The cold spring made people feel even colder in the hazy and confused early morning, and the Qing soldiers at the head of Wuchang City were still curled up and sleeping soundly by the embers of the warm fire. A sleepy-eyed patrol guard at the head of the city yawned, pulled open his crotch and prepared to pee under the city, and when he looked down, he couldn't help but be startled.

Under the city wall of Wuchang, the black pressure was full of people, all of whom were fierce soldiers with black faces and red scarves, and the patrol soldiers shouted fiercely: "The thief is coming!" Enemy attack! ”

It turned out that before dawn on this day, before dawn, Lin Fengxiang, Li Kaifang and other troops of the Taiping Army in the West Hall gathered at the foot of the city wall under the guidance of the people outside Wuchang City, preparing to attack. But he didn't expect to be discovered by the Qing army, and with a wave of the trumpet flag, the Taiping army in the west officially opened the battle of the Taiping army in the west hall to attack Wuchang City.

The soldiers of the Taiping army under the city painted their faces with ink, stuck feathers on their heads, and used dried horse dung and cow dung as materials to release smoke, and took advantage of the early morning fog and artificial smoke to cover the city, and vied with cloud ladders to attack the city. After the sleeping Qing soldiers were woken up one after another, but they were able to wake up in time, the generals and colonels of the Qing army at all levels roared, ordering the Qing soldiers to take spears in groups of three or five, all with spears, and stabbed the Taiping soldiers who had rushed to the city in advance in the smoke with spears and knocked down the city.

Lin Fengxiang, who was in the vanguard, saw that the sneak attack on the head of the city failed, and ordered the Taiping artillery team to attack the city with artillery fire. The artillery team fired the incendiary bombs developed by the Taiping Army itself, and the shells were hollow inside, most of which were ignited by fire, and were connected by bamboo tube wires on the outside, and after they were launched to the ground, a large sea of fire was ignited.

But the Qing army was quite well prepared, and a lot of water dragons were placed at the head of the city, and when they saw that the fire was on fire at the head of the city, the Qing army also washed it with water dragons, and even the smoke that was cast was extinguished. The city was crowded with the Taiping soldiers who were sneaking off, and the artillery team behind was afraid of hurting their own people, and they didn't dare to use other ammunition.

Hearing that the first battle was lost, Xiao Yungui couldn't sit still in Wanshou Palace, when he and Hong Yun'er rushed to the forward position to watch the battle, seeing that although the number of Qing troops at the head of Wuchang City was small, but the firearms and artillery were all well prepared, and the Taiping army would definitely lose a lot of money by attacking and fighting. Xiao Yungui immediately summoned Lin Fengxiang, Li Kaifang, Luo Outline and other generals to discuss, and Zuihou decided to use the method of attacking Hengzhou to attack the city.

After dusk of the same day, the Taiping army camp in the west hall dug a tunnel outside the city of Wuchang, ready to attack the city, because the city burned into a piece of white ground, what movement is known at a glance, see the Taiping army began to dig tunnels, Changlu, Wang Jinxiu in the Qing army, many brave Qing soldiers went down the city, destroyed the Taiping army tunnels, attacked the earth camp soldiers, the Taiping army fought in the front team, the rear team dug the tactics to deal with, but the progress was slow, and the situation was quite unfavorable.

Just when Xiao Yungui wanted the artillery team to teach these bitches a lesson, Shuangfu's stupidity flared up again, and he strictly ordered the whole army not to go down to the city to attack the Taiping army, violating military law.

The Taiping Army got the "virtuous help" of Shuangfu, and dug the tunnels twice as hard, and even saved shells. Later, the soldiers of the Taiping army earthen camp simply started work directly under the nose of the Qing army, and sent soldiers to the root of the city wall to cut down huge trees and clear the tunnels to enter the city.

