In Xinhui, the Taiping Army has repelled the Qing army's third siege.

Learning from the lessons of the failure of the previous siege, in the past few months, Shang Zhixin ordered the army to build a large number of shield cars, ladders, and tower cars for siege. He even ordered the civilians to build another earth wall along the Xinhui city wall, intending to use the geographical advantage to shoot the Taiping Army in the city from a high place. Unfortunately, this move was seen in the city as soon as it was implemented. Although the Taiping Army could not leave the city to destroy it, it used artillery large and small on the city wall to bombard it, causing heavy casualties and injuries to the civilians. It was midsummer and the epidemic was everywhere, so it was left alone.

It is difficult to avoid epidemics in the army, and the north is not afraid of bitter and cold. However, Guangdong is in Lingnan, with a hot and humid climate, so there are no large amounts of corpses, and epidemics are common. Last year, Li Dingguo's army was forced to withdraw troops due to epidemics. Once the epidemic occurs in the army, a large number of soldiers will suffer casualties without war, and it will lead to a disaster that cannot be saved. There are strong cities in front of them, and there are soldiers from Manzhou, Beijing, and there are epidemics in the camp. Under many factors, Li Dingguo can only sigh at the city.

With the lessons of Li Dingguo's past, he was a man of two lifetimes. After occupying Xinhui City, Zhou Shixiang naturally paid more attention to preventing epidemics in the army. Since Luo Ding launched a military force, the Taiping Army has attracted a large number of local people every time they occupy, and scholars, farmers, industry and commerce are all listed here. As for the doctor, he designated all of them to be conquered into the army. Since the war southward, the people with the army have suffered heavy casualties, but only the doctor was not harmed, and they were all assigned to serve as military doctors in the medical camp.

Since Xinhui City was "food city" by the Qing army, there were very few residents in the city, and the medicinal materials were even short of them. Most of the epidemic prevention prescriptions presented by the doctors of the medical camp were given up because they did not have medicinal materials. However, this is not a problem for Zhou Shixiang, who was a man of two lives. Besides, those prescriptions are mostly used to treat epidemics, not to prevent epidemics. If there is really an epidemic in the army, how many can be cured by just curing, and how to control the epidemic and not prescribe large-scale epidemics.

The five major battalions of the Taiping Army and the security regiment were only two or three thousand. If the epidemic really occurred, the combat effectiveness would be gone in an instant. Therefore, Zhou Shi’s solution to the epidemic was to have the word “prevention”.

The first priority is to bury the bodies of soldiers who died in battle and the bodies of Qing soldiers. The second is to burn the city on a large scale in the city. Of course, this burning city does not burn all the Xinhui City, but to burn houses in dense areas. Use high temperature to kill the bacteria hidden in it. After burning, it is spread with lime, and then excavate the places where the urination and drowning are specially excavated in the camp. Other measures include drinking boiled water and setting up a special isolation location. Once someone is found to have signs of plague, it is necessary to isolate it regardless of whether it is true. People infected with the epidemic are absolutely not allowed to contact others. Under various measures, there has been no epidemic in the city for several months.

Duke Xiang of Song naturally praised Zhou Shixiang's arrangements for epidemic prevention, but Zhou Shixiang was very proud. The methods he adopted were just simple measures in later generations, but the times and different experiences made people today admire them.

The Taiping Army took epidemic prevention as the top priority in the city, but the Qing army outside the city did not take epidemics seriously. However, some people mentioned the issue of epidemics to Shang Zhixin, but His Highness, the prince born in the north, did not pay much attention to it. He only sent someone back to Guangzhou to ask his father to write a document to the Governor's Office. He ordered the Governor's Office to recruit some doctors from various prefectures and counties. Other measures for epidemic isolation were limited to the knowledge and could not do anything.

In Shang Zhixin's view, the Taiping Army who was trapped in the lonely city should be more afraid. In the lonely city, the water source sanitation conditions were limited. At that time, he ordered people not to bury the bodies of soldiers who died in battle, and his purpose was to breed epidemics in the city. He took the Xinhui without any effort. However, things went against his wishes, and he waited for several months. The Taiping Army in the city not only showed no signs of epidemics, but also had no shortage of food and water. On the contrary, his army suffered from the lack of attention to epidemics and the death of a large number of civilians.

Shang Zhixin and the Qing generals naturally did not pay attention to those civilians who were suffering from the epidemic, so they let them die. When they died, they would drag them away and even dig holes and bury them. They piled them with tinder oil and burned them, so that the smell of burnt corpses that were hard to remove all day long.

