The Xidian Taiping Army stayed in Wuchang for a few days to rest and expand the army, and in the face of the upcoming Battle of Nanjing, Xiao Yungui believed that even if there was no need to expand the army, with the current strength of the Xidian Taiping Army, it could be successfully conquered as in history. However, after discussing with Zuo Zongtang, he still decided to continue to expand the army, for no other reason, Wuchang has Huangzhou, Tianjiazhen, Jiujiang, Anqing, Wuhu and other important towns along the east of the Yangtze River, and it is extremely dangerous to abandon these important towns and occupy Nanjing alone.

Zuo Zongtang, who is well versed in the geography of the south of the Yangtze River, is different from Hong Yang, who is not familiar with the geography of the great river in history, and Anqing has a dangerous geographical location, which is an important military stronghold to hold the Yangtze River and shield Jiangning. If the Shili along the Yangtze River in the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom is compared to a long snake in the future, Anqing is the seven inches of the long snake. In history, Zeng Guofan and Hu Linyi saw the importance of Anqing at a glance, and they did not want to seize Anqing in Jiangsu and Zhejiang, which accounted for half of the world's wealth, but also wanted to seize Anqing, but it was a pity that Hong Xiuquan, Yang Xiuqing and others went to the south of the Yangtze River at the beginning, and did not know the geography.

Xiao Yungui naturally will not make the same mistake, at the beginning of the fight he did not dwell on what division of troops is harmful, the Taiping army has always wanted to seize the national power, the division of troops is only sooner or later, taking advantage of the current Qing army's inability to organize an effective force counterattack, the Taiping army must complete the division of troops and strategy in the shortest possible time, and consolidate the cities along the river one by one, so as to obtain greater space for strategic activities, instead of being compressed in a city of Nanjing as in history, and then forced to launch the Northern Expedition and the Western Expedition.

Xiao Yungui of the three towns of Wuhan left Li Yiwen and Chen Yucheng to lead 10,000 veterans of the West Hall as the backbone, supplemented by 20,000 newly recruited recruits from the three towns, a total of 30,000 people to guard here. Among the 10,000 veterans in this West Palace, in fact, there are only 1,000 veterans in Guangxi, and the rest are recruits from Hunan, but after they have experienced several battles in Xiangtan, Hengzhou, Yiyang, Yuezhou, and Wuchang, they are already qualified veterans of the Taiping Army.

In addition, Xiao Yungui also left Lu Shunde with more than 1,500 warships as a supplement, and Li Yiwen also left a lot of firearms and artillery. Moreover, the benevolent government implemented by the Taiping Army in Wuchang made the people of Wuchang more supportive of the Taiping Army, and at the same time, the three towns of Wuhan had the strong support of the Baoqing Chamber of Commerce and the Guiyun Chamber of Commerce.

On the first day, the imperial court will come, dismissed and exiled to Xinjiang, and Lao Xiang packed up and prepared to farm in Xinjiang. Unexpectedly, the next day's will came again, before the demotion and retention in the army, Lao Xiang put down his clothes and stayed. A few days later, the decree came again, and he was promoted to the minister of the Qin mission, took over Xu Guangjin's envoy, and continued to exterminate the Taiping army.

Taking over the mess left by Xu Guangjin, Rao is the cunning Xiang Rong is also at a loss, and in Liling, Jiang Zhongyuan and Zhang Guoliang are still struggling to support under the offensive of Shi Dakai and Lai Hanying. Zhang Liangji, Hu Linyi, and Peng Yulin, who crossed the Xiangjiang River to the west, surrounded Yiyang guarded by Wei Changhui, but the commander of the Taiping Army in the North Hall was Wei Jun, the Emperor of the North Palace, who was famous for his good defense, although Zhang Liangji had no shortage of famous generals and veterans, but in the face of Wei Jun's iron bucket-like defensive defense, the two sides were still repeatedly fighting for dangerous places on the periphery of Yiyang, and the Taiping Army had hundreds of warships to support, the Qing Army could not completely encircle Yiyang, and could only delay the action of the Taiping Army of the North Temple to launch an offensive against Changde.

Xiang Rong also understood that if Hong Yang of Changsha sent reinforcements to Yiyang or Liling, both of them would face a situation of defeat and retreat. Compared with the mess in Hunan, what makes Xiang Rong more big is the Xidian Taiping Army that captured Wuchang, this huge army of men and horses will go down the east of the river at any time, and it is clear how many soldiers Xiang Rong has in various cities along the river, and it is not at all the opponent of the Xidian Taiping Army, which is known as 300,000 people, and Xianfeng's will is to lead troops and horses to Rong to intercept and suppress the Wuchang Taiping Army.

