The Taiping Army launched a large-scale northern expedition, and the bandit Xiucai personally led tens of thousands of troops to attack Shaozhou. Tang Sanshui, the governor of Guangdong who was guarding Shaozhou, led his troops to stand for three days. He was forced to abandon Shaozhou because he was outnumbered and led his remaining troops to retreat to Ganzhou. On the way, he was chased by Taiping's cavalry. Fortunately, Hu Yousheng, the general of the Southern Ganzhou of Qing Dynasty, rescued him. His troops were finally protected. However, all the weapons, armor, money, grain and supplies, and severely injured soldiers were discarded.

The explorer urgently reported that after the Taiping Army occupied Shaozhou, he used a partial army to seize Nanxiong. The main force immediately crossed Meiling and divided the troops into two groups, one from Longnan, Xinfeng, and the other from Nan'an and Nankang, and headed straight to Ganzhou. The news came out that Jiangxi Province was shocked, and the situation was like when the Jin and Wang rebelled.

"The flags and weapons of the thieves were shining for a while, and the food, bows, knives, guns, gunpowder, etc. they carried were countless. They were strong and intended to seize Ganzhou first, then Nanchang, and then go to Jiujiang again, and head east to join forces with the siege to seek Nanjing!"

After seeking verification from Guangdong Admiral Tang Sanshui, Su Hongzu, the governor of Jiangxi in southern Qing Dynasty, went 800 miles to the Qing court to intensify. At the same time, he asked Xia Yie, the governor of Jiangxi in Nanchang, to immediately mobilize the main force of Jiangxi Green Camp to reinforce Ganzhou.

After discussing with Jiangxi Admiral Liu Guangbi, Xia Yie believed that Ganzhou was the gateway to Jiangxi, and his lips were lost and his teeth were cold. If Ganzhou was lost, there would be no important city south of Nanchang except Ji'an to stop the Taiping Army. At that time, the Taiping Army would inevitably march directly to Nanchang, and it would be difficult to resist with the existing troops in Jiangxi. Only by gathering the strength of the whole province to reinforce Ganzhou can the Taiping Army be blocked in Meiling.

In order to strengthen Xia Yie's confidence in defending the enemy, Liu Guangbi emphasized that Liu Wuyuan, Gao Jinku and others defended Ganzhou, first defeated Jin Shengheng, Wang Deren, and later defeated Li Chengdong, which made Xia Yie's confidence soar. He happily agreed to gather troops from the province to rescue Ganzhou. On July 13, Jiangxi Admiral Liu Guangbi led the main force of Jiangxi Green Camp 6ooo from Nanchang and reinforced Ganzhou through Ji'an. At this time, the vanguard of the Taiping Army had arrived in Xinfeng, and the bandit scholars wrote many letters to the Qing Dynasty's Ganzhou guards and others to surrender. The surrender letters were mostly threatened with massacre and extermination of the clan.

In the city of Ganzhou, Tang Sanshui, the governor of Guangdong of Qing Dynasty, Su Hongzu, the governor of Nangan, Hu Yousheng, and others took a slow-down plan and sent envoys to reply to express their willingness to paralyze the thief scholars. In fact, they took advantage of the Taiping Army to search for food in nearby villages and strengthen city defense fortifications before the Taiping Army arrived.

Like Liuzhou City in Guangxi, Ganzhou City faces water three sides, with a dangerous terrain and a strong city wall, which is an important city that is easy to defend and difficult to attack. In addition, a Ganzhou City ordered hundreds of thousands of Ming troops to sigh at the city. Hu Yousheng, the current general of Nangan, also participated in two Ganzhou defense battles throughout the process. He has rich experience in defending the city, and there are a large number of weapons, money and grain in the city, even medicines are all calculated at 100,000 kilograms. In addition, reinforcements from the governor of Jiangxi came. The Qing army in the ancient city was highly motivated and full of confidence in defending the city.

After inspecting the city with General Hu Yousheng, Guangdong Admiral Tang Sanshui, accompanied by General Hu Yousheng, told the officers and soldiers that there was a great city in Ganzhou. The thief scholar must be the second Li Chengdong. The time for his defeat and death is not far away!

On July 17, the Taiping Army on the right passed Longnan and Xinfeng pushed all the way to the city of Ganzhou. It is reported that the Taiping Army was personally led by the bandit Xiucai. After the Taiping Army arrived at the city of Ganzhou, the bandit Xiucai ordered more than tens of battalions, artillery fired across the sky, and attacked all night. At the same time, under the command of General Ge Yi, the Taiping Army on the left quickly swept Nan'an, Nankang, Chongyi, and troops entered Jiuniuyi, disintegrating the resistance force of the Qing army in the Zhouzuo in Ganzhou.

