Chapter 25: Thirteen-year-old Chen Yucheng's Suggestion

  Li Yunzhong had the two captured spies brought before him, wanting to see if he was Hong Xiuquan's brother. Before long, Jin Wen and Yin Wu brought a man under thirty up, and the two stood beside Li Yunzhong.

  Li Yunzhong asked: "Who are you? Where are you from?"

  "That man smiled and said: 'I am a Hunanese, surnamed Jiao named Liang, self-proclaimed Hong Daquan just to save my life. In Hunan, I heard that General Li Baibai attacked the city and captured the stronghold, wherever he went, he was invincible, people called him "Li Baisheng". Today, seeing you is truly not in vain.'"

  Li Yunzhong was secretly delighted, and unexpectedly his reputation had spread to Hunan. He thought that conquering Hunan would be a great achievement, so he hastily asked: "Do you understand the situation in Hunan? To be honest with you, I plan to conquer Hunan, what do you think?"

  Jiao Liang burst out laughing and, seeing Li Yunzhong's confusion, explained: "To be honest with the general, I am indeed the leader of the Tiandihui in Hunan. The general has asked the right person about this matter. In recent years, Hunan has been plagued by natural disasters and man-made calamities. Our Tiandihui has risen up several times, but all have ended in failure, with many of our members making sacrifices." Jiao Liang sighed.

  Hu Yihuang said: "I didn't expect the Hunan government troops to be so capable, then if we march into Hunan won't..." He looked at Li Yunzhong.

  Jiao Liang retorted, "The Hunan government troops are all a bunch of useless things, they collapse as soon as they encounter them. The ones who suppressed the righteous army were the militia and the brave warriors." After finishing speaking, he also slammed his fist heavily on the table.

  Originally, after Hunan officials experienced the White Lotus Rebellion in Sichuan and Hubei, many landlords and officials were left with broken families. Therefore, officials hated peasant uprisings deeply and would suppress them at the slightest sign of trouble without waiting for government troops to arrive. Local officials would raise funds and recruit soldiers to quell the uprising, and many young masters and lords from landlord families had experienced numerous battles and were well-versed in both literature and martial arts.

  Li Yunzhong said: "It seems that the Hunan officials' practice of bravery is our greatest enemy, and everyone should pay special attention to it in the future."

  "Yes," everyone bowed and replied in unison.

  In Lipo, after just two days of repair, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom's large army rushed to Lipo County. Li Yunzhong secretly cursed his bad luck and let the people in the city escape in all directions. He immediately gathered his entire army to continue marching north. Guangxi has many mountains, and from Lipo County to Hunan, it is even more difficult to walk. There are only two roads suitable for a large army to march on: one is to continue north through Guilin and Quanzhou, and the other is to march northeast, which can enter the border of Hunan Province. However, there are few people there, and the road is very difficult to walk. Li Yunzhong thought that taking the second route was indeed dangerous. Currently, they lacked clothes and food, and even if they arrived in Hunan, their men and horses would be exhausted.

  Ming Hu led the first army to march in the direction of Guilin, Li Yunzhong led the main force to follow, but Hunanese Jiao Liang proposed to Li Yunzhong that he wanted to visit Hong Xiuquan's army, Li Yunzhong secretly thought: Jiao Liang was a traditional Confucian scholar, and it was rare for scholars like him to join rebels like Hong Xiuquan. It was already a great fortune for him to have met Feng Yunshan, and it was impossible for him to get along with them.

  After the Taiping Army broke out of Yong'an, Xiang Rong was uneasy in his sleep and food, looking at the map for a night, guessing where the Taiping Army's target was, and calling in the surrendered general Zhou Xieneng to ask questions. Zhou Xieneng was originally the commander-in-chief of Yang Xiuqing's central army, but he defected after being captured. Xiang Rong had planned to send him back into the Taiping Army to coordinate with the outside, but the Taiping Army broke out and ran away, so this plan fell through.

  Xiang Rong rubbed his eyebrows and asked, "When you were in the bandit army, did you hear them mention which place they wanted to attack?"

  Zhou Xi Neng bowed his head and replied: "I haven't heard of it, but..."

  "But what's the point? If you have something to say, just say it." Xiang Rong said

  Zhou Xie Nai replied, "However, I'll make a guess that the leaders of the bandits are from poor families and like to rob rich people's homes to gather wealth. They must be heading towards a prosperous place."