Chang Lu and Wang Jinxiu were very angry to find the theory of Shuangfu, but the official level crushed people to death, Shuangfu hid in his own palace, lying on the comfortable soft floor smoking opium and said: "The thief has the advantage of firearms, and it is ten times more than me, and the soldiers will go out of the city to fight to the death, which is the realm of nine deaths and a lifetime, if you don't really want to serve the emperor, you want to surrender across the city, so the commander insisted on not letting the soldiers out of the city, in case the soldiers escaped." ”

The two generals looked at each other when they heard this, and it turned out that Shuangfu was afraid that the soldiers would take the opportunity to escape. Wang Jinxiu still wanted to refute a few words, Shuangfu smiled miserably and stretched out the opium smoking gun in his hand and said: "The two adults should still bring their respective soldiers to be loyal to the emperor, and if you can live a few more days, you will enjoy the blessings of a few more days, this Wuchang City can not be defended, for the Qing Dynasty, for the emperor, zuihou let's die in the city together." ”

Seeing that Shuangfu had no fighting spirit, the second general sighed and had to retreat, and now the second general could only hope that Xu Guangjin would mobilize reinforcements from Jiangxi to come to the rescue of Wuchang as soon as possible.

On the 24th day of the first month, the soldiers of the earth camp dug the tunnel under the Wenchang Gate of Wuchang City, dug three large holes, and put the coffin full of explosives into the detonation, and the wall was blown up more than 20 zhang.

The Taiping army summed up the experience of the last siege of the city in Hengzhou, Lin Fengxiang's department was responsible for the siege of the former army, selected each battalion of brave soldiers 50 people to take the lead, the dare to die before the dust landed, they took the lead desperately into the gap, Lin Fengxiang led the Taiping army to swarm in. Seeing this, the Qing army flocked to plug the gap, but the gap was too big, and the Taiping army swarmed one after another, and the Qing army could not resist, and Wuchang was captured by the Taiping army that day.

After the Taiping army entered the city, the Qing army of Changlu and Wang Jinxiu was extremely stubborn, and they fought stubbornly with the Taiping army. The Taiping army searched everywhere, and the red-eyed Taiping soldiers simply refused to accept the surrender of the defenders, and opened the prison to release the prisoners. These prisoners followed the Taiping army to liquidate the former Wuchang officials and soldiers, and the Qing troops from all provinces were killed, and only the local soldiers in Wuchang escaped by hiding in their homes and posing as civilians.

The chaos lasted until the next day, when Xiao Yungui issued an order to stop killing, but at this moment, more than 3,000 Qing troops in the city had almost been slaughtered, and the Taiping army sealed their swords and entered the city. Because before entering the city, Xiao Yungui strictly ordered the army not to kill a common people, it was to protect the people of Wuchang, and the people in the city hated Chang Dachun very much, so they put incense and pots to welcome the Taiping army, and the streets of ten miles were lit up with lights, so that it was more lively than the festival. Some of these rituals were modeled after the old customs and did not conform to the etiquette system of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, and many officials in the Taiping army were furious when they saw this, and they drew their swords and scolded, but they were stopped by Xiao Yungui.

Xiao Yungui shouted to the whole army at the gate of the city: "It has been more than a hundred years since the land of China fell into the hands of the Qing demons, and the people here do not know the difference between Di Yi, nor have they bathed in the grace of my heavenly father, let alone what my Han family is dressed in, so you should follow the temptation, not draw the sword and be angry!" This king hereby solemnly decrees that in the future, in the newly broken city, the old customs of the people are not the same as those of my heavenly kingdom will not be guilty, and all soldiers and others should not be guilty of this, but should wait until they enter the city by the military officials to help the people get rid of the old habits! When the officials heard this, they put their swords back into their sheaths and obeyed the order.

Xiao Yungui's move made the people of Wuchang have a great impression of the Taiping Army, and basically did not commit the mistakes made by the Hongyang Taiping Army when they entered Wuchang City in history. This is still Hong Yun'er's reminder, after the Taiping army entered Wuchang City in history, Hong Yang made several mistakes, one was to pull all the people of the city into the Taiping army, forcibly divide the men's and women's halls, prohibit marriage, cancel private property, and make the people of Wuchang miserable. The second is to pursue a policy of tribute to ordinary civilians. The residents of Wuchang could voluntarily pay tribute with gold and silver, tea and rice, oil and salt, chickens and ducks, and the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom granted a license after reaching a certain amount. Although the tribute was voluntary, after obtaining the tribute license, they did not need to enter the museum to serve as a soldier, so the residents of Wuchang paid tribute one after another to be exempted from military service, but the license was issued very little. The third is the abolition of all commercial trade, the confiscation of goods in shops, because of the abolition of commerce, the existence of gold and silver currency is not necessary, and all gold and silver and other items are also confiscated, and it seems that the old brother can keep his property within a certain limit. The fourth is to raise their swords against the people who welcomed them into the city, because the people have many old practices that do not conform to the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom.

