Taking Hangzhou is related to whether Yu Shengjun can be a hit and completely control northern Zhejiang, its strategic significance is undoubted, Xu Yanqing also wants to take Hangzhou City immediately, but although he is full of confidence, he also knows that now is not the time to launch a formal attack on Hangzhou.

He Xu Yanqing led the 8th Mixed Regiment all the way south from Shanghai, threatening and forcing the prefectures and counties of Songjiang and Jiaxing to surrender along the way, and led his troops to capture the city of Jiaxing, which was unwilling to surrender and annex.

Along the way, he collected and captured a large number of Qing army green battalions, local township brave people, etc., with a total of more than 5,000 people.

Since the beginning of 1856, Yu Shengjun has had a very clear way of dealing with the prisoners of war and the enemy troops who surrendered to Chengcheng, that is, regardless of the quality of these incorporated troops, they will be recruited.

Among them, those old and young and weak are organized into C-class auxiliary defense regiments, these C-class auxiliary defense regiments cannot go to the battlefield at all, and they even know the qualifications to act as cannon fodder, but they can't be released by the way, on the one hand, letting go of these rebellious soldiers will make them lose their livelihood, and then riot in the place. For this reason, Yu Shengjun's solution was to use them as labor, working in various places in the rear or transporting heavy supplies.

Others are selected young and strong, and the second-class auxiliary defense regiment composed of these young and strong people has become the basic composition of the auxiliary defense regiment in the Yu Shengjun system, and it is equipped with various messy weapons such as cold weapons or arquebuses from local materials to serve as cannon fodder for Yu Shengjun.

Finally, there is a small number of first-class auxiliary defense regiments, the soldiers of the first-class auxiliary defense regiment are selected from the second-class auxiliary defense regiment, and all the soldiers who have made meritorious contributions in the process of serving in the second-class auxiliary defense regiment can be admitted to the first-class auxiliary defense regiment, enjoy the same treatment as the soldiers of the regular army of Yu Shengjun, and be equipped with the old Linde rifle or smoothbore foreign gun and cold weapon that Yu Shengjun retired after redressing.

The soldiers in this first-class auxiliary defense regiment are basically all people who survived in a large group of cannon fodder soldiers, and they are much better than ordinary soldiers in all aspects, and they are even more brave than the regular army soldiers of Yu Shengjun's army when fighting, but there are still relatively few first-class auxiliary defense regiments, and among the nearly 20 auxiliary defense regiments at present, only the first auxiliary defense regiment and the fourth auxiliary defense regiment are only.

In fact, in addition to the regular army of Yu Shengjun and the three kinds of auxiliary defense regiments, there is also an informal armed force of patrol police in the Yu Shengjun system, but the patrol police is only a kind of armed police, which is basically converted from the arrest of fast guards, government servants, and a small number of township warriors in various prefectures and counties. It is mainly responsible for local security, catching thieves, chasing down river and ocean thieves, etc., which does not belong to the military system.

In accordance with the regulations and regulations on these captured and reorganized units formulated in advance by the Supervision and Training Office, Xu Yanqing cooperated with the military officers dispatched by the Supervision and Training Office to unify and reorganize these incorporated troops into the troops of the Auxiliary Defense Corps.

A total of three auxiliary defense regiments have been organized, of which the 16th auxiliary defense regiment is selected to be young and strong, and the soldiers are acceptable, and it is a second-class auxiliary defense regiment. Therefore, Xu Yanqing also brought this auxiliary defense regiment with him, and prepared to use this auxiliary defense regiment as his own cannon fodder troops.

As for the newly formed 17th and 18th Auxiliary Defense Regiments, their plain names were too poor and could only be organized as C-class auxiliary defense regiments, and they could not go to the battlefield at all, so they could only act as civilian men and be responsible for transportation.

Xu Yanqing, who only has the 8th Mixed Regiment and the 16th B Auxiliary Defense Regiment in his hands, will not choose to launch a general attack on Hangzhou now, even if he is confident.

Now he can only choose to implement a limited blockade of Hangzhou to prevent the Qing troops from other nearby areas from pouring into the city of Hangzhou and increase the defensive strength of the Qing army in the city.

"Now where are the 9th and 10th regiments? When will I arrive in Hangzhou? Xu Yanqing withdrew his gaze from the city of Hangzhou and asked his chief of staff, Lin Mao.

Lin Mao's age is much younger than Xu Yanqing, Xu Yanqing is thirty-nine years old this year, and he is the golden age of a general, which is relatively rare in the general age of the officer class in Yu Shengjun.

Yu Shengjun's officers mainly come from the Suiying Academy, and the enrollment of the Suiying Academy generally requires candidates to be between the ages of 18 and 30, mainly around the age of 20, and the younger ones are also accepted, but they are generally admitted to the kindergarten class.

Therefore, Yu Shengjun's officer class is mainly concentrated between the ages of 20 and 30, and those who are over 30 years old are relatively rare.

The same is true of Lin Mao, he is twenty-eight years old this year, although he has the same surname as Lin Zhe, but he is not related to Lin Zhe at all, in fact, he is not Yuyao, who occupies the main body of Yu Shengjun, and people from nearby states and counties, he is a native of Huzhou, Zhejiang, joined Yu Shengjun in the autumn of 1853, and entered the Suiying School to study, and like others, he gradually rose with the expansion of Yu Shengjun.

In the autumn and summer of 1856, Lin Zhe expanded Yu Shengjun on a large scale, and correspondingly increased the military rank of the heads of various departments of the Yu Shengjun Headquarters, and he was awarded the rank of lieutenant colonel as the deputy director of the Supervision and Training Department and the director of the Military Orders Department.

