On the fifth day of December in the year of Jiayin, thirty miles south of Taizhou City of Wentai Defense Line, the gateway of the Qing army in Fujian, in a dense forest here, more than 1,000 Taiping cavalry were waiting quietly in the forest.

Under a poplar tree, Zhang Wenxiang, a fierce general of the Taiping Army, sat on the ground with an angry face, kept holding the green grass in front of him, and then put it in his mouth angrily and chewed it, and a red black horse behind him lowered his head and ate the tender grass on the ground, "Commander Liu, you can eat grass faster than your horse." ”

Zhang Wenxiang came back to his senses at this time, snorted a few times, spit out the grass in his mouth, and looked up, but it was Zheng Yantuo, the regimental trainer of the Second Cavalry Regiment of the Second New Division of the West Palace of the Taiping Army. What the hell is this called, we have been waiting here for three days, and if we kill it in the morning, those demons will become real ghosts. ”

Zheng Yantuo smiled, sat on the ground and said, "Aren't we waiting for Li Shangshu's general order?" Instant Battle! ”

Zhang Wenxiang said depressedly: "The turtle grandsons in the General Staff Office are always looking forward and backward, and they are willing to deploy only when the logistics and materials are in place, don't you see that along the way, these Qing demons have done evil things in nearby villages, and how many people have been killed?" ”

Zheng Yantuo shook his head, glanced at him and said: "I also said that you, the person with the best results in the Shanghai Cavalry Division, know what it means to defeat the enemy with one blow, soldiers take obedience to orders as their duty, although the Qing Demon has done a lot of evil, but we are soldiers, this battle is to be completely annihilated, don't you understand?" "Zhang Wenxiang is a native of Ruyang, Henan. In the twenty-ninth year of Daoguang, he went south to Ningbo to sell felt hats to make a living, and he has been living in Ningbo since then, and he is also a small leader of Ningbo pirates. After the Taiping Army recovered Ningbo, Zhang Wenxiang joined the Taiping Army, originally Zhang Wenxiang was the establishment of the navy, but Liu Lichuan saw that he was skilled in horsemanship, so he let him join his cavalry team, and later went to Shanghai for reorganization.

After studying in the cavalry department of the Shanghai Martial Arts School for more than half a year, Zhang Wenxiang studied extremely hard and seriously, and he seemed to be born to lead the cavalry. After graduating first in the cavalry section of thousands of people, he was awarded the rank of commander of the 2nd Cavalry Regiment of the 2nd Division. In the process of this reorganization, the West Hall adopted the practice of not looking at the past resume, but only looking at the academic performance, and promoted a large number of new talents. Zhang Wenxiang is one of the most dazzling.

Zhang Wenxiang lowered his head and snorted and said, "I also know, but I feel aggrieved." If you wait like this, the common people will let the Qing demon kill them sooner or later. ”

Zheng Yantuo said lightly: "In a while." By noon, it was time to fight. ”

Zhang Wenxiang sighed and asked, "Will the general order arrive at noon?" ”

Zheng Yanda said with a smile: "Yesterday, Staff Officer Yang in the regiment made a calculation, according to our transportation capacity, all the logistics materials will be in place by noon today at the latest, Li Shangshu wants to fight a beautiful battle, after the supplies are guaranteed." Do you think the Qing Demon can block our thunderous blow? ”

Zhang Wenxiang turned his anger into joy and said: "If you don't say it earlier, I'll go and prepare to go." After that, he tidied up a grass-green camouflage uniform, put on a green cotton armor on the outside, and put on an iron helmet with feathers. said with a smile: "This is the first time that our Taiping New Army has worn its own military uniforms to fight, and we can't be ashamed." ”

The equipment of the cavalry of the Taiping army includes sabers, short horse pistols, cotton armor and feather feather iron helmets with cornices, it is not the cuirassier heavy cavalry of Britain and France but light cavalry, because with the development of firearms, light cavalry is more cheap and practical, and the bulky cuirassier is just a bulky target on the battlefield, so the cavalry of the Taiping army is light cavalry.

