【Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Series 507, Original Works of Little Buddha History, Please Do Not Reprint】
Nanjing, the ancient capital of the Six Dynasties, was a very important city in Jiangnan, and its geographical advantages were very prominent, as Ye Chunsen, a Chinese of the Taiping Army, said: "
Jinling is the bell of the king's qi, the three rivers and the five lakes, the eastern Wu and the North Vietnamese, the lord of the people, out can fight, everywhere can defend
In fact, Nanjing is not only geographically very important, it also has a strong geographical advantage, in the era of cold weapons, this is an easy to defend and difficult to attack city (in the Xianfeng years, although firearms have begun to spread, but the advantages of Nanjing City still exist), as Huang Congshan said:"
Leaning on the mountains as the city, with the river as the pool, surrounded by the flow of the mighty
”。
If we look at the map of Nanjing City and its surroundings in the Qing Dynasty, we can notice that the west and part of Nanjing are bordered by the Yangtze River in the north, the Bell Mountain in the east, the Qinhuai River in the south, and the remaining northern defense can rely on Xuanwu Lake as a barrier, and there are Jubao Mountain, Fuzhou Mountain, Jilong Mountain, Qingliang Mountain, which can be said to be "
The mountains and rivers are rugged, and the tiger is on the dragon plate
”。 However, it was such a city that when the Taiping Army attacked, the Qing army only held for more than ten days before falling.
In the early morning of March 7, 1853, Li Kaifang led the army to the JubaoMen Gate, defeated the Township Yong outside the City Gate, the governor of Liangjiang, Lu Jianying, sat on the isolated city, on the 18th, the Taiping Army exploded the Yifeng Gate, the next day the Taiping Army launched a general attack, that evening, the Taiping Army had almost controlled all the streets in Nanjing, the remaining Qing army was struggling in the Ming Imperial City, and on the 20th, the Taiping Army occupied the whole city. Why did Nanjing, which had a unique geographical advantage, hold out for more than ten days before it was completely captured by the Taiping Army?
The governor of Liangjiang, Lu Jianying, was originally authorized by the Xianfeng Emperor to take charge of the defense of the three provinces, this man was not reliable at all, led his troops to Wuxue, fought a defeated battle, and fled along the Yangtze River, all the way to Nanjing, he was completely frightened by the Taiping Army. Originally, when he went to Wuxue, the defense of Nanjing City was presided over by Yang Wending, yang Wending used only five thousand people to properly deploy, as a result, Lu Jianying fled back to Nanjing and directly took over the deployment, he not only withdrew yang Wending's defensive line arranged in Wuhu, Anhui, but also did not strengthen the defense outside Nanjing, so that all the Qing troops outside the city retreated to the city wall for defense, that is, it was equivalent to handing over the military key land outside the city to the Taiping Army, especially the Yangtze River, the heavenly graben, you know, for example, guarding Nanjing City is to attach equal importance to the defense of the Yangtze River and the defense of the city wall.
The circumference of the Nanjing city wall is 96 miles, the battlements (the short wall in the concave and convex shape on the city wall) is nearly 10,000, and it takes tens of thousands of soldiers to need a battlement, while the officers and soldiers defending the city are only more than 5,000, so it can be said that it is extremely difficult to hold the city wall.
When the Taiping Army arrived outside nanjing, it did not rush to attack, and the defending officers and soldiers saw the yellow flag of the Taiping Army outside the city, and were directly frightened out of their guts, constantly shelling outside the city, and the range of the cannon was far from reaching the Taiping Army, but it was a bluff, the fear in their hearts was undoubtedly exposed, and they wasted a lot of consumable gunpowder. At the same time, Lu Jianying ordered that all the gates of Nanjing be closed and no one allowed to enter or leave, so that he would undoubtedly trap himself in the city and want to put himself in the city and live later, which was impossible.
The Taiping Army battalion had no intention of hastily attacking, and they launched a general offensive after waiting for the arrival of the water camp. However, the land camp was not idle, they first seized the favorable terrain outside the city, and at the same time sent a small group of troops to harass the Qing army day and night, so that the Qing army's nerves were always tense, and they continued to attack with cannons and constantly consume gunpowder.
On March 12, the Taiping Army water camp began to land, and at the same time, the land battalion dug tunnels near Yifeng Gate to prepare for the siege of the city, and at the same time used various means to send the news that the Taiping Army was about to attack the city into the city of Nanjing, let the people hide at home, do not participate in the defense of the city, as long as the door is closed, the Taiping Army will not be embarrassed to enter the city, so as to disintegrate the qing army's heart.
On the 18th, the Taiping Army attacked the city at various city gates, in the evening, the Taiping Army stopped attacking, the Qing Army seized the opportunity to rest, and once the highly tense body and brain of the people relaxed, the fatigue was very serious, the Taiping Army took advantage of the Qing Army's rest to launch a general attack, on the one hand, to check the gunpowder in the tunnels, on the other hand, to form a siege commando team in order to use cloud ladders and Lü buses to attack the city when the gunpowder blew up the city wall. At night, with a loud noise near the Yifeng Gate, the Taiping Army siege commando broke through the city wall and attacked the city of Nanjing, and two days later, all of Nanjing fell into the hands of the Taiping Army.
References: Luo Ergang, Wang Qingcheng, Taiping Heavenly Kingdom