Lin Zhe didn't know when the Taiping army marched into Suzhou on a large scale in the original time and space, but now, the Taiping army's sudden large-scale attack on Suzhou was completely unexpected by Lin Zhe.

At present, although the Qing army and the Taiping army are still at a disadvantage in combat and often suffer defeats, in terms of overall strategy, in fact, the Qing army still has an advantage.

In the north, the Qing army blocked the Taiping Army's Northern Expeditionary Army and the Northern Expeditionary Reinforcements' northward advance, stabilizing the overall situation of Zhili and Shandong, and the destruction of these two Northern Expeditionary Taiping Army was already a matter of time.

In Huguang, Zeng Guofan's Hunan army has captured Yuezhou, and the front of the troops is directed at Wuchang, Hubei, and from the situation of the Taiping army stationed, the chance of them being able to hold Wuchang is very small, once Wuchang is recovered by the Qing army, then Zeng Guofan and other Qing troops will lead the army down the river, pointing directly to Jiujiang, and then approaching southern Anhui and arriving in Tianjing.

In southern Anhui, southern Jiangsu, Jiangbei and other places, the Qing army also occupied a strategic advantage. On the Jiangbei side, with the formation of the Northern Expedition reinforcements with some Taiping troops stationed in Yangzhou, the number of Taiping troops stationed in Yangzhou was not large, and they could only stick to the isolated town of Yangzhou.

In southern Jiangsu, with the fall of the Shanghai Little Knife Society and Yu Shengjun's assistance in the defense of Shanghai, Xu Naizhao, the governor of Jiangsu, led the army back to Zhenjiang, and asked Lin Zhe for more than 1,000 green battalion soldiers in the Susongtai area, and received thousands of reinforcements from Xiang Rong, leading more than 10,000 troops to attack Zhenjiang.

In southern Anhui, Lin Chengting, a member of the Taiping army, led more than 10,000 troops south to northern Zhejiang after a year of lying on his back, but now he has been defeated by Yu Sheng's army.

Judging from the above-mentioned multiple fronts, the local regimental training in the Qing army, that is, the Hunan army, and the Yu Shengjun have gradually grown, coupled with many Qing army green battalions, eight banners and other troops, on the whole, in the summer and autumn of 1854, the Qing army occupied an overall strategic advantage.

However, under this big back, the Qing army in southern Jiangsu came to a big fiasco, tens of thousands of soldiers and horses were defeated by the Taiping army in Zhenjiang, and Changzhou was eroded, and Suzhou was in danger.

This made Lin Zhe quite speechless, none of these green battalions could be relied on, and it didn't matter if they couldn't capture Zhenjiang, they came to a fiasco.

At this time, he didn't know that because of the appearance of Yu Shengjun, the war between the Qing army and the Taiping army in this era had undergone many changes.

For example, in history, the Taiping army did not march into northern Zhejiang on a large scale in 1854, and the reason why the Taiping army marched into northern Zhejiang was entirely because of the sudden emergence of a Yu Shengjun.

The same is true of Zhenjiang, the history of Shanghai's knife society has been tossed until 1855, during this time the Qing army simply did not have enough troops to attack Zhenjiang, so the direction of Zhenjiang has been stalemate until 1856.

However, now, the Shanghai Knife Club was wiped out by Lin Zhe cleanly in a few months, so Xu Naizhao kept his official hat, and Xu Naizhao gathered troops to prepare to attack Zhenjiang.

As a result, Xu Naizhao was defeated by a counterattack by the Taiping army under Zhenjiang City, and then led the Taiping army to take advantage of the victory to advance eastward, connecting and conquering Danyang and Jintan counties, looting a lot of money, and the Taiping army, which had enveloped hundreds of people, suddenly swelled rapidly from 10,000 people to more than 40,000 people.

Then the commander of the Taiping army, Wu Ruxiao, saw that there was little Qing army left east of Zhenjiang, Su Songtai and Changzhou and other wealth-rich places were empty, and he was ruthless, in addition to leaving a stay in Zhenjiang, he personally took more than 30,000 horses and horses straight to Changzhou Mansion, the Qing army left behind in Changzhou was old and young, and more importantly, the number was not much, and the result was defeated again and again, Wu Ruxiao effortlessly took Wujin and Yanghu counties, and then coerced more people to march east into other prefectures and counties in Changzhou, and finally went straight to Suzhou.

