“Of course, I know it's easy to conquer Da Zhou City! But I want to do it beautifully, to take one that has a heart united in all four directions, to take one that desires and hopes for peace, welcoming peace by opening the city gates! Can you guys do it? What are your ideas? Speak up all of them!”
Lu Yaoguo, this angel boss, is still quite troublesome to people. Just by opening his mouth, he gave his underlings a pretty big problem.
Fortunately, he now has a large group of talented people under him. Together, they can carefully discuss and come up with an answer.
The class base of Lord Luo, the Great Angel, is now quite respectable. Among them, Su San niang is both the fiancée and the female commander-in-chief - not only her martial arts and leadership are quite high, but her loyalty is also extraordinarily high, absolutely no chance of betrayal.
So, the two thousand or so female soldiers from Guangxi with big feet in the first army of the women's camp, along with the seven or eight hundred male soldiers mobilized by Luo Yaoguo in Getaozhen, plus the new brothers still usable from among the Qing demons captured, are all under her overall command!
He Da Mei is the deputy of Su San Niang, the aunt of Li Xiu Cheng, and the mother of Li Shixian...... Lord Luo has already applied to Feng Yunshan to bring them both under his command. These two new male soldiers from the male camp can be organized into a new army in the future, and the commanding officer and military commander will be given to them.
Jiao Hong can be a special agent commander - the Hongmeng brothers are everywhere! Although the components of the Hongmeng brothers are complex, among them there are not a few traitors who have betrayed the government. However, as long as they develop a batch of believers in Worshiping God within the Hongmeng brothers, and make use of their relationship network, there is no government office in southern China that they cannot penetrate!
Yu Mieqing is quite suitable for the role of "military expert." Firstly, this old gentleman has been struggling in the Qing army for thirty years, and no one on the Taiping Army side knows the Qing soldiers better than him. Knowing the behavior of the Qing army is crucial for formulating the most suitable defeat strategy! Moreover, with many years of military service, he is certainly proficient in setting up camp, organizing logistics, and observing terrain.
Secondly, he has another thirty-odd disciples who have joined the Taiping Army together, and these are all good materials for instructors.
Wang Yuan, Zhu Ba, Zhang Bao, and the "Twelve Disciples" are the inner circle hand-raised by Luo Yaoguo. Currently, they can first take charge of the pilot project of "distributing land and fields" in Etodoong Town and its surrounding areas.
It is said that "pilot project," but in fact it is a "starting point." The "Twelve Disciples" are seeds, and Etodoong Town is a "rich soil." Once the surrounding areas of Etodoong Town are changed, a large number of new "positive" people will be harvested. In view of China's current acute land disputes and huge income inequality, as well as the country's poverty-stricken population where there are truly nowhere to turn for help, the Taiping Army will always be willing to see someone stand up against it wherever they go.
If they can be developed through "distributing land and fields," they can be trained in a class, trained well, and then new disciples can be sent to other areas to distribute land and fields......From now on, it will snowball more and more!
Perhaps within a few months, the entire Xiangnan region will be swept up by the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom's "distributing land and fields." The grassroots level of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom will be spread throughout the rural areas of Yongzhou, Guiyangzhou, and Chenzhou, and two to three million poor people will be firmly controlled by the Hunan branch of the Hongmen Society led by Feng Yunshan.
By then, you can let Zeng Guofan, Zuo Zongtang, and Li Hongzhang surround and exterminate......It may be tough!
So, the twelve disciples are particularly important within Luo Yaoguo's camp.
As for Zeng Tianyang and Chen Chengheng, although they are not strictly part of Luo Yaoguo's camp, one is from the person of the Southern King and the other is from the person of the Eastern King. Moreover, there is a "happy guy" Hong Renfa who doesn't know where to go, which makes them all "observers" representing the people behind them who are observing if Luo Yaoguo, this angel, actually has any real goods in him.
However, they three have different attitudes towards Luo Yaoguo. Zeng Tianyang himself is a big boss, and his family was the first batch of the old brothers from Guangxi to join the Hongmen Society. They have strength and have put all their assets into it, with a high sunk cost and a sincere hope for the good of Taiping Heavenly Kingdom.
If Luo Yaoguo's path is sufficiently correct, he will also lean towards Luo Yaoguo!
Hong Renfa is relatively easy to deal with, as his interests and hobbies are the same as Hong Xiuquan......
And Chen Chengheng......He is the most respectful of the three to Luo Yaoguo, and he shows strong support for the distribution of land, land and floating wealth! If he had not read history in advance, Luo Yaoguo almost considered him a good person.
Now, when he heard the question proposed by Luo Yaoguo, he was the first to respond.
"Angel Lord, I heard that when the Chuang Wang Li Zicheng rebelled in the past, there were people who welcomed the rebels by opening the city gates, and there were also people who sang a song about it. The song goes 'Open the gates early to welcome the Chuang Wang, when the Chuang Wang comes, no taxes will be required.'......There is a similar song in Tao Guang's 'Anti-Circular' passed down by Heavenly Brother. Why not send someone to sneak into Dao Zhou City and spread this song to incite poor people to rise up!"
