"Did the thieves really withdraw from the city?"

"How many of them are out of town? What about Lin Chengting's new thief army? Out of town? Lin Zhe wiped his face with a towel soaked in cold water and asked Xu Pengan next to him.

Although Xu Peng'an was neatly dressed by candlelight in the tent, it could be seen from the corner of his jacket that he should have just been woken up from his sleep and hurried to Lin Zhe's side.

Facing Lin Zhe's questioning, Xu Peng'an looked ashamed: "Due to the urgency of the matter and the dark sky, we can't know exactly how many people from the thief army have left the city for the time being, and we haven't been able to find out the number of the enemy army!" ”

"After discovering that the enemy army withdrew from the city from the northwest direction, the commander of the regiment Lin who was in charge of the night had already ordered the reconnaissance cavalry to go out to investigate, and also sent the first auxiliary defense regiment to launch a tentative attack on the enemy's frontal defense line, but it was returned by the enemy's fierce firepower, according to the enemy's return fire, Lin Chengting's headquarters should still be in the city!"

The Taiping Army and Yu Shengjun held each other in Changzhou City for many days, and they were still able to obtain some basic military information about each other, and Yu Shengjun had already ascertained that only Lin Chengting's new army in Changzhou City used foreign guns, arquebuses, and artillery on a large scale, and its combat mode was very similar to that of Yu Shengjun.

However, although the other two armies, namely the armies of Wu Ruxiao and Qin Rigang, were numerous, they only had a small number of arquebuses and artillery, and most of the soldiers were still equipped with cold weapons.

If the tentative attack of the First Auxiliary Defense Regiment was counterattacked by the enemy's cold weapon troops, then Lin Chengting's new army would most likely have left the city, but now they were met with intensive hot weapon fire, then it proved that Lin Chengting's new army was still in Changzhou.

It should be Qin Rigang or Wu Ruxiao's troops who go out of the city!

Xu Pengan took Lin Zhe's coat from the personal soldiers next to him, and then personally stepped forward and handed it to Lin Zhe, and asked at the same time: "Marshal, although we have not yet found accurate information on the retreat of the thief army, we can preliminarily determine that the thief army out of the city has exceeded 20,000 people. It is very likely that they are coming back to Zhenjiang, what should we do now? Do you want to chase it immediately? ”

Lin Zhe put on his coat and said, "Pursuit? Why chase? ”

Lin Zhe's rhetorical question suddenly made Xu Pengan a little unresponsive. I was stunned for a while.

At this time, I heard Lin Zhe say: "Everyone has arrived, let's have a meeting!" ”

Like Lin Zhe and Xu Peng'an, he went out of the city at night with the Taiping army. All of a sudden, Yu Shengjun's camp suddenly became nervous, and both the soldiers and officers were shouted. In the middle of the night, the camp's torches were lit up, illuminating the entire camp as if it were daytime.

Many of Yu Shengjun's senior generals were already in the tent of Qihuizhong's military camp, and Lin Anfei, who was in charge of tonight's duty, told Lin Zhe and the other generals about the current situation.

"According to what we have learned so far, the enemy troops left the city from the west gate and the north gate of Changzhou half an hour ago, judging by the number of torches of the enemy army. The enemy army has accumulated about 20,000 people out of the city, and it is worth noting that the enemy army is still going out of the city! ”

"Twenty minutes ago, I ordered the 4th Mixed Regiment and the 1st Auxiliary Defense Regiment on duty to launch a tentative attack on the enemy in front of Changzhou, and under the cover of the fire of our 4th Mixed Regiment, the 1st Auxiliary Defense Regiment once rushed into some of the enemy's trenches and engaged in hand-to-hand combat with the thieves. However, it was returned by the enemy's fierce firepower, and judging from the density of the enemy's firepower, it can be judged that the enemy foreign gun troops outside the city are still in the city, and it is very likely to act as a broken rear force! ”

"The cavalry regiment has sent the 3rd Cavalry Company to join the 4th Cavalry Platoon of the 4th Mixed Regiment to conduct reconnaissance, and it is expected that it will be able to provide us with an accurate report on the situation of the enemy forces in the future!"

