Zhang Guoliang, who was ready to defend Suzhou City, did not intend to waste too many troops in dangerous places outside the city at the beginning, but for the purpose of delaying the Taiping Army's offensive, he still divided his troops to garrison Tiger Hill, Shantang and other dangerous places outside Suzhou City, thinking that he was a barrier outside the city. But what Zhang Guoliang didn't expect was that the Taiping army sent troops to storm the camp outside the city of the Qing army on the day after they arrived, the fierce artillery fire and the brave charge of the Taiping army, the Qing army outside the city only resisted for an hour and was defeated, and the two thousand people sent outside the city only came back less than a thousand people, and also set up a few mountain splitting cannons and a large number of firearms and gunpowder, which made Zhang Guoliang regret a little.

Although Zhang Guoliang regretted it, he also saw that this time Changmao was determined to win Suzhou, and while the Taiping army had not yet completed the siege, he sent messengers to Xiangshanghai, Hangzhou and other places several times to issue alarms and ask for reinforcements.

The Taiping army moved quickly, and after taking the important places outside the city, they quickly divided their troops to surround the six gates of Suzhou and the large and small water and land passages, focusing on attacking the Changmen and Xu Gates in the west and the Qi Gate in the north. Zhang Guoliang, Xu Naizhao and Ma Dezhao respectively sat in three guards, relying on a few 3,000-pound cannons to barely engage in artillery battles with the artillery team of the Taiping Army.

After several shellings, the Taiping army launched infantry to attack the city, but the city was densely populated with bows and arrows and muskets, causing a lot of trouble to the Taiping army. At the same time, the deep ditches and moats outside the city also hindered the Taiping army's attack. Zuo Zongtang attacked several times in a row to no avail, and Zuihou Zuo Zongtang decided to send men and horses to fill a road on the ditch at night.

It took three nights for the Taiping army to fill in a few passages with sandbags and stones in a deep ditch to facilitate the siege. As soon as the sky was bright, Zuo Zongtang waved his army to storm the west gate of Suzhou.

Although the Taiping army had more artillery, Zhang Guoliang was cunning and cunning, not only erecting fishing nets, tarpaulins, and straw mats at the head of the city to guard against artillery. A large amount of withered grass was placed under the city wall, and when the Taiping army swarmed forward to attack the city, the fire oil and torches were thrown down on the city, causing a sky-high fire, burning to death and injuring many Taiping soldiers. Zuo Zongtang saw that the casualties were very large, so he had to retreat a little.

Although Zuo Zongtang has many scheming, there is no too haode way to attack the fortified city at this time, and the defenders are always condescending to take advantage of it, even if the Hunan army that appeared later to attack the city is not too haode. In history, Zeng led 15,000 land and water divisions of the Hunan army to attack Jiujiang and was defeated in several battles. There were many dead and wounded, and they had to withdraw from the siege. In 1857, Zeng Guofan, Zeng Guoquan, Peng Yulin and other famous generals, together with Yang Zaifu, the governor of Hubei, and Li Xubin, the registered envoy, led the Hunan army to attack Jiujiang, and since January 8, the battle has been fought for 6 days and nights. Both were defeated by the Taipings. From March to June, the Qing army built a long trench from the official card to the end of Baishui Lake. It is more than 30 miles long. It is 3 zhang 5 feet wide and 2 zhang deep, with a total of 6 roads, forming a three-sided encirclement of Jiujiang. In October, Xiaochikou and Hukou were successively captured by the Qing army, so that the Hunan army and naval divisions that had been surrounded in Poyang Lake as early as 1855 rushed out of Poyang Lake to join the Yangtze River naval division. The strength of the Hunan army attacking Jiujiang was further strengthened, and a joint encirclement of Jiujiang was formed. The Jiujiang defenders were helpless, and the situation was very critical. In the spring of 1858, the Qing army attacked the city more and more urgently. Twice excavated tunnels and used mines to collapse the east gate and south gate of Jiujiang city walls, but they were both severely damaged by the Taiping army and retreated. On May 19, the Qing army collapsed more than 100 zhang of the southeast city wall of Jiujiang with mines for the third time, Jiujiang City was broken, Lin Qirong led the Taiping soldiers to fight bravely, and more than 17,000 Taiping soldiers all died bravely, and Jiujiang fell.

It can be seen that in the era when there were no siege weapons at that time, it was not easy to conquer a heavily guarded and well-defended city, even if you were Zhuge Liang alive, you would be helpless when you faced a well-defended city, not to mention that Zhuge Liang was also helpless against a small city of Chencang guarded by Wei general Hao Zhao. Chinese people have always liked to boast about the art of war, as if all wars can be won by tricks, but they don't know that in the face of real famous generals and absolute strength, all calculations will look pale and useless. Or are the Americans pragmatic, they famously say, "If intelligence can kill an elephant, what else do you need a shotgun for?" ”

In the next few days, Zuo Zongtang thought of a lot of ways to attack the city, water attack, fire attack, cave siege, and even sent the dare to die to drive an ox cart full of gunpowder to blow up the city, but Zhang Guoliang just didn't get in the oil and salt, and Zhang Guoliang could think of a siege method that Zuo Zongtang could think of, Zhang Guoliang could also come up with a way to crack it. Zuihou Zuo Zongtang could not, so he could only concentrate his forces and artillery to storm the Changmen Gate, which is commonly known as the Great West Gate. After Zhang Guoliang found out about Zuo Zongtang's actions, he also immediately adjusted his troops, and several defenders took turns to fight, and the Taiping army fought a fierce battle at Daximen, and the two sides began a war of attrition without fancy, competing with the willpower and endurance of the soldiers on both sides.

