When Xinxing divided his troops, Zhou Shixiang deliberately formulated a marching route for the rear camp, which completely avoided the city garrisoned by the Qing army, and marched as close to the mountainous area as possible. In order to cover the transfer of the rear battalion, Zhou Shixiang personally led the front battalion to break into Zhaoqing to contain the Zhaoqing green battalion.

Zhaoqing Prefecture has jurisdiction over eight counties and one state, and the soldiers and horses of Deqing Prefecture and the general soldier Xu Erxian and the emerging green battalion are all closed to themselves because they do not know the details of the Taiping army, and the green battalion of Sihui and Gaoyao counties is completely annihilated by the Taiping army, and the three counties of Guangning in the southeast and Yangjiang and Yangchun in the northwest are too far away for the local green battalion to come. The remaining two counties, Enping and Gaoming, were slaughtered by the Qing army a few years ago, and Hugh said that there were troops stationed in the county, and it was difficult to find a living person.

The marching route of the rear camp is to go west eighty miles along Xinxing and then turn south to Xinhui, the distance of this journey is more than 200 miles, and the way is basically mountainous and uninhabited land that has been slaughtered by the Qing army, so as long as Song Xianggong did not change the marching route and take the initiative to find the Qing army to launch an attack, theoretically the rear camp could not be in any danger before reaching Xinhui. It was precisely because the marching route of the rear battalion was very safe that Zhou Shixiang boldly divided his troops in Xinxing and led the front battalion to break through to Zhaoqing Fucheng, so as to attract and confuse Xu Erxian, the general soldier of Zhaoqing, and cover the evacuation of the rear battalion from Zhaoqing.

But Zhou Shixiang never expected that the most unlikely thing would happen -- four days ago, after more than 20 days of slow marching, Song Xianggong led tens of thousands of old and weak women and children in the rear battalion finally arrived at the border of Xinhui County, and before the whole battalion had time to catch its breath, a Qing army of up to 1,000 people suddenly appeared in the Guifeng Mountains and attacked them.

The Qing army seemed to have known that such a force of tens of thousands of men and horses would appear here, and the generals who led the army laid an ambush in the Guifeng Mountains in advance, and suddenly killed them when the rear camp had just arrived and had a stable foothold.

Zhao Sihai led 300 soldiers under him to resist desperately. Song Xianggong brought the newly formed security team to join the battle, but most of these soldiers and security team members had never experienced combat and lacked weapons. In the face of the Qing army, which was twice as strong as them, they resisted bravely with only one blood. In the end, he failed to resist the onslaught of the Qing army, and most of the casualties were killed, but he successfully covered most of the battalion and successfully retreated to the area of Yutai Temple in Guifeng Mountain.

Faced with the situation that would be destroyed at any time, Song Xianggong quickly calmed down after the initial panic, and after realizing that the terrain around Yutai Temple was difficult to defend, he quickly transferred the treasury army to Zhao Sihai, and requisitioned all the men in the camp who could still walk and run. Together with the remnants of Zhao Sihai, a team of more than 2,000 people was formed, and they desperately resisted the Qing army by virtue of the terrain. In addition, the sturdy women of the old battalions were ordered to carry sticks and stones to fight with the men.

At this time, there was no way back, and everyone in the rear camp knew that once the Qing army clashed the defensive line, everyone would have to die, so even those who were hostile to the Taiping Army in their hearts and were forced into the camp of the original Luoding gentry would all follow the move, and those who could go into battle would go into battle. Those who can take the handle are the handles, and those who can't go into battle are moving stones one by one to the front in the back, in order to block the attack of the Qing army. Waiting for the rescue of the former battalion.

The Qing army did not expect that a group of old and weak women and children who had been driven to a dead end could still have the strength to fight, and they were repelled by the rear camp that occupied the location several times, throwing down more than 100 corpses. Seeing this, the leading generals of the Qing army couldn't help but regret that they had not been able to cut off the road of Yutai Temple in advance, blaming themselves for being careless and underestimating the enemy, and only saying how much combat effectiveness a group of rogues wrapped in old and weak women and children could have, but they didn't think that these people were so not afraid of death, so that they failed to destroy the enemy in one fell swoop, but suffered two or three hundred casualties.

After remorse, he accelerated the pace of the attack. He saw that this force no longer had much strength to fight, as long as he broke through the defense line in front of him. Kill all the men, and the rest of the old people and children will be lambs to the slaughter.

After another full day of onslaught. The Qing army was still staring at Yutai Temple, and the steps in front of him were full of corpses, although the other party's corpses were much more than their own, but the other party still controlled the only way in and out of Yutai Temple.

If you can't rush hard, you will surround them and starve them to death!

The Qing army quickly changed its tactics, no longer attacking, but divided the troops to encircle, and the leading Qing generals could see that these old and weak women and children did not bring much food at all, and how much food could a group of poor monks in Yutai Temple have, and the temple will run out of food in a few days, and it will be self-breaking if it does not attack.

The Qing general is 100% sure of trapping the other party, he has already sent someone to investigate, this team of nearly 10,000 people is from the emerging side, led by a bandit named Zhao Sihai, the old and weak women and children in the team are all led by Zhao Sihai and his bandits, there are no other reinforcements at all, so there is no need to worry that these people will have reinforcements to come to the rescue.

When the gang was so hungry that they couldn't walk and couldn't lift a knife, they would take people in and clean them up, and all the men would be killed, and all the women would be taken away and sold, and the beautiful ones would be offered to the provincial capital, and the uglier ones would be used for the soldiers to be happy, and then they would be sold to brothels, and the uglier ones would be killed directly, saving trouble.

