The high-speed galloping war horse was suddenly reined in, and the front hooves of the brown Arab war horse under the crotch were raised high, almost not throwing off Li Hongzhang on the horse's back.

Looking at these Chinese cavalry who had gone around to the front, Li Hongzhang sighed, and did not turn his horse's head to try to bypass from the side, because hundreds of Chinese cavalry in front and behind had surrounded them, and the guards on the periphery were desperately resisting the approach of the Chinese cavalry, but if these guards were good at fighting on the ground and manpower, they were obviously not the opponents of these regular cavalry on horseback, so the only remaining guards fell from the horseback one after another.

did not face like ashes like the general of the defeated army, even if he was surrounded and could not escape, but Li Hongzhang still maintained the demeanor of a superior.

He didn't look desperate and shouted to stop or anything like that, nor did he try to break through again, he just stopped the pace of his horse, watched the Chinese cavalry on the periphery continue to advance, and then slaughtered his own guards and other retinues.

The number of entourage guards around him quickly decreased from nearly 100 to 50 and then to 30, and in the end, there were only a dozen or so officials wearing official robes and staff members wearing long robes around Li Hongzhang.

And the guards who resisted desperately have all fallen!

At this time, if he was replaced by some other commanders who did not dare to be humiliated, I am afraid that he would have already pulled out his waist knife and killed himself, or he would have cried and shouted to surrender, trying to get these Chinese cavalry to spare him.

In fact, Li Hongzhang's staff officials did exactly this, and several officers wearing military generals' uniforms did not hesitate too much when they saw that there was no hope of breaking through and did not dare to be captured and humiliated. It was to end his life directly on the back of the horse with the waist knife he carried.

However, more officials and staff members got off their horses one after another, and then crawled in front of those Chinese cavalry. One by one, they were either trembling or shouting 'spare their lives' or something like that.

But those Chinese cavalry stepped forward gently. Li Hongzhang clearly saw a sneer on the corner of the mouth of the Chinese cavalry led by him, and then leaned sideways, and the wave of the cavalry knife in his hand ended their lives.

In the end, only Li Hongzhang was left on his horse, his face was the same as before, as if the people who were slaughtered before were not his subordinates, as if he was not afraid of death.

A moment later, one of the horsemen stepped forward, the knight on horseback dressed visibly differently from the other cavalry. The shining Venus on his shoulder already shows that he is a senior general of the Chinese Army!

Li Hongzhang's familiarity with the Chinese Army is not inferior to that of ordinary officers of the Chinese Army, and he is naturally very clear about the rank and identification of the Chinese Army, and the person in front of him should be a major general in the Chinese Army.

I saw that he took two steps forward, and then came to Li Hongzhang and said, "Li Hongzhang? ”

Li Hongzhang nodded: "It's me!" ”

Wang Luyun looked at this middle-aged man wearing a regular suit and a warm hat, and a smile appeared on his face: "From now on, you will be my captive!" ”

There was no resistance, no begging for mercy, Li Hongzhang didn't even get off the horse. When a Chinese cavalryman came over to take the reins of his war horse, Li Hongzhang hesitated slightly, but still handed over the reins, and then continued to sit on the horse. Let them take themselves!

As he walked south on horseback, Li Hongzhang saw many corpses of horses or people along the way, most of whom were wearing light blue single-breasted shirts of the JAC New Army. The same blue long-distance and long riding boots, these are the personal guards who died in the battle to cover Li Hongzhang's breakthrough.

Further on. He saw the large phalanx of infantry in front of him, looking only at the color of their uniforms and their characteristic wide-brimmed military hats. As well as the inches under the hats, you know that these are soldiers of the Chinese army.

And among these soldiers, there were still many frustrated, unarmed prisoners of the Jianghuai New Army, under the supervision of the Chinese soldiers on both sides, honestly lining up.

And look farther, there are still many soldiers of the Chinese army walking around on the battlefield before, from time to time you can see them using bayonets to mend the seriously wounded soldiers lying on the ground, a cursory look, this small combat area is lying no less than thousands of corpses, there are Chinese soldiers wearing dark blue military uniforms, but more are Jianghuai New Army soldiers wearing light blue military uniforms.

Looking at the corpses all over the ground, Li Hongzhang's face that had not changed much finally changed, and he muttered: They are all because of me......

Looking at the corpses all over the ground, Li Hongzhang closed his eyes again!

After closing his eyes, it seemed to sound three years ago, when he Li Hongzhang had an outstanding reputation for running a regiment in northern Anhui to train and suppress bandits, and he was connected to the letter requesting to follow Yu Shengjun to train the new army, which was appreciated by Qi Liaozao, the minister of military aircraft, and others.

