With Tang Sanshui, the deputy general of Zhaoqing, supported by the scenes, Zhang An finally gained a real foothold in Zhaoqing City. The prosperity of Dadong Rice Store business also gave him enough funds, but he never forgot his brother and sister-in-law who died tragically under the sword of the Qing army, nor did he forget the Taiping Army and Qianhu Zhou Shixiang who were far away in Xiangshan.

Song Ying's arrival made Zhang An, who had originally wanted to send people to Xiangshan to re-connect with the Taiping Army. After a secret talk with Song Ying, Zhang An took the silver note to Tang Sanshui's mansion that night. The next day, Zhang An handed over the rice shop business to the shopkeeper below to take care of, and he left Zhaoqing with Song Ying in the name of going to Guangzhou to buy grain.

...........

After capturing the former mountain village, the large-scale war between the Taiping Army in Xiangshan ended. Since the Qing army in Zengcheng was defeated by the Taiping Army in Yinpingzui Mountain, Guangdong Governor Li Shutai sent 2,000 Green Camp troops to Zengcheng, but did not launch an attack on Xiangshan because Sanjiangkou was attacked by the Ming army.

On the 23rd of the 12th lunar month, General Linghai Chen Qice, together with General Zhenguo Zhu Tong, Zhou Tengfeng from Haibei Province, and others mobilized more than 10,000 naval and land troops to launch an attack on Sanjiangkou, which was heavily guarded by the Qing army. For two days of fierce battle, the Ming army failed to break through the Qing army's defense line. On the 26th, because the boat division of Chaozhou General Wu Liuqi arrived at Sanjiangkou, the Ming army's navy could not continue to block the river surface and faced an enemy from both sides, so Chen Qice and Zhu Tong and others decided to withdraw their troops after discussing. After the Ming army withdrew, the boat division of Wu Liuqi followed and pursued, but was ambushed by a warship led by Zheng Chengkui, the warship led by Chen Qice's side general, in Jiangmen and returned. In this battle, more than 3,000 people in the Ming army and suffered losses, and four warships sank; the Qing army suffered more than 400 casualties and 12 boats were destroyed.

Chen Qice's attack on Sanjiangkou verified Shang Kexi's concerns, making him more determined to regain his new return. At the same time, the Ming army's attack on Sanjiangkou also attracted the full attention of the Qing army in Guangzhou, which made Shang Kexi. Li Shutai dared not divide his troops to attack the Taiping Army in Xiangshan, providing time and security guarantees for the Taiping Army's foothold and development in Xiangshan.

Inspired by the Ming army's capture of Xinhui, the Ming army in the coastal areas, and the anti-Qing Yishi Division activities were active again. Guo Zhiqi, a great scholar stationed in Guangdong, sent by the Yongli court, secretly went to Yunnan due to the incident of the emperor's migration to Kunming. Lianchengbi, the governor of Guangdong, became beneficial to the development of the situation in Guangdong, and failed to detect it in time and did not make timely arrangements. As a result, although the Yishi Division in various places was very excited, they lacked overall coordinated command, and all regions could only fight on their own and achieved little results.

In the Xinhui side, due to the failure of the battle to capture Sanjiangkou, the Ming army gathered here was again negative. If Chen Qice had not insisted, General Zhu Tong and others would have led their troops back.

As of the end of the year, the Ming army gathered in Xinhui had more than 20,000 people. Except for Zhu Tongmen, the rest of the Ming army were adapted from the Yi army. They not only lacked necessary equipment, but also lacked food and grass. The internal factions were also very complex. There were two people with Duke of the State. This made Chen Qice try his best to maintain the situation and want to re-enact the eastward trend of Li Dingguo's army last year, but his energy was consumed by the complex relationships within the Ming army and he could not organize an effective attack again.

Chen Qice, while joining Zhu Tong and others to send an emergency delivery to the Governor's Office in Leizhou, requesting Lianchengbi to move the Governor's Office to Xinhui. Later, all departments fought uniformly under the command of the Governor. If the Governor personally sits in Xinhui, the Governor will definitely boost the hearts of the army and the people. Chen Qice also asked Leizhou to raise food, grass and water to transport it to Xinhui to solve the urgent needs of each army.

