The defense of Anqing ended in September 1861, while the Xiang army did not advance to Tianjing until March 1862. During this period, the Xiang Army has been cleaning up the perimeter and advancing steadily.
After Xin You's coup, the Qing government placed great trust on Zeng Guofan and put him in charge of the military affairs of the four provinces and was fully responsible for the final battle against the Taiping Rebellion. For the attack of Tianjing, Zeng Guofan formulated a battle plan of attacking from three sides and attacking in four ways.
Dongmian and Li Hongzhang served as the governor of Jiangsu, leading the Huai army to Shanghai and Changzhou to contain Li Xiucheng;
To the south, Zuo Zongtang served as the governor of Zhejiang and contained Li Shixian's troops of the Taiping Army;
To the west, Zeng Guofan ordered Zeng Guoquan to lead the Xiang army and attack Tianjing from top to bottom.
Obviously, the Xiang army was the main force to attack Tianjing, and Zeng Guofan's deployment of the Xiang army was as follows:
West Road, Duolong'a cavalry passed through Quanjiao and Pukou, surrounding the area of Purple Mountain in the north of Tianjing City;
North Road, served by the Feng Zi Department of Zhenjiang;
South Road, from Zeng Guoquan through Wuhu, attacked from the area of Nanyuhuatai in Tianjing City;
On the eastern road, Bao Cao passed through Ningguo, advanced from Jurong and Gaochun, and attacked from the northeast of Tianjing.
At this time, the main force of the Taiping Army was the two major legions of the brothers Li Xiucheng and Li Shixian. They achieved great results in Zhejiang and southern Anhui, and also became the backbone of the Taiping Rebellion.
Taking advantage of Li Xiucheng's main force still in the area of Jiangsu and Zhejiang, the Xiang army sent troops on four routes to attack Tianjing. Zeng Guoquanbu, who had the strongest combat effectiveness, made rapid progress, and with the cooperation of Peng Yulin's water army, he was like a broken bamboo and directly stationed in Yuhuatai, only 4 miles away from Tianjing.
After Duolong'a captured Luzhou, because of the conflict with the Zeng brothers, he asked himself to lead an army into Shaanxi. At this time, the Taiping Army Chen Decai's troops were galloping across Shaanxi, and Duolong'a's request was approved by the Qing court.
The attack of Bao Cao's department was blocked by Ningguo Mansion, where Yang Fuqing's army of 100,000 guarded it, and Bao Cao's army was difficult to conquer for a while. It is an indisputable fact that Bao Cao's subordinates, which are less than 10,000 people, dared to attack the 100,000-strong army of the Taiping Army, and the combat strength of the Taiping Army declined. At this time, most of the Taiping Army were newly recruited soldiers, and their combat effectiveness was not the same as in the previous period.
In this way, the plan of the four-way army to attack finally made Zeng Guoquan a lone army.
At this time, the Xiang army under Tianjing City had three parts; First, Zeng Guoquan's 9,000 men, which is the absolute main force of the Xiang Army; Second, about 9,000 people of Peng Yulin's water army were responsible for the Yangtze River channel, and Zeng Zhengan's 5,000 people were responsible for protecting the grain channel. At this time, the Yangtze River channel was exclusively occupied by the Xiang army, and Anqing's materials could be continuously transported to the front line.
Zeng Guoquan was well aware of his situation, and desperately built fortifications and defended layer by layer.
It can only surround the southwest two sides, deep ditches and high barriers, with the navy division as the foundation, the river surface as the grain road, the first for self-consolidation, Xu Tu to make thieves.
Why didn't Hong Xiuquan send troops to attack the Xiang army immediately? The attack continued, but several attacks were repulsed by the Xiang army. After the loss of Ningguo Mansion, Yang Fuqing, Hong Renxuan and others also led their troops back to aid Tianjing, and were defeated by Zeng Guoquan one by one.
According to Zeng Guofan:
The army besieged Jinling, and there was no reinforcement. Hong rebellious old traitor giant... With a small number of officers and soldiers, they often provoked thieves to come to the camp, our army fought hard and held hard, and fought in the summer ... Now after two months, the arrangement is gradually consolidated, and if there is more than enough to defend, you can plan to attack.
Obviously, the attack power of the Taiping Army was not strong, and in two months, the Xiang Army built a strong defensive fortification under Tianjing City.
