Some people say that the Battle of Anqing was a bloody slaughter, after the Xiang army broke the city, it was burned and looted according to the order of "Bing Ding Dasuo For three days", and more than 40,000 people in the city died at their hands; others said that the Battle of Anqing was a pinnacle duel between feudal forces and civilian uprising forces, and both sides almost did their best, in fact, leaving aside these, this famous battle that occurred in the last years of the Qing Dynasty was the most proud work in the entire military career of Zeng Guofan, a major minister of the dynasty, who used his far-reaching strategic vision and poisonous military insights. For future generations, it has provided a practical example of great ingenuity and heavy sword. In this video, let me tell you how Zeng Guofan brilliantly laid out how to defeat the Taiping Army, so that the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, which was gaining momentum, gradually fell into danger and declined.
Unlike now, Anqing was the capital of Anhui Province at that time, and to be precise, it had been like this for nearly 300 years or so before the founding of the People's Republic of China, and Anqing, located on the north bank of the lower Yangtze River and southwest of Anhui Province, was almost the richest city in Anhui at that time, and it could also be ranked in the extremely economically developed Jiangnan region.
However, in the face of brutal war, the economic significance of a region is far less than the strategic significance, just as the so-called "Ten Thousand Miles of the Yangtze River, the first continent of the Wuchu Divide River" The real strategic significance of Anqing lies in its topography. The long and winding Yangtze River runs through the city, and the mountains on both sides are rugged and steep, and this time the natural danger can not march to fight, and occupying Anqing is equivalent to choking the lower yangtze river channel, which is of vital significance for transporting strategic materials and controlling grain and product production.
In 1859, the Taiping Army marched all the way and defeated the Military Base Camp of the Qing Army in the Jiangnan region, Changzhou, Suzhou, and Zhejiang fell one after another, you know, the taxes paid by Jiangsu and Zhejiang accounted for nearly half of the entire Qing court's financial revenue, and once the city was lost, the princes and nobles of the imperial court would sooner or later run out of grain, so up to the Xianfeng Emperor, down to all levels of officials strongly demanded that Zeng Guofan immediately send troops to Jiangnan to recover the lost land, but the edicts were issued several times, but Zeng Guofan insisted on taking Anqing first. In the end, after he repeatedly wrote to Chen to seize the importance of Anqing, Xianfeng could only make concessions, so Zeng Guofan began to attack Anqing's tactical arrangements and detailed matters.
Looking at the entire Battle of Anqing, I can only use four words to describe Zeng Guofan's tactics: partition without encirclement, encirclement without fighting, first pruning branches and leaves, and then taking the root. In general, it is not necessary to add unnecessary casualties to attack the impregnable main defensive city, as long as the periphery is cleared, the grain road into the city is cut off, and then slowly wait for the main city grain and grass to be cut off, and then take the city is not beautiful.
First of all, Zeng Guofan ordered the Fuzhou capital Duolong'a to lead an army to attack Shipai Town at night, and the Taiping army was too late to prepare, and was caught off guard, killing and wounding thousands of people, and the defenders were captured. After the capture of Shipai Town, Zeng Guofan then ordered Duolong'a and the general Bao Chao and others to lead more than 10,000 people to attack Taihu County, at that time, Chen Yucheng, the king of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, began to notice this Xiang army attacking from the edge, and led his troops to aid Taihu, because Chen Yucheng was overwhelmed by the momentum of the previous successive battles and victories, and despised the attack of the Xiang army, and the Xiang army's side Zeng Guofan guided the battle, and finally the Taiping army was defeated and had to retreat, and in this way, Taihu Lake also fell into the hands of the Xiang army.
In order not to give the Taiping Army a chance to breathe, the Xiang army that took Taihu Lake launched another attack a few days later, constantly pursuing the rest of Chen Yucheng, at this point, Shipai, Taihu Lake, Qianshan, and Zongyang were all occupied by the Xiang army, and Chen Yucheng, who retreated to Tongcheng, was basically cut off from Anqing because of the more than 10,000 Xiang troops crossing the Trailer River.
The leaders of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, Hong Xiuquan and Li Xiucheng, initially did not have a thorough understanding of Zeng Guofan's strategy, although they knew that Anqing was of great significance, but it was not as important as the lifeblood of the Qing court, the Jiangnan region, so when the Xiang army invaded Anqing on a large scale, Hong and Li also believed that it was a good solution to first control the Jiangnan region and then go back to rescue Anqing, and even in order to remove the Jiangnan camp set up by the Qing army on the edge of Tianjing City, Hong Xiuquan also transferred a lot of Taiping troops to return to reinforcements, which further accelerated the speed of the Xiang army approaching Anqing.
Later, not only did a large area of the Jiangnan region fall, but even the British and French allied forces began to attack Beijing, and at such a critical moment, Zeng Guofan prevaricated and delayed the assistance requested by the Xianfeng Emperor for various reasons, vowing to besiege Anqing City to the death, and even his old nest was about to be lost and he would fight this battle. In the autumn of 1860, Hong Xiuquan, who was aware of the importance of Anqing, ordered a western expedition, chen Yucheng also began to counterattack with the army after the situation in the rear road was stable, but zeng Guofan had already anticipated it, and was ready to ambush the Taiping army, under the offensive of several months, Chen Yucheng's troops were repeatedly defeated, Hong and Li still focused their strategic focus on attacking Zhejiang Shang, and Anqing city also ran out of grain and grass in this nearly year's siege, and the defenders of the city were already weak. On September 5, 1861, the Xiang army used tunnel explosives to blow up the northern gate of Anqing, and since then, Anqing City has been lost, and the Taiping Army's base in Anhui has collapsed.
As early as the time when the generals of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom despised the strength of the Xiang army and the strategic wisdom of Zeng Guofan, this battle was doomed to failure, and the entire battle was completely based on zeng guofan's expected trend, which was wonderful. Not long after the fall of Anqing, the leaders of the Taiping Army, who were eager to expand their achievements on other fronts, spared no effort to start the Eastern Crusade, and not recognizing the situation too hastily led to the gradual demise of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, and the Battle of Anqing was only a starting point for their decline.