Chapter 168: Peaceful Music in the Capital, 4 Years in the Eternal Heaven
Chapter 168: Peaceful Celestial Music, Drunkenness in Tianjin, Fourteen Years of the Eternal Kingdom
Zeng Guoquan captured the palace with ease.
There were no soldiers left in the Heavenly King's Palace, only more than a thousand female officials and Hong Xiuquan's harem.
There were no eunuchs in the Heavenly Kingdom, and all the positions were filled by female officials. After Hong Xiuquan entered the Heavenly King's Palace, he basically never came out, and spent 11 years in it with beautiful female officials who were tributed from all over the country and had no shame.
Zeng Guoquan then realized that Hong Xiuquan was already dead. That would not do. We must open the coffin and mutilate the body. Our Hunan Army must have the head.
Zeng Guoquan came to the magnificent Holy Treasury full of hope. The door slowly opened and Zeng Guoquan suppressed his huge hope.
In theory, the treatment of the Hunan Army and the Huai Army was similar. When they were first established, they were indeed able to pay sufficient salaries, which is why they were able to suppress the Taiping Army and maintain their combat effectiveness.
However, as the Hunan Army grew in size, it has now expanded to more than 100,000 people and can no longer pay their salaries.
The only way Zeng Guofan could keep the morale of these hundreds of thousands of people high was to promise that after conquering Nanjing, the wealth stored up by the Guangdong bandits over the years would be used to pay the Hunan Army's arrears.
When Zeng Guoquan entered the Holy Treasury and saw the pitiful inventory, he started cursing.
"The Guangdong bandits are too good at squandering money. Didn't their spies say that when the Guangdong bandits established their capital, there were 38 million taels of silver in the Holy Treasury? They squandered it all."
In his opinion, the Hunan Army of more than 100,000 people were owed wages, and the Guangdong bandits of hundreds of thousands were probably facing the same problem, so it was normal for the money to run out.
But the Guangdong bandits have no money, what should we do with the wages that my brother and I promised? Will the Hunan Army rebel and not listen to us?
In fact, the lower-level Taiping Army relied on their beliefs and the pressure from their superiors to survive. If they had more than five taels of silver, they would be beheaded. The Heavenly Kingdom still had a lot of wealth, but it was not in the Holy Treasury...
After questioning the palace ladies, Zeng Guoquan was even more furious. "Damn it! Where did Li Xiucheng go? Where did Hong Tianguifu go? Search the whole city. If you don't stop for three days, you can massacre the whole city!"
Where were Li Xiucheng and Hong Tianguifu? They had already escaped from Jinling City.
Li Xiuben himself did not participate in the final fierce battle at Taiping Gate.
He knew that the time had come for the Kingdom of Heaven to end, so he went straight back to the palace, brought along the sixteen-year-old young master, and led a thousand of his most elite guards, disguised as Hunan troops, in preparation for escape.
The plan was to recruit the Taiping troops who were fighting on their own in the former Sufu Province, fight to Xiamen and go out to sea, and establish an exile regime overseas.
The main attack direction of the Hunan Army was Taiping Gate, and Li Xiucheng led his men to run in the opposite direction, intending to break out from Hanxi Gate.
Although Hanxi Gate was not the main attack direction, it had been occupied by Chen Shi's troops of the Hunan Army. Unable to break out, Li Xiucheng had to move to Qingliang Mountain and hide temporarily.
There are as many as thirteen gates in the outer city, but now there are thousands of Hunan troops stationed at each gate. Although they are all small detachments of the Hunan Army, they are only blocking the gates and unable to attack, but they are not something that can be defeated by a thousand people.
The Hunan Army is a very regular army, not the Nian Army. You cannot pass by wearing Hunan Army clothes and makeup without Zeng Guoquan's warrant.
The city of Tianjing was surrounded, and Li Xiucheng and the young master had become birds in a cage, unable to escape at all.
A thousand people hiding in Qingliang Mountain will be found sooner or later. As the sky grows dark, Li Xiucheng becomes extremely anxious.