  Looking at the map, he found the most prosperous place nearby, and the rebel army was rushing north. The most prosperous place in the north is Guilin. His mind went blank, and when he stood up, he felt dizzy again. He leaned against the table and shouted hoarsely: "Come on, prepare the horse quickly." If Guilin is to be attacked by the rebels again, then he might as well kill himself early to avoid implicating his family. Thinking of this, he didn't have time to bring a large army, so he only brought dozens of personal soldiers and rushed to Guilin day and night. He was about to strike the drum and announce the imperial edict when Sai Shang'a's face turned red with anger and his beard stood on end. Immediately, he wrote a memorial to impeach Xiang Rong and had his trusted aide send it to the capital.

  The Taiping Army passed through Lipo County without entering the city, directly passing through it, which greatly exceeded Li Yunzhong's expectations. He hastily ordered his army to speed up and almost arrived at the border of Guilin at the same time as the Taiping Army. Perhaps Yang Xiuqing was afraid that Li Yunzhong would attack Guilin first, so he didn't let Xiao Chaogui, who was in charge of the vanguard, rest, and instead ordered him to immediately attack Guilin. Before attacking the city, Xiao Chaogui came up with a plan, ordering the Taiping Army to raise the Qing army flag and wear Qing army uniforms, pretending to be the remnants of Yong's defeated troops trying to sneak into the city from the south gate. He didn't know that Yong had already entered Guilin City half a day earlier. On the city wall, Yong, with a triumphant smile on his face, shouted loudly at the Taiping Army below: "You rebels, I have been waiting for you for a long time and have seen through your tricks!" With no other choice, the Taiping Army could only launch a fierce attack on the city. In the afternoon, the main force of the Taiping Army arrived at Guilin City, and a bloody battle ensued.

  Li Yunzhong led the military generals to watch the Taiping Army attack the city from a high ground in the north of the city.

  Luo Dagang pointed at the Taiping Army attacking the North City and said, "The defenders inside the city have long been prepared. The Taiping Army will not be able to take Guilin by attacking it like this, unless they use explosives to blow open the city gate or wall."

  Looking at the fireworks rising from time to time under the city, he said, "I'm afraid they won't use explosives to blow up the city gate, but just set off firecrackers."

  Suddenly a soft and gentle voice came: "It's wrong for them to attack the city like this."

  Li Yunzhong was surprised to find a child here, and when he looked in the direction of the sound, he was startled. The child had four eyes. Seeing that everyone was staring at him, he shyly hid behind Chen Chengyao's back, occasionally peeking out to glance at the crowd before quickly retreating again.

  Chen Chengyao hastily pushed the child away, stepped forward and knelt down to Li Yunzhong: "General, please forgive me, this child is my nephew, his parents are dead, I have been taking care of him all along, because he is not yet thirteen years old, so he has not joined the children's army."

  Li Yunzhong looked carefully and found that there was a mole under each of his eyes, which looked like four eyes from afar. He stroked the child's head and asked, "Child, what is your name?"

  "I'm not a kid, I'll be thirteen next month, my name is Chen Hicheng."

  Li Yunzhong said: "Bicheng, without adding a stroke on top, it's called 'one thing not done', this name is not good, let's change to an auspicious name." Li Yunzhong said

  Chen Chengyao hastily pressed down Chen Hicheng, knelt down and kowtowed to Li Yunzhong, saying: "Don't you thank the general for giving a name."

  Li Yunzhong hastily waved his hand, he didn't want to lose face in front of everyone, and said: "I'm not good enough, let Second Brother do it instead."

  Hu Yihuang also showed interest and did not decline, saying: "Everyone likes gold and silver, but these two words are too common, while jade is more valuable than gold and silver, and it sounds more elegant. I think we can replace the word 'pi' with 'jade'."

  Li Yunzhong heard that Jinyu was common, looked at the awkward Huang Jinwen and Bai Yinwu on one side, touched his nose and said: "Not bad, not bad, the word 'Yu' is good, you will be called Yucheng from now on, Chen Yucheng?...Chen Yucheng!" Li Yunzhong carefully looked at Chen Yucheng, his age was right, his family background was also right, and he confirmed that he was indeed the famous "Ying Wang" of later generations.

  Li Yunzhong asked: "You just said they shouldn't attack the city like that, so how should they attack it?"

  Chen Yucheng pointed at the Taiping Army attacking below the city and said, "They have rushed here all the way, already extremely exhausted, while inside the city we were well-prepared. If they send people to attack in shifts, letting the government troops inside be exhausted from running around, it would be easier to break into the city."

  Everyone who heard it nodded in agreement, not because the plan was particularly brilliant, but because a thirteen-year-old kid could think of such things.

  Li Yunzhong said: "From now on, you'll follow me."

  "General Xie" Chen Chengyao happily said, as long as someone comes out from the general's side, they will be reused, and all high-ranking generals in the army have stayed by the general's side.