Amidst the whistle and platoon, amidst crying, begging, and yelling, the Taiping Army broke into the town along the red gap without much effort; the one who made persistent efforts will be located in the town. The last remnant enemy in the defense was smoked out by arson and projecting poisonous smoke balls.
The ambushes who were pre-arranged in the inland direction of Lukou, also led by the new teacher Sima Gao Jichang, intercepted a group of people who fled from the back door in panic as scheduled; and their hidden ships and materials in the reeds. It was only a group of tea vendors who dared to stop the army. This seems ridiculous, but I have seen it with my own eyes.
In addition, due to the nearby escaping from the wind, in this town, which also serves as a gate city and a fortress, nearly 10,000 people gathered in a stitch-like manner; therefore, various business guards added tutu groups who fled to the city. There are also more than two thousand young men who have been armed on the spot. There are more than 600 privately hidden crossbows of various kinds, and more than 400 collars of various armors.
Therefore, the forces waiting nearby did not dare to invade or provoke them. Instead, they were merged with several upstream and downstream forces, and by the way, more than a dozen rural soil fortifications were burned and looted; even the armed expropriation teams from Tanzhou were all taken a few days ago They were beaten back; and then, after losing a small half of their hands, they were simply unbearable to be harassed and scattered on the way back.
The equipment and equipment are all local income, so it became "famous" for a while and became a little swollen and arrogant. This also gained the attachment and effect of more nearby villages. This time, the Taiping army who had passed through the border was also used as an armed expropriation team from Xiangtan County to the south. As a result, it was completely kicked on the iron plate and rushed into the street.
In addition to the routine goods in the tea merchant houses and offices here, the rebels had enough storage for the whole town’s population to eat for more than half a year, such as rice, wheat, salt, vegetable, oil and wine; there were even more than one thousand. The livestock of the first trader and thousands of dan teas It was the biggest gain before heading to Tanzhou.
Those livestock can be used to replace and supplement the loss of piggyback power along the way. For most people in this era, this tea is a good panacea. External application can cure insect bites and skin ulcers, while internal application can regulate the intestines and stomach to prevent and relieve most emergencies. Even as a placebo for all kinds of headaches and brain fever, and can deceive myself to barely deal with the past.
In addition, from the seized spoils, it was discovered that the other party actually had different flags including more than officers, rebels, and tutu groups, which were obviously used to correspond to and deal with their respective camps and belonging forces; this was dominated by merchants in disguise. In terms of the stronghold, it can be regarded as a kind of survival philosophy in troubled times.
It should not be said that time, under the joint efforts of this group of businessmen, can really break a situation or achieve a temporary climate; and become a distinguished party in Hunan. Unfortunately, they got in the way of the Taiping Army who turned out to be born, and made the wrong choice.
Therefore, as a price for choosing the wrong position, in Lukou Shuhe towns, from the meeting head, the east to the ordinary merchants, and the households, as long as they are a bit self-proclaimed, one of them is hung on the wall (street lamp). ), and ordinary armed personnel who acted as accomplices were killed by eleven; the rest of the shipment, together with the young and strong picked locally, were transported to the previous grain station to be used as labor under supervision.
This is also the basic countermeasures and experience from Guizhou all the way; as an important stronghold and key point that has just been captured, the ones that are most likely to be incited and changed and repeated are the existence of these young and middle-aged people; so spend some time. After they are forcibly confiscated and resettled in different places, although there may be insufficient supervision and fleeing, there are not many opportunities to form a subversive synergy in a familiar environment.
Losing the original support of these young and middle-aged people, they have to rely more on the order and sense of security established by the rebels; otherwise, the hungry people who circulate everywhere will tell them how the stable life under strict control is hard to come by. of.
In fact, since the dispatch of troops out of Guizhou, Zhou Huaian has not recruited any soldiers from the refugees. Compared with the practice of those rebel generals who used to give food and aid while encumbering many refugees as the forerunner and adding trenches; Zhou Huaian was even more reluctant to let these clutter without order and training, and without any organization and collective ideas, destroy and destroy It has polluted the advanced military system that oneself spends a lot of effort to build easily.
Therefore, even if the grain platform is established and needs to be operated for a long time, he even refuses to collect more for the refugees who are used for farming and engineering labor, and emphasizes the need to screen and select more; and for those along the way, he holds all kinds of things. The young men who came to vote for the purpose were also appointed to participate in logistics and labor services along the way after they were gathered.
In terms of the source of recruiting soldiers, he prefers to use the poor at the bottom of the city; especially craftsmen and apprentices, small handicraftsmen, free slaves, and even trackers, porters, laborers, and coolies. In addition, there are fishermen and boat owners who are familiar with water sports, and if they are in mountainous and hilly areas, there are miners and mountain people.
