When the new army was divided, Zhou Shixiang specially formulated a marching route for the rear battalion. This route completely avoided the cities garrisoned by the Qing army, and marched as close to the mountainous areas as possible. In order to cover the transfer of the rear battalion, Zhou Shixiang personally led the front battalion to Zhaoqing to restrain the Zhaoqing Green Camp.

Zhaoqing Prefecture has eight counties and one prefecture. The troops and horses of Deqing Prefecture and general Xu Erxian, led by the city, and the Xinxing Green Camp, were guarded by the Taiping Army because they did not know the details of the Taiping Army. The Green Camps of Sihui and Gaoyao were completely wiped out by the Taiping Army. Guangning in the southeast, Yangjiang in the northwest, and Yangchun in the northwest, and the local green camps could not come. The remaining two counties Enping and Gao Ming were slaughtered by the Qing army a few years ago. Don’t say that they are stationed in the county, even a living person is hard to find.

The marching route of the Houying camp was to go west of Xinxing and then cross the road to the south to Xinhui. The distance of this section was more than 200 miles. The route was basically mountainous areas and uninhabited areas that were slaughtered by the Qing army. Therefore, as long as Duke Xiang of Song changed his marching route and took the initiative to find the Qing army to launch an attack, the theoretically the Houying camp would not be in any danger before reaching Xinhui. It was precisely because the marching route of the Houying camp was very safe that Zhou Shixiang boldly divided his troops in Xinxing and led the front camp to advance towards Zhaoqing Prefecture City, in order to attract and confuse Zhaoqing General Xu Erxian and cover the Houying camp to evacuate from Zhaoqing.

But Zhou Shixiang never expected that the most unlikely thing would happen - four days ago, after a slow marching for more than 20 consecutive days, the tens of thousands of elderly, weak women and children in the rear camp led by Duke Xiang of Song to finally arrive in Xinhui County. Before the entire camp could take a breath, a Qing army with a population of up to 1,000 suddenly appeared in the Guifeng Mountains and launched an attack on them.

The Qing army seemed to have known that such a team of tens of thousands would appear here. The leading generals set up ambush in the Guifeng Mountains in advance, and suddenly broke out when the rear camp was not stable. One side was ready for work, while the other side was panicked and rushed to fight. The result can be imagined.

Zhao Sihai led 300 soldiers under his command to fight to the death. Duke Xiang of Song led the newly formed security team to join the battle, but most of these soldiers and security team members had never experienced the battle and lacked weapons. Faced with the Qing army, which was twice their strength, they fought to the death with only one bloody courage. In the end, they were unable to resist the Qing army's pounce, and most of them were killed or injured, but they successfully covered the entire battalion and successfully retreated to the Yutai Temple area of ​​Guifeng Mountain.

Faced with a situation where he would be wiped out at any time, Duke Xiang of Song quickly calmed down after his initial panic. After realizing that the terrain around Yutai Temple was good and difficult to attack, he quickly transferred the Ku army to Zhao Sihai and recruited all the men in the battalion who could still walk and run. Together with Zhao Sihai's remaining soldiers, he formed a team of more than 2,000 people, and fought to fight against the Qing army with the terrain. In addition, he ordered the old battalions to recruit strong women in the battalion, asking them to use wooden sticks and stones to cooperate with men in the battle.

At this time, there was no way out. Everyone in the rear camp knew that once the Qing army clashed with defense lines, everyone would die. Therefore, even the large gentry members of the Luoding who were hostile to the Taiping Army and forced into the camp moved, and those who could go into battle could go into battle. Those who could go into battle could go into battle. Those who couldn't go into battle would move stones in the back to block the Qing army's attack and wait for the rescue of the front camp.

The Qing army did not expect that the group of old, weak, women and children who had already arrived at the dead end could still have the power to fight. After rushing several times, they were repelled by the rear battalion, which had a good location, and threw down more than a hundred corpses. Seeing this, the Qing army's generals couldn't help but regret that they could not cut off the Yutai Temple in advance. They blamed themselves for being careless and underestimated the enemy. They only said that a group of bandits could have how much combat effectiveness they could have, but they did not expect that these people were so afraid of death that they could not wipe out the enemy in one fell swoop, but instead suffered two or three hundred casualties.

After regretting, he accelerated his offensive pace. He saw that this team had no power to fight. As long as he broke through the defense line in front of him and killed all the men, the remaining old men and children would be the lambs that could be slaughtered.

After another day of fierce attack, the Qing army still stared at Yutai Temple. The steps ahead were covered with corpses. Although there were much more corpses than ours, the other party still controlled the only passage to enter and exit Yutai Temple.

If you can't rush, you will surround them and starve them to death!

The Qing army quickly changed its tactics and no longer attacked forcefully, but divided its troops to encircle it. The Qing generals could see clearly that these elderly, weak, women and children did not bring much food at all. How much food can a group of poor monks in Yutai Temple have? In a few days, the food in the temple will be cut off, and if they do not attack, they will be destroyed.

The Qing general was 100% sure of trapping the other party to death. He had sent people to investigate. This team of nearly 10,000 people came from Xinxing. The leader was a bandit named Zhao Sihai. The old, weak, women and children in the team were brought by Zhao Sihai, and there were no other reinforcements at all. Therefore, there was no need to worry that these people would have reinforcements coming to rescue them.

When the group of people were so hungry that they could not walk and could not raise their swords, they would take them in and clean them up. All the men were killed, all the women were sold, and all the beautiful women were presented to the provincial capital. The ugly ones were for the happiness of their soldiers. Then they were sold to the brothels, and even the ugly ones were killed directly to save trouble.

