Chapter five hundred and seventy-eight six sons, to unite
After annihilating the Qing Dongting Lake Navy and occupying the Qing army's water camp in Junshan, Gu An did not issue an order to rest and regroup. Instead, he used the captured Qing army warships to transport troops to Yuezhou City, moved the command post to Luxianguan in the west of Yuezhou City, and began a comprehensive
Encircled Yuezhou City.
Bayan San, the governor of Hunan, heard that Jun's Shanshui camp had been occupied. He panicked and fled by boat to Lujiao Port in the south of Yuezhou. He stayed in this port for half a day and felt it was not safe, so he fled in panic to the south forty miles with a hundred or so followers.
Hepuzi Town in Yulidi.
Really, all the grass and trees are like soldiers, just like a frightened bird.
If Futai's deputy general Li Zhongyuan had not arrived in time with his troops, this Futai master might have been able to escape directly back to the provincial capital Changsha by walking three hundred miles at night.
The main force of the Qing army guarding Yuezhou City was the 3,000 green battalion soldiers commanded by General Yamantai. There were also 2,000 newly recruited and trained soldiers from Hunan. In addition, there were young men recruited by the prefect Guo Tianen. On the surface, there were defenders.
Ten thousand.
Yamantai was born in the Zhenghuang Banner of Mongolia and was the son of former Suiyuan general Shu Ming. Five years ago, he served as the second-class imperial guard and was transferred to the position of deputy general of Hunan Green Camp. He was promoted to chief military officer last year.
Prior to this, Yamantai actually had no experience in leading an army. He only went to Tibet as a third-class imperial guard in the 32nd year of Qianlong's reign.
However, Yamantai is not an ordinary bannerman and is a playboy, he still has some abilities.
After the Xinghan Army arrived in Yuezhou and launched an attack on the city, Yamantai did not retreat inside the city. Instead, he organized troops and horses to go out of the city to fight with the Xinghan Army. The two sides won each other.
At first, Yamantai did not know that the navy had been destroyed, but he was just wondering why there was no movement from the navy.
It was not until the fourth day of the Lunar New Year that we discovered that the bandits had actually set up their camp at Lu Xianguan in the south of the city. Only then did we know that the navy had been wiped out, otherwise it would have been impossible for the bandits to set up their camp to the south.
When the news spread, people in the city were immediately panicked. Rumors spread that after Longhair broke through the city, he would kill all men with braids on the back of their heads, so many people secretly cut off their braids.
Guo Tianen, the prefect of Yuezhou, was even mentally prepared for his family to be killed. However, in order to leave the blood of the Guo family, he secretly handed over his youngest son to an old servant and hid it among the people.
As for the Xinghan Army, Gu An, who had no worries at all, in order to strengthen his ability to attack fortresses, ordered the surrendered Qing Army Commander Jiang Yangyuan to lead the surrender troops to remove the artillery from the warships and transport them to the shore. As a result, daily shelling continued, and the city was cleared of
The army did not dare to raise its head.
Only Yuezhou City was fortified twice during the Kangxi period. It is taller than the provincial capital Changsha, and there are seven to eight thousand defenders in the city. With the city firmly defended, it will be very difficult for the Xinghan Army to conquer the city in one fell swoop.
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On the fifth day of the Lunar New Year, Gu An ordered the prisoners to bring a letter to the city and persuade the city's garrison general Ya Mantai, the general of Qing Hunan Province, to surrender.
The conditions offered were not unlenient, that is, Yamantai could lead his troops to withdraw, and the Xinghan Army promised not to pursue him.
The reason for this is that Gu An did not want to suffer too heavy losses under the strong city of Yuezhou. After all, he was the only one who went south to attack Hunan. If the losses were too large, even if Yuezhou was captured, it would do more harm than good to the entire war situation.
Once the war situation in Hubei becomes tense, his troops will be ready to send back reinforcements at any time.
Therefore, if the losses are too great and we cannot respond in time, it will be a failure at the entire strategic level.
There is a letter on Gu An's body, which was written to him by his uncle in Manchuria who is far in the north.
It is said above that if people are saved and land is lost, people and land will be saved; if land is saved and people are lost, people and land will be lost.
This principle applies to both offense and defense.
His aunt also sent him a letter, but it didn't say anything, it was just a personal message from the aunt and nephew.
When I was a kid, when I grew up, etc., before, now...
There is a saying that has a profound meaning. The main idea is that if my aunt is not alive in the future, where she will be buried depends entirely on you, my nephew.
