Han’s Son is Not a Slave

Time passed by minute by minute, and more than 2,000 Taiping soldiers from the four battalions of Zhenlu, Xiongwei, Hujie, and Guards, who were the main force in the siege, gathered quietly in the night, waiting for the signal of the siege—a huge explosion that was about to sound.

The months-long siege of Xinhui City by Li Dingguo's army last year made the defenders familiar with how to defend the city. In order to prevent the Taiping army from climbing and capturing the city at night, fires were set on the city wall at intervals, patrolling back and forth. The Qing army never stopped. From time to time, the Qing army will throw torches from the city high and down, and use the light of the torches to check whether there are Taiping troops lurking below.

Night has a natural advantage for the attacking side, but it is a big disadvantage for the defending side. Throughout the ages, many siege battles took place at night, especially before dawn, because this time is when people are the most tired and most relaxed. It's just that the Qing army, who had been on alert all night, was the same as yesterday, and they did not wait for the night attack of the Taiping army they thought.

There are four gates in Xinhui City, but the west gate was completely blocked by the Qing army with boulders when Li Dingguo’s army came to attack last year. On the top, Ximen has only a few Qing soldiers and some young soldiers to defend.

From the surrendered Qing army prisoners, Zhou Shixiang learned that there were only more than 1,000 defenders in the city. Except for the more than 200 Qing troops with blue flags who controlled the artillery, the rest were green battalions. The source of these green battalions is also very complicated. Most of them are soldiers and horses transferred from Guangzhou. There is only a team of 300 people from Chaozhou, which is under the command of Wu Liuqi, the chief soldier of Chaozhou.

Wu Liuqi, the general soldier of Chaozhou, was described by a novelist in later generations as a great righteous man against the Qing Dynasty and the Ming Dynasty. It is a pity that the novelist's portrayal of him is completely fictional. The real Wu Liuqi is an out-and-out big traitor. , the executioner who slaughtered the Han compatriots.

Yesterday, when the Taiping army was disembarking, Zhou Shixiang asked Lin Youxian about the situation of the defenders in the city. When he heard that there were still green camp soldiers from Chaozhou in the city. Zhou Shixiangshun asked about these Chaozhou soldiers. From Lin Youxian's mouth, he heard the name Wu Liuqi for the first time, and also learned about this person's life.

Wu Liuqi is a Hakka family of Han nationality in eastern Guangdong. Young read poetry and books, widely involved in classics and history. However, as a person, he is quite addicted to alcohol and gambling. Once, he gambled away his family property and was turned into a postman by the government. Later, he absconded to Fujian. In the following years, he has been wandering around Jiangsu and Zhejiang, doing some green forest activities. After the Jiashen national disaster, Wu Liuqi defected to the Yongli Emperor, who had just ascended the throne, with his Lulin brothers. Because the Yongli Emperor had just succeeded to the throne, he had an internal strife with the Shaowu regime in Guangzhou. There was a lack of civil servants and generals under him, so Wu Liuqi led the crowd to vote. The Yongli Emperor, who was struggling with no one under his command, immediately made him the chief military officer, so that he could occupy Nan'ao Island, an island in the east of Guangdong in the name of the Ming Dynasty chief military officer.

In the tenth year of the Yongli calendar, in the seventh year of Shunzhi, Qingping Nanwang Shang Kexi went to Shaozhou from Nanxiong. Wu Liuqi heard that the soldiers of the Qing army were too afraid to resist, so he and Su Li, the chief soldier of Jieshi, greeted him. After the surrender of the Qing Dynasty, Wu Liuqi had been entrenched in Nan'ao for many years, and was familiar with the terrain of eastern Guangdong, and asked himself to be the guide of the Qing army. To help the Qing troops to capture Hao Shangjiu Panju's Chaozhou City.

During the Qing army's capture of Chaozhou, Wu Liuqi and Kong Guozhi from Jiangxi invaded the city one after the other. The difference is that Kong Guozhi was then transferred out of the city by the Qing Jingnan general Hahamu. However, Wu Liuqi was left in the city to directly participate in the massacre of the Chaozhou civilians.