When Lin Zhe received this urgent war report, according to his estimate, Wu Ruxiao is estimated to have gone to Wuxi now, and once the Taiping army takes Wuxi, the next step is Suzhou.

"This Xu Futai ......" Shi Qingxuan, who also read the war report, was also speechless, didn't you say that you attacked Zhenjiang with more than 10,000 people, why did you end up being defeated by people, and finally led the situation in southern Jiangsu to take a sharp turn?

"It seems that we are going to rush to Suzhou, Su Songtai is the foundation of my Yu Shengjun, and we must not let these thieves be ruined!" Lin Zhe stood up, no matter how the Qing army and the Taiping army fought, but if the Taiping army wanted to reach Su Songtailai, then he would definitely not agree.

He is now in charge of the Shanghai Trade Zone and the affairs of the Jiangxi Customs, and this Shanghai area is his foundation, and there is absolutely no room for error.

The next day, Lin Zhe, who was worried that the Taiping army would directly hit the Shanghai District, couldn't care about the stragglers who continued to chase and kill the Taiping army in Guangde, and directly left part of Yu Sheng's army to garrison Huzhou, so he took the main force of Yu Sheng's army to directly and urgently return to southern Jiangsu.

This time, Lin Zhe did not have many troops left in Huzhou, he left the fourth infantry battalion, in addition, he transferred more than 200 recruits just sent from Shaoxing and a company from the third battalion, and formed a new seventh battalion, so that they could continue to stay in Huzhou for garrison and training. A cavalry platoon was transferred from the Second Cavalry Company, and the Fifth Artillery Company, which had just been formed some time ago and had not yet been able to form combat effectiveness, was also left behind most of the 3,000 jin and 1,000 jin artillery captured from the Taiping Army to form the Sixth Artillery Company, and at the same time, a new baggage battalion was also prepared to be formed in Huzhou.

On the basis of the above-mentioned ready-made and untrained troops, the Second Mixed Regiment was formed, with Lin Anfei, the former commander of the Second Battalion, as the first commander.

Lin Zhe left Lin Anfei an order not only to hold Huzhou, but also to march northeast if the situation permitted, into Liyang and Jingxi, and threaten the flanks of the Taiping army's eastward advancing troops.

As for Lin Zhe, he rushed to Suzhou with many troops, including the first mixed regiment, including two cavalry companies, four artillery companies, four infantry battalions, and two baggage battalions, a total of nearly 4,000 people returned to southern Jiangsu.

When Lin Zhe returned to southern Jiangsu with his men and horses, Wu Ruxiao was not idle, and successively divided his troops to conquer Jingjiang and Jiangyin, and then divided his troops to the west into Yixing, and he himself continued to enter Wuxi and Jinkui counties with more than 20,000 main forces.

When Lin Zhe led the army to leave Zhejiang and stepped into the southern Jiangsu territory, he heard that the Taiping army had conquered Wuxi, and the remnants led by Xu Naizhao once again broke and fled and were forced to retreat to Suzhou.

By the middle of August, Wu Ruxiao had successively taken Jinkui County, entered the boundary of Changzhou County, Suzhou Prefecture, and approached the city of Suzhou, along the way due to a large number of strong men of the people, only the Taiping army he brought to Suzhou City has exceeded 40,000 people, and the Taiping army under the command of Wu Ruxiao has swelled rapidly from 10,000 people when they were initially trapped in Zhenjiang.

At this time, the Qing army in Suzhou was less than 5,000.

On the one hand, he hurriedly issued a strict order to the sixth battalion of Yu Shengjun's garrison in Shanghai, as well as the more than 500 green battalions belonging to Su Songtai's military preparation and yamen, asking them to strengthen the defense of the Shanghai area.

In the face of tens of thousands of menacing Taiping troops, although they knew that these Taiping troops had a great level, and most of them were temporary people, they must not be taken lightly.

The tens of thousands of regular troops of the Taiping Army are enough to fight by themselves, and if there are tens of thousands of strong men wrapped in them to help them fight, although they are not afraid at that time, they will always be much more passive, and it is impossible to completely block the eastward advance of the Taiping Army.

