The fourth year of Xianfeng was undoubtedly a year of bad things for the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, which built its capital Nanjing and changed its name to Tianjing. In this year, the Taiping army of the Northern Expedition lost the sharpness of Xianfeng for three years and lost consecutive battles.

In fact, as early as the winter of the third year of Xianfeng, the Northern Expeditionary Army had already begun to decline.

Compared with the Qing army, the Taiping army led by Lin Fengxiang, Li Kaifang and others was better at sports and combat. Because the advantage of mobile warfare is that it can enable the Taiping army to absorb the displaced people from all over the route, increase the reserve of soldiers, and integrate the armed forces of various places. At the same time, it is necessary to cultivate the experience and quality of soldiers through continuous battles, so as to achieve the goal of nurturing war through war.

This kind of battle mode snowballs quickly to expand its strength.

However, in the winter of the third year of Xianfeng, the situation took a sharp turn for the worse.

Due to the cold weather and the precautions of local government offices, Lin Fengxiang and Li Kaifang's troops were seriously short of food, grass and ammunition, so they could only camp in place near Tianjin, trying to survive this winter. However, the Qing army seized this opportunity and surrounded the Taiping army that had stopped and waited for reinforcements, and bit the Taiping army that was in decline.

The situation was unfavorable, and the Taiping army was forced to break through to the south on the eighth day of the first month of the fourth year of Xianfeng and retreat to Shucheng in Hejian County.

The Taiping army has not yet gained a foothold, and the Qing army has already been killed.

In desperation, the Taiping army retreated to Fucheng.

Before reaching Fucheng, the Taiping army of the Northern Expedition was once again surrounded by the Qing army. The Taiping Army, which was already like a lost dog, had long lost its original sharpness and was in danger.

Time back to the fourth year of Xianfeng, the seventh day of the first month.

Yang Xiuqing, the king of the east, learned the news that Lin Fengxiang, Li Kaifang and others were besieged, and urgently sent 7,500 reinforcements led by generals such as Huang Shengcai, Chen Shibao, Zeng Lichang and Xu Zongyang from Anqing, Anhui Province to reinforce the Northern Expeditionary Army.

The reinforcements who went north this way, like Lin Fengxiang and Li Kaifang at the beginning, were unstoppable. Along the way, they continued to expand their ranks, defeating Zhang Liangji, Shanlu, Shengbao and others in early March, and capturing Linqing, an important industrial and commercial town.

Because the Qing army stationed in Linqing burned all the grain and grass in the city when they retreated, the Northern Expedition reinforcements had nothing to do. In this way, the Northern Expedition reinforcements also had the same problem as Lin Fengxiang and Li Kaifang -- supply difficulties. At this time, Shengbao and the new governor of Shandong, Chong'en, once again arrived in Linqing, surrounded Linqing, and cut off all aid in the city.

At this time, the morale of the Northern Expedition reinforcements had begun to weaken, and mutinies and escapes appeared almost every day.

On March 21, the Northern Expeditionary reinforcements withdrew from Linqing and wanted to go north to Fucheng to join the Northern Expeditionary Army.

Halfway through, the newly attached homeless people did not listen to the command and diverted to the south, wanting to return to Tianjing. This move immediately gave the Manchu army a chance. The Qing army took the opportunity to intercept, and the Northern Expedition reinforcements suffered heavy losses, so they gave up the task of joining the Northern Expedition reinforcements and retreated directly.

On March 27, the Northern Expedition reinforcements retreated to Qingshui Town.

On 1 April, the Northern Expedition reinforcements continued to retreat south and retreated to Guanxian.

As the saying goes, when the wall fell down and everyone pushed it, when the Taiping army was in decline, the local regimental training became active. The local regimental training of Guanxian County and the horse team of Shengbao attacked back and forth, killing the Taiping army.

The homeless people wrapped in the army ran in all directions, the army could not form an army, and the whole army was defeated.

The Northern Expedition reinforcements were completely defeated, so they had to retreat to Fengxian County, Jiangsu, preparing to cross the old Yellow River in Fengxian County, so as to get rid of the pursuit. The army crossed the river on horseback, but did not expect that the river was a deep ditch of silt, and the horses could not move forward, except for more than 2,000 soldiers who crossed the river to the south, the rest of the people were all martyred.

Among them, Zeng Lichang, one of the main generals of the Northern Expedition reinforcements, committed suicide by jumping into the river on a leaping horse, and Huang Shengcai was killed in Kongjiaji, Guanxian County.

