1The battle of Jintan held in March, 864 was a rare successful city war in the last years of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. The enemies repelled by the defenders in Jintan are not ordinary Qing troops, but mercenaries who are trained and commanded by western officers and equipped with a full set of foreign guns.
Chang and Gordon thought Jintan was a small county town, which could be destroyed by charging a few guns at a time. Unexpectedly, Wang Liu, the assistant of the Heaven and Earth Society, was defeated by Gordon, who was both wise and brave. Gordon himself was injured and had to quit Jintan.
The battle of Jintan is also called "the battle of bricks and stones". The defenders rely on a large number of bricks and stones in the city to fight the enemy armed to the teeth, which shows the tragic battle and the tenacity of the defenders.
Wang Xiang came to help in Jintan crisis.
At the beginning of March, 1864, February of the 14th year of Jiazi of Taiping Heavenly Kingdom.
The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom faced a very bad situation. The Liu Mingchuan Department of Huai Army stormed Changzhou, and Changzhou Shoujiang Chen Kunshu led the army to fight to the death. Seeing that Tianjing constantly sent reinforcements during the capture of Changzhou, the cunning Li Hongzhang changed his strategy and decided to cut off Changzhou from Tianjing and the eastern Zhejiang controlled by the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom and completely isolate Changzhou, with the goal of capturing the surrounding counties such as Yixing, Liyang, Jintan and Danyang.
In order to capture these counties, Li Hongzhang sent his old men, and the mercenaries led by British Gordon often participated in the war.
After Chang was killed and surrendered in Suzhou, he stayed in Kunshan and refused to fight again because of various contradictions with Li Hongzhang. Now, after some bargaining and exchange of interests, I finally agree to rejoin the war.
Under the offensive of Chinese and foreign allied forces, Yixing and Liyang changed hands one after another, and commander Wu of Liyang shaved his hair and surrendered directly. Guo Songlin and Gordon's next goal is Jintan County.
Jintan county was originally a Dai city, and there were Dai people in the city. Now Huang Chengzhong is fighting in Huzhou, Zhejiang Province, and cannot be rescued in time. Commander Jintan saw that the Chinese and foreign allied forces were about to kill, and the troops in the city could not hold on. He was so worried that he had to turn to the Taiping rebels around him for help.
Under the land distribution system deliberately arranged by Hong Xiuquan, the Taiping generals were all on their own turf, and the friendly forces were in trouble. They won't move like mountains unless they are strictly ordered by the commander-in-chief of the whole army at Li Xiucheng level. At that time, the situation in Changzhou and Hangzhou was too tight to rescue. As a small county in Jintan, who cares?
Sheng Wenming is lucky. Someone really wants to save Jintan. Not small. It turned out to be Liu from Changxing, Zhejiang.
In the history of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, Wang Xiang was a little-known figure. In fact, in terms of strength, he can rank among the second-line generals of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom.
Wang Xiangceng drove Zeng Guofan to almost commit suicide.
Liu is an old brother who once participated in the Guangxi camp of Jintian Group. He belongs to the heaven and earth society and is called "Citi". He is famous for his participation in two major events, one is Chizhou anyway, and the other is the siege of Qimen.
In his early years, Liu Fangguan belonged to Wei Jun, the younger brother of Wei Changhui, the northern king. After the Tianjing Incident, Wei Jun, who went out to war, was terrified when he saw his brother killed. Finally, on 1859 and 10, he surrendered to Yang Zaifu, commander of Chizhou Xiang Navy.
At that time, Wei Jun had more than 20,000 people, and Liu led them to retake Chizhou and return to the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. Hong Xiuquan was very happy to learn that Liu Fangguan had succeeded Wei Jun.
In the battle of Anqing, Zeng Guofan set up a Hangyuan camp in Qimen, Anhui Province, and commanded various Xiang armies to fight.
/kloc-at the end of 0/860, Liu, who had been active in southern Anhui, suddenly led his army out of Yixian near Qimen, winning Lien Chan. The army attacked Qimen from the north!