When the Qing Dynasty governor Tang Sanshui and the governor of Nangan Su Hongzu saw that the Taiping Army was in great power and the Zhou Zuo Prefectures and counties were lost, they agreed to fight. They took advantage of the Taiping Army's camps and the Haogou were not established, and the footholds were not stable, and they sent General Hu Yousheng to select elite soldiers to suddenly open the city to fight, caught the Taiping Army off guard, destroyed their forts, and bought time for the reinforcements in Nanchang. This plan was exactly the way for the Nangan Governor Liu Wuyuan, General Kong Guozhi and others to defend Ganzhou and defeat Li Chengdong.

In the early morning of the next day, Hu Yousheng, the general of Jiangxi, in southern Qing, led 4,000 troops out of the city from Xiaodongmen, Southgate and Westgate respectively, and wanted to attack the camp and severely damage the Taiping Army. Unexpectedly, the Taiping Army had been prepared for a long time, and the cannons and guns were fired, and the cavalry teams rushed out. He shouted from all directions and shouted to kill the sky. The Qing army was caught off guard, panic retreated, and they trampled on each other. The soldiers and equipment suffered heavy losses and could not attack the camp again. The general of Jiangxi, who was so sad that the governor could not do anything, was forced to order the troops to withdraw back to the city.

Unexpectedly, when Hu Yousheng led more than a thousand defeated soldiers to retreat to the city, he was the current one who shouted to open the door, and the city gate was still motionless. Not only that, the Ganzhou soldiers on the city were missing, but instead they were Guangdong soldiers brought from Shaozhou by Guangdong Admiral Tang Sanshui. The Guangdong soldiers were facing high ground and laughed at the Ganzhou soldiers under the city, and then they all set off guns, guns, bows and arrows. Hu Yousheng was shocked, and knew that it was not good, Tang Sanshui must have had an affair with the thief scholar. In desperation, he wanted to escape, but was attacked by Guangdong soldiers on the city and Taiping soldiers outside the city.

First, he went out of the camp to attack but failed. Now his old nest was caught. The Qing army was in chaos and fled one after another. Most of them were chased into the river by the Taiping horses and drowned. After the war, the battlefield was cleared, and Taiping soldiers caught a large horse on the river beach, with all golden saddles and bridles, and sent them to the camp for inspection. The Qing army prisoners were interrogated and confessed that they were the war horses that General Hu Yousheng rode, and the commander reported the merits.

Zhou Shixiang heard that Hu Yousheng had captured Hu Yousheng's mount, so he ordered people to go downstream to search for Hu Yousheng's body. It turned out that he had found a corpse. He found out that Hu Yousheng did not die by being shot in an arrow, but fell off a horse and drowned. This death was like Dongxun Li Chengdong who retreated, but did not know whether it was due to heaven's will or was purely coincidental.

Liu Guangbi, the Jiangxi Admiral who had just led his army to Ji'an, looked at the Guangdong Admiral Tang Sanshui who escaped from Ganzhou in a panic, and his whole body became unhealthy.

"The thieves brought 100 red-clothed cannons to attack Gancheng forty, and there were still 60 of them in Meiling. At the city, the artillery fire continued day and night. General Hu Yousheng, general, went out of the city to attack the camp, but unfortunately was surrounded by bandits and sacrificed their lives for the country. The bandits attacked the city in large numbers and broke through the east gates of the big and small. Governor Su Hongzu hanged himself in the Fuyao to sacrifice his country. The governor Tang Sanshui, the governor of Guangdong Province, led the remaining troops to fight with the bandits for one day. By night, hundreds of remaining troops escaped... Now that the bandits have taken Ganzhou, they will inevitably attack Ji'an and Nanchang. People in the province are frightened, fighting and defending without anything, and they are not worth merciless in their duties, and the four provinces of the court have abandoned them all.

When the governor of Jiangxi of Qing Dynasty, Xia Yie, heard that Ganzhou was inexplicably indignant, he called the Qing court for emergency. At the same time, he ordered the admiral Liu Guangbi to lead his army to garrison Ji'an on the spot, and asked the admiral Tang Sanshui, the governor of Guangdong, to lead the remaining troops, and to assign another 800 battalions to jointly defend Jishui.

After the Taiping Army seized Ganzhou City, it was promoted to Ji'an without waiting for a rest, and did not give Jiangxi Qing army any chance to breathe. At the same time, Zhou Shixiang widely issued a letter to Jiangxi localities in the name of the Duke of Guangdong and the Grand Governor of the Ming Dynasty, and ordered all the places to surrender early, otherwise once the army arrived, all the civil and military personnel would be slaughtered. (To be continued.)8
Chapter completed!