"The hair is coming! Run!"

"The long hair is coming soon, get out! Bring everything you can with you and get out immediately! Otherwise, you will be a fanatical relationship with the bandits, and you will be killed without any worries!"

With the roaring wildly, the Qing cavalry under Shengbao rushed into the village market even more crazily, forcing the residents to leave with horse whips and leather shoes, and threw torches into the courtyard of the room without hesitation. The fires spread everywhere, and the grain, rice and materials that the people in the village town could not take away gradually turned into ashes.

The horse's hooves are sturdy, the fire is raging, the smoke is rolling, and the people who are escaping with their elderly and children carrying large bags and small bags are like ants, calling their fathers and mothers, and adults calling their children to cry, which is so miserable that it is unbearable to see. Similar miserable scenes are everywhere in the northwest of Shandong, and the Taiping Army's Northern Expedition is about to pass, and the one who directs this tragic scene is Luo Bingzhang, the governor of Shandong who has always been known for his integrity and love for the people.

Luo Bingzhang hesitated for a long time before making this difficult decision. The reason was that the Taiping Army gave up the tactic of attacking Jinan and heading north directly. Luo Bingzhang knew very well that General Shengbao's cavalry was vulnerable in front of Shi Dakai's main force, and also knew that although the Shandong New Army he controlled had the power to fight in front of Shi Dakai, it was difficult to create miracles like last time. He defeated Shi Dakai, who had already been equipped with a large number of foreign guns and cannons. If he was not careful, he might be exhausted by Shi Dakai, who had a large number of troops, so Luo Bingzhang could only do this.

Although the old fox Luo Bingzhang's methods were cruel, they hit Shi Dakai's seven inches. After executing the tactic of abandoning the grain route and heading north, Shi Dakai could only rely on plundering the villages and towns along the way to replenish food and grass. The Qing cavalry recycled the villages and towns along the way first with the advantage of maneuvering. The supply of food and grass by Shi Dakai's army became a big problem. He had to compete with the Qing cavalry to rob the grain first, and he had to stop and attack the prefectures and counties along the way to grab food and self-sufficiency. Not only did he consume countless precious ammunition, the speed of going north was greatly slowed down.

It must be explained that although Luo Bingzhang's move caused countless public grievances, he did not force too many Shandong people to fight back. Because in the third year of Xianfeng in the ninth generation, Li Kaifang's troops of the Taiping Army had already harmed the Shandong people in this area and completely robbed every village and town occupied by the Taiping Army. The Shandong people had already suffered a lot. Although the Qing army burned houses and grain, they still let these people take away everything they could take away, leaving some way for the people to survive. In order to obtain supplies, the Taiping Army basically robbed whatever they saw, and even did not let the people go with their own money and food, so these people certainly hated the Taiping Army even more.

In addition, there is another point that Shi Dakai could not easily rob grain and supply like Li Kaifang and Ji Wenyuan. Because after the Yellow River was diverted, the eastern and northern parts of Shandong were originally severely affected areas. Even affected by floods, droughts and locust plagues, there were constant famines. Although people's livelihood has been barely recovered in recent years, it is still far less prosperous than the third year of Xianfeng. Therefore, even if Shi Dakai conquered Qingping, Gaotang and Pingyuan at all costs, he still failed to rob much food. The problem of food shortage has always troubled him, both quality and discipline are far less than that of the Taiping Army.

The scorched earth tactics dragged the Taiping Army to the north. Under Luo Bingzhang's command, the Shandong New Army also walked around Shi Dakai under the leadership of Zhang Guoliang and Yuan Baoheng, and rushed to the front of Shi Dakai, and rushed to the strategic important position of Dezhou fortification. Shi Dakai ignored it and bypassed the Qing army's positions and continued northward. Who would have thought that Zhang Guoliang and Yuan Baoheng had already predicted this and deliberately let go of the two armies of Shi Dakai who were equipped with advanced weapons, and then suddenly launched an attack on Li Shixian, the weakest in the Taiping Army, killing and killing a large number of Li Shixian soldiers, and then retreated to the defensive position before Shi Dakai returned to the aid, causing Shi Dakai to scold Li Shixian for being incompetent. Li Shixian, who suffered heavy losses, secretly blamed Shi Dakai for returning to the aid too slowly, and the general became more and more centrifugal.

Shi Dakai, who was anxious to go north, did not attack the strong Qing army positions to retaliate. He just adjusted the advance ranks and let Zeng Lichang Army, who was second only to his main force, take on the task of the rear of the palace, and then led the army to continue north. Finally, after passing Sangyuan Town, the Taiping Army soldiers finally set foot on the land of Zhili again after seven years.

Unfortunately, before the Taiping Army soldiers cheered or Li Kaifang smiled when he was revisiting the old place, the Taiping Army soldiers were stunned to see that the villages and towns ahead were empty, with no one, not a single grain or a mule or horse.

