Shi Dakai has been deliberately withdrawing from the right and wrong place of Nanjing since the Chinese army attacked Zhenjiang, not that he wanted to take the initiative to retreat, but that the Chinese army occupying southern Jiangsu and northern Zhejiang was too strong, and he had never won the war between the Taiping army and the Chinese army.

And the discerning people know that Nanjing, Zhenjiang and other places in southern Jiangsu are the places where the Chinese army must attack, and if the nascent Chinese Empire wants to lay the foundation and expand further, then Nanjing and Zhenjiang must be taken.

Regardless of whether Nanjing and Zhenjiang were in the hands of the Qing army or the Taiping army, there was no difference between the two!

In the face of such a strong enemy, Shi Dakai did not have the confidence to continue to hold the isolated city of Tianjing, so after hesitating for several days, he finally made up his mind to withdraw from Tianjing after learning that the Chinese army had conquered Zhenjiang.

To withdraw from Tianjing, it is naturally not a simple matter, this is not a simple military retreat, but a strategic retreat to move as a whole.

He had to take away not only forty or fifty thousand troops, but also the families of these soldiers, and at the same time, in order to ensure the foundation after the withdrawal, he also had to bring a large number of belongings, not to mention gold and silver, and more importantly, food, and the population was also very important, so he also took a large number of young people in the city to withdraw.

And the sum of many people, the total number of people he took from Tianjing was more than 150,000!

This kind of huge strategic retreat is naturally not a simple matter, although he has made careful arrangements and prepared many days in advance, but it only took many days to complete the retreat.

In order to gain more time, he also left some cannon fodder troops to continue to stay in Tianjing City, so that they could continue to defend the city by holding the young people in the city, not asking for how long they could defend it, but begging to create momentum and sing an empty city plan in order to buy themselves more time.

After so many arrangements, he barely withdrew with 150,000 people, and walked for three or four days before arriving in Dangtu, at which time they were almost seventy kilometers away from Tianjing.

The reason why he walked relatively slowly was mainly because a large number of non-combatants slowed down the speed, if Shi Dakai didn't care about anything and only fled west with more than 40,000 elite main forces, this would have run hundreds of kilometers away, to say the least.

After arriving in Dangtu, Shi Dakai did not relax, did not even rest, but let the retreating army continue to move westward, at this time he also re-adopted the early tactics of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, that is, to encircle the local people to advance together, and re-become a typical homeless army.

In order to prevent the pursuit of the Chinese army, Shi Dakai arranged a small number of backbone troops, with a large number of coerced and forcibly recruited young men to garrison Dangtu, and did not ask how long they could block it, as long as they could hold Dangtu for a few days, then it would be enough for Shi Dakai.

In addition, he sent another general under his command, Chen Yucheng, to lead the elite 5,000 to cross the river to the north, and Shi Dakai's task was to attack the northern Anhui region.

Although Chen Yucheng's elite troops sent to northern Anhui are only 5,000, the Taiping army has now resumed its previous mobile warfare, and it is basically a place to be enveloped by a place, and I believe that Chen Yucheng will be able to pull out an army of tens of thousands of people in a few months.

As for himself, he continued to lead a huge army of displaced people to continue westward, including about 40,000 soldiers of the regular army of the Taiping Army, more than 100,000 people, more than 2,000 large and small wooden boats, the establishment of Nanjing, and all the grain that could be scavenged along the way.

These more than 100,000 people marched all the way west, and their goal was very obvious, that is, to go to Jiujiang initially, and then go south to Jiangxi or continue west to Hubei depending on the situation.

Shi Dakai gave up the foundation of Tianjing, the king, and returned to the pre-liberation period to become the king of Liukou overnight, and marched westward, which was bound to bring great threats to Lin Chengting in south-central Jiangxi, Zeng Guofan and others in Huguang Province.

Shi Dakai can't beat Lin Zhe, but it doesn't mean that he can't beat Zeng Guofan and Lin Chengting!

Shi Dakai ran away, and although the Second Division and the Second Cavalry Regiment of the Chinese Army also rushed westward to pursue, Shi Dakai walked many days in advance after all, and the distance between the two sides was sixty-seven kilometers. And the Chinese army is not an iron-clad army that can march 100 kilometers day and night, and it will walk more than 20 kilometers at most on this day.

As for the 800 cavalry of the 2nd Cavalry Regiment, if you let them run for a short distance of about 10 kilometers, if you let them run dozens of kilometers in one go, those horses can be exhausted to death.

Generally speaking, except for the nomadic cavalry of ancient times who rode three or even four horses and could easily march hundreds or even hundreds of kilometers in a row, other cavalry on a single horse actually had a very limited speed of long-distance marching.

The cavalry in the Chinese army is generally a single horse, and the marching state is to lead the horse, and even after entering the battlefield, they continue to lead the horse, and only when they are about to meet the enemy will they turn over and get on the horse, so it is often seen that the cavalry has a very important order before the battle, that is, 'get on the horse'.

But the long march is not as fast as the infantry.

