Nanyang, Ta Tianbao and Hao Shaoqi have been besieging Neixiang County for four days, but they have not been able to wait for the Qing army reinforcements in Nanyang Mansion, and they are a little anxious and discouraged. Pen | fun | pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 ｉｎｆｏ

There are only more than 3,000 veterans under the command of Hao Shaoqi and Ta Tianbao, but they drive more than 40,000 young people from Hubei. Since entering Henan last year, the second general has been active in southern Henan, capturing a prefecture and six counties, and killing more than 1,000 Qing troops. In March, Ta Tianbao was defeated by Miao Chenglong, the general soldier of Nanyang, in Zhenping, and lost four or five thousand people, so he had to join forces with Hao Shaoqi.

In the battle of Zhenping, Miao Chenglong, the general soldier of Nanyang in the Qing Dynasty, strictly obeyed the order of the governor Jia Hanfu, step by step, and dug a ditch every ten miles, so that Ta Tianbao could not give full play to the advantage of cavalry, and the strong attack was ineffective several times, and the food carried by the whole army was unsustainable, so he had to order a retreat. As a result, on the way to withdraw the army, it was attacked by the elite of Miao Chenglong's army, and it was in chaos and collapsed for fifty miles. After the war, Ta Tianbao collected the remainder and only got more than 5,000.

After Hao Shaoqi and Ta Tianbao joined forces, because Jia Hanfu, the governor of Henan, commanded several Qing troops to approach Nanyang, and there was no food in Nanyang City, Hao Shaoqi gave up Nanyang, and Ta Tianbao led his troops to Xinye, Neixiang, and Wuyang. At the same time, he urgently reported to the little tiger Li Laiheng and asked the little tiger to be able to receive military rations.

Li Laiheng, Liu Tichun, Dang Shousu and others were active in the area of Runing Mansion east of Nanyang. In April, Dang Shousu led the army to attack the Huainan area, trying to raise grain and grass from the local area, but was attacked by the Qing generals Kuenbu and Jin Li, who were guarding Huainan and Lujiang, and lost more than 1,000 soldiers and retreated to Runing in embarrassment.

After receiving Hao Shaoqi's letter asking for food, Li Laiheng had no way to give him help, because his department did not have much grain and grass. On the one hand, he asked Liu Tichun to allocate some military rations to Hao Shaoqi for emergency relief, and on the other hand, he sent a messenger back to Wuchang, so that Yuan Zongdi, who was sitting in Wuchang, could collect grain and grass as soon as possible and transport it to the front line.

Yuan Zongdi did not have any grain, the loyal battalion received Hubei from the Taiping army for less than a year, but before and after the more than 100,000 Hubei young and strong, and the Qing army in Hubei, even more wanton collection of grain, making the whole province of Hubei dilapidated, landlord rebellion is endless. It can be said that Yuan Zongdi, the governor of Hubei, has not changed from the identity of a rogue, to the role of the governor of a province. At that time, Bai Wang governed Jianghan for three years, making Jianghan an important base of the Dashun army, and showed outstanding talent in resisting Zuo Liangyu and suppressing the landlord rebellion. Compared with Bai Wang, Yuan Zongdi was really much worse, even if his status in the camp was much higher than Bai Wang's.

Li Laiheng asked Yuan Zongdi to raise grain, but Yuan Zongdi had no food, so he asked the Hunan Taiping Army for help. Zhao Sihai, the governor of Hunan of the Taiping Army, did not give food generously, but asked the envoy to bring back four words - "encircle the point and send reinforcements".

As the name suggests, the enemy who surrounds a town uses it as bait to attract reinforcements from other places, and the real purpose is to fight the reinforcing enemy and achieve the purpose of annihilating the enemy. The focus of the encirclement and reinforcement is to send reinforcements, so the focus of troop deployment is the strength of reinforcement, and the siege of the city is the auxiliary force.