After the emergency delivery to Leizhou, Lianchengbi did not agree to move forward except for Yun raising grain. However, as the governor, Tang Pingbo Zhou Jintang, General Jingxing Deng Yao, Governor Zhang Xiaoqi and other departments asked each department to select elite troops to transport them to Xinhui, so that the Xinhui would no longer fall into the enemy's hands.

In the letter, Chen Qice also asked the court to pay the rewards to the Taiping Army and Zhou Shi, but because Guangdong could not contact the court in Yunnan, Lian Chengbi could not make any decisions and rewards for the court, so he temporarily appointed Zhou Shixiang as the chief general of Chaozhou as the governor. After the Grand Secretary Guo Zhiqi came to the court to report to the court, he would give the official reward. As for Liao Ruixiang, the magistrate of Xiangshan recommended by Zhou Shixiang, Lian Chengbi issued a document to approve it. He awarded it to the official with a bronze seal.

When Chen Qice's envoy sent the Xiangshan County Magistrate and the bronze seal to Renhoufang, he also brought Chen Qice's letter. The white-haired veteran was very guilty and embarrassed that he had not fulfilled his promise to be promoted to general. However, Zhou Shixiang was not dissatisfied with this. Whether it was the Chaozhou General or the registered Chaozhou General. To put it bluntly, they were all bears. The current general in Chaozhou was Wu Liuqi appointed by the Qing court. What did he use to fight with others?

The envoy revealed that Xinhui is short of food now, and the soldiers can only eat one meal a day. After hearing this, although the Taiping Army was also short of food, Xiangshan County was not as broken as Xinhui. In the past month, the battalions were still captured in the countryside. Therefore, Zhou Shixiang transferred 300 stones of grain and 10 fat pigs to the envoy for the envoy to bring back, which was also considered to be a slight effort to Xinhui. After all, the Taiping Army's stable development in Xiangshan is inseparable from the restraint of the Qing army by Xinhui. If the Ming army in Xinhui collapsed, the good days of the Taiping Army would come to an end. The lips were lost and the teeth were cold, and Zhou Shixiang could not remain indifferent.

Liao Ruixiang, who received the official official title of Xiangshan County Magistrate and the bronze seal, smiled from ear to ear. Although the bronze seal given by Leizhou is not as exquisite as Sun Quanzheng's, its nature is incomparable to Sun Quanzheng's pseudo-magistrate seal. With this official seal issued by the Governor of Guangdong, even if the Taiping Army is gone, Liao Ruixiang is a formal official of the Yongli court. This is a great thing that he can wake up in his dreams. He suffered all his life, but now he finally made a comeback. Liao Ruixiang cried with joy. He gave birth to Zhou Shixiang, a Bole who admired him, who was not a little bit of a soldier who died for his confidant, but was devoted to Zhou Shi's despicableness and was very poor and well-mannered by Xiangshan.

.........

After more than a month of encirclement and suppression, not only were the scattered soldiers of the Qing army in Xiangshan cleaned up by the Taiping army, but the bandits that harmed the local areas were also dealt with one by one. Before the New Year, the Taiping army had completely controlled the various fangdu capitals of Xiangshan, and several important places connecting Xiangshan to other places were also guarded by the Taiping army.

On the 28th day of the 12th lunar month, Zhou Shixiang returned to Renhoufang, the capital of Xiangshan County. The first thing he did when he came back was to set up an altar to pay homage to the Taiping soldiers who died in Xiangshan.

The war to capture Xiangshan and eliminate the scattered soldiers and bandits of the Qing army was not fierce and not large in scale, but the Taiping Army also paid the price of killing 62 people and injuring 125 people for this.

The soldiers who died were buried uniformly on a hilly slope outside Xiangshan County, which was also officially used by Zhou Shixiang as a Taiping Army Cemetery. Unlike the soldiers who died in Xinhui who only buried but not erected monuments, Zhou Shixiang erected a tombstone for the soldiers who died.