The large number of deaths of civilians and the artillery advantage of the Taiping Army made Shang Zhixin’s plan to siege the city unimplemented, and the epidemic in the army must have affected morale. However, before the Navy camp was destroyed, Shang Zhixin did not take the epidemic problem to heart. Compared with the total number of soldiers and horses in the besieged city, the infection of hundreds or thousands of people was not worthy of the Prince of Pingnan to mobilize a large number of troops to solve this problem.

What really makes Shang Zhixin unable to control is that the navy was destroyed and the food and grass were cut off.

Shang Zhixin decided to attack with force. Qin Guocheng suggested sending people back to Guangzhou to ask the prince for instructions. This was Lao Cheng's strong suggestion. After all, the Qing army had attacked Xinhui several times, but in addition to losing troops and generals, he had never even taken down the city. This time, he attacked again, and the soldiers who were thrown in were still lost. The Prince of Pingnan went south to 5,000 troops. In the previous attack, the most elite troops of the family were defeated by the vassals, and hundreds of troops, and the other flag soldiers were also defeated by hundreds. Although this loss could not be considered a major damage to the Pingnan Palace, it was also a damaging force. If you really want to break it a little, you may not be able to cause power to the Green Camp in the South. Besides, the Green Camp lost four or five thousand troops due to the previous attack with force. Now they are asked to attack with force, they are unwilling to do so.

According to Qin Guocheng's idea, he naturally asked the King of Pingnan before making a decision. At that time, he should first rescue and retreat to Guangzhou or attack for force. The King of Pingnan should not dare to violate the prince's orders, but if the prince made the decision, someone would probably have an idea in his mind.

Some generals under the vassal states have been quite close to the Second Highness recently. The Second Highness has been favored by the prince in recent years, which has caused some people in the royal family to have strange thoughts. After all, outsiders do not know that the prince has decided to send the second Highness to Beijing. This time, the prince ordered the prince to lead troops to attack Xinhui to cultivate the prince's prestige, but the failure to attack the prince would have a certain blow to the prince's reputation, and the blow to the prince's highness would be even greater.

Qin Guocheng had heard some rumors that the prince was furious after returning to Guangzhou and was quite dissatisfied with His Royal Highness's performance. Qin Guocheng would not say whether this rumors were true or not, but he did not know whether the purpose of the spread of the rumors was whether he had any connection with the Second Prince. He did not dare to say that he did not have it, either.

Every family has a difficult sutra to recite. There can only be one prince in Lingnan, and there can only be one prince in the world. When the eldest brother becomes the one, the second brother will not be the one. When the eldest brother becomes the prince, the second brother can only live silently for the rest of his life. Power is a pill of aphrodisiac. When the older brother is eager, isn’t this young man looking forward to it?

Qin Guocheng dared not get involved in the dispute between the prince. At present, he was determined to assist Shang Zhixin. It was nothing more, just because the eldest son was the successor appointed by the prince and the prince Pingnan who was enthroned by the court.

The prince wanted to attack, but Qin Guocheng could not stop him. After sending people to report to Guangzhou, he sent troops to command the attack.

On the 17th, Shang Zhixin used Guangzhou Green Camp as the main force to attack the city and concentrated 3,000 people to attack Dongcheng, but failed.

On the 18th, the 800 Han military flags cooperated with the Green Camp to attack again. The battle was fierce until the evening, and more than a thousand corpses were piled up, but they were fruitless.

On the 19th, Ban Zhifu rushed to the camp.

When Shang Kexi learned that the navy's food and grass were burned, he couldn't help but weighed the pros and cons, and ordered Ban Zhifu to lead him to pass the orders in the army, and ordered all the generals to cooperate with His Royal Highness to win the Xinhui!

On the 20th, Shang Zhixin mobilized 600 soldiers from the Shang family, 1,200 flag soldiers from the Han army, and 4,000 people from the Green Camp to attack Xinhui again. The war lasted for three hours, and the east city gate of Xinhui was almost broken, and the defenders on the city suffered heavy casualties. In the moment of crisis, the guard Zhou Shi led a blind date to lead 200 suicide squads out of the city to fight to the death, killing Wang Guangming, deputy general of the Guangzhou Green Camp, defeating the enemy in one fell swoop, forcing Shang Zhixin to withdraw his troops.
Chapter completed!