Chapter 158: Even if there are heroic tears in the dead end, they will be sprinkled on the west wind

Chapter 158: Even if there are heroic tears in the dead end, they will be sprinkled on the west wind

Chapter 158: Even if there are heroic tears in the dead end, they will be sprinkled on the west wind for a few times
On May 17, the second year of the Tongzhi reign, when the Hunan Army led by Luo Bingzhang was retreating to Nanjing, they encountered an ambush of 7,000 elite troops of the Taiping Army led by Shi Dakai in Heizhu Valley in the Yuexi Mountain area.

A raging fire broke out in the thousands of acres of bamboo forest in Heizhu Valley. On the cliff at the top of the valley, muskets were fired in turns and rocks fell like rain. The 10,000 Hunan Army was almost wiped out.

Luo Bingzhang was seriously injured, but with the desperate support of his subordinates Wang Songlin and Yang Yinggang, he led a thousand remaining soldiers to break through the Taiping Army's blockade at the mouth of the ditch and fled back to Hunan in a panic.

The elite Hunan Army fought desperately to break out, causing about a thousand casualties to the Taiping Army. Shi Dakai led the charge and suffered a broken left arm.

The eunuch Jiyong was accidentally injured, one suffered moderate burns, and three suffered minor injuries. The leader Haiqing was slightly injured, and Tonglin suffered moderate burns.

Ahem, as an expert among experts, why would he get burned when he knew in advance that his friendly forces were going to ambush him?
Well, the Hunan Army did bring military rations. The Taiping Army used fire to attack, and the Hunan Army's logistics troops were basically wiped out. The food was also burned, but not so quickly.

After these masters rushed out of the sea of ​​fire, the food was burned quickly. When the Taiping Army cleaned up the battlefield, they only found a pile of ashes at the grain transport unit of the Hunan Army...

Shi Dakai, who committed the serious crime of setting fire to the mountain, returned to the battlefield with a bandage on his face and a big smile on his face. After a long talk with Tian Xing and Shao Quanzhong for half a night, he readily admitted his guilt.

All 6,000 Taiping arsonists were exiled 20,000 miles away and sent to America to work as mercenaries to atone their sins. Shao Quanzhong's income from sending mercenaries abroad was increased by 60,000 taels per month.

Is Shi Dakai so happy because he has a good relationship with Tian Xing? Well, that's what he said himself.

However, although Luo Bingzhang left, 30,000 chieftains and barbarian soldiers came from the south and still cut off the Taiping Army's food supply at a slightly distant location.

Although these foreign soldiers had very poor combat effectiveness, they could cross mountains and ridges as if they were walking on flat ground. They were much more familiar with the terrain than the Taiping Army, so it was quite difficult to ambush them.

We can't catch up with you, we can't hit you, we will hold you back and cut off your food supply without any negotiation.

On the other side of the Dadu River, the Sichuan Army led by Sichuan Governor Wanyan Chongshi was on high alert, and the plan to move into Chengdu had failed.

The Taiping Army still had no food. The Sichuan Army on the other side of the Dadu River was out of reach due to the flood peak, and the Yi soldiers further south were poor, and none of them had enough food to give to the Taiping Army. Within a few hundred miles, only the Huai Army had food.

The Huai Army didn't even need to fight them, they just had to leave, and they would still starve to death.

Unless Tian Xing's face is more important than anything else, the Huai Army will not attack the Taiping Army and will provide them with food. In this case, the best outcome is that the Taiping Army will break through the blockade of the Yi soldiers to the south and then wander around in the mountains of Yunnan, Guizhou, Sichuan and Guangxi.

The population there is sparse, and the Taiping Army has almost no chance to replenish its soldiers. The remaining 6,000 men are surrounded by the Qing army and chieftains' soldiers, and their numbers can only decrease as the fight goes on. The future is predictable.

Some of the Huai Army troops that had come ashore were idle and testing new weapons. Fifty machine gun teams fired at the same time, giving the Taiping allies a small demonstration of the Huai Army's firepower.

After that, Shi Dakai even gave up the idea of ​​attacking the steamship to steal food. He talked endlessly with Tian Xing about their old friendship and drank with Shao Quanzhong until dawn.

"A bird with wings drooping in despair flies wearily, the sun is setting at the Wujiang ferry. Even if there are heroes crying in the dead end, they will shed their tears in the west wind."

While drinking, Shao Quanzhong recited the posthumous works of Shi Dakai that he remembered.

It is difficult to ask a rustic warlord to remember "If only our meeting could be as good as the first time we met" or "Golden wind and jade dew meet each other", but Shao Quanzhong still memorized several poems by heroes and felt a sense of resonance.

But in fact this poem was forged by later generations, and Shi Dakai himself had never heard of it.

Now, from Shao Quanzhong's mouth, Shi Dakai sighed, which really reflected his mood at the moment. The Heavenly Kingdom was in decline, and he was really tired and exhausted. Forget it, he decided to go abroad.

Shi Dakai was "unsuccessful in studying" when he was young, and his knowledge was not as good as that of the old scholar Tianwang. He himself did not consider himself a scholar, but rather a real martial arts master, on the same level as Tian Xing. Otherwise, the two of them would not have appreciated each other.

Shi Dakai only wrote two real poems, which are basically of the same level as Shao Quanzhong's, full of heroic spirit but lacking in literary talent.

