There is no cool feeling in the early mornings of summer, on the contrary, when the sun comes out, the stuffy air returns to the earth. On the dirt road leading to Guazhou south of Yangzhou, more than a dozen knights wearing the uniforms of Manchu military attachés were riding their horses to the Jiangbei camp of the Qing army.

At the beginning of April this year, after the army of the West Hall of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom conquered Wuchang, the army of 100,000 troops marched down the east of the river, and Emperor Xianfeng was sick and rushed to the hospital, and he sealed three ministers in one breath to suppress thieves, and Qi Shan, the minister of Qincha, was the actual supreme commander of the Qing army in the north.

Qi Shan is a Manchu nobleman Borzite clan, born in the Yellow Banner of Manchuria, successively served as a political envoy, governor and other positions, and officials to the governors of Zhili and scholars of Wenyuan Pavilion. In the Opium War of that year, Qi Shan saw that the British ships were strong and the guns were strong at the mouth of the Baihe River, ordered the retreat of the fort defenders, and sent Bao Peng, a Cantonese, to the Piercing Nose Ocean to sue for peace with the British army, and privately signed the "Piercing Nose Grass Treaty" with Yilu, ceding Hong Kong and paying 6 million yuan in compensation. Emperor Daoguang was ashamed of Qishan's unauthorized cession of Hong Kong, and ordered Suo Na to relieve Beijing of his crimes, "dismiss Suo Na, confiscate family property", and sent military Taiwan, and was later pardoned and appointed as the minister in Tibet, the governor of Rehe, the governor of Sichuan, and the governor of Shaanxi and Gansu. This person's life can be described as several ups and downs, and he is used to seeing everything in officialdom.

After Xianfeng's decree arrived in March, Qi Shan, who was the former governor of Henan, already knew that the long-haired thieves in the south were more and more suppressed, and the officials and troops were exhausted, and he knew that the soldiers and horses of the Eight Banners and the Green Battalion were rotten, and no matter how many soldiers and horses he had, he was far from being the opponent of the long-haired thieves who were in the limelight. Regarding Emperor Xianfeng's strict order to reinforce Jiangning, Qi Shan can be said to have dealt with it carefully. After the soldiers mobilized by the five provinces of Jiangbei were gathered, Qishan led the army south, which was extremely fast at first, but the further south Qishan went, the slower the speed of the soldiers and horses. Emperor Xianfeng came to urge him several times, and when Qi Shan went south with a large army. Henan and Anhui have bandits attacking and harassing in the name of playing.

In fact, this twist bandit is not a new thing, "twist" is Huaibei dialect, which means "a gang", twist originated from "twist", originally Anhui, Henan a nomad pinched paper, ignited the grease, burned oil twisted paper for practice, gathered to perform in festivals, for people to drive away diseases, disasters to make profits. In the early days, the twist was to donate sesame oil money to the villagers to buy oil twisted paper. Afterward. There are also phenomena of intimidation and extortion, which are no different from thieves. The more the harvest is poor, the more people enter the twist, the so-called "residents are for the people, and those who come out are twisted". As soon as there is a disaster in Anhui, Henan and other places, there are thieves everywhere. But this year's twist thieves are different from previous years. Because of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom's huge uprising, these thieves began to respond to the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom's uprising. So it's more purposeful than ever.

Qi Shan knew that Jiang Ning would never go. The 20,000 soldiers under his command went to death, so he began to exaggerate the Shili of the Jiangbei thief. Its practical butt knows that although there are many twist thieves, the current twist thieves have not yet become the twist army, and the most twist thieves are only more than 1,000 people, who dares to pinch the tiger whiskers of the 20,000 Qing army brigade? But Qi Shan took advantage of this. Often the sentinels sent out encountered a small group of thieves, and he had to stand still for a few days, and he had to investigate the surrounding area clearly, and he was willing to set off without thieves and soldiers in ambush. This one goes back and forth. The opportunity to rescue Jiang Ning was wasted by Qi Shan's self-defeating military journey.

