Zhuge Liang, a famous military expert in the Three Kingdoms period and known as "Wu Hou" by later generations, has a well-known saying in the art of war, "Wind and clouds, thunder and lightning, all can be soldiers", that is to say, in military warfare, there are actually many factors that can be applied, not only limited to simple soldiers, but also various natural factors, of course, there are various animals.
In the records of Sun Tzu's Art of War, there are records such as "Bird Riser, Fuye; Beast Horror, Fuye", the ancients have long been through the observation of these animals, to judge the enemy situation of the opponent, and this observation technique has also been handed down in the long years that followed, and the Taiping Army and the Qing Army in 1860 in the "Battle of Anqing" has a typical use.
Since Hong Xiuquan was founded in 1851, the Taiping Army has defeated the Qing army many times, won many major victories, and occupied many territories, once occupying half of the country and shaking the Qing court. However, after the "Tianjing Incident" in 1856, due to the open split among the generals of the Taiping Army, the strength of the Taiping Army, which was originally in a state of flux, was greatly weakened, and the morale was also greatly reduced, and many territories were constantly lost.
At this time, Anqing, which was located in the upper reaches of Tianjing as the only important barrier, was particularly important, and in 1860, the Qing commanders Zeng Guofan and Hu Linyi and others sent a large army to besiege Anqing, and after capturing Anqing, they could make Tianjing an isolated city and a dangerous city. Facing this extremely severe situation, Hong Xiu began to dispatch the five generals of the unified army who had originally fought outside to come back to Anqing, of which li xiucheng, the king of zhong, and Chen Yucheng, the king of england, were the main forces, and the other three roads were only to fight aids and interfere with the other side's vision.
After receiving the order, The British king Chen Yucheng immediately led a hundred thousand troops back to aid Anqing, and he originally wanted to attack Wuchang, which the Qing army must save with the strategy of "encircling Wei and saving Zhao", but because he was deceived by foreigners, he thought that Wuchang was "a strong city at this time, and it was easy to go down", so he quickly returned to Anqing. At the end of 1860, Chen Yucheng returned to Anqing with his troops and repeatedly attacked the Qing forces besieging Anqing, but were defeated each time.
By the beginning of 1861, Chen Yucheng tried various methods to attack the Qing army, but still failed, and by April, Chen Yucheng himself had lost his troops, the grain and grass were gradually lost, many of his soldiers began to surrender, the originally agreed five-way army only came all the way, and Li Xiucheng, who had agreed to return to help together, did not know where, so in desperation, Chen Yucheng decided to withdraw.
By August, Chen Yucheng, after leading another failed attack on the Qing army, retreated to Tongcheng and was besieged by the Qing army on a hilltop, at this time the Taiping army was already numerically inferior, and the most important thing was that the grain and grass were even more unsustainable, and could only wait for the arrival of reinforcements. The besieging Qing army also knew about the state of the Taiping Army on the mountain, but could not be sure, so the Qing general thought of Zhuge Liang's ancient admonition that "all wind and clouds and thunder can be soldiers", and he ordered some hungry dogs to explore the way on the mountain.
The Taiping Army, who had not eaten enough for a long time on the mountain, was overjoyed after seeing the hungry dogs, thinking that they could eat a meal of meat, but Chen Yucheng ordered that some dog killings be stopped, but instead fed the dogs with little grain and put the dogs down on the mountain. The Qing army was very surprised to see that the hungry dogs who had returned had eaten enough, and judged from this that the Taiping Army had enough food and grass to support it until the reinforcements arrived, so they immediately retreated, and Chen Yucheng also had a higher prestige.