So the 2nd Cavalry Regiment was only thrown off on the first day, but on the second and third days, in order to ensure the health of the horses, their marching speed dropped rapidly, and by the time they reached Dangtu, the 2nd Division had already caught up.

When they arrived at Dangtu, due to the stubborn resistance of the enemy in Dangtu, although the second division was strong, it was more cautious to avoid indifferent casualties, and it took three days to defeat Dangtu.

At this time, Shi Dakai had already run to Chizhou Mansion with a large number of people, and the distance between the two sides was already a hundred kilometers away.

In this regard, Lin Anfei could only give up the high-speed march and continue to pursue the enemy, but continued to attack all parts of southern Anhui in a steady and steady manner.

Over the years, as a place where the Qing army and the Taiping army fought for a long time, the people's livelihood in southern Anhui has been quite severely damaged, especially in the southern Anhui plain north of Xuancheng, where a large number of people were killed and injured in the war.

In addition, although there have been Taiping military activities in southern Anhui for a long time, in fact, the Taiping army has rarely been able to control the area for a long time, and it is often the Taiping army that comes to take these places, but as soon as they leave, the various local regimental exercises organized by local officials of the Qing court are to make a comeback and then recover these places.

This also caused that although there was no large-scale Qing army in southern Anhui, in fact, there were not many areas controlled by the Qing court, and Lin Anfei's second division marched into southern Anhui, not only facing the Taiping army, but also facing the resistance of the Qing army.

Fortunately, due to the westward advance of the main force of the Taiping army, most of the Taiping troops who remained in the Wuhu area were a few elites, and then brought many people who were coerced, and their survival was mainly to block the westward pursuit of the Chinese army.

As for the Qing army, the Qing court actually did not have a large-scale and organized imperial army in southern Anhui, and all that was active in this area were various regimental training organized by local officials themselves, and the people were strong.

Naturally, these troops could not resist the attack of the Second Division of the Chinese Army.

The Second Division's offensive in the eastern part of southern Anhui was almost overwhelming, and it soon conquered the remaining two counties of Taipingfu: Wuhu and Fanchang, and then divided its troops to continue westward to Tongling, while Lin Anfei led the main force to cross the Yangtze River in Wuhu and then marched into northern Anhui.

At the same time, the first regiment of the Fourth Division stationed in northern Zhejiang also entered Ningguo from Guangde, and the second regiment entered Xuancheng, the capital of Ningguofu, with the same auxiliary defense division.

By mid-April, the Chinese army had completely controlled the Taiping Mansion and Ningguo Mansion in the eastern part of southern Anhui.

At this time, if you look at the map, you will find that the territory of the Chinese Empire has covered all the plains in the Jiangnan region.

With the Yangtze River as the boundary, south of the Yangtze River, west of Tongling, north of Xuancheng, and then to Guangde, Huzhou and other places, almost all the plains in the Jiangnan region have fallen into the hands of the Chinese Empire.

The Chinese Empire, which sits on the essence of the entire south of the Yangtze River, can barely be regarded as laying the foundation for hegemony at this time, and the word "empire" in the Chinese Empire can barely be regarded as qualified.

After taking the Taiping Mansion and Ningguo Mansion in southern Anhui, although the Second and Fourth Divisions still continued to fight against the Qing army and the Taiping Army in southern and northern Anhui, the 10th Mixed Brigade also entered Fujian along the coast and engaged in fierce battles with the local Qing army.

But on the whole, the large-scale spring offensive of the Chinese army has come to an end and has entered a short period of recuperation.

Taking advantage of the opportunity to take a short rest, Lin Anfei left Wuhu, and then took his soldiers down the river on the navy's gunboats and returned to Nanjing.

He wants to go back to Nanjing to participate in the Dingdu ceremony!

Although Lin Zhe had already proclaimed himself emperor in February, he did not explicitly regard Shanghai as the capital at that time, because the big guys were all thinking about taking down Nanjing as the capital.

Now that Nanjing has been taken, it shows that the political center of the Chinese Empire has moved to Nanjing, and a grand ceremony was held to set the capital, and the military and political dignitaries from all sides once again gathered in Nanjing.

Except for those who really couldn't get out, such as Chen Yuntao, the commander of the 10th Mixed Brigade in Fujian, most of the other military and political dignitaries who were able to rush back rushed back in time.

There were only a dozen personal soldiers who came back with Lin Anfei, and the remaining officers of the Second Division still had to lead the army to fight outside, so it was impossible to go back with Lin Anfei.

They were on the Navy's gunboat Xingguang, which was the eighth ship of the Xingwu-class gunboats, with a displacement of only more than 80 tons, but although it was not large, it was equipped with a steam engine and dark wheel propulsion, and a 12-pounder shipboard cannon and three six-pounder guns. Ideal for fighting on inland rivers.

The Imperial Chinese Admiralty has been equipped since 1855, and there are currently as many as 13 ships in service, and three more are under construction and service.

This class of ships is the absolute main ship of the Imperial Chinese Navy's inland river operations.

Because the Xingguang itself sailed at a speed of up to eight knots, and because it was going downstream, it only took Lin Anfei and the others seven hours to arrive in Nanjing, which was much faster than taking the land route. (To be continued.) )