The use of troops in Guizhou, or the use of troops in the two lakes and undetermined prefectures, is indeed to greatly expand the short-term territory of the Taiping army, and it can even occupy the two lakes alone. In this way, the Taiping Army alone owned the four provinces of Guangdong, Guangxi, Hunan, and Hubei, and in terms of area alone, it was the second largest force after the Qing court. The problem is that it is not difficult to seize territory, but it is difficult to defend and govern it.

Zhou Shixiang did not have enough troops to defend Hunan and Hubei, nor did he have enough qualified officials to govern the two provinces, so even if he took the two lakes, he would not be able to digest the fruits of this victory in a few years. And at that time, he will not only rely on geographical advantages to blockade the Qing army in Yunnan and Guizhou, but face the pressure of the Qing army in the four directions of Hunan and Guizhou, Guizhou and Guizhou at the same time.

Facing the enemy on all sides at the same time, with the current strength and strength of the Taiping Army, it will not be able to hold out no matter what. As long as one of the four sides fails, the other three sides will be affected. Therefore, Zhou Shixiang needs a friendly army to share the pressure on both sides or at least one direction for him, and it is undoubtedly a good choice to break into the rest of the army.

The agreement between Zhou Shixiang and Kui Dongbing was that the Taiping Army would only take Jingzhou, Baojingzhou, Yuanzhou, Chenzhou, and Changde in Hunan, and the rest of the prefectures and counties would be seized and occupied by Kui Dongbing. Among them, Wuchang, an important town in Hubei and Changsha, an important town in Hunan, will be captured by the two armies. On the Hunan side, in addition to the above-mentioned prefectures and counties that had been occupied by the Taiping Army, the four prefectures of Quanzhou, Yongzhou, Hengzhou, and Baoqing in southern Hunan also belonged to the Taiping Army, and the remaining prefectures belonged to the Kuidong Army.

In this way, on the premise of ensuring the border between Hunan and Guizhou, a little more abundant money and grain from the four provinces of Hunan were obtained to support the Taiping army soldiers on the front line of Hunan and Guizhou. On the one hand, the Taiping Army supported the northern front and attracted the attention of the Qing army in the north; On the other hand, it can have the strength to support the blockade of the Hunan and Guizhou borders.

Zhou Shixiang promised that the Taiping army would independently deal with the pressure of the Qing army on the Guizhou side before Kuidong's troops entered the two lakes, so Zhou Shixiang had to purge the Tusi forces on the Hunan and Guizhou borders and ensure that the Hunan and Guizhou borders were firmly blocked by the Taiping army. Otherwise, allowing these Tusi armed forces to exist will always be an unstable factor. In addition, Zhou Shixiang also urgently needed the young and strong population under the control of these Tusi to replenish the Taiping army, and also needed manpower to restore the destroyed and sluggish production in Xiangxi.

In the negotiations with the Kuidong group, Zhou Shixiang paid the greatest sincerity, to a certain extent, the territory he sought for the Taiping Army was determined on the basis of Sun Kewang's management of the Hunan defense line, and he also tried his best to suppress the desire of his subordinates to expand the territory, and suppressed his inner desire for the Taiping Army to monopolize the four provinces.

If you are greedy and chew too much, how much rice can be held in a big bowl, and if you eat too much, your stomach will not be able to hold it.

Just as the central and peripheral areas were designated for the Xiangxi Pingping, Guangdong was also the core area of the Taiping Army, while Guangxi and the newly occupied prefectures and counties of Hunan were the periphery. The purpose of occupying these marginal areas is simply to ensure the security of the core area and to ensure that there is a buffer zone large enough to reduce the pressure on the core area.

Only by thoroughly digesting the core areas, establishing an unshakable political power in the core areas, thoroughly mobilizing the manpower and material resources of the core areas, and cultivating military and political talents belonging to the Taiping Army, can Zhou Shixiang consider digesting the peripheral areas, so as to transform the peripheral areas into core areas and then open up new ones, with a view to establishing a stable base area that can continuously provide money, food, soldiers, and equipment.

This is similar to the Taiping Army's initial growth of the Rogue Army, but it is also a snowball, the former is likely to be smashed when it encounters a crisis, but the latter can withstand defeat, and will quickly replenish losses and repair wounds through its own mechanism, so that the Taiping Army has the ability to fight again, instead of collapsing, becoming a passing cloud of history and the last lament of the Han family.

The formation of the Xiangxi Bandit Suppression Army is an extension of this strategy, which is to obtain money, food, and population resources by suppressing the Tusi armed forces, and to ensure the stability of public order on the Hunan-Guizhou border.

The most important thing is that the newly formed Six Towns of the Bandit Army is the largest reserve corps prepared by Zhou Shixiang to deal with the crazy attack of the Yunnan-Guizhou-Qing army, and it is also the largest mobile force in his hands.

Originally, Zhou Shixiang wanted to let Kuidong's soldiers get out of trouble and immediately assist in blocking the Hunan and Guizhou borders, but the news from Kuidong was not optimistic, thirteen soldiers and horses were betrayed by Ertan in Chongqing, and suffered heavy losses. Although Li Laiheng and Hao Shaoqi's troops did not suffer losses in Chongqing, they were not much better than Yuan Zongdi, Liu Tichun and other departments.

Kui Dong is too poor, according to Yu Yu, who came to negotiate on behalf of Kui Dong. Dahai, Wang Guangxing and others said that their soldiers could only eat one meal in two days on the most difficult days, and their clothes were torn and mended, and then they were mended when they were rotten. The weapons are also in tatters, and they can't be worse than the Qing soldiers, and the family members are also hungry, and many people are hungry. But even so, they have been fighting and are unwilling to give in to the Tartars. If it hadn't been for Ertan's rebellion this time, they would probably have taken Chongqing.