"Please relax, Prince Zhong..."
Hmm? Who is it that has come so close without being discovered?
A majestic bearded man suddenly appeared in front of Li Xiucheng, "Prince Zhong, how are you?"
"Skywalker?" Li Xiucheng had never looked down upon this kind of gangster. He had basically no friendship with Tian Xing, they were just acquaintances. He did not expect that he would appear when he was in trouble.
"If Prince Zhong wants to escape, he must do the opposite. Take shelter here first. Once Taiping Gate is breached, the main force of the Hunan Army will surely attack the palace. At that time, Taiping Gate will be the gate with the least defense."
What Tian Xing said might not make sense, but we can only give it a try now.
The shouts of killing at Taiping Gate were deafening, then gradually died down until dawn, when they were heard moving towards the palace.
Li Xiucheng led a thousand men and rushed out of Taiping Gate.
Zeng Guoquan also left 2,000 men to guard Taiping Gate, but the gate had collapsed and the wall had been filled up, so the area that needed to be guarded was much larger than other gates, and Li Xiucheng led his men to rush out.
The soldiers defending the city were chasing after them, but Tianxingzhe led a dozen Wudang disciples who descended from the sky and rushed past. Under the Zhenwu sword, no one could match them.
When a dozen Wudang swordsmen rushed out from the other side, the Hunan Army, which had been blocked for a while, could no longer see the shadow of Li Xiucheng's thousand men.
"Brother, if we let Li Xiucheng and the young ruler of the Heavenly Kingdom escape, won't that ruin your second brother's business?"
Tian Xing sighed, "It was that vicious scholar Zhang Zhidong who told me to do this. Even if I wanted to help my second brother capture Li Xiucheng and Hong Tianguifu, our dozen of people cannot defeat Li Xiucheng's thousand men. Our main force has other important tasks. As long as we ensure that Hong Tianguifu is not captured by the Hunan Army in Tianjing City, the first achievement of conquering Tianjing will definitely belong to my second brother."
The Wudang swordsmen scratched their heads, and the heroes of Jianghu couldn't quite understand the twists and turns here, so they just listened to their eldest brother.
"Come on, brothers, follow me to kill the traitors of the Kingdom of Heaven!"
…………
After Zhang Jigen surrendered the pass, he brought 3,000 of his direct subordinates to the Huai Army camp.
These 3,000 men were frontline soldiers and had been able to maintain a minimum food supply, but now most of them were too hungry to walk.
The main force of the Huai Army rushed into the city and no one cared about them for a while.
As a surrendered general, he did not dare to ask for much and waited in the military camp all night with an empty stomach.
At dawn, Wu Ziyi, the camp officer and engineering officer of the Huai Army, and Le Xiucai, who was in charge of the logistics and grain depot, finally had time to receive them.
They were ordered to gather at the training ground. The logistics department delivered white rice and fresh meat. The soldiers, who had been hungry for a long time, could even smell the scent of alcohol.
It’s good that you surrendered. There will be wine and meat. The Qing Dynasty is really good to those of us who are loyal.
People who had been hungry for a long time suddenly ate their fill, drinking wine and eating meat. After eating and drinking, most of the soldiers collapsed on the training ground and could not move at all.
Wu Ziyi came over with a smile, "Brothers, is there anyone who can move? To be honest, we have made preparations for both situations. We have dug more than a dozen tunnels to the Shence Gate, and buried hundreds of thousands of pounds of gunpowder inside. Even if you don't surrender, we can still break into the city immediately. Now if the gunpowder blows up the Shence Gate, wouldn't it be a waste and dangerous? Our people have entered the city, and brothers who can move, please work hard and help move the gunpowder out."
The soldiers did not want to move, but under the urging of General Zhang, who wanted to get promoted and make a fortune by joining the court, they finally gathered a few hundred soldiers who were still able to move and, under the guidance of Wu Ziyi, they entered the tunnel.
Wu Ziyi led his men away, and Le Sen also left with the person in charge of food. More than 2,000 surrendered soldiers were left on the training ground.
(End of this chapter)