As an authentic Mongolian, Yamantai would not abandon his ancestors and surrender to the Xinghan Army. To clarify his ambition, he summoned his Banner Han officers and publicly beheaded two Shuiying officers and soldiers who had sent messages for the Xinghan Army.
Level at the top of the city.
This approach is quite unethical.
The two countries are at war, don't kill the envoy!
It has been a hundred years since Manchuria invaded and occupied China. Even if it is a puppet dynasty, it must abide by the rules.
The young and energetic Gu An was furious and ordered the 1st and 5th brigades to attack the north gate of Yuezhou. He even mobilized all artillery to attack the north gate. The fighting was fierce and unprecedented since the war began. Unfortunately, in the end, the success fell short.
Hundreds of officers and soldiers were lost and the city failed to be breached.
Li Guohui, the commander of the Dongting Lake Navy of the Qing Dynasty who had surrendered, suggested digging tunnels and inserting gunpowder to blast the city walls.
Gu An adopted the plan and spent three days digging two tunnels under the south gate of Yuezhou. However, due to the insufficient power of the explosives, only a small part of the city wall collapsed and he was unable to break into the city.
When the war has reached this point, no strategy can work anymore. It's just a matter of both sides fighting for food, endurance, and reinforcements.
After calming down, Gu An did not ask for reinforcements from his third grandfather who was far away in Wuchang. Instead, he organized military forces to continue the siege of Yuezhou City. On the other hand, he organized the surrendered Qing army water camp officers and soldiers to use the convenient water transportation to continuously attack the Qing Dynasty around Dongting Lake.
The military garrison made Yuezhou City completely an isolated city.
On the other hand, some officers and soldiers were sent to attack the counties under the jurisdiction of Yuezhou Prefecture, to expand the territory and at the same time recruit troops and strengthen the strength, thereby eliminating each other and gaining strength.
In terms of food and grass, there was no shortage of food for the Han army to besiege the city for the time being. When they captured the water camp of the Qing army in Junshan, they captured a large amount of food for the Qing army, which could last until at least March.
The life of the Qing army trapped in Yuezhou became extremely difficult.
Bayansan, the governor of Qing Hunan who retreated to Qiangzipu, gradually came to his senses after surviving the initial dangerous period and realized that he must not give up on Yuezhou, otherwise his role as governor of Hunan would be over.
After Chen Huizu, the governor of Qinghuguang who "taken refuge" in Changsha, received the news that the Dongting Lake Navy Division had been destroyed and Yuezhou was besieged by the Xinghan bandits, he immediately gave Bayan San a death order, asking him to organize troops to reinforce Yuezhou at all costs.
He was just on the verge of saying cruel words that if Yuezhou is lost, you, Bayan San, will die either as a thief or as a result of the law.
The Governor had nothing to do. Who asked him to be demoted to the third rank and retained because of the loss of Wuchang official position?
If Yuezhou is lost again and the bandits march straight into corrupt Hunan, will the emperor spare him?
Bayansan was anxious, but he didn't know much about military matters, so he had to pin his hopes on his deputy general Li Zhongyuan to break the situation.
Li Zhongyuan is a native of Hunan. He joined the army at the age of seventeen. He participated in the Battle of Burma and fought against the Japanese bandits in Jinchuan for two years. He is extremely powerful and can be said to be the most powerful general in Hunan Green Camp.
If his earlier plan of using land and water to snatch the alumina from the city could be carried out, the war situation would definitely not be as passive as it is now.
There is no way to mention only the past.
Under the repeated "pleas" of the governor, Li Zhongyuan led 1,500 Fubiao people, together with more than 1,800 trained soldiers, to emergency rescue Yuezhou.
In order to break through the Xinghan Army's defense line, Li Zhongyuan's troops even carried more than 30 artillery pieces.
When the Qing army approached the Sheng'an Temple area south of Yuezhou City, they fought with the Xinghan Army. Li Zhongyuan personally led the soldiers to use artillery cover to launch a fierce offensive against the Xinghan Army's defense line.
Stimulated by the heavy rewards and taking the lead, the Qing army's morale was high and its fighting spirit was high. The second brigade of the Xinghan Army, which was defending face to face, could not stop the enemy and had to retreat more than 20 miles to the rear. More than 300 corpses were left behind.
There were also hundreds of prisoners.
Judging from the results of the battle alone, there is no doubt that the Qing army won a major victory. This greatly increased Li Zhongyuan's confidence. After learning from the prisoners that his opponent was a twenty-year-old bandit general, he refused to let this young boy go.
In his eyes, he is very arrogant.
It is a good thing for people to have confidence.
