Chapter 381: Longhair Is Kindhearted

Chapter 374 Shaggy has a kind heart

"We are outnumbered, and the outcome has been decided. You are a Han, so why do you work for Xianfeng, the Manchu demon leader in the capital?

The fact that you can bring out such soldiers shows that you are not a mediocre person. A good bird chooses a tree to roost in, and a good minister chooses his master to serve. Why don't you abandon the darkness and turn to the light, go to the King of Heaven, and under the guidance of the Heavenly Father and the Heavenly Brothers, jointly create a heaven on earth, so that everyone in the world can enjoy peace under the protection of the Heavenly Father and the Heavenly Brothers. "

It is not that the Taiping Army has no precedent for incorporating the Qing army. In addition to the Eight Banners Soldiers and other Qing demons with too pure blood, the Taiping Army has accepted both Green Camp and Xiang Yong.

This rural warrior army is well-organized, well-equipped, and has strong soldiers. It is the best Qing army Wei Jun has ever seen.

Wei Jun hopes to persuade them to surrender and use them for his own use.

The best strategy is to subdue the enemy's troops without fighting.

Many of the soldiers Wei Jun and his brother Wei Changhui brought to recapture Yangzhou City were the elites of the Han and Zhuang tribes in Guangxi who followed them from Guangxi to Tianjing. It is the essence of the Right Army.

This country warrior looks like a tough nut. If he tries to gnaw this tough nut, Wei Jun thinks that although he can gnaw it down, he will inevitably lose some of his troops.

This is why Wei Jun hopes to persuade Liang Shaoqiong to surrender.

"What kind of bullshit, Heavenly Father and Brother, the god of foreign devils, can still control our territory in China and bless you bunch of magicians?" Liang Shaoqiong sneered at this and said sarcastically.

"That bastard king of yours destroyed saints' temples and burned saints' books all the way from Guangxi to Jiangning, causing complaints from all over the place. Could it be that he was just trying to vent his anger at not being able to pass the examination as a scholar in his thirties?

Although I am stupid, I was selected as a scholar at the age of 21. My third nephew is smarter and became a junior student in Xiangshan County at the age of 17. As a scholar, Hong Xiuquan had not achieved any fame in his thirties and turned to believe in the heresies of foreigners. How sad!

Hong Xiuquan, Yang Xiuqing, these pretenders, you actually listen to him. You are not only pathetic, but also pitiful and hopeless. "

Liang Shaoqiong is a serious scholar, that is, a disciple of Confucianism.

Naturally, you can't pee in the same pot as Hong Xiuquan's Taiping Heavenly Kingdom.

In this expedition, the banner of Guangdong Yong is to defend the way of the sages and cleanse the evil cults.

Liang Shaoqiong, who was born in a scholarly family and believed in the teachings of Confucius and Mencius since childhood, not only disdained to associate with Hong Xiuquan, who could not even pass the scholar examination, but was also full of contempt and hatred.

From the perspective of a scholar of the Qing Dynasty, Hong Xiuquan was just a complete loser.

The teachings of Confucius and Mencius are the science of Chinese governance, and the landlords and gentry are the foundation of Chinese governance.

Emperors from ancient and modern times had to win the support of scholars, landlords and gentry if they wanted to succeed.

Hong Xiuquan stood directly on the opposite side of the scholars and the landlords and gentry, using the foreigners' crooked theories as the foundation of the country, and deceived the public with his monstrous words.

Therefore, in Liang Shaoqiong's view, Hong Xiuquan was not a person who could achieve great things.

It is true that the Qing Dynasty was decadent, but Hong Xiuquan and his so-called Taiping Heavenly Kingdom could not replace the Qing Dynasty.

This is Liang Shaoqiong’s view.

Liang Shaoqiong's reputation as a scholar was not very good in his own circle, but in front of Hong Xiuquan, a scholar who had not even been admitted as a scholar, Liang Shaoqiong was still full of superiority.

As soon as Liang Shaoqiong said this, even the Guangdong heroes couldn't help laughing.

The recruitment standard of the Yue Yong is to give priority to those who can write and calculate, and scholars with meritorious status are given preferential treatment and trained as officers. Therefore, although the Yue Yong is a new army, its cultural level is the highest among the Qing armies. The existence of Qi Juechen.

