Lin Zhe made such a big posture and led tens of thousands of troops to the west, which naturally could not hide from the Taiping army in the direction of Danyang and Zhenjiang, in fact, when Lin Zhegang led the Fifth Division and other troops from Shanghai, the spies of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom had already received some news.

The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom had long known that the Chinese Empire would have a large-scale military operation in the near future, but the exact circumstances were unknown.

It was not until Lin Zhe arrived in Changzhou and integrated the main forces of the first, third, and fifth divisions, and also took the three auxiliary defense divisions to officially set out on the expedition, so that the spies and reconnaissance forces of the Taiping Army could more accurately deduce the strength and strategic purpose of the Chinese army.

"There is no doubt that their purpose is our Zhenjiang!" In Zhenjiang, a military commander said to Wu Ruxiao: "This time, Lin Demon led the army to conquer in person, and it is estimated that the commander's strength is no less than 50,000, which can be described as menacing!" ”

"This Lin Zhe demon army is coming straight to my Zhenjiang, we must ask Tianjing for help as soon as possible, otherwise we are afraid that it will be difficult to sustain it alone!" Another person said so.

Wu Ruxiao listened to their words, and there was also a trace of panic and helplessness in his heart!

Since he learned that Lin Zhe was proclaimed emperor in Shanghai, as a military general, he was very light and could see that no matter whether the Chinese empire established by Lin Zhe would follow up with the northern expedition to the Manchu Qing Dynasty or the southern part of Fujian and Zhejiang, he must first take Zhenjiang and Tianjing, otherwise the strategic security of southern Jiangsu and northern Zhejiang could not be guaranteed.

No one with a modicum of military knowledge would engage in a northern expedition or a southward expedition under the threat of more than 100,000 enemy troops in his own wealth.

Therefore, Wu Ruxiao knew very well that the nascent Chinese empire would not move, but when it moved, the first thing to bear was his own Zhenjiang.

With this sense of crisis, he has continued to withdraw the defenders of Danyang and the surrounding areas of Zhenjiang last month, and is ready to concentrate all his forces to prepare to defend Zhenjiang to the death.

As for the other surrounding areas of Danyang and Zhenjiang, he was already ready to give up directly.

The reason why he gave up so simply was not that he was willing to do it in his heart, but because of the helplessness of reality, the troops under his command were not many, and the total number was only 30,000.

If these 30,000 people are dispersed, if there are 10,000 garrisons in Danyang, 10,000 in Zhenjiang, and 10,000 in other places, the result is obvious, and they will definitely be broken by the Chinese army separately.

This kind of thing has not happened, in the first half of last year, Xu Yanqing of Yu Shengjun only led more than 2,000 people to attack the city all the way, and there were nearly 10,000 soldiers in Jintan, Danyang and Zhenjiang at that time, but they were unable to hold it.

This time, Wu Ruxiao naturally will not make the same mistake, the separate defense will be broken one by one, and the only way to gather all the main forces to defend Zhenjiang is to gather them.

Even if he stubbornly defended the isolated town of Jiang, it would be surrounded, so that there was no way to cut off food and salary, at this time, what Wu Ruxiao was looking forward to was that he would gather 30,000 people to defend Zhenjiang, and he would be able to delay for a certain amount of time, so as to wait for reinforcements from Tianjing!

It's just that there will be reinforcements from Tianjing's side at that time?

Wu Ruxiao maintained a pessimistic attitude towards this, Lishui in the south of Tianjing has the second division of the Chinese army, which has nearly 10,000 troops, and he knows that the predecessor of this Chinese army is the second mixed regiment that broke through Danyang and Zhenjiang last year and killed all the way to Tianjing City, and its combat effectiveness is not bad.

After fighting with the Chinese army many times, Wu Ruxiao was deeply touched by the strength of the Chinese army's combat effectiveness, and he dared to despise any Qing army, but he absolutely did not dare to despise the Chinese army.

If only forty or fifty thousand Qing demons came, Wu Ruxiao would not pay attention to them, and would even take the initiative to attack.

But this is not the cowardly Qing army, but the Chinese army, so Wu Ruxiao is doomed, cautious and cautious, and will never give the Chinese army the slightest opportunity to take advantage of.

As for today, there are nearly 10,000 Chinese troops outside the capital, and it is still unknown whether Tianjing dares to send reinforcements and how many reinforcements can be sent.

If the reinforcements sent only 10,000 people, Wu Ruxiao could already foresee the tragic situation in which they were swallowed by the second division of the Chinese army, and if Tianjing sent 20,000 or even 30,000 more people, I don't know if the Chinese army still has a back hand, in case they directly march into Tianjing from Lishui, then it will be dangerous for Tianjing, which is empty after sending a large number of reinforcements.

For these unknowns, Wu Ruxiao is deeply helpless.

And in the current situation, the only thing he can do is to shrink his forces and then defend Zhenjiang!

As for taking the initiative to attack and fight, he Wu Ruxiao doesn't have the courage yet!

In the first battle of Suzhou that year, he took the initiative to attack to meet the battle, and as a result, 30,000 or 40,000 people were defeated by the whole army of less than 5,000 people, and now thinking about it makes Wu Ruxiao's heart tremble.

Wu Ruxiao shrank his forces, and even took the initiative to abandon Danyang and Zhenjiang and other peripheral areas, so that after the Chinese army entered Danyang westward, it only occupied the place after encountering symbolic resistance, and the Taiping army stationed in Danyang was only less than 1,000 people, and after seeing the Chinese army coming, people took the initiative to abandon the city and flee north.

