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Regardless of what Tianjing City and the Heavenly State forces outside the city did, at least they were united in their treatment of Vézé, and that was to ignore him. They didn't stop Vézé from doing whatever he wanted. They didn't cause any trouble for the retreat of the largest army of the Taiping Rebellion, especially when it came to the evacuation of its personnel.
"Looks like our brothers in the Heavenly State completely look down on civil officials." Vézé laughed in the General Staff Headquarters.
Hu Chenghe also laughed and said, "Who cares if they look down on us or not, as long as they let us take them away. On the other hand, Chief of General Staff, are you preparing to lead the troops south? "
Vézé's troops had already begun to gather in Xuancheng. Those who stayed in Zhenjiang were already in charge of receiving the troops. Although there were troops in Changzhou, there were only two armies of 10,000 soldiers. A considerable part of the remaining troops were either in Xuancheng or between Xuancheng and Changzhou.
Vézé found it interesting to have some literati under his command and to be able to make full use of them. For example, there was a road from Jiangxi to Guangzhou, but Vézé did not know the history of this road. During the Manchu Qing era, the so-called Epigraphy arose because of the high-pressure policy on political commentary. It was probably a system of textual research on cultural relics. This group of people provided Vézé with a reason for choosing this path. Before the Tang Dynasty, people who wanted to go to Guangdong basically went through Hunan and entered Hunan through the Ling Canal.
With the development of the south, the economy gradually became an important support of the national finance, and the road to Guangzhou became Jiangxi. After thousands of years of passage and development, there was now a main road passing through the lofty mountains and lofty ridges, passing through Jiangxi and directly reaching the city of Guangzhou. This was the path Vézé had chosen.
After the General Staff Headquarters confirmed the strategy to go south to Guangzhou, all that was left was the specific implementation. There were many ways to implement this plan, one of which was how the troops would march. If it was a large group marching, although there was a guarantee of safety, a large group marching would reduce the efficiency of the troops to the lowest. If they were to act separately, they would have to worry about the mobility of each unit, as well as the various dangers that might appear.
The radical was Wei Changrong. He suggested that the army be divided into five teams. The first team would only be responsible for attacking the city and capturing the towns along the way as fast as lightning. The second and third teams would be responsible for occupying and defending the city. Because of the official road, according to the calculation, Vézé's most elite troops could reach Guangzhou from Xuan City in more than a month. According to Wei Changrong's plan, by the time the vanguard reached Guangzhou, the rear might not have reached Jiangxi.
However, as a whole, the General Staff Headquarters did not support the idea of organizing the entire army into large groups. If not for this main road, the march of tens of thousands of soldiers would have been like the Taiping army heading straight from Chenzhou to Changsha, moving in multiple directions. Basically, the current mainstream view was for the troops to split up and gather at Ganzhou to rest and reorganize. After setting off from Ganzhou, the only goal of the troops would be to seize Guangzhou.
The main problem now was food. What surprised the General Staff Headquarters, including Vézé, was that Wei Changrong and the others had plundered Suzhou and Wuxi without restraint. They had plundered millions of taels of money. According to Vézé's habit, he had written IOUs to these people and left stubs in the army. However, they had only plundered fifty thousand dans of food. Suzhou and Wuxi were extremely rich areas, but they did not expect food to be so scarce. The limited amount of food could only last them half a year at most. Even though the General Staff Headquarters was confident in the war, they did not dare to be careless. If the troops really collapsed because of lack of food, it would be too much of a joke.
"Should we go to the areas controlled by the Qing Army to buy some food?" Hu Chenghe asked. "This can be considered a demonstration to the Qing Army. If they dare to resist, we will teach them a good lesson."
This suggestion sounded really unreliable, but Wei Ze felt that in this unreliable period, such an unreliable suggestion was actually a reliable choice. What he needed to do now was to confuse the enemy. As long as the enemy didn't figure out what was going on, it would be Vézé's victory. Thinking of this, Vézé said, "Then it's better to be careful. Don't go for wool and come home shorn."
In any dynasty, most of the emperors were not muddle-headed. At least, Xianfeng was not muddle-headed. Even though the Manchu Qing army outside Tianjing City had been driven far away, the Tianjing City was still in chaos. However, the Qing Army's spies could still see a large number of corpses thrown out of Tianjing City.
Of course, it was easy to determine that something had gone wrong in Tianjing, the capital of the Taiping Rebellion. The news was quickly sent to Emperor Xianfeng's desk. After reading the analysis, Xianfeng first asked about the location of the Taiping army, especially the location of the Taiping Rebellion Prince Of Qi Vézé's troops.
After looking at the places controlled by the Taiping army, Xianfeng didn't show the slightest hint of happiness. Up until now, the Taiping army still held the initiative on the battlefield. The northern Taiping army occupied the Huai River and effectively blocked the pressure from the Qing Army in the north. In the west, Zeng Guofan had just lost a battle and almost committed suicide. Xianfeng didn't expect any troops to be able to resist Vézé's advance. Even though he knew that Zhang Guoliang had "recovered" Suzhou, the Xianfeng Emperor didn't feel the slightest bit happy. Vézé's strange movements were undoubtedly a new plot.
But soon, the news came back to the capital. The flag of Wei Ze's troops changed from yellow to red, and their uniforms changed from the uniform of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom to a greenish-gray or blue-gray one. What surprised Xianfeng even more was the layout of Vézé's troops. They had obviously given up on the plan to continue from Changzhou to Suzhou and Hangzhou. Instead, they began to gather their troops with Xuancheng as the center. They didn't go through the open east of Taihu and gathered their troops in the mountainous area of Xuancheng. They were undoubtedly going to attack Jiangxi.
When the other ministers heard the news, they all had a look of joy on their faces. If a ruthless bandit like Vézé killed his way into Suzhou and Hangzhou, no one would be able to stop him. At that time, Jiangnan was rotten and the situation was out of control. It was a good thing that he turned to Jiangxi. Jiangxi was a poor place, and Suzhou and Hangzhou couldn't compare.
But Xianfeng didn't think so. He immediately wrote three imperial edicts, informing Jiang Zhongyuan, Zeng Guofan, and Zuo Zongtang of the latest situation. He asked the three of them to come up with a plan.
Jiang Zhongyuan was the closest to the capital, so his memorial arrived the fastest. In the memorial, Jiang Zhongyuan used a very frightened attitude to talk about one thing. Vézé's purpose in entering Jiangxi was definitely not to seize Jiangxi, but to march into Guangdong. Jiang Zhongyuan was very worried. If Vézé seized Guangdong, then he could take advantage of the situation and march into Guangxi. Guangxi was originally the home of the Taiping army. Vézé was familiar with the area, so it would be very easy to seize it. If Vézé seized Guangdong and Guangxi, and the Taiping army still had their current territory, then the whole situation would be completely terrible.
Jiang Zhongyuan's prediction just happened to be Emperor Xianfeng's worry. What he was most afraid of was Vézé marching into Guangdong. Since one of the three had already replied and said what Xianfeng was thinking, Xianfeng was especially looking forward to the other two's letters.
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