After the Taiping army conquered Wuhu, they continued to advance to the city of Nanjing, along the way the Taiping army was strictly disciplined, and treated the people leniently and benevolently, but the city was broken, and half of the grain and grass in the city treasury were given to the people, and even the beggars who met on the way were given a certain amount of money and food. Therefore, when the Taiping army set out, there were 50,000 soldiers and 30,000 people, and there were many troops on the way, but the more poor people came to join the Taiping army along the way. At the foot of Nanjing, there were more than 25,000 veterans of the Taiping Army in the West Palace, more than 40,000 newly recruited soldiers, and an astonishing 70,000 soldiers and civilians. After the soldiers arrived in Nanjing, the poor people in the vicinity heard of the arrival of the Taiping Righteous Army, and those who rushed to join them were endless.

The city of Nanjing has been reorganized by Lu Jianying and Yang Wending, and the famous city of solid and dragon-like has been weakened, only more than 5,000 people of the regular Qing army are guarded, and the population of Nanjing City is claimed to be 2 million, and after fleeing before the war, there are still 700,000 or 800,000 people. Wang Shiduo, a literati in Nanjing, described the number of people when the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom attacked Nanjing: "Climb the gate of the three mountains and look at it, from outside the city to the Jiangdong Gate, there is no end, more than ten miles wide, and the people are all red-headed...... Therefore, since the crowd is complete, we hope to seize it. ”

However, after Li Kaifang's forward troops arrived in Nanjing, they suffered a big loss in the first battle. The vanguard of the Taiping army did not encounter resistance from the Qing army outside the city of Nanjing, but they encountered Lian Yong, a group of Mi Xing footmen recruited by the Confucian scholar Zhang Bingyuan, and fierce battles broke out in the streets of the houses outside the city.

The leader of this group of Lian Yong is Zhang Bingyuan, who is also a very courageous and methodical person, and behind him is Qi Suzao, the political envoy of Jiangning. This Qi Suzao is the official Jiangning political envoy, and naturally he has some business on hand, several rice shops and cloth shops, and thousands of people. The Taiping army pointed directly at Nanjing, Qi Suzao was naturally worried that after the city was broken, his life would not be guaranteed, and the business he operated would also fail. Qi Suzao was naturally overjoyed, and increased his salary for a year in one go, so that his subordinates could join the group training.

Qi Suzao treats these guys well on weekdays, and at this moment he is rewarded, so hundreds of guys were organized into Lian Yong, Zhang Bingyuan straightened Lian Yong to be more brave than the Qing army, although there were no weapons, clothing, but only relying on the tools provided by Mi Xing such as the flat pole and the Taiping army still fought in the south of the city.

Early that morning, the smell of breakfast wafted from the camp of Li Kaifang's troops, and groups of Taiping troops lined up to receive food in front of the men of each army. A veteran soldier of the Taiping Army looked down at the broth and white rice in the bowl, and said with a smile: "Finally, I don't need to eat spicy Hunan food." ”

Among the several recruits beside him, there are still a lot of Xianghu people, and they all laughed lightly when they heard the words, and they were secretly strange in their hearts, they had nothing to say about the war, and they were very brave, but most of the veterans in Guangxi were Hakka people in Guangdong, and they were afraid of spicy food if their tastes were light, and when they were in central Hunan and northern Hubei Province, in order to take care of more children in Xianghu, King Xi has been instructing the soldiers to make some Hunan dishes, and from time to time to open some small stoves for Guangxi veterans and get some non-spicy dishes, but after all, it is difficult to reconcile, and the West Temple Huotou Army can only accommodate the taste of most people. It was because of the light broth that I ate today, and the captain was a little happy.

"General Chen Shanren, do you think we can enter Nanjing City today?" A recruit who joined Anqing in northern Anhui asked with a bowl and a northern Anhui accent.