Luo Yaoguo nodded, Chen Chengheng is also a talent, no wonder he can climb up the position in Taiping Heavenly Kingdom!
He smiled immediately, "Chen Guardsman, that's a good idea!"
"Angel Lord," inspired by Chen Chengheng's words, Jiao Hong promptly responded, "There are now tens of thousands of unemployed miners, boatmen, and dockworkers gathered in Daozhou City... all brothers of the Tiandihui! If Your Lordship is willing to offer them a way out, I am willing to infiltrate Daozhou on Your Lordship's behalf and mobilize them for a rebellion!"
This is a workers' armed uprising!
Sounds advanced!
"Good!" Luo Yaoguo needed just the kind of plan from Jiao Hong, and he promptly agreed, "Jiao older brother, if the Tiandihui members in and around Daozhou City can be mobilized, then the first merit of the Battle of Daozhou must go to the Tiandihui!"
Yu Mieqing saw Jiao Hong about to advance and his old brain started working. He soon had an idea: "Angel Lord, I have several, no, ten or so adopted sons who have joined the Taiping Army with me. If Your Lordship trusts them, they can secretly return to Daozhou City and contact my insiders who remain in the city's military camp......If Your Lordship is willing to spend a bit of money, they might be able to stir up a coup in Daozhou City, open the gates to welcome Your Lordship's army into the city!"
The old man has been adopting more than a dozen sons in the past few days in the hopes of advancement. Now he's ready to sacrifice them by sending them into the city to incite a coup. If successful, he can establish a foothold in Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, but if it fails... after all, they are adopted sons!
Luo Yaoguo was very pleased, smiling as he asked, "Old Man Yu, Brother Jiao, tell me, how much silver do you need to take Daozhou City for me?"
Yu Mieqing and Jiao Hong had obviously already communicated, so they exchanged a glance and then Yu Mieqing spoke up: "With one thousand taels of silver, we can have a five percent chance of success."
"Ten thousand taels for a 50% chance, how about twenty thousand taels?" Luo Yaoguo asked.
"At least 80%!" Jiao Hong said.
"Thirty thousand?"
"100%!" Yu Mieqing said resolutely.
"I'll give you 30,000!" Luo Yaoguo said. "I want to take full control of Dao Zhou City, but the people you mobilize cannot loot the city. After success, follow your brothers to distribute land and positions!"
Hearing this, Yu Mieqing and Jiao Hong both fell to their knees before Luo Yaoguo and loudly exclaimed, "We will fulfill our mission with honor!"
Luo Yaoguo nodded and turned to Su Sanlang, "Auntie Sanlang, have you decided on the route for the advance?"
"Already prepared!" Su Sanlang still knelt respectfully before Luo Yaoguo, "Old Man Yu has helped the humble servant plan a strategy: from the Nanxi Pass of Shuangpai to the south, through Yangming Mountain, and then split into two routes to encircle and attack Daozhou City!"
"Very good!" Luo Yaoguo said, "The armies will rest and reorganize for three more days and then transfer their positions to the Southern King's troops. After that, both land and naval forces will set out to head south to Daozhou!"
"Yes!"
......
Daozhou is a subordinate prefecture of Yongzhou Prefecture, located to the south of the strategically important Yangming Mountain, which lies between the Shuangpai Pass and the town of Shuangpai. It is less than one hundred miles from the Shuangpai Pass and about twenty miles from the southern slope of Yangming Mountain. Once the Shuangpai Pass and town are lost, the Taiping army could surge out of the Yangming Mountain area along the Xiao River Valley and reach Daozhou City in just twenty miles to the south.
The state city of Daozhou is built along the Xiao River, which is a strategically important location. However, there is one drawback: the Xiao River curves near the city, changing its direction from north to south to west to east. Therefore, Daozhou City is built on the north bank of this section of the Xiao River.
That means the strategically important location is to the south, while the enemy is coming from the north.
That is not the worst of it; even worse is that the enemy coming from the north is approaching via both land and water routes......They can bring their warships onto the waters of the Xiao River south of Daozhou City, completely cutting off the retreat route for the defending army.
Of course, that's not the worst of it. There's even something even worse, which is that there are no defending forces left in Daozhou City.
Originally, the 2,000 green camp troops stationed in Daozhou were heavily damaged in the battle at E'Tang, and the general commander Yu Wanqing was suspected of being slain. The brigadier-general Wu Shibin was confirmed to have been killed. Out of the 2,000 green camp troops and over 100 village militia on record, only around 300 people returned to Daozhou City, although there were still some soldiers left in Yu Wanqing's department and a garrison camp in Daozhou. But the total force couldn't have been less than 800......
This has driven the Governor of Daozhou, Wang Kuiyi, to desperation!
After running back to Daozhou City from Shuangpai Town, Wang Kuiyi found a rope in his own office and sat alone with one rope, crying in the grand hall that had been "loaned" to him.
