Xinhui guards the south gate of Guangzhou, and is very close to the city of Guangzhou, the Taiping army occupies Xinhui will inevitably attract the Qing army in Guangzhou to pour out the nest, in order to prevent the Taiping army from being intercepted by the Qing army on the way to Xiangshan, when the former Japanese army discussed, Zhou Shixiang has made it clear to the generals that it is in this Xinhui city and the Qing army in Guangzhou to compete.
On that day, his Qing army was able to repel the tens of thousands of troops of Li Dingguo, the king of Xining, with the fortified city of Xinhui, and today, the Taiping army can also use this fortified city to repel the heavy Qing army in Guangzhou.
The generals had no objection to this, whether they knew the soldiers or not, they all knew that it was definitely more certain to hold on to the city than to fight with the Qing army in the field.
The Taiping army has no cavalry, and most of the battalions are new pawns, which are not as elite as the Qing army in Guangzhou, not to mention the Han army flag in Guangzhou and cavalry, if it cannot rely on Xinhui City to repel the Qing army, the Qing army will definitely attack when the Taiping army marches into Xiangshan.
Ge Zheng, Ge Yi brothers and others thought that they had been running since Luo Ding started the army, saying that they had turned into a place for the whole battalion to find a base, but after walking for so long, Xiangshan County still had not arrived, since they could occupy this Xinhui City in one fell swoop today, it was better to use this Xinhui as a base place, so that they could also let these former "mountain kings" taste the prestige of the official master.
If there is a city, there will be people, and if there are people, there will naturally be tribute, everyone is desperate with Zhou Xiucai with their heads, isn't it this day.
It's rare that Zhou Xiucai doesn't abandon Xinhui City, everyone will go out and fight with the Tartars, win, from now on Xinhui Fangyuan is the world of the Taiping Army, defeated, the bowl has a big scar, the so-called life in the world who has no world, it depends on how old the bird is after death.
Fight, fight, Tartar is also a head, a hanging, Lao Tzu is not less than them to the egg, come on, see if it is your hanging hard or the master's hard While the Taiping army at the head of the city was busy preparing siege equipment, the city was also busy.
Under the order of Zhou Shixiang of the Taiping Army and Song Xianggong, the general affairs money and grain officer, Liao Ruixiang, the master of Shaoxing, was appointed as the county governor of Xinhui, and issued several lists with the large seal left by his predecessor Huang Zhizheng of Qingzhi County, and with the assistance of a team of security guards sent by Song Xianggong, all the remaining people in the city were mobilized, whether they were old, weak, sick or disabled, or women, all organized to participate in the defense of Xinhui City.
Xinhui City since last year's Qing army food city disaster, the original population of nearly 80,000 people left less than 2,000 people, at the beginning of the year after Li Dingguo's army lifted the siege, the new governor of Guangdong, Li Shutai, in order to cover up the Qing army's large-scale slaughter of the city and cannibalism, ordered Guangzhou and neighboring prefectures and counties to move a group of people to Xinhui City, coupled with the poor people in the countryside near Xinhui coveted the ownerless houses in the city and entered the city, so that the population of Xinhui recovered to 10,000 people, there were hundreds of rich families from Guangzhou City, after the Taiping army entered the city, Because the earthquake camp was fierce under the leadership of Ge Zheng, most of these rich families suffered from military disasters, and there were not a few who broke their homes and destroyed their homes.
In order to repair the blown up city wall before the arrival of the Qing army in Guangzhou, Zhou Shixiang ordered the captured Qing army, the city officers, and the young and strong to be used as coolies, and rushed to repair the city wall at the cost of manpower, so that most of the young and strong men in the city arrived at the city wall construction site.
After Liao Ruixiang was appointed as the magistrate of Xinhui County, he suffered from the fact that there were too few young and strong men, so he had no choice but to order all the old and weak women and children to fill the army, and prepare food and corresponding equipment for the defense of the city together with the remnants of the women and children in the Taiping army's rear camp.
Liao Ruixiang was born in a master's house, good at vulgar things, although he is old, but the affairs are also arranged tightly and orderly, so that the front camp of the Taiping Army does not have to transfer manpower to fill the logistics, this move made Song Xianggong quite praised, in front of Zhou Shixiang specially for Liao Ruixiang to say a few words, Zhou Shixiang was happy to order to reward Liao Ruixiang with twenty taels of silver.
He knew that the Taiping Army implemented the public treasury system, all the seized and looted proceeds should be confiscated, and then distributed by the public treasury afterwards.
He was originally a prisoner who was imprisoned for "anti-poetry", if it weren't for the Taiping Army, I am afraid that his head would have fallen to the ground long ago, and now he can not only live, but also be an official, and he can get silver, such a good thing, wouldn't it make him lose his liver and brains.
The so-called soldier dies for his confidant.
