Add Bookmark | Recommend this book | Back to the book page | My bookshelf | Mobile Reading

Free Web Novel,Novel online - All in oicq.net -> Historic -> Taiping blood

Volume 1: Fierce Battle in Changsha Chapter 118: The Army Moves South

Previous page        Return to Catalog        Next page

    At the gate of the Xiangtan County Government Office, Xiao Yungui ordered people to take Deng Shaoliang and others into custody, and then he, Zuo Zongtang, Lin Fengxiang, Li Kaifang and others entered the county office lobby and sat down.  The generals came forward and detailed their respective battle situations. After hearing that it was a group of boy soldiers who captured Deng Shaoliang, Xiao Yungui was a little surprised and ordered Su Ji to come to court.

    When Su Ji came to the hall, Xiao Yungui was very surprised at Su Ji's age. He was only sixteen years old, and would still be a high school student in later generations. Unexpectedly, in these troubled times, he had already raised a knife to kill someone.  Xiao Yungui comforted him with kind words and promoted him to the rank of commander of the boy soldiers.

    As soon as this statement came out, the generals were a little surprised. The boy soldiers have always been the last rank in the adult Taiping Army battalions. Su Ji just happened to have great achievements in Changsha and was named the two commanders of the army like Chen Picheng and Tan Shaoguang. However,  They only command a battalion of boy soldiers, but now that Su Ji has been awarded the title of soldier commander, he has to command a hundred people.

    Seeing that the generals were a little stunned, Xiao Yungui explained: "Child soldiers are still young and lack strength. Mixing them with adult saint soldiers has great disadvantages. There are a lot of child soldiers in the new army now. If they are mixed with each battalion,  Firstly, I am afraid that there will be too many child soldiers and each battalion will have insufficient combat power; secondly, it is inevitable that some adult holy soldiers will bully the child soldiers. Therefore, I decided to set up a separate children's camp, which will be led by Chen Picheng, Tan Shaoguang, Su Ji and others.  Child soldiers are inducted into adult camps after they reach the age of 18."

    The generals all agreed. From then on, the boy scouts in the West Palace formed a separate army and no longer mixed with the adult Taiping soldiers as the tail end of each battalion. This minimized the possibility of the boy scouts being bullied by the adult soldiers, and the boy scouts  Young, energetic, determined, brave and good at fighting, they are quite similar to the International Division of the Young Communist Party of later generations. In the subsequent major battles of the West Palace, this child soldier played a decisive role, and later became even more famous.  The name "Youth Guards".

    In this way, Chen Picheng, Tan Shaoguang, and Su Ji were all named captains. Li Yiwen was very happy. After all, Su Ji was his little brother who followed him. Finally, his hard work was not in vain.

    After talking about the child soldiers, Xiao Yungui ordered Deng Shaoliang to be brought to the court for trial.  Not long after, several Taiping soldiers, Deng Shaoliang, came to the hall.  When he arrived in the hall, Deng Shaoliang sat cross-legged on the ground, unable to wither.

    When the generals of the Taiping Army saw their enemies, they stood up and glared at each other. Some even wanted to draw their swords and kill Deng Shaoliang.

    Xiao Yungui waved his hand. After the generals retreated, Xiao Yungui frowned and looked at Deng Shaoliang and said, "What else do you have to say now?"

    Deng Shaoliang still had some guts. Although he was seriously injured and was locked up in a standing cage for a long time, he still raised his head and said: "The winner is the king and the loser is the bandit. Today, I am defeated and die because of my loyalty to the emperor."  , Death means dead ears, what is there to say? Humph, there are not even ten thousand but thousands of rebels and bandits like you who died under the knife of this association, I have already made a profit."

    Seeing that he refused to repent and did not want to talk nonsense with him, Xiao Yungui ordered his men to behead him at the gate of the county government office.  The rest of the Xiangtan officials who had committed the most heinous crimes were also killed, while the others with better reputations were spared and ordered to take Deng Shaoliang's body back to Liling and told Zhang Guoliang to wash his neck and wait for him to be slaughtered.

    This was Zuo Zongtang¡¯s idea. If Zhang Guoliang got the news of the fall of Xiangtan, he would be even more frightened and speed up urging the Hengzhou brigade to come for reinforcements. Then it would be easier to go south to Hengzhou.

    In the Battle of Xiangtan, the West Palace Taiping Army wiped out more than 1,500 people from Deng Shaoliang's tribe. However, because they had more recruits, they also suffered more than 500 casualties. Most of the casualties were new troops. However, after this battle, these recruits gained  exercise.  Xiangtan was rich in supplies, with a lot of rice, grain, oil, salt and cloth. The Taiping Army made a huge fortune. The West Palace troops recruited hundreds of poor people to join the army. In addition, the prisoners of the Qing army were forcibly recruited into the army.  Eight hundred more people.

