Han’s Son is Not a Slave

When the new army was splitting up, Zhou Shixiang deliberately set a marching route for the rear camp. This route completely avoided the cities where the Qing army was garrisoned, and marched as close to the mountainous area as possible. In order to cover the transfer of the rear battalion, Zhou Shixiang personally led the front battalion into Zhaoqing to contain the Zhaoqing Green Camp.

Zhaoqing prefecture governs eight counties and one prefecture. Deqing prefecture led by the prefecture and the troops and horses of Xu Erxian, the commander-in-chief, and the Xinxing Green Battalion are all behind closed doors because they do not know the details of the Taiping Army. The three counties of Guangning in the southeast, Yangjiang and Yangchun in the northwest are too far away, and the local green camp cannot come here. The remaining two counties, Enping and Gao Ming, were slaughtered by the Qing army a few years ago. It is said that there are soldiers stationed within the county, and even a living person is hard to find.

Houying's marching route is to follow Xinxing to the west for 80 miles and then turn south to Xinhui. This distance is more than 200 miles. The route is basically mountainous and no-man's land massacred by the Qing army. Therefore, as long as Duke Xiang of Song hadn't changed the marching route and took the initiative to find the Qing army to launch an attack, in theory, the rear battalion could not be in any danger before reaching Xinhui. It is precisely because the marching route of the rear battalion is very safe that Zhou Shixiang boldly divided his troops in Xinxing and led the front battalion to charge towards Zhaoqing Fucheng, in order to attract and confuse Zhaoqing commander Xu Erxian, and cover the rear battalion to withdraw from Zhaoqing.

But Zhou Shixiang never imagined that the most impossible thing happened - four days ago, after a slow march for more than 20 consecutive days, the tens of thousands of old and weak women and children in the rear camp led by Song Xianggong finally arrived in Xinhui County. Before the whole battalion could take a breath, a Qing army of up to a thousand people suddenly appeared in the Guifeng Mountains and attacked them.

The Qing army seemed to have known for a long time that such a group of tens of thousands of troops would appear here. The leading generals set up an ambush in the Guifeng Mountains in advance, and suddenly rushed out when the rear battalion had just reached its footing, and one party waited for it to work early. If you are prepared, one side is panicked and hastily challenged, and the result can be imagined.

Zhao Sihai led 300 soldiers under his subordinates to resist desperately, and Song Xianggong brought the newly formed security team to join the battle, but most of these soldiers and security team members had not experienced combat. They also lacked weapons. Facing the Qing army with twice their strength, they fought to the death with only blood and courage. In the end, they were unable to resist the Qing army's onslaught. Most of them were killed and injured, but they successfully covered the entire battalion. Most of the old and young successfully evacuated to the area of ​​Yutai Temple in Guifeng Mountain.

Facing the situation that could be overturned at any time, Duke Xiang of Song quickly calmed down after the initial panic. After realizing that the terrain around Yutai Temple was easy to defend and difficult to attack, he quickly transferred the Kujun army to Zhao Sihai. They also recruited all the men in the camp who could walk and run, and together with the remnants of Zhao Sihai, they formed a team of more than 2,000 people, relying on the terrain to desperately resist the Qing army. In addition, they ordered the strong women in the Laozheng camps of each battalion to carry wooden sticks and stones to cooperate with the men to fight.

At this time, there was no way back. Everyone in the back camp knew that once the Qing army clashed with the defense line, everyone would have to die, so even those who were hostile to the Taiping Army in their hearts. The former Luo Ding gentry who were forced to enter the camp also moved along with them. Those who could go into battle, those who could join hands, and those who couldn't go to battle, they moved rocks from behind to the front. The purpose is to block the Qing army's attack and wait for the rescue of the former battalion.

The Qing army did not expect that a group of old and weak women and children who had been driven to a dead end would still be able to fight. Even after rushing several times, they were repelled by the well-placed rear battalion and dropped more than 100 corpses. The leading generals of the Qing army saw this. He couldn't help but regret that he couldn't break the road to Yutai Temple beforehand. He blamed himself for being careless and underestimating the enemy. I didn't think that these people were so afraid of death that they failed to destroy the enemy in one fell swoop, but instead killed or injured two or three hundred.

After regretting it, he accelerated the attack. He saw that this group of men was no longer capable of fighting. As long as they broke through the line of defense and killed all those men, the remaining old people and children would be lambs to be slaughtered.

After another day of onslaught, the Qing army was still staring at Yutai Temple. The steps in front were full of corpses. Although the opponent's body was much more than their own, the opponent was still in control. The only way to enter and exit Yutai Temple.

If you can't push hard, just surround them and starve them to death!

The Qing army quickly changed its tactics, no longer attacked, but divided its troops into encirclement. The leading Qing generals could see clearly that these old and weak women and children did not bring much food at all, and how much food could a group of poor monks in Yutai Temple have, which they could not use. In a few days, the temple will run out of food, and if not attacking, it will be self-defeating.

Qing has a 100% certainty that the opponent will be trapped to death. He has already sent someone to investigate. This team of nearly 10,000 people came from Xinxing, headed by a bandit named Zhao Sihai, the old and weak in the team. The women and children were all brought by the bandits led by Zhao Sihai, and there were no other reinforcements at all, so there was no need to worry that these people would have reinforcements coming to rescue them.

When those people are too hungry to walk and can't carry knives, I will bring people in to clean them up, kill all the men, take away all the women and sell them, and present them to the provincial capital. Those who are more ugliness are for the soldiers to be happy, and then they are sold to brothels, and those who are ugly are killed directly to save trouble.