There are also several deputy sentry officers among the Yue Yong who have the reputation of being scholars. They agree with Liang Shaoqiong's rhetoric and are full of pride in their actions to defend the law.

"How presumptuous! How can you slander the King of Heaven! The King of Heaven disdains the reputation of Qing Yao and wants to open a subject to get scholars by himself!" Wei Jun was furious when he heard this, and then left a harsh word.

"I'll give you half an hour to think about it. Within half an hour, if you want to survive, raise the white flag and surrender. If you don't surrender, I, the general of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom with one hundred thousand heavenly soldiers, will trample you into dust in a moment!"

After speaking, Wei Jun returned to the Taiping Army formation to report the situation to Wei Changhui and prepare to organize an attack.

After Wei Jun returned to the formation, Liang Shaoqiong breathed a sigh of relief and was glad that he had not lost his composure just now.

He picked up the monocular telescope given to him by Liang Yao. He had to say that this foreign instrument was quite useful.

At first, he used a telescope imitated by a Guangzhou optician. Although it worked, it could not see as far as the telescope given to him by Liang Yao, and it was not as clear as the telescope given to him by Liang Yao.

Through the telescope, Liang Shaoqiong could clearly see the Taiping Army everywhere.

This was the first time Liang Shaoqiong saw the rumored long-haired army.

If there are more than a thousand soldiers, there will be no borders; if there are more than ten thousand soldiers, there will be no borders.

What caught Liang Shaoqiong's eyes was an endless sea of ​​people.

The long-haired troops numbering over 10,000 people looked very powerful from a distance.

Most of these long-haired men wear short clothes and their heads are wrapped in red scarves. Their clothes are very complicated and they do not have such a uniform uniform as the Yue Yongs.

Many of the long-haired ones were still wearing Green Camp clothes, but with the hems cut off, and some had yellow cloth strips wrapped around their arms. Those with better conditions wore half-arm styles and vests and uniforms over the Green Camp uniforms to distinguish them. Friend or foe.

As for the flags of the long-haired troops, they are even more complicated and difficult to distinguish.

From a distance, they look like a ragtag group of people.

Liang Shaoqiong guessed that some of the green camp soldiers wearing green camp clothes were surrendered to the green camp soldiers, and some were wearing clothes ripped off dead people or rummaged from the treasuries of Nanjing and Zhenjiang.

"Changmao still hopes that we can surrender, and gave us a full half hour."

After seeing clearly the situation of the Taiping Army, Liang Shaoqiong put down his telescope and issued the order.

"In half an hour, it will definitely be too late to dig trenches, but it is still too late to build fortifications with sandbags. Send the order and fill the sandbags with sand on the spot to build fortifications to ward off the enemy!"

After receiving the order, the Yue Yong soldiers, under the command of the sentry officers and commanders, took sandbags from the baggage trucks, took off the ordnance shovels from their waists and filled the sandbags with the sand on the ground.

Liang Yao's imaginary enemy is the American Army. Liang Yao can be said to be very kind to Liang Shaoqiong and Pan Shicheng's Guangdong Yong.

Not only was the weapon sold to Yue Yong a full-blooded version of the Walter M1851 rifle for his own use, but he also taught him all his own tactics.

How the California Infantry Regiment drills is how the Guangdong Yong drills.

Even the instructor team was given directly to Liang Shaoqiong by Liang Yao.

Wang Shu, the battalion officer of the Shanzi Battalion, was previously the company commander of the California Infantry Regiment, and the sentry officers were also former non-commissioned officers of the California Infantry Regiment.

Therefore, these Yue Yong are not without any combat experience.

At least these battalion officers and sentry officers followed Liang Yao and defeated Colonel Mason's infantry regiment in Los Angeles. They went on an expedition to the Japanese shogunate to defeat the feudal and shogunate soldiers of the Hizen Saga Domain in Japan. After returning to California, the squadron also went to Oregon and the Indians. Killed the Burnett gang. He has quite a lot of combat experience.

There are also mercenary artillerymen in the artillery team. Many of them have serious military backgrounds, and many of them have also fought in battles.

