"What, Suzhou was broken by the thief army?" Shi Qingxuan, who was standing beside Lin Zhe, couldn't help but scream!

"I didn't expect us to gallop hundreds of miles, but I didn't expect that we still couldn't catch up!" Shi Langyi sighed with a face: "The thief army has broken through Suzhou City, I'm afraid there will be countless deaths!" ”

Since Yu Shengjun received Xu Naizhao's emergency rescue report, he immediately sent aid to the east, and there was no delay on the road for even a day, but what he didn't expect was that the Taiping Army led by Wu Ruxiao moved so fast, and it was only half a month before and after, and it was already from Zhenjiang all the way to Suzhou Mansion and took Suzhou Mansion City.

Its movements are fast, and the fierceness of its momentum is not inferior to that when the Taiping Army killed all the way from the upper reaches of the Yangtze River to Jiangning!

In fact, this can also be understood, and now the Taiping army in Zhenjiang led by Wu Ruxiao has restored the original mode of fighting among the displaced people, and every time they conquer a place, they do not stop, but after looting property and food, they continue to advance with a large number of people, and so on.

If this army of displaced people cannot stop its advance, it will grow rapidly in a short period of time, from 10,000 to hundreds of thousands, in less than a few months.

In the face of the rapidly expanding Wu Ruxiao's department, Xu Naizhao led the remnants of his command to have no way to hold Suzhou, how could the 5,000 remnants of the army face the attack of 40,000 or 50,000 enemy troops to hold Suzhou City, and it is not surprising that the soldiers were defeated and died in the end.

But now that Xu Naizhao is dead, the remnants of his army have also disappeared, which also means that only Yu Shengjun's family is the army that can be blocked in the Susongtai region.

However, the total strength of Yu Sheng's army was only more than 5,000, and he left a defense of Huzhou and Shanghai, and Lin Zhe led Yu Sheng's army to meet the Taiping army with only 4,000 troops.

However, Wu Ruxiao had 40,000 people under the city of Suzhou at the beginning, and in addition to Zhenjiang, Changzhou, and other places in Suzhou outside the city of Suzhou, there were still a large number of troops, although there was no accurate number for the time being, but there were still 60,000 or 70,000.

What's more important is that almost every day that passes, Wu Ruxiao will be able to coerce more people, and tens of millions of people in southern Jiangsu, even if it is just in the above three prefectures, Wu Ruxiao can easily coerce more than hundreds of thousands of people.

Lin Zhe is confident that he will dare to fight against the Taiping Army with 4,000 troops, 12,000, or even 30,000, but if it is against 100,000 or 200,000, Lin Zhe will feel numb when he thinks about the situation when a soldier on his side is besieged by hundreds of enemy troops.

"We can't wait any longer, if we drag on for a day, there will be more people killed, and more people will be held hostage by the enemy!" Lin Zhe, as always, made his own decision.

"Abandon the previous plan, don't wait for the sailor battalion, we will continue to go north, reach the periphery of Suzhou as much as possible, and the first task is to stop their eastward advance!" Lin Zhe stood up, pointed to the simple map of the Susongtai region on the table, and said: "The west of Suzhou is Kunshan and Jiading, and the south of Kunshan and Jiading is Shanghai, they must be blocked to the north of Suzhou, otherwise, once a large army of thieves is allowed to flow into the area south of Kunshan, Shanghai will be in danger, and the business and trade area will be in danger!" ”

Those present were all Yu Shengjun's senior generals, and they knew as well as Lin Zhe what Shanghai and the trade zone meant to Yu Shengjun.

If the southern Jiangsu region was the financial center of the Qing court, supporting the military expenditure of the Qing army in Jiangnan and Jiangbei, then the Shanghai area was the main source of military spending for Yu Shengjun.

In particular, the old and new customs of the Jianghai Customs can bring Yu Shengjun tens of thousands of taels of silver every month, and this batch of silver is the main long-term source of military spending for Yu Shengjun at present, not to mention that the trade zone is also the source of all Yu Shengjun's firearms and ammunition.

The Shanghai area, including Jianghaiguan and the trade zone, is the lifeblood of Yu Shengjun and the foundation of his Lin Zhe's rise.

Whether it was the Taiping Army, the Qing court, or any Western power, if anyone dared to move Shanghai and try to destroy his Lin Zhe's foundation, then Lin Zhe would dare to give them a war.

These senior generals of Yu Shengjun may not be as radical as Lin Zhe, but they also know that Shanghai is their own Yu Shengjun's territory, and unlike Suzhou and Huzhou, these places are lost, they may feel sorry and sigh one or two, but Shanghai is still lost, and it is estimated that they have to jump one by one.

Now that Shanghai is facing a huge crisis, they are all heavy-faced.

Looking at the expressions of these people, Lin Zhe nodded secretly in his heart, after more than a year of growth, Yu Shengjun has gradually become a semi-independent military and political interest group, and when these generals under his command consider problems, although they will still consider the imperial court, they have already begun to give priority to Yu Shengjun's own interests.