But after the occupation of Danyang, what made Lin Zhe very depressed was that these Taiping troops actually played a scorched earth policy, and before leaving, they emptied almost the entire Danyang, leaving nothing of gold, silver, property, food, etc.

After asking, I learned that in the past few days, the Taiping army had looted almost the entire city, whether it was official or civilian rations, all the rations of ordinary people, and at the same time, a large number of young people were forcibly wrapped.

Lin Zhe was left with an empty city with no grain of food, and at the same time, there were old and weak women and children in the city who had no food in their hands.

"Good Wu Ruxiao, ruthless enough!" After Lin Zhe learned of this situation, he was extremely angry in his heart, these Taiping soldiers were really ruthless.

If you slaughter the entire Danyang City, it will be nothing, but you actually collected all the food and conditions in the city, and left the people who had not eaten in the city to yourself, which is intended to increase your own burden!

At this time, although Lin Zhe wanted to close his eyes in his heart and ignore these people who had no food in the city, after all, the military rations of the Chinese army did not fall from the sky, they were all collected from all over the country, and then transported to the front line by tens of thousands of people.

But reason and conscience told him that he could not do that!

Intellectually speaking, the Chinese Empire is newly established, and to put it bluntly, the Chinese Empire is still very small, and the territory under its control is only one and a half provinces, and it is completely based on the military victories of the Yu Shengjun in the past, and the people of Zhejiang and southern Jiangsu did not cry and shout for Lin Zhe to be the emperor.

Such a fledgling regime is like a castle built on the sand, without a very solid foundation, and if you are not careful, you will be pushed.

Therefore, in order to win the hearts and minds of the people of the territory, shape the benevolent image of the Chinese Empire, win the support of more people, and truly lay the foundation of the popular support of the Chinese Empire, he Lin Zhe could not only care about military victories and not care about the lives of the people like the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom or Zeng Guofan.

From a conscience point of view, he Lin Zhe can't ignore the fact that tens of thousands of people were starved to death!

Therefore, despite the difficulties, Lin Zhe still instructed the officials accompanying the army and the military quartermaster department to work together to bring more food from the rear to relieve the local people, not to mention that they were all fed, but also to give them some gruel to eat, so that they would not starve to death.

Wu Ruxiao can ignore the lives of tens of thousands of people in Danyang City because of a simple military strategy, but Lin Zhe cannot, this is the biggest difference between a rogue regime and a regular regime.

In order to solve the problem of the aftermath of the people in Danyang City, Wu Xihui, who had just been appointed to Changzhenjiang Province, together with officials from the Ministry of Civil Affairs and the Ministry of Finance of the Cabinet, mobilized grain from all over Changzhou, and at the same time, he also turned to the military's Quartermaster Department to mobilize grain from other places, such as Susongtai and northern Zhejiang.

Although the demand for grain is more, but fortunately, the south of the Yangtze River and the north of Zhejiang have always been the main production areas, the annual production of grain can not only supply the local, but also shoulder a large number of trough grain tasks, now the Chinese Empire was established, grain will naturally not continue to be transported north, this grain output is already more.

In addition, in recent years, the predecessor of the Chinese Empire, that is, Yu Shengjun, fought hard to resist the southward and eastward advance of the Taiping Army, so that Zhejiang Province has not been affected by the scourge of military rebellion, although Suzhou and other places have been invaded by the Taiping Army once, but that was three years ago, and now it has gradually recovered.

Therefore, on the whole, from 1854 onwards, Yu Shengjun's rear agricultural production remained stable, and did not come to a standstill because of continuous tug-of-war in southern Anhui, Zhenjiang, Jiangningfu and other places.

In this way, the newly established Chinese Empire still had relatively abundant grain in its hands, and the only trouble was that transportation was time-consuming and laborious.

After leaving the officials to deal with the aftermath of the people of Danyang City, Lin Zhe continued to lead the army to Zhenjiang!

A few days later, Zhenjiang.

Wu Ruxiao looked out from the city wall, and saw a large number of soldiers and horses gradually appearing in the field in the southeast direction, and they came towards Zhenjiang City in a neat queue.

In the crowd, there are many flags, these flags are different from the common army flags, the military flags of the traditional Chinese army are generally 'character flags', that is, the surname of the main general is written on one side of the flag, but the Chinese army as a whole, senior officers are frequently transferred, so the military flags of each department are generally not marked with the surname of the main general, but the number of the army itself.

After the establishment of the Chinese Empire, the national flag and military flag were reformulated, and the national flag was a red background gold dragon spitting blue beads, in the era of the imperial regime and the country, the golden dragon was the representative of the Son of Heaven, so it was logical to use the dragon flag.

The army is also the emperor's private army, so the military flags of the Royal Army and the Royal Navy are naturally still based on the 'dragon' and unified into the blue dragon flag on a red background.

In addition to the above-mentioned regular national flags and military flags, each unit also has its own flags, most of which can be regarded as communication flags, which are used for battlefield command and convey flag language.

In the era of radio and wired telephones, it was necessary to command tens of thousands of troops on the battlefield, relying on the herald cavalry on the one hand, and the flag language on the other.

Therefore, all departments of the Chinese Army, up to divisions and brigades, down to infantry battalions, have exclusive military flags, which are also based on the blue dragon, and next to them are simply and clearly indicating the number of each department, such as the second division, the twelfth regiment, the first battalion, etc.

At present, the various units of the Chinese Army outside Zhenjiang City are lined with flags, covering the sky and the sun from afar. (To be continued.) )