In the afternoon, the city of Changsha was particularly lively, and the panic atmosphere that had been permeating in recent days had also disappeared somewhat. The pen "Fun" Pavilion www.biquge.info, especially the neighborhood near the north gate, is crowded with people, officials and gentlemen, peddlers and pawns, all kinds of people. Not only that, but there were people from other parts of the city who were coming to this side after getting the news, scrambling and rubbing shoulders, as if something had piqued their endless curiosity.

On both sides of the main street that connects with the north gate, a large number of Ming soldiers and officials of Changsha Prefecture are trying their best to maintain order. Although they were blocked, the people on both sides of the street were still in high spirits, huddled outside the blockade and pointed at a team of people marching through the street, talking and even shouting.

"Look, those two carts are loaded with Tartar heads!"

"Tsk, grinning teeth, weird and scary, looking at that appearance, it's not our Ming people."

"No, there's a pigtail on the back of your head!"

……

This morning, after Wang Zhangtang and others returned victoriously, Zhu Dadian asked Pang Yue to send some men to escort some of the captured materials and captured prisoners to march in Changsha City to boost the morale of the soldiers and civilians in the city. Pang Yue naturally has no opinion on this proposal, which can not only calm people's hearts but also promote the army of Huguang Town by the way, why not do it? When even down to arrange.

Soon, the officers and men of the prepared Gangfeng Battalion B and the A Division and C Bureau escorted more than 100 captured prisoners, and went to Changsha City with more than 100 heads and some captured Qing soldiers' armor and flags. Zhu Dadian also sent a messenger to take a fast horse to inform He Tengjiao and a group of local officials. Ask them to help with it.

He Tengjiao, who got the news, couldn't help but feel a little surprised, but he didn't expect Pang Yue's men and horses to go out of the city and camp in just one day to fight with the Qing army, and it was still a victory of beheading hundreds of people and capturing more than 100 people.

Although this result is not too brilliant, in the eyes of He Tengjiao, who has not won for two years. It was undoubtedly a big victory. Considering that the morale of the various armies under his control really needed to be boosted, and that it was Zhu Dadian who sent a letter to inform him, he quickly agreed to help, sent someone to pick up the officers and soldiers of Huguang Town who had escorted the prisoners and booty, and arranged for some people to help maintain order on the streets.

At this moment, at the forefront of the street are five wheelbarrows pushed by the soldiers of Huguang Town, each with more than 20 heads, including the heads of more than 50 Manchurian Baya soldiers and the heads of some Manchurian officers and ordinary soldiers of the Han army with white flags.

To save trouble. Pang Yue did not ask the officers and soldiers to bring all the more than 600 severed heads, but only selected the heads of those Manchurian officers and soldiers and those Han soldiers who looked more vicious. Although the number is a little less, the first stage on each car is stacked into a standard pyramid shape, which is quite spectacular. It attracted the sighs and exclamations of the people on the street.

This was followed by more than a dozen carts piled with armor, flags, and other captured supplies, the first of which were equipment captured from the fifty or so Bayala soldiers. The silver-white fine iron armor and the helmet with a high lightning rod made the people feel very novel.

And those Ming troops who were responsible for maintaining order were also dumbfounded, and many of them were He Tengjiao's standard battalion officers and soldiers. I fought with the Eight Banners of Manchuria in Yuezhou last year, so I naturally knew that these armors came from the most elite Baya soldiers among the Jiannu. They also clearly remembered the scene when the fierce Bayala soldiers rushed into their own army as if they were chopping waves and entering a no-man's land. And now. How could they not be surprised by the dozens of heads and equipment of the Bayala soldiers in front of them?

After passing by with a small car carrying the equipment of the Bayala soldiers. It was also a number of carts full of armor and weapons flags inlaid with white flags, soldiers, auxiliaries, and soldiers. The white armor with red trim on it looked like there were at least one or two hundred pairs, and the blood stains hadn't had time to be wiped off. It still smells of blood on the battlefield. Seeing this scene, those people who doubted the number of enemies killed in Huguang Town, as well as the Ming officers and soldiers in the city, also dispelled the doubts in their hearts: If they hadn't really killed so many Tartars, would the Tartars still be able to take off their armor and send them over?

Immediately behind the cart loaded with the seized supplies were more than a hundred captured captives, their hands tied behind their backs, strung together, guarded by the soldiers of Huguang Town, walking down the streets with their heads bowed, their white cotton armor with red trim and the money rat tail on the back of their heads standing out on the street.

"Hurtful Tartar!" A young man who looked like a scholar gritted his teeth, pointed at the captive and scolded, and after scolding, he wanted to take some action, but because he couldn't find a suitable tool for a while, he simply tore off the jade pendant on his waist and threw it at the Qing prisoner on the street. The jade pendant hit the head of a white flag auxiliary soldier, smashing it into a grin.

"Hit the Tartars!" "Mother's Tartar!" …… With this gentleman taking the lead, the rest of the people began to take action as well. Perhaps not everyone hated the Qing army from the bottom of their hearts, but almost everyone had a herd mentality, and under the influence of this overall atmosphere, more and more people participated. For a time, clods of soil, stones, rotten leaves, shoes, ...... All sorts of "weapons" were thrown at the Qing army's captive ranks.

The Ming army, which was responsible for maintaining order, had been planted one after another in the hands of the Qing army, and now they were also happy to see the people venting this evil breath for themselves, and they did not stop it at first, until they saw that the heads of some escorted Huguang Town soldiers were also smashed and bleeding.

