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"Fourth Uncle! We've struck it rich this time! " Wei Changrong's face was still blackened from putting out the fire, but he was already shouting in joy.
Vézé didn't respond. Instead, he reprimanded him with lingering fear: "Changrong! What if the gunpowder exploded? You were too careless! "
The raid on Quanzhou went very smoothly. A few days ago, the army had wiped out Liu Changqing's troops, then used the captured Qing Army to trick them into opening the gates of Guanyang and easily took over the city. Vézé only rested for a day, then left a small number of troops to defend the city while he led the main force to raid Quanzhou. The battle began at dawn. The Taiping army had not yet repaired the city walls that had been blown up, so the troops swarmed in through the gap and defeated the Qing Army. In the end, before the Qing Army escaped from Quanzhou, they set fire to the storage area.
Wei Changrong led the troops in front and immediately put out the fire. Because of their quick actions, the fire only burned a little of the supplies. When they found a lot of gunpowder from the fire, Wei Changrong was overjoyed, but Vézé was scared out of his wits.
Wei Changrong didn't care about Vézé's rebuke at all. The Qing Army used Quanzhou as a transit point for transporting supplies to southern Hunan. Among the supplies they seized were large amounts of grain, gunpowder, lead, and salt. Even the carts and mules used to transport supplies had fallen into the hands of Vézé's troops. Wei Changrong asked: "Fourth Uncle, are we really going to attack Yongzhou?"
Yongzhou was to the northwest of Daozhou. If they could conquer Yongzhou, they could continue to march northwest and attack Hengyang. This was once one of the Taiping army's strategic goals, and it was a very good direction to take. But the reason why Vézé had this plan was not to attack Hengyang.
For Vézé, he had very little interest in conquering Sturdy City. "Preserve the land but lose the people, both the people and the land will be lost; preserve the people and lose the land, both the people and the land will survive." If they could continuously annihilate the Qing Army's troops in mobile warfare, the Qing Army's cities would be nothing at all. After dealing with Liu Zhangqing, Vézé was free to move freely from Guanyang to Quanzhou. Feigning an attack on Yongzhou was to mobilize the Qing Army and annihilate them in the middle of the campaign.
Liu Zhangqing's defeated army had already confessed, and now Imperial Envoy Ceishan 'a had run off to Yongzhou. Whether or not Yongzhou could be captured, it meant that Ceishan' a would immediately summon the Qing Army to the rescue. If the imperial envoy was killed, his subordinates would all lose their heads without exception. The Qing Army couldn't just sit back and do nothing, and would certainly rush back to Yongzhou as soon as possible. The road from the frontlines in Daozhou to Yongzhou was extremely rugged, and there were many places where one man could hold the pass against ten thousand enemies. Vézé even considered that while the Qing Army was on the move, he could launch a pincer attack with the Taiping army in Daozhou and annihilate the Qing Army's main force from Guangxi in one fell swoop. If this was really possible, then the capture of Changsha was practically a done deal.
But these ideas all required the cooperation of the Taiping army in Daozhou. What Vézé needed now was to quickly settle the seized supplies. Because they lacked experience in collecting rations, Vézé's troops had been eating the rations seized from the county granary. The rations seized from Quanzhou were for the Qing Army's frontlines. The quality of the two was simply too different. At the very least, the rations for the Qing Army at the frontlines contained meat.
After replenishing the rations, the shortage of gunpowder and lead was no longer a problem. With wine, meat, and rice, the troops ate and drank to their hearts' content. Vézé discovered that the troops had sunk into a state of exhaustion. This couldn't be helped. Ever since joining Vézé's troops, they had either fought or trained. They had only once rested for three days. After eating and drinking to their fill, it was normal to feel sleepy and lazy. When Vézé went to patrol the city, he discovered that even the patrolling brothers on the walls were somewhat dazed.
This made Vézé feel that there was a problem with his original plan. Men weren't machines, and they needed to know when to relax. After repeated battles, they needed to rest, and even for a very long time. Vézé himself was full of energy and could concentrate to a high degree, but this didn't mean that everyone in the troops could be like Vézé.
Standing on top of the city wall, Vézé couldn't help but wonder if his idea was wrong. Even so, Vézé saw a small group of people coming from outside the city. Judging from their attire, they weren't Vézé's troops, but his brothers in the Taiping army. However, even though Vézé had noticed this, his brothers on the city wall were yawning and didn't react to the strange movement in the distance. It wasn't that they saw it clearly, but that they didn't pay attention to it.
"This won't do!" Vézé finally made up his mind.
It was Lin Fengxiang, who was also familiar with Vézé in the Taiping army. West Prince Xiao Chaogui was afraid that Vézé would act rashly, so he didn't dare to send any guards. Even though Vézé had the lowest position among the Prime Ministers in the Taiping Rebellion, he was still the Prime Minister. The imperial guards were only at the level of Sima. Vézé was leading the troops outside, so if he didn't listen to the advice of the imperial guards, he wouldn't listen to them. Because he was afraid that Vézé would act rashly, Xiao Chaogui sent Lin Fengxiang, who was familiar with Vézé. At this time, Lin Fengxiang was already the commander-in-chief. Although his position was lower than Vézé's, Xiao Chaogui believed that Vézé wouldn't dare to go against Lin Fengxiang.
When Lin Fengxiang delivered West Prince Xiao Chaogui's order for Vézé to return, Vézé immediately agreed. Lin Fengxiang wasn't a talkative person. He simply asked, "When does the Wayne Brothers plan to return?"
"Did West Prince tell us where to go?" Vézé asked.
"Back to Daozhou?" Lin Fengxiang answered.
"… Back to Daozhou?" Vézé originally thought that even if he didn't attack Yongzhou, he would only go back to Guanyang. He didn't expect that this guy would want to go back to Daozhou.
"West Prince ordered that the Wayne Brothers must return to Daozhou," Lin Fengxiang didn't have too many thoughts like Vézé, so he simply ordered.
Vézé didn't argue in the end. He knew that arguing with Lin Fengxiang was pointless. The troops finally set off to the south. They first returned to Guanyang, then took the main road to Jianghua to meet up with Yongming and Luo Dagang. Finally, Vézé's troops headed to Daozhou.
As soon as the marching order was given, all the commanders in the troops reported, "The troops are full of complaints."
"What are the brothers complaining about?" Vézé now knew that his original idea was wrong. Before they set off from Guanyang to Quanzhou, the troops had high morale because they had cities to attack and they were confident of winning. Even though they didn't rest after the march, they continued to move, wiped out Liu Zhangqing's troops, and took Guanyang. The troops were still full of fighting spirit. But when they really took Quanzhou, the troops ate and drank, and their high morale seemed to have been sucked out.
Although he didn't say anything, Vézé felt a lingering fear in his heart. Do I still want to attack Yongzhou like this?
Since the troops' morale was like this, Vézé could only choose to hurry back to Guanyang. The troops' morale was so low that they needed a place to rest. Quanzhou was not a good place to rest. In theory, Vézé could communicate with Daozhou, but this line of communication was very fragile and could easily be cut off by the Qing Army. Resting and reorganizing required a stable and safe defense system. If they were surrounded by the Qing Army, Vézé didn't think he would have the heart to rest.
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