The Qing Dynasty is about to end

Chapter 177 Hong Xiuquan fights Senggelinqin!
Xiangjiang River, Hong Xiuquan’s boat.

"Father, may Heavenly Father bless me. The Qing demon's cannon has misfired!"

Hong Xiuquan stood up shouting, standing on the front deck of the ship which was riddled with holes from shells. He looked back at Hengshan County, then strode forward, walked to the high place on the bow, turned around and looked at the ministers who were still kneeling below.

At this moment, the river breeze blew violently on the dragon robe and cloak of the Son of God. The bow of the ship rose and fell in the river, but the Son of God stood in the wind and waves, motionless, appearing extremely solemn and sacred.

Suddenly, Hong Xiuquan spoke again, reciting a "Heavenly Father Poem" in his Hakka accent and a somewhat divine tone: "I am the second son of the Heavenly Father. God has come to protect me. I am invulnerable to swords and guns, and I cannot be hurt by artillery fire. Why should I fear the demons of the Qing Dynasty!"

Yang Xiuqing, who was kneeling below, raised his arms and shouted: "God bless you, long live the Heavenly King, the Heavenly King is invulnerable to swords and guns, and the Heavenly King cannot be hurt by guns and cannons!"

Once "God Yang" took the lead, the others also cheered: "God bless us, long live the King of Heaven!"

Hong Xiuquan raised his hand abruptly, pointed at Hengshan City with a furious look on his face, and uttered another poem to God with gnashing teeth: "The Qing demons of Hengshan are so bold that they dare to attack God's son. If God does not forgive me, I will be angry too, and I swear to destroy Hengshan City!"

Hong Xiuquan was issuing an edict.

"Your humble servant respectfully receives the Heavenly King's order!" Yang Xiuqing bowed to Hong Xiuquan, then turned back and said to a guard, "Quick, take a small boat to the King of Yi's boat, and order him to go to the west bank and lead the troops to attack Hengshan City!"

"You don't need to take action this time!" Hong Xiuquan looked grimly at the top of Hengshan City, "I will personally lead the army to attack Hengshan City!"

"My Lord, this is not possible."

As soon as Yang Xiuqing's words of dissuading Hong Xiuquan came out, the excited Heavenly King snorted and said, "I have the blessing of Heavenly Father. The shells have to avoid me. How can a small county like Hengshan stop my might? Pass on my order to dock on the west bank of the Xiang River. I will disembark and fight the Qing monsters!"

If Hong Xiuquan dared to interrupt "Yang God" so capriciously before Luo Yaoguo "came to the earth", God would have to come down to the earth to spank Hong Tianwang. But now "Yang God" has the "True Ji Du Combination" of Xiao Chaogui and Luo Yaoguo, and his authority has declined, so he must appease Hong Xiuquan.

Moreover, Luo Yaoguo's descent from heaven and the subsequent "real Ji Du's descent to the earth" also made Yang Xiuqing somewhat believe that Hong Xiuquan was the "true son of God". In addition, Hong Xiuquan's "miracle of dodging bullets" just now made Yang Xiuquan even more afraid to act rashly. He had to obey the order obediently, and then ordered: "Quick, go and convey the Heavenly King's decree. All ships must dock at the west bank of the Xiang River. All soldiers, regardless of their official rank, must go ashore to kill the monster!"

North of Hengshan City.

The person in charge of besieging Hengshan City today is Prime Minister Hu Yihuang, and his central army is stationed outside the north gate of Hengshan City.

Hu Yihuang had done the same thing several times before, and it went smoothly without any accidents. So he was inevitably a little careless and did not send spies to sneak into Hengshan County to conduct investigations in advance. He just sent someone to observe outside the city and concluded that Hengshan County would only close the city to protect itself.

As a result, just when he thought that the gentry militia in Hengshan City would not be able to stand up to the tens of thousands of Heavenly Kingdom troops, an accident occurred, and it was a big one.

The militia in Hengshan City got more than 20 cannons weighing more than a thousand pounds from somewhere and bombarded the Taiping Army fleet on the river. They also found the luxurious ship that Hong Xiuquan and Yang Xiuqing, the Eastern King, were riding on and fired at least 20 rounds in one breath, and it seemed that 20 or 30 of them hit the target!
This made Hu Yihuang very anxious. If something happened to the Heavenly King and the Eastern King, would he, the Prime Minister, still be alive? Even if the two of them were blessed by God and could turn the disaster into a blessing, they would definitely be frightened, and this was also his responsibility!

In order to make up for his mistake, Hu Yihuang immediately ordered his men to attack the city after seeing the artillery fire from Hengshan City!

But what he never expected was that the first wave of attack he launched was easily repelled by the defenders in Hengshan City.

