Due to the limited strength of the Qing army in Hunan, Bayan San wanted to be safe after arriving in Yuezhou, so he focused his defense mainly on Yuezhou City. This led to the Xinghan Army easily capturing Linxiang, the county town at the junction of Honghu Lake and Dongting Lake.
Killed 47 people below the magistrate Ge'an, captured more than 200 Yongyamen servants in the township, 8 muskets, and a small cannon.
Because many people in the Xinghan Army had recently joined, some had their braids cut off, and some had their hair loose and wore red hats with the word "Xinghan" on their heads. Therefore, when the county magistrate Ge'an was killed, he scolded the Xinghan Army for having long hair.
.
Soon, the derogatory name "long-haired" spread.
It was the 4th and 5th brigades of the First Division that captured Linxiang.
The commander of the fourth brigade, Qiu Ba, was a native of Huanggang, Hubei and a member of the Tiandi Hui. He helped the Xinghan Army annihilate the Jingzhou Eight Banners Navy in the Battle of Jingzhou, and later captured the outer city with the help of his fellow Hui Party members, thus completing the battle.
The final siege of Manchuria in Jingzhou.
Qiu Ba also made great efforts in conquering Jingzhou Mancheng. In order to reward his achievements, Gu Zhengdao, the commander of the Xinghan Army, gave him the post of brigade commander.
When asked why Qiu Ba rebelled against the Qing Dynasty, Qiu Ba actually said that he was the Duke of Qi in the Ming Dynasty, after Qiu Fu, the minister who made the first contribution to the Jingnan.
Qiu Ba was just a pseudonym for his travels in the world, and his real name was Qiu Xingxiang.
I don’t know if it’s true or not, after all, more than three hundred years have passed.
The commander of the fifth brigade was Zhou Linwang, the former commander-in-chief of Hubei Lvying Qian. This man once went to Jinchuan with his deputy Zheng Tai, and later retreated to Jingzhou and teamed up with Zheng Tai and others to loot the large gentry households in the outer city of Jingzhou.
Three months ago in Xianning, he was sent to Hubei Governor Zheng Dajin for extorting local officials and gentry. Zheng Dajin was furious and ordered Zheng Tai, who had just been promoted to the rank of Commander-in-Chief, to have him convicted and sent to the governor's station to kill him as a warning to others.
After Zheng Tai received the official document from the governor, he sent someone to tell Zhou Linwang to lead more than 500 soldiers under his command to surrender to the Xinghan Army in Xianning City.
And said: "This is an organizational meaning."
When Zhou Linwang heard that it was the arrangement of the meeting, and the Hubei governor Zheng Dajin wanted to kill him, he knew that he could not survive in Lvying, so he led his troops into the county office on the ninth day of winter, killed all the magistrates and other officials, and then dispersed on the spot.
He changed his banner and sent people to contact the Xinghan army nearby.
In order to make his brothers follow him wholeheartedly, Zhou Linwang even circled hundreds of large households in Xianning, and then assigned these large households to his soldiers to loot and slaughter them.
More than a thousand people.
The wealthy gentry and landlords in Xianning County were almost uprooted, and few escaped.
After being incorporated into the Fifth Brigade of the First Division by the Xinghan Army, Zhou Linwang took the initiative to request troops to capture Puqi and Chongyang in the south.
The generals of the Green Camp of the Qing Army who guarded the second city were all former colleagues of Zhou Linwang. They either made strategic moves under the arrangement of the organization, or left in style after receiving money from Zhou Linwang to buy the city.
As a result, the big landlords in the two counties were immediately attacked by Zhou Linwang, and no less than thousands of them were killed.
When Wang Ang, the former scholar of Yichang in the Qing Dynasty who was appointed governor of Hubei by Gu Zhengdao, the commander of the Xinghan Army, learned about this, he cursed Zhou Linwang. This move would put the Xinghan Army in opposition to the gentry and landlords, and would also make the Xinghan Army lose scholars.
support.
Anyway, the general idea is that tyranny cannot win the support of the people.
Gu Zhengdao believed that Wang Ang's opinion was correct, so he ordered people to go to Chongyang to restrain Zhou Linwang.
Zhou Linwang found it difficult to understand and did not argue with Marshal Gu's people. He obediently gave up control of the three cities of Chongyang and took his troops and the stolen property to Luxikou to accept the command of Division Commander Gu An.
And because most of Zhou Linwang's subordinates were from Hanyang, there was a constant flow of ships transporting goods from Luxikou to Hanyang for a period of time.
