After listening to Xiao Yungui's words, all the books in the West Hall in the house cheered, and the haze in Suzhou City seemed to have dissipated for several days. Xiao Yungui smiled at Hong Yun'er and said, "Li Kaifang and Li Xiucheng are worthy of being famous generals in our army, and the two of them joined forces to repel Jiang Zhongyuan!" ”

Hong Yun'er said happily: "I've been busy with other things these days, and I only know a rough idea of the situation in Hangzhou, how Jiang Zhongyuan was defeated, tell me quickly." ”

Xiao Yungui stood up, walked to the house with high spirits, pointed to the direction of Hangzhou, and began to talk to Hong Yun'er about the battle of Hangzhou.

After the two generals Lin Fengxiang and Li Kaifang led the troops to besiege the city of Hangzhou, Xiang Rong and the Hangzhou general Du Xing'a joined forces with officials at all levels in Hangzhou to defend Hangzhou, and at the same time quickly asked for help from the rest of the Qing army. Hangzhou's subordinate generals, including the feudal platform, Zhentai, Xuetai, Daotai, Yuntai, and generals at all levels, gathered to personally sit in the city to watch the battle, Xuetai patrolled the city, and the divisions suppressed the militia and went to the city to cheer, Lin and Li Ergeneral saw that the morale of the Qing army was like a rainbow, but they did not attack the city easily, but divided into teams to attack the outer counties and camps of Hangzhou, intending to cut off Hangzhou's wings and then use troops against Hangzhou.

In this way, Lin Fengxiang led the troops to besiege Hangzhou and Xiang Rong's troops to fight, Li Kaifang led more than 10,000 troops, from south to north in more than ten days, connecting Yuhang, Xiaoshan, Shaoxing, Fuyang, Lin'an and other places, the Taiping army was prosperous, and the Qing army around Hangzhou was indecently gathered.

When Jiang Zhongyuan led the troops to help, this Jiang Zhongyuan deserved to be a famous general of the Qing army, he sent troops from Huangshan, directly attacked Lin'an, and after returning to Lin'an in one day, he directly threatened the Taiping Army's Houlu Deqing. Jiang Zhongyuan's intention was to lure the Taiping army north to aid Deqing, and then ambush the Taiping army on the way, and capture Fuyang after killing a horse gun, so that the siege of Hangzhou could be solved.

Fuyang was the place where Jiang Zhongyuan's Qing army must pass through to attack Hangzhou. The county seat faces the mountain with the back of the river, and blocks a stream on the right. The situation is solid, after Li Kaifang occupied Fuyang, his vision was very poisonous, and he saw at a glance that the situation here was dangerous, he personally led 5,000 soldiers and horses to build a fortress here to garrison, in a short period of time, the camps inside and outside Fuyang were all over the place, and the pheasants were new, and Li Kaifang was ready to defend Fuyang.

Then Jiang Zhongyuan's troops arrived, and the news of the fall of Lin'an came, but Li Kaifang was unmoved. Ordering the defeated troops of Lin'an to retreat to Deqing, Li Kaifang concluded that Jiang Zhongyuan would definitely attack Fuyang, otherwise Jiang Zhongyuan himself would expose his flank to the Taiping army in Fuyang. But Jiang Zhongyuan's boldness was beyond Li Kaifang's imagination, and after capturing Lin'an, Jiang Zhongyuan only left his younger brother Jiang Zhongji to lead more than 1,000 troops to guard Lin'an. The rest of the more than 10,000 men and horses, under the leadership of Jiang Zhongyuan and Chu Yong's fierce general Liu Changyou, viciously attacked Deqing. There is a great deal to conquer Deqing in one fell swoop. Coerced the Taiping Army's rear grain road Huzhou.

When he was about to lead his troops north to attack Lin'an again, Xiao Yungui's general order arrived, and the letter only said that Li Xiucheng had led his troops south to Huzhou, and Li Kaifang suddenly changed his mind, since Huzhou had Li Xiucheng in charge. It must be safe, and he will stick to the front line of Fuyang and Xiaoshan with peace of mind, because the outpost Shaoxing and other places have successively reported warning signals, and the Fujian Qing Demon has also moved. He needs to defend the southwest two sides of Hangzhou.