After Xiang Rong arrived, he handed over the military and political affairs with Xu Guangjin, Xu Guangjin seemed to be a big old man, the old man went to Xinjiang to farm this time, the old Xu, who was old and healthy, could not come back if he said badly, Xiang Rong had a feeling of sadness for the dead rabbit and the fox.

Xu Guangjin trembled and took Xiang Rong's hand and said: "Xinran, if you go to Xinjiang, I am afraid that the old decay will not be able to return, and this old bone can be regarded as loyal to the imperial court." But glad that you are different, the first time you take charge of the military and political power, it is the time to show your strength. However, how old and decayed are you older, listen to the old decay, the long-haired thieves are different from ordinary thieves, they have established a system, and the rule is strict, it has become a climate, and the chaotic parties in various places are responding one after another, if you want to exterminate you can't rush for quick success, you must be like the Kangxi Holy Grandfather to exterminate Wu Sangui, Xu Tu is moving slowly, step by step, and consuming the thieves with the power of the whole country, and there will be hope for suppression within ten years. The old decay has not left you much money, and now you can only protect yourself and avoid the war, and you can't ruin the entire Jiangnan war situation in one battle. ”

Since Xiang Rong took over, he has also thought a lot, Xu Guangjin's words are similar to what he thought, the Taiping army has been completed, it is by no means something that can be exterminated overnight, the Qing army can only rely on the vast territory and manpower it occupies to deal with it, and when the army is strong and the thieves are weak, it is the time to counterattack, only relying on the military strength in front of them to blindly intercept the fierce battle, the Qing army may not last long. At that moment, Xiang Rong looked at Xu Guangjin deeply and said: "Xu Gong rest assured, I understand that this is very powerful, and I will definitely play the imperial court, Chen Shu is very powerful, and reformulate a long-term plan to suppress bandits." ”

Xu Guangjin was a little relieved, and the corners of his eyes moistened: "The old man has nothing else to ask for, but he still has a cousin Zhu Ming who is still in the army as the capital division, and he just wants to be happy." ”

Xiang Rong nodded and said, "Gong Xu can rest assured, he will definitely take care of it." ”

After saying goodbye to Xu Guangjin, Xiang Rongdong scraped together, pulled up reinforcements from Guangdong, Fujian, Jiangxi and other provinces, and finally gathered more than 15,000 people, went north from Jiangxi by land, and after meeting with the three departments of Qinding, the Qing army finally organized a reinforcement of more than 20,000 people, and confronted the Taiping army on the periphery of the three towns of Wuhan.

Forced by Xianfeng's will to severely suppress it, Xiang Rong sent Taoist Li Mengqun and other generals to launch several tentative attacks on the Taiping army in Wuchang, but they were all repelled by the Taiping army, and the Qing army lost more than 1,000 people and a guerrilla. Xiang Rong saw that the Taiping army was well prepared, so he could only stick to the camp and fight against each other.

Xiao Yungui didn't have the time to fight with Xiang Rong on the periphery of Wuchang, and on the ninth day after the capture of Wuchang, the Taiping army in the West Palace left Li Yiwen and Chen Yucheng with 30,000 people to defend Wuchang, and the remaining 50,000 Taiping land and water army and 30,000 people with the army and civilians claimed to be 100,000 people, and began to go down the river by land and water.

Xiao Yungui, Zuo Zongtang, Hong Yun'er, etc., the king of the west, boarded the boat first, Luo Xuan, Tang Zhengcai and other commanders led the sailors to escort them, and Lin Fengxiang, Li Kaifang, Ji Wenyuan, Lin Qirong, Zhu Xineng and other generals led the army to guard the shore, and there were 10,000 ships on the floating river, and the sail banner was like a cloud, and it was going eastward. The Qing army fought a long battle with the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, and has always had a numerical advantage, and now the Taiping army has expanded to 100,000, but the Qing army is only a few thousand people along the way, so they flee in despair.

After Emperor Xianfeng deposed Xu Guangjin and reappointed Xiang Rong, who was old in the army, as the minister of the Qincha, he also sent Qi Shan, the old minister of Suqi, and Lu Jianxuan, the governor of Liangjiang, as two Qincha to be responsible for the defense of Jiangbei and Jiangdong respectively.