Afterwards, Shang Kexi and Geng Jimao jointly signed a statement to the Qing court, saying that Zhang and Chao were received in a peaceful manner, pirates were haunted, Liu Qi led the boatmen to surrender, and they were well-mannered. . Since Hao Ni initiated the chaos, Liu Qi went to the army and fought bravely to kill thieves. Please give a title as an incentive.

After receiving the letter from the second king of Guangdong, the Qing court ordered Wu Liuqi to assist the general army of Chaozhou. One thousand troops were stationed in Raoping to defend against the pirates from the Zheng clan in Fujian. When Hao Shangjiu was defeated. Zheng Chenggong was negotiating peace with the Qing court, and he saw that he would not be saved. Later, he saw Hao Shangjiu's defeat. After the Qing army occupied Chaozhou, Li Dingguo was defeated again in Zhaoqing. Things echo the trend of progress.

Last year, Li Dingguo attacked Guangdong again. Due to the lack of Qing troops in Guangzhou, the King of Pingnan was pleased to see that the Zheng family in Chaozhou did not take an offensive, so he transferred 500 soldiers of Wu Liuqi's army to Xinhui to assist. After defending the city for several months, the 500 Chaozhou soldiers suffered heavy casualties, and now there are 300 left. Because it was King Pingnan, Shang Ke was happy to transfer troops, and without his consent, Wu Liuqi did not dare to recall people, so he stayed in Xinhui City.

"The Chaozhou soldiers have been entrenched on the island for several years under Wu Ni's hands, and they are good at sailing. Most of the soldiers are proficient in water. I have heard from Wu Jinzhong, the general manager of Wu, that the Prince of Pingnan, Guangzhou, Shang Kexi wants to transfer these hundreds of Chaozhou soldiers to Guangdong. Sailor, this is the time to let them return east."

From being found dead to surrendering to today, it has only been two or three days, and Lin Youxian can't change his previous name for a while. He stopped talking several times and changed his words abruptly. Zhou Shixiang was quite embarrassed. interesting.

Wu Liuqi, the Chaozhou general soldier, was still far away, and Zhou Shixiang didn't have the heart to think about him, but the 300 soldiers under him who were skilled in sailing were caught in Zhou Shixiang's eyes. At this time, Guangdong, especially Xiangshan County, which is the land of the three cities and one special zone in the later generations, was densely covered with rivers and located on the coast. Having a navy in hand would undoubtedly be more effective for the Taiping army to take root in Xiangshan.

Northerners ride horses, Southerners ride boats.

When you don't have enough strength to build your own cavalry and don't have enough capital to build an infantry that can restrain the cavalry~www.wuxiaspot.com~ It is undoubtedly a wise choice to use the unique advantages of the Southerners to form a navy team belonging to the Taiping Army. At least, with a navy in hand, the Qing army wanted to exterminate the Taiping army in an area with a dense network of water such as Xiangshan. The difficulty is not ordinary.

The apprentice Zhang Fulai stayed in the tunnel brought out Tie Yi's message that he would set fire to the explosion after half a column of incense, and asked Lord Qianhu to prepare for the capture of the city.

There are no watches in this era. For the concept of time, the rich have a sandglass to measure the time, while the poor watch the sky, listen to the watch, or judge by the sound of animals, such as **** crowing), but in the tunnel, the estimation of time is only It can be calculated entirely by heart.

The half-column incense lasts about a quarter of an hour, and after a quarter of an hour, whether or not Tie Yi can successfully ignite the Xinhui City depends on whether Tie Yi succeeds in setting it on fire.

In addition to the trap camp, the officers of the other four battalions have all been on standby in the battalion. This will be extremely nervous from top to bottom, staring straight at Xinhui City in the latent night. Some recruits covered their ears early, lest their ears would be deaf in a while.

After everything was ready, the sky was still dark, but the eastern sky could see a little fish maw white. To be continued

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