Looking at the generals kneeling outside the door, Wu Ruxiao looked up at the dark night sky and sighed deeply!

At dawn the next day, Lin Zhe received a letter from the Taiping Army in the city, saying that he could surrender to the Chinese king, but he also listed a lot of requirements, such as the Chinese army must not wantonly kill the soldiers and civilians in the city after entering the city, and those who are willing to join the Chinese army can join, but if they are unwilling to join, they must give up their disarming and return to the field, and they will be free to come and go.

And many generals who defected to Cheng must also be treated preferentially and must not be deprived of their private property.

Whether or not to shave the hair of the soldiers and civilians in Toucheng is a personal freedom, and the soldiers and civilians in the city must not be forced to shave their hair!

Looking at this letter with a negotiating tone, Lin Zhe chuckled and then tore it apart, and then asked Xu Peng'an next to him: "Chief of Staff Xu, in your opinion, how many days do we need to take Zhenjiang?" ”

Xu Pengan said with confidence: "Back to Your Majesty, with the bravery of my Great China King, I will go down to Zhenjiang within three days!" ”

He is not boasting when he says this, now that the Chinese army has conquered the south city gate, it can be said that it has pried open the gate of Zhenjiang city defense, and then even if the Taiping army resists stubbornly, it will definitely not be able to stop the Chinese army's clearance!

Lin Zhe nodded: "In that case, give them a reply, just say that if you want to surrender, don't bother with so many messy conditions, I want them to surrender unconditionally!" ”

After that, he said: "Of course, I can also give them a breath, and I will never pity high-ranking officials and lords for those who have their hearts towards my Great China!" ”

It is impossible for me to accept their messy conditions, after all, as a loser, you must have the consciousness of a loser, and I can reward you with high-ranking officials, but you can't ask me to give it to you!

One is a requirement and the other is a reward, and the difference between the two is great!

However, although Lin Zhe wanted them to surrender unconditionally, Lin Zhe did not intend to force them too hard, after all, if he cut off their retreat, they would be ruthless and stubbornly resist, although it would not bring much change to the battle in Zhenjiang, but it would also delay time and cause more casualties to the Chinese army.

In the face of the reply of the Chinese army, the generals of the Taiping Army who had already raised troops and even put Wu Ruxiao under house arrest were also very simple, and soon replied that they were willing to agree to the Chinese army's request.

Even in order to show their sincerity, the Taiping army took the lead in giving up resistance on the city walls, and then allowed the Chinese army to take over all the city walls.

In the afternoon of the same day, at the request of the Chinese army, a large number of Taiping soldiers gave up armed resistance in an organized manner and accepted the custody of troops sent by the Chinese army.

However, there was news that night, Wu Ruxiao, who was under house arrest, killed himself!

The next day, Lin Zhe looked at the general of the Taiping Army who was kneeling on the ground, and then thought of Wu Ruxiao who committed suicide, and felt a little depressed in his heart, although this Wu Ruxiao was not an absolute high-level in the Taiping Army, but he would rather die than surrender to him Lin Zhe.

Is my Lin Zhe so unbearable? The leader of a mere thief army would rather die than surrender to me?

In this world, it seems that not everyone is the same as Li Xiucheng, who can bend his knees to the enemy in order to save his life!

Wu Ruxiao killed himself, and other Taiping generals who took the initiative to surrender to honesty Lin Zhe couldn't look down on him to tell the truth, but people also took the initiative to surrender, and he couldn't break his promise, so there would be no shortage of high-ranking officials who should be given.

However, most of them were given false positions, and several of them were appointed as deputy commanders of the auxiliary defense division, or deputy commanders of the auxiliary defense regiment, and a few others were appointed as staff advisers.

As for the large number of Taiping troops who surrendered, Lin Zhe couldn't let them directly disarm and return to the field, regardless of whether they wanted to or not, they would all shave their heads first, and if they were unwilling, they would be killed on the spot.

At present, the Chinese Empire's braid-cutting order is widely implemented in the officialdom and the military, and officials, officers and soldiers who are unwilling to shave their heads are basically killed on the spot.

This is especially true for prisoners, regardless of whether they are Taiping soldiers with tied hair or Qing soldiers with braids, they will never talk nonsense when they are caught, either shave their heads or cut off their heads!

Naturally, these Taiping prisoners who shaved their heads could not be their prisoners like the soldiers who were captured in later generations, in fact, they had just finished shaving their heads, and then they were scattered and incorporated into the auxiliary defense division of the Chinese army.

Due to the large number of soldiers of the Taiping Army who surrendered, there were more than 20,000 people in total, not to mention some old and weak, there were as many as 15,000 young and strong soldiers alone, and these people Lin Zhe naturally could not be wasted.

The rest were organized into three auxiliary defense divisions, namely the 12th Auxiliary Defense Division, the 13th Assistant Defense Division, and the 14th Assistant Defense Division.

Looking at the more and more assistant defense divisions on the compilation table, Lin Zhe was a little helpless!

Logically speaking, the foundation of the Chinese empire should be those regular armies, but in reality, due to the long training time and high cost of training, it has always been difficult to expand the regular army on a large scale, and it has expanded from more than 20,000 to 40,000 at the beginning of the year, of which tens of thousands are still converted from the auxiliary defense regiment.

However, compared with the difficulty of expanding the regular army, the ADF is increasing rapidly, and it can accept many prisoners in almost every battle, and these prisoners have all been converted into soldiers of the ADF, so that the ADTL has expanded from eight divisions a month ago to 14 divisions, which is about to double.

