After the victory, the Taiping army was busy rescuing the wounded, and the armies seized the time to rest, and the next day spent a whole day cleaning the battlefield. The soldiers of the Taiping Army, who had the spirit of frugality, did not let go of anything that could be collected, and of course they would not let go of the weapons and equipment such as muskets, swords, spears, and artillery, and even the copper coins in the pockets of the Qing soldiers were also looted. What made Xiao Yungui happy was that after this battle, he cleaned up the battlefield and collected more than 3,000 shotguns of all kinds, firearms, and all kinds of muskets.

weishenme: A Qing army is equipped with a variety of shotguns and firearms? Because Xiang Rong's green battalion soldiers came from three or four different provinces at this time, although the Qing court had promulgated the official layout of muskets and artillery, it was impossible to create standardized things according to China's industrial level at this time. The muskets made in various provinces have uneven walls, and although they generally look similar to the naked eye, if you use vernier calipers to measure them, you can know the differences. The thickness of the barrel wall of the musket directly leads to the difference in the amount of red powder (i.e., gunpowder), which in turn directly leads to the difference in range and the probability of exploding. In fact, as a large agricultural country, China did not learn from the Americans what real standardization was until the 70s.

After letting the experienced soldiers shiyan a few muskets, Xiao Yungui was a little dismayed to find that the muskets of the Qing army had several calibers, and even the muskets used by the green battalion soldiers in a province were quite different. Originally, Xiao Yungui's dream of increasing the rate of fire of muskets by developing and configuring fixed paper-wrapped gunpowder was shattered, because of the different wall thicknesses of these hand-made musket barrels, which led to the amount of fixed charge becoming a utopia. At this time, you can only rely on the experience of the musketeer to judge how much medicine to use, otherwise it is very easy to cause explosions. And the artillery made by the Taiping army itself was also accustomed to carving the dosage on the cannon body. For example, in the 70s, a Taiping Army bronze cannon was found in the inner city of Loumen, Suzhou, the cannon body was intact, bright as new, the total length was 178.5CM, the muzzle diameter was 12CM, the outer diameter was 16.8CM, and the periphery of the rear body was 105.5CM.

Xiao Yungui could only concentrate the muskets and draw out experienced veterans and some potential recruits from various armies to equip these muskets, and they needed to waste some red medicine to gradually find out the temperament of these muskets. Sophisticated musketeers often only reload the lower limit of red medicine, that is, the range can reach farther than the bow and arrow, and they will not deliberately pursue the range and blindly add the amount of medicine.

In addition to the muskets, a lot of artillery was also captured, with a total of 20 mountain splitting cannons of 400 catties and 10 iron cannons of 800 catties. What made Xiao Yungui happiest was that the red medicine had collected a total of more than 20,000 catties, plus the red medicine hoarded in Hengzhou City, they suddenly had more than 100,000 catties of red medicine. Although the ratio of these red medicines is not very powerful, it is urgently needed by the Taiping army. The rest of the grain, grass, silver, flags, all kinds of Qing army armor, cotton clothes, and baggage were also harvested, and the Taiping army in the West Hall really made a windfall.

In the early morning of the third day, the Taiping army finished cleaning the battlefield, and even the corpses of the Qing army were buried in a unified manner, which was specially arranged by Xiao Yungui, he didn't want the plague to run rampant after the war, and only the local people would suffer.

The Taiping army, which returned to the north in triumph, carried hundreds of pack horses and carried booty, crossed the Xiangjiang River from the ferry port of Dongyang Town and returned to Hengzhou City, stretching for several miles. More than 2,000 Qing prisoners were also used as porters and returned to Hengzhou together.

In the city of Hengzhou, Xiao Yungui summoned all the generals to pay homage to the Heavenly Father and made a prayer, and then rewarded the generals who had meritorious service in this battle, among which Li Yiwen had the greatest credit. Xiao Yungui ordered He Zhenchuan to write a report to the Heavenly King and the East King of Changsha, and rewarded Li Yiwen and other generals and meritorious soldiers.

Then Xiao Yungui asked the generals to express their views on this battle, which can be regarded as summing up experience, and the generals who participated in the discussion included generals at all levels above the brigade commander, Xiao Yungui wanted these people to know how to fight the battle as soon as possible.

But at the beginning, the generals were accustomed to talking about the strengths of the Taiping Army, and Zuihou or Li Yiwen pointed out the strengths of the Qing Army. In this battle, the Qing army of Xiangrong Department relied on the advantage of firearms, causing more than 3,000 casualties to the Taiping army, and almost half of the 8,000 Taiping troops who went south. In the encirclement and extermination battle of Zuihou, the Taiping army attacked the Qing army's position in a dense formation, and the Qing army had no camp to defend in the field, and there was little room for maneuver, so Zuihou collapsed in hand-to-hand combat. However, the Qing army still used firearms to inflict more than 2,000 casualties on the Taiping army, which was clearly felt by all the departments participating in the war. In the past, Xiang Rongbu and the Taiping army fought against each other, and they were able to calmly escape, largely because the Qing army bombarded the ring with muskets, alternately covering and retreating, and maintained a good whole, so that the Taiping army had no way to start, and Zuihou could only watch the Qing army retreat to the camp or occupy the dangerous terrain and lose the fighter.

After listening to Li Yiwen's words, some of the generals agreed with it, and some disdainful of it. Xiao Yungui and Zuo Zongtang glanced at each other, and both of them knew that Li Yiwen had said the advantages and disadvantages of both sides in this battle. The Taiping army occupied the terrain with great mobility, while the Qing army had the advantage of equipment. The ratio of muskets in the Taiping army was far from the proportion of the Qing army, and the number of shotgunners per 1,000 people in the battalion of the Qing army reached 600, while the Taiping army only had two or three hundred people, and the firepower was very different.

