On February 6, 1857, Lin Zhe proclaimed the emperor in Shanghai, founded the country 'China', and awarded the title of 'Xuanwu', and the news of his accession to the throne and emperor also quickly spread all over the country, and caused an uproar.

The first to get the news was naturally the people of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom not far away.

In the Tianjing Wing Palace, the young Shi Dakai and many of his subordinates sat together!

"I didn't expect this Lin Zhe to be so urgent, he dared to call himself the emperor only in control of a small amount of land, and he was not afraid of being ridiculed by the world!" A general next to him said.

However, another person said, "The land of projectiles? Now the two places in southern Jiangsu and Zhejiang, which he Lin Zhe controls, are both wealth-rich places, enough to raise hundreds of thousands of soldiers. Now that this Lin Zhe has been established as the emperor, it can be seen that his ambition is in Kyushu, so I am afraid that we will have to directly confront him next? ”

"What are you afraid of, we have fought less with Yu Shengjun in the past few years, if they dare to take the initiative to go west, we will beat Yu Shengjun down!" The man just said that.

It's just that Shi Dakai on the side sighed secretly in his heart when he heard it, others may not have found out yet, but Shi Dakai found that this person was talking about what if they dared to take the initiative to go west, not saying that we would immediately wave our troops to the east.

The difference between the two has fully proved that the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom and the Chinese Empire were stronger and weaker, and if it had been put in the past, it would have been the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom that took the initiative.

In the past few years, the Taiping army went south to northern Zhejiang several times, and twice went east to southern Jiangsu, while Yu Shengjun could only be exhausted and rushed to northern Zhejiang and southern Jiangsu to resist.

However, since a large number of his subordinates in Tianjing, Yang Xiuqing, Qin Rigang, and Wei Changhui were directly killed last year, Lin Chengting, the newly rising core general within the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, led the army to rebel, and even attacked Tianjing City for a time.

This series of events directly led to the killing of hundreds of experienced generals in the Taiping Heavenly Empire, and the death and wounding of tens of thousands of key veterans.

Directly let the strength of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom decline rapidly, although the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom in early 1857 and can be regarded as a military force Hu Zongduo, but there were not many veterans and elites at the beginning, and they were all new soldiers, who were young and strong, and their combat effectiveness declined rapidly.

The generals of the Taiping Army, whose own strength has declined, no longer dare to speak lightly of going eastward!

In addition to the decline in its own strength, the external situation of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom was also very bad.

Later, although Shi Dakai sent troops to pursue Lin Chengting to recover Nanchang, Lin Chengting gathered nearly 20,000 people at the end of last year, and then counterattacked and took Nanchang, and Shi Dakai's troops had to retreat to the Jiujiang area, and Lin Chengting pinned down at least 30,000 troops in Jiujiang and other northern Jiangxi regions.

In addition, in Hubei, Wuchang, which was repeatedly contested by the Qing army and the Taiping army, was reduced due to the internal strife in Tianjing in 1856, and the main forces of the Taiping army such as Shi Dakai came to the east.

At this time, Zeng Guofan, who had finally escaped back from Nanchang, once again led his army to war, sent Luo Zenan and other troops to attack Wuchang, Hubei, and after many months of siege, finally captured Wuchang in the autumn of 1856, and then led the army down the river, preparing to attack Jiujiang again.

Fortunately, Zeng Guofan's luck was really not very good, he sent more than 20,000 troops to attack Jiujiang for the second time, but he was defeated by the Taiping army again, but the Taiping army in the direction of Jiujiang still had Lin Chengting's department in the south, so Lin Qirong and other Taiping army generals did not dare to pursue, otherwise it is estimated that they will be able to conquer Wuchang again.

At the same time, Shi Dakai also sent Li Xiucheng, Chen Yucheng and others to attack southern Anhui, northern Anhui and other places!

However, although Shi Dakai had done his best to maintain, and even tried to expand the territory occupied by the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, the effect was actually quite limited.

Looking at the current situation of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, it can basically be found that they are surrounded on all sides, with Lin Zhe's Yu Sheng's army in the east, Zeng Guofan's Hunan army in the west, Lin Chengting's Zhenhu army in the south, and the rest of the Qing army in the north, such as Li Hongzhang's Jianghuai New Army.

No matter how Shi Dakai rushes left and right, he is already destined to be unable to tear through this increasingly tight net.

In this situation, how could Shi Dakai not be worried!

Although Shi Dakai is young, he can climb to this position in the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, become one person under ten thousand people, and have full control over the affairs of the Taiping Heavenly **, he cannot be an ordinary person.

Speaking of Shi Dakai, many people will think that he is an old man, or think that he is a middle-aged man in his forties and fifties, but in fact, Shi Dakai is very young, the youngest of the early kings of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, he was born in 1831, one year younger than Lin Zhe.

He was only twenty years old when he was crowned King of Wings in 1851, and he was twenty-two years old when he led his troops to conquer Nanjing. At the time of Jiujiang's first defeat of the Hunan army, he was twenty-four years old. After the internal strife in Tianjing, he was named the chief general of the Holy Spirit Dentsu Army, and when he was crowned nine thousand years old, he was only twenty-five years old.

It's just that he, like Lin Zhe, as a high-level commander, has long been ignored by people, so no one cares that this Shi Dakai is only twenty-six years old now, and he doesn't pay attention to Lin Zhe, who is only twenty-seven years old this year.