Could it be that in the future, if you will compete for hegemony in Kyushu, you will have to rely on these auxiliary defense forces as the main force?

Just when Lin Zhe cleared the remnants of the enemy in Zhenjiang and collected the prisoners, the news that the Chinese army had taken Zhenjiang also came out!

The first to get the news was Li Hongzhang, who was across the river.

Previously, the Jianghuai New Army had been stationed in Yangzhou to be on guard, but in order to prepare for the Battle of Zhenjiang and also to prevent the Qing army in Yangzhou from disturbing the situation, the naval forces continued to shell a number of camps along the Yangtze River of the Qing army, and also sent the marines of the Navy to attack the outside of Yangzhou.

In the face of the Chinese Navy, which had a large number of heavy artillery, Li Hongzhang, who did not have many foreign artillery in his hands, had to retreat to Yangzhou, and in the end he could only watch the Chinese army take Zhenjiang.

"This pseudo-emperor Lin Zhe has some skills, and he was able to take Zhenjiang so quickly!" After Li Hongzhang learned that the Chinese army had conquered Zhenjiang, his face showed obvious sadness.

Now that the Chinese army has taken Zhenjiang, I am afraid that the next step is to take Jiangning, and the next step is to cross the river to attack Yangzhou and other Jianghuai areas, can I block it at that time?

Although he said that he already had 10,000 Jianghuai New Army under his command, and had rebuilt the Jiangbei camp, and there were more than 30,000 old troops such as the Green Battalion and the Banner Soldiers, it was quite difficult to block the Chinese army's northward advance.

"I don't know how the military training on the side of the imperial court is doing, and the new army in Beijing doesn't know when they will be able to go south to help in the war?" Li Hongzhang now deeply feels the inadequacy of his own strength.

Today, although the total strength of the Jiangbei camp is not small, there are 10,000 new troops in Jianghuai and 30,000 old troops such as green battalions and flag soldiers, with a total of 40,000 troops. But now it was 1857, and under the influence of Lin Zhe's Yu Shengjun, even ordinary officials in the northern Qing court already knew that it was now the world of the new army, and those old armies were no longer useful.

Therefore, in Li Hongzhang's eyes, the 30,000 old army is a role that is indiscriminate, and if he really wants to block the Chinese army's northward movement, he can only use 10,000 Jianghuai new army.

However, the Chinese army across the river has rapidly swelled to nearly 100,000 people, and Li Hongzhang also collected information from many sources and learned that there are two kinds of soldiers in the Chinese army, one is the auxiliary defense army similar to the old army, and the other is the new army.

Among them, there are as many as 40,000 or 50,000 new troops!

You must know that Li Hongzhang's Jianghuai New Army is just a copycat version of Yu Shengjun, and the new army of the Chinese Army is not sure of victory one-on-one, let alone facing four or five times the enemy.

He heard that the imperial court had sent a number of training troops into Henan, northern Anhui and other places to clear the Twist army, if these training troops could reinforce the Jiangbei camp, his Li Hongzhang's pressure would undoubtedly be much smaller.

As for those Eight Banners New Army, he didn't have much extravagance, on the one hand, these Eight Banners New Army was really not good, on the other hand, it was impossible for the Gyeonggi Heavy Land to not let go of any troops, and now the Qing court had a conflict with the foreigners, and the foreigners threatened to go north along the coast and approach the Beijing Division.

Therefore, the Qing court had to guard against foreigners, and it was necessary to leave a force in the Gyeonggi region.

Speaking of which, it's still the same sentence, how many troops there are, and even fewer new troops!

In the face of the Chinese army's capture of Zhenjiang, if Li Hongzhang was just worried about the future, then Shi Dakai of Tianjing would be panicked!

During this time, he was hit hard enough, and sent reinforcements led by Li Xiucheng to try to reinforce Zhenjiang, but he didn't expect Li Xiucheng to want to play around Wei to save Zhao Bucheng, but instead put himself in, and then he really had no troops to send, so he could only sit and watch Zhenjiang fall!

Now that Zhenjiang has been lost, then the next step for the Chinese army will definitely continue to move westward into Tianjing, and when the time comes, it will face the siege of nearly 100,000 Chinese troops? Can Tianjing still hold on?

Although Jiangning can be regarded as a famous city in the world, a big city, but it is definitely not a famous and dangerous place that is easy to defend and difficult to attack, in fact, Jiangning has not been a military strategic place since ancient times, the reason why Jiangning is famous, attracting countless rebels in history, thieves and others want to take the city, that is because the city is the ancient capital of the six dynasties, since ancient times, all the southern regimes that want to compete for the world want to take the city as their capital.

For example, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom was established in Yong'an in 1851, but after taking Jiangning in 1853, it immediately changed Jiangning to Tianjing, making it the capital.

The same is true of the Chinese Empire, although Lin Zhe has been proclaimed emperor in Shanghai in February this year, it is worth noting that the current Chinese Empire has not officially established its capital, because everyone's eyes are aimed at Jiangning, and they are waiting to officially establish the capital in Nanjing after taking Jiangning.

As a city with a strong political atmosphere and the most suitable city in South China to build a capital, in fact, the city's military strategic position is not so important.

The city is not a difficult city to attack and defend, except for the Yangtze River, the other three sides are equivalent to undefended, and there is no danger to stop the enemy.

At this time, after Zhenjiang was captured by the Chinese army, then the next step for the Chinese army could be Pingchuan and reach the Tianjing City!

And will it be able to hold on when the time comes? (To be continued.) )