The Chen pawn took a few bites with a sigh, and said with a vague smile: "The Qing Demon has been frightened, this Nanjing City seems like paper paste to us." Zhou Huaiying, a few of you soldiers in northern Anhui can remember for me, the king of the west strictly ordered not to kill the people, and when you enter the city later, you will put a bright spot, but don't violate military discipline and be beheaded. When I was in Wuchang, one of my brothers killed a common man by mistake, and as a result, he tasted his life, which was not worth it. ”

Zhou Huaiying was stunned for a moment and said: "The old brothers under the good man were all killed all the way in Guangxi, and their military exploits should not be small. That's too impersonal, isn't it? ”

The Chen pawn licked his lips and said: "Meritorious service is meritorious, too much, my brother will naturally be punished for violating military discipline, and there is no complaint, anyway, later the king of the West gave him the credit, and he was awarded the title of pawn with his previous military exploits, and I think this is very fair." King Xi said, if we kill a common people indiscriminately, we will have to face the hatred of this people in the future, how many relatives and friends will a family have? Killing a common people will evil a common people, so we must be kind to the people. Otherwise, you wouldn't have come all the way to join us. ”

Zhou Huaiying nodded and said: "That's right, the Qing demon Zhou Tianjue killed our twisters in northern Anhui, and the big guy can't survive anymore, so he wants to come here." ”

The elder Chen laughed and said, "When we arrive in the Kingdom of Heaven, we are all brothers, let you be brothers with my Chen Huizu, this is the arrangement of the Heavenly Father." ”

Zhou Huaiying said curiously: "Does Heavenly Father even care about the affairs of small soldiers like us? ”

Chen Huizu said: "Of course, Heavenly Father is everywhere." ”

After eating and chatting for a while, the horn of the whole team sounded, and Chen Huizu ordered all the soldiers and horses to form a whole team, and there were five soldiers and horses in the queue, all of whom stood outside the camp. After a brigade commander waved the brigade commander's flag, the five soldiers divided into battle queues, and began to drive towards the streets and houses in the south of the city outside Nanjing.

The streets were empty, the dilapidated wooden signboards of several shops were swaying in the wind, and the streets were full of discarded debris, pots and pans, banners and uniforms, and it seemed that when the Qing army retreated into the city, there were still people who followed into the city.

Seeing that there was no one around, the Taiping army relaxed its vigilance, Chen Huizu waved the army to walk in the front, and when he looked up, he could already see the banner of the Qing army on the city, and there were many Qing troops shuttling back and forth looming on the battlements, Chen Huizu shouted: "Zhou Huaiying, take a few people to occupy the houses on both sides, prepare to build a barracks, beware of the Qing demon cannon at the head of the city!" ”

Zhou Huaiying took a few card knife hands to rush forward, pushed open the door of a house, and unexpectedly stabbed out a bamboo gun head-on, Zhou Huaiying also flashed fast, the rattan card in his hand was not pierced, and when he fixed his eyes, several men wearing coarse cloth coats and a gray cloth on their heads rushed out violently.

These men wrote Jiliang Mixing on their chests, Zhou Huaiying and others also said that they were Mi Xing porters hiding at home, the Taiping Army had an order, not to kill the people, seeing that it was not the Qing Army, Zhou Huaiying hurriedly shouted: "Old buddy, we are Taiping Holy Soldiers, we only kill Qing demons, not the people." ”

Before the words fell, several men rushed over like fierce tigers, stabbed down two Taiping soldiers, Zhou Huaiying was furious, held a rattan card on the front of the bamboo spears and flat poles of several men, waved a knife to force back a few men, and a few other people pulled up the injured two and retreated.

In the streets and alleys of the south of the city, from the houses and alleys of various houses, street corners and alleys, many such men came out, and they all fought against the Taiping army with flat shoulders and bamboo guns. The Taiping army was caught off guard, and they didn't know whether these people were ordinary people or Qing troops, but they were afraid of killing the wrong person, so they could only retreat.

When Li Kaifang heard the report of the brigade commander who took the lead, he was furious and said: "Tell the former army brigade commander that these bastards dare to wave knives at our Taiping Army, don't fucking be polite to them, kill those who should be killed, and kill me Li Kaifang if you kill the wrong!" ”

With the general's order, the Taiping army finally let go of its hands and feet to march to the south of the city again, but those men relied on their familiarity with the terrain in the south of the city, or sneak attacks from street corners, or hid in people's houses to fight, which made the Taiping army dizzy.

