Chapter 159 Zuo Zongtang competes for Minzhong
Wang Haiyang, the king of Kang, heard that his young master had been kidnapped and scolded Li Shixian for not saving him.
Li Shixian replied: There are more than 100,000 people in the Huang tribe. They were defeated in one attack. What can be done? This is the Wuyi Mountain area, where the three provinces of Jiangxi, Fujian and Guangdong meet. The mountains are deep and the forests are dense. The people are hungry and poor, and supplies are not smooth. It is not conducive to the turnover of the army. Our troops have entered Guangdong from Gan to attack Pingyuan. Brother Kang, come quickly, we are here to open up the world.
Where to go? Wang Haiyang hesitated.
Soon, Yang Wang Li Mingcheng, You Wang Li Yuanji, Lie Wang Huang Penghou, Kai Wang Tan Tiyuan and others came to vote one after another.
Wang Haiyang said: King Hong Youtian was also captured?
Li Mingcheng said: "The sound of cannons was everywhere, the ministries were in chaos, and they were nowhere to be found."
Tan Tiyuan said: Among the rebellious troops, I caught a glimpse of the leader Fan Ruzeng fighting his horse to the north. In a daze, he disappeared.
Li Mingcheng sighed and said: After the destruction of Tianjing, everyone has no control, everyone loots and plunders at will, and has no ambition to live in one place. Like a wandering bandit, this day will steal my soul.
Wang Haiyang said: I have no fixed place, and the more I wander, the more decadent I become. Immediately pass on my order, and the various ministries will start from Changping, Leyuan, Zhenping and occupy Wuping; they will be connected with the king's Pingyuan.
On October 11, 1864, Wang Haiyang gathered 50,000 troops and besieged Wuping.
After hearing the news, Zhang Yunlan, the captain of Fujian Province, flew to the rescue with his commander-in-chief He Shizhen, Wang Minggao, and deputy general Lei Zhaoxiong. He led 500 soldiers and came to the rescue.
When Wang Haiyang heard the news, he quickly defeated Wuping and set up an ambush outside the city.
Zhang Yunlan was eager to rescue and went straight into the ambush. The entire army was almost wiped out. Yunlan was wounded and captured, but refused to surrender and cursed wildly.
Wang Haiyang was annoyed, so he rode his horse and threw a rope, hooking up Yunlan's head, and four other horses tied Yunlan's hands and feet separately. When the whip hit the horse's back, the horse galloped wildly, and Yunlan's body fell apart.
Wang Haiyang ambushed Zhang Yunlan's army, and the Taiping Army was greatly affected. The poor people in Guangdong and Fujian joined the army and benefited many.
Mao Hongbin, the governor of Guangdong and Guangxi, was shocked to report that the shortage of military personnel in Guangdong Province could not be remedied in a short time. The ministers and others were coordinating the overall situation and were always worried.
Li Futai, the governor of Guangdong, also reported: The thieves came from Changning, Jiangxi, around Pingyuan and Songyuan, and entered Wuping. They joined forces with the Ruijin thieves, and their power became more serious than that of Guangdong. If we drive eastward, Hui's Xijiang River is the hometown of Huaqi. There will be many dangers here, internal strife and foreign aggression, which is particularly worrying. Recently, we heard that Pingshan and Hengli had raised flags, and Deng Dusi had been ordered to arrest them in Anbang.
Wu Ping was defeated and the road into Fujian was clear. Wang Haiyang quickly gathered an army of 100,000 troops and captured more than ten cities including Shanghang, Nanyang, Longyan, Yongding, Pinghe, and Zhangpu within half a month.
When Li Shixian, the servant king, saw this, he did not hesitate. He immediately left Dapu Pass and went straight into Fujian. He quickly conquered the two cities of Nanjing and Zhangzhou, and responded to Wang Haiyang's ministry from the north to the south.