Don't think that Shi Dakai is easy to bully when he is young, in fact, among the generals of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, Shi Dakai's military talent is enough to rank among the top three.

Among the many princely generals of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, Yang Xiuqing is a very typical political and military leader, with a good strategic vision, relying on the Heavenly Father to firmly control the power of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom for many years, during his reign, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom reached its peak, the Northern Expedition arrived in Zhili, conquered Hubei in the west, and occupied Jiangxi, supported Lin Chengting to train the new army, and then relied on this new army to conquer the Jiangnan camp in one fell swoop, and forced Suzhou and other places.

It's just that he was a little unlucky, and at the peak of his reigning career, he was killed by Hong Xiuquan, Qin Rigang, and Wei Changhui.

And the early Feng Yunshan was a very typical strategist, without him there would be no Taiping Heavenly Kingdom.

Xiao Chaogui's military talent was quite outstanding, but unfortunately he died early.

Only Shi Dakai, from the beginning to the present, this person not only has outstanding military achievements to highlight his good military talent, but also his ability to govern the country is not bad, in the early days in Anhui to carry out the 'Anqing easy system', and in the later period, he made every effort to promote the 'pay grain and tax as usual', which changed the previous Taiping Heavenly Kingdom's rogue-style operation mode and became a real political power.

And Qin Rigang, Wei Changhui, Wu Ruxiao, Lin Chengting, these generals of the Taiping Army, each have their own characteristics, and a few other people don't talk about it, but Lin Chengting, this person's tactical or strategic ability is actually very ordinary, and the use of soldiers is far less unpredictable than Shi Dakai, but he has several very good advantages, that is, he is good at learning and will never give up!

The eight words 'taking the enemy as a teacher, repeatedly defeating and fighting' are enough to cover his military career in the past few years!

Looking at the many generals in Taiping, it will be found that Shi Dakai's ability to take charge of the power of Taiping Tian** is not due to luck, but he relied on his own ability to get up step by step.

Such a person had already seen the strategic dilemma facing the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom today, and began to try to break this dilemma, so he sent Li Xiucheng and others to cross the river into northern Anhui and other places.

But before he could break the current strategic disadvantage, Lin Zhe in the east was unwilling to be lonely and directly called the emperor the system.

Once this Lin Zhe is called the emperor, then the next step will definitely be a large-scale military action, and he will bear the brunt of it at that time.

Just as the lands of southern Jiangsu and Zhejiang occupied by Lin Zhe were like bone spurs in the throat of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom that occupied Zhenjiang and Jiangning was also a roadblock that Yu Shengjun had to eradicate.

Whether Lin Zhe's Chinese Empire wants to move westward or northward, or simply southward, it must occupy Zhenjiang and Nanjing, so that Yu Shengjun can no longer continue to station most of the main forces in southern Jiangsu, and can draw out the main forces to carry out the northern expedition or go south.

Therefore, although both the Chinese Empire and the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom faced the same enemy as the Qing court, after Lin Zhe took Zhejiang, he did not send troops to climb the mountains and hills of Fujian, but led his army straight to Tianjing.

In order to take Tianjing and Zhenjiang, completely guarantee the strategic security of the Jiangnan region, and ensure the strategic security of the Jiangnan region, Yu Shengjun can obtain a steady stream of financial food to support the subsequent struggle for hegemony, and can also liberate more troops to implement the strategy of going south or north.

This is a rather tragic thing for the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, Lin Zhe raised the anti-flag to overthrow the Manchu court, but after the initial settlement and recovery of Zhejiang, the first attack was the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom.

Who allowed the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom to occupy Zhenjiang and Nanjing, blocking the subsequent strategic development of the Chinese Empire!

In the face of Lin Zhe's establishment as emperor, Shi Dakai had already expected that Yu Sheng's army would advance westward, so he also made considerable arrangements and began to transfer troops in Jiujiang and northern Anhui to reinforce Tianjing and Zhenjiang.

On the side of the Qing court, the reaction to Lin Zhe's establishment of the emperor was even greater, and the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom only had a slight discussion from the top, and then made some moves to transfer troops and send generals, but the shock was much greater on the side of the Qing court.

Although in the past two years, the upper echelons of the Qing court have expected Lin Zhe to rebel, and even made many targeted measures to delay and suppress Lin Zhe's rebellion intentions, such as transferring Huang Zonghan as the governor of Jiangsu, the governor of Liangjiang, and supporting Li Hongzhang to organize and train the Jianghuai New Army, etc., the original intention was not to say that it was because of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, but to target Lin Zhe.

But on the other hand, the-for-tat of the Qing court made Lin Zhe feel pressure, and finally had to raise the flag in advance to rebel.

When Lin Zhe called himself the generalissimo of China in December last year, the Qing court had already spread a panic, and many ministers asked the court to send a large army to exterminate Lin Zhe, but his own family knew his own affairs, and now the Qing court has no soldiers in the Jiangnan region, and there are not many nearly 10,000 Jianghuai new troops in Jiangbei, not to mention crossing the river to suppress the Yu Shengjun, and it is difficult to say whether Yangzhou and Jianghuai can be kept.

Although the Qing court also talked about Lin Zhe's self-reliance at the beginning, more of them continued to endure it, and then tried their best to train the new army.

But now, that Lin Zhe is not self-reliant, and he even dares to call himself the emperor, which makes a large number of Manchu Qing elites angry and even more panicked! (To be continued.) )