Chapter 26: Li Yun Brings Disaster to Hunan

  The Taiping Army attacked the city for a day without making any progress. Feng Yunshan came to visit Li Yunzhong, hoping to borrow some explosives to blow up the city wall. Li Yunzhong sent the Blasting Battalion with Feng Yunshan, and they returned after two hours. It turned out that the ground below Guilin City was all rocky and couldn't be dug through.

  On September 8, Wu Lan Tai, the deputy commander of Guangzhou, who had been following and attacking the Taiping Army all the way, led his army to Jiangjun Bridge in the southern suburbs of Guilin. Seeing Wu's flag from afar, Xiang Rong, on the city wall of Guilin, felt delighted and thought that he was saved.

  Li Yunzhong ordered the Second Army to intercept, Zhang Sui used the front-loading cannon captured in Yong'an City, and one shot wounded Wulan Tai's leg, which was running at the forefront. The Guangdong army following behind was frightened and turned back, leaving only Wulan Tai moaning on the bridge, struggling to crawl backwards, leaving a shocking trail of blood. Zhang Sui saw that Wulan Tai was wearing an official uniform, called people to carry him down, and died due to severe injuries.

  This scene made the Qing soldiers on the city wall feel chilled to the bone, and also plunged the Qing army hiding in Guilin City into deep fear. The morale of the Taiping Army was greatly boosted, and they attacked the city even more fiercely. Under the cover of gunfire, the Taiping Army set up ladders, with wet cotton pads wrapped around their heads, bravely attacking the city, and even women and children shouted to cheer them on. On September 15th, fierce battles raged at the West Gate, South Gate, and Wenchang Gate. On the 18th, the Taiping Army set up cannons on Xiangbi Mountain to bombard the city, and a cannonball hit the prefectural government office, scaring the prefect into hiding in a nearby guild hall. Xiang Rong saw that many officers and soldiers were secretly retreating, so he quickly rallied their morale, shouting loudly: "Each soldier on the city wall will be rewarded with one tael of silver per day, and five taels for killing an enemy!" The Qing army defending the city was indeed envious, as they were mostly poor civilians who had been forced to fight. They used guns, cannons, fire jars, rolling logs, and pounding stones, as well as pouring boiling water, scalding porridge, and hot oil. For a time, the sound of gunfire shook the mountains and valleys inside and outside the city.

  The Taiping Army deployed its main force of 6,000 men along a line outside the West Gate, South Gate and Wenchang Gate to form a semi-encirclement of Guilin. During this period, several orders and invitations were issued to Li Yunzhong to join forces in attacking the city, but they were all rejected, with only a promise that no Qing reinforcements would be allowed to approach the city.

  On September 20, after the Qing army had suffered repeated setbacks, more than 30,000 reinforcements were called in from ten provinces including Hunan, Guizhou, Sichuan, Henan, Yunnan, Fujian, Guangdong, Anhui, Jiangsu and Guangxi. They attempted to annihilate the Taiping Army under the city of Guilin. Li Yunzhong led his entire army to arrive at the north bank of the Lijiang River first and advised the Taiping Army to retreat. Li Yunzhong took advantage of the Qing army's instability and launched an attack, breaking through the Qing army's vanguard first. The defeated soldiers rushed towards the main camp, causing chaos in the Qing army's main camp, even abandoning their supplies and fleeing in disarray. Li Yunzhong led his main force to continue northwards, heading straight for Quanzhou, the northernmost part of Guangxi. By evening, the entire army had arrived under the city walls of Quanzhou. Li Yunzhong ordered his men to set up camp at the foot of the city wall and did not attack the city. The city wall was high and thick, poor and without strategic value, so Li Yunzhong did not want to waste his efforts.

  The prefect and the county magistrate in the city can be frightened for one night, the poison is ready, there are only 600 guards in the city, even if the civilians are forcibly recruited, there will be no more than 2,000 people, there are tens of thousands of rebels under the city, it won't take a few days to break the city.

  Xiang Rong stood on the city wall, watching as the reinforcements poured into the city one after another. He was elated and full of pride. The Taiping Army had fled in disarray overnight, and such a great achievement made him wonder how the imperial court would reward him. The more he thought about it, the more excited he became. As a Tidu, he was already a first-rank official; perhaps he would be promoted to a noble title and an honorary position - maybe even that of the Crown Prince's Lesser Protector? Ha ha!

  Xie San'an heard that the Taiping Army was attacking Guilin, and immediately moved his camp from Yong'an to Liupu, and then to Yangshuo the next day. Xie San'an had 30,000 troops under his command, but stayed at the Shouyang Academy in Yangshuo, more than 130 miles away from the provincial capital, and did not dare to return to the city to direct the battle himself. He repeatedly reported that he was "ill" in order to shirk responsibility. It wasn't until September 26th that he arrived in Guilin from Yangshuo, by which time the Taiping Army had already withdrawn from Guilin for a week.

