However, compared to Dantu City, which has solid defenses and sufficient armed forces, the situation in Jiangning City is somewhat dangerous.
The small town of Jiangning County, which was rebuilt on the site of Jinling, the capital of the Six Dynasties completely destroyed by Emperor Yang of Sui Dynasty, actually has a small town that is not very high or generous, and has neither deep trenches, arrow towers, nor urn city and gate towers. The wall, and the temporarily added Muzha.
Dealing with those large groups of bandits or mobs is nothing more than that, but after encountering the ruler and order of the government, and the relatively stable and well-prepared generals. It will inevitably be suppressed everywhere and fall into a disadvantage.
Therefore, the two thousand Taiping defenders gathered in Jiangning City, only the sixth day after the siege, were successively broken through three sides of the city wall during the successive offensives; only a thousand people remained.
Then, in the short and fierce street fighting, they escorted the people to retreat to the only reasonably strong stone city with a long history, and a terrace near the river. At this point, they are also trapped here in disguise.
Even the Huainan navy, which has the advantage on the river, will not harass or attack their backs; in such a narrow and limited space, it accommodates seven or eight times the population of the remaining soldiers, and there is not much water for storage. It's also exhausted, and it's just waiting to die.
An elderly peace officer covered in blood, lying on a door panel, breathlessly read:
"It's all my mistakes, I should have given up long ago and let you move closer to Dantu... and it won't fall..."
"No, it's all my insistence. I want to admit more people in, but the spies who have been mixed in have set fire to destroy the city defense agency..."
Another military officer who was in a good state of mind but couldn't hide his sadness was also his deputy, Lieutenant Wang Wu, who blamed himself.
"It's also the blame for the bald donkey who killed a thousand knives in Qixia Mountain for secretly withdrawing money with the Huainan Army, revealing the truth in the city... I knew it shouldn't be tolerated..."
"Puxiang, I'm not talking about you, you are a good one..."
Then, he turned his head to face a bald-headed young monk who was not far away, who was chanting the death mantra to the dead. The monk named Puxiang couldn't help but smiled bitterly and closed the eyes of a corpse, wiped the blood on his hands and mourned for a few words before replied:
"You don't have to worry about it. This is also unfortunate. There are always some profitable speculators, who are different from my generation who came from Nanling Buddhist Academy. What's more, they have already suffered retribution..."
As if to confirm his statement, on the Qixia Mountain in the north corner of the county seat, many forests including Jiming Temple have burned and killed the sky and covered the sun during the period. Here you can also smell the burning smell and the bloody smell sent by the wind.
Obviously, because during the occupation of Taiping, a large amount of manpower and material resources of these monasteries were expropriated, and almost all the registrations of Buddha Tuhu (tenant) and monk residence (slave) were released, it was inevitably led by the owner Xingkong. The local monk secretly held hatred.
When the Yiyi army arrived, they could not wait to greet the water. They also secretly convinced some believers to serve as guides and guides. When the Taiping army was trying to meet a large number of people who had defected, they were attacked and eaten by the officers and soldiers. A big loss suffered a lot of manpower.
Then during the defense of the city, people secretly leaked the emptiness and weakness in the city defense, and persuaded the believers not to deal with the Taiping army too much, so as to avoid unreasonable involvement and liquidation in the future, and almost did not want to give up the city defense, no It can be said that it is not a lot of effort.
However, once the officers and soldiers were able to enter the city, they repented like a summer shower and the sun. Not only were they not rewarded and protected, they also looted their own temples and believers who obeyed their claims and hid in the mountains as refuge.
Therefore, the repeated shamelessness and cruelty of the officials and the army has also strengthened in disguise the determination of the civilians in the city who are willing to follow the Taiping Army to resist desperately and resist the same enemy in order to protect their families and themselves.
That's why I was able to persist until now. After the water supply from several wells in Stone Town gradually became insufficient, they even sent people to collect river water from the rocky beach behind the cliffs; then, they simply built a high-altitude cableway that circulates and draws water.
And when they dug up all the leaves, bark, and weeds, they tried their best to demolish several houses and build several floating rafts, and then slowly put them into the river water under the cliff, using the leftovers. Fishing tackle catches fish every day.
This is also true, even if sometimes the fish is not enough, they can still catch a lot of aquatic plants, and after a little bit of dry, they can bite them as a temporary means of feeding. In front of him, he faced off against the officers and soldiers one after another.
Despite this, people still die every day in weakness, fatigue, and pain; therefore, as one of the few teaching monks responsible for enlightenment and literacy in the camp, Puxiang has become the busiest person.
Not only did he participate in defending the city, carrying objects, and producing and self-saving, he also had to take time to comfort the scholars, women and children, recite the scriptures and illuminate the dead, take care of the injured at night, distribute food, and take the lead in singing to boost morale. As a result, his fairly sturdy appearance quickly became thin and hoarse.
However, at the next moment, Puxiang, a monk who resumed his chanting for the victims on Qixia Mountain, interrupted his chanting and was dumbfounded. Yongshou made a gesture of Jiangshangdao:
"The boat... the boat..."
