On November 6th, the Fifth Army of the Chinese Army entered the old city of Huai'an City, although Huai'an is a three-in-one city and has relatively independent fortifications, but the destruction of the old city has made the Qing army in the city panic to the extreme.

That night, Zhang Guoliang gave full play to his consistent fine tradition, and led more than 5,000 backbone elite soldiers to break through to the north at night, leaving tens of thousands of dazed and panicked rest of the old green battalion troops to continue to hold Huai'an City.

On the morning of the next day, the Fifth Army entered the Liancheng of Huai'an, and in the afternoon, it broke through the new city of Huai'an!

By the evening of November 7, the Fifth Army had already controlled all the important places in Huai'an City, but for their own personal safety and command convenience, Shen Chiyun and other senior generals did not directly enter the city, but continued to stay outside the city in accordance with the consistent rules of the Chinese Army.

This rule was used by Lin Zhe at the beginning, in the early years, Lin Zhe personally led the army to fight, but he himself was also a person who was afraid of death, after conquering the enemy city, because there would be a large number of enemy routs in the city, so Lin Zhe rarely said that he would go deep into the city on the day of breaking the city, and generally continued to stay outside the city, and sometimes went to the city gate tower area under his own control to command nearby.

It will not be until the city is completely cleared that Lin Zhe will personally go deep into the city!

As the saying goes, there are good things at the top, and there are investments at the bottom, Lin Zhe did this in his early years, which naturally affected other senior generals of the Chinese army, so on the day the Chinese army broke the city, generally speaking, senior generals rarely entered the city directly.

In the evening of the same day, outside the camp tent outside the city, Song Xiangtang said to Shen Chiyun with a happy face: "This great victory, in the first battle of Huai'an, our army killed at least more than 5,000 enemies. More than 11,000 enemies were captured! ”

The battle was not over, and the Chinese army in the city was still patrolling everywhere. Eliminate the deserters of the Qing army, rout soldiers, etc. And the battle time can't be very accurate in counting the battle results, so what Song Xiangtang said is an approximate number.

But this is only an approximate number, and it is enough to judge that the first battle of Huai'an was a great victory.

Compared with Song Xiangtang's joy, Shen Chiyun's performance was much calmer, he was still a little nervous before breaking the city, and he was full of excitement at the beginning of the city, but as the commander of the first army, he quickly calmed down.

It's the second day after the city is broken, and it's a foregone conclusion. For Shen Chiyun, the next step is already to think about how to write a victory report.

So he only nodded at Song Xiangtang's words, and then said: "The number of prisoners is less than we expected, and it's a pity to let Zhang Guoliang escape!" ”

Shen Chiyun said this, in fact, not only was the number of prisoners smaller than expected, but in fact, the results of killing the enemy and various captures were not as much as expected.

For example, although there are more than 5,000 enemies killed, in fact, half of them were caused by the previous siege of the city, and the Qing army killed when the city was broken in the past two days was at most more than 2,000.

In addition, after the Chinese army broke through the city, they did not find too many military ration stocks, gold and silver property in the city!

The Qing court is not stupid. Knowing that this Huai'an City was the front line of resistance to the enemy, and in the face of the strong attack of the Chinese army, even Li Hongzhang and Zhang Guoliang, who were in charge of defending Huai'an, did not dare to say that they were sure to hold Huai'an.

In this case, the Qing court had already transported some gold, silver and other materials in Huai'an City to the north. And there was indeed a lot of food at the beginning, but Li Hongzhang and Zhang Guoliang's tens of thousands of troops ate and drank here for half a year, and they were besieged during the autumn harvest and did not dare to go out. The food in the city is almost exhausted, and there is still much left.

This is also the fact that the Chinese army has broken the city now. If the Chinese army is ten days and half a month at night, the Qing army in the city will starve to death!

So after the breakdown. The seized gold and silver property was very limited, with a total value of no more than 200,000 taels of silver, so that the officials of the Finance Department of the Cabinet accompanying the army were extremely dissatisfied, and even suspected that the soldiers of the military had filled their own pockets, and threatened to send a letter to the Inspectorate to come and inspect it!

You must know that this Huai'an City in this era, but Suzhou and Yangzhou are the three major cities in Jiangsu, as the key transshipment city of Caohe, the economy of Huai'an City is relatively developed, even if it is not as rich as Yangzhou and Suzhou, but it is not as big as a city, the seized gold and silver property is only more than 200,000 ah!

Facing the reproach of the officials of the Ministry of Finance, Shen Chiyun was also depressed, do you think he doesn't want to seize more property, he has seized more property, this is also a great feat.

However, the Qing court had already transported away the official silver deposits, and there was no large amount of cash that could be found from the warehouses of the government as in Yangzhou and Suzhou.

And since the establishment of the empire, Lin Zhe has repeatedly warned the military: Now we are the righteous division that wants to unify China, and we can't do the same trick as before!

What was the previous set? Extortion, robbing the rich!

The Chinese army in the era of Yu Shengjun was actually a little unbearable, the military budget was not enough, but it wanted to expand the army and maintain the war, so whenever the city was broken, it would attach great importance to the collection of all kinds of loot, and it was better to fight the Taiping army, because the Taiping army did the looting in the early stage, and they only needed to rob the Taiping army, so it was equivalent to directly robbing the people of the city.