  Jiang Zhongyuan was extremely disappointed with Sengge Rinchen, fearing the enemy but going to war, shirking responsibility... Hearing that the Taiping Army had moved from Guilin to march north and enter Hunan, he feared they would return to wreak havoc on Xinning, so without asking for instructions from Sengge Rinchen, he led the Hubei troops in pursuit of the Taiping Army.

  "The imperial edict has arrived." Rong looked excitedly at the eunuch who had come to deliver the edict, and led the officials of Guilin to kneel down and receive it.

  "Wei Zhongxian read out the edict: 'Wei Ying has failed to live up to the sacred grace, fearing the enemy and retreating from battle, falsely reporting military achievements. He is hereby stripped of his official position and demoted to a commoner, but will be allowed to wear the uniform and make amends through meritorious service in the army.'"

  Jingli Jufei's Xiang Rong only felt disheartened and lazy, waiting for the eunuch to finish reading the imperial edict, he even forgot to receive the edict, walking unsteadily into the house to pack his things, preparing to return home to retire.

  Zhang Guoliang caught up, supported Xiang Rong and said: "Junmen, are you okay? What's wrong with this court? Those who have merits are not rewarded, and those who miss the opportunity to fight are not punished. How can we suppress bandits like this?"

  Xiang Rong shouted: "Shut up, the imperial court is not something you can slander. This must be a villain who has spoken ill of me in front of the emperor. You should stay in the army and serve well."

  "So what's going on here?" Zhang Guoliang asked Xiang Rong, who looked disheartened and disappointed.

  Xiang Rong patted Zhang Guoliang's shoulder and walked away, leaving him standing there in a daze.

  Li Yunzhong rushed to the Pu Yi ferry, only to see that the river was deep and bottomless. He transported the collected boats to transport the soldiers across the river. After the entire army crossed the river, the boats were taken over by the vanguard of the Taiping Army.

  Since the First Emperor of Qin ordered the construction of the Lingqu Canal, connecting the Xiangjiang River and the Li River, Hunan and Guangxi have influenced each other, especially during times of war and chaos, when the righteous army could not stand firm in the province, they would go to neighboring provinces to fight.

  As soon as the army entered Hunan, it entered the territory of Lingling Prefecture. The prefect of Lingling Prefecture saw that the city was surrounded by the army and all the troops had been transferred to Guangxi, leaving only 300 guards in the city. They hastily opened the city gate and fled in disarray towards Hengyang.

  This made Li Yunzhong overjoyed, since the uprising began, he had never seen a city commander abandon the city and escape. It seems that the troops from Hunan and several surrounding provinces have all been transferred to Guangxi. Li Yunzhong established the Great Han Government in Lingling Prefecture, appointed himself King of Han, and launched the political slogan "Drive out the Tartars and restore China". He also ordered the army to declare "those who till the land will own it, and be exempt from taxes for three years" whenever they arrived at a new location.

  The First Army marched to Dao County, the Second Army marched towards Guiyang, and Li Yunzhong led the Fourth Army and the remaining troops to temporarily guard Lingling Prefecture, considering the next plan and inquiring about the situation of the Taiping Army.

  Yu Wanqing, the Hunan Tidu stationed in Daozhou, saw the arrival of the Great Han army and hastily fled with his family. The First Army took Daozhou without shedding blood.

  Li Qishao, the governor of Guiyang Prefecture, was a cruel and corrupt official who oppressed the people. When he heard that the Han army was approaching, he became terrified and abandoned his post, fleeing with his ill-gotten gains to the countryside. Every time he arrived at a new place, he would hear rumors that the Han army was about to arrive, and he would see the people voluntarily going out to welcome them. In desperation, he remembered an ancient story about abandoning goods to stop pursuit, so he scattered his gold, silver, and treasures along the way. When he reached Yuzhen Town, the local people suddenly shouted: "The bandits are coming! The bandits are coming!", which frightened Li Qishao into thinking that the Han army had caught up with him. To avoid humiliation, he jumped into a river and drowned himself.

  Daozhou and Guiyang local coal miners joined the Great Han Army, Li Yunzhong saw that they were skilled in digging tunnels, so he incorporated them into the blasting camp and expanded it to a blasting division, with 4,000 people in the whole division, who could both fight and blast city walls during siege.

  Li Yunzhong learned from local officials that Changsha was short of troops and the city walls had not been repaired for a long time, so he decided to take a gamble and ordered his entire army to drop all their defenses and rush towards Changsha at full speed. Along the way, many Tiandihui members asked to join him, but Li Yunzhong could only let Su Sanniang's fourth division, which was familiar with the Tiandihui, recruit them along the way. He led the Boy Scouts and merged with the First Division, racing towards Changsha overnight.

  Hong Xiuquan never thought that he would meet his own junior fellow villager in such a situation, his heart was filled with anxiety and anger. He thought to himself: "You are just a failed scholar, a rebellious young man from Huaxian County, how dare you challenge me, a dignified Qing dynasty jinshi? I know I am the target of your jealousy and hatred, by doing this, aren't you forcing me to fight with you to the death? Even if I don't care about my own future, I have to fight for my reputation in front of my fellow villagers, otherwise who would still want to study and take the imperial examination?"