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Volume 1: Fierce Battle in Changsha Chapter 672: Battle of Chushu

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    The county magistrate of Linyi County and the green battalion general did not hesitate for long. Shortly after receiving the letter of persuasion to surrender, the general gathered the army. The county magistrate sorted out the Guanfang seal letter, household registration, grain and grass account book and other documents, and then  The city gates were opened to welcome the Taiping Army into the city.  ¡­¨Q

    The reason for such a ready surrender is also very simple. The army of King Qin of Shandong had caused too much trouble in Linyi before, and the people were deeply resentful. In addition, the Qing army did not have the support of the wealthy merchants in the city, so they gave up the idea of ??resisting. There were two thousand people in the city.  Many Qing troops surrendered neatly, and it didn't take Li Xiucheng too much.

    After entering the city, Li Xiucheng's general officers handled the aftermath with ease, collecting surrendered soldiers, checking the most guilty soldiers and ruffians among them, and executing them after public trials. They also selected the able-bodied to replenish the army on the spot, and the old, weak, sick and disabled were dismissed on the spot with money and food.  , and the rest were organized into rural soldiers to maintain local security, and were led by more than a hundred officers selected from the Taiping Army.  The quartermaster receives household registration information, counts grain and grass, publishes lists to appease the people, and distributes some grain to help the people.

    The county magistrates and generals of the Qing Dynasty generally checked their past deeds first, and those who caused harm to the people were tried and executed in accordance with the laws of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. For example, the magistrates of Linyi County are usually relatively honest, and they were still appointed after Li Xiucheng's interview.  He is the magistrate of Linyi County.  And the general drank a lot of soldiers' blood and had many murder cases on his hands, so he was naturally executed after a public trial.  Although the county magistrate interceded for the general and hoped that Li Xiucheng would let the general go in consideration of his contribution to the city, Li Xiucheng refused.

    Li Xiucheng said to the county magistrate: "The Kingdom of Heaven has its own laws. Even the Manchu Qing Dynasty has its own laws. The crime committed by this person is worthy of death even according to the laws of the Qing Dynasty. It cannot be because he has the intention to sacrifice the city.  If Gong lets him go, how will we face the soldiers and civilians who were harmed by him?"

    But the county magistrate was worried that Li Xiucheng had done this.  In the future, I am afraid that those Qing generals with murders on their hands will not dare to surrender.  But Li Xiucheng shook his head and said: "What the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom wants to create is a new country. If the officials cannot govern it well, it will be the same as the original Manchu Qing Dynasty. What's the point? Since these people's Manchu laws cannot punish their sins, the country's  The law will rule! As for not surrendering voluntarily in the future, that would be better, our Taiping Army will resolutely destroy them!"

    The county magistrate was silent for a while, and then said that many generals had never done any evil, but because they had fought with the Taiping Army for a long time, their hands were stained with the blood of the Taiping Army, so they were quite hesitant to surrender.  After thinking about it, Li Xiucheng said: "In the past, everyone was their master, and fighting on the battlefield would inevitably lead to casualties. If they can wake up to this early. If they surrender to the uprising, they can be exempted from guilt, but if they have tortured and killed our prisoners, wounded soldiers, or killed good people in the past,  The evil deeds of taking credit and harming civilians cannot be exempted from punishment!"

    The county magistrate somewhat understood what Li Xiucheng meant. It was excusable to fight on the battlefield, but those who had indiscriminately killed Taiping prisoners or wounded soldiers after the war would no longer be pardoned, especially those who had committed murder.  The Taiping Army will not let those who do evil things such as good deeds take advantage of others.

    After the Taiping Army entered the city, they killed some soldiers, ruffians, generals and corrupt officials who had committed the most heinous crimes.  Everyone clapped and cheered.  However, the Taiping Army did not bother the wealthy families. Instead, the common people sued them all. Those who oppressed the common people and had people involved in lawsuits were punished according to the law.  Family property confiscated.  Naturally, the Taiping Army treated the large and wealthy businessmen in the friendly township with courtesy, and at the same time announced the abolition of exorbitant taxes and miscellaneous taxes.  The Taiping Army did not need them to donate money or food when they crossed the border. At the same time, wealthy merchants were encouraged to open shops and trade with each other as usual.  Stable place.  As a result, every household in Linyi rejoiced overnight.  People's hearts and minds quickly turned towards the Taiping Army.

