Chapter 21 Ruthless to kill generals

From the beginning of 1863 to May 1864, Li Hongzhang led the Huai army to recover Kunshan, Changshu, Suzhou, and Changzhou all the way, showing the world the combat capability of this army.During this period, the Changsheng Army also cooperated with the Huai Army to fight together, but they all followed Li Hongzhang's deployment.In November 1863, Li Hongzhang personally led an army to attack Suzhou, and fought against the Zhongwang Li Xiucheng's troops, and the two sides were at a stalemate.At this time, some wavering elements in the Taiping Army had the idea of ​​defecting.When Gordon's ever-victorious army attacked the city and fell into an ambush, General Nawang Gao Yongkuan and others of the Taiping Army stood still and let Gordon go in order to win the capital to surrender.Otherwise, Gordon will be wiped out.Seeing that the enemy was hopeless, Li Xiucheng led his army to retreat, and handed over the task of defending the city to Mu Wang Tan Shaoguang.Zheng Guokui, deputy general of the Huai Army, was Gao Yongkuan's sworn brother. Encouraged by Cheng Xueqi, Zheng Guokui did a lot of work to persuade Gao Yongkuan to surrender.One late night, on a lake near Suzhou, Gao Yongkuan and others secretly signed an agreement with Cheng Xueqi, with Gordon as a witness to discuss surrender matters.

After Li Hongzhang learned the news, he comforted Gordon and asked him to stand by outside the north gate; on the other hand, he pretended to accept the surrender of Gao Yongkuan and others.The reason why Li Hongzhang pretended to accept their surrender was because Gao Yongkuan and others wanted to kill Tan Shaoguang, who was resolutely defending the city, as a condition, and he still led his old troops to stay in Suzhou.At that time, the Taiping Army had more than 100,000 people in Suzhou City. They promised to give up half of Suzhou City to the Qing Army, and their troops could not be dismantled, and they had to maintain the entire organizational system and be incorporated into the Huai Army.Seeing their conditions, Cheng Xueqi offered advice to Li Hongzhang to kill them.Li Hongzhang believed that if a few of them could surrender me today, they might also surrender others tomorrow.If they surrender and then rebel, am I asking for trouble?If they were not allowed to bring their own old troops, Suzhou City would still be out of reach.Therefore, according to Cheng Xueqi's plan, he held a grand banquet on a mighty boat outside Suzhou City, and took the opportunity to kill the eight surrendered kings of the Taiping Army who had surrendered together.

Zeng Guofan commented on this matter, saying that Li Hongzhang was cruel and ruthless, with quick eyes and quick hands.Li Hongzhang also has a similar approach in handling other matters. Some people say that this is thick and black.Li Hongzhang usually pays more attention to the result than the process when doing things. This can be regarded as a certain style of him.