Wang Guangxing said that the little tigers Li Laiheng and Yuan Zongdi were very grateful when they learned that the Taiping Army had opened the mouth of the Qing Army for them, and the supervisor Wen Anzhi was also excited to shed old tears. Originally, Inspector Wen was going to come to Changde to meet with Zhou Shixiang to discuss the matter of the two coalition forces, but because he contracted a cold on the way to Chongqing, he could not make the trip, and Li Laiheng and they were busy settling the defeated troops withdrawn from Chongqing, so they sent Yu first. Dahai and Wang Guangxing came to meet.

Wang Guangxing also told frankly that the Taiping army had let go of the Kuidong soldiers into Hunan Province, but in the short term, there would not be many soldiers and horses in the Kuidong soldiers who could enter Hunan Province, and it was impossible to participate in the war to block the Yunnan-Guizhou Qing army as Zhou Shixiang thought, so he could only develop to Hubei first, so as to occupy enough territory, obtain enough food and equipment to help the rest of the soldiers and horses left in Kuidong, and only after they had the ability to send troops could they enter Hunan and fight jointly with the Taiping army.

Zhou Shixiang knew that Kui Dongbing had a miserable life over the years, and in this place of Kuidong, you have to lie on your stomach even if you are a strong dragon, because this place is also an extremely poor area in the later generations, let alone now. Li Laiheng and the others were able to gain a foothold in this barren land, and it was not easy to persist in resisting the Qing Dynasty. Out of admiration for these Han heroes, Zhou Shixiang continued to make concessions, paid the greatest sincerity, and agreed that the Kuidong soldiers would not send troops to the Hunan and Guizhou borders for the time being, and the Taiping army would independently deal with the Qing army in Guizhou.

In this way, the importance of the bandit army has become more and more prominent. In order to let the bandit army run in as soon as possible, Zhou Shixiang gave the greatest power to the bandit yamen, even if the Hunan and Guizhou border was tense, he would not draw troops from the bandit army, just wait until the bandits were completely pacified and the bandit army could adapt to the needs of the war.

In this way, the heavy task of blocking the border between Hunan and Guizhou fell on Tie Yi's second town, Suna's sixth town, Guo Dengdi's ninth town, and Qi Hao's cannon town.

After Tieyi's second town transferred a brigade to Xiangxi to form an anti-bandit army, the remaining two brigades transferred some officers and veterans, and expanded two brigades on the basis of the Changde Green Battalion, with a strength of more than 9,700 troops. Compared with before, the combat effectiveness of the second town has decreased.

When Suna's sixth town was in Jingzhou, it expanded the third brigade on the basis of the C brigade, so that the town actually had five brigades under its jurisdiction. When the Xiangxi Bandit Army was formed, the B Brigade of the Sixth Town was transferred, and now there are four brigades in the Suna Department, and the strength is less than 10,000. Among them, the A Brigade is the original structure and has the strongest combat effectiveness. The C Brigade, the new 1st Brigade, and the 2nd Brigade are all newly organized brigades, and most of the soldiers are soldiers and civilians, and their combat effectiveness is relatively weak. The military department gave the three newly formed brigades a slightly stronger evaluation than the green battalion.

The ninth town of Weiyuan Hou Guo Dengdi was stationed in Yuanzhou, and then two brigades were transferred to participate in the formation of the anti-bandit army, and now the town has only two brigades of less than 5,000 soldiers.

Qi Hao's artillery town has also been expanded, and there are 8,000 soldiers in reality. One of the Paozhen was stationed in Jingzhou, the other was stationed in Yuanzhou, and the other two battalions remained in Liuzhou and Guilin. The military headquarters suggested that the artillery towns should be assigned to each town in the form of battalions, so that each town would have its own auxiliary artillery battalions, so that it would be easier to command and would also strengthen the firepower of each town. The concentrated use of artillery as it is now will make it difficult to move and inconvenient to command.

Qi Hao also raised this issue with Zhou Shixiang, arguing that his artillery towns had been used separately in all battles and had never been concentrated. No matter what scale of the battle with the Qing army was fought, it was not necessary to concentrate the artillery towns separately, and the opinions of the military headquarters were adopted accordingly, and the artillery towns were allocated to each town for use.

Zhou Shixiang agreed with the views of the military department and Qi Hao, and ordered the artillery in all localities to be under the command of the town level. For example, the artillery of Yuanzhou was under the command of the Ninth Town stationed in Yuanzhou, and the artillery of Jingzhou was under the command of the Sixth Town stationed in Jingzhou.

Shao Chengguo's cavalry brigade did not expand much, mainly because the Qing army in Hunan was a green battalion, without cavalry, and did not capture much.

On 17 November, Zhou Shixiang ordered Tie Yi to lead two brigades of the Second Town to Changde to monitor the movements of the Qing army in Hubei, and to receive the Kuidong troops out, while the other two brigades were transferred to Yuanzhou to strengthen the garrison of Yuanzhou. After Kui Dongbing came out, Tie Yi gave up Changde and led the two brigades to Yuanzhou immediately.

At the same time, a brigade was transferred from the Suna Department, together with Shao Chengguo's cavalry brigade to form an eastward detachment, which was led by Qi Hao and was responsible for attacking the four prefectures of Baoqing, Yongzhou, Quanzhou, and Hengzhou.

Zhou Shixiang's order to Qi Hao was to grab food desperately.

When seizing the prefectures and counties of Hunan and Guizhou, the Taiping army captured a lot of grain and grass for the Qing army transported from Changsha to Guiyang, but compared with the long-term needs of the war, these grains were obviously insufficient, so Zhou Shixiang needed a large amount of grain. (To be continued.) )