This is also the reason why every time the Taiping army breaks through the city, there is always a large amount of booty, especially gold and silver.

At the same time, every place he went, he would always apportionment to the local gentry and wealthy households, if it was replaced by Yu Shengjun who laid down this Huai'an City in a few years, if he did not apportionment a million taels of silver to the gentry and wealthy households in the city, he would not be able to live up to his name Yu Shengjun.

At the same time, there are also some things that cannot be put on the table, for example, when we marched into southern Jiangsu, although there was no overt and large-scale looting, but in the actual destruction of the city and on the way to the march, senior generals often turned a blind eye to the small-scale looting of the grassroots troops.

Therefore, the Yu Shengjun in the early years was not as great as the Chinese Empire proclaimed, in essence, the original Yu Shengjun was a large-scale mobile bandit army that fed the war with war.

But how to say it, these are all old things, and their senior generals of the Chinese army regard themselves as the hope of the country and the nation, and many things are no longer done, well, in other words, they have washed their hands and have been gentlemen since then.

Since the establishment of the Empire, although there are still troops in the Chinese army who have looted privately, it is generally done by the auxiliary defense forces, and the Royal Army has completely banned this behavior.

When Nanjing was conquered and Yangzhou was conquered, there was no large-scale looting!

Now that he has broken through Huai'an City, Shen Chiyun wants to grab it, but reason tells him that he can't do it!

Although there are fewer seizures, this does not affect Shen Chiyun's military exploits!

As long as the Fifth Army continues to go north to Taoyuan County and joins the First Army, let alone break through Taoyuan County, it is possible to encircle Li Hongzhang's Jianghuai New Army as a whole.

In this way, the command will not be indifferent, and Lin Zhe, the son of heaven, will not fail to express it!

In the evening of the same day, after Shen Chiyun wrote the good news and sent someone back to Nanjing, he just had a good night's rest, and early the next morning, he left Huai'an City with the main force of the Fifth Army, and then went straight to Taoyuan County, he wanted to make peace with Shi Qingxuan, and then take down this Taoyuan County.

As long as Taoyuan County is taken down, then it will also represent the complete failure of the Qing army's early defense strategy of 'Suqian, Taoyuan, Huai'an' composed in northern Jiangsu, and the Chinese army will be able to occupy the entire northern Jiangsu later, and then Chen troops will be in Shandong and Henan!

If it is said that Shi Qingxuan defeated the monk Lingqin's department ten kilometers northwest of Taoyuan County, and then conquered Suqian in a series of battles to break the Qing army's defense system and lay the foundation for victory.

So now Shen Chiyun's conquest of Huai'an City is to tear this foundation of victory apart from a gap, and then completely shatter the last trace of the Qing army's illusion of stubborn resistance!

If the Chinese army defeated Seng Lingqin and took Suqian, the Qing army could continue to hold Huai'an and Taoyuan, and then wait for reinforcements from Pizhou, Shandong and other directions to go south to counterattack Suqian, as long as the Qing army moved fast enough and the reinforcements were enough, then the hope of counterattacking Suqian was still very great.

After all, after Shi Qingxuan took Suqian, he didn't even enter the city himself, and then it was difficult to return with the main force of the First Army, and he just left a Royal Army Infantry Regiment on the Suqian side, plus a Ninth Auxiliary Defense Division, overall the defensive strength is not very strong, if the Qing army can gather tens of thousands of people to launch a counteroffensive, it is not an extravagant hope to recapture Suqian.

But now, with Shen Chiyun's capture of Huai'an, it is announced that the Qing army has not yet counterattacked Suqian, and the current Taoyuan County cannot be 100% saved, and Li Hongzhang's troops are even in danger of being surrounded and annihilated.

In fact, Shen Chiyun did exactly that, on November 8, Shen Chiyun personally led the main force of the Fifth Army to the north, and he did not go in the northwest direction, but in the eastern direction of Taoyuan County.

In Taoyuan County, Li Hongzhang sat with a black face, and there were constant quarrels between his staff and the generals under his command.

"Obviously, Shen Wei detoured to the northeast of my Taoyuan, this is to cut off the retreat of my army, if Shen Wei is allowed to go north, I will be in danger!" A middle-aged scholar wearing a robe and still shaking a folding fan in the cool night of late autumn said with an anxious face: "Lord Futai, Shen Wei is less than forty miles away from us, and tomorrow and tomorrow will be able to reach the back of my Taoyuan, and it will be too late if you don't leave at this time!" ”

As soon as he finished saying this, another person next to him was born and shouted: "Outside the city, Shi rebels gathered sixty or seventy thousand troops to storm my Taoyuan for many days, but they found nothing, what about another 10,000 or 20,000 rebel troops now?" As long as I wait and sit and don't mess up, this paradise will be as stable as Mount Tai! ”

However, there are humanitarians: "What if the rebel army is besieged for a long time?" Now there is not much military food in the city, ten days and half a month are fine, but time is still bound to be unbearable! ”

The military general of the Jianghuai New Army snorted coldly: "What's so difficult about this, the military food is insufficient, and its own civilian food is desirable, even if the rice and grain are exhausted, you can follow the example of Huang Chao in the past in the Kanto!" ”

As soon as these words came out, the staff members dressed as several scholars next to them suddenly turned pale! (To be continued......)