Chapter 13 Battle of the Huangsha River

On the evening of 16 April, the convoy of the Taiping army went down the river, and when the convoy passed downstream of Lingyidu, Feng Shaoguang led Qin Rigang and others to lead the troops to board the boat and join most of the Taiping army. Pen & Fun & Pavilion www.biquge.info

The king of heaven and the king of the east saw the dangerous shoals and narrow rivers on the riverside here, and the lion-shaped mountains on the west bank were dangerous, and they occupied the center of the river.

"Mountain robe, Brother Rigang, you said that the Qing demon "felled trees and made weirs" to block the river, is this it? Yang Xiuqing pointed to the dangerous place of the river after the rapid turn of the river and said.

"The eyes of the East King are like torches, and Jiang Zhongyuan, the demon head, is here to bury hidden piles and lie on a big tree to block the river." Feng Shaoguang and Qin Rigang replied.

"This Jiang demon head is really ruthless! If he succeeds, the ships of the Heavenly Kingdom will concentrate on the river here because they cannot advance, and the Qing Demon ambush soldiers on the mountain range on the west bank will be condescending again, bombarding the boats in the river, just afraid that the Heavenly Kingdom will suffer heavy losses! Yamapao, Brother Hizuna, and other brothers who went on the expedition, you have done your service to the Heavenly Kingdom! ”

"King Xie Dong praised! All of them are the blessings of God the Father Emperor, and the Heavenly King and the Eastern King command properly. ”

"In order to prevent the Qing Demon from ambushing again, this time the heavenly soldiers went out to Hunan along the river and waterway, and they were horns for each other. When you first recovered from your injuries, you led the troops to fight and fight tired, so you temporarily went to military affairs and rested by boat. I arranged for the other to march along the coast. Yang Xiuqing made a decision. He pretended to be concerned, and with a small excuse, he relieved Feng Shaoguang of the temporary command of the 4,000 heavenly soldiers who had previously gone out to fight in Lingyidu.

Feng Shaoguang also knew that this must be the result. From the very beginning, he did not hope to command the people of the Eastern King family, and at present, he could only quietly accumulate strength and eventually establish his own power.

It was already evening when they passed through Xintangping, and while the ships were resting at night and the troops on the shore were encamped, Li Kaifang and Lu Qi led more than 100 people to escort Jiang Zhongyi off the boat. Running to the place where Jiang Zhongyuan hid gunpowder, he really found six loads of gunpowder, Li Kaifang couldn't help but be overjoyed, and even looked at Jiang Zhongyi a lot more pleasing to the eye.

On the morning of the third day, the Heavenly Kingdom finally arrived at a small mountain village called the foot of the mountain, three miles away from the Huangsha River.

Yang Xiuqing, the king of the east, ordered the ships to anchor and stop on the shore, and the armies disembarked and set up camp, preparing to attack the Qing army stationed in Huangsha Hewei.

A spy had already reported that the Qing army in Huangshahe had a total of 9,000 soldiers, led by Admiral He Chun, and Sun Yingzhao, the chief soldier of Yongzhou Town, assisted in the defense. The camp built along the polder stretches from the western side of the mountain to the river, and a double-layer defense line is established along the river to block the road to Hunan. The surface of the river is also covered with hidden piles, and large ships cannot pass through.

Later, Liu Changqing, the acting governor of Guangxi, who thought that he had retreated to Xing'an, heard that the Taiping army had left Quanzhou, and led 5,000 Qing soldiers to chase him to Taipingpu, and he could rush to Huangsha Hewei in just two days to attack the kingdom of heaven on both sides.

Regarding the defense line with 9,000 Qing troops and the command of Hechun, Yang Xiuqing was not worried about anything at all. He fought against the Qing army for more than a year, and he already knew that compared with the Taiping army, the Qing army's combat strength was fragile. Lingyidu was robbed of the limelight by Feng Yunshan, the king of the south, and this time he wanted to let the entire Heavenly Kingdom see who was the commander of all the heavenly soldiers. Yang Xiuqing needed a big victory to improve himself, he calculated it in his mind, and made a decision without even informing the other kings to discuss.

The king of the east ordered the entire army of the kingdom to rest for an hour, and then launched a general attack.