When the whole city of Xinhui was mobilized, Zhou Shixiang did not stay idle, from time to time to inspect the city, or discuss with the generals about the affairs of defending the city, he knew that the Qing army that escaped would definitely report the news of the loss of Xinhui to Guangzhou, and Guangzhou would definitely send troops and horses to seize Xinhui as soon as possible, otherwise, this Xinhui city would be like a knife against the throat of the Qing army in Guangzhou, making it difficult for them to swallow.
In other words, there would be no need for the Taiping Army to make any other moves, just send people west to contact Li Dingguo, and the situation in Guangdong would change in an instant.
To defend the city, the east gate is guarded by the Zhenyu battalion, the west gate is guarded by the majestic battalion, the south gate is guarded by the Hujie battalion, the north gate is guarded by the trapped camp, and the guard battalion is used as a mobile force to supplement the gates at any time.
In addition, the rear battalion security team was mainly expanded to 1,000 members of the security team, and the source of the expanded security regiment was mainly the young and strong in the city and the prisoners of the green battalion of the Qing army.
The security regiment was controlled by Song Xianggong, as the armed force of the rear battalion, on the one hand to ensure the safety of the rear battalion, and on the other hand, to maintain order in the city with the magistrate yamen.
The Taiping army captured the fortified city, defeated the Qing army, the whole battalion was full of high morale, although there were heavy losses in the camp behind Guifeng Mountain, but the casualties were mostly old and weak women and children, to a certain extent, the Taiping army unloaded a lot of burden, so although the soldiers were sad, but for the leaders, it was inevitable to have a sense of relief.
Zhou Shixiang is not a saint, he deplored the dead, but people cannot be resurrected after death, and the living have to look forward, so that without the big burden of the rear camp, the Taiping army's mobility and combat ability can be greatly improved, which gives him a lot of confidence in sticking to the idea of Xinhui to repel the Qing army.
If you defend the city, you will have food, and if you don't have food, you will be in danger.
It is certainly impossible for the Taiping army to kill people for food like the Qing army, so there must be sufficient food to supply the whole army, otherwise, once the food is run, the whole army will be in danger.
Fortunately, there is a lot of food in Xinhui City, when Li Dingguo besieged the city last year, the Qing army in the city did not run out of food, and after the war, Li led Tai to check after entering the city, and the surplus grain in the city was still available for the Qing army to eat for half a year.
With so much food, coupled with the fact that a batch of food has been shipped in the past few months, even if there is no grain that the Taiping army has scavenged from all over the country, it is enough to ensure that the Taiping army will hold out in Xinhui for more than half a year.
Holding on for half a year is Zhou Shixiang's bottom line, but he does not think that the Qing army has the ability to besiege Xinhui City for half a year, because through the confession of prisoners and the estimation of the strength of the Qing army along the way, the overall strength of the Qing army in Guangdong does not seem to be very strong, and it is conservatively estimated that the soldiers and horses that can be sent by the two feudal domains of Guangzhou Ping and Jing will never exceed 10,000 people.
If more than 10,000 people, it is inevitable to transfer soldiers from other prefectures and counties, and if they transfer soldiers from other prefectures and counties, it is impossible for the Ming army in Guangdong not to be aware of it, and this means of demolishing the east wall and making up the west wall, Zhou Shixiang expected that Shang Kexi and Geng Jimao would not be able to take it, because if they did so, even if they took Xinhui City, I am afraid that in addition to Guangzhou, other prefectures and counties in Guangdong would be in the hands of the Ming army.
It was imperative to contact the Ming army forces in various places, so Zhou Shixiang sent an order to Zhang Ying, asking him to try his best to spread the situation of Xinhui to all places, and no matter what, he had to send someone to Gaozhou to fight for a while, no matter whether Li Dingguo was in Guangdong at this time, and whether he and Sun Kewang were fighting openly and secretly, he must also let him know that Xinhui City, which he had besieged for a year without success, had been captured by the Taiping army at this time.
At this time in history, Sun Kewang and Li Dingguo were at the moment of turning their faces, so Zhou Shixiang did not dare to put the hope of a complete subversion of the situation in Guangdong on Li Dingguo, he could only do his best, as for whether Li Dingguo could seize this opportunity to lead a large army to attack Guangdong again, that was God's business.
Li Dingguo did not hold out hope, but it was possible to fight for the rest of the Ming army in Guangdong, not expecting them to come to Xinhui to hold on with the Taiping army, but also to strive for them to launch an attack on the Qing army in front of him to contain the Qing army, so as to reduce the pressure on Xinhui City.
The object of the fight, Zhou Shixiang focused on the Linghai general Chen Qice, and also sent people to the vicinity to collect and recruit the remnants of the Ming army to enrich the strength of the city.
The more than 300 green battalion soldiers transferred from Chaozhou to Xinhui were all from the sailors, and Zhou Shixiang didn't care about them for a while after entering the city, and he also had doubts about their loyalty, so he let them also serve as coolies, and then arrange them after the city wall was repaired. oshow7 t1706231537: