Chapter 55 Li Hongzhang is desperate

Cheng Xueqi was blocked under the city of Qingpu, making it difficult to advance. In desperation, he had no choice but to charge again and again, each time being shot back by the Taiping Army.The Huai army retreated like a tide, while the soldiers of the Ever Victorious Army chewed gum, looked at it with their hands in their sleeves, and shook their heads while watching: "No, no, you Huai army can't do it either. Shall we help you shoot a few more shots?" Cheng Xueqi was furious, took off his armor, wrapped himself in a white cloth, and rushed up with the death squad himself.He stepped on the ladder, rushed across the moat ditch, rushed in from the gap in the city wall, and yelled to kill the city.After running a long way, he stopped in surprise.Eh, as far as I could see, I saw the burning houses hit by artillery fire, but apart from that, I didn't see a shadow of the Taiping Army.

Where did the Taiping Army hide? When I was surprised, I received a secret letter from Li Hongzhang, to the effect: Lao Cheng, we have been tricked, and the Taiping Army, Mu Wang Tan Shaoguang personally went out.Gathered an army of 100,000, and took away the Taiping Army from Qingpu City. At this time, you have copied your retreat and are besieging the Kuangwenbang Department.I sent Zhang Yuchun to help, you know that Zhang Yuchun was virtuous, he was not strong enough, he was beaten to pieces and fled back, and Liu Yulin, the governor, was also beaten to death by the Taiping army. It turned out that Tan Shaoguang had long discovered the defect of the insufficient number of Huai troops.There are not enough people, and the big trouble is that as soon as you push forward, the rear is immediately empty.So Tan Shaoguang bypassed the frontline troops of the Huai Army, led an army of 100,000 to the west of Huxi, and launched a campaign to encircle and suppress the Kuangwenbang Department in Beixinjing, less than seven miles away from Shanghai.

This situation is really unlucky for Wenbang. He is probably the highest-ranking soldier in the Huai Army, and he is the commander-in-chief, but he was rescued from the prison by Li Hongzhang. Kuang Wenbang was a general in Zhang Guoliang's era, and he led Guizhou soldiers.After Hong Xiuquan caused a mass incident, the imperial court transferred Kuang Wenbang to the east for a while, and then to the west for a while, and transferred it back and forth, and transferred Kuang Wenbang to Hangzhou.It was Li Xiucheng's battle against Hangzhou, how could Kuang Wenbang be Li Xiucheng's opponent?It can only be that the gun is held upside down, hurried like a stray dog, hurried like a fish slipping through the net, running towards the deserted wilderness.

The city of Hangzhou fell, and Zhejiang governor Wang Youling committed suicide.However, how to deal with the general situation of the defeated army, almost made the whole court worry to death.Logically speaking, Kuang Wenbang's ineffective defense of the city should be investigated for criminal responsibility.But the problem is that there are too few generals who can fight in the Qing army. Compared with others, Wenbang is considered capable. He can at least let himself escape alive. If you don't punish Kuang Wenbang, there will be no national law; if you punish Kuang Wenbang, I'm afraid it will chill the hearts of the soldiers.After thinking about it, the imperial court suddenly came up with a clever plan: If you have it, you can send this list to Zeng Guofan. If you want to kill or cut it, Zeng Guofan has the final say.In fact, the intention of the imperial court was to give Zeng Guofan a favor and let Zeng Guofan use Kuang Wenbang. Kuang Wenbang would naturally be grateful to Zeng Guofan, and he might try his best to kill the enemy and die in battle, which is unknown.

However, Zeng Guofan required extremely high academic qualifications when employing people. The so-called selection of scholars and leaders of mountain farmers meant selecting the best scholars and leading the most honest farmers to the battlefield.Everyone was fighting and reading at the same time, without any delay.Kuang Wenbang was not a scholar, and he was not a simple and honest farmer. Zeng Guofan refused to use him, so he put him aside. When Li Hongzhang formed the Huai Army, his style of employing personnel was completely different from that of Zeng Guofan.Li Hongzhang's side is mainly Huaishang's children, and the rest don't care about you, as long as you have the ability, you can come.So he asked Zeng Guofan to give him the Kuang Wenbang.Zeng Guofan couldn't ask for it, so he quickly threw out the Kuang Wenbang.

Kuang Wenbang suffered from official cold violence from Zeng Guofan and was left out in the cold, but he was reused by Li Hongzhang. He was immediately grateful and vowed to show his face.So he led his Guizhou soldiers to Beixinjing, and before he got there, he saw Tan Shaoguang, King Mu, driving the army, and came to kill him in a dark way. At that time, Kuang Wenbang was crying, thinking how unlucky I am, I managed to get a chance to show my face on the battlefield, but unexpectedly, the enemy army would fight in groups when they came. In desperation, Kuang Wenbang had no choice but to stay in the camp, not daring to make a sound despite Tan Shaoguang's heavy artillery bombardment.

This situation gave Li Hongzhang a headache too.Tan Shaoguang made a massive attack, but Li Hongzhang only had 1,500 men in his hands, so it was normal to send Zhang Yuchun out and return in a big defeat.If this problem cannot be solved quickly, Tan Shaoguang will completely cut off the grain and grass transportation of the Huai army on the front line. If he finds out that there are not many soldiers in Shanghai, maybe Tan Shaoguang will come in. It will be miserable. In desperation, Li Hongzhang secretly trusted Cheng Xueqi, Han Zhengguo, and Teng Siwu, and asked each of their families to send half of their troops to sneak back.You must sneak around and walk openly, and you will definitely be wiped out by Tan Shaoguang.

Then, 70% of the Huai army in Shanghai City was secretly transferred, and a force was forced to come together.But at this time Shanghai has become an empty city.If this battle is defeated, Tan Shaoguang's Taiping Army will lie between the Huai Army and Shanghai. At that time, the Huai Army will have nowhere to go, and Shanghai will become Tan Shaoguang's spoils of war. On the second day of August, all departments of the Huai army rushed to Qibao.Looking up, I saw the sky-high fortress of the Taiping Army.It turned out that Tan Shaoguang had expected that the Huai army would come to rescue, so he sent people here to intercept in advance.Li Hongzhang ordered that the foreign gun team led by the titan Guo Songlin advance in a surprise attack, and Cheng Xueqi's troops advanced accordingly.

Li Hongzhang put all his eggs in one basket.If you win, no one will praise Li Hongzhang. Li Xiucheng is fighting Zeng Guoquan in the city of Nanjing. What prestige are you and Tan Shaoguang showing off? If you lose, it's all over.