"The Shags are not kind-hearted. They don't look like a professional army, more like a group of farmers with weapons. It takes time for them to organize an attack."

Wang Shu said after observing the situation at the Taiping Army.

Although the Taiping Army was relatively chaotic and disorderly, Wang Shu could still barely tell that the Taiping Army was gathering forces to prepare for an attack.

Wang Shu, who had experienced several battles, behaved more calmly than the commander-in-chief Liang Shaoqiong.

In Edo, Japan, he had seen even bigger battles than this.

Tens of thousands of shogunate soldiers from the Tokugawa shogunate rushed directly to the formations of the two regiments, but in the end, not all of them persisted in front of their formations.

Regarding the defensive style of play, the California Infantry Regiment has always fired artillery first. When the enemy infantry comes within the effective range of the rifle, its own infantry opens fire after receiving the order. Finally, it uses bayonets to fight hand-to-hand with the remaining enemies rushing in front of them.

Unfortunately, Wang Shu has not yet encountered a situation where the enemy's infantry remnants were able to rush to their formation.

Often after two or three rounds of free fire by the infantry, the enemy's morale collapses.

Hand-to-hand combat by the California infantry therefore occurred only when pursuing enemy troops encountered sporadic resistance.

The 100,000 troops Wei Jun mentioned was just an imaginary number. Counting the auxiliary soldiers and civilians, the opponent might have 10,000 men.

This is Wang Shu's judgment based on his combat experience in the Battle of Kanagawa, Japan.

Wang Shu had seen a larger formation in Kanagawa. He later learned that the shogunate army that besieged them had 21,000 people.

The vanguard of the Taiping Army in front of them was slightly smaller than the shogunate army in Kanagawa.

With only these 10,000 men, the Taiping generals seemed to have kept a reserve force and selected only some of them to attack.

It seems that my chances of winning are still very high.

He has been training Shanziying for so long, and today is the time to test the results of his training.

Liang Shaoqiong called Wang Shu forward, dismissed the soldiers around him, and asked Wang Shu in a low voice: "Is Wang Yingjun confident of defeating the enemy?"

Liang Shaoqiong's reputation as a successful candidate was his pride, and it was also his flaw.

If it were an ordinary farming and studying family, a candidate would be like smoke rising from the ancestral grave.

But the Liang family is not an ordinary family, and the reputation of being a member of the family is still a bit unsatisfactory.

Moreover, his father Liang Weiming was tainted by the scientific examination fraud case, so the Liang family had to find another way to turn around in the Qing Dynasty.

Today's battle is Liang Shaoqiong's first battle, and it is also a turnaround battle for himself and the Liang family in the Qing Dynasty.

Success or failure depends on this battle!

It's just that Liang Shaoqiong has never fought a serious war after all. He has only read some military books and the drill manual given to him by Liang Yao.

He has never experienced what war is like, and he has no idea.

"Whether we can defeat the enemy depends on you." Wang Shu said.

Wang Shu knew in his heart what Liang Shaoqiong, who had never experienced a battle, was worried about at this moment.

"Me?" Liang Shaoqiong asked.

"The first battle for my subordinates was in 1850 AD, when I was still General Liang's bodyguard. In that battle, we defended General Liang's house in Sacramento from an attack by bandits.

At that time, the gangsters were huge and the enemy was outnumbered. General Liang had never fought before, but he lived and died with us guards and miners, fighting together in the house. Seeing that General Liang had not left, we were willing to fight to the end with General Liang.

The subordinates and sentry officers are just the backbone of Shanziying. The bones move with the soul, but you are the soul of Shanziying.

The success or failure of this battle all depends on your thoughts. "Wang Shu replied.

"The bones follow the soul. That's a good saying." Liang Shaoqiong nodded very firmly, "Go and do your business. You can only win this battle! No defeat! If you lose, there will be no more Yue Yong in the world."

"I obey my orders."

Wang Shu received the order and went to inspect the construction of the fortifications of each post.

"My brother was a soldier. He said that the most important thing before the battle is to conserve physical strength and fight the enemy in the best condition. We don't rest well before the battle to conserve physical strength, but dig the soil here to waste physical strength. If the long-haired people rush up, can these earth walls built with sandbags stop them?"