This is of course also Luo Bingzhang's masterpiece. While using scorched earth tactics to delay the advance of the Taiping Army, Luo Bingzhang sent a fast horse to request the Qing court to implement the tactic of firm walls and clear the fields in Zhili, and migrate all the people along the way along the Taiping Army's advance along the way, either moving into the city or moving to a foreign land, without giving the Taiping Army any chance to rob grain and replenish supplies, and also forcing the Taiping Army to attack the cities along the way, and continue to use the city defenses of the prefectures and counties in Zhili to consume the Taiping Army's troops and ammunition, so as to achieve the purpose of gradually weakening the Taiping Army.

Luo Bingzhang forced Shi Dakai to a desperate situation. With helplessness, the Taiping Army could only launch an attack on the Dongguang County town that had been captured by the Taiping Army seven years ago under the situation of Shandong Xinjun, Shengbao Army and Zhili Qing Army's gaze Dandan. As a result, it was at this time that Li Kaifang, who easily captured Dongguang City, was shocked to find that the situation was completely different. The cities in Zhili were far from as easy to fight.

When Li Kaifang led his army across southern Hebei, he did not even need to explode every attack on a city. He often forced the Qing army in the city to escape from the city with his mighty momentum. Even if he launched a tough attack, he could basically take down the enemy city by climbing with bare hands or burning the city gates. In addition, the city walls of the Zhili city at that time also collapsed, the moat was silted, and the defenders were basically defeated. Killing a city was actually not much different from marching and advancing.

Now, the collapsed Dongguang City Wall has long been completely renewed, and the moat is deep and wide. At the same time, the defenders in the city are not only training far more than ten times that of the past, but also have tenacious fighting spirit and completely different combat power. When the Taiping Army has already climbed the city wall, it can still fight to the death and repel the Taiping Army's attacks many times. The Taiping Army has once again exposed its weaknesses that are far inferior to the past. Grassroots soldiers are generally greedy for life and fear death, and the old officers are no longer as brave as before. Therefore, even when the troops and weapons and equipment are far superior to the Dongguang Guard, the Taiping Army has never been able to quickly take down the Dongguang City.

Finally, Shi Dakai fought for more than eight days to barely break the city. During this period, the Taiping Army fought fiercely with the Qing army outside many times, and fought from top to bottom with great difficulty and fatigue. What's worse, when the county was captured, Ruixiang, the magistrate of Manren County, ignited the granary in the city and committed suicide by throwing fire. Therefore, even if the Taiping Army captured Dongguang City, it could not grab much food. It had to rob the civilian grain stored in the city, and completely forced the Zhili people who had already hated the Taiping Army to the side of the Qing army.

"It's not good. If Cangzhou, Nanpi and Jinghai in the north are like Dongguang, then our food will not only fail to capture Tianjin, but also the army will be exhausted."

When summarizing after the war, Shi Dakai, Li Kaifang, Zeng Lichang and others felt that the war in Dongguang was an extremely dangerous signal. The Qing army in Zhili, who had been prepared, would definitely not let the Taiping Army attack Tianjin easily like last time. They were all worried about it. Fortunately, Shi Dakai, who could use his brain to fight, quickly came up with a solution and said to the generals: "If I was right, our plan to attack Tianjin along the canal north will definitely be seen through by the Qing Yao."

"If we continue to fight according to the original plan, we will be afraid that every time we go to a place, we will fall into a hard battle like attacking Dongguang. Our final solution should be to give up the canal road, first fight to the hinterland of Zhili, plunder enough food, grass and military supplies, and then turn around to attack Tianjin to support our navy landing."

"But in this way, it will take countless more time for us to fight to Tianjin." Zeng Lichang asked: "If our navy went to Dagukou before us and could not get our support, wouldn't they be trapped in a lonely battle? Long live the East King, if we hold him accountable, how can we explain?"

"Send people to disguise themselves as people to contact them, and ask them to hold on to the sea for a few days first, and it will not be too late to wait until we turn around and kill to Dagukou before picking them up." Shi Dakai said: "We have only this choice, otherwise, once we cut off food and grass, the situation will only be more dangerous. If the King of Dong is held accountable in the future, I will bear it alone."

Seeing Shi Dakai taking the initiative to take the blame, the Taiping generals who had been afraid of the Qing army naturally no longer objected, and all raised their hands to express their support. Unfortunately, what Shi Dakai and Zeng Lichang and others didn't know was that Shi Dakai's tactical choice was actually expected by the old fox Luo Bingzhang, and he was most eager for Shi Dakai to do this. Wu Laolang said that the cervical spondylosis worsened and the spine pain was severe. He took a rest yesterday, so today's word count was only half. Please forgive me.
Chapter completed!