So Hong Yun'er reminded Xiao Yungui that they must not make the same mistake as Hong Yang again, otherwise they will be kicked in the head by a donkey.

After entering the city, Xiao Yungui ordered all the troops to strictly enforce the law and order on the streets, and the criminals who had been released before were re-interrogated by Zuo Zongtang, Li Shourong, Wang Minyun and others, but all hooligans and villains who were really guilty were dealt with according to the criminal laws of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. As a result, those hooligans and villains who wanted to fish in troubled waters were not happy for long, and the laws of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom were much stricter than those of the Qing Law, and as a result, most of these people were beheaded for public display. After getting rid of a group of villains on the streets, the streets of Wuchang were orderly, and the people in the city had a good impression of the Taiping Army.

There were more than 100 Qing court officials in Wuchang City, except for Chang Dachun and others who committed suicide, including Shuangfu, most of them were sentenced to death after parading through the streets, and only a few officials with a better reputation were put in prison, Xiao Yungui planned to persuade some officials with good conscience in the Qing court to help manage Wuchang City.

After the liquidation was almost done, Xiao Yungui announced that even the officers and soldiers could surrender, but the Manchurians were not pardoned. Xiao Yungui also understood after Yang Xiuqing's narration that at this time he was engaged in a life-and-death class struggle, not a time to govern the world with benevolence and righteousness, so there was nothing to say at the moment except killing. As a result, in the middle of the night, the Manchu people and the Eight Banners Han army were taken out of the city and slaughtered, and thousands of corpses were buried in a centralized manner. The people of Wuchang City woke up in the morning to find that some people seemed to be missing from the city, but they did not delve into it, because their attention was attracted by the Taiping army's move to open a warehouse and release grain.

After counting the treasury of various places, the Taiping army opened warehouses and released grain, and each household gave ten liters of rice and a little oil and salt, and the poor people in the city cheered.

In the siege of Wuchang, the Taiping Army had several highlights worth mentioning, one was that due to the addition of Tang Caichang, a sailor made up in Yuezhou, the 10,000 sailors collected in Yuezhou were organized into a water battalion, and the naval army was officially established. The Qing army did not have a regular sailor in the area of the two lakes, and the right to control the river was controlled by the Taiping army, and the initiative in the war was completely in the hands of the Taiping army. However, now that history has changed, Hengzhou has fallen into the hands of the Taiping army, and God knows when the Hunan army sailors will appear.

Second, the siege tactics have been improved, in the cave blasting, the battle of Wuchang Taiping army used a tunnel multiple caves, several directions at the same time to detonate the method, the blasting power is even greater, in the process of digging tunnels, the Taiping army continued to beat gongs and drums, in order to disturb the blind people in the city to listen to the sound to identify the direction, so that Jiang Zhongyuan invented the blind man's trick to listen to the Tao was broken.

After the Taiping army blasted, the attack units poured into the gap in a trapezoidal shape, and the infantry army and the blasted earthen camp cooperated very tacitly, changing the situation that they could not enter the blasting in Hengzhou. After breaking the city, the Taiping army took turns to use troops, the rear guard troops carried rice and followed the advance team, and when the vanguard troops were hungry and tired, they continued to attack, and the vanguard troops were replaced to eat and rest, and the female soldiers of the women's battalion behind were led by Hong Yun'er, and cooked rice across the river, followed by a steady stream of rice sent to the rear team, so that they took turns to eat and rest, and the offensive did not decrease at all, and the remnants of the Qing army had no time to escape.

Yes, Hubei Governor Chang Dachun, Hubei Governor Shuangfu, Xuezheng, Guanglu Temple Qing Feng Peiyuan, political envoy Liang Xingyuan, according to the inspection of Ruiyuan, Taoist Wang Shoutong, Wang Donghuai, Lin Enxi, prefect Mingshan, Dong Zhenduo, with the knowledge of Zhou Zu, Zhixian Xiulin, and the general soldier Wang Jinxiu, Chang Lu are all to help the division into the city to help guard, most of them died in the city, only a few officials were imprisoned, after the news came out, the Qing army along the river on both sides of the city rumors, emergency documents flew into the Beijing division like snowflakes. (The second volume ends, and the third volume of "Shencheng Fengyun" will start tomorrow, please pay attention, Xiexie everyone supports.) )