Using troops to Guizhou, or using troops to have not yet determined prefectures, is indeed to greatly expand the territory of the Taiping Army in the short term, and even occupy the two lakes alone. In this way, the Taiping Army alone owns the four provinces of Guangdong, Guangxi, Hunan and Hubei. In terms of area alone, it is the second largest force behind the Qing court. The problem is that it is not difficult to seize territory, but how to defend and how to govern it.

Zhou Shixiang did not have enough troops to be used for the garrison of Hunan and Hubei, nor enough qualified officials to be used for the governance of the two provinces. Therefore, even if he took over the two lakes, he would not be able to digest the fruits of victory in a few years. And at that time, he would not only blockade the Yunnan-Guizhou and Qing army with geographical advantages, but also face the pressure of the Qing army in Hunan-Guizhou, Guizhou, Hubei and Hunan at the same time.

The Taiping Army is always under the enemy at the same time, and with the current strength and strength of the Taiping Army, it cannot be sustained no matter what. With one move, the whole body will be affected as long as one side fails on all sides, the other three sides will be affected. Therefore, Zhou Shixiang needs a friendly army to share the pressure on both sides or at least one direction for him. The Kuidong Army's remaining troops are undoubtedly a good choice.

The agreement made by Zhou Shixiang and the Kuidong army was that the Taiping army only took Jingzhou, Baojingzhou, Yuanzhou, Chenzhou, and Changde in Hunan, and the other prefectures and counties were captured and occupied by the Kuidong army. Among them, Wuchang, Hubei’s important town and Changsha, Hunan’s important town, would be captured by the two armies. After the matter was completed, the Taiping army gave up Changde and used the entire province of Hubei to support the Kuidong army. In Hunan, in addition to the above-mentioned prefectures and counties that had been occupied by the Taiping army, the four prefectures in Quanzhou, Yongzhou, Hengzhou and Baoqing in southern Hunan also belonged to the Taiping army, and the remaining prefectures were returned to the Kuidong army.

In this way, on the premise of ensuring the Hunan-Guizhou border, the money and grain of the four Hunan prefectures will be obtained to support the Taiping Army's military service on the Hunan-Guizhou front line. The Kuidong Army can also gain respite and expand its entire body with a half-provincial territory. On the one hand, it supports the northern front for the Taiping Army and attracts the attention of the Qing army in the northern part; on the other hand, it can have the strength to support the blockade of the Hunan-Guizhou border.

Zhou Shixiang promised that before the Kuidong troops entered the two lakes, the Taiping Army would independently respond to the pressure of the Qing army in Guizhou. Therefore, Zhou Shixiang must clear the chieftains on the Hunan-Guizhou border and ensure that the Hunan-Guizhou border is firmly blocked by the Taiping Army. Otherwise, letting these chieftain armed forces exist will always be an unstable factor. Furthermore, Zhou Shixiang also urgently needed the young and strong population under the control of these chieftains to supplement the Taiping Army, and manpower also needed to restore the damaged and exhausted production in western Hunan.

During the negotiations with Kuidong Group, Zhou Shixiang gave the greatest sincerity. To some extent, the territory he sought for the Taiping Army was determined based on Sun Kewang's management of Hunan's defense line. He also tried his best to suppress his subordinates' desire to expand the territory and suppress his inner self-reliance of the Taiping Army's four provinces.

If you greedy, you won’t be chewed too much. If you eat too much, your stomach won’t be able to hold on.

Just as a central area was established for the Xiangxi Bandits, the marginal area was the core area of ​​the Taiping Army, while Guangxi and the newly occupied Hunan prefectures and counties are the edges. The purpose of occupying these edge areas is to ensure the security of the core area and ensure a large enough buffer zone to relieve the pressure on the core area.

Only by thoroughly digesting the core area, establishing an unshakable regime in the core area, thoroughly mobilizing the human and material resources of the core area, and cultivating military and political talents belonging to the Taiping Army, can Zhou Shixiang consider digesting the marginal area, and thus transforming the marginal area into a core area to open up new marginal areas, in order to establish a stable base area that can continuously provide money, grain, soldiers, and equipment.

This is similar to the bandits adopted by the Taiping Army at the beginning, but it is also a snowball. The former is likely to be broken when it encounters a crisis, while the latter can withstand failure and will quickly replenish losses and repair wounds through its own mechanisms, so that the Taiping Army has the ability to fight again, rather than collapse, becoming a passing cloud of history and the last elegy of the Han family.

The formation of the bandit suppression army in western Hunan is an extension of this strategy, which uses the armed forces of the suppression and pacification chieftains to obtain money, food, population and resources, and ensure the stability of the border between Hunan and Guizhou. At the same time, the newly-organized bandit suppression army can be trained through the combat of less intense bandit suppression battles to train the combat effectiveness of the bandit suppression army.

The most important thing is that the newly formed six towns of the bandit suppression army were the largest reserve force prepared by Zhou Shixiang to deal with the crazy attack of the Yunnan, Guizhou and Qing dynasties, and it was also the largest mobile force in his hands.

Originally, Zhou Shixiang wanted to help block the Hunan-Guizhou border immediately after the Kuidong army escaped. However, the news from Kuidong was not optimistic. The thirteen soldiers were betrayed by Ertan in Chongqing and suffered heavy losses. Except for Li Laiheng and Hao Yaoqi's troops, known as the Little King of Chuang, who had not lost their strength, the other ten families suffered huge losses, and even the weapons of the soldiers were difficult to get together. There was no decent armor in the army. Although Li Laiheng and Hao Yaoqi's troops did not suffer losses in Chongqing, they were not much better than Yuan Zongdi, Liu Tichun and other troops.

