On July 8, in the ruined city of Yangzhou, Shi Qingxuan, Shen Chiyun and other generals of the First Army and the Fifth Army gathered together, and Shi Qingxuan, who was the commander-in-chief of Jiangbei Military Affairs, sat on the main seat and said loudly the next strategic arrangement:

"In order to consolidate northern Jiangsu, the Fifth Army must continue to go north to attack northern Jiangsu and other places, in order to capture Qingjiangpu and annihilate the puppet Qing Li Hongzhang's department, there may be enemy reinforcements in northern Jiangsu at that time, Brother Shen, you have to be cautious!"

Shi Qingxuan continued: "And I will lead the First Army of the headquarters back to northern Anhui, capture the garrison of northern Anhui together with the Second Army, and annihilate the Taiping thief army Chen Yucheng's army, so as to complete the northern Anhui strategy of the headquarters!" ”

Even Shi Qingxuan, who is the commander-in-chief of the Jiangbei Military Affairs, cannot change it at will, and what he can do is to buy a few more days of rest and recuperation time for the troops who have just conquered Yangzhou under the pressure of the Joint Staff, so as to restore the morale of the troops and replenish the troops damaged in the battle.

For example, the Third Infantry Division of the Royal Army, which was the main attacking force, had accumulated hundreds of casualties and killed more than 300 on the spot, while the Ninth Auxiliary Defense Division, which had suffered heavy losses because of the blockade of the Jianghuai New Army's breakthrough, had suffered heavy casualties, with more than 1,000 killed and missing, and no less than 1,000 people were injured and lost their combat effectiveness.

Fortunately, the military training department in the rear had just finished the Yangzhou Campaign, and it sent a total of about 1,000 recruits to the First Army and the Fifth Army, but these recruits were all recruits from the Royal Army, but they did not have the share of the Auxiliary Defense Army.

There is only one way to replenish the losses of the auxiliary defense army, especially the large-scale replenishment in wartime, that is, to replenish the prisoners, and this kind of thing is also familiar to the Chinese army, which has just taken Yangzhou, that is, to take the most forceful means to shave the hair of all the prisoners, and then forcibly integrate them into the auxiliary defense army.

However, in order to prevent these newly captured Qing soldiers from causing trouble, the people sent by the Military Training Department did not say that they would add all their brains, but as before, they first selected those captured soldiers who were willing to take the initiative to join the Chinese army and were physically strong to supplement the existing several auxiliary defense divisions.

After several thousand men were selected to supplement the existing units such as the Ninth and Second Auxiliary Defense Divisions, the other prisoners were newly organized into two auxiliary defense divisions.

The soldiers in these two new divisions are either old and weak, or those diehards who are unwilling to take the initiative to surrender, and from these prisoners, the Chinese army also found that compared with the captured soldiers of the Taiping Army, these Qing soldiers have a tougher attitude towards surrender, but their physical, training and other aspects are even worse.

In this case, the Chinese army is naturally not soft-hearted, whether you want it or not, in short, they all have to be incorporated into the new 16th and 17th Assistant Defense Divisions, and the fate that awaits them in the future is to serve as cannon fodder.

However, in order to avoid unnecessary trouble, the Military Training Department did not continue to put these two auxiliary defense divisions composed of surrendered Qing soldiers to fight in northern Jiangsu, but incorporated them into the First Army, and let them go to northern Anhui to fight with the Taiping Army in the future, so as to avoid any pre-battle rebellion at that time.

On the other hand, the Second Auxiliary Defense Division, which originally belonged to the First Army, was transferred to the Fifth Army to continue to fight in northern Jiangsu.

On July 10, Shi Qingxuan led the First Army of his headquarters to leave Yangzhou and began to move westward

After Shi Qingxuan led the First Army away, Shen Chiyun also led the Fifth Army of the headquarters to launch the next round of large-scale offensives in northern Jiangsu, and the Fifth Army launched frequent attacks towards various parts of northern Jiangsu with the Fifth Cavalry Regiment as the forward reconnaissance force, the Fifth Infantry Division of the Royal Army as the absolute main force, and the Second Auxiliary Defense Division, the Tenth Auxiliary Defense Division, and the Twelfth Auxiliary Defense Division as auxiliary forces.

On 11 July, the Fifth Army conquered Taizhou east of Yangzhou, after which the Fifth Army also began to divide its forces, and its 12th Auxiliary Defense Division continued to move eastward into Nantong and other places, and then the navy would escort an infantry regiment sent by the Seventh Infantry Division of the Royal Army stationed in Shanghai and other places to launch a landing operation in Nantong, and the task of the 12th Auxiliary Defense Division was to open a landing and march channel for the 20th Infantry Regiment of the Seventh Infantry Division.

As for the main force of the Fifth Army, it continued to move north along the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal, and their target was Huai'an City.

Huai'an City, which relies on the development of the Cao River, is one of the few heavyweight cities in the south of the Yangtze River, with a population of hundreds of thousands, more than Nanjing, Suzhou, Yangzhou and other famous cities that have been traumatized by the war.

And Huai'an City is the pattern of three cities, that is to say, he is not the traditional kind of single city, but the old and new three cities connected together, the circumference of the three city walls is about 17 miles, the height of more than one zhang to two zhang eight feet, the staggered dense city wall system makes Huai'an City form a complex and stable city defense system.

Now there are not only nearly 8,000 people of Li Hongzhang's Jianghuai New Army in the city, but also nearly 10,000 people in the local green battalion and regimental training in northern Jiangsu, and since the fall of Yangzhou, the Qing court urgently dispatched reinforcements from northern Anhui and southern Lunan to arrive in northern Jiangsu, and has now arrived at the green camp and other old army of 5,000.