"In addition. In the camp of the official army, Minister He has sent Zhang Guoliang to lead his troops to pursue in the northwest direction, and the specific number of people sent has not yet been known. ”

After Lin Anfei's preliminary explanation, Shi Langyi spoke first: "Obviously, the thief army was affected by the capture of Zhenjiang by the second mixed regiment of our army, and it has already sent troops to the west, and a large number of thieves are coming to the west, I'm afraid Brother Xu's second mixed regiment will be in danger!" ”

Shi Qingxuan on the side said: "I will immediately launch a pursuit operation against the thief army, catch up and directly defeat them in the field!" ”

As everyone began to discuss it, Lin Zhe also pondered. Forcing the Taiping army to withdraw from Changzhou was the established tactical goal of Yu Sheng's army, otherwise they would not have risked letting the 2nd Mixed Regiment penetrate deep into the enemy's deep hinterland to attack Zhenjiang.

And in Lin Zhe's heart, once the Taiping army withdraws, then he will be able to take Changzhou. In this way, his strategic goal of defending the Susongtai region was completed.

As for the pursuit, to be honest, this was not in Lin Zhe's consideration.

The reason for this is more complicated, if you pursue first, it is very likely to be ambushed by the enemy, you must know that the strength of the Taiping army far exceeds its own Yu Shengjun, and it is very likely to use the advantage of strength to lure and ambush yourself.

In addition, Lin Zhe didn't want to completely defeat the elite of the Taiping Army of 70,000 or 80,000. If the elite of the 70,000 or 80,000 Taiping Army is accidentally defeated, the Taiping Army in the entire southern Jiangsu and southern Anhui regions can be said to have lost all their losses.

After destroying the 80,000 elites of the Taiping Army and conquering Tianjing, this Taiping Heavenly Kingdom will be considered finished, and the first unlucky person at that time will be Lin Zhe.

Lin Zhe knew that the Qing court was suspicious of him, and with the existence of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, the Qing court did not dare to tear his face with himself, but once the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom was destroyed, the Qing court would directly aim the gun at himself without any scruples, so that he would be forced to rise up.

However, although Yu Shengjun's combat effectiveness is strong, if he wants to successfully rebel, the number of troops is still too small, and the number of troops in Su Songtai and northern Zhejiang is already insufficient, not to mention the use of this 10,000 troops to fight with the Qing court throughout the country.

Don't look at the fact that the Qing court has been defeated and retreated by the Taiping army in recent years, and it has been defeated, but the strength of the Qing court cannot be muttered because of this, at present, the Qing court can use at least five or six hundred thousand armed forces such as the Green Battalion, the Eight Banners, and the regimental training.

Although most of these people have extremely low combat effectiveness, ants can also bite and kill elephants.

Besides, the Qing Dynasty occupied the territory of the whole country, and the loss of tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of people in this defeat is nothing, and it will not take a few months to be able to re-pull out an army of hundreds of thousands of people, you see Hubei, Hunan and Jiangbei, the Qing army has been defeated repeatedly, and the loss of troops and weapons is more, but they are fighting more and more.

As for Yu Shengjun, as long as he loses a few thousand people. Then you have to abolish most of the combat strength of the remaining victory army.

If the army is too small, it is very likely that he will fall into a very disadvantageous situation, so Lin Zhe needs the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom to continue to survive until he has the strength to rebel. until the Qing court was overthrown.

However, this kind of thinking in his heart cannot be said to these generals here, although after two years, under Lin Zhe's co-optation and publicity, most of Yu Shengjun's generals have become accustomed to putting Yu Shengjun's interests above the interests of the imperial court.