It never rains but it pours. Wang Li Shixian and Huang, another famous Taiping Army, killed Qimen from both east and west. This skill completely surprised Zeng Guofan, and no soldier around him could adjust in a hurry! Zeng Guofan, like a bird in a cage, was in a very embarrassing situation, lamenting that "everything is difficult to support" and "anything can happen when the enemy is in danger", and even wrote a will, holding a sword and preparing to commit suicide. This is the third time Zeng Guofan attempted suicide since Jinggang and Hukou.
At that time, the intelligence and operational coordination of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom were very poor. The three generals didn't know that the head of the big devil was under their noses, and they didn't attack Qimen with all their strength. After losing the first battle, they retreated one after another and let Zeng Guofan go in vain.
Although Liu has repeatedly made meritorious military service, he has always been in a relatively marginal position in the Taiping Army because of his background in heaven and earth. At the same time, the congregation of Heaven and Earth Society had poor military discipline and was rejected by Li Xiucheng. Liu was assigned to the battlefield in southern Anhui and could not go to rich places such as southern Jiangsu.
During Li Xiucheng's occupation of Zhejiang, Liu led his troops into Changxing, Zhejiang, and took Changxing as his own from then on. With the help of Jintan, Liu worked hard day and night to lead the army to the rescue.
Why did you suddenly disappear? Defenders in the city?
On March 10, the Huai army department set out from Liyang, and on March 1 1, a battle took place with Liu reinforcements. Liu was defeated and retreated into the city of Jintan, and the Huai army chased him to the south gate of Jintan.
In the next few days, Liu tried to lead the army out of the city, but was stopped by the Huai army and returned to the city. After several battles, Liu realized that the Huai army could not be defeated on the battlefield, so he had to hold on to the city.
On March 18, Gordon led the Chang artillery regiment and 1500 soldiers to the gate of Jintan. In the next two days, the allies stormed Jintan and could not break the city.
Just then, the angel sent by Li Hongzhang came to Jintan at the gates and reported a bad news.
Li Xiucheng's second son, Li Rongfa, unexpectedly led an army to kill Jiangyin, Wuxi and Changshu counties behind Changzhou, and captured Jiangyin Fortress Yang She and Fushan Town, which are important passes along the Yangtze River. Because it came too fast, officials in three counties exclaimed, "Long hair fell from the sky!" Kunshan, Chang's rear base, is also in a critical situation. Li Hongzhang has suspended his attack on Changzhou and asked the troops besieged in Jintan to come to the rescue.
Jintan can be seen in one fell swoop. Gordon certainly doesn't want to give up, but the situation in southern Jiangsu is really critical, especially related to Kunshan, the logistics base. Gordon decided to storm and capture Jintan in one breath, and then immediately led the army to Huiyuan.
The attack date is set at March 2 1. The day before, Chang began to call on the defenders in the city to surrender, but he didn't get any reply. Meanwhile, he also observed a strange phenomenon. There are no spears on the wall, and no one can be seen. Even the flag that the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom likes to erect at the head of the city is gone, and the whole Jintan looks lifeless.
It looks strange. Is Jintan already an empty city? The defenders in the city have no will to resist?
Gordon did not dare to neglect, carefully arranged siege troops and siege batteries, and prepared to win the small town in one fell swoop the next morning.
At 9 o'clock in the morning, the northeast corner wall of Jintan often began to be shelled. Because the artillery is powerful, the usual siege routine is to first open a gap in the city wall with a large artillery, and then the infantry will kill the city from the gap.
The shelling lasted nearly three hours. During the shelling, there was no figure or living thing on the wall. Gunfire rumbling, Jintan city wall was finally blasted a gap. Gordon immediately ordered gunboats to sail through the moat and transport the first soldiers ashore at the gap.