It was a time of famine, and the unemployed were returning home. Li and Wang's army stretched hundreds of miles away and had 400,000 soldiers.
Li Shixian entered Fujian from Guangdong, and Mao Hongbin, the governor of Guangdong and Guangxi, breathed a sigh of relief.
Li Futai, the commander-in-chief, said: "The bandits are erratic and unpredictable, so they will gather the main force to enter Fujian to suppress the banditry and eliminate the banditry."
Mao Hongbin said: "I have no idea about the territory. But if the thieves gather together in a group and suddenly return to Guangdong to attack our most good area, what should we do?"
Li Futai was speechless and replied: "The thieves came from Jiang Province in defeat. There were no less than a million of them. Bao's army dropped and wiped out half of them along the way." He entered Guangdong from Fujian, using Huaqi as his guide. Lin Zhengyang, who was in the country of Sangzi, did not want the thieves to disturb him, so he lured him to go around Longchuan and still enter Fujian.
Now all the thieves are running through Tingzhou and Shanghang, and their power is actually the same as that of the rogue bandits. If they are scattered and difficult to capture, if they are surrounded by enemies, they can be gathered together to annihilate them. Zhangzhou is bordered by the sea on three sides. The Fujian and Guangdong divisions cooperated with each other and marched in separate lanes. They suppressed their voices and held their backs, and drove them all into Zhangzhou. Taking advantage of the lingering breath, they suppressed and appeased them at the same time. This was a rare opportunity.
When you are in poverty, you can destroy the scattered people and get twice the result with half the effort.
Empress Dowager Cixi took up the memorial and sighed: Xu Zongqian, the governor of Fujian, was unable to prevent the blockade. Mao Hongbin, the governor of Guangdong and Guangxi, and Shen Baozhen, the governor of Jiangxi, treated their neighbors as beggar, how could they succeed? During his term of office, Mao Hongbinxiang failed to investigate his colleagues and was immediately dismissed from his post. General Ruilin of Guangzhou also took charge of his duties. Together with Guo Songtao, the governor of Guangdong, he resolutely prevented the rebellious bandits from entering Guangdong.
Empress Dowager Ci'an said: "Send an important officer quickly and appoint him to control the reinforcements from all walks of life in Fujian. Can Ruilin do it?"
The Empress Dowager Cixi said: The bandits are also fierce. The two chiefs Shi and Kang are entrenched in central Fujian, looking at southern Jiangxi to the west, Ting and Quan to the east, driving Liancheng to the north, and harassing eastern Guangdong from the south. According to this situation, it has become a serious danger. In the past, although Ruilin followed Seng Gelinqin to prevent and suppress the rebellion in Guangdong, his combat power was still weak, and he was not a powerful man who could coordinate the Fujian affairs.
Prince Gong Yixin said: "You can order Yang Yuebin and Bao Chao to force their armies to drive south together."
Empress Dowager Cixi said: "Zeng Guofan has been sparse, and Bao Chao has gone to Sichuan for his funeral." After the death of Duoqing Long'a, Du Xing'a and Mu Tushan were unable to curb the bandit chaos in Shaanxi and Gansu, and they urgently waited for Yang Yuebin to enter Shaanxi.
Empress Dowager Ci'an said: Seng Gelinqin, Li Hongzhang and Zuo Zongtang can all take on important tasks.
Empress Dowager Cixi said: Li Hongzhang conquered cities and territories in Shanghai, Jiangsu and Zhejiang, and was omnipotent. His power was too great and cannot be increased. The monks and ministers were at the Black Stone Crossing in Huoshan Mountain, besieging Fu Chief Chen Decai's tribe. There were 300,000 rebel bandits. Even though they were a mob, it was difficult to wipe them out. The rebel bandits in Fujian were killed by Zuo Chen, which was justified. Immediately following the edict, Zuo Zongtang, the Governor of Fujian and Zhejiang, ordered the Imperial Envoy to Guanfang and led Liu Dian, Gao Liansheng, Huang Shaochun and other troops to the Fujian border to suppress the rebel bandits. Zuo Chen has the right to control all the troops from Jiangxi and Guangdong assisting Fujian. Liu Dian, the inspector-general of Zhejiang Province, was good at guarding against thieves, so he assisted him in handling the military affairs of Fujian Province.
