In April 1860, Li Xiucheng once again used the tried and tested tactic of "encircling Wei and saving Zhao" and personally led a large army to raid Hangzhou. The qing general and Chun heard the news and immediately sent the main force of the Qing army to Hangzhou to rescue. Li Xiu's prejudice and Chunzhong's plan, the main force of the Qing army has been transferred out of the Jiangnan camp, immediately shoot back the carbine, and return to the army as quickly as possible.
Li Xiucheng joined forces with Chen Yucheng, Li Shixian, Yang Fuqing and other generals to attack back and forth. Less than half a day later, the Qing army's defense line besieging Tianjing was broken, and the Jiangnan camp was successfully breached by the Taiping Army, and he committed suicide after fleeing to Suzhou in the spring. The Taiping Army took advantage of the victory to pursue, and even under the important towns of Suzhou and Changzhou, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom military once again reached its peak.
Hearing the news of the rout of the Jiangnan camp, the reaction of the Xiang army was not sympathy and sadness, but cheering.
The enmity between the Xiang army and the Qing army
In November 1858, at the Battle of Sanhe, the main force of the Xiang Army, 7,000 soldiers, were surrounded and annihilated by the Taiping Army, and almost the entire army was destroyed, and the first fierce general of the Xiang Army, Li Xubin, and Zeng Guohua, the younger brother of Zeng Guofan, were killed in battle, and the Xiang Army was seriously injured.
The main reason for the defeat of Sanhe was that Li Xubin and Zeng Guohua did not rest as originally planned after capturing Shucheng, but instead ventured alone and were surrounded and annihilated by more than 100,000 troops led by Li Xiucheng and Chen Yucheng in Sanhe Town.
Although the defeat of the Three Rivers was mainly responsible for the Xiang army, the Qing army's failure to save the Xiang army was also an important reason for the encirclement and annihilation of the Xiang army.
When Li Xubin learned that Chen Yucheng had led a large army to Jinniu Town near Sanhe Town, he had already sent a flying horse to Hubei for help, asking the nearby Green Battalion to come to the rescue. However, at this time, Hu Linyi, the governor of Hubei, was guarding the funeral at home, and after receiving the letter of distress, Guan Wen, the governor of Huguang, not only saw death and could not be saved, but also said cool words: "General Li Jiu used his troops like gods, invincible, where is there a place he can't conquer?" Are we not without us? "Guan Wen is a Manchu, and he has long been dissatisfied with the Xiang army, and he is naturally happy to see the Defeat of the Xiang Army.
The Xiang army was not valued by the imperial court
After the defeat of Sanhe, the strength of the Xiang army was damaged, and it rested for nearly a year. In October 1859, Zeng Guofan ordered Duolong'a and Bao Chao's 10,000-strong army to attack Taihu Lake, kicking off the Xiang army's counterattack.
Taihu Lake was the gateway to Anqing, and Anqing was Chen Yucheng's base camp, and Chen Yucheng absolutely did not allow the Xiang army to occupy his base area, so Chen Yucheng also led the main force of the Taiping Army to garrison Taihu Lake and Anqing.
The two sides fought a major battle at Taihu Lake, and Bao Chao led 3,000 thunder troops to fight bravely, defeating Chen Yucheng's attacks many times. In the face of the fierce attack of the Xiang army, Chen Yucheng's army gradually fell out, and in February 1860, it withdrew from Taihu Lake. The Xiang army won a great victory at Taihu Lake and Qianshan Mountain, annihilating more than 20,000 enemy troops.
The Xiang army took Taihu Lake and cleared the way for an attack on Anqing, which was a key victory, and the Battle of Taihu Stabilized the Xiang Army's military morale. Zeng Guofan gleefully reported to XianFeng, but he did not expect Xianfeng to pay attention to it, because compared with the victory of the Jiangnan camp, the Battle of Taihu Seemed to be eclipsed.
In February 1860, the Jiangnan battalion captured the strategic location of Jiuhuanzhou in Jiangxin, cutting off the last supply line of Tianjing City. The news reached the capital, Xianfeng was celebrated, and the capture of Tianjing city was just around the corner.
