yifeng's dog thief, I don't have any thoughts, as long as I can let Xia Guoxiang's dog thief enter Jiangnan to take down Lu Yifeng's dog thief's head, not to mention that my head has landed, even if Xia Guoxiang's dog thief is cut by a thousand knives, I will be satisfied. ”

"It's ......." Shang Shan still has to persuade.

"Lord Belle, needless to say." Tu Hai waved his hand and said lightly: "The slave knows that you have good intentions, but we have no choice but this method now." If the slave can't come back, please tell Prince An, I have done a lot of sorry things for him before, this time, I repaid him with my life, and asked him not to remember my previous hatred. ”

Seeing that Tuhai had made up his mind, Shang Shan, Ni Yahan and others no longer stopped him, so they could only send him out of Anqing City with tears in their eyes, watching him waving a white flag and holding on to his crutches alone, limping towards the Wu army team that was waiting for him, and towards the unpredictable road ahead.

Every Qing army general on the city wall was in tears, but Zhangtai Beizi, who was hiding in the shadows, quietly spit out a mouthful of thick phlegm, pinched his fingers and calculated: "Eight hundred miles is urgent, it should be sent to the capital on the tenth or eleventh day of the first month, and today is the eighteenth day of the first month, according to the distance, even if the Ben Beizi is delayed in the study for a day or two and then sent to the master, the master's holy purpose should also arrive in these two or three days." Master Shengming, you must stop the misdeeds of these traitorous ministers. ”

(To be continued)