In addition to the shortage of supplies, the First Army and the Fifth Army suffered considerable losses in the course of continuous operations, and since the launch of the Suqian and Huai'an campaigns in October, the Royal Army of the above two armies has lost more than 3,000 personnel, and in addition to battlefield casualties, a considerable number of them have also been reduced due to disease.

These attrition soldiers all need to be replenished from the rear one by one!

As for the soldiers of the Jianghuai New Army who were captured, because there were several thousand prisoners, the officers of the military training department at the front did not dare to replenish them all at once to the First Army or the Fifth Army, but after selecting the best and transferring 1,000 people, the remaining 3,000 people were sent to the Anhui region in batches to supplement the battle losses of the Second Army and the Fourth Army.

After all, these people were prisoners of the Qing army, and it was not good to prevent them from continuing to fight against the Qing army, so it was most appropriate to send them to Anhui to fight the Taiping army.

It is necessary to replenish the troops, to replenish the combat materials, which naturally delays the pace of the advance of the First Army and the Fifth Army!

At the same time, there is also the influence of the weather, after entering December, the temperature in the northern provinces drops rapidly, and the further north it is, the lower the temperature, if the first army and the fifth army fought in northern Jiangsu in late autumn, then when they enter Shandong in December, it is already a veritable winter.

Although it has not yet snowed in the southern part of Shandong, the temperature has dropped below 10 degrees Celsius, and there is a low temperature of about 0 degrees Celsius at night.

Although the military has prepared winter clothes in advance, this is only limited to the Royal Army, and many soldiers of the Auxiliary Defense Force have not yet been issued cotton clothes, in order to solve the problem of winter clothes for the troops going north. Officials of the Quartermaster Department were forced to collect winter clothes on the spot and sweep away all the winter clothes on the market along the way.

Naturally, these winter coats cannot be standard military uniforms. So you can see a more comical scene, that is, these large numbers of clothes are different in various styles. The Alf. Defence soldiers of different colors look like a group of civilians.

There were many reasons for the slowness of the First and Fifth Armies!

Therefore, during the period from late November to December, in addition to launching an attack on Pizhou and successfully capturing Pizhou and then seizing Xuzhou, the First Army completely suspended the large-scale offensive, and only sent a small force to seize some small places in northern Jiangsu, and these small places did not have the main force of the Qing army, only a small number of local green battalions, regimental training, Qingzhuang, etc., so the scale of the battle was very small and not worth mentioning.

The northern forces suspended the large-scale offensive due to the weather and other influences, but it entered December. However, after months of silence, the Chinese army in southern Fujian and Anhui finally launched a large-scale military operation with the support of the high command.

In the second half of 1857, the strategic focus of the Chinese army was on the Jiangbei region, which inevitably reduced the support in southern Anhui, Jiangxi, and Fujian, and the supply of soldiers and ordnance was very small, so that the Second Army could not attack Anqing for a long time.

Why?

Because they don't even have enough shells for siege!

Now that the large-scale military operations of the northern troops have been slowed down, and the southern provinces will not be too restricted by the weather, the high command has also appropriately allocated a batch of combat materials and soldiers to southern Anhui and Fujian.

"The ammunition allocated to Anqing has been sent one after another, and the newly formed Third Siege Artillery Battalion has also arrived in Anqing smoothly. It is expected that the Second Army will be able to launch a general attack on Anqing within ten days! Chen Yuntao, the new chief of the Joint Staff, is still a little unaccustomed to reporting military affairs to Lin Zhe face-to-face.

Chen Yuntao is a veritable rising star in the Chinese army, a junior of Shi Qingxuan and others, he was only a colonel at the beginning of this year, but soon because the 10th mixed regiment was expanded into the 10th Infantry Division. He served as commander of the 10th Infantry Division and was promoted to major general, and then after the formation of the Third Army, he became the commander of the Third Army.

Became one of the five major commanders in the Chinese army!

The reason why this person was promoted so quickly was naturally because of his extraordinary ability. During the attack on Zhejiang, he served as the commander of the 10th Infantry Regiment under Xu Yanqing, and he commanded a series of battles in Zhejiang. Xu Yanqing's evaluation of him is quite high, and he is listed as top secret. Only Lin Zhe can consult the Quanxu Si Kao's evaluation of him is: steady and cautious.

When Chen Yuntao led the army to fight, he was not as unpredictable as Xu Yanqing, nor was he as good at commanding a large army as Shi Qingxuan, he had extraordinary tactical vision, nor was he as sophisticated and strategic as Shi Langyi.

His conducting style is one of steadfastness and prudence!