In addition, it is worth noting that there are 2,000 Henan training troops reinforced from Henan, and the old army of 5,000 green battalions from Henan is stationed in the Suqian area, which can reinforce Huai'an at any time.

In fact, the Qing court sent reinforcements far more than that, the fall of Yangzhou caused a considerable shock to the Qing court, since the news reached the Beijing Division, the Qing court has been successively transferred troops to the south, aside from those green battalions, eight banners and other old armies, it is worth noting that the training of troops and a large number of horse teams in various places.

Horse team not to mention for the time being, the Qing court is proud of its cavalry shooting, cavalry has always been their main combat force, resisting the Taiping Army's Northern Expedition, the wreak of the Twist Army, quite a large amount of Cheng Dù rely on cavalry troops, at present, the Qing court in Zhili, Mongolia, the three eastern provinces and other places can draw more than 10,000 cavalry troops at any time, but these cavalry is the last family of the Manchu Qing Dynasty, is used to defend Jinggi, unless someone is beaten to the Beijing Division, otherwise the Qing court will not let these cavalry troops fight.

The Qing court, which is now fighting in the south, especially in northern Anhui, Henan and other places, and the main force of the Qing army fighting with the Twist Army and the Taiping Army, is actually training troops in various provinces.

I have to say that it is not accidental that the Qing court in history was able to carry out the Westernization Movement, in the original time and space, they successively made the Huai Army, the Dingwu Army, the New Army, the Beiyang Naval Division, the Nanyang Naval Division and other armies, this feudal dynasty is not as self-contained as later generations imagined, they still learn very fast for some new things, but most of their learning occurs after being beaten, and every time after defeat, there will always be a reform to get out, and then the reform will die.

The original time and space are not mentioned, only this time and space, under the influence of Lin Zhe's founding of Yu Shengjun, the Qing court began to create a new army early, at first it was to organize and train the Eight Banners New Army and the Jianghuai New Army, but later found that the Eight Banners New Army was really muddy and could not support the wall, so it was hastily finished, and instead focused on cutting and training the new, thus forming a new 'Gyeonggi Training Army'.

It is said that the results of this newly formed Gyeonggi training army are quite good, and this can be seen from the fact that the Qing court began to promote the new army of 'training army' throughout the country, and the Qing court was quite satisfied with the training of the army.

At that time, Lin Zhe led the army to rebel, and the Jianghuai New Army, which was also a regimental training and a new army, immediately became the object of defense, and the Qing court immediately reduced its support for the Jianghuai New Army, and instead turned its support to the 'training army'.

As a result, not to mention the large-scale expansion of the two training armies under the direct control of the Qing court, the Gyeonggi and Zhili training armies, were also large-scale training in various provinces, such as Henan, Anhui, Huguang, and even Yunnan-Guizhou.

By July 1857, there were 18,000 troops in Gyeonggi and 8,000 in Zhili. In addition, various provinces have training troops in varying numbers, for example, Henan has 5,000 training troops, Anhui has 2,000 training troops in northern Anhui, and Shandong has training 1,000 troops.

In the local army training, the most natural is the two provinces of Huguang and Guangzhou, which are tense in the war, stimulated by many aspects, the Hunan army has been presided over by Hu Linyi in the Hunan army before the change, and the 2,000 people of the new army founded by Yu Shengjun have achieved good results, and the main generals of the Hunan army such as Zeng Guofan and Hu Linyi have begun to run the new army on a large scale, and the total number of new troops has been organized and trained by 8,000 people, which is called the 'Huguang training army', in order to distinguish it from the old-style Hunan Yong in the past.

In addition to the part of the military training in other provinces, the total number of military training in the central and local governments of the Qing court has exceeded 40,000 so far.

If the 8,000 remnants of the Jianghuai New Army are counted, and the 12,000 people of the Eight Banners New Army are also counted, then the various new armies under the control of the Qing court exceed 60,000.

Of course, among the 60,000 people, except for the Jianghuai New Army, which is all foreign guns, there is still a huge gap in the armament of the training army in other places, such as the Zhili training army, they use the guns produced by the Tianjin Machinery Bureau, although it is also said that it is a smoothbore foreign gun instead of an old-fashioned arquebus, but in terms of performance, there is a big gap between it and the directly imported foreign guns.

As for the training of the army in some places, some are still holding arquebuses!

Because of the fall of Yangzhou, the Chinese army marched into northern Jiangsu on a large scale and may even threaten Shandong, and the Qing court has ordered the Zhili Lian Army and other large armies to go south to northern Jiangsu.

Therefore, for the Fifth Army of the Chinese Army in the north, the challenges in the future are quite large!

However, the large number of Qing troops in the north is not the main threat to the Chinese army for the time being, and now the strategic center of gravity of the Chinese army has shifted to the northern Anhui region.

Chen Yucheng's momentum in northern Anhui is too great, and Chen Yucheng's unit, which has adopted the mode of mobile warfare, has swelled to an astonishing level, claiming to be hundreds of thousands of troops at every turn, although the vast majority of them are homeless people, old and weak, women and children, but strictly speaking, northern Anhui and Nanjing are only separated by a river, and they can threaten southern Anhui, southern Jiangsu, and other places at any time.

The Second Army, which had been sent to fight in northern Anhui, was limited by insufficient troops, so it could only passively defend and was unable to attack.

In order to change this situation, Shi Qingxuan led the First Army westward into northern Anhui, in order to fight jointly with the Second Army, completely eliminate the threat of northern Anhui, and annihilate Chen Yucheng's department.

In mid-July, Shi Qingxuan led the army through Chuzhou, and then went straight to Hefei in Fengyang Mansion! (To be continued.) )