This time he brought eight divisions, a total of 10,000 Taiping troops!
Although there were only ten brigades involved in the first wave of attack, with a total of more than 2,000 people, they were all composed of the old Guangxi people as the backbone, plus the equally fierce new brothers from southern Hunan, and they were elite soldiers who had been trained for two or three months. How could they be compared with ordinary militia?
Thinking of the firepower of the "bombardment of Hong Xiuquan" on Hengshan City, Hu Yihuang immediately knew that he had encountered the main force of the Qing army! These were not the hot-headed local militia of Hengshan, but the elite of the Qing army!
So he hastily adjusted his deployment, stopped attacking the city, and instead blocked and besieged it.

But before he could finish adjusting himself, the situation on the battlefield took a sharp turn for the worse!

The Hengshan city gate, which had been tightly closed, suddenly opened, and large groups of Qing soldiers rushed out from inside!
Look at their attire. There are militias, green camps, and even the Eight Banners cavalry wearing cotton armor and gun helmets that came out of some grave! What era is this? How can there still be Eight Banners soldiers like this?
What made Hu Yihuang feel even worse was that the militiamen at the front were waving the big flag with the word "Chu" on it!

This is Jiang Zhongyuan’s Chu Yong!

This is the most capable opponent the Taiping Army has ever encountered since the rise of the Jintian Army, bar none!

Knowing that things were going to get bad, Hu Yihuang ordered his men to deploy defenses while sending fast horses to the west and south of Hengshan City to mobilize troops for support. His 10,000 men were divided into three groups, blocking the north, south and west sides of Hengshan City respectively. Now, there were less than 4,000 soldiers and horses with Hu Yihuang. And there were at least 10,000 soldiers and horses rushing out of Hengshan City!
But before the more than 6,000 Taiping troops from the south and west of Hengshan City could arrive, the Qing troops rushing out of Hengshan City rushed to launch an attack!
It was not the usual small-scale attack of a few hundred people, but thousands of Chu Yong militiamen came together, with a group of old-fashioned Eight Banners cavalrymen behind them. Moreover, the Chu Yong militiamen who led the charge also shouted in Hunan dialect as they moved forward: "Hong Xiuquan is dead!"

"Hong Xiuquan is dead! Hong Xiuquan is dead."

The Taiping Army in the north of Hengshan City witnessed the bombardment of Hong Xiuquan's ship just now. The old brothers from Guangxi who had firm beliefs would naturally not believe it easily, but the new brothers from Hunan who did not believe in God very much were already a little nervous.

Now hearing what those Hunan fellows on the other side were saying, my faith was shaken even more.

The 5,000 militiamen under Jiang Zhongyuan had just received a huge reward from Senggelinqin—each person received two taels of silver! Now they were shouting “Hong Xiuquan is dead”, so their morale was naturally visibly rising!
As soon as the two sides came into contact, the Taiping Army under Hu Yihuang immediately fell into a disadvantage and was beaten back step by step.

All we saw was that on the west bank of the Xiangjiang River, in the wilderness north of Hengshan City, the Hunan Army Chu Yong soldiers with their heads wrapped in green cloth formed a square formation of about 500 people and deployed an extremely wide front, squeezing the "red-headed men" of only more than 3,000 people to retreat step by step, gradually moving away from the north of Hengshan City and retreating towards the bank of the Xiangjiang River.

More Green Camp soldiers and Eight Banners cavalry continued to pour out of the north gate of Hengshan City. Among them, the Green Camp soldiers headed west to block the Taiping Army that were bypassing the west and south of the city.

The more than 2,000 Eight Banners cavalry led by Senggelinqin and Guan Wen were dressed the same as their ancestors. Taking advantage of the smoke, they shouted slogans such as "Hong Xiuquan is dead, the Qing Dynasty has won", passed slowly from behind Jiang Zhongyuan's Chuyong, and detoured to the right wing of the Taiping Army.

Senggelinqin rode a Mongolian horse and galloped in front of the team under the escort of dozens of Mongolian cavalrymen from the Khorchin grassland. When he went around the flanks of the "red-headed men" who were retreating, what he saw seemed no longer to be the Taiping Army that frightened the Qing army, but the Ming army and Li Zicheng's Dashun army that collapsed under the impact of the Eight Banners Heavenly Soldiers more than 200 years ago.

The Eight Banners Heavenly Soldiers seemed great again at this moment!

Thinking of this, Senggelinqin drew his saber, pointed it forward, and shouted loudly: "Hong Xiuquan is dead, Eight Banners men, charge! Kill!"

"Eight Bannermen, charge!"

Guan Wen, the deputy commander-in-chief of the Eight Banners Army of Jingzhou, pointed the spear in his hand, and led the men under his command to ride their horses and charge slowly!

Yes, just rush forward slowly!

Although Senggelinqin and Guanwen shouted "charge" verbally, they did not dare to do so when it came to execution. It would be quite scary if they did not charge, and if they did charge, they might be exposed.

At this moment, a large wooden boat with 20 to 30 holes in it had quietly approached the beach on the west bank of the Xiang River near the battlefield. A man in a yellow robe and yellow hat, holding a sword, stood at the bow of the boat, looking at the Taiping Army retreating towards him on the battlefield, and the Qing Army crushing him like a tide, but he showed no fear at all.
(End of this chapter)