At the same time that Qian Cai returned home, a large number of Hanyang people called their friends to join Zhou Linwang's troops, resulting in Zhou Linwang, the brigade commander, actually having more than 4,000 troops.
The organization of the Xinghan army imitated the Zhou rites, with five men in a corps, five corps as one liang, four liang as one pawn, five pawns as one brigade, five brigades as one division, and five divisions as one army.
The first brigade has exactly 500 men, the five brigades have 2,500 men combined into one division, and the first army has 12,500 men.
From lowest to highest, the officers are corps commander, two commanders, pawn commander, brigade commander, division commander and military commander.
Jia Liu, who was far away in the capital at that time, had objections to his father-in-law's military organization method, because his father-in-law's organization method was too unqualified. 500 people could become a senior colonel and brigade commander, 2,500 people could become a major general and division commander, and 12,500 people could be among them. The general's name is really not worthy of his name.
However, considering that the Xinghan Army only had 4,100 people at the time, and more than 1,000 of them were soldiers from Jiangsu and Jiangxi Green Camp recruited by Yunmen Dajie, they did not raise any objection to my father-in-law's bluff approach to organizing the army.
Now the Xinghan Army occupies half of the prefectures and counties in Hubei, and the number of soldiers snowballed to more than 40,000 after conquering Wuchang. Therefore, there are actually four armies of soldiers.
However, because the newly recruited ministries are either members of Hubei civil society, prisoners, recently recruited poor farmers, speculators, or former green camp generals like Zhou Linwang who brought their own dry food to seek refuge, the number of people has doubled. Ten times higher, but the combat effectiveness plummeted, basically the same as the Green Camp.
For this reason, Gu Zhengdao focused his resources on the First Division commanded by his nephew Gu An. This division was also the first division established by the Xinghan Army. Although the establishment was 2,500 people, it actually had more than 13,000 people.
The core backbone was Qianxing Han Army veterans, and the rest were activists such as Qiu Ba and Zhou Linwang.
Qiu Ba's fourth brigade actually had 2,800 troops, half of whom were members of the Tiandihui from all over Hubei and members of civil society organizations related to the Tiandihui. Therefore, although their combat effectiveness was not as good as that of the old Xinghan troops, their cohesion was not weak at all, and they had a strong influence on the local area. The influence is even stronger than that of the Xinghan Army.
Gu Zhengdao used his grandnephew's First Division to attack Hunan with more than 10,000 men, but the strength was obviously insufficient. In order to improve the morale of the army, he promised the brigade commanders participating in the war, especially Zhou Linwang and others who brought their own dry food, that as long as they captured Hunan, they could He is a military commander (general soldier).
Gu An even convened a military meeting with the brigade commanders and announced that after the city was broken, "all the big households can be divided."
Ye Sun's two orders boosted the morale of the Xinghan Army going south. However, if they want to attack the important town of Yuezhou, they must first clean up the Dongting Lake Navy on the outskirts. Otherwise, if the Xinghan Army attacks Yuezhou City, they will definitely be attacked by the Dongting Lake Navy on the back. attack.
Although Gu An was young, he followed his third grandfather to fight against the Qing army at the age of eleven, and he could be said to be a powerful general among the Jinchuan survivors' anti-Qing guerrillas.
The old men in the Xinghan Army all said that Gu An was just a little tiger, and some said that this kid could fight better than a bear.
On the 27th of the twelfth lunar month, the 1st Division forward Zhou Linwang's 5th Brigade arrived at the outskirts of Yuezhou, and then Qiu Baye led the 4th Brigade to arrive. The second general led more than 7,000 officers and soldiers and launched an attack on Yuezhou City the next day.
It's just that although the momentum is strong, it is louder than thunder.
The reason is that the order received by the second general was to attack the sheep in order to divert the attention of the Yuezhou defenders.
Gu An's strategy was to first remove the Qing navy in Junshan, ensuring that the subsequent attack on Yuezhou City would not be disturbed by the Qing navy, and at the same time blocking the Qing's waterway reinforcements.
In order to achieve this goal, Gu An led the main force of the third brigade to station in Chenglingfan, dozens of miles northwest of Yuezhou City, where he built bamboo rafts, recruited civilian boats, fishing boats, and paid a lot of money to recruit fishermen who knew how to use water to help in the battle.