After Xiang Rong found out that the Taiping army went east along the river, he could only adopt parallel pursuit tactics and chase the Taiping army along the land route, intending to gather heavy troops in Jiujiang and fight to the death with the Taiping army in the west hall.

However, the Qing army was very weak in encircling along the way, except for a small battle that broke out in the Mouse Gorge, and the officers and soldiers fled for hundreds of miles from Wuchang to Jiujiang. Xiang Rong had no time to gather troops to intercept it, so he could only chase after the Taiping army.

When Lu Jianxuan, the governor of Liangjiang, heard that the Taiping army had left Wuchang, he was frightened, disregarded his face, drove a boat and abandoned his subordinates to flee overnight, and withdrew to Jiujiang to wait for reinforcements from Xiang Rong. Lu Jianxuan was so sad that he couldn't sleep at night, he got up to patrol, and was caught and beaten by the night patrol soldiers who were as nervous as him, and he broke two teeth, which can be described as unlucky.

Lu Jianxuan retreated to Jiujiang, still feeling that he was too close to the Taiping army and lacked guarantee of safety, so he went down to Pengze under the starry night, and when he arrived in Pengze, the more he fled, the more frightened he became, set fire to his own boat, and returned to Nanjing by boat.

Jiangxi governor Zhang Fu was stationed in Jiujiang, saw Lu Jianxuan fleeing, thinking that Qin Cha had fled, and when he did not flee from this empty governor, Zhang Fu called himself "Bodhisattva heart", simply lost the battle, it was better to save people's lives, so he could mobilize all the Qing troops along the river to retreat, so that the soldiers fled with him, so Xiang Rong's strategy failed.

The Taiping army of the West Palace was helped by Zhang Fu, and the progress was smooth, and it was not a few days to conquer Jiujiang, Pengze, and Xiaogushan, and the defenders along the way did not make any resistance. After capturing Jiujiang, Xiao Yungui left Lin Qirong to guard Jiujiang, divided 5,000 veterans, and ordered Lin Qirong to recruit more than 10,000 new troops in Jiujiang as a supplement. At this point, Xiao Yungui is still relatively relieved, Lin Qirong is famous for guarding Jiujiang in history, and Lin Qirong is out of town here, and Wuchang supports each other, I believe that the Qing army will not be able to pose a threat to Jiujiang in the short term.

A few days later, Li Kaifang, the vanguard of the Taiping Army in the West Palace, arrived at the periphery of Anqing, and the general soldier Wang Pengfei saw the banner of the Taiping Army, he was full of courage and took the lead in escaping. Li Kaifang's Taiping army laughed loudly and roared into the city, letting go of the pursuit and killing of the Qing army. The military attache of the Qing army had not read the book of sages of loyalty, filial piety, and martyrdom, so he shamelessly took the lead and ran first, leaving hundreds of civil officials large and small in the city. The civil officials also had their own strange plans to escape, but after all, they were all people who read the books of sages, "if the name is not right, the word is not good", and they always have to ask for an explanation for everything, so the civil officials took advantage of the Taiping army to cross the city to chase and kill the Qing army, temporarily stayed in the south of the city that had not yet been attacked, and anxiously looked for an excuse to escape.

The most anxious is Fu Jixun, the prefect of Anqing, claiming that Anqing is in an emergency, and other cities will definitely be more dangerous, and he will escort the silver out of the city with a fearless spirit to support the bandits elsewhere in the war of resistance. Fu Jixun escorted the silver - 200 taels of silver tickets with him to make up and go out of the city, and Li Benren, the political envoy of Anhui, was indignant and directly denounced Fu Jixun as a giant deception who deceived the world. Li Benren said that after his own inspection, hundreds of thousands of salaries and silver were still in the city, and Fu Jixun did not escort the salaries at all, so he volunteered to go out of the city to arrest the giant deceitful Fu Jixun, and by the way, the salaries and warmth were really sent to the friendly troops.

Li Benren was lightly dressed, carrying a list of accounts of hundreds of thousands of taels of silver and more than 100 taels of silver "samples", and also went out of the city in makeup, meeting Fu Jixun in Shucheng with the same great humanitarian purpose. Other officials were also greatly moved, claiming that they also had to contribute to the escort of the silver, and each carried a hundred taels of silver out of the city in batches, and the soldiers also fled one after another, and only the commander of the Anhui governor, Jiang Wenqing, was left in Anqing City.