After three days of tragic siege battles, the city wall and tower of the Daxi Gate section were bombarded by the Taiping army artillery and were dilapidated, several times the Taiping army bravely climbed the city, either by Zhang Guoliang commanded the new force behind the force to fight down, or was driven down by the Qing army's fire and thunder bombs, and even more so, the Qing army arranged several artillery pieces on the top of the Miluo Treasure Pavilion in the city, specifically bombarded the city head on the Daxi Gate, there were two Taiping army offensive fierce, the Qing army did not have time to respond, and the fire and thunder bombs were also used up, Zhang Guoliang actually ordered the artillery on the top of the Miluo Treasure Pavilion to open fire, and forcibly dispersed the Taiping army, buying time for the concentration of troops, and Zuihou blocked the Taiping army back.

After a few days of bloody battles, the Taiping army suffered more than 7,000 casualties, Zuo Zongtang was also red-eyed, he was pressed for time, and he could not allow him to slowly surround the Qing army in the city, he could only break the city in the shortest possible time, and then he could draw out his troops to support the Taiping army in Shanghai or Hangzhou. Zuo Zongtang knew this, and the rest of the Taiping generals in the West Hall under his command also knew this, so the whole army was desperately attacking the city, and on the day of the most intense offensive, the Taiping army lost more than 1,000 people and two brigade commanders were killed, but the Taiping army's offensive did not weaken in the slightest.

Compared with the Taiping army, the Qing army in the city is also miserable, although the grain and grass in the city are still sufficient, but gunpowder, lead, oil, fire and thunder bombs and other things began to run out, and the Qing army even began to fire broken stones and broken iron, and then continue to fight like this, I am afraid that they can only use copper coins to make shells. In fact, in the history of the Taiping Army, there are also records of the Taiping Army using copper coins, and even radishes and vegetables to make shells, not that the Taiping Army is ignorant, but that the real war has reached that critical juncture, and no one will think so much, those soldiers who kill red eyes will only think about stuffing everything that can be blasted out into the muzzle of the cannon and then hitting it out to kill the enemy.

In addition to the lack of supplies, the casualties of the Qing army were also very huge, there were nearly 6,000 casualties, the Qing army's general soldier Ma Dezhao was very unlucky to be killed by the Taiping artillery in the siege battle on the sixth day, and the Qing generals at all levels also suffered heavy losses, and the wounded soldiers were everywhere on the streets. Zhang Guoliang, who killed the red eye, began to force the strong men in the city to go to the city to guard, although these strong men are not voluntary, but as long as you stand on the top of the city, the Taiping army below will not care whether you are voluntary or not, they will only want to kill the enemy on the head of the city. If the strong men at the head of the city dare to retreat, the Qing army will immediately serve with swords. In this way, these poor people had to take up arms and fight desperately with the Taiping army under the city, and they didn't want to die.

In addition to Lazhuangding, many people in the city were also organized by the Qing army to repair the city wall of the Daximen section at night. The whole Great West Gate was filled with this smoke and flesh, and under the scorching sun, the whole West Gate was as terrible as purgatory.

After thinking back to the vicious battles of these days, Zhang Guoliang took a deep breath, but the air was full of gunsmoke and the stench of rot, which made him almost vomit, and after waving his hand to drive away the nasty mosquitoes and flies around him, his eyes stared at the banner of the Western King erected in the Taiping Army in the distance, and said to himself: "It's still here after all." ”

In fact, Zhang Guoliang and Zuo Zongtang are very clear in their hearts that after days of fierce battles, both sides are already at the end of the crossbow, zuihou will see who can get their own reinforcements first, as long as the reinforcements arrive, it will become a straw that crushes the other party, but unfortunately what appears now is the reinforcements of the Taiping army.

In addition to the appearance of the banner of the West King, Zhang Guoliang pulled up the monocular and looked at it, and saw that in the artillery array of the Taiping Army, more than ten new cannons were arranged in front of the formation by ox carts and mules.

After the artillery team of the Taiping Army placed the new artillery, it began to test fire a few cannons, and the calibration of the three cannons for flat fire required test firing, and the artillery of the Taiping Army did not care about wasting shells and gunpowder, and fired several cannons one after another. The previous few artillery shots were because the firing angle was not enough, and the shells only hit a few hundred paces away before they landed, and then the Taiping artillery increased the firing angle, and this time the cannonballs were much closer to the city wall.

As the shells fell closer and closer, the Qing army in the city began to panic, because although the Taiping army released this time is also a flowering bomb, but the power is much greater than a few days ago, and the mud outside the city was blown up a large crater, it can be seen what the result of these shells will be if they hit the city.

"Leave a few sentry posts, and the rest wait to go down to the city to avoid the cannons!" Zhang Guoliang roared loudly, and as soon as his roar fell, the first flowering shell of the Taiping Army's cannon exploded on the city tower that was very damaged in the Great West Gate, turning the entire city tower built in the Ming Dynasty on the Great West Gate upside down.

As the broken stone and bricks fell, Goshha next to Zhang Guoliang desperately protected Zhang Guoliang, squeezed away the Qing soldiers who were panicked and went down to the city, and put him down the city.

After the artillery team of the Taiping army here found the right angle of fire, several cannons began to bombard the Ximen city wall, and the cannons directly hit the damaged Ximen city wall, and the Qing troops hiding under the city wall felt the trembling of the city wall.

Zhang Guoliang, who walked down the city wall with a disgraced face, looked back at the dusty city wall, gritted his teeth and shouted: "Build barracks in the streets and houses everywhere, and each department will use the streets as their own camps to defend it, and prepare to fight to the death with the long-haired thieves in the city!" (To be continued......)