ps: Watch the exclusive story behind "Han'er Not Being a Slave", listen to your more suggestions for the novel, follow the Qidian Chinese website official account (add friends on WeChat - add official account - enter qdread), and tell me quietly! Zhaoqing is the portal to the west of Guangzhou, blocking Gaozhou and Luoding; Xinhui is the portal to the south of Guangzhou, blocking Leizhou and Lianzhou; these two places are a must-defend place in the eyes of the Qing army in Guangdong. When Li Dingguo entered Guangdong, he launched a large army to go straight to Zhaoqing, but was defeated by Zhaoqing General Xu Erxian. In the second attack on Guangdong, Li Dingguo abandoned Zhaoqing City and went straight to Xinhui. During the siege, Zhou Shixiang, who was a scholar, heard people say that the old thief came to Xinhui to be able to pick up the navy of the Zheng family of the Southern Ming Dynasty from the sea, and thus encircle Guangzhou on land and water.

Whether Li Dingguo's strategic purpose of attacking Xinhui was to meet Zheng Chenggong's navy, time has changed, and it is not that the parties involved have no way to know Zhou Shixiang, who made Li Dingguo's decision on that day, naturally could not know. What was in front of him was how to cross the city of Xinhui to Xiangshan County.

Crossing the Tan River does not mean that the Taiping Army will enter Xiangshan County. There is a Xijiang in front of it. The Xijiang is much wider than Tan Jiang. There is also a newly formed naval army from the Qing army on the river. It sounds like a foolish dream to cross the river with tens of thousands of people under the eyes of the Qing army navy. It is impossible to cross the river, so there is only one choice for Zhou Shixiang - take down Xinhui City and then go straight to Xiangshan by land.

Li Dingguo used typical ancient siege methods to attack Xinhui City, such as ants clinging walls, logging wood to fill trenches, digging tunnels, and bombing the city with cannons. However, none of these methods succeeded in the end. This shows how solid the Xinhui city wall is and how elite the Xinhui defender was. However, Zhou Shi killed the guard general Youyunlong with a blind date. It is unknown whether the Xinhui defender without Youyunlong was as strong as when he fought against Li Dingguo's army.

Gao Yao was too close to Zhaoqing. Although the Taiping Army successfully confused the green camps in the counties in Zhaoqing Prefecture in a series of previous movements, as time passed, Zhaoqing General Xu Erxian was able to judge the background of this group from the signs of the Taiping Army movement. Therefore, Gao Yaocheng could not stay for a long time. In the latest three days, the Taiping Army would leave Gao Yao and turn towards Xinhui.

Although the old and weak Houying led by Duke Xiang of Song avoided the county town and only operated in the countryside, they probably also arrived at the mountainous area southwest of Xinhui, which was not a safe place. Zhou Shixiang must immediately lead his troops to break away from contact with the Qing army in Zhaoqing and meet with the Houying, otherwise there would be big trouble in the Houying side. After all, the Houying side has too few soldiers who can fight, only the 300 people under Zhao Sihai. If they really encounter a large Qing army, there will be more danger.

Zhou Shixiang, who had no other choice, placed all his hopes through Xinhui in the camp. He found Tieyi and asked him to make most of the existing gunpowder in the camp into pellet gunpowder, and immediately searched for the city for the best wood to create two large coffins. Zhou Shixiang only had one requirement for these two large coffins, that is, it must be completely sealed and must not leak air.

Tie Yi was a little confused about Zhou Shixiang's purpose of building a coffin. When Zhou Shixiang told him that he was going to blow up the Xinhui city wall with blasting methods, he was a little surprised. Then he took the order solemnly. The camp had only conducted two small blasting tests on the Luoding city wall before, and the pottery stolen pot was used to load the burial of medicine. Although the blasting effect shocked everyone, Tie Yi did not have the opportunity to try to blow up the city wall with blasting methods in the subsequent war.

This time, Zhou Shi told him in a blind date that he would blast the Xinhui city wall, and to use two large coffins at a time. The amount of Chinese medicine in it was almost half of the Chinese medicine seeds in the camp. If it exploded, its power would be amazing. But because the amount of drug was too large, Tie Yi was unconscious and worried that the blasting would fail. Zhou Shixiang made it clear that if the Xinhui city wall could not be exploded, the Taiping Army would be trapped in the encirclement of the Qing army. No one would survive by then.

It was related to the life and death of the entire army, Tie Yi was naturally very cautious. After returning to the camp, he immediately brought people to catch all the shopkeepers and friends of a coffin shop in the city, and brought several coffins in the shop. He asked someone to improve these coffins overnight. He added two layers of thick wood, and brushed the rubber and other things. After making it, the coffin was put into water, put lime in it, soaked it overnight and then took it up. Only when the lime was not soaked, Tie Yi breathed a sigh of relief.

The two coffins were too big and too heavy. Only a dozen men could lift one with a rope. The difficulty was imagined. After learning that the coffin was made, Zhou Shixiang quickly sent someone to hand over all the dozen horses collected from the carriage and horse shop in the city to Tieyi. The dozen horses didn't pull anything, so he pulled the two coffins.

The Taiping Army left the city on the 17th. On that day, many people in the city saw the two big coffins pulled by more than a dozen horses. They all guessed that the coffin contained the Taiping Army, but they didn't know that there was nothing inside.