Zheng Yantuo also stood up and said: "But let's say it first, you have to stay behind, I know your temper very well, as soon as the military horn blows, it rushes faster than anyone else." ”

Zhang Wenxiang's eyes widened and he sneered: "No, I will definitely listen to you and stay behind obediently." ”

As he spoke, a cavalryman flew in on horse, also dressed in camouflage, wearing a feathered iron helmet, and the horse, the horseman's body, and helmet were full of branches. Since the beginning of the year, according to Xiao Yungui's design drawings, the Taiping Army began to produce iron helmets for cavalry, this time, all the participating troops have changed into camouflage uniforms, iron helmets, and finally got rid of the Taiping Army's hated uniforms, it seems that all of them are in good spirits, and morale is even higher. In Zheng Yantuo's words, there is no need to mobilize to fight the demons.

The cavalry rushed closer, turned over and dismounted, saluted the two and said, "Report, there are more than 200 Qing demon soldiers outside Taizhou City, escorting hundreds of people to march on the plain ten miles away, it seems that they are going to be escorted to some place and then executed. ”

Zhang Wenxiang said angrily: "Bastard, raised by a son of a bitch, order to gather." He turned his head to look at Zheng Yantuo and said, "Saving people is like fighting fire, you don't have to wait until noon." ”

Zheng Yantuo pondered for a moment and gritted his teeth and said: "If you are in a hurry, let's fight, be clean, as long as we don't get rid of a Qing demon, we won't startle the snake." ”

Zhang Wenxiang hurriedly said: "If the cavalry of our second regiment let the infantry of the Qing Demon escape, our brothers will have to wipe their necks by themselves." Let the three battalions and three companies take the lead, and the rest of the departments are surrounded in a fan shape, remember to rush fiercely, there are people in the Qing demon team, you must rush up, and separate the Qing demon from the people, so that they can be annihilated, and the people will be less killed and injured. The horseman took the command, mounted his horse, and roared away.

Zhang Wenxiang and Zheng Yantuo took the regimental guards, rode on horses and led the rest of the men and horses to start walking north, a little distance only saw a sound of shouting, it was the officers and soldiers of the third battalion and three companies who took the lead, galloped away, and the rest of the soldiers and horses heard the shouting, and they also silently urged the mounts to start moving quickly.

Zhang Wenxiang rode on his horse and said to the herald: "Send a message to the artillery regiment of the Second Infantry Regiment and the Second Division in the back, our department has begun to take over the battle, let them follow later." "The herald was ordered to roar away.

Out of the woods, it is a plain, Zhang Wenxiang looked from afar, only to see the plain road, a team of Qing soldiers escorting hundreds of people to walk, the Qing army is very fierce, as long as anyone falls behind, it must be a knife down, the team left a lot of corpses, and the braids on the back of the heads of those people have been cut. At a glance, I knew that it was the Qing army that caught ordinary people and cut off their braids, intending to kill the good and take the risk. The people in the procession wept and cried out, and it was very miserable.

Zhang Wenxiang saw that since he arrived at the front line in Wentai, everything he saw and heard was a tragedy in the world. The Qing army could not take advantage of the long-term confrontation, so they often swept the nearby villages, burning, killing and looting as a matter of course, and the Qing army called it to eliminate the Diao people, in order to prevent collusion with Changmao.

The soldiers around Zhang Wenxiang were also angry. Their eyes were about to burst into flames, but they didn't move, not even speak, the Taiping army's military orders were very strict, and the soldiers could only bury their anger in their hearts. Slowly accumulating, waiting for the order to be given. The ten thousand angers in my heart have to be vented to these Mao soldiers.

The soldiers of the cavalry regiment were covered with branches. In addition, camouflage uniforms and cotton armor are camouflaged with tree branches, and from a distance, it looks like a moving forest, but it is as quiet as a forest, and its murderous aura slowly floats.

The third battalion and three companies were the first to receive orders and urge the horses to rush out of the woods. The new breech-loading short horse pistol in his hand was already clenched, and he galloped straight towards the marching Qing army.