The only mistake is that some people ran away from the mountains, but it doesn’t matter. Just run away. How can there be no fish in this world that misses the net? With tens of thousands of people in the mountains, the credit is already in hand and the money is also right in front of you.

.........

Zhu Er and his party retreated to the rear of Yutai Temple in the back camp to contact each other. When they were surrounded by the Qing army, six cavalry members died in battle, but they did not die in vain. The remaining members rushed through the Qing army's defense line under Zhu Er's leadership. After finding the horses that had been hidden in advance, they rushed day and night, exhausted several horses to death, and finally transmitted the critical information of the back camp to Zhou Shixiang.

"General Secretary Song asked me to come back quickly to report the news. Please ask the Qianhu Lord to lead the front camp to rush to Guifeng Mountain immediately, otherwise the back camp will be wiped out!" When he saw Zhou Shixiang, Zhu Er was still shocked and his heart was beating wildly. Thinking of the old and young people in the back camp of Yutai Temple, he became even more anxious.

After hearing the news, Tieyi, Qin Zhisheng, Ge Zheng and others rushed to the back camp and asked the Qing army to surround him, and they were extremely anxious. Ge Zheng and the others were worried that the money they had finally robbed in the public treasury, but Tieyi was worried that the family of the miners in the back camp were kept.

"Qianhu, let's go out to rescue the Houzang!"

Everyone asked Zhou Shixiang to order rescue immediately.

Zhou Shixiang raised his hand to signal his subordinates to be quiet, and then asked Zhu Er in a deep voice: "How many people are there in the rear camp?"

Zhu Er hurriedly replied, "I'm afraid there are only half of the people left. General Song and Zhao Baihu organized all the men. This would be stalemate with the Qing army based on the terrain around Yutai Temple. When his subordinates left, the Qing army stopped attacking, and it seemed that they wanted to trap us to death."

After hearing this, Tie Yi and the others' eyes lit up. They were worried that they would not be able to rescue them, but now it seems that there is no need to worry.

Zhou Shixiang also breathed a sigh of relief and immediately asked Zhu Er: "Can we find out where this Qing army is?"

"This..." Zhu Er hesitated for a moment, "General Song said that some people in the Qing army spoke in their own provinces, and some people spoke in other provinces. They didn't know where the soldiers were. However, when Beishi broke through, he saw that some people in the Qing army had the Wu flag."

"Wu flag?" Zhou Shixiang turned his head and looked at Li Fuguo who had just entered the tent. "Do you know that there are generals named Wu in the green camp in Xinxing area?"

Li Fuguo was stunned and racked his brains to think about it. Fang said, "Go back to Qianhu, in the Green Camp, there are only a few generals who can fight in addition to generals and generals. Beizhi had probably seen these people when he was in the Green Camp before, but Beizhi had never heard of anyone with the surname Wu."

Li Fuguo didn't know that Zhou Shixiang frowned and wanted to ask someone to find Shao Jiugong who had worked in the green camp. There were thousands of Qing troops surrounding the rear camp, and the generals leading the troops were at least garrison officials. The details of such figures should be clearly investigated.

Just as he was about to instruct his personal guards to find Shao Jiugong, Li Fuguo hesitated and said, "Qianhu, Brother Zhu said that the Qing army had spoken in other provinces, weren't it flag soldiers?"

"Flag soldier?"

Zhou Shixiang pondered slightly and said that there were only two possibilities for the Qing army in Guangdong who spoke from other provinces. One was the Han army flag from Liaodong, and the other was the guest soldiers transferred from Jiangxi and Fujian. For example, Shao Jiugong was a subordinate of Kong Guozhi, a green camp in Jiangxi.

If it is a flag soldier, you have to be cautious. If it is a battalion soldier, it will be easy to deal with. Zhou Shixiang was not afraid of the Han army flag, but was worried that if the Han army flag surrounded the back camp, it would inevitably be the soldiers from Guangzhou. In this way, the Taiping Army would have been discovered by Guangzhou, which is very unfavorable to the Taiping Army's next actions. If Guangzhou's Ping and Jing's two vassals mobilized their subordinate soldiers to suppress the Taiping Army, Zhou Shixiang would face the biggest test since the uprising. If one was not careful, not only would he go south to Xiangshan and die, but he would also cause the Taiping Army to die.

"If it is a flag soldier, we cannot rescue it rashly, we must make comprehensive arrangements..."

Just as Zhou Shixiang was about to make targeted arrangements, he paused suddenly, and Ben's calm eyes were full of evil light.

The flag soldiers, surnamed Wu, are Xinxing.

The combination of three key points makes Zhou Shixiang think of a person, a person he dreams of stripping alive - another guard of the Qing army in the Battle of Xinhui, Wu Jinzhong, the right-wing general under the command of King Shang Kexi, the King of Pingnan!

"Thousand Houses?"

Everyone was shocked by Zhou Shixiang's sudden actions, and they were even more shocked when they saw the fierce lights of the Qianhu Lord's eyes.

After a while, Zhou Shixiang said slowly: "Most of the soldiers in the camp are in the back camp. We must not sit and watch the back camp be destroyed. Saving people is like putting out fires. If you send orders, the whole camp will set off to Guifeng Mountain immediately! Tell your brothers that our thousand households will capture the Qing general surnamed Wu alive!"

"Get orders!"

All the households were shocked, and they were confused about the sudden reactions of the Thousand households, but no one dared to ask, and they responded with a loud noise and retreated. After they retreated, Zhou Shixiang had already squeezed his fists into a tight ball and smashed them hard on the wooden pillar on one side.
Chapter completed!