When leaving the city, the high-ranking recruits from each battalion were a little reluctant to leave their hometown, and some of them had the idea of ​​escaping. However, under the strict supervision of the small flags of each rank and the soldiers, few guys could escape.

"After eating my food and becoming my soldier, you have to follow me!"

This sentence of Zhou Shixiang's unintentional words to his subordinates has now become a word that many officers often shout in front of new recruits. Whenever this sentence sounds, it will always be accompanied by the fierce eyes of officers and veterans, and even officers pretend to pull out half of the sword. Although this method is far from Zhou Shixiang's "People's Army", it is in line with the current situation of the Taiping Army. If it is not so fierce, how many people will be lost by the new recruits. Just run away, I am afraid that these new recruits who already know the background of the Taiping Army report to the Qing army, which is absolutely unacceptable to Zhou Shixiang.

Shao Jiugong's Xiongwei Camp was the last one to leave the city and was responsible for the task of placing the post. Although the soldiers sent out to investigate reported that the Qing army in Zhaoqing did not leave the city, Zhou Shixiang still asked Shao Jiugong to make preparations and kept Xiongwei Camp for half a day away from the front camp to prevent Zhaoqing from biting the Taiping Army.

Zhou Shixiang was not afraid of war, but now he could not fight. Meeting with the rear camp was the top priority of the front camp. Before leaving the city, the Taiping Army spread a lot of fake news in the city, and the intention was to confuse the Qing army, so that the Taiping Army's true intention could be concealed for a period of time.

There were a hundred large trucks in front and after the grain was collected from the county government and wealthy families, and the guards were escorted to the city. For this reason, almost all the chariots and horses in Gaoyao City were collected, and 300 civil servants were also recruited to transport them. Zhou Shixiang also promised these civil servants, just as before, that as long as the grain was delivered, they could go home.

Gao wanted to go west, and at first, he could see some villages, but when he walked west, he was no longer inhabited. The abandoned land and ruined villages were everywhere. Except for the occasional flock of birds and one or two wild rabbits flying out of the ground, there was no longer any living creatures.

Most of the water systems in Guangdong Province are developed, with many rivers and rivers, and many streams. When the Taiping Army was stationed, frogs, snakes and other streams in the stream beside were basically caught empty, which made Zhou Shixiang feel very moved. It is true that Guangdong people love to eat snakes.

That day, the Han army leaders in the inlaid blue flag ran west towards Gaoyao City. Ge Zheng led his men to chase them for more than ten miles before they disappeared. During the days when the Taiping Army was in Gaoyao City, Zhou Shixiang sent several teams of troops to search along both sides of the official road in the west of the city, but no other discoveries were found except for a torn cloth belt.

Zhou Shixiang was not as nervous as his subordinates when they fled to Guoqing. Gao Yao went westward in Leizhou. The Qing army in Leizhou was just severely injured by General Linghai Chen Qice a few days ago. I think they were not able to pose a threat to the Taiping Army. The only one who could pose a threat to the Taiping Army was the Qing army in Zhaoqing.

Xu Erxian was a veteran from Liaodong and a powerful general under Shang Kexi. However, there were not many soldiers stationed in Zhaoqing. The Taiping Army successively operated in Zhaoqing and wiped out the four battalions, dragging the other two green camps into dizziness. I think that Xu Erxian would not leave the city easily without finally confirming the Taiping Army's background and intention to operate. After all, the gains and losses of Zhaoqing City are much more important than the Taiping Army. Besides, Xu Erxian was able to defeat Li Dingguo's army back then because of the tall city walls of Zhaoqing. If he really wanted to abandon the city and go to war, his few troops were obviously not enough for Li Dingguo to drink.

After surrendering Zhou Shixiang, the two Green Camp officers, Shao Jiugong and Li Fuguo, were both questioned by Zhou Shixiang. From them, Zhou Shixiang had a preliminary understanding of the power of the Qing army in Guangdong. Unlike when he was a scholar in Xinhui, he was afraid of the extremely powerful Qing soldiers. Now Zhou Shi is not afraid of the Qing army at all, and he knows that the power of the Qing army in Guangdong is not as powerful as he heard before.

The Qing army in Guangdong is currently composed of three groups of people and horses, and the main force and core are naturally King Pingnan. Shang Kexi's Han army flag vassal soldiers, but the two kings do not have too many vassal soldiers, and there are only 4,000 or 5,000 people in one piece. In addition to the vassal soldiers, the model governor-general controlled by Guangdong Governor Li Shutai is another powerful brigade of the Qing army in Guangdong, with a force of about 2,000 people. The rest are huge, but because of the green camp soldiers scattered in various places, the total number of troops is between 20,000 and 30,000. In addition, there is a newly formed Guangdong Navy, with a force of about 3,000 people. Adding a few groups of people and horses together, the total number of the Qing army in Guangdong is about 40,000.

Forty thousand people were taken out alone, and ten more Taiping camps were not opponents. Fortunately, the Guangdong province was not exclusive to the Qing army. The Zheng family was eyeing Chaoshan in the southeast, and the Ming army navy was attacked on the southwest coast. The northwest faced the Li Dingguo army with 100,000 troops. Gaozhou, Lianzhou, Leizhou and other places, and other southern Ming troops were separated by other troops. The existence of these troops directly dispersed the power of the Guangdong Qing army, making it impossible for the Guangdong Qing army to form an overwhelming advantage in any of the Ming army.
Chapter completed!