The Qing Dynasty is about to end

Chapter 473 Hong Xiuquan is back from heaven! (Please subscribe, please vote)

Yang Xiuqing's master, Ye Zhifa, was actually an undercover agent of the Qing Dynasty. He was originally named Zhang Jigeng, and was originally from Jiangning. His father was named Zhang Jiefu, who was a Jinshi in the sixth year of Daoguang and had been an official in Hunan. So he grew up in Hunan and later mixed in the Hunan literati.

When the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom "killed" all the way to Changsha, he was still a small staff member of Pan Duo, the governor of Hunan. As a result, Changsha was captured by the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom in one fell swoop, and he didn't even have the chance to escape with Pan Duo. He gritted his teeth and stayed in Changsha. He also changed his name to Ye Zhifa, ran to "worship God", and became the new Hunan brother of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom! Because he had some culture and was particularly good at scheming, he was able to get close to Yang Xiuqing and become a legal advisor!
But he was not grateful for Yang Xiuqing's trust. Instead, he used this trust to become an undercover agent, secretly contacted Zeng Guofan, and kept telling Zeng Guofan all kinds of inside information about the East Palace and the Heavenly Kingdom. He thought he was a "gold medal undercover agent", but he never expected that he would become the "Hong Xiuquan" who had to help Emperor Xianfeng deal with. This is really "undercover and become the boss"!

But this is not the worst. The worst thing is that this "boss" is pretending! In front of the enemy's guns and cannons, he had to bite the bullet and pretend to be the king of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, Hong Xiuquan. But in the eyes of Yang Xiuqing, Bian Sanniang, Daozi, and other Taiping soldiers who knew the truth or knew Hong Xiuquan, he was just an impostor! The treatment and risks are completely unequal. He didn't get any of the benefits that Hong Xiuquan should have, but he took all the risks of Hong Xiuquan. Who can he go to for justice?
Moreover, once he dressed up as Hong Xiuquan, he was like being put under a "tightening curse", and was under the eyes of Bian Sanniang, Daozi and other female officials and female soldiers who were loyal to Hong Xiuquan for twelve hours a day, and was firmly controlled by them. Now, there was no way he could tip off the Qing Dynasty!

Look, Ye Zhifa, who has already disguised himself as Hong Xiuquan, was taken by Daozi to a heavily guarded dock beside the canal. The imperial boat that Hong Xiuquan rode in his lifetime was parked steadily on the shore, and Hong Xiuquan's body was now on this imperial boat. Yang Xiuqing faced the imperial boat with his hands behind his back, as if he was "talking to the dead Hong Xiuquan" through the air. Bian Sanniang and Yang Xiuqing's foreign general Winster White both stood respectfully beside Yang Xiuqing.

There was also a big guy, a huge hot air balloon, which was parked steadily on the top platform of Hong Xiuquan's three-story imperial boat. The balloon's air bag was bulging, like a big fat guy ready to take off at any time, and it seemed that it could fly into the sky immediately.

"You are here, Mr. Dong." Ye Zhifa saw Yang Xiuqing and quickly lifted his robe and was about to kneel down, but was stopped by Yang Xiuqing with a wave of his hand. "You are the king now, you don't have to salute me!" Yang Xiuqing said, while secretly glancing at Winster White and Bian Sanniang next to him. The two looked reluctant, as if they were forced to eat bitter melon, but they still lifted their robes obediently and knelt down respectfully.

Yang Xiuqing glared at Ye Zhifa again. Ye Zhifa had no choice but to bite the bullet and imitate Hong Xiuquan's tone and accent, stuttering, "Stand up!" Winster. White and Bian Sanniang stood up immediately. Yang Xiuqing pointed at the hot air balloon and said to Ye Zhifa, "Afa, you, Sanniang, and Winster get on the hot air balloon and fly to the sky. Let the people below see with their own eyes that the Heavenly King is still alive and can still fly!"

