The Taiping army launched a large-scale northern expedition, and the thief Xiucai personally led tens of thousands of troops to storm Shaozhou.
According to Tang Sanshui, the governor of Guangdong who guarded Shaozhou, he led his troops to hold on for three days, and was finally forced to abandon Shaozhou because he was outnumbered, and led the rest of his troops to retreat to Ganzhou.
On the way, he was pursued by the Taiping army and horse team, but fortunately he was rescued by Hu Yousheng, the general soldier of the southern Jiangxi Dynasty of the Qing Dynasty, and the headquarters was finally preserved, but the ordnance and armor, money and food, and seriously injured soldiers were all discarded.
After the Taiping army occupied Shaozhou, the main force immediately crossed Meiling and divided the troops into two routes, one by Longnan and Xinfeng, and the other by Nan'an and Nankang, and approached Ganzhou.
When the news came out, the whole province of Jiangxi was shaken, and the situation was like when Jin and Wang rebelled.
"The thieves' banners and weapons were shining for a while, and the rations, bows, knives, guns, gunpowder, etc., carried by them were innumerable.
Its strength is strong, and it intends to take Ganzhou first, then take Nanchang, regain Jiujiang, wave his army to the east, join forces with the bandits, and seek to capture Nanjing."
After seeking confirmation from Tang Sanshui, the governor of Guangdong, Su Hongzu, the governor of southern Jiangxi, sent an expedited 800 li to the Qing court, and at the same time asked Zhang Chaoxuan, the governor of Jiangxi in Nanchang, to immediately mobilize the main force of the Jiangxi Green Battalion to reinforce Ganzhou.
After Zhang Chaoxuan and Jiangxi Governor Liu Guangbi discussed, they believed that Ganzhou was the gateway to Jiangxi, and if Ganzhou was lost, there would be no important town south of Nanchang except Ji'an to stop the Taiping army, and the Taiping army would inevitably wave its army to Nanchang, and it would be difficult to resist with the existing strength of Jiangxi.
Only by gathering the strength of the whole province to reinforce Ganzhou can the Taiping army be blocked in Meiling.
In order to strengthen Zhang Chaoxuan's confidence in resisting the enemy, Liu Guangbi emphasized that Liu Wuyuan, Gao Jinku and others defended Ganzhou, first defeated Jin Shengheng and Wang Deren, and then defeated Li Chengdong, which made Zhang Chaoxuan's confidence soar and readily agreed to gather troops from all over the province to rescue Ganzhou.
On July 13, Jiangxi Governor Liu Guangbi led the main force of the Jiangxi Green Battalion 6,000 from Nanchang to reinforce Ganzhou via Ji'an.
At this time, the vanguard of the Taiping army had arrived in Xinfeng, and the thief Xiucai repeatedly sent letters to the Qing Dynasty's Ganzhou guards and others to surrender, and there were many threats to slaughter the city and exterminate the clan in the surrender letter.
Tang Sanshui, the governor of Guangdong in the Qing Dynasty, Su Hongzu, the governor of Southern Jiangxi, and Hu Yousheng, the general soldier of Southern Jiangxi, adopted the strategy of delaying the army, and constantly sent envoys to reply that they were willing to do it anyway, so as to paralyze the thieves and show their talents, but in fact, they took advantage of the fact that the Taiping army did not arrive to collect grain in the nearby villages to strengthen the city fortifications.
Ganzhou City, like Liuzhou City in Guangxi, faces water on three sides, the terrain is dangerous, the city wall is solid, and it is an important town that is easy to defend and difficult to attack.
In addition, a Ganzhou city made hundreds of thousands of Ming troops look at the city anyway and sigh, the current Southern Jiangxi general Hu Yousheng also participated in the whole process of two Ganzhou defense battles, rich experience in defending the city, and there are a large number of ordnance money and food in the city, that is, the medicine is measured in 100,000 catties, and there are Jiangxi governor reinforcements to come, so the morale of the Qing army in the city is high, and the confidence in defending the city is full.
After Tang Sanshui, the governor of Guangdong, accompanied by the chief soldier Hu Yousheng, inspected the whole city, he told the officers and soldiers that there was a Xiongcheng in Ganzhou, and that the thief Xiucai must be the second Li Chengdong, and the period of defeat and death was not far away On July 17, the Taiping army on the right side pushed all the way to the city of Ganzhou through Longnan and Xinfeng, and it is reported that the Taiping army on this road was personally led by the thief Xiucai.
After the Taiping army arrived at the city of Ganzhou, the thief Xiucai ordered dozens of battalions, artillery fire, and a ring attack all night.
At the same time, the Taiping Army on the left, under the command of the general Ge Yi, quickly swept Nan'an, Nankang, Chongyi, and Bingjin Jiuniuyi, and collapsed the resistance of the Qing army of Zhou and Zhou in Ganzhou.
