On the 10th day of the first month of the third year of Xianfeng in the Qing Dynasty and the 16th day of the first month of the third year of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, the Taiping army in the west hall of Yuezhou waved 30,000 troops and tens of thousands of people and family members, known as 100,000 people, attacked Wuchang from Yuezhou. Going down the river, the wind travels for 600 miles, on the vast river, only to see the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom flag covering the sun, floating river 10,000 ships, the sail is like a stack of snow, and the residence is like a bush of reeds. And there are more than 10,000 infantry troops on the north and south banks to follow, under the land and water, whenever the wind rushes forward, the Qing army on both sides of the river is scattered like birds and beasts.

The Qing court was shocked when the whole country heard the news, and under the strict order of Xianfeng, Xu Guangjin, the governor of Huguang and the minister of the Qin Mission, hurriedly dispatched 6,000 Qing troops from Qin Dingsan, Changlu, and Wang Jinxiu in the direction of Liling to aid Hubei. The fleet of nearly 10,000 ships of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Navy Division completely controlled the right to control the river, and Qin Dingsan, Chang Lu, Wang Jinxiu and other pursuers could only rush to Hubei by land from Jiangxi, and when they arrived at the river, they could not even find ships to transport troops, so they could only pursue along the south bank.

A few days later, 3,000 troops of Li Kaifang, the vanguard of the Taiping Army, arrived at Jinkou, the gateway of Wuchang, and Zhou Hexiang, the governor of Jinkou, led a regiment to practice 400 resistance. Although Zhou Hexiang was foolish and loyal and brave, but the gap in strength was too large, the Qing army could not be defeated, after killing more than 200 people, the Qing army was dispersed, Zhou Hexiang of Jinkou Zhixian County and the county Cheng, Dian Shi, and Qianzong died together, and Li Kaifang's troops lost dozens of people. After Xiao Yungui arrived at Jinkou, he learned that Zhou Hexiang was an official and honest, so he ordered someone to bury him.

Although Zhou Hexiang was unable to resist the Taiping army in the West Palace, he delayed the Taiping army's offensive and bought some precious time for the Qing army's pursuers. Qin Dingsan, the general of the Qing army, pursued and Ji Wenyuan of the Taiping Army in the West Palace, and the two sides fought a bloody battle, each with damage. Qin Dingsan saw that the thief was huge, and he didn't dare to approach too much, so he had to follow Ji Wenyuan without hurrying.

Chang Lu and Wang Jinxiu arrived by land with an army of 3,000, but they were ambushed by Li Yiwen, the Taiping Army of the West Hall on the right wing, and lost more than half. The second general was defeated and had to lead more than a thousand remnants of the army to Wuchang, fortunately, several teams of reinforcements from neighboring provinces rushed to Wuchang within a few days to set up defenses, and the strength of the Qing army in Wuchang was slightly thicker, unlike the original only hundreds of regiments to practice.

Xiao Yungui waved the army to advance rapidly, the Taiping army in the west hall entered Xianning, Xianning has a lot of cultural relics, it is reasonable to be the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom to get rid of the "demon traces", but Xiao Yungui ordered the Taiping army not to set fire, so that the Yi Bureau, Wu Temple and the first mountain Zifu Temple, Anlan Palace and other places of interest and historic sites can be preserved. The Taiping army was strictly disciplined, but there were scoundrels along the way who took advantage of the situation to rob, and the Taiping army was beheaded to show the public. The Taiping Army is also strict in military discipline when making mistakes against its own soldiers, but those who disturb the people will be beheaded for public display. Therefore, where the Taiping army passed in the west hall, although countless cities were broken, the people did not suffer much. After the city was broken, the Taiping army instead opened the treasury to distribute food to the poor people, and punished the local corrupt officials and bullies.

Three days later, Li Kaifang led the advance of the Taiping Army of the West Hall to land on the famous Guishan Mountain in Hanyang, defeated the defenders of 800 people, and then attacked the capital city, the prefect Dong Zhenduo led dozens of officials to die in the street battle with the Taiping Army of the West Temple, and the Taiping Army conquered Hanyang.

Hubei Governor Chang Dachun, Hubei Governor Shuangfu, General Soldier Chang Lu, Wang Jinxiu, etc. only 3,000 men and horses stationed in Wuchang, the rest of the places, there are no soldiers and horses, the famous commercial and trade town of Hankou, there is not a single soldier, the Taiping Army of the West Temple in the Baoqing Chamber of Commerce He Yuanlun and others secretly responded, smoothly entered Hankou, confiscated the business name associated with the Qing army, and obtained a large amount of property. After the rectification of Hankou and Hanyang, Xiao Yungui made another windfall, and at the same time supported Guiyun and Baoqing to become the two largest local businesses. At the same time, along the way, more and more poor people joined the army, and after arriving in Hankou, the total army was expanded by more than 20,000, and the number of Taiping troops in the West Temple reached more than 50,000, and the number of ordinary people, family members, and people with the army was no less than 100,000.

Due to the confused command of Chang Dachun, the governor of Hubei, the Taiping army easily uprooted the outlying strongholds of Wuchang such as Hanyang and Hankou, making the Qing army in Hubei trapped in the isolated city of Wuchang, and cut off the internal and external grain and grass.

At that time, the Qing army in Lianghu did not have a water division, and the Taiping army easily grasped the right to control the river. Xiao Yungui and Zuo Zongtang were able to calmly order Tang Zhengcai to preside over the construction of a pontoon bridge on the Hankou River, so as to communicate the actions of the Jiangnan and Jiangbei infantry troops, and at the same time set up a formation in Jiangbei to cut off the road for Qing reinforcements, and prepare to carry out a blocking battle once the Qing army came to help from Jiangbei. Among the two pontoon bridges, one is from Parrot Island to Baishazhou, and the other is from Nan'anzui to the mouth of the embankment.

At first, Tang Zhengcai was in a hurry, and the pontoon bridge was built quite quickly, connecting the boats with only burlap, and building a simple pontoon bridge on the river in just one day. But later found that this kind of pontoon bridge was easy to be dismantled by wind and waves, Xiao Yungui personally summoned Tang Zhengcai in front of the army, severely reprimanded him for this mentality of quick success, and ordered him to supervise the construction and reconstruction of the pontoon bridge.

Tang Zhengcai was ashamed, shameful and brave, and designed a solid pontoon bridge, with a huge cable and a large wooden bridge as the bridge base, covered with wooden planks, tied to a large iron anchor weighing three or four thousand catties, although the wind and waves could not move, people and horses came and went, such as the flat ground. After the pontoon bridge was built, Xiao Yungui went to the front of the army again, and publicly praised Tang Zhengcai before the three armies, and the official was promoted to one level as a reward. Tang Zhengcai was grateful, and only then did he know that the king of the West was a person who would be rewarded for his merits and punished for his mistakes, so he was naturally happy and convinced.

After the pontoon bridge connected the three towns of Wuhan, it was convenient for the Taiping army in Xidian to quickly deploy troops on the battlefield of the entire Wuchang Campaign. Xiao Yungui and Zuo Zongtang sat in Wanshou Palace, commanding Lin Fengxiang, Li Kaifang, and Luo Gang to attack Wuchang, and Ji Wenyuan and Li Yiwen were based on the rear road to block the reinforcements of the Qing army on the Jiangxi side. The Taiping army in the west hall went out to the north and south to block the reinforcements, the remaining 30,000 troops, land and water to encircle Wuchang, in the east of the city bowl mountain, Hongshan, Xiaogui Mountain, Bauhinia Mountain, the Qing army built the camp are all occupied by the Taiping army, the resiege of Wuchang's Wenchang, Wangshan, Baoan, Zhonghe, Binyang, loyalty, Wusheng and other gates, completely surrounded the Wuchang Qing army.

Wuchang guarded the Qing army, the governor of Hubei, Shuangfu, and his partner Chang Dachun, the governor of Hubei, tied for the first place in IQ among the generals who had already appeared. After the two did the stupid thing of blocking the port at the beginning, Shuangfu took advantage of the Taiping army to rest in Yuezhou, and supervised the Qing army to build a large number of forts, fortifications, and barracks outside the city, preparing to resist stubbornly outside the city.

However, after the overwhelming arrival of the Taiping army in the west hall, Shuangfu seemed to be taken by the power of the Taiping army, and all abandoned the camps and dangers outside the city, and withdrew all the Qing troops outside the city to the city, and as the main general of Wuchang, he strictly forbade Changlu, Wang Jinxiu and other Qing army reinforcements to enter the forts outside the city, which not only wasted a lot of valuable manpower and financial resources, but also used them by the enemy. So Lin Fengxiang, Li Kaifang, Luo Xuanjiao and others effortlessly entered and occupied the Qing army outside the city to build haode fortifications and fortifications for them, calmly erected cannons to attack the city, and obtained shelter and reinforcement camps, which made Xiao Yungui and Zuo Zongtang overjoyed.

