The army stayed in Qixian for five days, two days to rectify the army, and the remaining three days, but Guo Ye personally accompanied Zuo Guigui to Kaifeng to pay tribute to Guo Lian, no matter what, he had to give Zuo Guigui this face, not to mention that Guo Lian was also a good brother, but he made a mistake for a while.

When Guo Ye and Zuo Guigui returned, the army began to move towards the various departments from Qixian soldiers in two ways.

Guo Ye, Zuo Guigui, and He Qimou led the main force of more than 20,000 people into the northern Anhui region, while Yan Chunyu launched an attack in the southwest direction.

Let's not talk about Yan Chunyu, there is still a certain amount of Qing army strength in northern Anhui, which is the remnants of the Hunan army, cruising around in northern Anhui, because now Shi Dakai has put his main energy on Jiangnan, and the remnants of the Qing army in northern Anhui have been proudly retained.

However, the remnants of the Hunan army of these two or three thousand can no longer do anything, just survive.

Gao Qi, as the vanguard force, advanced all the way to the south, first with the momentum of thunder, in less than half a day, took the eastern town of Ruzhou, Henan, and then marched south again, completely entering the territory of Anhui, and the army pointed directly at Bozhou, an important town in northern Anhui!

At this time, half a month has passed since Guo Ye's Kaifeng Mansion, and the news of the fall of Kaifeng has also spread from Henan to all parts of the country, and Shi Dakai, who is far away in the south of the Yangtze River, has naturally also gotten the news.

It's just that Shi Dakai at this time is also the time when he is playing the most energetically!

Shi Dakai led three battalions, respectively in Hangzhou, Changzhou, Zhenjiang and others and Zeng Guofan and others launched a fierce battle, the Hangzhou battlefield on the south side, and the Zhenjiang battlefield on the north side is good to say, Changzhou area is the most fierce battle, Shi Dakai personally sat in the Chinese army camp, led the main army of 80,000 and Li Hongzhang's Huai army launched a bloody battle!

Although the original combat power of the Taiping Army is not weak, compared with the peak of the Hunan Army and the main force of the developing Huai Army, the individual combat ability is still somewhat weak, especially in history, the Huai Army is equipped with a large number of foreign guns and artillery, but the Taiping Army only has big swords and spears, at most there are some primitive firearms such as guns, firearms, and bird guns, but this combat power is unable to match the Huai Army.

But now it's different, it turns out that Li Hongzhang is only facing Li Xiucheng, although Li Xiucheng can also fight, but there is still a certain gap with Shi Dakai, and the Huai Army's foreign gun team is very powerful, so that the main force of the Taiping Army can't raise its head, what now? The current situation is that Shi Dakai actually purchased a large number of firearms through Hua Ruohan and Dong Haichuan, and the number of foreign guns and cannons of the Taiping Army is even higher than that of the Huai Army, the Hunan Army, and the Chu Army!

With a genius commander and elite foreign guns and cannons, the current strength of the Taiping Army can indeed crush the Huai Army, and the Huai Army of 40,000 or 50,000 people, facing the Taiping Army of 70,000 or 80,000 people, is definitely not an opponent!

Shi Dakai commanded the Taiping Army to fight the Huai Army to the point that he had no power to fight back, Li Hongzhang's subordinates were full of talents, Zhang Shusheng, Liu Mingchuan and others were all top talents, but in the face of the absolute strength gap, they were only helpless.

In less than a month, in the area of Su Chang, there are only Suzhou and Changzhou and the three or four county towns in the middle are still in the hands of the Huai army, and the rest of the large areas of land are all under the control of the Taiping army, even if a Hunan army is transferred from Zhenjiang, Li Hongzhang and Zeng Guofan still can't stop the Taiping army's attack, but in Hangzhou, Zuo Zongtang because of the face of the Nan Daying, the Taiping army in the South camp is slightly weaker, and was defeated by Zuo Zongtang with a strategy, and the two sides temporarily fell into a state of truce.

However, once Suzhou and Changzhou are lost, the Hunan army and the Chu army will be completely separated by the Taiping army, and it is difficult to say whether the Hunan army and the Chu army, which have completely broken off the connection, can still block the next fierce attack by Shi Dakai.

The original establishment of the Huai Army was not only the imperial court to restrain the existence of Zeng Guofan, but also the most abundant capital for Li Hongzhang's future start, and now he has not made any contributions, and he is already facing the danger of annihilation of the whole army, how can Li Hongzhang calm down.

"Teacher, the current situation is obvious, it is difficult for us to hold Suzhou and Changzhou, at most, we are holding on for a month, and the entire Suzhou and Changzhou will all fall into the hands of the Taiping army, not only the Huai army is not protected, but even the Hunan army and the Chu army are difficult to preserve......"

Zeng Guofan sighed and replied: "There is no way, this Shi Dakai is too powerful, originally if he didn't get the firearms, we could barely maintain the confrontation situation, or even slightly better than them, but now with the help of firearms, no one can do anything, and we can only avoid the edge for the time being." It's just that Suzhou is the seat of the governor of Liangjiang, and it goes without saying that Changzhou is lost, but it's good to say that Suzhou is lost, and we can't afford to take such a responsibility......"

Zeng Guofan also wanted to give up Suzhou and Changzhou, but the pressure of the imperial court behind this was not something it could afford, the impeachment of the court was enough to break his bones, Nanjing had been lost, and if Suzhou was lost, it would definitely be a bolt from the blue for the imperial court!

"Teacher, why don't we send a telegram to Jinan, and quickly report to the imperial court, and ask the imperial court to come and get an idea?"

Li Hongzhang hesitated for a moment and said, "We can retreat our forces to Zhenjiang and Hangzhou, although we have lost Suzhou and Changzhou, but the strength of Hangzhou and Zhenjiang will be greatly enhanced, we can give the Taiping army a huge threat at any time, although we have failed on the surface, but the Taiping army can not maintain this advantage, and the elongation of the battle line will be their fatal flaw!" Now Guo Ye is using troops in Henan, once the recovery of Henan is completed, I think Guo Ye's army will drive straight in, directly approaching the hinterland of the Taiping army, they will definitely not be able to stop Guo Ye's elite, when the time comes, we and Zuo Zongtang will attack at the same time, Shi Dakai is absolutely overwhelmed, and can only be eaten away by us step by step! ”

Zeng Guofan pondered for a moment and hesitated: "Okay, let's jointly write to Prince Gong and ask him to come and get ideas......

When the two were discussing, Liu Kunyi walked in and said urgently: "Zeng Gong, Shaoquan, the capital has come to make a will......

Zeng Guofan and Li Hongzhang were stunned, and when they were about to write to the court, the court actually came to the will!

Li Hongzhang hurriedly took the telegram in Liu Kun's hand and watched it carefully with Zeng Guofan.

After reading the full text, Zeng Guofan and Li Hongzhang couldn't help but be stunned, Prince Gong? He actually asked the two of them to temporarily preserve their strength, and if necessary, they could give up a part of the area, so as to delay the sharp offensive of the Taiping Army, and wait for Guo Ye's army to go south, now Guo Ye has taken Kaifeng, and wiped out the main force of the bandits and the Northern Taiping Army, and it won't take too long to enter the hinterland of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom!

(To be continued.) )