Zuo Zongtang received the order and immediately ordered Liu Dian, the inspector general of Zhejiang Province, to lead an army of eight thousand to Tingzhou; Taoist Kang Guoqi marched along Shaowu to Longyan and jointly attacked Wang Haiyang's army. General Huang Shaochun and deputy general Liu Mingzhen led 5,000 troops to Zhangzhou; Zhejiang Admiral Gao Liansheng led 4,000 troops to Quanzhou by sea to attack Li Shixian's army.
Zongtang personally led four battalions of soldiers, first from Hangzhou to Quzhou, and then from Quzhou to Yanping in northern Fujian, where he commanded the troops nearby.
In mid-December 1864, Assistant Minister of Military Affairs Liu Dian stationed in Yangjiafang from Liancheng, and sent deputy general Lu Huasheng to lead an army of 2,000 to attack Nanyang.
Wang Haiyang showed his weakness and lured Lu into going deep and annihilating his army.
Seeing that the situation was not good, Liu Dian ordered the commander-in-chief Huang Yougong to lead the main force to rush for reinforcements. Huang Yougong advanced by leaps and bounds and reentered the ambush, killing guerrilla Guo Liben and less than a thousand people.
While Liu Dian was frightened, the Taiping Army had already attacked the camp. Liu Dian did not dare to fight anymore, so he gathered up the defeated troops and fled to Liancheng.
When Zuo Zongtang heard about it, he urgently ordered Wang Debang, the Fujian governor, and Wang Kailin, the commander-in-chief, to lead their respective headquarters to Liancheng to assist Liu Dian. Order all armies again, not to attack the city, not to fight in waves, and to build strongholds in deep ditches, and plan for them one after another. It can lure the thieves to attack the base, turn against the guests, kill them several times, and then take advantage of them; Changtai is connected to Zhangping all the way, and can be contacted nearby, so the common people can prevent thieves from rushing to defend Quanzhou and Xiamen, and relieve the Zhang army's worries; It is difficult to control the two chiefs Wang when they are united. If they are divided and eliminated one by one, they may be successful.
After Zongtang gave the order, he quickly said: All the remaining Ni from the southeast have rushed into Fujian, and there are about four major groups: Li Shixian, Wang Haiyang, Ding Taiyang, and Lin Zhengyang. The servants are in Zhangcheng, and they are divided into the fake king Lai and the fake king Zhuo in Longyan, as well as the thieves in Yongding, Nanjing, and Yunxiao. They are all his best friends. The number of thieves is about more than 100,000.
Wang Niju was in Nanyang at the junction of Ting, Lien, Nanjing, and Shanghang. There were 185 teams of thieves, each with 500 people, totaling more than 90,000. Ding Ni and Lin Ni appeared in Zhanglongjian, each numbering tens of thousands.
The troops are distributed hundreds of miles apart, and they are both defensive and suppressive, but the actual strength of the troops is insufficient. In order to wait for extensive recruitment, the salary source of Fujian Province will be exhausted early, and the province's military resources, which are dedicated to supporting the province's brave soldiers, are already extremely strapped.
According to the wishes of the minister, we must take a long-distance approach, gradually push forward, drive the bandits from all places to merge into one place, and then join forces to suppress them, so that the common and perfect areas can be preserved, and the troops can be distributed adequately.
I observed that Nanyang, where Wang Ni was occupying, was barren on the inside and steep on the outside. The more thieves there were, the harder it was to plunder, and it seemed difficult to stay there for a long time. If this trend can be driven out, the troops can still be used to suppress it.