What? Not only do you want to pretend to be a king, but you also want to go to the sky? Ye Zhifa looked up at the bright red hot air balloon with two eye-catching white words "Taiping" on it. He was so reluctant that he didn't want to go up. But there was no other way. He had to bow his head under the eaves. He could only bow his hands and said with a sad face: "Your Majesty, I respectfully accept your order!"

Seeing Ye Zhifa, Winster, White, and Bian Sanniang board the imperial boat, Yang Xiuqing turned his head to look at Daozi, with a faint smile on his face, and asked, "Your name is Nanben Daozi?"

"Yes." Daozi replied in a low voice.

Yang Xiuqing looked at her and said gently, "I heard that you are from Japan. You came to China because of your faith, became a disciple of the Heavenly King, and have always been loyal to him. Is that true?"

Daozi nodded with tears in her eyes: "I only regret that Daozi cannot die in the place of the Heavenly King!"

"What a loyal minister!" Yang Xiuqing said, "Now that the Heavenly King is gone, you will follow me from now on. How about we go together to avenge the Heavenly King?"

"Okay!" Daozi nodded heavily, lifted up his robe, knelt on his knees, touched his forehead to the ground, and said loudly: "Daozi is willing to follow the King of the East and swear to avenge the King of Heaven until his death!"

Yang Xiuqing nodded with satisfaction. At this time, bursts of artillery fire suddenly came from the battlefield in the north. Yang Xiuqing knew that another round of offensive by the Qing army was about to begin. He took a deep breath, said "let's go", turned around, and strode away from the dock.

The battlefield outside Baoying City.

"The saint Confucius has finally appeared! The traitor Hong Xiuquan was killed by cannon fire." As the news spread, the Qing army was instantly excited.

Listening to the cheers of the Qing army, it was like a landslide and tsunami, "boom boom" sweeping over the two trench lines of the Taiping Army, "rushing" all the way south. It felt like the noise could "knock away" the small Baoying City!

In the eyes of the Qing Emperor, also known as the "Grand Leader of the Orthodox Religion", Aisin-Gioro Yizhu, victory was just around the corner and it seemed as if he could grasp it within reach.

The artillery fire had blown Hong Xiuquan's sedan chair to pieces, and the Taiping Army, which had the upper hand, suddenly became like an eggplant hit by frost - wilting. Without saying a word, they immediately gave up the attack and retreated back to the trench line to defend.

When Emperor Xianfeng saw the performance of the Taiping Army, he was certain that Hong Xiuquan had been killed. He had no more worries and put all his "old tricks" on the line, mobilizing the Eight Banners New Army, Hunan Training Army, Anhui Training Army, Shandong Training Army, nearly 200 battalions, to launch attacks in turns like a revolving lantern.

Looking down from a high place, I could see the new soldiers wearing red tasseled warm hats or green cloth headscarves, usually more than a dozen battalions gathered together, like a group of hungry wolves, "biting" back and forth at the left, right, and center of the Taiping Army. As soon as one wave retreated to catch their breath, the next wave rushed up again, howling, and the main attack direction was like a naughty child, sometimes attacking the left wing, sometimes running to attack the right wing, and from time to time they would send cavalry to make a big circle from the right wing of the Taiping Army, making the Taiping Army, which was outnumbered and a little low in morale, dizzy and exhausted. In the previous wave of "crazy attack", the Qing army succeeded, breaking through the two rows of arquebuses on the left and right wings of the Taiping Army, and also plunged into the first trench of the Taiping Army. Afterwards, the two sides launched a bloody melee in the trench. The Qing soldiers put away their muskets and picked up their swords, but the result was not as expected. Their hand-to-hand combat ability seemed to be as poor as ever. They were "blasted" out of the trenches by the Taiping Army, which had only half their number and was holding bayoneted rifles. The ground was littered with corpses, and the scene was as miserable as it could be.