In the past two years, he has been circling in the headquarters of Yu Shengjun, and he has been promoted very quickly, and he has served in the supervision and training office for a long time, and he is a very typical staff officer-type talent, after the incident, Lin Zhe established a number of infantry divisions, and he was transferred to the fourth infantry division as chief of staff, as Xu Yanqing's deputy, and was promoted to colonel again.

Hearing Xu Yanqing's question, he immediately replied: "At noon, the herald cavalry of the Ninth Mixed Regiment reported that they continued to move south after conquering Deqing yesterday, and they should be less than fifteen kilometers away from Hangzhou at present, and they are expected to arrive at noon tomorrow!" ”

"After conquering Shaoxing, the 10th Mixed Regiment has also arrived in Qiantang County, but it will take a certain amount of time for them to cross the river, and it is expected that they should be able to arrive within two days!"

Hearing his chief of staff Lin Mao say this, Xu Yanqing nodded: "Although it was a little slower, I finally rushed over!" ”

In fact, Xu Yanqing was still slightly dissatisfied with the marching speed of the 9th and 10th Mixed Regiments, and Xu Yanqing himself rushed all the way with the 8th Mixed Regiment, and the distance was much farther than that of the 9th and 10th Mixed Regiments to Hangzhou.

But the result was that he arrived in Hangzhou first, and the other two were blocked by the road, and the time to arrive in Hangzhou was delayed again and again.

Although the Ninth Mixed Regiment began to act very early, it waited for several days in order to gather the main force, and then encountered resistance in Deqing, and the Deqing Zhixian and other officials and gentry blocked the Ninth Mixed Regiment for several days with the help of the green battalion and the township brave Ding Zhuang, so that the Ninth Mixed Regiment did not conquer Deqing until yesterday and continued to move south.

The situation of the 10th Mixed Regiment was also roughly the same, Chen Yuntao spent several precious days in the early stage on Yuyao County, and delayed for several days before attacking Shaoxing, although on the day the 10th Mixed Regiment arrived in Shaoxing, with the cooperation of Huang Peizhi's henchmen and family, the night attack on Shaoxing City was successful.

But Chen Yuntao still underestimated Huang Linhan's ability, after the city wall was broken, he actually retreated to various important places in the city to continue to resist, so that it only took one day for the 10th mixed group to break the city, but it took two full days to clean up the remnants of the Qing army in the city.

Then two days were wasted in Xiaoshan County, so that the entire journey north to Hangzhou was delayed for more than four days.

Until December 16, Chen Yuntao led 2,000 people to cross the Qiantang River, and then stationed troops on the west side of Hangzhou, echoing the main force of Yu Sheng's army on the northeast side of Hangzhou.

On December 17, Xu Yanqing ordered the whole army to launch a general attack on the city of Hangzhou, and before that, the artillery unit of the 8th Mixed Regiment had carried out continuous artillery bombardment of the city of Hangzhou for many days, which greatly deterred the Qing troops defending the city on the city wall of Hangzhou.

On the same day, the siege of the Fourth Infantry Division played Xu Yanqing's combat style as always, that is, the regular army of Yu Shengjun acted as the firepower output force, and the soldiers of the auxiliary defense regiment as cannon fodder acted as the main force of the siege.

The artillery of the 8th and 9th Mixed Regiments and the powerful firepower of the infantry completely suppressed the enemy at the head of Hangzhou, and then the 4th Infantry Division rushed to the head of Hangzhou with various means, including capture, surrender, and forcible absorption.

They were barely hindered by filling the moat and reaching the foot of the city, but at this time, a large number of Qing soldiers suddenly appeared on the top of the city, and they used bows and arrows, arquebuses, and foreign guns to shoot fiercely at the soldiers of the auxiliary defense regiment under the city.

There were also people who lifted stones, giant trees, boiling oil, etc., and threw them down to the city, and for a while, the soldiers of the Yusheng Army Auxiliary Defense Regiment under the city suffered heavy casualties, and some of the soldiers of the Auxiliary Defense Regiment at the forefront had already turned around and fled.

However, in this seemingly bad situation, Xu Yanqing, who was watching the battle from the rear, showed a hint of ridicule: "The Qing army is not as good as the Taiping thief army!" ”

Also in the face of Yu Sheng's siege, the Taiping army defended much stronger, whether it was abandoning the city wall, taking the initiative to dig a trench outside the city wall, or shrinking behind the city wall. In the face of Yu Shengjun, who has strong firepower, the Taiping army will rarely take the initiative to compete with Yu Shengjun for long-range firepower, and they will wait until Yu Shengjun rushes up and fight directly in hand-to-hand combat.

But what about these Qing troops, they dared to appear directly on the city, did they really think that the rows of Yu Sheng's musketeers under the city were fake?

Sure enough, these Qing troops had just come forward to try to attack the soldiers of the auxiliary defense regiment under the city, and in the infantry phalanx of the regular army of the Yu Sheng Army in the rear, one by one the officers had already waved their command knives in unison!

Crisp and dense gunfire rang out, and countless bullets hit the city in unison, some splashing bricks and stones on the city walls, while others hit the Qing soldiers who leaned out of the city walls.

Almost in such an instant, the Qing soldiers on the head of the city fell a large number of pieces in unison, and some of them directly planted the city wall!

And the officers of several auxiliary defense regiments under the city wall saw that the firepower of the Qing army at the head of the city had weakened, and they all shouted loudly: "Rush up and we will win, kill the enemy and receive a reward!" (To be continued.) )