A soldier complained.

As soon as the voice fell, a gunshot was heard behind him, and the complaining soldier's head exploded and lost consciousness.

The soldiers looked in the direction of the sound, and saw Wang Shu with a stern face holding a six-shot revolver with smoke still coming out of the muzzle in his hand, shouting loudly: "If there are anyone who disturbs the morale of the army again, they will be killed without mercy! Whether the long-haired people rush up or not, ask the guns in your hands first to agree!"

The equipment of the Guangdong Braves is fine, and Wang Shu is also in charge of the training.

What the Guangdong Yong lacked most now was actual combat experience and high morale and confidence.

These two things were what Wang Shu could not give them, and could only be obtained from actual combat.

Just like the California Infantry Regiment, the famous American combat effectiveness was not trained, but fought.

What Wang Shu could do now was to stabilize the military spirit of the Guangdong Yong.

If this battle was won, the Shanzi Battalion could also transform from an ordinary rural Yong battalion into a real elite battalion.

Seeing that the talkative companion was directly executed, the rest of the Guangdong Yong immediately kept silent, no longer said much, and buried their heads in shoveling soil into the sandbags.

It took less than an hour to build a rough defensive fortification, replacing the original carriages and baggage as the new shelter for the Guangdong Yong.

The artillery also filled the barrel with ammunition and adjusted the direction and elevation of the shooting through the gun carriage. Just wait for an order to pull the fire and fire.

After the agreed half an hour, the war drums were raised in the direction of the Taiping Army on time, which was the prelude to the Taiping Army's attack.

Through the telescope, Liang Shaoqiong could be sure that this was a vanguard unit moving lightly.

There were only infantry and a very small number of cavalry, no artillery, and even the armor rate was pitifully low.

This gave Liang Shaoqiong more confidence in scoring points.

"The artillerymen, listen to Captain Jorgensen's orders! Fire as soon as the enemy enters the range. Without my order, you are not allowed to stop firing even if the gun barrel is red!

Captain Wang Xiao of the cavalry, listen to the order! Cover the artillery. Anyone who dares to retreat will be treated as a deserter! No need to ask for instructions, just shoot on the spot!"

Liang Shaoqiong, with his hands behind his back, gave orders to the captains of the cavalry and artillery with full energy.

"I obey your orders!"

After receiving the order, the cavalry and artillery each performed their duties.

Liang Shaoqiong asked his personal soldiers for a long gun and an ammunition belt filled with ammunition.

Like an ordinary soldier, he tied the ammunition belt, gritted his teeth, made up his mind, and entered the bunker with a long gun with a bayonet.

"This is the first battle of my Guangdong Yong, and it is also a life-and-death battle. If we win this battle, my Guangdong Yong will be famous all over the world, and we will enjoy endless wealth and glory. If we lose, the Guangdong Yong camp will cease to exist.

Today, Liang will live and die with all of you good brothers, and fight to the end with these long-haired rebels! Wang Yingguan, how to fight this battle is up to you. I am just a small soldier in the Shanzi camp now."

After saying that, Liang Shaoqiong skillfully opened the safety on the gun, took out a copper-rimmed needle bullet from the ammunition belt and quickly stuffed it into the gun chamber.

He is very interested in weapons. He is not only good at using pistols, long guns, and even cannons.

Liang Shaoqiong has figured it out. He has never fought a war. Instead of watching from behind and talking about war on paper, it is better to fight directly in the front to boost morale.

Leave the command of specific operations to the more professional Wang Shu.

As for damaging the authority of the commander-in-chief, he should survive this battle first and then talk about the authority of the commander-in-chief. Blind command from the back that makes the whole army fall into chaos is damaging the authority.

Wang Shu, Wang Shu, I have put my life in your hands. I will trust you today. The long-haired people can't rush to our front. If we win this battle, I will kowtow to you! Liang Shaoqiong murmured in his heart.

"I obey your command!"

Wang Shu shouted in a tearful voice, his voice was a little choked, and his eyes became moist. Of course, the courage on his shoulders became heavier.

He didn't expect Liang Shaoqiong to trust him so much and give him such great power.