At this time, the main force of the Taiping Army was Li Xiucheng's troops, and Hong Xiuquan strictly ordered Li Xiucheng to enter Wei Tianjing.
Li Xiucheng, who had been running Jiangsu and Zhejiang for a long time, did not do his best to relieve the siege, and under the urgent move of the king of heaven, he gathered a team and led an army of 200,000 to aid Tianjing, during which it took up to three months.
Li Xiucheng's army has not yet arrived, and the Xiang army has problems on its own.
In September, a great plague occurred in Jiangnan. This is also a normal phenomenon, and it is not surprising that there are wars and corpses all over the field, and plagues.
The plague brought serious consequences, and Bao Chaojun in Ningguo became ill 6,670 people and died thousands.
The corpses were in disarray, no one was buried, no one served medicine for the sick, and there was no one to cook in a shed, and famous generals in his army, such as Huang Qing and Wu Huahan, died one after another, and Bao Chao was also seriously ill.
And Zeng Guoquan was not able to escape the attack of the plague.
"Since the summer and autumn, the epidemic has been infected, and each battalion of disease-free people is only one or two in teams, and it is difficult to control thieves."
Because of the plague, the Xiang army suffered countless deaths and injuries, which greatly reduced the strength of the Xiang army, weakened its combat effectiveness, and the military situation took a sharp turn for the worse. How severe is this plague? The Xiang army lost a total of about 19,000 people in the Battle of Tianjing, of which about 10,000 died of illness and only 9,000 died in battle.
This is a very good time for Taiping.
In October, Li Xiucheng's army finally arrived at Yuhuatai, and the army continued endlessly, with a stronghold of tens of miles.
Li Xiucheng's troops have been fighting in Jiangsu and Zhejiang for many years, and have experience in fighting foreign rifles, which have more than 20,000 foreign guns and are equipped with many Krupp breech cannons, and their strength is very strong. So much so that Zeng Guofan exclaimed: "The thief's firearms are a hundred times more refined than me", although this is Zeng Guofan's exaggeration, but it also shows that Li Xiucheng's troops are well-equipped.
Faced with this situation, Zeng Guofan urgently transferred troops to help, but the battlefields contained each other, and there were not many reinforcements from the Xiang army under Yuhuatai, and the total strength of the Xiang army in Yuhuatai was less than 30,000.
A decisive battle between 200,000 Taiping troops and 30,000 Xiang troops began in Yuhuatai.
On the 13th and 14th, Li Xiucheng made a tentative attack.
On the 15th, Li Xiucheng's troops divided into two routes and directly attacked the joint headquarters of the Xiang army, the water and land armies, wanting to cut off the food route of the Xiang army. The Xiang army resisted desperately, and the Taiping army fought for three days without success.
The grain road could not be broken, and Li Xiucheng changed direction and mainly attacked the camp of the Xiang army. At this time, Li Shixian also brought 40,000 reinforcements, plus the defenders in the city, at this time, the Taiping Army fought on the front line with nearly 300,000 troops, ten times that of Zeng Guoquan.
The Taiping Army concentrated its forces on the attack on the Xiang Army's large camp, and although the firepower was fierce, it was never able to break through the Xiang Army's defense line.
Li Xiucheng turned to digging tunnels to rush to the camp of the Xiang Army, which was originally the strength of the Xiang Army, and had already been used in the battles of Jiujiang and Anqing, and the Taiping Army naturally returned without success.
After 46 days of fighting, Li Xiucheng was unable to annihilate the Xiang army, so he had to withdraw and retreat into Tianjing.
In the battle of Yuhuatai, the Xiang army suffered more than 5,000 casualties, and Zeng Guoquan was also slightly injured, but Li Xiucheng was ten times the siege and could not win. In fact, the Taiping Army lost less than 10,000 people, and it was fully capable of fighting again, which is a pity.
Mr. Jian Youwen, an expert on the history of the Taiping Rebellion, said of this history:
After dozens of days of siege and could not win, the losses were not large, even if the division was retreated, the previous achievements were lost, and the future troubles were endless.
After this battle, the Taiping Rebellion was naturally more dangerous.
After the Battle of Yuhuatai, although Zeng Guoquan was replenished in personnel, he was not able to besiege Tianjing and concentrate on further building fortifications.