The only mistake is that some people ran away from the mountains, but it doesn't matter, just run and run. How can there be no fish that slip through the net in this world? There are tens of thousands of people in the mountains, and the credit is already in hand. Money is also close at hand.

.........

Zhu Er and his entourage contacted after retreating to the back of Yutai Temple. When they passed the encirclement of the Qing army, six cavalry members died in battle, but they did not die in vain. The rest of the team rushed through under the leadership of Zhu Er. The Qing army's defense line, after finding the horses hidden in advance, drove fast day and night, exhausted several horses, and finally passed the critical information of the rear camp to Zhou Shixiang.

"General Manager Song asked me to come back quickly to report the news. Lord Qianhu must lead the front battalion to Guifeng Mountain immediately, or the rear battalion will be wiped out!" When seeing Zhou Shixiang, Zhu Er was still in shock, a heartbroken I couldn't stop jumping, thinking of the Houying old and young in Yutai Temple, I was even more anxious to get angry.

After hearing the news, Tie Yi, Qin Zhisheng, Ge Zheng and others heard that the Qing army was besieged by the rear camp, and they were extremely anxious. Ge Zheng and the others were worried that it was the money they had managed to loot in the public treasury. Yi is worried about the miners' families in Houying.

"Qianhu, let's go to the rescue camp!"

Everyone asked Zhou Shixiang to immediately order rescue.

Zhou Shixiang raised his hand to signal his subordinates to be quiet, and then asked Zhu Er in a deep voice, "How many people are there in the rear camp?"

Zhu Er hurriedly replied: "I'm afraid there are only half of them left. General Manager Song and Zhao Baihu have organized all the men. This will be based on the terrain around Yutai Temple and the Qing army. When the subordinates leave, The Qing army stopped the attack, it seems that they want to trap our people to death."

Hearing this, Tie Yi and the others' eyes lit up. Originally, they were worried that the rescue would not be enough, but now it seems that there is no need to worry.

Zhou Shixiang also breathed a sigh of relief, and immediately asked Zhu Er: "Can you find out where this Qing army is from?"

"This..." Zhu Er hesitated for a moment, "General Manager Song said that there are people in the Qing army who speak the dialect of the province, and some who speak the dialect of other provinces. I don't know exactly where the soldiers are, but I saw the Qing army when I broke through the siege. There are those who play the Wuzi flag."

"Wu Ziqi?" Zhou Shixiang turned his head to look at Li Fuguo, who had just entered the tent. "Do you know that there is a general named Wu in the green camp in Xinxing?"

Li Fuguo was stunned, racked his brains and thought about it, Fang said: "Back to Qianhu, in the green camp, apart from the chief soldiers and generals, there are only a few generals who can fight. These people, but I have never heard of anyone with the surname Wu."

Li Fuguo didn't know, Zhou Shixiang frowned, and wanted to ask someone to ask Shao Jiugong, who had worked in the Green Camp, there were thousands of Qing troops surrounding the rear camp, and the generals leading the troops were at least officers above the garrison level. The details of the characters should be investigated clearly.

Just as he was about to instruct his guards to find Shao Jiugong, Li Fuguo hesitated and said, "Qianhu, Brother Zhu said that the Qing army spoke the language of other provinces, could it be the flag soldiers?"

"Banner?"

Zhou Shixiang pondered for a while. There were only two possibilities for the Qing troops in Guangdong to speak the dialect of other provinces. One was the Han army flag from Liaodong, and the other was the guest soldiers transferred from Jiangxi and Fujian. For example, Shao Jiugong was a subordinate of Kong Guozhi in the Jiangxi Green Camp.

If it is a banner soldier, be cautious, if it is a battalion soldier, it is easy to handle. Zhou Shixiang was not afraid of the Han army flag, but worried that if the Han army flag surrounded the rear battalion, it was bound to be soldiers and horses from Guangzhou. As a result, I am afraid that the Taiping army would have been discovered by Guangzhou, which was very important for the Taiping army's next actions. unfavorable. If the two vassals of Ping and Jing in Guangzhou mobilize their troops to suppress the Taiping army, Zhou Shixiang will face the biggest test since the uprising. .

"If it is a flag soldier, we can't take the liberty to rescue, we must deploy it carefully..."

Zhou Shixiang was just about to make a targeted deployment in case the flag soldiers surrounded the rear battalion, but he stopped abruptly, and his calm eyes were also full of fierce light.

Bannerman~www.NovelMTL.com~ Surnamed Wu, Xinxing.

Combining the three points together, Zhou Shixiang cannot help but think of a person, a person he dreamed he would rip off alive—another defender of the Qing army in the Battle of Xinhui, and the right wing commander under the command of Shang Kexi, the king of Pingnan. Officer Wu Jinzhong!

"Thousands?"

Everyone was startled by Zhou Shixiang's sudden action, and they were even more horrified to see Lord Qianhu's eyes full of fierce light.

After a while, Zhou Shixiang slowly opened his mouth and said: "Most of the soldiers and families in the camp are in the rear camp, we must not sit back and watch the rear camp collapse, saving people is like putting out a fire, give the order, and the whole battalion will immediately set off and rush to Guifeng Mountain! Tell me! Brothers, this thousand households want to capture the Qing general surnamed Wu alive!"

"Order!"

All the hundreds of households and the hundreds of households who tried it were all stunned. They were all puzzled by the sudden reaction of the thousands of households, but no one dared to ask, and they all withdrew. After they retreated, Zhou Shixiang slammed his fist tightly into a ball on one side of the wooden post.

Wu Jinzhong, I want you to live rather than die! (To be continued..)