Sure enough, I immediately listened to Shi Langyi and said: "Yes, our first task now is to stop the eastward momentum of these thieves, and to block them, then the safety of Kunshan and Jiading in the future is the top priority, as long as these two places are guarded, then Shanghai can be guaranteed to be worry-free!" ”

"And to defend Kunshan, the first thing is to block the enemy in Suzhou, to defend Jiading, and to defend Taicang!" Shi Langyi continued: "We should immediately go north to Suzhou, and then divide our troops to Taicang to prevent the enemy from moving south from Taicang!" ”

But as soon as these words fell, Shi Qingxuan on the side said: "Divide the troops? This is not proper, we originally had few troops, even if we added the sailor battalion that had not yet arrived, it was less than 4,500 people, and once the troops were divided, we would give the enemy a chance to break through! ”

At this time, Hunter William, who had been listening to the translation and interpretation of the content of the meeting, also spoke: "Ladies and gentlemen, I also do not agree with the division of troops, the advantage of our army lies in the high degree of organization, but this high degree of organization needs to be built on sufficient troops!" ”

Since 1854, Hunter William's influence and status in Yu Shengjun have declined rapidly, and under some psychology of Huayi's defense, Yu Shengjun's middle and senior generals have begun to ignore this person, intentionally or unintentionally. However, Hunter William is also an ambitious person, he doesn't want to be able to get a few hundred taels of silver a month in the future, and he doesn't want to be kicked out of Yu Shengjun.

For him, Yu Shengjun was trained by him, and the effort spent on it was no less than Lin Zhe, and he wanted to do a great career in Yu Shengjun.

So when he seizes the opportunity, he will also speak in time and brush up on his sense of storage.

Seeing that these words caught everyone's attention, Hunter William pointed to the map and said: "Ladies and gentlemen, we are now under-armed, and we are destined to be unable to defend many areas in the rear. What we should do now is to concentrate our forces and take the initiative to attack, and then give the enemy a head-on blow, forcing them to abandon their intention to attack us on their own initiative! ”

"Take the initiative?" Listening to Hunter William's words, Lin Zhe fell into deep thought.

After listening to the words of the simultaneous interpretation, the other generals immediately looked at Hunter William, among whom Shen Chiyun, who had been transferred from the commander of the fourth battalion to the commander of the second battalion, said: "We only have 4,000 soldiers, and we take the initiative to attack the enemy's thief army with as little as 40,000 and as much as 50,000 or 60,000?" ”

After listening to the interpreter's words, Hunter Wilhelm said directly: "As far as I know, the enemy army was less than 10,000 men half a month ago, and now the extra 40,000 to 50,000 troops have not undergone any training at all, they are not even soldiers, they are just a group of farmers, and in the face of people who have not undergone any training, there is no reason why we can't take the initiative to attack!" ”

As he said these words, Hunter Wilhelm was imbued with the confidence and arrogance characteristic of a professional soldier.

I have to say that Lin Zhe was moved by Hunter William's words, even if the current Wu Ruxiao's department has rapidly swelled to forty or fifty thousand or even more people, but the extra people are basically the people who are holding them hostage, everyone drags their families with their families, and most of them are old, weak, women and children.

There will never be more than 20,000 truly combatable soldiers, and only half of the 20,000 combatants are the regular army of the Taiping Army.

In addition, their equipment level will definitely not exceed the level of Lin Chengting's department, the source of ordnance of the Taiping Army mainly relies on self-made and captured, but whether it is captured or self-made, it is mainly cold weapons, as well as a small number of arquebuses and small-caliber artillery.

In addition, the department has been besieged in Zhenjiang for a long time, and there is no news that the department has a large-scale cavalry, at most only a few hundred cavalry on a small scale.

From this point of view, in fact, the strength of Wu Ruxiao's department is still not as good as Lin Chengting's department, when Lin Chengting went south to northern Zhejiang, he brought more than 13,000 regular troops, and there are more than 40 artillery pieces, as well as more than 4,000 musketeers, and 1,000 elite cavalry.

The reason why Wu Ruxiao's department made Lin Zhe feel difficult to deal with was because of the large number of troops in the department;

If you have more troops, you can attack in many directions, making it difficult for you to block everywhere with few troops, even if you hold one direction, but he can continue to attack from another direction, and in the end he will be exhausted and tired to death.

Thinking of this, Lin Zhe was also reluctant to let them quarrel anymore: "We are Yu Shengjun, are we still afraid of tens of thousands of thieves!" ”

Immediately, Lin Zhe ordered: "The plan remains unchanged, continue to go north to Suzhou, I want to see how many heads this Wu Ruxiao has grown, whether it is enough for my Yu Shengjun soldiers to cut off!" ”

Everyone listened to Lin Zhe's order to make a final decision, and although the generals of Yu Shengjun's army were a few worried, they still obeyed the order and led the army north.

Wujiang is only twenty or thirty kilometers away from the city of Suzhou, and although it is still very cautious along the way, it also arrived outside the city of Suzhou in the morning of the third day.

At this time, two days have passed since Suzhou was broken!

After arriving outside Suzhou, Lin Zhe originally planned to let the troops be stationed for a day to rest, and then observe the defense system of the Taiping Army in Suzhou, and then find loopholes to attack the city.

But I didn't expect that my Yu Shengjun had just arrived, and before he had time to set up camp, a large number of people in messy clothes and wielding swords, hoes, sickles, and even wooden sticks suddenly rushed out of the city.

There are no less than 10,000 people who have already left the city, and there are many more who are leaving the city in a steady stream, 10,000, 20,000, 30,000, 40,000......

Looking at the dense crowd in the distance, Lin Zhe suddenly had a feeling that he was caught in the ocean!

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