Han’s Son is Not a Slave

April in the south of the Yangtze River is cloudy and rainy. After a few days, the temperature will be extremely low, making people feel that the spring cold has not yet gone. The drizzle in Tongxiang County continued for several days. The rain stopped that day, but the fog filled the air, and it didn't slowly dissipate until noon. Looking up at the sky, there is no sun. It was so drowsy all day, until night fell.

At the time of Hai, Tongxiang County was silent, and there were occasionally a few guards on the city wall walking around to keep warm. The white paper lanterns hanging on the city gates kept swaying in the cold wind, emitting a dim shimmer in the night. The people in the city had already fallen asleep, and most of the defenders had fallen asleep. The rainy days made the road muddy, and the city of Jiaxing was standing in the way to the north. However, the Qing army in Tongxiang did not know that just yesterday, the sixth town of the Taiping army had captured Jiaxing and captured Fubiao guerrilla Liu Chengyin alive. In order to shock the nearby Qing army and those gentry attached to the Qing Dynasty, the sixth town general Su Na ordered Liu Chengyin and dozens of Qing military commanders to be beheaded.

The soldiers were very fast, and after conquering Jiaxing in one fell swoop, Suna immediately ordered the Ding Brigade of the town to advance to Tongxiang, the C Brigade to attack Pinghu, and he himself led the A Brigade and B Brigade and the Zhenwei Headquarters to attack Hainingwei, in order to sweep the Jiaxing Qing Dynasty in one fell swoop. The army, and then without any worries, the whole town commanded Hangzhou and won Zhejiang in one fell swoop.

The Ding Brigade who attacked Tongxiang was a new brigade formed by the Qing Army and the Zhejiang Army in Suzhou. After Mao Shuai was killed, the generals in Dongjiang Town fought each other for power and profit. Wang Deyuan was unwilling to kill each other with his colleagues, so he fled Dongjiang and settled in Laizhou.

After the Jiashen National Change, Wang Deyuan moved his family south, and later joined the army of Dingxi Hou Zhang Mingzhen to fight against the Qing Dynasty, and was awarded a lieutenant general. In the third year of Yongli, Wang Deyuan died in Zhoushan, and his troops were taken over by Wang Xingzhi. Later, he participated in the Zhejiang Army's anti-Qing campaign, and was deeply appreciated by Zhang Mingzhen, Marquis of Dingxi, and Zhang Huangyan, the Shangshu. Wang Xingzhi was good at using spears, and in the ninth year of the Yongli calendar, when he was in Jinxia with the Duke of Ding Xi, he had Duncan, a Westerner, instruct the spear formation, and there were more than 100 people in the army.

After the Zhejiang army entered the river with the Yanping army and was defeated, Wang Xingzhi followed the Shang Shu Zhang Huangyan all the time, and the rest of the Zhejiang army was rescued by the Taiping army. After the Taiping Army conquered Nanjing, most of the Zhejiang Army was reorganized into the Yangtze River Naval Division, and the remaining few soldiers who were good at land warfare were incorporated into the Taiping Army towns. Wang Xingzhi was transferred to the sixth town in Suzhou as a brigade school. He was assigned the rank of lieutenant general in the Zhejiang Army, but the Taiping Army’s brigade school only had the rank of 1,000 households, which belonged to the higher vocational and lower ranks. However, the Zhejiang army has no complaints. On the one hand, the Taiping army is much stronger than the Zhejiang army. On the other hand, it is also because the Taiping army is the savior of the Zhejiang army. Of course, Zhang Huangyan's coordination also played a major role.

After the Taiping Army's Jiangbei War, Zhou Shixiang has been integrating the Qing army and the Zhejiang army and the Zheng army, striving for institutionalization. The most important point is to cancel the official ranks of the original army, and the Taiping army shall prevail. For example, in the past, even if he was a chief soldier, in the Taiping Army, he could only take the military position of the Taiping Army. For example, Wang Xingzhi, a lieutenant general, was changed to the Qianhu Brigade School. others.

In Wang Xingzhi's Ding Brigade, the Qing army and the Zhejiang army accounted for about two-thirds, and the remaining one-third was drawn from the other three brigades. Originally, Suna was not satisfied that the military commander's mansion gave him a brigade school from Zhejiang Army, but after seeing Wang Xingzhi and his spear, Suna said nothing.

There were only a few hundred Qing troops in Tongxiang, and the garrison was named Xie Junzhi. This man was originally from the Yanping clan. Before Zheng Jun entered the river in a big way last year, he brought two boats and several firearms to the governor of Zhejiang Tong Guoqi and surrendered. Zheng Jun's strategic intention to aggressively attack Nanjing. However, although his information was important, it was too late, so Tong Guoqi never reused him, and only gave him an empty title of Qiangong. If it weren't for the fact that the Qing army in Zhejiang was really unusable, Tong Guoqi would not have given him the opportunity to lead troops.

Although Tongxiang is a small town, it is also built solidly. In addition, because the guerrilla Liu Chengyin was stationed in Jiaxing to the north, and it was raining for days, Xie Junzhi didn't think there was any danger in Tongxiang, so he and his wife Liu had rested in the house early.

The main general is like this, and the people below are even more imitated. Tongjiang City Defense can be said to be very lighthearted. While the few soldiers walking around to keep warm on the city wall yawned, under the city gate, there were a few figures creeping closer to the city wall in the darkness. They moved extremely slowly, moving forward little by little. When approaching the city gate, several figures rolled in vigorously, then put down a few medicine bags, and immediately rolled around.

With a loud bang, the city gate was blown open. The Taiping army, who had been lurking outside the city for a long time, immediately jumped out of the hiding place and rushed into the city while the defenders hadn't reacted.

The Qing army, who had recovered from the explosion, shouted: "The Ming army has entered the city, the Ming army has entered the city!"

Some officers and soldiers wanted to block the city gate, but they couldn't resist the Taiping army pouring in like a tide, and they were quickly chopped to the ground. Shouts, scoldings, and sword strikes resounded in the small town of Xiaotongxiang.

Xie Junzhi and his wife Liu were resting in the room when the explosion woke him up. Decades of military career made him jump up from the bed instinctively, before he could light the lamp, he casually put on a robe, grabbed a large knife and jumped into the courtyard.

Outside the courtyard, there were faintly countless men and horses rushing towards them, and there were shouts everywhere. Xie Junzhi shouted to them while wearing the armor presented by the personal soldiers who came to hear the news: "You all come with me!"

These personal soldiers were brought out by Xie Junzhi from the Zheng army and were very loyal to him. Hearing the order, without hesitation, they all followed Xie Junzhi with knives.

Xie Junzhi did not go towards the shouting, but towards Nancheng, where there was less movement. Unexpectedly, he just rushed out of the yard with the soldiers, but he was caught by the back. Looking back, it was his wife Liu who took his eight-year-old daughter and chased after him at some point.

"Master, don't leave our mother-in-law behind!"

Liu clung to her husband's shirt tightly, while her daughter cried and hugged her mother. When the soldiers saw this, they wanted to help the mother and daughter to walk together, but Xie Junzhi stomped his feet and shouted: "Hurry up, let the Taiping Army kill you, I can't care about you!"

After he finished speaking, he swung the knife and cut off a large piece of clothes, broke free from Liu Shi, and rushed into the night without turning his head. Liu's grasp was tight, not to prevent her husband from cutting the robe, and she was unable to exert any strength immediately, so she leaned back and sat down on the ground, crying loudly. The daughter was also so frightened that she cried. The mother and daughter looked at the direction where Xie Junzhi disappeared, and they were in pain.

Happy Lantern Festival!