These soldiers soon reached the clearing between the city wall and the moat. Because there are few people, they are in no hurry to go to town. First, they helped their associates across the river to put the bamboo bridge on the moat in advance, so that more people could cross the river to meet them. After all this, nothing happened in the city. Chang began to cheer, and more and more soldiers boarded the bamboo bridge, ready to enter the city on a large scale.
The battle of bricks and stones hurt Gordon and defeated Chang Shengjun.
Just at the critical moment when we are often crowded outside a pile of city walls, the city suddenly screams loudly, and the unseen defenders appear! A group of specially selected death squads shouted loudly and rushed to the gap, shooting and throwing gunpowder bags at the dense enemies outside the gap. Taiping rebels who had been hiding in buildings on both sides also threw bricks at the gap, and the rainstorm was like a note.
Often caught off guard, it suddenly became a mess. Taiping troops rushed to the gap and fought with spears and broadswords. The two sides fought hand-to-hand combat and were often no match for Taiping rebels at all.
Liu's strategy of guarding the city is quite clever. In the era of hot weapons, the city wall is useless. It's better to ambush in the city and fight hand to hand. The enemy's foreign guns have no effect, and you can use your own strengths to defeat the enemy's shortcomings.
Seeing the danger outside the city, Gordon ordered Chang, who was in the gap, to retreat temporarily, push the artillery team forward, and bombard the Taiping Army with grape bombs and shotguns. The Taiping army braved the gunfire and still firmly held the gap.
Gordon is going to launch a second attack. The problem is that the number of people who can cross the bamboo bridge erected in front of the gap is indeed limited, and the attacking troops cannot be launched. Gordon found that a stone bridge on the moat was not destroyed, and personally led a group of people to cross the river along the stone bridge to support their accomplices who attacked the gap head-on.
He can think of, the defenders have long thought of, Liu would have arranged people staring at the stone bridge, often rushed to the bridge, and immediately ushered in rows of bullets.
An officer next to Gordon was seriously injured, fell to the ground on the spot and was shot in the leg. People around him quickly carried him away from the stone bridge. In order not to shake the morale of the army, Gordon still insisted on standing and giving orders until he lost too much blood.
During Gordon's blackout, Chang Sheng Jun launched a third onslaught on gap. Aide Gordon raised Gordon's military flag and, under the cover of gunfire, led the people to the gap covered with blood. The Taiping army was fearless and struggled to resist. Assistant Gordon was injured and had to be carried out of the line of fire. After waking up, Gordon knew it was useless to attack again and ordered to stop the attack.
That evening, the Taiping Army in the city was organized to attack Liu's city. They divided into groups, fell on the ground, approached Chang camp and threw gunpowder bags at the tent. Although it didn't cause much damage, it plunged Chang Barracks into chaos, and the soldiers fled everywhere, unable to rest.
Seeing that he could not attack the city and his morale was low, Gordon had to withdraw from Jintan early the next morning to help Sunan in the east.
In this battle, more than 100 people were killed and injured, and a major and two captains were killed in three foreign officers. 1 1 Several foreign officers were injured, including Gordon himself and his adjutant. Gordon's foot was injured, and he could not ride or walk, resulting in low command ability. He was defeated by His Highness Li Rongfa and Zhong Er again during his aid to the south of Jiangsu.
In the battle of Jintan, the defenders mainly relied on throwing bricks and stones as weapons, which was called "the battle of bricks and stones" in history. The success of the defense war is lucky. Gordon is eager to withdraw his troops and help the east. After losing the first world war, he didn't fight again. Of course, we can't deny the bravery and tenacity of Liu's planning and garrison.
After Gordon withdrew, Jintan was temporarily protected. Until the end of April, under the oppression of Xiang's flank department, Sheng led his troops back to Jiangxi and Jintan fell. Liu had previously returned to Changxing, which was later captured by the Qing army. Liu said that he died in the disorderly army, and that he fled the city, followed the young king into Jiangxi, and then followed Kang Wang to continue the anti-Qing movement. Liu's actual fate is unknown.