The Taiping Army broke through the Jiangnan camp
Just when the imperial court was expecting the Qing army to take Tianjing in the near future, the top level of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom was brewing a grand counter-offensive plan. The counter-offensive plan was led by Hong Renjie, the king of Gan, with Li Xiu as the commander-in-chief and Li Shixian and Yang Fuqing as the generals, and the strategy was still the tried and tested "encircling Wei and saving Zhao".
According to the plan, Li Xiucheng personally led a large army from Wuhu, through Guangde, to sneak into Hangzhou, the capital of Zhejiang, to draw out the main force of the Qing army in Jiangnan, and then Li Xiucheng returned to the army, and the inside and outside should join forces to attack the Jiangnan camp.
This plan had been used many times by the Taiping Army, and the Commander of the Qing Army, He Chun, saw through it at a glance, so he chose not to move and only sent small troops to pretend to support Hangzhou. But Xianfeng did not think so, if Zhejiang lost, it would lose a large piece of tax, so it was strictly ordered and the Chunpai army came to the rescue. He Chun had no choice but to send Zhang Yuliang to lead more than 13,000 people to Hangzhou.
In April 1860, Li Xiucheng successfully occupied Hangzhou. When Zhang Yuliang's army was not far from Hangzhou, Li Xiu set up a horse to withdraw from Hangzhou, took a small road, and directly inserted itself into the Jiangnan camp. Li Xiucheng, together with Chen Yucheng, Li Shixian, and Yang Fuqing, surrounded the Jiangnan camp.
After several moves, the Jiangnan battalion had a total of less than 40,000 troops left, and the military discipline of these 40,000 troops was corrupt, the grain and grass were poor, and there was no combat effectiveness. In contrast, the Taiping Army, under the command of Li Xiucheng, the Five-Way Army broke through the Qing army's positions one by one. He Chun and Zhang Guoliang were defeated and fled to Suzhou.
The Jiangnan camp that had besieged Tianjing for two years was completely destroyed, and the imperial court was no longer able to besiege Tianjing. The Taiping Army won a great victory, capturing a large number of guns, gunpowder, and 100,000 taels of silver.
The reason for the collapse of the Gangnam camp
On the surface, in the past two years, the Jiangnan camp has achieved many victories, successfully encircling Tianjing and destroying the city just around the corner. But behind the glamour, in fact, the Jiangnan camp has long been full of corruption. If it were not for the Xiang Army holding back many troops of the Taiping Army on the western front, the Jiangnan camp would have been breached by the Taiping Army long ago.
The Jiangnan camp was founded in accordance with the national regular army standards, and all the shortcomings of the regular army can be reflected in the Jiangnan camp:
Most of the soldiers recruited by the Jiangnan battalion were unemployed vagrants from the coastal areas, especially in the Chaoshan area of Guangdong, who were the rogues of the city who were resolutely not used by the Xiang Army.
The soldiers of the Jiangnan battalion were drawn from various provinces, and there were many factions, and the various units were full of contradictions and difficult to control. Sometimes one army was attacking, and the other army clamored to retreat first, and even in order to compete for a woman, the armies made a big move.
The generals of the Jiangnan camp disagreed with each other, and the commander and chun had a long-term disagreement with the main general Zhang Guoliang, and they cultivated cronies in the army and formed gangs. Military salaries are withheld layer by layer, from the commander-in-chief to the officers and men at all levels, all of whom are enriched by themselves and corruption is a common practice. The soldiers usually do not have enough to eat, and it is no wonder that the enemy is present, they are not willing to contribute.
The difference between Zeng Guofan and Xianfeng
Xianfeng was a man without strategic vision, and since the Taiping Army had set the capital of Tianjing, he was very afraid that the Taiping Army would use it as a base to use the Northern Expedition and replicate Zhu Yuanzhang's achievements.
Therefore, XianFeng believed that as long as Tianjing was taken, the Taiping Army in other regions would be discouraged, and the Taiping Army's power would completely disintegrate, and Xianfeng called this strategy "cutting the root first, then cutting the branches and leaves."