However, blind confidence and confidence derived from failing to see the overall situation are often fatal.
After the victory, Li Zhongyuan was no longer satisfied with rushing into Yuezhou City to rescue him. Instead, he wanted to defeat the Xinghan army in one fell swoop and gain the title of marquis. Therefore, he commanded his Qing army to march north in an attempt to break the siege of Yuezhou in one battle.
"Three thousand people just want to devour me!"
Gu An, who learned that Li Zhongyuan broke through the Second Brigade's defense line and approached Yuezhou City, decided to take advantage of Li Zhongyuan's opportunity to underestimate the enemy's advance. While he ordered the Second Brigade to continue retreating in defeat, he mobilized the main force of the First Brigade, the Third Brigade, and the Fifth Brigade.
The troops set up an ambush in the woods along the path that the Qing army must pass through to advance north.
The strength of the ambush troops was more than twice that of the Qing army advancing north.
In Yuezhou City, the sound of gunfire coming from the south can actually be heard.
Guo Tianen, the prefect of Yuezhou, suspected that reinforcements had arrived, so he hoped that the commander-in-chief Yamantai could lead his troops out of the city to receive the reinforcements. However, Yamantai was too cautious and worried that it was the treacherous trick of the long-haired envoy outside the city who deliberately lured them out of the city, so he was unable to make a decision.
As a result, the opportunity to cooperate internally and externally to severely damage the Han army was lost.
War is the final result of countless accidents.
Gu An used a brigade as bait to continuously lure Li Zhongyuan into heading north rashly. As a result, Li's troops were gradually lured into the ambush circle.
Guns and artillery were fired, shouts of killing shook the sky, and the Qing army's formation was in chaos.
Gu An took the opportunity to ambush the Qing troops. One group cut off the Qing army's retreat, while the other two troops attacked the Qing army from both sides.
Since the Xinghan army carried many flags and had to be protected by woods, the Qing army had no idea how many people there were. After the attack, Lian Yong, who had been recruited two or three months ago, was the first to collapse and ran back one after another, only to be picked up from behind.
The Xinghan army suppressed them and fought, so they had to turn around and run back. As a result, the green camp soldiers who were already in panic and reluctantly accepted the fight were also in chaos.
During the fierce battle, the Qing army was killed and as many as 2,000 people were trampled to death, including 47 generals. It was a disastrous defeat.
The leader, Li Zhongyuan, rushed left and right with his horse and was unable to break out of the encirclement. The rear horse was shot with a musket by the Xinghan army. Li Zhongyuan fell off the horse and was captured alive.
In addition to more than a hundred people who escaped, more than a thousand others knelt down and begged to surrender.
After the war, the battle report sent by Gu An to Wuchang said: "I came out from three sides, as fast as the wind. The Qing army was shocked and collapsed, captured the bandit general Li Zhongyuan alive, and killed most of the enemies. Yuezhou has become a turtle in the urn."
The annihilation of Li Zhongyuan's troops not only completely deprived Yuezhou of foreign aid, but also left Bayan San, the governor of Hunan, without any cards to fight. When he learned that Li Zhongyuan's troops had been wiped out, Mr. Ba fled to the provincial capital Changsha in a donkey cart without saying a word.
After capturing Li Zhongyuan alive, Gu An asked people to treat him politely and tried to persuade the Qing general to surrender. However, Li Zhongyuan had no intention of surrender and kept cursing that the Xing Han army was a traitor and wanted to die to repay the Qing Dynasty.
Gu An had no choice but to have Li Zhongyuan escorted to the gate of Yuezhou City, where he beheaded the most powerful general in central Hunan in front of Yamantai, the commander-in-chief of the Qing army in the city, and others.
When Li Zhongyuan's head fell to the ground, Yamantai must have felt regret in his heart. He regretted that he should not have listened to Magistrate Guo's advice and went out of the city to assist, so that the reinforcements were wiped out and he was really trapped in the city.
The annihilation of the reinforcements caused the morale of the Yuezhou garrison to become low. There were even anti-Qing elements in the city who spread rumors, created troubles, and made people's hearts unstable.
Yamantai finally decided to break out with his deputy Xiong Ding'an and his troops.
Xiong Ding'an's ancestor was Xiong Wenju, a Ming minister who was included in the second volume of "Eternal Chuanchen". He was a martial arts scholar and had achieved first place in the martial arts examination in the 27th year of Qianlong's reign.
He is also commonly known as Wu Zhuangyuan.
