Li Zhenwei squinted his eyes in thought, and everyone was also deep in thought, thinking about solutions.
At this moment, Zeng Guofan was in a complicated mood.
On the one hand, Zeng Guofan desperately wanted to defeat Shi Dakai and win; on the other hand, Zeng Guofan sent his army to fight, but the battle did not go smoothly. He did not win before Li Zhen arrived, which proved that he failed in the battle. This was another embarrassing thing for Zeng Guofan.
"Your Majesty, I have an idea." Zhang Zhidong said.
Li Zhen waved his hands and said, "Say."
Zhang Zhidong said with a smile: "From what Commander Zeng said, Shi Dakai was obviously hiding and playing hide and seek with our army and didn't want us to find out. At this stage, I think we should adopt a steady and steady strategy, gradually advance, and go one by one. Move forward, make sure that by taking one place, you can stabilize the other place, and slowly force Shi Dakai into the corner. By then, Shi Dakai will lose the place to move, and we will definitely win."
Zeng Guofan was silent after hearing Zhang Zhidong's words.
It's not that he didn't think of this method, he just thought it was too slow and would have no effect in a short period of time, so he didn't adopt it.
Li Zhen said: "Zhang Zhidong's suggestion is feasible, but it is not adopted at present."
Zeng Guofan's eyes fell on Li Zhen, with a hint of hope in his eyes.
Zhang Zhidong asked: "What's your idea, Your Majesty?"
Li Zhen thought for a while, organized his words, and said: "The blanket search is too wide in scope, difficult to implement, and easy to be defeated individually; secondly, once Shi Dakai really hides, we will also We don’t know where Shi Dakai is, but if Shi Dakai is hidden in the searched place, it will easily leave hidden dangers.”
After a pause, Li Zhen continued: "I think the approach we take should not be like this."
"Brother Bohan just mentioned that Shi Dakai recently led troops to appear in a village a hundred miles away. This is our breakthrough point."
"The first thing is to place one of our informants in every village with a radius of hundreds of miles, centered around the place where Shidakai sent troops to rob, a hundred miles away. The arrangement of these informants, first of all, is the local celebrities, gentry and rich people. Because the targets of Shi Dakai's robbery were not ordinary people, but gentry and wealthy people, it was entirely possible for us to ask the gentry and wealthy people to act as spies for us and pay attention to whether there were Taiping troops in the area, and they also raised their hands to welcome us."
"Second, use money to win over the local rogues. These rogues walk around the streets. Although they eat and drink for free, they are well-informed and know the local people. With the help of the rogues, we have enough informants. One Village after village is laid out to form a dense network. Once Shi Dakai's people appear, they will be discovered immediately by us, and then we will narrow the scope and gradually control Shi Dakai within a certain range. Only then can Shi Dakai be completely eliminated."
Li Zhen said in a deep voice: "If we conduct a large-scale search, the effect may not be good."
After everyone listened, Zeng Guofan said: "I agree with the prince's idea. Although this method also takes a certain amount of time, it will have certain changes after all, which greatly saves time. As long as Shi Da shows up, we can use the informants we have set up." track."
Zhang Zhidong also said: "I also agree."
Liu Jintang, Zeng Guoquan and others expressed their opinions and unanimously agreed with Li Zhen's statement.
Li Zhen said: "In that case, make arrangements immediately."
"yes."
Zeng Guofan agreed and immediately arranged a plan against Shi Dakai.
…
Two hundred miles away from Zeng Guofan's military camp, in the mountains and forests.
There are nearly 6,000 Taiping soldiers hidden here, all of whom are Shi Dakai's troops. At this moment, Shi Dakai's eyes fell on Zhang Suimou, his confidant beside him, and asked with a smile: "Suimou, how long will the food we robbed be enough?" .”
Zhang Suimou thought about it carefully and said: "Report to the prince, including the food we just snatched back, the food stockpiled is enough for two months. In a short period of time, we can not go out and keep hiding."
Shi Dakai said solemnly: "No, two months is far from enough. According to the news from the north, Zuo Zongtang has destroyed Yi. The war between Yi and Li Zhen's army has ended, and Li Zhen has also defeated Li Zhen in the north. We defeated the foreigners and won the war. The victory of these two wars means that the strength and center of gravity of the battlefield will gradually tilt towards us, and the strength of the troops directed against Sichuan will gradually increase."
Shi Dakai said in a low tone: "If this happens, the pressure we will face will be even greater. Now, we must stockpile more food, ranging from three to five months, as long as six months, or even ** months of food. This must Complete it before Li Zhen's army increases its strength in Sichuan and solve the food problem."
Zhang Suimou said: "Your Majesty, we have just gone out and sent troops there again. Will there be any problems? I think we should wait for a while and wait until the last incident calms down before taking action, otherwise problems may easily arise."
Shi Dakai said in a deep voice: "Suimou, didn't I make it clear just now? If after a while, Li Zhen sends his army over, we will face not only the army under Zeng Guofan, but also the power brought by Li Zhen, two armies. After reuniting, we no longer have the strength to fight, and now we must make preparations."
"Your Majesty, I will finally understand." Zhang Suimou said.
Shi Dakai said: "However, don't rush to send a large army out. Send people to investigate first to find out where to start, and then directly lead the army out to seize the food in one fell swoop. This will not cause too much impact."
"yes."
Zhang Suimou agreed and sent soldiers out to investigate the situation.
…
Wanjiajia is located in Chengdu.
This place is only 150 miles away from Zeng Guofan's camp. More than 90% of the people in the township have the surname Wan, which is why Wan's hometown is called Wan Bucheng. Wan Bucheng is a scoundrel in the village. He is twenty-four years old and his parents He died young and was alone. He was quite domineering, freeloading everywhere, and also liked to tease women. However, this boy had one good quality. He was a righteous man and would stand up for anything in the countryside.
For this reason, many people in the countryside turned a blind eye to him, and generally would not pursue anything that was not too outrageous.
On this day, Wan Bucheng swaggered to a wine shop with a piece of grass root in his mouth, sat down on the bench with a sword in hand, and shouted loudly: "Master Wanba, get a pot." Bring the wine."
Wan Baye is the young owner of the wine shop. When he heard the shouting, he took a bottle of wine and put it down angrily, turned around and left. After Wan Bucheng shouted for wine, he did not ask for meat such as beef, and just drank like this. Drinking little by little to pass the time.
"Brother Wan, you are still here. Someone is looking for you. There is a business to do."
A young man in ragged clothes ran over and whispered.
When Wan Bucheng heard this, he immediately stood up and said with a smile: "Master Wanba, just put the wine here, don't move it, I have to leave first, drink later." Wan Bucheng took the young man away, and the wine Wan Baye, who was sitting there, spat on the ground with a look of disdain on his face.
ps: First update, I was called back to the company in the evening, sorry for the late update.