After the fall of Jiangning in May, Qi Shan led a patchwork of 20,000 Qing troops to Yangzhou, and stationed on the outskirts of Yangzhou for several days. Unexpectedly, a few days later, Changmao really crossed the river and captured Guazhou. Lord Qishan attacked the west with long hair, and he couldn't avoid the battle, but he firmly held Yangzhou. But after Changmao captured Guazhou, he didn't move, and there was not even a shadow of Changmao on the periphery of Yangzhou. Under the stern will of the imperial court, Zuihou Qishan had no choice but to rush to the outskirts of Guazhou with soldiers and horses to camp and block the defense.

Guazhou is located at the confluence of the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal and the Yangtze River, where Wang Anshi of the Song Dynasty wrote the poem "Docking Guazhou": Guazhou in Beijing's mouth is a water, and Zhongshan is only separated by a few mountains. The spring breeze and the south bank of the Green River, when will the bright moon shine on me. The story of Du Shi Niang's angry sinking of the treasure chest has been widely spread for hundreds of years. Guazhou is not only attractive in terms of scenery, but also in its strategic location, which is the main point of gravity between the north and the south, which is full of attraction for both the Manchu and Taiping Heavenly Kingdoms.

In order to prevent the Taiping army from going north, Xianfeng strictly ordered Qishan to move the Jiangbei camp to the periphery of Guazhou. In fact, at this moment, the Taiping army of the West Temple in Guazhou did not plan to go north, they just wanted to keep a stronghold in Jiangbei to prevent the Jiangbei camp and the Jiangnan camp from attacking Zhenjiang or Tianjing.

The guards of Guazhou are Luo Xuan's fierce generals Wu Ruxiao, Xie Jinzhang, and Qin Xizhang. This Wu Ruxiao is a native of Jiaying Prefecture, Guangdong, Tongwen Mo, at the beginning of the Guangzhou Thirteen Merchant Division Accountant, and later entered Wuzhou, Xunzhou and other areas to do business, depleted capital, and then lived in Guangxi. Jintian uprising, participated in the regimental battalion, and awarded the commander of the first division on the left. After arriving in Changsha in November of the second year of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, he accumulated merit and promoted the first general system of Mu, and promoted General Muguanzheng, and built a water camp with Luo Outline and Lu Shunde. This person is an old brother in Guangxi, and Yang Xiuqing, the king of the East, sent him into the water camp with the intention of monitoring Luo Xuan. Xie Jinzhang and Qin Xizhang are Wu Ruxiao's subordinate generals, and they are also from Guangxi brothers.

After Xiao Yungui ordered Lin Fengxiang, Li Kaifang, Luo Outline and other generals to capture Zhenjiang and Guazhou, he sent troops to the south, Zhenjiang and Guazhou were very important, Xiao Yungui left Luo Outline to guard Zhenjiang, and ordered Wu Ruxiao to lead troops to guard Guazhou. When assigning tasks, Xiao Yungui Chunchun told Luo Outline and Wu Ruxiao that Zhenjiang and Guazhou were the lifeblood of the Manchu Dynasty, and they were also the important places for the Heavenly Kingdom to defend Nanjing. Wu Ruxiao is an old brother in Guangxi, under the king of heaven and the king of the east, the person he admires the most is the king of the west, so he naturally does not hesitate to this task, but he doesn't know that Xiao Yungui is worried that he is a pawn sent by the king of the east to keep an eye on him, so he sent him to Jiangbei to guard a lonely city, so as not to get in the way when he conquered southern Jiangsu.

Wu Ruxiao, Xie Jinzhang, Qin Xizhang are all the way out of Guangxi to fight the fierce generals, are good at defense, after arriving in Guazhou, the three generals discussed and then dug three long trenches in the periphery of Guazhou, introduced the river, and blocked the Qing army's attack; Pull up several iron cables on the river to block the Qing army's water division; In the long trench, camps were built on the upper, middle and lower continents, with stones on the outside and sand on the inside, blocking the artillery fire and making Guazhou like an iron bucket.

After Qi Shanbing arrived in Guazhou, he went to the front to check, and what made Qi Shan depressed was that although Guazhou was small and had only more than 4,000 people with long hair, it was also a hard bone to gnaw on, and it was not easy to deal with. Qi Shan decided to adopt a war of attrition, using Xiang Rong's old method of dealing with the siege of Yong'an, and continuing to deal with Guazhou. So the Jiangbei camp began to be built, and under the confrontation between the two armies, they competed to build the camp and dig trenches.