    After resting for three days, the soldiers and horses of the West Palace replenished a large number of weapons, grain, and pack horses. They occupied Xiangtan and threatened Liling. Zhang Guoliang of Liling sent messengers to the south several times a day to ask for help.

    On the third day, West Palace veterans Zeng Tianyang and Bo Shu He Zhenchuan arrived with three thousand soldiers and horses who were originally guarding Yuelu Mountain. Their defense line had been taken over by the North Palace troops, so they went south to join the brigade.  Uncle Lai Hanying's troops then moved to Jianning (now Zhuzhou), not far from Xiangtan, to garrison. From then on, more than 25,000 Taiping troops on the southern route began their southern expedition.

    Hearing the news, Zhang Guoliang once wanted to abandon Liling and retreat to You County to join the brigade, but Xu Guangjin, the governor of Huguang, strictly ordered Zhang Guoliang to garrison in Liling, and only sent Jiang Zhongyuan, Jiang Zhongji, and Liu Changyou to lead more than 1,500 Chu Yong to reinforce Liling.  Because so far, Xu Guangjin has not figured out the strategic direction of the Taiping Army. Do they want to expand their territory and completely occupy Hunan, or do they want to divide their forces and go south to fight back to Guangxi?  Or go west to Guizhou?  Or go east to Jiangxi?  Now Xu Guangjin only has less than 40,000 Qing troops under his command. If the direction of the Taiping Army cannot be guessed, it will be difficult for the 40,000 Qing troops to block it. It is impossible for the Qing army to divide into three groups and attack Taiping from the east, west and south.? This is a taboo for military strategists and can easily be defeated one by one by the Taiping Army.  After many discussions, the generals of the Qing army could not guess the direction of the Taiping army's detachment this time, so they had to strengthen the troops in Liling first. The more than 20,000 troops in the brigade remained stationary in Youxian, and the troops of the Xiangrong tribe stationed in Leiyang were stationed in 10,000 troops.  The remaining troops formed a corner, waiting to see what happened, waiting for the arrival of reinforcements from the other Qing troops, and then gathering together to annihilate them.  Xu Guangjin never dreamed that the Taiping Army was not sent out to fight for a city or a place, but for the 40,000 Qing troops under his command.

    On the fourth day after the capture of Xiangtan, Xiao Yungui led the troops of the West Palace and divided them into three groups. On the left, Lin Fengxiang and Lin Qirong led the troops south along Leidashi Town and Sanmen Town on the west bank of the Xiangjiang River. In the middle, Xiao Yungui led Zuo Zongtang and Ji Wenyuan.  , Zhu Xineng, Chen Picheng, Tan Shaoguang and others went south along Meilin Bridge and Tanjiashan. On the right, Li Kaifang, Li Yiwen, Zeng Tianyang and He Zhenchuan led their troops south along Gutang Bridge and Baiguo Town.  Three groups of soldiers and horses, totaling more than 10,000 people, attacked Hengzhou.

    In order to cooperate with the West Palace's southward campaign, Yidian Shida sent troops to attack Liuyang, while Lai Hanying, Zeng Lichang and other troops began to march towards Liling, with the intention of marching eastward to Gan Province.

    ¡­¡­

    On this day, the north wind began to blow on the earth. On the official road south of Liling, a Qing army of more than a thousand people bravely braved the north wind and marched towards Liling.  These Yong soldiers are different from the ordinary Green Camp soldiers. Their heads are wrapped in coarse blue cloth. The word "Yong" is written in big words on their coarse cloth uniforms. They have cloth leggings tied at their feet. However, their clothes are very ragged and dirty.  Just like a group of beggars.  However, these brave soldiers all had resolute faces. Although they were wearing thin clothes, they moved forward against the wind without slowing down at all, and no one complained.

    Among the team, several generals of the Qing army followed them on horses. The leader was in his thirties, with an elegant expression, but a heroic spirit between his brows, and a leisurely manner, but there was a sense of chivalry in his actions.  He has a dignified appearance, and the uniform of a fourth-grade civil servant of the Qing Dynasty is a bit shabby, but it is neat and clean.

    Along the way, I saw only a few destroyed villages and houses, and from time to time there were wild dogs biting dead bodies on the roadside among the weeds. The official frowned deeply as he looked at them.  A lean general next to him suddenly said: "They are all damned long-haired thieves, they are poisoning our village to this extent. They are really hateful."