Since then, he has embarked on a different path, and in one fell swoop he has surpassed many famous generals and important ministers to obtain the opportunity to organize and train the Jianghuai New Army, with the financial support of the household department, coupled with the local self-raising of his Jianghuai New Army and the rapid formation of the army.

In order to completely separate his new Jianghuai army from the old army, he personally participated in the recruitment and training, recruited good families from the Jianghuai region as soldiers, hired foreigners as instructors, and also set up a camp school like Yu Shengjun. It's a pity that the good times didn't last long, and because of the rise of Lin Zhe, the imperial court began to guard against and suppress local regimental training, so that it no longer supported the Jianghuai New Army, but began to train the army.

As a regimental training, the Jianghuai New Army lost the direct financial support of the imperial court and could only be self-reliant.

In the past two years, he Li Hongzhang worked hard to maintain, and finally trained more than 10,000 Jianghuai new troops, but in the first battle of Yangzhou, in the face of the onslaught of 60,000 or 70,000 Chinese troops, he had to break through the siege, and his Jianghuai new army also suffered many losses, leaving only 8,000 people to retreat to Huai'an.

In the follow-up to a series of battles such as Huai'an and Taoyuan, although Li Hongzhang tried his best to resist, the difference in strength was too great, so he could only break through and flee north again.

Originally, Li Hongzhang thought that if he could escape back to Shandong, he would be able to recover after a year and a half, and then fight with the Chinese army, but he didn't expect that the Chinese army would pursue all the way from Taoyuan County as if he recognized him, and there was no intention of letting go of the Jianghuai New Army at all.

That's why we have today's fiasco!

After several years of hard work and destruction, tens of thousands of troops were completely wiped out, even if Li Hongzhang was as calm as ever, he was already completely desperate in his heart!

Seeing Li Hongzhang like this, Wang Luyun on the side has no sympathy or other thoughts, maybe Li Hongzhang has a special meaning for future generations, but for Wang Luyun, this middle-aged official is just a defeated general under his own.

Shi Qingxuan was more interested in Li Hongzhang, and specially hosted a banquet to entertain Li Hongzhang, but he looked at Li Hongzhang from beginning to end with the eyes of a victor.

Seeing Li Hongzhang calmly eating and drinking, and not having the consciousness of a defeated general at all, Shi Qingxuan was a little unhappy, and he was too lazy to take care of him, so he directly handed over Li Hongzhang to the military police unit with the army, and then Li Hongzhang would be escorted back to Nanjing.

However, due to Li Hongzhang's special status, his status as the governor of Jiangsu, the minister of military affairs in the north and south of the Yangtze River, and the commander of the Jianghuai New Army was the first high-level commander of the core of the Qing army in the true sense of the word captured by the Chinese army, and his status in the Qing court was even more transcendent than that of Li Xiucheng in the Taiping Heavenly Empire.

After Li Xiucheng was captured, the Chinese army gave him two choices, one was to continue to maintain the current stubborn attitude, and finally he was shot in Nanjing after a seemingly fair judicial process. The other is to write a letter of repentance, a letter of self-guilt, etc., openly criticizing the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, so that you can save your life, and then take on a symbolic idle position and spend the rest of your life under house arrest.

Li Hongzhang didn't know what to do with himself on the side of the Chinese Empire, it was nothing more than death or life, for a person who had just lost all his army, not only lost his own life, but even lost most of the entire Manchu Dynasty, it was meaningless whether he was dead or alive, and now he was like a walking corpse, and the whole person was in a state of confusion.

The military police units in the Chinese army are not combat units, and the establishment is not very clear, there are currently seven military police regiments, but each military police regiment is different, the number of people varies from hundreds to thousands, and these military police are not said to be large-scale activities, but dispersed into small teams to operate, mainly responsible for internal discipline matters.

They were also responsible for the custody of some important prisoners.

The cavalry squad that escorted Li Hongzhang did not tie Li Hongzhang directly to the horse, or drag him forward behind him, but specially arranged a two-wheeled carriage for him.

Li Hongzhang, who was sitting in the carriage, had already changed out of his official robe, but put on the robe of the ordinary gentry, and the hair on his head was not forcibly kicked off, and he still had a braid on the back half of his head.

If it weren't for the team of gendarmes around him, it is estimated that others would treat him as an ordinary gentry!

After a few days in the rickety carriage, he saw the walls of Suqian City!

He knew that this Suqian had been defeated by the Chinese army as early as last month, and at present, almost all the south of Suqian has been controlled by the Chinese army, which means that he has now entered the territory of the Chinese Empire.

After several days of running, although Li Hongzhang still did not speak all day, but the rift in his heart has slowly healed, after entering Suqian, he picked up the curtain of the carriage window, looked at the pedestrians in the city outside the window, he wanted to know what kind of changes will occur after Suqian was taken over by the Chinese Empire, is the people living in poverty or better than before? (To be continued......)