In the tent of the temporary camp, the crowd was gathered and placed in the tent, and Feng Shaoguang recited the hymn of worshipping God. Zeng Guanlan, Li Kaifang, Liang Litai, Su Sanniang, and the Qinwei Ying and others followed with a high recitation, and after reciting, they all knelt outward. Feng Shaoguang saw that everyone was kneeling down and ready, so he also knelt down, raised his head and read aloud: "Boy Yunshan led all the brothers and sisters to kneel on the ground, and begged Heavenly Father Emperor God to open up the grace of heaven. ”

The crowd shouted: "Kill all the demons"!

Afterwards, Feng Shaoguang got up and called everyone to get up and eat boiled fried rice for breakfast.

Shortly after breakfast, the Chinese battalion sounded the horn of preparing for the attack. This was followed by the sound of drums in response from the battalions.

Then the Chinese army issued an order, ordering the king of the south to lead the rear army women's battalion and other teams to follow the Chinese army and rush out of the Qing army's defense line with most of the heavenly kingdom.

The arrangement of the East King has been unfolded.

The front army and the right army pressed on all fronts, and as the vanguard, they took the lead in pressing forward step by step towards the first line of defense of the Qing army.

Under the cover of the front army and the right army, the Chinese army placed earthen artillery from the camp of the first line of defense of the Qing army.

As the Taiping army approached, the artillery behind the first line of defense of the Qing army sounded the earth-shattering artillery bombardment, and dozens of fist iron pellets smashed into the dense Taiping army, and hundreds of heavenly soldiers were killed and injured in one shelling.

Taking advantage of this time, the Chinese gunners have already launched the earthen cannons and placed them, followed by the earth-shattering roar, hundreds of earthen cannons of different sizes and forms fired fiercely at the Qing army on the opposite side, although many of them fell to the ground and rolled into the trench in front of the Qing army before they reached the Qing army's camp, but there were still some lead bullets that smashed the wooden fence and rushed into the camp, and the Qing army also suffered small casualties.

The power of their own earth cannons encouraged the advance of the Taiping army, and as Xiao Chaogui, the king of the West, raised his arms, the soldiers of the Heavenly Kingdom shouted to kill the demons and cross the trench of the Qing army and slash towards the fence.

The banging sound behind the fence continued to sound, and the Qing army continued to fire at the rushing Taiping army with bird guns and guns, and hundreds of Taiping soldiers fell at the fence, with heavy casualties. Some of the Taiping soldiers crossed the fence, brandished spears and broadswords, and slashed at the Qing army's shotgunners, but unexpectedly, a large group of Qing troops armed with spears suddenly appeared from the rear of the Qing army, and the Taiping soldiers collided with each other. It turned out that the commander of the Qing army and Chun Zao arranged for spearmen and spearmen to protect the shotguns and carry spears in the back.

The spearmen continued to hide behind the spearmen, constantly firing their guns at the rushing Taipings. For a time, the Taiping army was unable to break through the blockade of the Qing army at the fence, and soldiers continued to fall.

At this time, the camp of the Taiping Army resounded like a sea of cheers. But it turned out that the King of Heaven and the King of the East, under the escort of hundreds of swordsmen, raised their flags and waved them at the Qing army, ordering the whole army to attack!

The officers and men of the large battalion and the left army of the Chinese army held swords and spears, followed the forward soldiers like a tide, and rushed towards the enemy camp. The former soldiers were inspired by this, and they also called for the killing of the Qing demon, and their momentum changed. With the addition of the new force of the Chinese army, like an unstoppable torrent, it finally broke through the blockade of the Qing army and tore through the first line of defense.

For a time, many Qing shotgunners and gunmen were cut to the ground before they had time to charge. Seeing that the Taiping army was unstoppable, some Qing soldiers abandoned their guns and retreated, causing the Qing army's position to collapse quickly and the defense line completely collapsed.

Seeing this, Xiao Chaogui ignored his own injuries, endured the pain and Wei Changhui took advantage of the situation to lead the soldiers of the Heavenly Kingdom to pursue.

Feng Shaoguang saw that the soldiers of the Taiping Army were under the command of the East King, fearless of life and death, and struggled forward, and couldn't help but secretly say that this religiously brainwashed soldier had really amazing combat effectiveness. Immediately, he also ordered the rear army to follow the officers and men of the Chinese army and assault forward.

With the addition of the rear army, the combat power has not been strengthened much, but the tsunami-like rushing sound of thousands of female soldiers like tweeters resounded in the sky and echoed on both sides of the Xiangjiang River. The morale of the Taiping army was boosted, and the Qing army, hearing such a terrifying killing cry, guessed that there were tens of thousands of people, and then they were timid and had lost their minds.