The marching Qing army was always a vicious person who killed people and set fires, and he was already accustomed to the weakness of the people on weekdays, and he never imagined that there would be a large number of Taiping soldiers and horses in ambush near Taizhou. Although Li Tingyu, the governor of Fujian, was in Wenzhou and had put all the cities on the Wentai defense line on guard, the Qing troops in these places did not believe that Chang Taiping's army would launch a large-scale attack in winter, and their vigilance was still lax. At this time, Mr. Qian was thinking that after killing all these people, he should be able to find a lot of valuable things from them, and there were also many beautiful women in the team, so he was very excited when he thought of this.

Just as he was rejoicing, one of the soldiers beside him shouted, "Strange, God, you see that forest moves!" ”

The Qian Zong turned his head to look, and sure enough, he saw a large green branch moving rapidly, coming towards his own team, and a large cloud of dust was raised behind him, the Qian Zong was stunned, and after a while he hissed and roared: "It's not the woods, it's the cavalry, it's the cavalry, where did they come from?" ”

All the Qing soldiers also saw it, they were all anxious, and asked again and again, "What should we do?" Li Tingyu gave the name, and after the local regiment trained itself to be armed, the Qing army here is regarded as bandits, and it is easy to deal with ordinary people, but in the eyes of the Taiping army, they are no different from ordinary bandits. Moreover, the Qing army had never seen this kind of concealed cavalry tactics, and they saw a large area of woods flying towards them, and they all felt that it was magnificent, and they didn't know what to do.

That Qian Zong also knew some military affairs, and hurriedly shouted, so that his subordinates were concentrated, and more than 200 Qing troops lined up in a shallow horse rejection formation, with spears in front and short knives behind, ready to resist the enemy. Because they are armed themselves, the weapons in their hands are also varied, and some even use scythes.

The commander of the cavalry company of the Taiping Army of the third battalion and the third company saw that the other party had lined up a horse rejection formation, and shouted, and more than 120 cavalrymen of the third company raised the repeating horse pistols in their hands one after another.

For a while, dozens of Mao Zibing were shot and fell to the ground, and the thousand was so frightened that he was terrified, where had he ever seen a horse pistol that could shoot so far, hundreds of paces away, on the back of a bumpy horse, these cavalry could still hit so accurately, he forgot that his team was lined up in a dense array of horse rejections.

The cavalry of the Taiping Army generally used semi-gyration tactics in battle, that is, charge-shoot-turn-load-charge again, but the Qing army in front of them was too weak, and just one charge made the battle without suspense. The sabers of the Taiping Yuling cavalry were raised high, and the Qing army dispersed in a hurry, ignoring the escorted people, and fled to Taizhou City in a panic. Unexpectedly, there were other cavalry around him, and even dozens of Qing soldiers were desperate to kneel on the ground, raising their weapons and begging to surrender.

When Zhang Wenxiang and Zheng Yantuo arrived with men and horses, the battle was over, and there were no casualties in the three companies, which made Zhang Wenxiang very happy, and the cavalry untied the people, sent some food and water, and let them eat and drink, these people were wide-eyed, looking at these soldiers who spoke with Jiangsu-Zhejiang accents, Huguang accents and other local accents, and dressed strangely, and did not believe that they would be the soldiers and horses of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, until the cavalry took off their iron helmets and revealed short hair, hundreds of people cheered with tears in their eyes.

The commander of the third company ran to Zhang Wenxiang and asked, "Regiment commander, what should I do if I catch sixty-three demon soldiers?" ”

Zhang Wenxiang spat at the mouth and said fiercely: "Do you still need to ask?" Kill them all for me. ”

Zheng Yantuo smiled slightly and said, "The first battle is ominous. ”

Zhang Wenxiang's eyes widened and said, "Do you want to let it go?" We don't have anyone to watch over them. ”

Zheng Yantuo sneered and said, "Tie them all up and give them to those people to dispose of." ”

Zhang Wenxiang understood, and said with a smile: "Zheng Xundao, I didn't expect you to be so cunning. ”

Zheng Yantuo snorted and said, "It's good to let the people get angry." ”

After a while, the angry people beat dozens of Mao soldiers to death, none of them lived, the cavalry regiment let the people follow, urging the soldiers and horses, the military flag of the west hall of the Taiping Army was unfurled, and the mighty went to Taizhou City. (To be continued......)