Shi Dakai was both brave and resourceful, and had excellent military strategy and the ability to govern the local area, which were honed in actual combat and the process of ruling. He was great enough and did not need the title of a poet.

He was cheerful and heroic, and did not want to change his name to a more elegant one, so he hastily gave himself the pseudonym Shi Laosan.

Shao Quanzhong originally appointed Chen Cheng as the commander-in-chief of the mercenaries, commanding Generals Zhang and Yang. The three regiments of the three men just formed a mercenary division of 13,500 people. Now he unexpectedly recruited Shi Dakai, a famous general who was older than the King of England. Shao Quanzhong promised that Shi Laosan's troops would be organized into an independent mercenary brigade to the United States, acting independently and not under the command of the King of England.

Shi Dakai's troops relied on infantry to march 190 miles a day, rushed to the Hunan Army, went around to the front to ambush and launch a surprise attack, creating a new military miracle created by Shi Dakai, the great Taiping Heavenly Kingdom military strategist.

After the battle, when the Taiping Army returned to Zida, they were all lying on the ground unable to move. They were unlucky with the Hunan Army, as they did not get any food, and they were starving.

Shao Quanzhong was kind-hearted. He provided food and drink and asked medical soldiers to take care of the wounded Taiping Army soldiers.

After Shao Quanzhong and Shi Dakai reached an agreement, the Taiping Army was helped onto the steam freighter by the Huai Army.

Six thousand Taiping troops, "accompanied" by the artillery battalion, cavalry battalion, machine gunnery battalion, and Star Battalion, boarded a boat to Shanghai overnight.

Shao Quanzhong had no idea how long the flood peak of the Dadu River would last. It would be a huge joke if all the steamships and warships were really stranded in the Dadu River.

Before leaving, Tian Xing patted Shao Quanzhong on the shoulder, looking like he was still frightened.

"Second brother, I think Zhang Zhidong is not Zhuge Liang. He cheats everyone, just like Jia Xu. Especially when he asked Haiqing to lead people to burn the military rations of the Hunan Army, he specifically instructed them to do so. He is really cruel."

Shao Quanzhong was extremely proud, "We have a Jia Xu, and we are not satisfied? Shi Dakai was a great man, but he was tricked by Zhang Zhidong thousands of miles away. I don't have the brains to do that. Fortunately, my position relies on fair rewards and punishments and clear decisions, not conspiracies and tricks. I dare to use anyone, no matter how capable he is."

…………

Shao Quanzhong stayed in Zidadi with 5,000 people from the Shu Battalion, the Bo Battalion, and the logistics and engineering troops.

Since the Huai Army was established, the luxurious training of feeding five bullets a day in the early days of the founding of the army in order to quickly build up combat effectiveness has been abandoned. Later, the number of bullets for new recruits in training was greatly reduced, and has been reduced to the level of Britain and France.

This time the 5,000 soldiers left behind were considered a copy. During the next four days, they trained intensively and wasted bullets.

The Dadu River was flooded, and Governor Wanyan Chongshi on the north bank was unable to support the Huai Army on the south bank.

For four days, only bursts of gunfire could be heard from the south bank across the river, and the battle was obviously extremely fierce.

The barbarian soldiers in the south can come to join the battle, but will the chieftains be willing to let their soldiers fight the Taiping Army head-on? We have already deserved the Qing Dynasty's reward by helping to cut off the grain supply, right?

Oh my God, with such dense gunfire, wouldn’t we, the tribal soldiers armed with swords and spears, be seeking our deaths?

The Huai Army has no friendship with us, and they don't give us money, so why should we help you? You guys fight to the death with Shi Dakai, and we will listen to the noise from a distance.

Four days later, the gunfire on the south bank of the river gradually became less frequent and finally stopped. The water level of the Dadu River also gradually dropped. When the scouts sent by Wanyan Chongshi arrived at the south bank, the Zida area was already empty, and it was unknown what the outcome of the battle between the two sides would be.

Fifteen days later, the prefect of Jiading Prefecture in Sichuan and the magistrate of Leshan County saw Shao Quanzhong's troops returning triumphantly at the same time.

The troops looked miserable. After marching in the jungle for half a month, they were in rags and only 5,000 of the 10,000 soldiers were left. However, they brought back 7,000 long-haired heads, including Shi Dakai's.

This time, Tian Xing went down to the ice cellar personally and selected the heads with Hai Qing in advance. He was familiar with Shi Dakai.

However, of the 7,000 heads he brought with him, another 1,000 were taken back with the boat that returned in the middle of the night. When Shao Quanzhong passed by Heizhu Valley, he cut off the heads of more than 1,000 Taiping soldiers who died there to make up the number.

The living Taiping Army soldiers should be treated well, as these heads are military merits and rewards.

Well, there are only 38,000 points of military merit in the basement of Fengyang, so we have to use them sparingly. Fighting Nanjing is a big battle, and if the gains are small, not only will it be unreliable, but the military merit will also be greatly reduced, right?
The remaining 5,000 men of Shao Quanzhong's army boarded the four steamships left in Leshan and returned.

While they were resting on the ship, Wanyan Chongshi had already learned the result of the Battle of Zidadi from the prefect of Jiading, and reported it to the court in an urgent manner of 800 miles.

(End of this chapter)