Chapter 196: The Counterattack Begins (Part 2)

Taiyuan City.
Tang Jingsong took a deep breath and pretended to be calm as he opened his folding fan, yet he felt as though this letter weighed as much as Mount Tai, pressing down heavily on his heart.
He was usually resourceful and adaptable, but when it came to making quick decisions, he would hesitate, unable to let go. He kept muttering, “The Qing Dynasty… this Qing Dynasty… I am a loyal subject of the Qing!”
Two and a half centuries since the Qing entered the pass had deeply ingrained in him a sense of loyalty, keeping him clinging to a sliver of hope. Moreover, his family and relatives were all in the hands of the Qing.
With another long sigh, he finally picked up the letter from the coffee table. It was written by Pan Dingxin. He thought to himself, “Is this to persuade me to surrender?”
After glancing at it briefly, he flew into a rage. “Pan Dingxin is too cruel! Too cruel! What does he think of me? Does he treat me like someone like Li Shizhong, a traitor?”
Li Shizhong was the example Pan Dingxin used, advising Tang Jingsong not to follow in the footsteps of people like Miao Peilin and Li Shizhong, who were indecisive and switched sides repeatedly. Followed by more curses, it touched upon Tang Jingsong’s taboos.
Both of them were famous figures from the Heavenly Kingdom Army. Miao Peilin was a powerful warlord in the Huai region, commanding tens of thousands of troops and claiming to have eight million soldiers. He shifted allegiance among the Heavenly Kingdom, Nian rebels, and Qing forces, sometimes joining the Heavenly Kingdom and sometimes handing Lu Shunde over to the Qing, only to be destroyed by the Qing in the end.
As for Li Shizhong, originally from the Nian rebels, he was a disloyal traitor who defected and surrendered repeatedly. Though he once reached the position of governor of Jiangnan, even decent scholars despised him, let alone the proud Tang Jingsong.
“Li Shizhong?” The mere mention of his name made Pan Dingxin even angrier. Thinking of Li Shizhong’s actions after surrendering to the Qing, and then recalling how he was lured to his death by the Qing a few years ago, with only one son escaping, Tang Jingsong thought, “Hmm! Then I’ll be a traitor too!”
With this thought, he finally felt a desire to kill. “Let’s see whose head will end up in my hands! Let’s fight hard!”
At the same time, on the road from Taiyuan to Beining, groups of Qing soldiers in uniform, carrying their newly issued departure allowances, ran happily along the road.
They belonged to different units—some from the Chu Army, some from remnants of the Hunan Army, some from offshoots of the Huai Army, and even a few units from Guizhou—all joining in this festive campaign.
From time to time, they fired a few shots into the forests on either side, which made them bolder and faster in their steps.
Though not the strongest force of the Qing Dynasty, they were the strongest army the Qing could muster in Vietnam, with many capable units. Now, this force had poured its enthusiasm into the battle ahead.
Wang Debang led at the forefront of the army, personally observing the terrain, accompanied only by a few cavalrymen, all experienced generals from the unit.
This was the traditional tactic of the Hunan Army—observing the landscape with enthusiasm. He said, “Look! Those Black Flag Army troops are nothing but weak forces. Don’t be fooled by their fancy appearance; they’re actually worthless!”
What he really meant was that Pan Dingxin, the commander of this army, was the one who lacked ability. If he were in charge, they might have already captured Hanoi—why waste time fighting in these mountains?

At the thought of this, Wang Debang became even more ambitious. He would be the one to restore Beining first, and by achieving several more remarkable feats, he might just become the second Zuo Zongtang. “This time, when we march on Taiyuan, our army will surely achieve a complete victory!” he said with complete confidence. “If I were Commander Pan, I would already be hosting a banquet for everyone in Hanoi by now…” Since joining the army, he had never had such complete supplies and equipment at his disposal—this meant they were practically invincible. As a first-rate power, the French could use just one strand of their hair to feed tens of thousands of soldiers, not to mention that with Hanoi in crisis, the French minister in China, the governor of Indochina, and the consul in Guangzhou provided the Qing government with loans without charge to relieve the siege. When Zuo Zongtang went on his western campaign, he also borrowed foreign funds several times, but the foreign firms charged high prices, and Zuo Jigao himself lost a significant amount, so he never spent money as freely as he did this time. So far, almost all supplies for the Qing army in Vietnam had come from the French—boxes of rapid-fire guns, medical supplies, military uniforms, and even rations and pay were provided by the French. The French had already invested tens of millions of francs in this army. Yet for such a powerful nation, this was merely a small amount of money. But now Wang Debang felt confident about everything—whether it was the battalion of French troops stationed in Beining or the several battalions of Black Flag Army in Taiyuan, he could handle them easily. Now, the entire Qing army surged toward Taiyuan like an uncontrolled flood, like locusts, aiming to defeat any Black Flag Army forces in their path. “I’ve figured it out—Tang Jingsong only has seven battalions in Taiyuan, all new recruits. His main force is in Hanoi. We’ll have no trouble dealing with them!” He alone had ten battalions of his own loyal troops, plus three battalions of Guangxi troops as vanguard, and two battalions of Vietnamese volunteers to flank them. In total, Pan Dingxin had no fewer than thirty battalions deployed in Taiyuan. Thirty infantry battalions were enough to cause a stir even if the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom were revived, let alone Tang Jingsong’s mere few battalions. He galloped around, shouting, “Now is the time to be granted a title!” It wasn’t just Wang Debang who thought this way—whole sections of the Qing army in Vietnam shared this view. Especially after some Qing troops joined the Black Flag Army, although they had been reformed by them, these people remained fickle, always loyal to whoever gave them support. Now that they heard dozens of battalions were coming to attack Taiyuan, they immediately wavered. Seeing that there were no particularly strong battalions near Taiyuan—only new recruits—they wanted to pull their troops back to the Qing army. In just a few days, Tang Jingsong had already beheaded over thirty men. Yet still, more than a hundred people fled back to the Qing army. But the Black Flag Army wasn’t to be underestimated either. These defectors found that they could only pull out a handful of people, not even a complete platoon.

But these troop reductions greatly boosted the morale of the Qing army, who thought capturing Taiyuan would be as easy as flipping the palm of their hand. However, they were unaware that a regiment from Hanoi was already marching toward Taiyuan with great ambition. They were the second force sent to reinforce Taiyuan, and they even didn’t have time to attend the French surrender ceremony before joining the larger battle. A battle flag displayed their honor: “2nd Regiment of Xiliu!”