Although the accuracy of the shotguns at this time was not very good, for the Taiping troops who were intensively charging and hand-to-hand, the damage caused by these shotguns could not be ignored. Moreover, after the lead bullet fired by the shotgun hits the human body, the rolling damage caused is very large, and basically after entering the body, it is a piece wound, which is difficult to treat, compared to the injury caused by the bow and arrow. Moreover, the physical strength required by the musketeer is much less than that of the crossbowman, and it is good for a strong crossbowman to shoot ten arrows in a row in battle, but the musketeer only needs to complete a relatively complex reloading action, which can largely maintain physical strength. In the process of such a forced march of the Taiping army, the crossbowmen often rushed to the battlefield and did not have the strength to open the bow and pull the crossbow, but the movements of the musketeers were relatively simple.

At that moment, Xiao Yungui coughed lightly and told the generals a military tactic in the West Hall in the future, that is, focusing on carrying forward the advantages of firearms and artillery, supplemented by hand-to-hand combat and sticking to the stronghold, and advancing layer by layer. However, when conditions permit, it is necessary to resolutely carry out large-scale marching and maneuvering, concentrate superior forces to encircle and suppress the Qing army, and never turn a war of annihilation into a crushing battle.

At the same time, Xiao Yungui issued a military order, each two Sima command, each commander must have two musketeers under the configuration, musketeers with waist knives, the remaining three soldiers with rattan knives, spears, archers each, each brigade commander under the command of a separate additional artillery pawn, artillery 100 artillery team set up five iron cannons or mountain artillery, in the time of the war, artillery can be all concentrated by the division commander unified use. In the era of mixed use of hot and cold weapons, the way to win is to maintain the superiority of a certain number of firearms and at the same time maintain the superiority of hand-to-hand combat against the enemy. Xiao Yungui felt that it would be unrealistic for the whole army to realize the installation of firearms before the large-scale construction of a modern arsenal or the comprehensive equipment of foreigners' muskets.

Zuo Zongtang also agrees with this strategy, so that he can not only maintain a relatively equal state with the Qing army in firearms, but also not fall behind in firepower, and at the same time in the competition of the squad, it can also complement each other with long and short weapons. At the same time, when fighting in large corps, musketeers and artillery pawns can be directly concentrated to form large-scale musket arrays and artillery arrays, which is convenient for the development of firepower.

There are a lot of captured muskets and guns obtained in Hengzhou City, which are enough for the comprehensive assembly of soldiers and horses in the West Palace, but the casualties of soldiers and horses have caused a shortage of soldiers and horses in various departments, and the generals have proposed to recruit troops in Hengzhou City.

Speaking of conscription, Xiao Yungui did not answer, but asked about the capture of the Qing army. Counting the Qing troops captured in the Battle of Hengzhou, plus the Qing soldiers captured in the Xiangjiang Victory, there are currently more than 3,000 Qing prisoners.

For the Qing army prisoners, the Taiping army has always been harsh, the green battalion soldiers in other provinces are often directly slaughtered by the Taiping army, in contrast, Guangxi, Hunan, Guangdong soldiers, the Taiping army is released, sometimes they will be forcibly pulled into the army, but forcibly pulled into the army in the Qing army prisoners many will escape. Last time in Changsha City, Liuyang Xiangyong joined the Taiping Army as a special case, because Liuyang Xiangyong wanted to kill the Qing army to take revenge, so there was no desertion. But whether the captured Qing army should be killed or released or pulled into the army, the generals quarreled endlessly.

Most of the generals thought that these Qing soldiers should be killed, firstly, there were many soldiers from other provinces, and secondly, most of the soldiers of Xiang Rong had enmity with the Taiping army. But there are also different opinions, Lin Fengxiang thinks that most of the Qing soldiers are from a bitter background, and besides, it is ominous to kill, so they should be released.

The generals discussed and discussed, but no one dared to say that these Qing soldiers should be drawn into the army, because no one knew whether these Qing soldiers could accept the belief of God and whether they could be of the same mind as the Taiping army.

After Xiao Yungui pondered for a while, he threw out an astonishing strategy, that is, he copied the powerful weapon of the Red Army - the Grievance Conference!

During the three years of the Liberation War, a total of 2.8 million Kuomintang prisoners joined the PLA, accounting for 65-70% of the total number of PLA personnel in 1949. These captives did not believe in communism, and were even deeply influenced by the propaganda of the Kuomintang, but after being captured, they were portrayed as brave communist fighters in a short period of time, and this large-scale conversion of faith was one of the decisive factors affecting the victory or defeat of the Liberation War. Historically, the path of faith conversion has often been divided into two types: gradual enlightenment, which refers to slow, gradual enlightenment, and epiphany, which refers to sudden, rapid enlightenment. In the history of the spread of faith, this kind of mass assembly has always been a very effective form, and Qin Heping's History of the Spread of Christianity in the Southwest Ethnic Regions describes the magic of the "Fenxing Society" in missionary power, and sometimes even madness, which is very similar to the worship of God in the Taiping army today. In the missionary activities of the Christian evangelical sect, which is very strong in the United States today, this kind of mass assembly of anger is still one of the main forms.

Therefore, Xiao Yungui decided to start this kind of attempt in Hengzhou, if the Taiping army can master this effective epiphany faith conversion, it will allow the Taiping army to gain an incomparable advantage in future battles!