Xiao Yungui can't figure it out, Shuangfu's move is quite suspicious of Infernal Affairs, could it be that this kid is in the camp and in Han? After pondering it thoroughly, Xiao Yungui also ordered Li Kaifang to shoot a few arrow letters to Shuangfu in Wuchang City, and the letter was quite persuasive to surrender. How do you know that in Shuangfu's reply, he scolded Xiao Yungui for being a thief without a king and a father, and he was a loyal minister of the Manchu Qing Dynasty. After reading the reply, Xiao Yungui was convinced that this guy's head must have been caught by the door.

Under normal circumstances, because the Manchu Qing Dynasty still occupies the Zhengshuo name and occupies the propaganda advantage, if it is not for the Qing army being too poisonous and the rebel army being too benevolent, the people will be more inertial to stand on the side of the government. Before the war, the residents outside the city of Wuchang hung outside the city, fearing that they would be captured by the Taiping army or suffer from the disaster of pond fish when they attacked the city, and they asked to enter the city to help the official army defend the city.

At this time, Chang Dachun and Shuangfu were in the water again, and strictly ordered the city gates to be closed everywhere, and the people were not allowed to enter the city, saying that they were afraid that there would be long-haired spies mixed in, and at the same time ordered the Qing army to attack the people surrounding the city gate. Many people were disheartened and turned their hearts to the Taiping army.

Chang Lu and Wang Jinxiu, who had participated in the Guilin and other battles, brought experience to the reinforcements, and the houses outside the city would be a cover for the Taiping army to dig tunnels and must be burned. Chang Dachun and Shuangfu ordered the residents to evacuate within three days, but unfortunately before the three days, the two were afraid that the residents would not leave, so they set fire to the city first, and the fire burned for six days and nights, and the people outside the city were burned to death, and all the survivors spontaneously became the siege guides of the Taiping army.

"Where there are people in Hubei, there is no one who does not cut his teeth when he sees the three words of Chang Dachun...... The people could not leave their homeland, so they only asked for a grace period of three days. And the Fu both agreed, but also feared that the thieves and bandits would suddenly arrive, and in the middle of the night, everyone fell asleep, a torch turned into ashes, and hundreds of millions of living beings completely ignored "This is the post-war Liangjiang Governor Lu Jianying wrote to the Qing court, it can be seen that Chang Dachun and Shuangfu did those stupid things in Hubei broke the hearts of the people of Hubei Province, but their stupidity seems to have not come to an end, and the siege battle behind them is even more faint.

Qin Dingsan arrived outside Wuchang with thousands of reinforcements, and immediately attacked the Taiping army stronghold of the Jiwen Yuan Department in Hongshan. Under Ji Wenyuan's carelessness, the Hongshan stronghold was conquered by Qin Dingsanqing's army, so he had to retreat a little, and was scolded by Xiao Yungui afterwards. But Qin Dingsan is not much better, Hongshan suffered a lot of losses in the first battle, and then had no choice but to be weak, and several times relied on Hongshan to pounce on the Taiping military camp outside Wuchang, and was defeated by Ji Wenyuan and Li Yiwen, unable to enter the city of Wuchang, nor able to open a road, so he could only support from afar.

Before dawn the next day, Ji Wenyuan gathered all the troops and horses, and took advantage of the lack of people and horses before dawn to counterattack Hongshan. The three Qing troops of Qinding could not be stopped, and were driven out of Hongshan by Ji Wenyuan, and the Taiping army recaptured the Hongshan stronghold. Qin Dingsan saw that the momentum was not good, so he had to retreat.

At the same time, due to Shuangfu and Chang Dachun stupidly abandoning Hanyang, Hankou and Wuchang outside the strongholds, the Taiping army has completely surrounded the isolated city of Wuchang, the defenders in the city have nothing to rely on, the reinforcements outside the city have no danger to occupy, the Taiping army blockaded the river, built a pontoon bridge, and the reinforcements continued to come and go, Wuchang had no famous generals to guard inside, and no elite soldiers to aid outside, the grain and grass were cut off, the people were resentful, and they saw that it was already a dead city. As previously estimated, the Qing army along the river was insufficient, the generals had no experience, the Taiping army entered Wuchang like a bamboo, and the march was surprisingly smooth, and everyone in the Taiping army in the west hall said that it was the will of God, and even a few generals in the east hall who still had some concerns also dispelled their doubts, and everyone rejoiced in the face of the imminent capture of the second provincial capital.