In order to realize this strategy, Xianfeng dispatched eight elites from all over the country to establish a Jiangbei camp north of Tianjing, led by the Manchu pro-Gui Qishan. The Green Camp, which followed from Hunan, established the Jiangnan Camp south of Tianjing, commanded by Xiang Rong. The strength of the two battalions was close to 100,000 at its peak. In addition, Xianfeng also used most of the taxes in the Jiangnan region to support the two armies, and provided the best weapons, eager to take Tianjing City at once.
"If you take Tianjing, the place will collapse", this idea is not wrong, the problem is that you have to take Tianjing first. But in fact, capturing Tianjing was almost impossible. Tianjing's terrain is dangerous, the walls are deep, and the Taiping Army is tightly defended, and it is impossible to capture it in a short period of time.
Zeng Guofan and XianFeng had the opposite idea, believing that it was wrong to focus on Tianjing and that it would be much more difficult to pacify the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom than imagined. Xianfeng's strategy was to "cut the roots first, then cut the branches and leaves", and Zeng Guofan's strategy was to "cut the branches and leaves first, and then cut the roots". Zeng Guofan proceeded from the overall situation, believing that only along the Yangtze River from top to bottom, take wuchang, jiujiang, Anqing and other important nodes, and then solve the problem of Tianjing. Zeng Guofan mentioned: "Since the ancient Pingjiang River strategy, it will be in the upstream trend, and it will be successful to build a downward trend." ”
Xian Feng did not listen to Zeng Guofan's strategy at all, and kept urging him to lead his army to the east immediately. The first time Zeng Guofan led the army was because he blindly obeyed Xianfeng's orders, so that the later Hukou army was defeated. When Zeng Guofan returned for the second time to lead the army, and the Jiangnan camp was attacked by the Taiping Army, Xianfeng again ordered Zeng Guofan to lead the army south, but Zeng Guofan refused. Zeng Guofan chose to fight steadily, first to solve Anqing, and then to go down the river to capture Tianjing.
Zeng Guofan and Xianfeng are right and wrong
Xianfeng's strategy of "cutting the roots first and then pruning the branches and leaves" is not useless. After the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom established the capital of Tianjing, Xianfeng immediately set up two large camps outside Tianjing City, Jiangnan and Jiangbei, preventing the Taiping Army from advancing further eastward and threatening the Qing Dynasty's Jiangsu and Zhejiang taxes and shipping.
Xianfeng is from the height of the overall situation to consider the overall situation, the Jiangsu and Zhejiang regions and the Beijing-Hangzhou Canal can be said to be the lifeblood of the Qing Dynasty, if occupied by the Taiping Army, the Qing Dynasty is more passive, the Xiang Army's military salary is afraid that the imperial court will not be able to get a penny.
After the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom's eastward march was blocked, they could only choose the Northern Expedition and the Western Expedition, although the 20,000 Northern Expeditionary Army once hit the outskirts of Tianjin, but in fact the lone army went deep, and the threat to the Qing Dynasty was limited, and the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom lost 20,000 elites in vain.
Tianjing was besieged, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom was forced to march west to open up the grain route, and the Taiping Army fought as far as Hunan. Without the two large battalions of the Qing army in the east, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom would be fully capable of occupying the area of two lakes and two rivers.
On the other hand, when Zeng Guofan first and second unified the troops, the reason why the march was relatively smooth was because of Zeng Guofan's steady playing style on the one hand, and on the other hand, there were two large battalions in Jiangnan and Jiangbei to contain the main force of the Taiping Army.
It can be seen that whether it is Xianfeng or Zeng Guofan, there is no problem with the strategy of the two, and only when the two cooperate with each other can the greatest effect be achieved.
When the Jiangnan camp was breached for the second time, Xianfeng's strategy of "cutting the root first, then cutting the branches and leaves" came to an end, and Zeng Guofan's strategy of "first cutting the branches and leaves, then cutting the roots" began to play. Xianfeng was no longer obsessed with besieging Tianjing and instead relied on Zeng Guofan's Xiang army. In May 1860, Xianfeng ordered Zeng Guofan to act as the governor of Liangjiang, which was soon changed to Shizhi.