    The official turned his head to look at the Qing general, sighed softly, and chanted slowly: "I'm sorry for the poor man who works hard, but the good years are only enough to make up for the tithe. This year, there is no hope of good years, and the ravines are filled with bones. But  Seeing that the rich have nothing to worry about, who pities the poor because they are hungry? Once the poor are driven by hunger, how can the rich live in peace? Zimo, I still remember that when I returned to my hometown to visit relatives a few years ago, there was a bad harvest in central Hunan, but there was a severe famine.  Isn¡¯t it like this?¡±

    The Qing general was silent for a moment and said, "The meaning of Mr. Jiang's poem seems to be that he sympathizes with long-haired people?"

    Mr. Jiang nodded and said, "If everyone had enough food and clothing, who would rise up in rebellion? It's all the rich, evil gentry and corrupt officials everywhere who are greedy for wealth and have too many corrupt officials. They make people unable to survive, so they take risks out of desperation."

    The Qing general gritted his teeth and said, "Sir, we have been suppressing bandits all the way. When have you ever softened your heart? Why are you saying this now?"

    Lord Jiang sighed: "When I, Jiang Zhongyuan, trained Chu Yong, it was originally to destroy bandits like Lei Zaihao, but in the following years I have been suppressing bandits. Why are there more and more bandits?  When I think about it, maybe the saying that the government forces the people to rebel is also a good idea."

    This Lord Jiang is none other than Jiang Zhongyuan, the fierce general who led Chu Yong of the Qing army. He was the commander-in-chief of the Hunan Army in the early days of the late Qing Dynasty. His courtesy name was Chang Ru and his nickname was Minqiao. He was a native of Xinning, Hunan. He was elected in the 17th year of Daoguang's reign in the Qing Dynasty.  In the 24th year of Daoguang's reign, he held regiment training at home, instilling loyalty, filial piety, etiquette, and teaching military skills and courage. Later, he led the regiment to cooperate with the Qing army to suppress the uprising of Lei Zaihao's party, and was promoted to the magistrate of Xiushui County, Zhejiang Province.  In the first year of Xianfeng in the Qing Dynasty, during the Jintian Uprising of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, he was ordered to go to the Guangxi military camp of the Imperial Envoy Saishang'a.  Xuan recruited 500 Chu Yong from his residence to go to Guangxi, named "Chu Yong". The following year, the number of his troops expanded to more than 1,500.  He once ambushed the Taiping Army at Coiyidu, north of Quanzhou, seized their ships and supplies, and severely damaged the Taiping Army. He once shattered the myth of the Taiping Army's invincibility and was quite famous among the generals of the Qing army.

    The Qing general said indifferently: "Your Excellency, you must not lose heart. In the current national crisis, the people are in dire straits, and now our hometown of Hunan people is being ravaged by bandits. It is the right time for a man to relieve the people's disaster and serve the country. I  Liu Changyou has been fighting with you all the way to this day. No matter how difficult it is, he will definitely be by your side to help you and will never regret it."

    This Qing general was Liu Changyou, a brave general of Chu, whose courtesy name was Zimo and whose name was Yinqu. He was from Xinning, Hunan.  At the beginning, he organized regiment training with Jiang Zhongyuan in Hunan. He followed Jiang Zhongyuan and led Chu Yong to Guangxi to suppress the Taiping Army and the Tiandihui uprising. Together with Jiang Zhongyuan's brother Jiang Zhongji, he was Jiang Zhongyuan's right-hand man.  Liu Changyou is worth mentioning because in later history, he served successively as governor of Zhili and governor of Yunnan and Guizhou due to his military achievements. As early as 12 years before the Sino-Japanese War of 1888-1894, he proposed a preemptive attack on Japan.

    Liu Changyou analyzed that Japan violated international public law at that time. Once war started, it would not be inconvenienced in terms of international morality.??, and its aggressive nature will annex North Korea sooner or later. It is better to take advantage of its fledgling power and strike first.  He believes that since Tongzhi, the imperial court has paid attention to Westernization, established coastal defense, trained naval divisions, built forts, purchased iron ships, and built guns, and invested a lot of money. Now is the time for it to use force to use all its strength to kill Japan.  , is certain.

    I have to say that this Duke¡¯s vision was quite accurate. If the Qing government had adopted his suggestion and struck first, perhaps there would not have been the humiliating Sino-Japanese War of Sino-Japanese War, nor would there have been the tragic eight years.  War of Resistance.  But everything is just a fantasy. If the Manchu and Qing court would listen to his bold suggestion, it would not be the Manchu and Qing court.

    While he was talking, he could already see the city walls of Liling City. Not far away, he saw more than a hundred Qing troops waiting in line. The flags of the Qing troops had a large Chinese character written on them. It seemed that Zhang Guoliang had personally come out of the city to greet the reinforcements.
Didn't finish reading? Add this book to your favoritesI'm a member and bookmarked this chapterCopy the address of this book and recommend it to your friends for pointsChapter error? Click here to report