The soldiers who crossed the old Yellow River became headless flies scurrying around, and turned to Fengtai Zhangou Ji. Chen Shibao died in battle, leaving only Xu Zongyang to flee back to Tianjing, but was thrown into the East Prison.

In this way, the Taiping Army's Northern Expedition reinforcements were completely defeated.

Lin Fengxiang and Li Kaifang were also trapped and unable to get out and return to Tianjing.

However, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom did not give up, and in early April, it sent the Yan King Qin Rigang to lead troops to the north for the second time. However, this time it was even more snake-headed and snake-tailed, the army had not gone far, and Qin Rigang had just arrived in Shucheng and was defeated, and returned with the army in a gray manner. Lin Fengxiang and Li Kaifang lost their support and could only fight in the north, unable to go south again.

The defeat of the Northern Expedition and the reinforcements of the Northern Expedition hit the hearts of the kings of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom heavily.

The army was exhausted and could no longer threaten the Manchus.

However, the defeat of the Northern Expeditionary Army was only the beginning.

Prior to this, the Taiping Army also had an army to attack Hunan, Hubei and other places, and the battlefield here was relatively smooth at the beginning of the fourth year of Xianfeng. In order to relieve the danger of Changsha, Zeng Guofan led the army to counterattack Xiangtan, and personally led 40 naval warships and 800 land divisions to attack Jinggang on the second day of April.

When the Taiping army saw that the navy and army of Zeng Guo were coming, they opened artillery to bombard the Hunan army's naval division. Taking advantage of the direction of the river and the direction of the wind, Zeng Guofan asked the soldiers to use cables to lead the boat slowly on both sides of the river. Seeing this, the Taiping army sent troops to annihilate the people who pulled the cable, and then sent more than 200 small rowing boats to approach, braved the wind and fire, defeated the Hunan army's naval division, burned the warship, and the land Hunan army was also defeated by the Taiping army.

Zeng Guofan lost his troops and lost his generals, and he was full of shame and hatred, and threw himself into the water to seek death in Tongguanzhu on the other side of Jinggang, but fortunately he was rescued by his subordinates.

After a series of victories, the tail of the Taiping army began to along the way.

In particular, Lin Shaozhang, the chief general of the Taiping Army, was already dizzy, his command was improper, and the internal generals were not convinced, and the naval division was temporarily composed of civilian boats, and his combat effectiveness was weak, resulting in the defeat of the battle. There were internal contradictions in the army, but Zeng Guofan sharpened his steel knife and advanced by land and water, and once again returned to Xiangtan.

The two armies fought, and the land and naval divisions of the Taiping Army suffered setbacks one after another.

On the fifth day of the fourth month, the Taiping army was defeated in successive battles and was forced to retreat from Xiangtan.

In this battle, the Taiping army fought a total of ten land and water battles, and all ten of them were defeated, with more than 10,000 dead and wounded, and the rest of the soldiers who fled were not less than 50,000 or 60,000, or even more. And, almost two thousand ships were destroyed. After the Battle of Xiangtan, Zeng Guofan's reputation rose, but the Taiping army withdrew from Hunan. Zeng Guofan took advantage of the situation to fight out of the darkness and attacked Jiujiang, Jiangxi, forcing the Taiping army to defend.

The defeat of the army led by Lin Shaozhang weakened the strength of the Taiping Army, making it impossible for the Taiping Army to mobilize forces to rescue Lin Fengxiang and Li Kaifang.

The news of the Taiping army's defeat in all aspects reached Tianjing, and immediately set off a monstrous wave.

In the Heavenly King's Mansion, the Heavenly King Hongxiu wore a bright yellow dragon robe and gown, sitting directly above the main hall, in the highest position. In the diagonal corner on the left sat the nine-thousand-year-old Yang Xiuqing, the two of whom were the supreme leaders of the Heavenly Kingdom, and their positions were different from those of the other kings. On the left and right sides of the main hall, there are Shi Dakai, the king of wings, Wei Changhui, the king of the north, Qin Rigang, the king of Yan, and Hu Yihuang, the king of Yu.

The kings gathered in the Heavenly King's Mansion to discuss the next trend of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom.

ps: one of the three watches; In the blink of an eye, there are already 200 chapters, more than 400,000 words, really fast! Thank you all for your support, thank you.