At that time, it is entirely possible for the Taiping army to enter the hinterland of Susongtai from the direction of Jiading, bypassing Suzhou, from Kunshan and other directions, and even threaten the strategic security of Shanghai.

However, for Lin Zhe, Suzhou can be lost, the entire Su Songtai can be lost, only Shanghai cannot be lost, only the business zone cannot be lost, this is Lin Zhe's last bottom line.

Therefore, he must give a death order to the defenders of Shanghai, and he must not take the initiative to face the battle, he must defend it strictly, and hold the trade area, then it will be the strategic victory of the Shanghai defenders.

Lin Zhe's strategic thinking was different from that of other generals of the Qing army, and Qing court officials and generals would estimate the safety of Suzhou and other places, but Lin Zhe actually didn't care much. On the contrary, Suzhou and other places were swept by the Taiping army, which was bound to make the people and wealthy businessmen flock to the Shanghai Business Zone on a large scale.

From this point of view, Lin Zhe has to thank the Taiping Army, if there is no Taiping Army, the population of his business zone can only break 100,000 in the year of the monkey, and then reach a million!

Ordering the defenders of the Shanghai area not to fight without authorization, and to strictly guard against the outside of Shanghai, Lin Zhe himself also led his troops to continue to advance eastward, first entering Zhenze County, Suzhou Prefecture, Jiangsu, and then entering the territory of Wujiang County.

At this time, they were less than 30 kilometers away from Suzhou Prefecture, and according to the scheduled itinerary, it was estimated that they would be able to reach Suzhou Mansion in two days.

At this time, Lin Zhe once again received an urgent military report from Xu Naizhao from Suzhou, saying that the Taiping Army had launched a fierce attack on Suzhou two days ago, and asked Lin Zhe to immediately reinforce Suzhou, otherwise Suzhou would not be guaranteed!

In this letter, Xu Naizhao's tone was more humble than any previous time, in the rescue letters sent to Lin Zhe in the previous times, at first he called Lin Zhe 'Hengzhi', and called himself 'Benfu', just from this title, he knew that although the army was defeated, he still regarded himself as his boss.

Then Lin Zhe led the army back to the east, and received a second letter from Xu Naizhao when he was in Huzhou, in which he began to call Lin Zhe 'Lin Xian', the tone was much more polite than the words directly called Lin Zhe, but it seemed to be called a brother, but he still regarded himself as a big brother and a senior.

When Lin Zhe walked to Zhenze County, he received a rescue letter from Xu Naizhao for the third time, and this time he changed his name to call Lin Zhe 'Lin Daotai', which sounds very raw at first glance, but this is the first time Xu Naizhao has used Lin Zhe's official position as a title, which is polite with a hint of respect.

However, after Lin Zhe received Xu Naizhao's rescue letter for the fourth time, Xu Naizhao has directly called Lin Zhe 'Minister Lin', which is based on the Zhejiang Provincial Co-organized League Training Minister, in Jiangsu, Zhejiang, some ordinary people, middle and lower-level officials in order to show respect for Lin Zhe, occasionally use such a title, with a strong compliment, ordinary high-level officials will not call Lin Zhe so.

Now I see Xu Naizhao actually calling himself Minister Lin and calling himself 'Naizhao', which shows that this Xu Naizhao is really desperate and doesn't care about any dignity and etiquette.

The words of this rescue letter are very sincere, saying that Suzhou is in danger, and millions of people in Suzhou are all tied to Lin Zhe.

And don't tout Lin Zhe, what Lin Zhe has made outstanding achievements, from northern Zhejiang to Songjiang and then to northern Zhejiang, all of them are victories, and once the thief army hears that Lin Zhe led Yu Shengjun to reinforce Suzhou, the thief army will definitely look at the wind and flee!

After reading Xu Naizhao's letter, Lin Zhe just put it down directly, not mentioning what Xu Naizhao said, but Wu Ruxiao's Taiping army that went east must be defeated, and Suzhou must also be saved, otherwise it will endanger the foundation of his Yu Shengjun.

However, before he arrived in Suzhou, early the next morning, he received an emergency military report from the reconnaissance cavalry, and the short words on the emergency military report were extremely dazzling:

"Last night, the city of Suzhou was broken, and Xu Futai was martyred!"

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