In August of the eighth year of Xianfeng (1858), the Taiping Army gathered heavy troops and launched a concentrated attack on the Qing army's Jiangbei camp under the leadership of Li Xiucheng, the King of Zhong, and Chen Yucheng, the King of England. Because the elite of the Taiping Army were all transferred to the vicinity of Tianjing (present-day Nanjing), resulting in a weak force in Anhui, Zeng Guofan's strategy at that time was that when the Taiping Army concentrated its forces to attack the Qing army's Jiangbei camp, the Xiang Army took the capture of Anqing, a major town along the Yangtze River, as its primary goal, and then advanced towards Nanjing.
Zeng Guofan sent Li Xubin and his brother Zeng Guohua to lead 6,000 elite Xiang troops to attack Anqing, this team was the bravest and most warlike tiger in the Xiang army, invincible in previous battles, and always stood in an invincible position. When the Taiping Army concentrated its forces to attack the Qing army's Jiangbei camp, Li Xubin led this army to make many achievements, and once successively conquered Taihu, Qianshan, Tongcheng, Shucheng and other towns, which were important military strongholds near Luzhou. Luzhou was the temporary capital of the Qing court in Anhui (formerly Anqing), and in June of the eighth year of Xianfeng, the Taiping Army captured Luzhou, and the Qing court ordered the Anhui governors several times to retake the city, but they were not successful. Therefore, Li Xubin and Zeng Guohua only had two operational plans to choose from: First, according to the established policy, they would directly bypass Luzhou to Meet the main force of the Xiang Army in Anqing; second, they would take the opportunity to conquer Luzhou and then attack Anqing, not only to fulfill one of the qing court's wishes, but also to invite merit and receive rewards, and to promote officials and make a fortune.
Portrait of Li Xubin
However, if they wanted to attack Luzhou, they must be completed in a short period of time, because the hundreds of thousands of troops led by Li Xiucheng and Chen Yucheng, the rising stars of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, were stationed not far from Luzhou, and if the two of them led the army back to Luzhou, they would arrive in three or five days. Therefore, the attack on Luzhou must be quickly decided, and once the attack is not conquered for a long time, it will be in danger of being "wrapped in dumplings" by the Taiping Army, and this battle is still very risky. But Li Xubin and Zeng Guohua were earnest in their dedication, and they couldn't take care of so much at the moment. They decided to take Luzhou first, and then go to Anqing to meet Zeng Guofan and Zeng Guofan.
In October of the eighth year of Xianfeng, Li Xubin and Zeng Guohua led an army to Jinniu Town, which was less than forty miles outside Sanhe Town. The Taiping Army had a base for hoarding grain and grass in the town of Sanhe, so this town was very important to the Taiping Army, and once it was lost, the consequences were unimaginable.
According to historical records, in front of Sanhe Town is the Jiehe River, Mazha River, backed by Chao Lake, on the left and right sides are JinniuLing and Baishi Mountain, Sanhe Town and the outside world only have one road, so its terrain is like a wine gourd. This terrain is militarily easy to defend and difficult to attack. To be on the safe side, the Taiping Army also built 9 strong forts on the outskirts of the town as arches.
It was less than forty miles from Jinniu Town to Sanhe Town, so Li Xubin and Zeng Guohua quickly rushed to the outside of Sanhe Town and engaged in fierce encounters with the taiping army's peripheral troops. After several days of bloody fighting, the Xiang Army breached and destroyed all nine military forts of the Taiping Army. The town of Three Rivers lost the protection of the nine barriers and suddenly became precarious. Li Xubin was indeed fierce and good at fighting, and he saw that the nine fortresses of the Taiping Army were easily uprooted by his brothers, and the blood rushed straight to the brain gate, so the Overseer launched a fierce attack on the town of Sanhe.
The Taiping army guarding the town of Sanhe desperately resisted, but there were many people on the other side and they were all outlaws, screaming and punching hard, and they could not defend it. Just when Sanhe Town was about to be taken by the Xiang Army, the situation underwent an unexpected change, and Li Xiucheng and Chen Yucheng personally led 120,000 Taiping troops from the outskirts of Tianjing to Sanhe Town for reinforcements, and quickly surrounded the Xiang Army. From the fierce battle in the middle of the night to noon the next day, in only half a day, the Taiping Army annihilated more than 6,000 Xiang troops outside the town of Sanhe. During the melee, Li Xubin saw that there was no hope of a breakthrough, so he had to hang himself on a tree (one said to be killed in battle). Zeng Guohua also died in the rebellion (it is said that he was rescued and later forced out of his home).
In the Battle of Sanhe Town, the elite of the 6,000 Xiang army were destroyed by Li Xiucheng and Chen Yucheng, and the Xiang army's fierce generals Li Xubin and Zeng Guohua were also killed on the battlefield. After the news spread, Zeng Guofan was extremely remorseful.
The Xianfeng Emperor gave great praise to the death of Zeng Guohua, the brother of Zeng Guofan. However, it is quite interesting that there are different theories about Zeng Guohua's death, and After examination, Mr. Tang Haoming and others believe that Zeng Guohua escaped by chance in the Battle of the Three Rivers and secretly escaped back to zeng guofan's old camp in the middle of the night for more than a month after the war. When Zeng Guofan saw that his brother was still there, he was surprised and delighted, but at the same time he was in trouble. It turned out that he had already reported the defeat of the Three Rivers to the imperial court, and the Xianfeng Emperor had already given the plaque of "a loyal martyr" to the Zeng family, and if at this time the pioneer learned that Zeng Guohua was not dead and was still alive, then he had committed the great crime of deceiving the king. After some deliberation, Zeng Guofan decided to hide from the imperial court and the world the fact that his brother Zeng Guohua was still alive, but instead sent his brother to a Taoist temple to become a Taoist priest. Since then, Zeng Guohua has been anonymized and became a "living dead" in the second half of his life.
The fiasco at Sanhe Town was the most tragic defeat suffered by the Xiang Army since its formation, and although the defeats at Jinggang and Jiujiang were also very heavy, they were not serious enough to lose 6,000 soldiers in the First World War. Fortunately, zeng guofan was only commanding remotely in this battle, and did not personally go to the battlefield, otherwise, the consequences would be unimaginable.
【Illustrations from the Internet】