    On the second day after capturing Linyi, Li Xiucheng received news from Baizetang, Shandong Province. Lin Fengxiang of the South Route Army had captured Xuzhou half a month ago, and the main force was divided into two groups to attack northward.  Lin Fengxiang's Eastern Route Army marched along Zaozhuang, Tengxian, Yanzhou, and Tai'an to attack Jinan Prefecture. Now the troops have reached Yanzhou. Yanzhou's Qing army does not have many troops. It is believed that it will be captured soon. The East Route Army and Li Xiucheng  The ministry's rendezvous in Jinan is just around the corner.  The West Route Army was commanded by Lai Wenguang, and together with Chen Decai, Zhang Zongyu, Ren Huabang and other Nian Army generals, Ma Xiangxi attacked Guide, Shangqiu, Suizhou, Qixian, Lankao and other places in Henan Province. The intention of the West Route Army was obvious.  It was to protect the flanks of the Eastern Route Army and Li Xiucheng's troops. When the Taiping Rebellion General Staff Headquarters was rehearsing the Shandong Campaign, they were worried that once the Manchu Qing was forced too hastily, the Qing army might blow up the Yellow River embankment in Lankao or other sections, and the Yellow River would inevitably flood.  Huge yellow flood areas will be formed in Shandong, Anhui and other places, which will greatly affect the Taiping Army's advance and logistics.  Therefore, the mission of the West Route Army was very clear: to occupy the towns along the Yellow River in Henan as soon as possible, to intimidate the Qing army in Kaifeng, so that they would not dare to leave the city easily, and to ensure the safety of the Yellow River.

    The West Route Army has also made good progress and has captured Guide Mansion. The Qing army hastily reduced its defense line, not daring to engage in field battles with the Taiping Army, and concentrated its forces to defend large urban passes.  As Li Hongzhang, Yuan Jiasan and others mobilized elite troops to move northward, the Qing army's Jianghuai and Yellow River defense lines were almost collapsed at the first touch. Lin Fengxiang's two armies were progressing very smoothly.After receiving the news from the Southern Route Army, Li Xiucheng breathed a sigh of relief. It seemed that if nothing unexpected happened, Shandong and Henan provinces would be recovered within three months.  After handling some affairs in Linyi, the entire army rested in Linyi for three days, and Li Xiucheng led the army to continue southward towards Jinan Prefecture to attack and plunder.

    When the two armies of Li Xiucheng and Lin Fengxiang were facing each other from the north to the south, the Manchu and Qing capitals were really in distress. The Taiping Army unexpectedly wiped out all the foreign troops who landed. There was no lose-lose situation that they hoped to see. The northeast and south sides of the capital remained the same.  Tightly surrounded by three major camps of the Taiping Army, the 20,000 Taiping Army field troops and the Taiping Army mobilized more than 10,000 newly recruited rural soldiers and civilians in the Jintang area (many of whom were reorganized from the original local regiment training), and moved the three directions of the capital.  The crowd was packed with water.

    The Taiping Army was very ruthless. They surrounded the capital but did not attack. Hundreds of thousands of Manchu soldiers and horses were stationed in the capital. Their daily consumption of grain and grass was astronomical. Because they occupied the Jintang Canal, grain and grass from various places could not be transported to the capital.  , relying solely on the west to raise food shipped from Xuanhua, Datong, Shanxi, Shanxi and other places is a drop in the bucket.

    Li Hongzhang, Yuan Jia and other officials all knew that the Taiping Army was just waiting for work. They were just waiting for the Manchus to use up their last energy and blood to defend the capital. Then the capital would collapse due to food shortages, and the Taiping Army would sweep across the northern kingdoms.  Save it with no effort.  They also wrote several times to request the empress dowager and the young emperor to move the capital or patrol the west to avoid the Taiping Army. Even if they retreated and stayed outside the pass in the future, they would still have room to spare.

    But the Manchu nobles did not agree. They had lived in the capital for a long time, and all their family property was based in the capital. If the imperial court abandoned the capital, all their wealth would be lost to the Taiping Army. Moreover, the capital had more than 100,000 soldiers and horses, but it was only defeated by three people.  Wouldn't it be a joke to escape without a fight when surrounded by Wan Changmao?  If the imperial court loses its capital, how can it use its majesty to command the world?