He Chun had been leading his troops to follow the Taiping army, recovering the city after the Taiping army left, and reaping full credit. But later, Emperor Xianfeng saw that the Taiping army had captured Quanzhou, and then went north, and wanted to go straight to Changsha, but he issued four edicts in one day, strictly ordering Hechun and others to try to block his boat, and prevent the Taiping army from entering Hunan.

As a last resort, He Chun made a detour to Huangsha River Wei and set up two lines of defense. Wanting to block the Taiping army through a trench and fence, with mountain artillery, bird guns, and guns behind to continuously consume and block the Taiping army, drag it in front of the defense line for two or three days, and wait for Liu Changqing of Taiping and Bao Qibao, the governor of Yunnan in Yongzhou City, to lead troops to support, and attack from both sides, the Taiping army will be wiped out in the area of the Huangsha River.

It's just that I didn't expect that the Taiping demon soldiers were like taking medicine, all of them were not afraid of death, and they fought bravely to be the first in the case of so many dead and wounded, and broke through the defense line carefully arranged by using human lives. I have to find a way to get out as soon as possible, and if I don't leave, I'm afraid that I'm going to die here.

Thinking of this, He Chun did not notify Sun Yingzhao, the chief soldier of Yongzhou Town, who helped him to assist in the defense, and directly led the remaining more than 3,000 descendant troops to retreat quietly, and actually led his troops to flee in the direction of Dong'an.

Here, Sun Yingzhao, the chief soldier of Yongzhou Town, was still on the second line of defense by the river, urging the 3,000 Yongzhou soldiers under his command to fight against the Taiping army. Gradually felt that the Taiping army was attacking, and his own defense line was crumbling, and he hurriedly urged his own soldiers to report to the governor and the lord, only to realize that the damn and the lord had run away.

Sun Yingzhao was so angry in his heart that he couldn't wait to join Hechun immediately. But it's useless, people are full of people, there is a backstage, and he is a Han Chinese, isn't he asking for hardship? Let's think about how to escape first.

He had an idea, and quietly led more than 2,000 of his Yongzhou soldiers to the north to find a small boat to secretly cross the river back to Yongzhou, so that more than 2,000 Qing soldiers who went to Huangsha Hewei in the spring did not know it, and still fought with the Taiping army.

The fighting continued into the afternoon, and the Qing army in Huangshahewei, which had gone away, quickly changed from 2,000 to more than 1,000. At this time, several Qing army generals always found that something was wrong around them, and there were fewer and fewer people from their own families, and there were Taiping army people in every direction, and they were constantly rushing over. These people can be the boss, they are all clever people, and they immediately abandoned their subordinates and fled north with only a few of their henchmen. After a while, the Qing army's two lines of defense all collapsed, leaving nearly a thousand Qing soldiers who did not have time to escape, directly surrounded by the Taiping army's legions, rushing left and right, unable to break through, and killed and wounded 400 people, and the remaining 500 people directly threw away their swords and guns under the leadership of a general commander and became prisoners.

Feng Shaoguang, who saw that the battlefield situation was good, ordered Su Sanniang and Hu Damei, who had basically recovered, to lead the cronies in the women's battalion of the Third Army and the Fourth Army to quietly search for light and small weapons such as shotguns, knives and spears, and gunpowder bags on the battlefield behind, and hide some in the women's camp.

After cleaning up the battlefield and counting the results, the Taiping army eliminated nearly 2,000 Qing soldiers, captured more than 600 people, and the Taiping army suffered more than 1,600 casualties. More than 1,100 shotguns, 45 front-loading smoothbore guns, 30 mountain and earthen cannons, 4 bronze cannons, and rice and grain baggage that the Qing army had no time to destroy. For a while, Wu Keyi, the saint of the temple, smiled happily and was busy reporting the good news to the king of the east.

Yang Xiuqing was also relieved. This is the work of his command. In his opinion, his heavenly warriors are not afraid of life and death, as long as they break the conspiracy of the Qing Demon, fighting head-on is to give full play to their own advantages, and they are naturally invincible. What's more, through this crisp victory, the entire kingdom of heaven will know that only he, Yang Xiuqing, can lead the soldiers to kill demons and establish a small paradise on earth.