Hong Xiuquan formulated a new battle plan, which was still the "encirclement of Wei and rescue Zhao" used to break through the Jiangnan camp, and sent heavy troops into the territory of Anhui and Gan, mobilized the Xiang army, and reduced the military pressure on Tianjing.
As soon as this action came out, it was immediately recognized by Zeng Guofan, who said:
From Shucheng and Lu'an to Shangying, Huo, Macheng, and Songbu, one out of Huangzhou and the other out of Hankou, they disturbed Hubei, intending to find troops on the south bank to aid the north, and looking for the downstream to help the north, which is nothing more than an illustration of the siege of Jinling.
In fact, don't say Zeng Guofan, people with a little common sense understand the intentions of the Taiping Army. This is a method of warfare that the Taiping Army has used countless times, breaking the Jiangnan camp and Chen Yucheng rescuing Anqing, all of which are used by this method.
Zeng Guofan quickly adjusted the deployment of troops, on the one hand, Zeng Guoquan did not move and surrounded the city of Tianjing, and on the other hand, he transferred mobile troops and divided troops to garrison the key cities, making it difficult for the Taiping Army to break through the defensive depth of the Xiang army.
At this time, the logistical supply of the Taiping Army was already very difficult, and it was impossible to attack the big city, and the main general Li Xiucheng was worried about his Suzhou, and after returning from Suzhou, he led the main force to the west, and along the way, the Xiang army held the city and implemented the strong wall to clear the wilderness, Li Xiucheng could not capture a strong city at all, and there was a shortage of food.
At this time, the Xiang army continued to increase its troops in Tianjing, and Hong Xiuquan ordered Li Xiucheng to return to Tianjing to relieve the siege.
Li Xiucheng had to return to Tianjing after three months of fighting.
If Li Xiucheng only returned in vain, he left a glimmer of hope for the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, but his army was already seriously short of food at this time, and countless people died of starvation. When the army crossed the river, it was attacked by the Xiang army and the land and water armies, and tens of thousands of people drowned. In the end, Li Xiucheng's army of 200,000, only 15,000 returned to Tianjing, and almost all of the army was destroyed.
At this time, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom was already in danger.
When Li Xiucheng heard that Li Hongzhang attacked Suzhou, he left Tianjing on June 28 to relieve the siege in Suzhou, and only arrived in Suzhou on July 7, and received a strict order from Hong Xiuquan to return to Tianjing to command the defense of the city.
In August, the battlefield in Jiangsu and Zhejiang became more critical, and Li Xiucheng asked to go, but Hong Xiuquan did not allow it. Li Xiucheng repeatedly requested, Hong Xiuquan gave him 40 days, and soon again urgently ordered Li Xiucheng to return to Tianjing.
Li Xiucheng was in his stronghold Suzhou, Hong Xiuquan was dedicated to defending Tianjing, and the disagreement between the top decision-makers made the already fragmented Taiping Rebellion even more uncontrollable.
At this time, the Xiang army kept increasing its troops to Tianjing, reaching 50,000 people, and gradually cleared the periphery, forming a trend of encirclement.
Li Xiucheng suggested at this time that Hong Xiuquan abandon Tianjing and go to the periphery, but Hong Xiuquan resolutely disagreed.
At this time, Zeng Guofan wanted to fight steadily and trap the defenders of Tianjing.
If it were not for the thief to come to the camp, it seems that there is no need to constantly seek the thief to start a war. The way of food for the thief will be extinguished, and there is no way to survive except war; Our army will cut off the grain road for the sake of it, and will not fight hard day and day.
However, his younger brother Zeng Guoquan was willing to listen and captured Tianjing, but he destroyed the first achievement of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, so he attacked the city day and night.
On June 1, Hong Xiuquan committed suicide, and two days before his death, he made a decree:
The public is at ease, and immediately goes to heaven, receives heavenly soldiers from the heavenly father and brother, and protects Tianjing.
On July 19, the Xiang army bombarded the Tianjing City Wall with gunpowder, and the Tianjing City was broken, and Li Xiucheng was captured three days after the breakthrough and killed shortly after.
After the destruction of Tianjing City, the scattered Taiping army was still more than 200,000, led by Li Shixian and Wang Haiyang, but it was soon gradually cleared by the Qing court.