Tang Sanshui, the governor of Guangdong in the Qing Dynasty, and Su Hongzu, the governor of Southern Jiangxi, saw that the Taiping army was strong and the Zhou Zuofu County was lost, so they agreed to fight quickly, that is, when the Taiping army camp was not solidified, the ditch was not completed, and the foothold was not stable, they sent the general soldier Hu Yousheng to select elite soldiers to suddenly open the city to fight, take the Taiping army by surprise, destroy their forts, and buy time for the Nanchang reinforcements to arrive.
This plan was exactly the way to defend Ganzhou by Liu Wuyuan, the governor of Southern Jiangxi, Kong Guozhi, the general soldier, and others to defend Ganzhou and defeat Li Chengdong.
In the early morning of the next day, Hu Yousheng, the commander-in-chief of the Qing Southern Jiangxi Army, led an army of 4,000 troops out of the city from the small east gate, south gate, and west gate respectively, intending to attack the camp and severely damage the Taiping army in one fell swoop.
Unexpectedly, the Taiping army had already been prepared, the cannons were fired, and the horse team was killed.
Shouting in all directions, the Qing army out of the city was caught off guard, panicked and defeated, trampled on each other, suffered heavy losses in soldiers and equipment, and could no longer attack the camp.
The general army of Southern Jiangxi looked up to the sky and cried out, the governor could not do anything, and was forced to order the withdrawal of troops back to the city. never thought that when Hu Yousheng led more than 1,000 defeated soldiers to retreat to the city, he found that no matter how they shouted to open the door, the city gate did not move at all.
Not only that, the original Ganzhou soldiers in the city were all gone, and they were replaced by Guangdong soldiers brought by Tang Sanshui, the governor of Guangdong, from Shaozhou.
Those Guangdong soldiers were condescending, laughing at the Ganzhou soldiers under the city, and they turned their guns and bows and arrows together.
Hu Yousheng was shocked, knowing that it was not good, Tang Sanshui must have had an affair with the thief Xiucai.
In a hurry, he tried to escape, but was attacked by the Guangdong soldiers in the city and the Taiping army outside the city.
First, the sneak attack out of the city was unsuccessful, and now the old nest was ended, the Qing army was in chaos, and fled one after another, and most of them were chased into the river by the Taiping army horse team and drowned.
After the war, the battlefield was cleaned, and a Taiping sergeant died on the river beach and captured a big horse, with a golden saddle and bridle, and sent it to the camp for inspection, and interrogated the prisoners of the Qing army, confessing that it was a war horse ridden by the general soldier Hu Yousheng, and he was transferred to the marshal to report his merits with the verification.
When Zhou Shixiang heard that Hu Yousheng's mount was captured, he ordered people to search for Hu Yousheng's body downstream, and found it.
The experience corpse confirmed that Hu Yousheng was not killed by an arrow, but fell from a horse and drowned.
This death is the same as that of Dongxun Li Chengdong, but I don't know if it is providence or pure coincidence.
Liu Guangbi, the governor of Jiangxi who had just led the army to Ji'an, looked at Tang Sanshui, the governor of Guangdong who had escaped from Ganzhou in embarrassment, and his whole person became bad.
"The thieves brought a hundred red-clothed cannons, forty of them came to attack Gancheng, and sixty of them were still seen in Meiling.
To the city, the artillery fire did not stop day and night, and the general soldier Hu Yousheng supervised the people out of the city to attack the camp, but unfortunately was surrounded by thieves and soldiers, and was martyred.
The thieves attacked the city in a big way, broke the big and small east gates, the governor Su Hongzu was martyred in Fuya, and the governor of Guangdong Province, Tang Sanshui, led the remnants of the army to fight with the thieves for a day, and at night, Fang led hundreds of remnants to escape from Ganzhou, and was bound to attack Ji'an and Nanchang.
The people in the province were frightened, and they had nothing to worry about, and it was not a pity to die in office, and the throats of the four provinces of the imperial court were all abandoned in one fell swoop. ” When Zhang Chaoxuan, the governor of Jiangxi in the Qing Dynasty, heard that Ganzhou had fallen, he was inexplicably sad and angry, and complained to the Qing court.
At the same time, he ordered Admiral Liu Guangbi to lead the army to garrison Ji'an on the spot, and asked Tang Sanshui, the governor of Guangdong, to lead the remnants of the army, and allocate another 800 battalions to jointly defend Jishui.
After the Taiping army seized the city of Ganzhou, it pushed to Ji'an without waiting for a break, and did not give the Qing army in Jiangxi any respite.
At the same time, Zhou Shixiang spread the word to Jiangxi in the name of the Duke of Yue and the Governor of the Ming Dynasty, and ordered all localities to surrender as soon as possible, otherwise the army would be slaughtered without military force. oshow7 t1706231537: