At the beginning of 1864, when the appointed time came, Chen Decai and Lai Wenguang set out from Shaanxi and led 200,000 soldiers and horses south to "King Qin" to attack the rear of the Hunan army. Monk Greenqin led the elite soldiers of the Eight Banners to intercept, but failed, Chen Decai and Lai Wenguang entered Hubei, and then marched east along the Yangtze River to Nanjing.
Chen Decai and Lai Wenguang arrived in eastern Hubei and learned the news of the fall of Tianjing, but they did not stop. However, the young king was captured in Jiangxi, the Taiping army was leaderless, and they broke up and surrendered one after another, Chen Decai committed suicide by poisoning, and Lai Wenguang broke through.
After Lai Wenguang left from Yingshan and Huoshan, he had less than 4,000 soldiers and horses. As the king of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, Lai Wenguang felt that the situation was difficult, so he thought of uniting the "Twist Army" and cooperating with Zhang Zongyu, Ren Huabang, Niu Hongsheng, and Li Yun to continue to resist the Qing Dynasty and try to restore the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom.
The Twist Army was brave and good at fighting, but unfortunately the organization was sloppy and was broken up by Monk Greenqin many times. In 1857, Zhang Zongyu, the leader of the "Twist Army", accepted the title of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom and fought under the banner of the Taiping Army, which had a greater impact.
The Taiping Army and the Twist Army have a basis for cooperation, and besides, strong enemies are around, and they must be twisted into a rope. In this way, the Twist Army accepted Lai Wenguang's suggestion, reorganized the army, and continued to carry the banner of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, Zhang Zongyu was crowned King of Liang, Ren Huabang was crowned King of Lu, Li Yun was crowned King of Wei, and Niu Hongsheng was crowned King of Jing.
Lai Wenguang does not have many soldiers and horses, but he has strong appeal, especially Ren Huabang firmly supports him, so Lai Wenguang's influence in the army is very great.
Ren Huabang, praised as Xiang Yu by Li Hongzhang, Liu Mingchuan and Bao Chao are very afraid of him, and he is a master of using cavalry. Lai Wenguang is good at strategy, planning combat plans, and formulating strategic goals. The cooperation between Ren Huabang and Lai Wenguang is a prerequisite for victory.
After the reorganization, where should the Taiping Army go, Lai Wenguang and Ren Huabang did not have a clear plan. At this time, their main opponent was Seng Lingqin, and how to get rid of the pursuit of the Qing army and preserve the vitality became the primary problem.
In view of the experience of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom being "blocked" by the Hunan army, Lai Wenguang and Ren Huabang adopted mobile operations, trying to avoid a decisive battle with the main force of the Qing army, but went around in circles, looking for opportunities to annihilate the enemy during the movement.
At the beginning of 1865, Lai Wenguang and Ren Huabang set up an ambush in Tangpi, Henan, and attacked the Eight Banners.
Then, the two sides fought fiercely in Lushan, with Monk Greenqin leading the elite cavalry to charge, and Lai Wenguang feigning to retreat, attracting the Qing army to the ambush circle. Zhang Zongyu and Ren Huabang's cavalry killed from both sides, killing more than a dozen generals such as Yi Chang Hengling, Deputy Commander Shu Lunbao, Baoqing, Namu Salai, and Shuolong, and the vitality of the Qing army was greatly damaged.
After the Battle of Lushan, Lai Wenguang, Ren Huabang, and Zhang Zongyu continued to go around in circles, crisscrossing Hebei, Henan, and Shandong, and Monk Greenqin was still led by the nose. In May, the two sides fought a decisive battle in Gaolouzhai, the Eight Banners were almost wiped out, Seng Greenqin was defeated, and Cixi was grief-stricken.
Seng Lingqin was out, Zeng Guofan and Li Hongzhang's soldiers and horses went north to participate in the war, and the Hunan army and Huai army became the fierce enemies of Lai Wenguang and Ren Huabang.
Zeng Guofan's superintendent adopted river defense tactics, built fortifications along the Yellow River, Huai River, canals, etc., and ordered all localities to form walled forts to prohibit people from entering and leaving at will, and preventing them from cooperating with Lai Wenguang.
The tactics of the Hunan army changed, and Lai Wenguang and Ren Huabang were not good at going around in circles, but they were easy to get into trouble. Because, the Taiping army did not have a fixed supply base, and the people entered the walled forts, where did the army's food come from?
In addition, the supply of weapons was also a problem, and there were not many battles with the Qing army, which meant that they could not be replenished. The troops of Lai Wenguang and Ren Huabang were very inferior in weapons, and the cavalry used bamboo with shaved heads to make spears, and the number of firearms was limited.
The bamboo was used as a weapon, but it did not affect Ren Huabang to eliminate the Eight Banners cavalry. Once Ren Huabang's horse team rushed to the front and engaged in a fight with the Eight Banners, Monk Greenqin almost all ended in defeat, as did the Hunan army and the Huai army.
However, Zeng Guofan engaged in river defense tactics and did not fight easily, and rarely gave Ren Huabang the opportunity to raid. For this reason, Lai Wenguang also decided to change his tactics, not to continue to go around in circles, but to establish a base area, which can be attacked and retreated.
In 1866, the Tai Twist Coalition Army divided its troops in Zhongmu, Zhang Zongyu entered Guanzhong to fight, Lai Wenguang and Ren Huabang went south to Hubei, and then attacked Sichuan on two routes to establish the Sichuan, Shaanxi and Gansu base areas.
Entering Sichuan to establish a foundation is a way out, and Lai Wenguang is not wrong. Once Sichuan, Gansu, and Shaanxi are connected, Lai Wenguang only needs to defend Wuxia, Tongguan and other dangerous places with heavy troops, and Zeng Guofan has no way at all in the short term.
After formulating the battle into Sichuan, Lai Wenguang and Ren Huabang acted quickly, and broke through the Kaifeng defense line and entered Hubei before Zeng Guofan completed the river defense fortifications. In this way, Zeng Guofan was disgraced and exhausted tens of millions of silver, but let Lai Wenguang escape from under his nose.
Cixi originally wanted to weaken the Hunan army, so she used this as a reason to let Li Hongzhang replace Zeng Guofan, and the Huai army became the main force. The soldiers of the Hunan army were not satisfied, Bao Chao and Peng Yucheng were not satisfied, and hoped that Zeng Guofan would go to the court to seek justice for the Hunan army, but Zeng Guofan refused.
Lai Wenguang and Ren Huabang killed Hubei, and Li Hongzhang immediately transferred Liu Mingchuan, Guo Songlin, Zhang Shushan and other fierce generals to pursue them separately, trying to wipe them out near Zhongxiang in Hubei and prevent the Taiping Army and the Twist Army from entering Sichuan.
Liu Mingchuan, the chief general of the Huai Army, Li Hongzhang trained 12,000 cavalry, most of which were handed over to Liu Ming's traditional leader. Guo Songlin was also a fierce general, and he was the third in command of Li Hongzhang's expedition to Jiangsu and Shanghai, and his fame was second only to Cheng Xueqi at that time.
Zhang Shushan is the brother of Zhang Shusheng, one of the "Four King Kongs" of the Huai Army, and he is also very capable of fighting. In addition, the Zhang brothers are the core figures of Li Hongzhang's formation of the Huai Army, and without the Zhang brothers to pull people, there will be no Li Hongzhang's Huai Army. In this way, the advanced weapons of the Huai army are given priority to the Zhang Jiajun.
Before the Huai army entered Hubei, the Hunan army took the lead in fighting with Lai Wenguang in order to compete for credit. As a result, Ren Huabang and Lai Wenguang attacked the Hunan army camp at night, killing the general Zhang Fengming, deputy generals Zhong Guangdou and Yang Juefa, and the Hunan army suffered more than 2,000 casualties.
After the defeat of the Hunan army, Lai Wenguang and Ren Huabang immediately set up a decisive battle with Guo Songlin. In this battle, the Huai army fired with intensive firepower, and the Taiping army and the Twist army suffered many casualties, but they still did not retreat.
Ren Huabang's spear cavalry slaughtered in front of the Huai army, and Guo Songlin's troops were in chaos. In hand-to-hand combat, the Huai army was not the opponent of the Taiping Army and the Twist Army, the general soldiers Cao Renmei and Xie Liansheng were killed, and Guo Songlin's younger brother Guo Fangzhen was killed.
Guo Songlin himself was seriously wounded and captured by the Taiping soldiers. However, Guo Songlin took off his court clothes in advance, and the soldiers didn't know that he was Guo Songlin, and it was getting late, and there was nothing valuable on him, so he threw Guo Songlin on the side of the road, and Guo Songlin escaped by luck.
Guo Songlin's headquarters was about to be destroyed, and at this time Peng Yucheng entered the battle. Lai Wenguang and Ren Huabang suffered from the enemy on their backs, but they still killed Yan Guangjie, Zuo Desheng, and Deng Zhiao, the fierce generals of the Hunan army, and then retreated to De'an to recuperate.
Zhang Shushan saw that Guo Songlin was defeated and the Huai army lost face, so he took the initiative to ask Ying and asked for pursuit. As a result, Zhang Shushan was ambushed, the whole army was annihilated, and the dozen or so generals who followed Zhang Shushan to pursue were all beheaded.
After a series of defeats, the Huai army and the Hunan army all understood a truth, if they wanted to eliminate the Taiping army and the twist army, they must unite. However, Liu Mingchuan and Bao Chao can't do it, they contradict each other too deeply, and they have their own ideas at critical moments.
Liu Mingchuan and Bao Chao set out at an appointed time, and attacked Lai Wenguang and Ren Huabang on both sides. As a result, Liu Mingchuan went to battle an hour ahead of schedule and led 13,000 soldiers and horses across the river to pursue, and the left and right armies were quickly wiped out by Ren Huabang.
After taking care of the left army and the right army, Ren Huabang and Lai Wenguang concentrated on attacking Liu Mingchuan's army. Liu Mingchuan was surrounded in the formation, and repeatedly failed to break through, and Tian Lu'an, Tang Diankui, Li Xizeng, Hu Hengxi, Wu Weizhang and other fierce generals were killed.
Liu Mingchuan saw that the general trend was gone, so he took off his court clothes, sat on the ground, and waited to be captured. At this time, Bao Chao led 16,000 elite Hunan troops to suddenly kill from behind the formation, Lai Wenguang was careless to the enemy, and directly faced the battle without arranging the formation, and also wanted to eliminate two strong forces at the same time, and the battle was lost.
Bao Chao is known as the first fierce general of the Hunan Army, and the "Thunder Army" is the trump card of field operations. However, Lai Wenguang and Ren Huabang were even more fierce, even if they were attacked from both sides, they could kill the commander-in-chief Chen Yongkang, Wang Kaiguo, Liu Jinshan, Zhang Jinkui, Li Hongsheng, Li Zhanbiao and other Hunan army generals, and then withdraw from the battlefield.
Lai Wenguang and Ren Huabang suffered too much loss, so they had to withdraw their troops and break through in the direction of Henan. Bao Chao pursued, Ren Huabang returned to meet the battle, and killed the general soldiers Zhang Mao and Jin Mingming, deputy generals Yang Mingde, Tang Shun, etc., He Gaozhi, Huang Qisheng, Fan Quanfu, Liu Desheng and other backbones of the "Thunder Army" were also killed.
Ren Huabang fought back tenaciously, and Bao Chao did not dare to continue the pursuit. At this time, Liu Mingchuan resented Bao Chao for deliberately being late, and Li Hongzhang favored his own people and went to the court to impeach Bao Chao. Cixi adopted the strategy of "Chonghuai and suppressing Hunan Province", letting Bao Chao go home to retire and dismiss the "Thunder Army".
The Hunan army was attacked by the Huai army, and Peng Yucheng pursued Ren Huabang alone in order to regain face and reshape the image of the Hunan army. In the Battle of Qishui, Peng Yucheng was ambushed, and more than 50 generals such as Admiral Luo Chaoyun, Deng Taifu, Wang Shiyi, Chen Zhixiang, and Luo Xingxiang were appointed as the flag of the state.
In the battle of Sichuan, Lai Wenguang and Ren Huabang fought very well, the vitality of Liu Mingchuan, Guo Songlin, and Zhang Shushan of the Huai Army was greatly damaged, and the "Thunder Army" of Bao Chao of the Hunan Army was dismissed, and Peng Yutang's department was destroyed. However, Lai Wenguang and Ren Huabang also suffered heavy losses and could not be replenished, so they gave up entering Sichuan and moved to Henan and Shandong.
Lai Wenguang and Ren Huabang abandoned Sichuan, and then embarked on the old road of mobile warfare, entering the sea on three sides and the canal Shandong in the west.
If Lai Wenguang and Ren Huabang could first move to Henan after eliminating Peng Yutang, observe the internal fighting in the Qing Dynasty, and then seek an opportunity to enter Sichuan, they may not have no chance. As long as they enter Sichuan, strictly guard the fortress, rest for a few years, and then march east to the Central Plains, the Taiping army has a lot to do.