1February, 853, the Taiping Army killed all the way from Wuchang to Nanjing, and the Eight Banners green camp fled all the way, unable to defend itself. After Luo Outlines, Li and Li conquered Anqing, they continued to move eastward, aiming at Nanjing, the second largest city in the Qing Dynasty, occupying the main fiscal and taxation areas in the southeast. Lu Jianying, then the governor of Liangjiang, heard of the invasion of Taiping rebels, and quickly withdrew 2,000 green camp people from Wuhu area in the east and West Liangshan, while he ran back to Nanjing and left the city with more than 300,000 pieces of silver, leaving the mess to General Yang and Jiang Ning, the governor of Jiangsu.
However, Lu Jianying was afraid that after the fall of the city, Xianfeng settled accounts with him, so he returned to Nanjing and pretended to deploy defense. Unfortunately, Yang is more ruthless than him. He ran to Zhenjiang on the grounds of feudalism, and completely abandoned Lu Hexiang. The political corruption in Qing dynasty can be seen in the division at the critical moment. Of course, officials can't, and soldiers guarding the city are not much better. At this time, the regular troops guarding Nanjing City were 65438+ green camp 0200 and the Eight Banners 4000, with a total of 5200 people; More than 5000 warriors/kloc-0 were recruited, and the total number of soldiers in the city was more than 20000.
On March 7th, expert Li rate 1200 vanguard troops arrived at Yuhuatai in the south of the city, while the company commander Cheng of the Qing army had already led 3,000 soldiers and horses to retreat into the city and "handed over" the fortifications to the Taiping Army intact. The Qing army was timid and weak in defense. Li didn't know the actual situation and didn't directly attack the city. Instead, he was stationed in Yuhuatai, waiting for the arrival of the main force of the strategist, and then attacked the city together. On the 8th, Li sent 300 soldiers to make a tentative attack. The Qing army guarding the city did not dare to go out to fight, fired indiscriminately and wasted ammunition.
Regular troops can't. The rice shop outside the city organized 1000 "porters", but they were brave and good at fighting. They fought the Taiping rebels with shoulder poles.
At this time, the "porters" asked the Qing army in the city to shoot for assistance, or to throw down their spears for their own use. But Lu Jianying was afraid of fraud and ordered the shelling. The Taiping Army is experienced and will crawl forward when it hears the sound of guns. The "porter" newborn calf stood stupidly and was killed by more than 500 people. As a result, these "porters" were very angry and threw the pole directly, and all of them broke free.
There are no "porters" fighting, there are no Qing troops outside the city, and they are all controlled by the Taiping Army. 9, the rate of the main army arrived in Yuhuatai, and Li, * * * to discuss the battle plan. Li and Huang were ordered to attack Jubaomen from Yuhuatai, and Zhu led an army to Yifengmen as the main attack. The offensive tactics are "cave siege", that is, digging tunnels, burying explosives under the city roots, and then entering the city to fight for Kunming in World War I. The tunnel excavation was carried out in Jinghai Temple outside the city by the Taiping Army "Earth Camp", that is, engineers, and Lin Fengxiang led the troops to ensure the smooth excavation of the tunnel.
In addition to digging tunnels, the Taiping Army also launched a strong political propaganda. Lin Fengxiang asked the soldiers to shoot the written "notice" into the city with bows and arrows, and called on the Nanjing soldiers and civilians to rise up against Clear The Demon and avenge themselves. In addition, Lin Fengxiang made it clear that the army would not disturb the people. On the day when the city is broken, as long as the words "King", "Heaven", "Lord" and "Shang" are written at the door, the army will not enter the house and everyone can continue to live a small life.
After the political propaganda, Lin Fengxiang also explicitly announced that it would launch a general attack on 19, but the Qing army did not believe it and thought that the Taiping Army was just bluffing. 18, the Taiping Army really blasted at Yifeng Gate, blasting a gap more than 10 feet wide, and then Lin Fengxiang sent 300 soldiers and horses into the inner city to kill the Qing army. Why only let 300 soldiers and horses enter the city? It turned out that Lin Fengxiang was afraid that there was an ambush inside, and the other gates in Nanjing were still in the hands of the Qing army, so it was too risky to walk ahead alone.
After three hundred soldiers and horses entered the city, they immediately pursued in three ways. As a result, except for a few who fled to the city and the mountains, the rest were either killed or ran out, and the Qing army sealed Yifeng Gate again.
The failure of 300 soldiers and horses to enter the city brought "good news", that is, the defense in the city was very weak, the fighting capacity of the Qing army was not strong, and the problem of seizing the city was not great. To this end, it was agreed with Li to launch a general attack from Yifeng Gate and Jubaomen at the same time in the afternoon to fight against the Qing army. Sure enough, in the afternoon, the general attacked again, and all the Qing troops fled, and the outer city of Nanjing fell, making great contributions to Li Li.
After the Taiping army captured Nanjing, it continued to pursue the Qing army. Four senior officials were killed, including Lu Jianying, governor of Liangjiang, Zou, former governor of Guangdong and Guangxi, Zhu A, the magistrate of Jiangnan, and Qi Suzao, the ambassador of Jiangsu. The rest of the civil and military officials either committed suicide or fled to southern Jiangsu and Shanghai. Where is Hou Xiang? This guy is not authentic. In times of crisis, he asked 4000 Eight Banners and 4000 soldiers to retreat to the city (the inner city is full of people, no Han people) and refused Lu Jianying to take refuge in the city. I have to say, Lu Jianying is unlucky. At the critical moment, he was abandoned by Manchu flag bearers and hacked to death by Taiping soldiers on the spot.
With the whole city in hand, Hou Xianghe, general of Jiangning, and Huo Longwu, commander-in-chief, decided to continue fighting, and also mobilized all the women and children in the city to help defend, fight the Taiping Army to the end and never surrender. The children of the Eight Banners are all like this, not because they are so tough and can fight, but because the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom once ordered that all Manchu people should be killed, leaving none. Who told them to steal China cultural relics? As a result, the Taiping army will inevitably face a bloody battle, otherwise the whole city will not be able to take it.
/kloc-On the afternoon of 0/9, Yang personally commanded the front line, and Li, Ji and Zhu all went through the customs and attacked the city from the west and south. The Taiping Army launched a fierce attack, and Hou Xiang asked heavily armed soldiers to shoot with cannons and guns. The women and children of the flag bearer also went to town to hit the Taiping Army with bricks. In this way, the Taiping Army attacked six times in a row, paying the price of more than 3,000 people, but it was unable to get close to the city, and the loss was considerable. You know, the Taiping Army's conquest of the outer city was only a thousand casualties. In a small city, 3000 soldiers and horses were killed.
Therefore, Yang decided to change his strategy, not to storm, but to launch psychological warfare. He issued an order: those who surrender the flag will not kill and live as usual.
In this way, some Manchu people suggested that Hou Xiang surrender and save everyone's lives, but they were rejected. Don't want to surrender, Yang He is very angry. He stormed again, adjusted 8,000 kilograms of heavy artillery in the city, and blew it up. The army immediately rushed into the city and seized the last stronghold of the Qing army. After the city fell, Hou Xiang had no choice but to draw his sword and commit suicide. Huo Longwu was shot in the melee and died on the spot. Where are the other members of the Eight Banners? Yang ordered the soldiers and civilians to give five taels of silver to whoever killed the flag bearer. In this way, the flags continued to resist, except for a few who changed their decrees because of Yang, all of them were killed and the top four thousand teams were reimbursed.
From March 7th to 20th, the Taiping Army fought a 14-day battle in Nanjing. Six senior Qing officials, including Lu Jianying, Zou, Zhu A, Huo Longwu and Qi Suzao, were killed and more than 4,000 Eight Banners were destroyed. The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom completely occupied Nanjing. Nanjing, known as the ancient capital of the Six Dynasties and the land of dragons and tigers, was captured by the Taiping Army in only 14 days, which is enough to show that the Qing Dynasty was dying and vulnerable at this time. If Zeng Guofan, a bureaucrat in the Han Dynasty, had not come out, the Qing Dynasty would have perished long ago.