Kuidong was too poor. According to Yu Dahai, Wang Guangxing and others, who represented Kuidong, their soldiers could only have a meal for two days on the most difficult days, and their clothes were torn, to replenish, and then they were tortured. Later, there was no material for replenishing clothes, like a beggar. The weapons were also torn, and they could not be worse than the Qing soldiers. The families also had three meals, and many of them were hungry. But even so, they had been fighting and unwilling to surrender to the Tartars. If it weren't for Ertan's rebellion this time, they might have taken Chongqing.

Wang Guangxing said that Little Tiger Li Laiheng and Yuan Zongdi were very grateful to learn that the Taiping Army had unlocked the Qing army for them, and the general Wen Anzhi was also excited to cry. Originally, the general was about to come to Changde to meet with Zhou Shi in person to discuss the affairs of the two coalition forces, but because he was cold on the way to Chongqing, he could not make a move, and Li Laiheng and others were busy resettling the defeated troops withdrawn from Chongqing, so they sent him to Dahai and Wang Guangxing to meet first.

Wang Guangxing also told frankly that even the Taiping Army had let go of the Kuidong troops into Hunan, but in the short term, there would not be many troops and horses that could enter Hunan, and it was impossible for Zhou Shixiang to join the war to block the Yunnan, Guizhou and Qing troops as Zhou Shixiang thought. He could only develop to Hubei first to occupy enough territory and obtain enough food and equipment to support the remaining troops left in Kuidong. Only when they had the ability to send troops could they enter Hunan and cooperate with the Taiping Army.

Zhou Shixiang knew that the Kuidong army had been in a miserable life over the years. Even if you have a strong dragon in Kuidong, you have to lie down even if you come, because this place is convenient in later generations and extremely poor areas. Don’t talk about it now. Li Laiheng and others were able to gain a foothold in this barren land, and it was not easy for them to persist in resisting the Qing Dynasty. Out of admiration for these Han heroes, Zhou Shixiang kept concessions and gave the greatest sincerity. He agreed that the Kuidong army would not send troops to the Hunan-Guizhou border for the time being, and the Taiping Army would independently deal with the Qing army in Guizhou.

In this way, the importance of the bandit suppression army became more and more prominent. In order to allow the bandit suppression army to be integrated as soon as possible, Zhou Shixiang gave up the greatest power to the bandit suppression yamen. Even if the border between Hunan and Guizhou was tense, he would not withdraw troops from the bandit suppression army, just wait until the bandit suppression army was completely pacified and the bandit suppression army could adapt to the needs of the war.

In this way, the important task of blocking the Hunan-Guizhou border fell on Tieyi's second town, Suna's sixth town, Guo Dengdi's ninth town, and Qi Hao's cannon town.

After Tieyi's second town was dispatched a brigade to Xiangxi to form a bandit suppression army, the remaining two brigades transferred some veterans and expanded the two brigades based on the Changde Green Camp, with more than 9,700 troops. Compared with the previous one, the combat effectiveness of the second town has decreased.

When Suna's sixth town was in Jingzhou, it expanded the third brigade based on Brigade C, so that the town headquarters actually managed the fifth brigade. When the Xiangxi bandit suppression army was formed, Brigade B of the sixth town was transferred over. Now Suna's army actually had four brigades, with less than 10,000 troops. Among them, Brigade A was the original and had the strongest combat power. Brigade C and New First Brigade and New Second Brigade are both new brigades, with most of the soldiers being surrendered and civilians, and their combat power is weak. The military headquarters gave the evaluation of these three new brigades that it was slightly stronger than the Green Camp.

The ninth town of Guo Dengdi, the Marquis of Weiyuan, reorganized a brigade of surrendered troops when he was stationed in Yuanzhou, and then two brigades were transferred to participate in the formation of the bandit suppression army. Now the town headquarters actually has less than 5,000 brigades.

Qi Hao's cannon town has also been expanded. In fact, there are 8,000 soldiers. One of the cannon towns is stationed in Jingzhou, one of the cannon towns is stationed in Yuanzhou, and two other battalions remain in Liuzhou and Guilin. The military department recommends that the cannon town be organized and allocated to each town to make each town independently own affiliated cannon battalions, so that it is easy to command and strengthen the firepower of each town. If artillery is used in a concentrated manner, it will be difficult to move and inconvenient to command.

Qi Hao also raised this question to Zhou Shixiang, believing that his cannon town was used separately in various battles and never concentrated. No matter what scale of battles were carried out with the Qing army, it was unnecessary to concentrate the cannon town alone. The reaction was adopted by the military's opinions and allocated the cannon town to use it.

Zhou Shi agreed with the views of the military headquarters and Qi Hao, and ordered artillery soldiers from all over the country to be commanded at the first level of the town where they were located. For example, the artillery soldiers in Yuanzhou were commanded by the ninth town stationed by Yuanzhou, and the artillery soldiers in Jingzhou were commanded by the sixth town stationed by Jingzhou.

Shao Chengguo's cavalry brigade did not expand much, mainly because the Qing army in Hunan was all green camps and had no cavalry, so there were not many seizures.

On November 17, Zhou Shixiang ordered Tieyi to lead two brigades in the second town to station in Changde to monitor the movements of the Qing army in Hubei, and to receive the Kuidong troops out. The other two brigades were transferred to Yuanzhou to strengthen the defenders of Yuanzhou. After the Kuidong troops came out, Tieyi gave up Changde and led the two brigades to Yuanzhou immediately.

At the same time, a brigade was transferred from Suna's troops, and together with Shao Chengguo's cavalry brigade, formed the East Advance Detachment. The detachment was led by Qi Hao and was responsible for the four prefectures of Baoqing, Yongzhou, Quanzhou and Hengzhou.

Zhou Shixiang's order to Qi Hao was to rob food at all costs.
Chapter completed!