    The two factions then argued endlessly. Every day they went to court to argue and impeach each other. The suggestions of Li Hongzhang, Yuan Jiasan, Peng Yulin and others were criticized completely. In the end, the Queen Mother of the West had no choice but to agree with the mainstream opinion and sent a large army of troops to storm Taiping.  The army camp was established, and more troops and horses were sent to protect Xuanda, the west grain road, and they continued to defend the capital.

    In fact, the Queen Mother of the West didn't know what trick the Western King was playing. In history, this was how the Manchu and Qing dynasties strangled the Taiping Army. The two camps in Jiangnan and Jiangbei had been besieging Tianjing, the capital of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. Although there were several times when both camps were  It was captured by the Taiping Army, but the Manchu and Qing troops soon rebuilt two camps, causing the Taiping Army to use up its manpower and material resources to compete with the Manchu and Qing Dynasty's entire manpower and material resources. As a result, after the essence of Jiangnan was consumed, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom was defeated.

    But now the King of the West is just treating the other person in his own way, and the Manchu Qing Dynasty has also tasted the feeling of being slowly hanged. Whether to defend or abandon the city of Beijing has become a headache for the Manchu Qing court.  , in history, the grain shortage in Tianjing turned into the grain shortage in the capital. Both capitals had large numbers of soldiers and civilians and consumed a lot of food, but they were places that could not be given up easily.

    In the evening of that day, the Qing Army Brigade went out of the city to attack the Nanyuan Camp of the Taiping Army. The two sides fought fiercely all night. This time, the Manchu Qing Dynasty spent a lot of money. Seng Gelinqin, Li Hongzhang and others always led the supervising team behind to supervise the battle.  No less than 3,000 Qing soldiers and generals fell in the supervising team, but in the end the Qing army was still unable to break through the Nanyuan Camp, which was tightly defended by the Taiping Army.

    The rifled muskets of the Taiping Army, the captured British Armstrong artillery, and the dense minefields in front of the camp became a nightmare for the Qing army. On a front width of less than three kilometers, there were tens of thousands of corpses of the Qing army, but they still fought to the death.  But the Taiping Army was not stingy with ammunition. After they seized military supplies from the British and French forces, they were greatly supplemented. The ammunition was extremely sufficient. Some soldiers even had a gun barrel that was red, so they immediately changed to another gun and continued to fire.

    After daybreak, the Qing army finally retreated. On the open ground in front of the camp, corpses were everywhere and blood flowed into rivers. Many Qing soldiers stood blankly in the mountain of corpses and cried in each other's arms. Taiping soldiers came up to capture the prisoners.  When they were attacked, they showed no resistance and were completely mentally broken.

    The commanders of the Qing army, Seng Gelinqin, Li Hongzhang and others, were even more miserable. Faced with the huge gap in weapons, quality of soldiers, and discipline, the Qing army drained the last drop of blood. The supervising team refused to kill anymore on the battlefield until the end.  The deserters who fled back, the last bit of energy of the Qing army was completely knocked out in this battle.  This battle was launched on the day when the solar term was over, and was known in history as the Battle of Chu. The Qing army suffered a disastrous defeat, with more than 25,000 soldiers killed and even more injured.  The damage on the Taiping Army's side was minimal, almost exactly the same as the historical battle in which the British and French forces annihilated the main force of the Qing army at Baliqiao.

    This battle also declared that the Qing army¡¯s plan to break through the Taiping Army camp was a complete failure. The Qing army was unable to launch a large-scale camp-breaking battle and could only huddle in the capital and the surrounding three mountains and five gardens to linger.

    After the defeat, Seng Gelinqin, Li Hongzhang, Yuan Jiasan,Yulin and others gathered the remaining soldiers and retreated. After discussion, the four of them decided to enter the palace and persuade the Queen Mother to abandon the capital and patrol the west. This time the four of them would rather risk their lives to achieve their goal.

    The four of them did not take off their armor and went directly to the palace to meet the Queen Mother of the West. Unexpectedly, just after they arrived at the Meridian Gate, Li Lianying came to deliver the order for the four of them to go to Chuxiu Palace to meet.  The four of them were very surprised as to why the Queen Mother did not meet them in Qianqing Palace, but they had no choice but to go to Chuxiu Palace to meet them in accordance with the Queen Mother's orders (To be continued, please search Piao Tian Literature, the novel is better and updated faster!
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