However, the Qing army managed to tear open the Taiping Army's calvary and spear defense line, "opening the way" for the cavalry attack behind them.

When Xianfeng saw this situation, he thought the opportunity had come and planned to make a "big move". This wave directly sent out 40 battalions, including 10 cavalry battalions and 30 infantry battalions, adding up to 17,000 to 18,000 people, and they were all energetic fresh troops. Before these 17,000 to 18,000 people launched the assault, there was a half-hour artillery bombardment!

The Qing army concentrated hundreds of artillery pieces and bombarded the Taiping Army's positions with a "crackling" bombardment, filling the battlefield with smoke, like a fairyland on earth (of course, this "fairyland" is very choking). When the bombing was almost over, forty battalions of Qing army infantry and cavalry mixed formations were divided into three routes and pressed forward like a tide! It all depends on who will have the last laugh in this battle!

Just when Xianfeng felt that he had won the battle, a gust of west wind suddenly blew across the sky, dispersing the smoke over the battlefield and revealing the Taiping Army's battle line that had been obscured by the smoke to Xianfeng.

Xianfeng took a closer look and saw that the Taiping Army did not hold its defense line this time. Instead, they also mobilized several thousand people, also a mixture of infantry and cavalry. They were divided into two on the battlefield and formed two large horizontal columns, which just blocked the left and right wings of the Qing army.

"Good! Well done!" Xianfeng was even more energetic when he saw that the Taiping Army had risked an attack despite the low morale caused by Hong Xiuquan's death, and his pockmarked face was almost glowing.

Just when they were about to mobilize another ten or eight battalions to join in, the Taiping Army on the opposite side suddenly cheered together: "Long live the Heavenly King! May the Emperor bless us!"

These shouts pushed the Taiping Army's morale, which had seemed a little low, to a peak. Standing in the watchtower and watching the battle, Emperor Xianfeng suddenly realized that something was wrong, but he couldn't understand what the Taiping Army on the opposite side was shouting, so he turned around and asked, "What are they shouting?"

"It seems like Long live the king."

There were actually officials at the scene who could understand.

"What? Long live the Heavenly King? Didn't Hong Xiuquan already..."

Before he finished speaking, someone shouted, "Your Majesty, look up there in the sky, there's a red hot air balloon!"

"What's so special about hot air balloons?" Xianfeng Ma's face was full of pride, "I have one too!"

The man exclaimed again: "It seems like there is a Hong Xiuquan in the basket under the hot air balloon!"

"What? Hong." Xianfeng was shocked when he heard this. He quickly raised his telescope and looked around in the air. As expected, he saw a red hot air balloon floating in the sky. In the hanging basket below the hot air balloon, there was a white-faced, long-bearded man wearing a red hat and yellow robe, holding a golden hoop stick, and beside him there was a foreigner and a female general in red.
Is Hong Xiuquan back? Is he resurrected? Or is he never dead?
When Xianfeng was so surprised that he couldn't speak, he heard a burst of crackling gunfire, like frying beans, coming from the battlefield!

Xianfeng looked down and found that the people opening fire were actually thousands of red-clad soldiers arranged in a loose skirmish formation. Judging from their dress and figure, they seemed to be female soldiers.

Although they were female soldiers, they were all good shooters. They fired at a distance of 70 or 80 steps and knocked down the soldiers in the front row of the Qing army. The Qing army, which was originally well-organized and in high morale, was caught off guard by the accurate shooting of these female soldiers. They also fired back, but most of them were equipped with smoothbore rifles and their shooting skills were not high. How could they be the opponents of those female soldiers? Soon, they were all dead and the formation began to become chaotic.

At this moment, the Taiping soldiers on the opposite battlefield burst into cheers again: "The Heavenly King is back, the Heavenly King is back from heaven. Kill! Kill the Qing demons and go to heaven!"

Amidst the cheers, the Taiping Army's counterattack began!

(End of this chapter)