Since he led the Third Army south to Fujian, although the overall progress was relatively slow, but the strength and various losses were the least, but the results were not many, he only brought less than 4,000 Chinese troops into Fujian, and it was with these 4,000 Chinese troops that he took the entire Fujian Province, and had annihilated more than 30,000 Qing troops, including at least 10,000 Qing troops.

Not to mention the small losses, and his smooth advance tactics also allowed him to free up his hands to clean up all kinds of local armed forces, you must know that the armed forces of the Qing court are not only the formal armies such as the training army and the green battalion, but also a large number of irregular armed forces in various places, such as the village warriors organized by the government, and the local regimental training organized by the gentry.

In the past, when the Chinese army swept through Jiangsu and Anhui, it often directly defeated the main forces of the Qing army, such as the green battalion and the training army, but did not pay much attention to the armed forces in these places, so that even after the Chinese army took Jiangbei, it still had to deploy a large number of auxiliary defense troops in the vast area of Jiangbei to continue to clear these local armed forces, otherwise the rule of the Chinese Empire could only be limited to some large cities, and those small counties and even rural areas had to be cleared one by one. so that they can be completely integrated into the territory of the Chinese Empire.

However, Chen Yuntao fought smoothly all the way, and when Chen Yuntao annihilated the main force of the Qing army in Fujian, the entire Fujian Province was also wiped out with a lot of local forces.

By the end of 1857, the whole province of Fujian had completely fallen under the control of the Chinese Empire, which was not just occupying large cities like northern Anhui and northern Jiangsu, but not only controlling the big cities of Fuzhou and Xiamen, but also some remote towns and towns in the interior were completely incorporated into the rule of the Chinese Empire.

This has led to the fact that Fujian is the second province of the Chinese Empire since Zhejiang, which has full control and effective rule, Jiangsu, only southern Jiangsu is better, and northern Jiangsu is still at war, not to mention Anhui, now even Anqing has not been taken, although southern Anhui has taken it, but in northern Anhui, especially in the north of Fengyang Prefecture, there are still a large number of local armed forces and twisted armies of the Qing court, and the two auxiliary defense divisions stationed in northern Anhui are barely suppressed, but they only control a few large cities. In order to completely wipe out the many local armed forces in northern Anhui, it is very difficult to rely on those two auxiliary defense divisions alone, and at least one Royal Army infantry division is necessary.

Lin Zhe, who was still relatively satisfied with Chen Yuntao's ability, also planned to continue to cultivate him, so he was transferred to serve as the chief of the Joint Staff.

Listening to Chen Yuntao's report, Lin Zhe said: "Well, this time in the Anqing Campaign, the staff must coordinate well to ensure that the materials of the Second Army and the Fourth Army siege troops are sufficient, and the navy must also coordinate well!" ”

The attack on Anqing was not only a matter for the army, but also for the navy, because the Taiping army held Anqing and built a number of batteries along the river at the same time, which caused a great obstacle to the navigation of the Yangtze River of the Chinese army.

Last month, three gunboats formed a small flotilla to cover more than a dozen transport ships loaded with war materials and forcibly passed through the Anqing section of the Yangtze River channel, although they rushed over, but one gunboat was hit by multiple shells, not only causing many casualties, but also causing great damage to the ships, in addition, more importantly, two transport sailboats were sunk and burned, one of the two ships was full of military rations, and the other was loaded with a lot of rifles and ammunition.

Compared with the army, the navy wants to take down Anqing, and for this reason, the navy has asked the army to conquer Anqing as soon as possible more than once.

Regarding the requirements of the navy, Shi Langyi, who was the chief of the Joint Staff at the time, could only be official: "I know and understand the difficulties of the navy. Now that the situation is difficult, please bear with me for the time being, our army will soon launch a full-scale attack on Anqing! ”

But he never said when he would launch an attack, so after a few months, Anqing was still in the hands of the Taiping army, and the navy was still unable to smoothly pass through the Anqing section of the Yangtze River channel, so he could only sneak over at night, or organize multiple warships to carry out a unified escort, and every time he crossed this channel, he would inevitably have to engage in a round of artillery battles with the Taiping army's batteries.

Now, after waiting for so long, the army has finally adjusted its strategic focus and focused its main attention on southern Anhui and Guangdong in the next stage.

Before the army began to act, the navy could not wait to transfer nearly 10 gunboats from the second gunboat detachment and the first gunboat detachment, and at the same time, during the dry winter season, it took the risk to transfer two 500-ton warships along the Yangtze River west to Anqing, forming a temporary fleet to prepare to cooperate with the army's action to launch artillery support for Anqing.

After many preparations, on December 26, 1857, when the Chinese army was about to pass, launched the third general attack on Anqing, which had been besieged for more than half a year. (To be continued......)