Their only characteristic is that they are not bound by the fetters of the countryside, and are willing to work hard for their livelihoods, rather than being easy to settle for the landless and bankrupt farmers, and having a little bit of organization and group obedience concepts. Although these and other problems and defects are common, they are still active groups that can guide and reform at a limited price and cost.
And the series of systems and systems he created for this purpose, ideological theories and goals at different stages, as well as the actual benefits and long-term plans, don't they exist for the purpose of transforming all of these for their own use. Therefore, when he entered the city of Tanzhou along the water and land of Xiangshui, which was unimpeded after the fall of Lukou, his subordinates had reached a solid number of more than 24,000.
Of course, in addition to the original ten battalions and several regiments, the other five battalions were recruited and reorganized along the way, and the rest were full of rough equipment that lacked training and was vain and could only be used. Make up the number of ten supplementary battalions to fill the momentum or cooperate with the garrison to suppress the place.
During this period, there were still some groups and people who were unwilling to accept the breakup and reorganization, but hoped to maintain the establishment to join, but they were disguised by the Taiping Army to dismiss them; they just followed the Taiping Army to provide a period of cooperation, He took the rewards given in the stronghold and returned to each other. Otherwise, you can at least double the supplementary camp.
However, as long as the small groups are broken up and organized, the personal attachments and relationship bonds formed by the original clan and the township party are far from being able to outweigh the effect of the unified melting pot under the military system of order and prohibition in the long run. . However, the small groups and township party organizations that have maintained their original organizational system can easily confuse the original pure subordinate and subordinate obedience and management relationship into a more complicated relationship between relatives and close friends.
This is also the major drawback of most peasant army systems in this era. There are mostly large and small township parties and clan groups between the upper and lower levels; and using this as the core of the army's combat effectiveness and the backbone of the army, if you really have to fight for your life, it may have the ancient charm of death.
But in the absence of many institutional constraints, and only relying on personal prestige and means to maintain it, it is easy to cause great fluctuations due to people's success or failure. Often they gather together for a while, and when they disagree, they disperse on their own, and they even do not hesitate to meet each other and take it as usual.
Even when Huang Chao was training and reorganizing the army in Lingnan, he only cleaned up and cleaned up the General's Mansion. The three wings of the main formation, mainly composed of the eight sons of the Huang Clan and the old brothers of the salt gang, constituted its strength; but such as Stormrage Camp. Existing on the periphery, there is still a lack of sufficient system and regulation constraints, and it can only rely on the assistance of personal wrist and relationship to ensure the basic direction of the command.
When encountering this kind of careerists and dissidents who are generally not bad on the surface, but have their own opinions in private, they are completely powerless and lack the corresponding sensitive response and deterrent. Therefore, thinking about it now, the original civil unrest in which the Dinghui seized the army was not like some accident but more like a product of a game between the upper ranks of the rebels and the result that needs to be cleaned up.
Therefore, Zhou Huai'an strictly ordered them to continue in the middle of the troop dispatch. Even if conflicts and conflicts occur and the soldiers are driven away, they must resolutely avoid this pollution source and cancer from mixing into the system.
If Zhou Huai'an was like a traditional rebel general, he would be accustomed to seeing people when he was hungry. With the resources at his disposal, hundreds of thousands of people could be drawn from the places along the way in a short time; but for this kind of fullness The chaos and uncertain factors made him feel insensitive at all.
It is important to know that a large part of the experience and lessons of the successes and failures of many peasant uprisings in history is inexplicable because of a rain, a wind, a sudden accident, an ordinary conflict, and even the timidity and shrinking of a few people; the result is Among the obvious advantages and advantages, these huge amounts of cannon fodder in turn swept away, and brought them into a situation where they fell short and even died.
This is no longer a philosophical story about a lion leading a hundred sheep to defeat the enemy. At least the sheep has the docile and conformed head sheep effect, and even the cliff can jump down according to inertia; but a lion leads a hundred sheep. They may run around at any time, catch the pigs that can't be caught, and at any time may be frightened by the crazy pigs and bump into the problem of trampling to death.
With this thought and plan, Zhou Huai'an silently looked at the city of Tanzhou, which was lingering like white gauze on the river, with a clear gray tone and a faint luster, or the old county of Changsha, where the future city of Changsha was located.
Located to the south of the remnant Yunmeng Daze, including the Haomiao Dongting, the eight hundred miles of Yanbo, the Hunan Dutuan Training Observation and Disposal Commissioner (now central and southern Hunan Province), which was set up only 118 years, ruled the seven states, the largest and most The ancient city is located.
However, when the fleet pierced the morning mist on the river and approached, they could not help but be surprised to find that this ancient city, located between the main stream of Xiangshui River and Liuyang River, was surrounded by fire and smoke. In it, pain groaned and screamed. And in the moat water channel that connects the city, there are floating bodies and blood flowing out one after another.
Zhou Huaian suddenly understood why there was such chaos on the way.
(End of this chapter) (End of this chapter)