After learning that Lin Chengting once again led the army south to invade northern Zhejiang, Lin Zhe fell into deep thought, according to the news sent back by Shi Langyi, this time Lin Chengting was obviously prepared.

Although Yu Shengjun in the direction of Huzhou has not yet completely figured out how many men and horses Lin Chengting brought to the south, tens of thousands are certain, and there is reliable information that this time Lin Chengting brought a large number of musket troops and at least dozens of artillery pieces.

Obviously, after suffering a loss under his own musket team last time, this time Lin Chengting learned wisely and also made a large number of muskets and artillery units.

But even if Lin Chengting is equipped with a large number of shotguns or even some foreign guns, his foreign gun team cannot be Yu Shengjun's opponent.

In the Far East these years, only Yu Shengjun was equipped with Mini rifles on a large scale, and even the British and French colonial troops were actually mainly armed with old smoothbore guns. The British army, which is equipped with the most Mini rifles in modern times, has a small number of P1851 rifle equipment, only tens of thousands, and the P8153 rifle has just been put into service, and the first batch of 20,000 orders have not yet been produced.

Most of these P1851 and P1853 Mini rifles were equipped with troops stationed in the British mainland and around Europe, and the number of Mini rifles in the Asian colonial armies was actually not large.

In other words, even if the Taiping Army wants to buy Mini rifles from foreigners, it is impossible, and Yu Shengjun can't sell them himself, so where can he get them from the Taiping Army?

Not to mention that the foreigners do not have it, and even if they do, it is unlikely that they will be sold to the Taiping Army in large quantities.

Although the contemporary foreigners claim to be nominally neutral, in fact they have always been biased towards the Qing army, which can be seen from the fact that they have been selling a large number of ordnance to the Qing army, even if the Taiping army wants to buy ordinary smoothbore rifles on a large scale, it is not easy.

According to these estimates, Lin Zhe knew that his Yu Shengjun still had an advantage in weapons.

However, the artillery should be a little troublesome, Shi Langyi said that Lin Chengting also brought a large number of artillery to the south, even if there were no foreign artillery in the Taiping army, only domestic mountain splitting artillery and Hongyi artillery, but it was enough to bring Yu Shengjun some trouble.

Because the so-called foreign artillery in this era is actually a front-loading smoothbore gun, rifled guns and even rear-loading rifled guns have appeared, but limited by technology and cost factors, at this time the armies of the great powers did not equip these seemingly advanced artillery on a large scale, and the large-scale application of rifled guns and breech-loading guns did not appear until the American Civil War between the North and the South, and even so, these advanced artillery did not replace the main position of front-loading smoothbore guns.

How the famous Napoleonic cannon became famous was made famous by a civil war between the North and the South of the United States.

In the contemporary environment of the widespread use of front-loading smoothbore guns, whether it is the foreign cannon used by Yu Shengjun or the domestic mountain splitting cannon and Hongyi cannon used by the Taiping Army, although there is a certain performance gap between the two, it has not reached the point of generation difference.

Since Lin Chengting had brought a large number of artillery, and there were at least tens of thousands or even more men and horses, Lin Zhe naturally would not be able to hold it up, thinking that he could defeat them with the first mixed regiment of less than 2,000 people in Huzhou City alone.

Immediately, Lin Zhe wrote a letter to the messenger, asking him to rush back to Huzhou day and night with the letter, and pass his latest order to Shi Langyi, he asked Shi Langyi to defend Huzhou, and never let the Taiping army cross Huzhou to invade the hinterland of northern Zhejiang, and also asked that before he led the army to arrive, he would not cause fearless damage.

And he himself left behind the complicated affairs of many yamen, went directly to the barracks, and then ordered the whole army to prepare for the pull!

Lin Chengting was menacing, trying to snow the shame of Si'an, and even breaking through Yu Shengjun's Huzhou defense line and marching into northern Zhejiang in one fell swoop, this kind of thing was absolutely not allowed by Lin Zhe.

This time, Lin Zhe not only wanted to stop the Taiping Army, but he also wanted to cripple the Taiping Army and fight it in fear, so that the upper-level bosses of the Taiping Army realized that this northern Zhejiang was not something they wanted to come to, and the province would send troops south to northern Zhejiang if there was nothing to do in the future.

To this end, Lin Zhe was ready to bring most of his troops to reinforce Huzhou, and at the same time left two infantry companies and the sixth battalion, which had just been erected and had not yet had time to be formed, to stay in the Shanghai Trade Zone, and also ordered more than 1,000 green battalions under the command of Su Songtai to garrison Jiading and Shanghai counties respectively.

Although it is said that Shanghai is because of the existence of the trade zone, this foreigner cares more about the safety of the trade zone than Lin Zhe, if there are small knives and remnants of the army or the Taiping army parachutes into Shanghai, these foreigners are estimated to jump their feet, so from the perspective of the strategic environment, the safety of the trade zone can be guaranteed.

Lin Zhe left some of the soldiers of the Yu Shengjun Army, the symbolic meaning is greater than the practical significance!

Yu Shengjun's mobilization speed was quite fast, and after getting the news that Lin Chengting was going south, in just two days, the Yu Shengjun soldiers stationed in Shanghai had already been prepared, and then Lin Zhe personally led the westward advance.

Later, Lin Zhe's army will pass through Songjiang, and then bring the 5th Battalion and the 3rd Artillery Company stationed in Songjiang to reinforce Huzhou.

