Chapter 10 Chapter Ten Desperation

Not long after leaving Tongcheng, Li Hongzhang took out the whole map of Anhui from his sleeve and began to study the terrain of Lujiang.When he put away the map, he ordered the battalions to rush to Wuwei state by trail. The battalion officer Qian Fanwu asked in a low voice: "Master Li, Wuwei County is now under the control of Changmao, and Huangguzha and Xiang'an are also guarded by a large number of Changmao. We just left the tiger's mouth. If we go to Wuwei, won't we be in the wolf's den again?" ?” Li Hongzhang said with a smile: "You don't need to worry too much. Since ancient times, there has been no one who can decide the victory without knowing himself and the enemy. Fu Shuai's aid to He Shuai this time, he thought it was a sure chance of winning, but I guess Chang Mao has other plans. Everyone is a discerning person, Fu Shuai , When Mr. Jiang was here, tens of thousands of my officers and soldiers had nothing to do with Tongcheng. Now that Fu Shuai led the brigade to leave, only the two thousand of us were left to besiege. Isn't it a waste of death?

"But if we leave like this, Fu Shuai will definitely accuse us of disobeying military orders, and the superiors will definitely punish us. This official has reached the fourth rank, and death is not a pity, but you have not yet made great contributions. Isn't it a pity to punish them together? "I left Tongcheng out of desperation, but I can't tell anyone the truth. This official expects that after Fushuai arrives in Lujiang, Changmao will definitely mobilize heavy troops to fight, and maybe he is waiting for Fushuai to arrive and catch him all in one go. "Wuwei State is the place where Changmao stores food. We rushed there not to fight Changmao, but to set fire. As long as Wuwei is on fire, we will have made a great contribution. Not only will the superiors not punish us, maybe they will It can be rewarded heavily. I have racked my brains and thought about it, but I really can’t find a second way except setting fire to the Wuwei State.”

The development of the matter was just as Li Hongzhang expected. Before Fuji arrived at Lujiang, he was surrounded by heavy troops of the Taiping Army.Knowing that he had been duped, Fuji complained endlessly, so he had no choice but to bite the bullet and resist desperately; while the other Taiping army saw that Zhunhezhou was empty, took advantage of the situation and surrounded Hezhou, and broke the city in a short while. Yuan Xiang Yi pretended to escape from the back gate of the city, and his family members and guards were all killed.When the officers and soldiers of Luzhou City heard the news, they rushed to rescue them. The Taiping Army had fled and only saved an empty city.

Li Hongzhang rushed to the city of Wuweizhou overnight. The Taiping army guarding the city was caught off guard and fled after a little resistance.Li Hongzhang led his army into the city and set fires everywhere. The flames lit up half the sky red. The Taiping Army hastily drew half of its troops from the Lujiang battlefield to save Wuwei Prefecture. Hechun took advantage of the situation and led his troops to break out of the siege, and soon joined forces with Fuji.The Taiping army was defeated and retreated. Li Hongzhang stayed in Wuwei Prefecture for a while, but he didn't dare to stay longer knowing the critical situation, so he led his army to leave quickly and rushed to Lujiang without stopping.In the Battle of Lujiang, more than half of Hechun's casualties, Fuji's loss was also heavy, especially Jiang Zhongyi's left arm was injured by an arrow.As for Li Hongzhang's two thousand people, only a dozen were injured.

The imperial envoy He Chun greatly appreciated Li Hongzhang.On the one hand, he reported the battle to the court, and on the other hand, he sent a secret letter to Li Hongzhang, asking Li Hongzhang to come to his side to help with military affairs. Li Hongzhang made a wrong move in view of leaving Lu Xianji and switching to Fuji, if he left Fuji and switched to Hechun at this time, he would be ridiculed by the world, so he politely refused.Seeing that he refused to let go, He Chun had no choice but to give up. Fuji didn't want to recommend Li Hongzhang at first, but Hechun sent the report before him, so he had no choice but to report it truthfully.But Fuji's memorial was written as "The slaves sent Li Hongzhang, the prefect's deputy, to train Li Hongzhang. He led a regiment of 2,000 brave men to attack Wuwei Prefecture, which is an important grain storage area for Changmao, and destroyed Changmao's grain and grass. Changmao had to divide his troops to rescue it."

Li Hongzhang was rewarded with the title of three-rank Dingdai and inspector for his meritorious service; the title of Daoist was assigned to Anhui as an inspector and concurrently as an inspector and prefect Yuanxiang, and he was dismissed and assigned to Ningguta in Heilongjiang. Yuan Xiang came to bid farewell to Fuji crying.While Fuji sighed, he comforted him lightly.Yuan Xiang hides his face and retreats.Looking at his back, Fuji said regretfully to Jiang Zhongyi and Zhang Gong: "Toads are not allowed to sit on the table, even if you serve it up as a dish, it will jump down and get stuck in the pile of loach. Hahaha!"

Jiang Zhongyi had no words, but Zhang Gong hurriedly said in a flattering way: "Your Excellency is really high-spirited, don't you think about it? Putting the toad and the carp together, isn't it killing the toad?" Li Hongzhang, who had entered the ranks of senior officials, was now more and more separated from Fuji.Li Hongzhang knew very well that Fuji would not allow him to stay in Anhui officialdom for a long time, and he would become the second Yuan Jiasan sooner or later. Anhui is about to stabilize, and the day when Fuji makes a lot of money is coming. Can he allow others to put spoons on his plate?Li Hongzhang was in a dilemma, unable to advance or retreat, and felt that his future was bleak.

At the beginning of the eighth year of Xianfeng (AD 1858), the situation changed fundamentally, and the Taiping Army mobilized heavy troops and entered Anhui.Li Hongzhang hurriedly asked for leave and moved his mother and family to Modian Township again.Li Hongzhang rushed back to Daying on the same day, and accompanied Fuji to face the Taiping Army. In March, the Taiping army broke through more than a dozen counties in Anhui, including Taihu, Qianshan, Tongcheng, Shucheng, Luzhou, and Sanhe, and most of Anhui was engulfed in flames of war. At the beginning of the following year, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom used a large number of troops in Jiangxi, Zhejiang, Jiangsu, and Fujian provinces. Taihu, Qianshan, Tongcheng, Shucheng, Luzhou, Sanhe Town, and more than a dozen counties in Anhui were successively recovered by the Qing army.More than half of the Taiping troops withdrew from Anhui.During this period, Anhui was relatively stable compared with other provinces.

Emperor Xianfeng hurriedly reconciled Chunli to Anhui and served as an imperial envoy to supervise the military affairs in the south of the Yangtze River. He also transferred Jiang Zhongyi's army to Jiangxi, and ordered Fuji to lead an army of 20,000 troops to support the situation in Anhui.When the time came for Fuji to earn a lot of money, he searched for an opportunity to exclude Li Hongzhang, who was the third-rank envoy with the rank of inspector, and at the same time began to sell officials and nobles, and embezzled military pay.Anhui was turned into a miasma by him, and the official style was extremely corrupt.

However, Li Hongzhang foresaw that the Taiping Army would not let Anhui go, and a bigger war in Anhui would follow.He asked for leave again and hurried back to Modian Township. Together with his elder brother Li Hanzhang and four younger brothers, he moved his family to a rented house in a mountain village farther away. Only a few family members were left in Modian Township to guard them.Li Hongzhang put his family in order before returning to Daying. In March, Li Hanzhang and Dingyou's term expired, and Hunan was distributed as a supplementary magistrate.Li Hanzhang soon went to the governor's office in Hunan to report, and was transferred to the assistant office of the Hunan regiment and the Prime Minister's Hunan Army Reimbursement Bureau.