In the eyes of the bigwigs of the Qing court, this Yu Shengjun went up to Lin Zhe and down to the next army. All of them are arrogant soldiers, with no court in their eyes, and they are extremely domineering.

However, even so, many people have never imagined rebellion or anything like that.

Therefore, in the past two years, Lin Zhe has never revealed his intention to rebel against these subordinates, he just doesn't need to instill in these subordinates that the court is unfair to Yu Shengjun and cause them to be dissatisfied with the court. At the same time, let them gradually put the interests of the small collective of Yu Shengjun above the interests of the imperial court.

I can't say what I thought in my heart, so Lin Zhe just changed to another Chinese statement: "The thief army in Changzhou is 70,000 or 80,000 miles, and only Lin Chengting's 20,000 new army can be used to fight, and the others are just ants, and now Lin Chengting's new army is still in Changzhou City." We can't afford to act rashly.

As for the pursuit, didn't Zhang Guoliang already lead people to pursue, and when he turned around and said to the minister, he said that the battle in Changzhou was still in charge of our Yu Shengjun, and as for the pursuit, it was handed over to them! ”

"In addition, quickly send an order to Xu Yanqing, let him be more careful in the future, and go deep into the hinterland of the enemy army to preserve the troops, and withdraw immediately when it is not possible!"

Having conquered Zhenjiang and attracted a large number of reinforcements from the Taiping Army in Changzhou, the Second Mixed Regiment had completed their strategic mission. Now it is natural that we should protect our own safety.

In the face of Lin Zhe's decisions, although a few people didn't understand, they weren't stupid enough to ask Lin Zhe why he did this, most of them could guess. Lin Zhe probably didn't want to lose his troops in order to pursue the thief army.

A few people could guess that Lin Zhe's move seemed to be suspected of raising bandits.

However, none of them objected to Lin Zhe's decision, after all, they also put Yu Shengjun's interests first, and what are Yu Shengjun's interests?

Naturally, it is the trade area and Jianghaiguan in Susongtaili, as long as the Taiping army does not try to enter the Susongtai area, then Yu Shengjun will not care about the Taiping army and the Qing army to die or live, this fact has been fully proved before. Huang Zonghan and Xiang Rong and Wu Ruxiao of the Jiangnan camp fought hard for many years, but failed to recover Changzhou and Zhenjiang.

At that time, if Lin Zhe was willing to send troops to help, he would have taken back Changzhou and Zhenjiang Prefecture a long time ago, so why wait until now.

In the face of Lin Zhe saying that he would not pursue, but would continue to garrison troops outside Changzhou, although He Chun was dissatisfied, he also knew that there were more than 20,000 thieves outside Changzhou now, and he couldn't care about it, so it was reasonable for Yu Shengjun to stay.

In order to avoid the pursuit of these Qing troops in two days by the Taiping army, Lin Zhe also specially sent a cavalry company to follow them far behind, providing them with some reconnaissance information, so as not to put them into the encirclement of the Taiping army.

Let's not mention that Qin Rigang and Wu Ruxiao jointly led troops west to aid Tianjing, and said that after Xu Yanqing took Zhenjiang, he did not stay in Zhenjiang for long, but after a day of hurried rest, he led the army to the west again, and his goal was directly aimed at Tianjing.

Three days later, Xu Yanqing has appeared under the Tianjing City, looking at the tall city wall of Tianjing, Xu Yanqing also gave birth to a burst of heroism in his heart, when he sent troops from Huzhou, who would have thought that he Xu Yanqing would be able to advance all the way, attacking the city and pulling out the village to defeat more than 50,000 enemy troops, and the strength under his command has swelled from more than 2,500 people to more than 8,000 now.

Turning his head to look at his eight thousand army, Xu Yanqing held his command knife high and pointed to the Tianjing City in front of him, and shouted: "Erlang, kill, kill the rebels and reward ten thousand taels of silver!" (To be continued.) )