Everyone could not help but gather to the other side of Stone Town, and they saw a flat-paned boat almost driving close to the river bank; trying to maintain a steady and tortuous progress in the rolling tide on the river.
Then, in the three dangerous situations where the onlookers were almost worried about their throats, they tried their best to swing the poles and the ship's stern to avoid dangerously and flexibly, and the bulging spouted up the sharp reef under the river. rock.
Finally, I watched the slab boat, which was fighting independently in the waves of the river, successfully rushed into the depression under the cliff on the west side of the stone city, and quickly ran aground in the rocks during the low tide of the river. He was relieved.
After a while, a sergeant who was soaked wet was taken up to the head of the city, and he saluted the school lieutenant Wang Wu:
"The team Zheng Shi Niu was ordered by Cao Zuolang to lead the 25 brethren who escorted the boat. Since Dan disciples came to support Jiangning; including the boatman, there were actually 32 people..."
"There are also 5,000 arrows, 1,000 sets of canned and compressed rations, and 20 packages of wound medicines; please also collect and ship them as soon as possible..."
—I am the dividing line of determination —
On the southern sea where sails are racing and chopping, Zhou Huai'an is also in the cabin full of salty and humid air, listening to business representatives from outside the world, as well as the little chubby Kong Lilai's reports and statements.
It was interesting to hear and ask a lot about this time, and after all the customs and customs outside the territory, he sighed again:
"That said, you have worked hard..."
"It's all staying in the division, ah, it's not because of the power and support of the Metropolitan Government. The villain is just taking advantage of the trend to get some last minute achievements."
Kong Liluo, who was praised and approved, was secretly happy in his heart, but he became more humble and sincere and fearful on his face.
"Then what are your plans for the next step..."
Zhou Huaian was quite satisfied with his low posture. Although the servant had many minor faults that made people criticized for being greedy, lustful, etc., he was still able to control the big issues, and he was also very hardworking and hardworking.
For example, the death of Piao Guo, Zhunian, Po Li, Shili Buddha, and even the exiled prince of Nan Tianzhu, who have successively defected to Jiaozhou nowadays, are one of his contributions.
It's just that the power represented by the Taiping Metropolitan Government has almost reached a limit, or a bottleneck, in its expansion and power deployment in the sea and outer domains. Especially after the discovery of the spice islands lost among the Nanyang Islands.
Therefore, proper contraction and consolidation, and even transition to gradual accumulation, are necessary; in this case, these extraterritorial agent forces represented by Kong Liluo are difficult to control and maintain even if they barely develop.
So Zhou Huaian didn't mind giving them a way to retreat, whether it was to go to the land of Annan and settle down, or to return to China to continue to shine. For example, this time the operation to support Wenzhou at sea.
"But I ask the general governor to order it,"
However, Kong Liluo only thought about it for a while before handing over the decision; after all, the road of Belisariu in his mind had just begun, and he would not be reconciled to stop here.
"If so... you have three choices."
Zhou Huaian followed the previous abdominal case.
"The first one is to follow the convention and form the garrison group and the reclaiming group together with the righteous followers... Or, to give you an identity to stay to consolidate the situation in Wenzhou;"
"In addition, I also need people to lead the team north to Silla to open up the situation in Haidong. Whether it is trade or plunder, it will lay the foundation for my future strategy..."
"This... The villain has an extravagant hope. Can you call it all? It's just that the trip to Silla requires some preliminary preparations."
After Kong Liluo pondered for a moment, he opened his voice somewhat cautiously and quite expectantly.
"Okay, then I will show you as the vice-director of Wenzhou in a moment, and you will also serve as the Ryukyu Kentuo envoy... I will give you another half a year to prepare..."
Zhou Huaian couldn't help but laughed, but after thinking about the possibility, he said.
It is different from officials or local power factions that only have simple and rude concepts such as chassis and population; the Taiping Army has more detailed insights and plans for newly occupied areas to complete a stable and long-term governance order.
For example, the traditional industries that have been inherited from generation to generation in the local area are not laissez-faire or rude. Instead, adjust and integrate after preliminary statistics; and then unify with surrounding resource production capacity.
This can effectively avoid the vain internal friction and waste between the new and old industries of the local and foreign industries, and maintain a certain scale of competition to maintain the vitality of innovation and improvement.
Therefore, having Kong Liluo, a candidate who is proficient in overseas trade and colonization, to participate in the layout and planning of the local accent is a good use.
At this time, the outside world reported again:
"The chief governor has reached the estuary of Dajiang..."
Between the vast confluence of rivers and seas, there are already boats and sails everywhere. The ones that rushed to the forefront following the tide and wind were the large and small warships and the newly formed dozens of naval battalions that were seized and recruited from Mingzhou, Yuezhou, and Hangzhou.
Standing here, you can also see the smoky beacon on the towns of Hu Douzhou and Langshan in the distance. (End of this chapter)