Jiang Zhongyuan did not expect the reinforcements of the Taiping army to come so quickly, after the soldiers besieged Deqing, he thought that there were only 2,000 Taiping troops in the city who had returned from Lin'an, and his more than 10,000 soldiers and horses were strong, so he rested outside Deqing for two days, and at the same time sent people to persuade the Taiping army guards in the city to surrender.

Chen Bingwen, the general of Deqing, was a native of Lujiang, Anhui Province, and a famous general of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom in history. This Chen Bingwen once ran in a tea shop in Wuhu City, his arm strength was extraordinary, he could hold a huge pot with one hand and pour tea every few feet, and he could dance a big knife of 80 catties, at the beginning of 1853, the Taiping Army of the West Hall joined the Taiping Army when he passed through Wuhu, and was under the command of Li Kaifang. He was ordered to lead more than 1,000 soldiers and horses to garrison Deqing to protect the Taiping Army's rear road, which shows Li Kaifang's trust in him.

After the defeat of the Lin'an Taiping army, the lord will be killed, and the remaining more than 1,000 people will be defeated and returned to Deqing.

And the Qing army Jiang Zhongyuan carelessly gave Chen Bingwen two more days to prepare for the war. Chen Bingwen was disdainful of the Qing army's persuasion of Jiang Zhongyuan to surrender, and even killed the Qing generals who came to persuade him to surrender.

Jiang Zhongyuan couldn't help but be furious when he saw that the number one in the city ordered the head of the envoy he sent, and immediately ordered the Qing army to attack the city.

The Deqing Taiping army resisted to the death for three days and successively thwarted the Qing army's offensive. Jiang Zhongyuan saw that the strong attack could not conquer Deqing, and he also learned the siege tactics of the Taiping army, and planned to attack the city from the cave.

Chen Bingwen also participated in the battle of Nanjing, saw the siege of the cave, he also had a way to prevent the siege of the cave, and the Qing army was different from digging trenches and placing urns, he learned from Li Kaifang how to see through the enemy's cave siege. This magic method is that when the sun does not rise in the morning, the eyesight haode soldiers die on the head of the city to watch carefully, before the white dew retreats at night, if there is a tunnel digging underground, the ground is warm, the dew does not exist, and you can distinguish the location of the tunnel by looking at whether there is dew on the ground. With this, the Taiping army of the Fa Deqing really discovered the tunnel dug by the Qing army, and it was clear from a glance that the barren grassland was twisting and turning.

Knowing where the Qing army's tunnel was, Chen Bingwen immediately ordered the Taiping army to dig the tunnel, and then divert water to irrigate it, and the Qing army in the tunnel suffered heavy casualties and lost hundreds of people.

Annoyed and angry, Jiang Zhongyuan found that his army of more than 10,000 people was helpless about this small city, and immediately ordered to storm the city day and night, and must take the city within three days.

The Qing army relied on the superiority of troops to begin a strong attack on all sides, Chen Bingwen waved his troops to respond calmly, but the strength was really limited, and the Qing army attacked day and night, and the battle was in danger until the early morning of the third day.

Fortunately, the wind and clouds suddenly changed, and a sudden storm swept near Hangzhou, and in the storm, the Qing army was finally defeated and retreated. There is a river flowing through the city of Deqing, and there is a windproof lake to discharge floods, the water comes and retreats quickly, and the Qing army's offensive slows down under a muddy situation outside the city.

Then there was an outbreak of cholera plague in the Qing military camp outside the city, the Taiping army paid more attention to hygiene, and the situation was slightly better, but the Qing army outside the city was different, they did not have a perfect health system, and there were many people and horses, and under the infection of each other, there were many sick soldiers.

Jiang Zhongyuan, who was anxious, suddenly heard that more than 10,000 reinforcements from the Taiping army had arrived in Huzhou, and after weighing it again and again, he could only give up the original Jihua, wave his troops back to Lin'an, and prepare to storm Fuyang.

The Qing army returned in vain, more than 3,000 people died in battle and disease, and after returning to Lin'an to rest for two days, Jiang Zhongyuan dragged his sick body, ignoring the persuasion of his younger brother Jiang Zhongji and his subordinate Liu Changyou, and forcibly sent troops to attack Fuyang. The reason why Jiang Zhongyuan still took the risk of storming Fuyang was because Li Tingyu, the governor of Fujian, sent him a letter that more than 20,000 Qing army reinforcements from Fujian would be able to reach Shaoxing in the near future. In order to recover the losses of the defeat of Deqing, Jiang Zhongyuan naturally had to give it a go, so he led more than 5,000 Qing soldiers to attack Fuyang.