Although the Xinghan Army inevitably caused damage to the local area during its rise, its military discipline was obviously much better than that of the Qing Army. In addition, the sales and purchases were paid according to the price, and the troops did not march into civilian fields or camp in civilian houses. This made the Yuezhou area
The poor people did not object to the rise of the Han army.
Moreover, the slogan put forward by the Xinghan Army, "Nowhere is uneven, no place is full and warm. The land is cultivated by the people of the world, and the people of the world work together." is very popular and has great motivation. In addition, the tragedy and heroic colors of the survivors of the Ming Dynasty actually attracted people's attention.
Many Dongting Lake fishermen came to join the army.
These fishermen, who live in Dongting Lake all year round and even come ashore only a few times a year, not only brought Qing navy garrison information to the Xinghan Army, but also brought hundreds of fishing boats, solving the biggest problem for the Xinghan Army in conquering Junshan.
problem.
Just when the Xinghan Army was preparing to capture the Junshan Qingjun Water Camp, Li Zhongyuan, the deputy general of the Green Camp of Bayan Sanjie, governor of Hunan Province, also saw the importance of Chengling Alum, the entrance to Dongting Lake, and proposed to the governor to lead his troops with the navy
Working together to rob the city mausoleum can, firstly, cut off the retreat of the Fan thieves who are attacking Yuezhou City. Secondly, it can also make the Fan thieves who are attacking the city vulnerable to enemies from both sides. When they are short of food and fodder, they can attack both inside and outside the city at the same time, and they will definitely be able to annihilate them in one fell swoop.
The invading thief.
Apart from making money, Bayan San is an illiterate who doesn't know how to use the military. But this person has the advantage of not pretending to understand what he doesn't understand, and he listens carefully to the opinions of professionals.
So he sent a message to Wan Xiu, the admiral of the navy, ordering him to cooperate with Li Zhongyuan in using troops to attack the city.
Wan Xiu's great-grandfather was Wan Zhengse, the naval admiral who was as famous as Shi Lang in the Kangxi Dynasty.
Shi Lang made great contributions to the Qing Dynasty with his platform, while Wan Zhengse made great contributions in the war against Wu Sangui's rebels and was awarded the title of Prince Shaobao.
If Wanxiu used his navy to cooperate with Li Zhongyuan's infantry to seize the city, even if he could not capture this key point, it would ruin the strategy of Gu An, the rising Han army, to seize Junshan.
Unexpectedly, Wanxiu was unwilling to obey the three restraints of Bayan, or wanted to wait until the end of the New Year before taking action. As a result, he used various excuses to delay.
Without the navy, Li Zhongyuan could not bypass Yuezhou City, so he had no choice but to worry.
Bayansan also felt that Li Zhongyuan was justified in seizing the important territory, and that Wan Xiu was justified in fearing that the soldiers would not use their lives during the New Year. After much deliberation, he decided to let Yuezhou hold on and wait until the New Year to make a big move.
On the first day of the new year, fishermen came quietly to report that the Qing troops on Junshan Island were celebrating the New Year and were completely unprepared.
Gu An took action.
He led 2,000 people on fishing boats, civilian boats, and bamboo rafts to enter the lake at night and paddle quietly toward Junshan.
The lake was pitch black. If it weren't for the old fisherman who lived on the lake all year round as a guide, Gu An and the others would have been lost on the lake for several days.
In the middle of the night, the Xinghan Army arrived at Junshan in the dark.
"superior!"
Gu An, a young general who was only twenty years old, was the first to jump into the cold Dongting Lake, wading knee-deep in water to the shore, and then ordered people to set fire to the reeds near the Qing army's water camp.
After the fire broke out, the Xinghan troops who came ashore shouted loudly, and the wind helped the fire blow towards the Qing army's water camp. As a result, the Qing troops who were celebrating the New Year were panicked and shouted in fear: "The Changmao bandits are coming, Changmao bandits are coming."
The Mao Fan thief is here!"
They kill each other and are defeated as an army.
Guerrilla Tang Shan, Zhang Bing, Qianzong Zhao Youku and others were killed in the chaos.
Wan Xiu was lucky enough to escape in a small boat under the escort of his own soldiers. More than 1,400 officers and soldiers of Yu Shui Division surrendered to the Xinghan Army under the leadership of Du Si Jiang Yangyuan, Li Guohui and others.
An inventory was made at dawn, and in addition to the surrendered troops, more than 2,000 Qing soldiers were killed, trampled, drowned and frozen to death, and more than 80 large and small warships were captured.
It can be called another disastrous defeat for the Qing Navy after the Jingzhou Water Camp.