Escorts of captives and booty marched through the main streets of the city, always drawing a flood of civilians everywhere they went, in exchange for a tsunami of exclamations, curses, and an overwhelming barrage of clods of earth and leaves.

Later, Liu Wu, the general manager of the first division and the third bureau of the Gangfeng Battalion B with two colors on his head, couldn't stand the enthusiasm of the people, and simply handed over the task of escorting the prisoners to the officials of Changsha Prefecture. In the face of those fierce and vicious officials, the people only paid a little attention when throwing "weapons".

When the procession passed in front of the Changsha Governor's Yamen, the Governor of Biyuan, and the Yamen of the Governor of Huguang, the Governor of Changsha, Zhou Nan, the Governor of Biyuan, Fu Shangrui, and the Governor of Huguang, He Tengjiao, all walked out of the gate to watch, accompanied by their staff. Seeing the grand occasion in front of them, Zhou Nan and Fu Shangrui were also surprised one after another, lamenting the rapid change in the morale of the army and the people, while He Tengjiao looked grim and pondered.

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Just when the city of Changsha was bustling, Pang Yue was at the Wanshou Bridge in the north of the city and his subordinates were stepping up discussions on how to defend against the enemy.

Wanshou Bridge is more than 20 miles away from Changsha City, the east is the high mountains with dense vegetation, the west is the rolling hills, only the middle few miles are slightly flat, there is a small river in the north that is not more than dozens of steps, not as deep as the waist, and is called the cotton stream by the locals. After crossing the river and further north, the terrain opens up to vast rice paddies and wilderness and low hills dotted among them, with majestic mountains looming only in the sky. And from Wanshou Bridge to the south can not walk two or three miles, the terrain is gradually opened, until the city of Changsha, encountered only some low hills and gentle slopes, almost the same as the smooth road.

If the terrain around Wanshou Bridge is compared to a dumbbell, the camp of the army of Huguang Town is located in the middle of this dumbbell, guarding the official road leading to Changsha City. If the main force of the Qing army marched south from Xiangyin to attack Changsha and it was not like going over the mountains and mountains to take the wrong road, this area would be the place to go.

The camps of Liu Chengyin's department and Ma Jinzhong's department are located in Lijiawan in the southwest of Wanshouqiao and Shitangchong in the southeast of Wanshouqiao, respectively.

At this time, in the area of Wanshou Bridge, after more than a day of hard work by the soldiers of Huguang Town, a large camp and corresponding fortifications within a radius of several miles have been basically formed.

A trench about two miles long from east to west has been dug at a place of 100 or so paces north of the camp and nearly 100 steps south of Cotton Creek, which almost cuts off most of the flat area between the hills on the west side and the high mountains on the east side, and the rest of the gaps are also covered with wooden fences and horse rejections. The excavated earth was piled up on the south side of the trench and built into a low wall that was chest-high to slow down the advance of the Qing army.

In order to prevent the Qing army from attacking from the west, Pang Yue also ordered the construction of fortifications on a small hill on the west side of the camp, arranged a guard force, and even equipped some artillery. As for the high mountain area to the east, Pang Yue was not too worried, this high mountain terrain is steep, the vegetation is dense, even the local woodcutters and hunters rarely go up, unless it is absolutely necessary, the Qing army carrying a large amount of baggage will not take so much trouble to cross the mountains. However, even so, Pang Yue still did not relax his vigilance, and arranged many guard posts in the area of the mountain near Yingpan in case of emergencies.

In addition, about forty paces away from the north, west, and east directions of the edge of the camp, low walls of chest height were also built as the second line of defense. Between these earthen walls, there are many empty spaces for artillery or for your own sergeants to attack.

The transport vehicles of the Taishan Battalion and the Huashan Battalion and the side wagons of the Agni Battalion were arranged at key points on the edge of the camp and around some important areas of the camp, such as the tents of the Chinese army, the tents for storing grain, grass and ammunition, and the tents of the medical department for treating the wounded, as the last barrier.

According to the full strength of Huguang Town, the Huashan Battalion and the Taishan Battalion had more than 1,600 single-wheeled side-box vehicles, 800 horse-drawn carriages, and 128 two-wheeled side-box chariots of the Agni Battalion. However, due to the tight schedule, the General Manufacturing Bureau was unable to complete this standard before the war, and in addition to the full number of artillery wagons of the Agni Battalion, more than one-third of the wheelbarrows and carriages of the Huashan and Taishan battalions were missing. Fortunately, this battle is not a plain area to face enemy troops attacking from all sides, but can take advantage of the surrounding terrain, so the lack of vehicles is not a big deal.

After working for so long, almost no one in the army shouted tired. On the contrary, it was the victory of Wang Zhangtang, Tang Kun and others in the outpost battle that made everyone envious, and some recruits who did not know the importance of it even felt that it was a pity that they did not catch up with this battle, and they lost the opportunity to receive meritorious service awards in vain. The morale of the whole army was very high.

However, just when Zhu Dadian was full of satisfaction and sighed that the army's heart was available, Pang Yue reported to him the latest news: the Qing army that captured Xiangyin, the Han army's white flag Gushan Ezhen Tong Tulai Department and the Green Battalion Huangzhou General Soldier Xu Yong Department were ready to attack Changsha from Xiangyin south... )