"Encircling and sending reinforcements" is obviously very suitable for the fighting habits of the loyal battalion, because the field combat ability of the loyal battalion is stronger than that of the Qing army in Henan, but it is much weaker in attacking the city and pulling out the village. The Qing army in Henan fought against the loyal battalion by sticking to the village, which was to use its own strengths against its weaknesses, and the loyal battalion, which lacked siege equipment, was obviously not suitable for the tactics of the Qing army, so it suffered many losses. However, if the loyal battalion adopts the tactic of "encircling the point to send reinforcements", the advantage of the Qing army will be lost. He seized the initiative in the battle into his own hands, and instead of passively dealing with the Qing army, he took the initiative to deal with the Qing army. Of course, the key to the success of the "encirclement point and reinforcement" lies in the first two words, that is, the point of the encirclement must be the place where the Qing army must be saved, otherwise it is irrelevant, and the main force of the Qing army will not come to help, and it will not mess up its march rhythm because of too much worry about the gains and losses of the besieged land.

Yuan Zongdi failed to get food from Hunan, but he never complained that the Taiping army was not interesting enough, because the loyal battalion had already received too many resources from the Taiping army. If there is no support from the Taiping Army, the loyal battalion Xiu said that if he goes to Henan, he will probably not even be able to take Wuchang City. In this world, it can help people in a moment's need, but it can't help a lifetime. The situation in Hunan is better than that in Hubei, but it is not much better, and there are so many soldiers raised, and the food is also very tight, how can it be given as soon as it is asked for here.

Yuan Zongdi, who was not good at governing the region, was very experienced in marching and fighting, and he saw the benefits of the words "encirclement and reinforcement" at a glance, and immediately reported this tactic to Li Laiheng and Hao Shaoqi and others.

The inner countryside was the first place where Hao Shaoqi decided to encircle the point to send reinforcements, and it was also the first attempt of this tactic in the loyal camp.

Although Neixiang is the county seat, it chokes the main roads of Nanyang, Nanzhao, Tang County and other places, and the Qing army stationed more than 2,000 green battalions here. Once the inner countryside was lost, Nanyang was owned by the Taiping army except for the capital city. Therefore, once the loyal battalion besieges the inner countryside, Miao Chenglong, the general soldier of Qing Nanyang, will definitely come to the rescue. As long as Miao Chenglong is anxious to save the inner countryside, there will inevitably be problems with the march, and when the time comes, he will solve Miao Chenglong's department in one go, not only will Nanyang Mansion be able to go down again, but the loyal battalion will be able to break through to the north and approach Kaifeng.

Who knew that after four days of siege, the Qing army in Nanyang did not come to rescue the inner countryside for a long time, which made Hao Shaoqi feel aggrieved. In order to besiege the inner countryside, he staked all his belongings, and if Miao Chenglong could not be solved, he would have to retreat to Hubei.

Since the first battle of Zhenping, Ta Tianbao's strength has weakened, so this time he was responsible for besieging the inner countryside, and Hao Shaoqi was responsible for fighting. If you really want to storm the inner countryside city, Ta Tianbao thinks that he can take it if he really wants to fight the old foundation, but the loss is too big and it is not cost-effective. In the past few days, Ta Tianbao has not been idle, sending troops to raid the people's grain and grass, and barely got a few hundred stones. But how can this little food be enough to eat, so he came to Hao Shaoqi's camp and asked Hao Shaoqi what he planned to do next, if Miao Chenglong really didn't come to save the inner countryside, would they really have to attack the city with all their might?

"Old Tower, can those people of your new pull fight?"

After Hao Shaoqi saw Ta Tianbao, he didn't rush to talk about the war, but asked Ta Tianbao if he could take care of the young man in the past few days.

"I saw a few battles, I saw blood, and those who survived didn't know how to fight." Ta Tianbao said angrily.

Hao Shaoqi smiled, and asked Ta Tianbao with a positive color: "Old Tower, you give me a solid background, how many of your subordinates are left to fight?" ”

Ta Tianbao groaned slightly, and sighed: "There are still more than five hundred old foundations left, and those from Hubei can barely pick more than a thousand people." ”

"So big?"

Although Hao Shaoqi knew that Ta Tianbao had choked Miao Chenglong enough in Zhenping, there were still more than 7,000 people who could be brought back, but he didn't expect that there were only more than 1,000 elites.

"What, do you think my Tower Heavenly Treasure is useless?" Ta Tianbao snorted, "Hit the inner countryside, my Ta Tianbao is still capable!" ”