However, the main force of Yu Sheng's army led by Lin Zhe was as high as more than 3,000 people, and they brought a large number of artillery pieces and baggage, so it was naturally impossible for them to travel 100 miles a day like those lightly armed troops, and their marching speed could only be maintained at about 178 kilometers a day, and they had to walk for more than 10 days from Shanghai to Huzhou.

And before Lin Zhe led the army to Huzhou, the Huzhou side could only rely on Shi Langyi's first mixed regiment to resist on its own.

After all, Lin Chengting is not stupid, he will not be stupid to wait until you Lin Zhe leads the army to reinforce before starting the war, he will definitely attack Huzhou City as soon as possible, in order to take Huzhou before the reinforcements of Yu Sheng's army arrive.

In Huzhou City, Shi Langyi looked at the Taiping army outside the city, and he couldn't help but feel his scalp tingle, just looking at these Taiping army tents outside the city, he judged that there were at least tens of thousands of people inside.

"The Qing troops over there in Guangde and Changxing are all in ruins, and they can't even hold them down for a few days!" Shi Langyi couldn't help but complain about the low fighting of the Green Camp Qing army in Guangde and Changxing.

Lin Chengting went south, passing through Guangde and Changxing, but according to the people who fled back from Guangde, Guangde's side did not say a day, in fact, it was not able to hold for two hours, and nearly 1,000 green camps in the city faced the siege of more than 10,000 Taiping troops, but only symbolically resisted for a moment, and then abandoned their armor and turned around and fled.

The same is true for Changxing, who has been unable to hold on to the partial division sent by Lin Chengting for half a day.

Those officials and gentry who escaped from Guangde and Changxing with great difficulty told how brutal the Taiping army was, saying that the families of the officials and gentry in the city were ruined, and there were countless wives and daughters who were humiliated!

After the city was broken, the Confucian Temple was destroyed, and the officials and gentry were all old routines of the Taiping Army, and it was not unusual!

Now he doesn't care about the lives of the officials and gentry in Guangde and Changxing, and he doesn't care about whether the ordinary people can survive under the battle between the two armies, the only thing he cares about now is the tens of thousands of thieves outside the city.

"Where did this Lin Chengting pull up so many people, but I remember that the last time he fled with a wolf, he only brought two or three thousand people back, and now in less than a year, he has re-raised an army of more than 10,000 people!" Xu Pengan, chief of staff of the First Mixed Regiment, who was standing beside Shi Langyi, also frowned a little.

Shi Langyi said: "They are different from our Yu Shengjun, you look at their soldiers with yellow faces and thin muscles, and then look at their equipment, most of them are old weapons, how much money can it cost to pull up such a handful of people?" And how much does it cost for our Yu Shengjun to raise a soldier? “

Xu Pengan couldn't help but look back at his soldiers in Yu Shengjun!

The gap between the two sides is really big.

It is estimated that few of the soldiers of the Taiping Army can eat well, all of them are thin, and all the soldiers on his side of Yu Shengjun are strong and strong, perhaps because the height of the soldiers in the south is generally not high, so that they do not look tall and powerful enough, but if you take off your shirt, you can see the strong muscles of the soldiers.

With the physical strength of the soldiers of Yu Shengjun, they didn't need to breathe for a few hundred meters, but if they let the Taiping soldiers on the opposite side run a few hundred meters, it is estimated that the whole person will fall apart.

The difference in the physical fitness of the soldiers on both sides has nothing to do with training, faith, discipline, etc., what causes this situation is the food of both sides!

Although Lin Chengting's army was not forced to be besieged in Tianjing, but a peripheral army active in southern Anhui, the supply of rice and grain was much better than that of the Taiping army in Tianjing or Zhenjiang, but it still failed to surpass the too high level of this era.

Generally speaking, the Taiping soldiers fighting outside can eat a dry meal and a porridge every day, and this level of food can not starve to death, which is good, if you insist on strict physical training for these soldiers? It is estimated that he will die in a few days.

In the contemporary Taiping Army, only some elites such as death squads or cavalry can eat a full meal and occasionally eat some meat, ordinary soldiers are not to be counted on, and even some soldiers in the logistics army only have brown rice and gruel, and they don't even have to eat dry rice.

Compared with the level of food in Yu Sheng's army, where the white rice is full and you can eat meat at both ends in three days, it is a world of difference, of course, the expenses paid by both sides for this are also very different, you spend 50,000 taels of silver every month, and you can also raise 5,000 thick and sturdy soldiers.

Shi Langyi put down the monocular in his hand, and then said, "The thief infantry outside the city is not to worry, the only thing to worry about is their artillery!" ”

"Well, they have a lot of artillery, I think they have at least forty or more guns, and quite a lot of them are cannons, and we only have one mountain splitting cannon in the first artillery company, I'm afraid it's not easy to fight!" Xu Pengan sighed a little, knowing that he should have asked Lord Lin to bring a twelve-pounder artillery company to garrison Huzhou.

"The guns of our Fifth Artillery Company have not been pulled back, and if the twelve-pounder guns of our Fifth Artillery Company are in place, they will not be arrogant there!"

It is a pity that the Fifth Artillery Company was first established, and even the officers were not yet in place, and the six 12-pounder guns that were scheduled to be equipped had just been purchased, and they were still in Shanghai.

Shi Langyi and Xu Pengan were observing the Taiping army outside the city at the head of the city, and Lin Chengting also led a group of Taiping army generals to observe Huzhou City in the distance.

Seeing the flag of Yu Shengjun on the head of the city in the distance, Lin Chengting snorted coldly, and then said to the generals behind him: "Let the sons and daughters of the artillery team move, and set up artillery to bombard the city!" ”