By the end of the afternoon, there was still no progress, Li Kaifang was furious, and ordered three brigade commanders to raise troops to attack the ring, so there was a war spectacle of hundreds of militia under the city of Nanjing against thousands of well-trained and well-armed Taiping troops, while another regular government army hid on the city wall and shouted and cheered. Zuihou Li Kaifang asked from the captured captive, this group of people is a group of people organized by the political envoy in the city, and Li Kaifang immediately ordered the army to advance and suppress.

Because it was a street and street battle in hand-to-hand combat, in a narrow space, large and small firearms had little effect, and the Taiping army was led by swordsmen, and spear archers refused. But these brave people are out of nowhere, and when they see that there are many Taiping soldiers, they retreat in a swarm, and when they see a few Taiping soldiers rushing out, they make the Taiping army have a headache.

Although the Taiping army has a lot of recruits, but after all, it is the soldiers who fought all the way, the weapons in their hands are excellent, although the practice of courage has the advantage of geography and spirit, but it is a pity that there is no weapon in hand, so he asked the governor on the city wall Lu Jianying for help, please "throw shotgun gunpowder", and ask for reinforcements and sabers to support the practice of Yong under the city.

Zhang Bingyuan's backstage boss Qi Suzao wanted to lead the city to defend the city full of reinforcements, but Lu Jianying actually thought that Lian Yong under the city was a traitor of the Taiping army, and the fierce fighting was just a show to deceive the Qing army in order to deceive the city, and brazenly ordered to open artillery to bombard Lian Yong, and Lian Yong was killed nearly 100 people on the spot. The rest of the people were chilled and fled to the mountains for refuge. Lian Yong is the only strong force in Nanjing City that has the ability to fight with the Taiping Army, and as soon as Lian Yong dispersed, Nanjing's Zuihou defense line was broken.

Jiang Ning's political envoy Qi Suzao was the younger brother of Qi Junzao, the chief military minister and a university scholar, and when he saw that Lian Yong, who had worked hard to build, was beaten by his own people, his corpse piled up, and he immediately vomited several liters of blood, and died shortly after carrying him back to the official residence. Lu Jianying, who wanted money and didn't want to die, didn't know that he was dying, and he took the hundreds of Lian Yong's corpses that he killed as the Taiping Army to play the Qing court, and filled his pocket with 300,000 taels of silver.

Later, it was rumored that the reason why Lu Jianying, the governor of Liangjiang, did not resist the attack of the Taiping army was because his son-in-law was captured by the Taiping army. The long-haired thief King Xi wrote to Lu Jianying, saying that the Taiping army had no intention of attacking Nanjing, but wanted to attack Zhejiang by chance. As long as Lu Jianying is willing to get out of the way, not only will he not attack the territory he defends, but he will also return his son-in-law. Lu Jianying therefore put up soft resistance to the Taiping army. Yu Zhonghua of the Qing Dynasty wrote "Dangkou Zhi" as a continuation of the Water Margin, in which Song Jiang's prisoner Cai Jing's son-in-law threatened to negotiate peace, which is an allusion to this matter. There is also an account in "Xiantong General's Trivia", saying that Lu's escape was returned to Jinling and he was closed to the house, or his son-in-law and daughter were captured by the thief army. The thief wrote to Lu, saying that he would enter Zhejiang with a false way and would never offend each other. If you are willing to give way, you will be released to your son-in-law and daughter, otherwise you will be punished with death. Lu Deshu was at a loss. The team died in battle before the meeting, so they fled in embarrassment.

In the face of these rumors, Xiao Yungui and Zuo Zongtang, the king of the West, seemed to be discussing haode, and they kept silent about the matter, and it became a difficult mystery to solve whether they had or not. But after all, Nanjing City is the ancient capital of the Six Dynasties, and it is not easy to conquer it, and the collapse of Lian Yong in the south of the city only allows the Taiping army to start to attack the city wall directly, and the fierce battle is still to come.