Li Kaifang of Fuyang had been waiting for a long time, and Jiang Zhongyuan bit on the iron plate. The strength of the two armies is almost the same, the Fuyang Taiping army is recuperating, and the Qing army of Jiang Zhongyuan's department has just experienced the defeat of Deqing, and the epidemic in the army has not dispersed.

Jiang Zhongyuan could only camp outside Fuyang City, he only hoped that Li Tingyu's soldiers and horses could arrive as soon as possible to rush to Shaoxing to respond, as long as the Fujian troops arrived, Jiang Zhongyuan was confident that he could relieve the siege of Hangzhou, but unfortunately what he waited for was the ferocious attack of Li Xiucheng's Taiping army reinforcements.

Li Xiucheng's soldiers and horses were trapped in Huzhou by storms and waterlogging, after the water receded, he heard that the Qing army had withdrawn from Deqing, Li Xiucheng collected all the ships near Huzhou, and the troops were divided into two routes, one route was led by Li Xiucheng and Lu Shunde, the general of the water battalion, to take the south canal and waterway directly bypassing Deqing and Hangzhou, and entering the Qiantang River to rush to Fuyang to flank the Qing army and guard against the Qing army in Fujian. The other route was led by Cai Yuanlong, a fierce general under Li Xiucheng, to attack Lin'an, intending to cut off Jiang Zhongyuan's back road.

Jiang Zhongyuan was attacked by Li Kaifang and Li Xiucheng outside Fuyang, the morale of the Qing army was already low, and the epidemic was rampant, and the combat effectiveness was already unbearable.

Li Kaifang and Li Xiucheng joined forces, and after the two discussed, Li Kaifang continued to lead the troops to guard the front line of Fuyang and Xiaoshan, and Li Xiucheng led the troops to chase Jiang Zhongyuan, and it was necessary to get rid of this Jiang demon head.

Jiang Zhongyuan was defeated and returned to Lin'an, when he was about to arrive in Lin'an, he encountered Cai Yuanlong's Taiping army that attacked Lin'an, Li Xiucheng followed behind, Jiang Zhongyuan and Liu Changyou did not dare to enter the city, so they had to lead the remnants of the army to retreat to Huangshan.

Li Xiucheng and Cai Yuanlong captured Lin'an on the same day, more than 1,000 people of the Qing army Chu Yong in the city were killed, Chu Yong's brother Jiang Zhongji committed suicide, Lin'an was recovered by the Taiping army, and then Li Xiucheng refused to let go of Jiang Zhongyuan and led the troops to chase after him, and he has been chasing and killing for more than 40 miles, after Jiang Zhongyuan and Liu Changyou returned to Huangshan, the Qing army only had more than 1,000 people left, and Chu Yong's elite ten and nine were lost.

After escaping back to Huangshan, Jiang Zhongyuan received the news that his younger brother Jiang Zhongji had died in battle, and a mouthful of old blood spurted out, plus he was already infected with wind and cold, and he couldn't afford to be seriously ill. In the face of the aggressive posture of Li Xiucheng's troops of the Taiping Army, Liu Changyou and others of the Qing Army could only protect Jiang Zhongyuan to retire to Nanchang.

On the way back to Nanchang, Jiang Zhongyuan was so sick that he was in a daze, and he kept muttering, "Why didn't Li Tingyu's soldiers and horses arrive?" Why didn't Li Tingyu come to the soldiers? ”

……

In the palace in the west of Suzhou City, after Xiao Yungui told Hong Yuner about the entire process of the offensive and defensive battle in Hangzhou, Hong Yuner said with a smile: "The Fujian soldiers and horses did not arrive in time must be because He Bin, Liu Lichuan, Pan Qiliang, and Chen Alin had an incident on their side. ”

Xiao Yungui nodded and said, "This is the only explanation, otherwise the veteran Li Tingyu is not a bone to gnaw." ”

Hong Yun'er raised a few documents in her hand and said: "Before the typhoon arrived, He Bin and their zuihou said in a letter to us that they were ready to start an incident, and then there was no news coming, presumably because of the typhoon landing and the siege of the Qing army, the news was cut off, but it is certain that the Fujian Knife Society must have raised troops, and Li Tingyu could only give up rescuing Hangzhou and return to Fujian in order to save his hometown." (To be continued......)