The only mistake is that some people ran from the mountains, but it doesn't matter, just run, how can there be no fish in this world, there are tens of thousands of people in the mountains, the credit is already in hand, and the money is also close at hand

Zhu Er and his entourage were in contact with the rear camp retreating to the rear of Yutai Temple, when passing through the encirclement of the Qing army, six cavalry members died, but they did not die in vain, the rest of the team members rushed through the Qing army defense line under the leadership of Zhu Er, found the horses hidden in advance, galloped day and night, tired of several horses, and finally transmitted the critical information of the rear camp to Zhou Shixiang.

"General Affairs Song asked me to come back quickly to report the news, please lead the front camp to Guifeng Mountain immediately, otherwise the rear camp will be wiped out!" When he saw Zhou Shixiang, Zhu Er was still shocked, his heart couldn't help beating wildly, and when he thought of the old and young people in the back camp of Yutai Temple, he was even more anxious.

Tie Yi, Qin Zhisheng, Ge Zheng and others, who arrived after hearing the news, were also very anxious when they heard that the rear camp was surrounded by the Qing army.

"Qianhu, let's go to the rescue camp quickly!"

Everyone begged Zhou Shixiang to order a rescue immediately.

Zhou Shixiang raised his hand to signal his subordinates to be quiet, and then asked Zhu Erdao in a deep voice: "How many people are there in the back camp?" ”

Zhu Er hurriedly replied: "I'm afraid there are only half of them left." General Song and Zhao Baihu organized all the men, and this will rely on the terrain around Yutai Temple to hold on to the Qing army, and when the subordinates left, the Qing army stopped attacking, and it seemed that they wanted to trap our people. ”

Hearing this, Tie Yi's eyes lit up, originally they were worried that the rescue would not be possible, but now it seems that there is no need to worry.

Zhou Shixiang also breathed a sigh of relief, and immediately asked Zhu Er: "Can you find out where this Qing army is?" ”

"This" Zhu Er hesitated, "General Affairs Song said that there are people in the Qing army who speak the dialect of the province and those who speak the dialect of other provinces, and I don't know where the soldiers are, but when I broke through the siege, I saw that there were people in the Qing army who played the Wu character banner." ”

"Wu Ziqi?" Zhou Shixiang turned his head to look at Li Fuguo, who had just entered the tent, "Do you know that there is a general surnamed Wu in the green camp in the emerging area?" ”

Li Fuguo was stunned, racked his brains and thought about it, and said: "Back to Qianhu, in the green camp, in addition to the general army and generals, there are only a few generals who can fight. ”

Li Fuguo didn't know, Zhou Shixiang frowned, so he wanted to ask someone to find Shao Jiugong, who had worked in the green camp, to ask, the Qing army surrounded the rear camp There are thousands of people, and the generals who lead the troops are at least officers above the garrison, and the details of such characters should be investigated.

was about to instruct the guards to find Shao Jiugong, but Li Fuguo hesitated and said: "Qianhu, Brother Zhu said that the Qing army has people who speak from other provinces, isn't it a banner soldier?" ”

"Bannermen?"

Zhou Shixiang groaned slightly, there are only two possibilities for the Qing army in Guangdong to speak the dialect of other provinces, one is the Han army banner from Liaodong, and the other is the guest soldiers transferred from Jiangxi and Fujian, such as Shao Jiugong is a subordinate of Kong Guozhi in Jiangxi Green Camp.

If it is a flag soldier, it must be cautious, and if it is a battalion soldier, it is easy to do. Zhou Shixiang was not afraid of the Han army flag, but worried that if it was really the Han army flag that surrounded the rear camp, it would be the soldiers and horses from Guangzhou, so I am afraid that the Taiping army would have been discovered by Guangzhou, which would be very unfavorable to the Taiping army's next actions. If the two feudal domains of Ping and Jing in Guangzhou mobilized heavy troops under their command to suppress the Taiping army, Zhou Shixiang would face the biggest test since the incident.

"If it is a flag soldier, we can't rush to the rescue, we must be well deployed"

Zhou Shixiang was about to make a targeted deployment in case it was the flag soldiers who surrounded the rear battalion, but he paused suddenly, and his calm eyes were also full of fierce light.

Banner soldier, surnamed Wu, Xinxing.

The combination of the three main points could not help but make Zhou Shixiang think of a person, a person he had never dreamed of being skinned alive by his own hands - another guard general of the Qing army in the Battle of Xinhui, Wu Jinzhong, the right-wing commander-in-chief under the command of Wang Shang Kexi of Pingnan!

"A thousand households?"

Everyone was taken aback by Zhou Shixiang's sudden move, and they were even more shocked when they saw the fierce light in the eyes of Lord Qianhu.

In the middle of the sound, Zhou Shixiangfang slowly spoke: "Most of the soldiers in the camp are in the back camp, we must not sit back and watch the rear camp fall, saving people is like fighting a fire, pass the order, and the whole camp will immediately set off to Guifeng Mountain!" Tell the brothers that Ben Qianhu will capture the Qing general surnamed Wu alive! ”

"Order!"

All the hundreds of households and the hundreds of households were all in the same place, and they were all puzzled by the sudden reaction of the thousands of households, but no one dared to ask, so they responded violently and retreated. After they retreated, Zhou Shixiang had already clenched his fist tightly and smashed it on the wooden pillar on one side.

Wu Jinzhong, I want you to live rather than die! (To be continued)