The tombstone faces north, with the names, origins, ages and identity of the soldiers who died in the army, where they died in battle. At the same time, there is a stone tablet more than seven feet high in this cemetery, which is engraved with the "Ceve of the Taiping Army of the Ming Dynasty". There is a dismount stone one mile from the cemetery, and whether the civil and military officials come here to get off their horses and walk.

When Zhou Shixiang led the officers to set up incense and candles to pay tribute to the dead, Zhou Shixiang felt very uncomfortable. He looked at the tombstones one by one. The dead soldiers were very young, many of them were not over 20 years old. Their hometowns were also very complicated, and almost all the soldiers from all aspects of the Taiping Army after they established the camp. Some of the soldiers who died were young people from Xiangshan who took the initiative to join the army after the Taiping Army entered Xiangshan. According to Zhou Shixiang's arrangement, Liao Ruixiang selected the relatives of these Xiangshan soldiers from their hometowns and allowed them to live with the back camp. In the future, they could enjoy the treatment of martyrs assigned by the Taiping Army Public Detachment, and give them rewards for land, livestock and other items.

The reward of land is not only on paper. The land in Xiangshan is fertile. Although there are many hilly areas in the territory, there are also many plains, and more land can be reclaimed. When seizing Longan Capital, Zhou Shixiang deliberately tied the land and the Taiping Army together. For this reason, he asked Duke Xiang of Song to pilot the Longan Capital.

The main content of the pilot is to clean up and integrate the unowned land. This unowned land also includes the landlords' land that were suppressed by the Taiping Army and the land of the large fleeing farmers. On the premise of ensuring the property rights of the original residents' land, what Duke Xiang of Song had to do was to take all the remaining land to the Taiping Army, and then use the land to resettle the old and weak in the rear camp, and divide the land according to the size of the soldiers' military merits.

Because the soldiers who share the fields cannot cultivate in the army, the land will be arranged by the Hou battalion to cultivate, and the income will be divided equally by the Hou battalion and the soldiers. If the soldiers have relatives who can cultivate this part of the land alone, the income will belong to the soldier. However, in order to ensure the needs of the Taiping Army, the soldiers and their families must sell the excess grain to the Taiping Army at a price slightly lower than the market price, or exchange the excess grain from the Taiping Army's public treasury for other items. In short, Zhou Shixiang divided the fields, but he also had to take the grain produced in the fields into his own hands.

Zhou Shixiang basically retained the previous government practices for the local people, which was to draw taxes. However, because the arrival of the Taiping Army caused a large number of landlords and gentry to flee, many farmers who served as tenants for landlords no longer had to pay rent to the former landlords, but only had to pay a certain amount of tax and grain to the Taiping Army, which greatly reduced the burden on farmers and made the Xiangshan farmers feel intimate with the Taiping Army. If it weren't for not knowing whether the Taiping Army could gain a foothold in Xiangshan, I'm afraid that the Xiangshan people who participated in the Taiping Army would have more than the current number. After all, there are many benefits to joining the Taiping Army. The land distributed by the Taiping Army families who were placed in various yards was enough to make the locals jealous.

Farmers are born to pursue profits. This pursuit of profits is not like a greed of merchants, but a yearning for improving food and clothing living conditions. The Taiping Army's policies are beneficial to farmers and can allow them to live a better life than before. They will no longer have to be bullied by the government and gentry, and farmers will naturally support the Taiping Army.

After Duke Xiang of Song was slightly effective in Longyandu, Zhou Shixiang officially implemented it in various places in Xiangshan. He planned to implement this policy as a fixed policy of the Taiping Army for a long time, and also incorporate the original residents of Xiangshan into this policy, so that the Taiping Army can gain more support from the people in Xiangshan, and then make the Taiping Army unite with the people, soldiers are the people, the people are the soldiers, and the soldiers and the people are fishing and water. It can be foreseen that the Taiping Army, which has the support of the people, will definitely grow gradually. (To be continued.)
Chapter completed!