At this time, the minister of regiment training in Hunan was Zeng Guofan, the servant of Ding You, who was a native of the Ministry of Rites.Zeng Guofan was able to entrust Li Hanzhang with important tasks because of Li Hanzhang's cautious and patient character. Li Hanzhang had only been away from home for two days, and the situation in Anhui had fundamentally changed.The Jiangbei camp that Emperor Xianfeng worked so hard for was destroyed overnight by the Taiping army. Dexing'a, the imperial envoy and supervisor of Jiangbei military affairs, led the remnant troops to flee to Shao Bo.The Taiping Army mobilized heavy troops and entered Anhui in several routes. In a few days, they broke through more than a dozen counties including Taihu Lake, Qianshan, Tongcheng, Shucheng, and Sanhe Town.Fuji had a lot of troops, but he didn't know how to use them. He handed over the military power to Li Hongzhang, but he was afraid that Li Hongzhang would replace him with great achievements, which would cause the situation in Anhui to deteriorate faster than that of neighboring provinces.In the blink of an eye, Anhui is no longer what it used to be, and there are only four counties left under the jurisdiction of the governor's yamen.The Taiping Army quickly divided into three groups and approached Luzhou. Fuji hurriedly appealed to the imperial court for help, while arranging an escape route.The Taiping Army broke through Luzhou without a fight.Fuji led his army back to Feidong and then to Chuzhou, and then they took hold. The imperial court was furious, and it was reprimanded for its incompetence in dispatching, and it was strictly discussed with the Ministry.Fuji was so angry that he couldn't get out, so he turned his anger on Li Hongzhang, saying that Li Hongzhang didn't listen to his orders and was incapable of doing his job, and threatened to strictly participate. When Li Hongzhang learned about the situation from Zhang Gong, he was in chaos and didn't know how to deal with it. At this time, the imperial court urgently dispatched the Hunan Army to lead the 12th Battalion of Zhejiang Chief Envoy Li Xubin into Anhui to cooperate with Fuji to recover the lost land.The battalion system of the Hunan Army is different from that of the green battalion. Each battalion has a quota of 500 men.Li Xubin is the commander, and Zeng Guohua, Zeng Guofan's younger brother, is the deputy commander of this team. Fu Ji had no choice but to suppress his anger for the time being, and hastily dispatched personnel to step up efforts to raise salaries for the Hunan Army entering Anhui.In order to attack and repel Li Hongzhang, Fuji did not send him an errand.In desperation, Li Hongzhang had no choice but to take leave and go back to the countryside to visit his mother.Walking on the road, he warned himself more than once: "Patience and patience, waiting for the luck to turn, even if there is something unsatisfactory, pay it appropriately." A few days after Li Hongzhang returned home, Li Xubin and Zeng Guohua of the Hunan Army entered Anhui, and soon captured Taihu Lake and Qianshan.Later, he joined forces with the Fuji army, and the troops became even sharper, and they even joined Keshu and Tongcheng again.Fuji then besieged Luzhou, and Li Xubin and Zeng Guohua led the Hunan Army with 6,500 men to attack Sanhe Town.In September, the Hunan Army captured Sanhe Town, and the Taiping Army retreated.Li Xubin and Zeng Guohua led troops into the city that day. In November, Chen Yucheng, the former military leader of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, led his troops to Sanhe Town.Li Xubin and Zeng Guohua led troops out of the city to meet the enemy, and fought the Taiping Army in Jinniu Town that day, both sides suffered casualties.At night, heavy fog rose in Sanhe Town. The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom seized this golden opportunity and hurriedly dispatched two groups of heavy troops to attack the camp of the Hunan Army. The loyal king of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, Li Xiucheng, also came to help.After a night of fighting, none of the 6,000 Hunan troops survived, and the two generals Li Xubin and Zeng Guohua both died in battle. The Taiping Army took advantage of the victory non-stop and rushed to Shucheng, and Shucheng was occupied again. Fuji dispatched troops to rescue them, but before they got halfway, not only Sanhe Town and Shucheng were destroyed, but Tongcheng was also captured by the Taiping Army.The reinforcements hurried back. In the next few days, the Taiping Army occupied Taihu Lake, Qianshan and other prefectures and counties again and again. Fu Ji led his troops and horses to flee all the way, like a fish slipping through the net, and he was in a very embarrassing situation. At this time, the Hunan Army had moved to Jiangxi, and its commander Zeng Guofan was stationed in Jianchang, Jiangxi. After thinking over and over again, Li Hongzhang decided to find a way out at Zeng Guofan in Jianchang.But Li Hongzhang hesitated. After all, he was an official under the governor of Anhui. Now he left the camp and went to other places.If Fu Ji used this matter to lead him to leave the camp without authorization, he might have a thousand mouths and he would not be able to explain clearly.