Xiong Ding'an was good at using firearms and was a rare firearms expert in the Qing army. His 800 men were all armed with firearms, making him the only fully firearms unit in Hunan Green Camp.
However, from the beginning of the war to the present, this fully weaponized force has hardly played any role. It is completely passive and is in danger of being annihilated.
Therefore, Xiong Ding'an agreed to the commander-in-chief's decision to break out of the encirclement.
But before breaking out, Yamantai suddenly had a whim and ordered someone to send a mailbox filled with explosives to the Xinghan Army.
The pill box was made by Xiong Ding'an and will explode as soon as it is opened.
In order to convince General Gu An of the Xinghan Army and open it, Yamantai also wrote the words "Send to General Gu personally" on the letter box, and asked the person who sent the box to say that he was willing to contact the Xinghan Army about the city's opening.
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The original intention was to blow up Gu An, but if he could not kill him, he could also paralyze the command center of the Xinghan Army and buy time for them to break out. However, when I sent the mailbox, I did not receive any reply, and I did not see Xinghan outside the city.
There are no signs of troop withdrawal.
The reason is that Gu An did not open the mailbox himself, but asked a prisoner to open it first in the open space. As a result, Yamantai's conspiracy was exposed.
This was also the result of the guidance of Gu An's Manchu uncle Jia. In addition to teaching his nephew the art of military use, he also told his nephew not to shoot anything sent by the enemy, nor to single-handedly fight against the newly surrendered Qing Dynasty.
Talk to the generals. In addition, no matter how thirsty you are during the march, do not drink raw water. It must be boiled.
On New Year's Day, Yamantai could no longer hold on and decided to break out.
The Xinghan Army, which had been closely watching the Qing troops in the city, soon discovered that the Qing troops in Yuezhou had broken through, and a battle between breakout and counter-breakout soon began.
In the Wangjiahepu area east of Yuezhou City, the fiercest battle between the two armies was the most intense.
There was an unknown hill here. After Yamantai protruded from the city, he led his troops to occupy the high ground here and repulsed part of the Xinghan Army who wanted to take it back.
However, fifteen "long-haired" soldiers were unable to withdraw with the brigade because they were lost, so they lurked in the reeds beside a pond in the area. At night, the group of soldiers began to retreat in the dark, never expecting to return again.
I got lost and found Yamantai's headquarters in the mountains.
Seeing Qing troops coming from all directions, the two leaders gritted their teeth and led their brothers to launch a deadly attack on the Qing troops.
The Qing army, which was trying its best to break out of the encirclement to the east, had no idea that there was such a group of people behind them. They were unprepared and were rushed into chaos by fifteen dead soldiers of the Xinghan Army. They just thought that there were many thieves coming.
Just like that, fifteen "long-haired" men wielding knives disturbed the Qing army's rear area, causing even Yamantai's headquarters to move away in fear.
This "transfer" caused a huge collapse of the Qing army that broke out of the encirclement. Yamantai was lucky enough to break through the encirclement and ran to the Dayun Mountain area east of Yuezhou. Then he counted more than 70 soldiers around him.
The grief-stricken and angry General Ya was honest. He detailed the defeat in his memorial to the emperor. He did not mince words about his gains and losses. He said, "This slave has seen the truth. Thousands of officers and soldiers were defeated by dozens of thieves. It’s beyond reason..."
He also sighed to his left and right: "It's easy to regret the mountain, but it's difficult to regret it. I didn't expect it to be like this."
The 800-mile express for Yuezhou's defense was delivered to the capital on the 23rd of the New Year.
At this time, Jia Liu was at home, scolding Fullerhun: "You don't care if others spread rumors about me, you don't care if others assassinate me, you just care if I investigate by myself and arrest some people." It's like stabbing your ass, what do you mean?"
"Do you, Fu Zhongtang, really not regard me, Jia Jiashikai, as a brother? If that's the case, fine, in front of Prince An, we can go our separate ways from now on! I won't need you to mourn me after I die! What's your name? If someone is killed, don’t blame me for lighting firecrackers!"
"How do you say that? Yes, I will tell Nai Weng all the family sacrifices! You don't care if I die, and I don't care if you die!"
Jia Liu punched the table.
The fist wind failed to crack the table, but it made the old rich man's heart tremble for no reason, and his face became very uncomfortable.
Uncle Se spoke up, pressed his agitated cousin on the stool, frowned slightly, and educated him in an elder's tone: "Liuzi, don't say anything that undermines unity. It's not that Fu Zhongtang doesn't care about you, I just hope you don't do anything wrong." It's too much trouble, and it's not good for you, Fu Zhongtang, or me."