Outside a Qing army outpost leading to Yangzhou in the north camp of Jiangbei, under an old locust tree, three or four Qing army green battalion soldiers bare-chested and bare-chested to eat tea under the tree, led by a soldier who is relatively stout, he waved a fan in one hand, rubbed his sweaty chest with the other hand, and said in his mouth: "Brothers, I heard that Ma Laosan and a few soldiers made a fortune last night when they guarded the checkpoint, and several merchants listened to the accents of Jiujiang, and Ma Laosan and a few of them robbed people." A few vendors were beaten by Ma Laosan, hehe, when I went to see, several people were stripped naked, like blood gourds all over their bodies, I didn't think that these traders also brought their families, and I don't know whose mother-in-law cried and grabbed the ground, pulling Ma Laosan a few, and was hehehe...... by Ma Laosan.

Leaning on his side, a soldier Yong swallowed his mouth and asked, "Brother Quan, what happened to that mother-in-law from the third Ma Laosan, didn't she also peel off a strip?" ”

Brother Quan shook off the sweat in his hand and said with a smile: "That's not it, although it wasn't stripped naked, but a big piece of cloth was torn off on his chest, and his pants were pulled up to the root of his thighs. ”

Another soldier smiled and said, "Brother Quan, you should go up and persuade you, maybe you can touch two while you're in trouble." ”

Brother Quan said with a dazzled smile: "Who are you, Brother Quan, do you need to remind me?" At that time, I rushed up, pushed away the stunned soldiers, and hugged the woman in my arms. It's a pity, those traders were convicted of fornicating with long-haired thieves, Chen Junmen ordered him to be killed on the spot, and even the mother-in-law was killed, which is really a pity. If I encounter such a good thing again today, I will definitely be happy first, and then handed over to the military gate for disposal. ”

When the guys heard this, they laughed, and then they saw the dust coming from afar, and Brother Quan stood up and looked at it from afar and exclaimed: "There are more than ten horsemen on the official road, I don't know if they are friends or enemies, brothers copy guys!" ”

Several Qing soldiers hurriedly hid behind the wooden fence of the sentry post, raised their spears, and a timid Qing soldier couldn't help but ask in a trembling voice: "Brother Quan, are you going back to the camp to move the rescue soldiers?" ”

Brother Quan slapped the back of the soldier's head and scolded angrily: "Don't you have a long brain? When he saw that the momentum was wrong, he ran away, and he was a shitty rescuer! ”

Fortunately, the more than ten horses ran closer, and Brother Quan's sharp eyes could see clearly, and he breathed a sigh of relief and said: "It's my own person, the color of the military attache uniform!" ”

After more than ten horses approached, Brother Quan also saw it clearly, he couldn't help but be startled, these dozen people in front of him were all four-grade military attaché uniforms, and before Brother Quan turned around to speak, a middle-aged man on horseback hurriedly jumped down.

This man's face is white, a big braid is thick and long, combed without mess, casually on the shoulder, and he is still wearing a four-grade military attache uniform on a hot day, and a dark belt is tied around his waist, which looks capable and neat, without dragging mud and water.

Brother Quan saw that this person was a little pretentious, so he stepped forward to make a thousand, and asked in an authentic Beijing film: "This master, what do you call it?" The small Zhili Admiral Chen Junmen commanded the general Zhou Quan. ”

The middle-aged military attache snorted contemptuously, raised the horsewhip in his hand and shouted: "You are the third-class guard in the palace, Chengen, come to visit Lord Qincha Qishan, hurry up and lead the way!" ”

This group of people is the sticky pole guard of Shangyu Reserve led by Rong Lu, after leaving Shanghai by boat that night, Rong Lu and others rushed to Taizhou after crossing the river that night. In a secret stronghold of the Taizhou sticky guards, he received a secret order from Su Shun, and Su Shun ordered Rong Lu and others to rush to the Jiangbei camp after completing their errand in Shanghai, and report what they saw and heard in the Jiangbei camp according to the truth. In fact, it was Emperor Xianfeng who was suspicious of Qi Shan's immobility, and ordered someone to verify, and after Rong Lu got the order, he rushed to the Jiangbei camp with Chengen and his men. (To be continued.) )