Poyang Lake, located in the northern part of Jiangxi Province, is located between the three cities of Jiujiang, Nanchang and Shangrao. It is one of the main tributaries of the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River. It receives water from the five major rivers of Ganjiang, Fuhe, Xinjiang, Raohe and Xiuhe, as well as the Boyang River, Zhangtian River and Tongjin River, and after regulation, it is injected into the Yangtze River at the lake mouth.

The river was turbulent, carrying the warship downstream at a very fast speed, and it soon approached Poyang Lake. However, Lao Piao did not enter Poyang Lake, but let the warship dock when it was still some distance away from Jiujiang.

Jiujiang not only controls the Yangtze River, but also has many lakes within its territory. In Xunyang County on the river alone, there are many huge lakes such as Qili Lake and Bali Lake.

Xunyang County was the seat of Jiujiang Prefecture, where three thousand Green Camp soldiers were stationed to guard the Yangtze River. As long as these three thousand Green Camp soldiers were wiped out, the entire Jiangxi Province would be left with no military force.

Lao Piao fought his way here from Wuchang. Although he sailed downstream without stopping, it was already around four or five in the afternoon when he arrived outside Xunyang County.

"Dock and form a line!" Lao Piao looked at Xunyang County and shouted excitedly.

"Arrange a battle array?" Yuan Bao, who was standing beside him, was stunned. He asked, "It's already the end of the Shen hour. Shouldn't we set up camp?"

"What kind of camp are we setting up?" Lao Piao said with a nonchalant smile, "It would be better if we just stayed in the city overnight. Why set up camp?"

"Our soldiers have already fought a battle in Jiujiang. They have come from afar. Do you want to attack the city immediately?" Yuanbao asked in disbelief.

"You don't understand!" Lao Piao couldn't help but smile and nodded when he saw the soldiers already on shore and forming a battle line. After all, he was the commander-in-chief, and his officers would naturally give priority to executing his orders.

"The Qing army is lazy to begin with, and Xunyang County is located in the rear, so they must be under-guarded. Even if they discover our arrival, it is impossible for them to be fully prepared in a short period of time. And you think we shouldn't attack the city, so they never thought I would.

Therefore, now is the best time to attack the city. The enemy only has 3,000 Green Camp defenders, while we have 10,000 main forces. It will be easy to capture a small Xunyang County."

Lao Piao looked at Yuan Bao and raised his eyebrows, then continued, "Well, now that I've explained it to you so clearly, is it okay for you to have your artillery battalion blast open the city gates and suppress the defenders on the city walls?"

Yuan Bao frowned and thought for a while, then nodded and said, "Okay, let's try attacking the city first!"

"It's not just a try, but we must go all out. If we fail to capture Xunyang County when the other side is not well prepared, it will only be more difficult to fight later. Our army does not have much food and grass, so we must capture Xunyang County today!" Lao Piao said with his eyes wide open.

Yuanbao didn't reply, but ran away to make arrangements.

At this time in Xunyang County, no one thought that Lao Piao would attack the city. Even the fact that Lao Piao appeared outside the city with a large army surprised the defenders.

The commander of Xunyang County was surprised to learn that tens of thousands of Chinese troops had appeared outside the city. He immediately ran to the city wall to watch, but he did not take it too seriously.

After all, even though it is summer now, there is only more than an hour left before dark. The defenders do not think that the enemy will arrive and will take advantage of such a short time to attack the city.

Therefore, even though the defenders of Xunyang County saw the enemy forming a battle array, they only thought that the enemy was defending against their surprise attack from outside the city, so they did not send more troops to the city walls, but just closed the city gates as a routine matter.

I feel that the other party's landing place is a little too close, only one mile away, which is completely within the attack range of the thousand-jin cannon, and even the small cannon of two or three hundred kilograms can attack it.

However, the defender of Xunyang County was a little hesitant about whether to open fire to attack the enemy. After all, the Huaxia tribe was very powerful. Now that more than 10,000 people came, Xunyang County would definitely not be able to be defended.
If we open fire now, it will easily anger the enemy, and then we will be troubled by the enemy even if we surrender. Before the Xunyang County defenders could hesitate for long, Yuanbao's artillery battalion had already used a wheelbarrow to push the mother-and-child artillery towards the city gate.

"Let go!" Yuanbao shouted.

“BOOM BOOM BOOM~!”

"Ah~!"

"Ouch~!"

Ten small cannons weighing hundreds of pounds fired at the same time, not only blasting ten large holes in the city gate, but also injuring many Qing soldiers inside the gate.

"Hurry, hurry, keep loading armor-piercing shells and fire freely!" Yuanbao was overjoyed when he saw that there was not even a single obstacle in the doorway, and he immediately asked the artillery to speed up the loading and firing.

Lao Piao took a big gulp of rice wine and shouted loudly, "Attack the city!"

Following Lao Piao's order, the one thousand people who had already formed up began to press forward towards the city wall in neat steps. After approaching two hundred meters, they began to fire at the city wall. Anyone who dared to show his head on the city wall would be their target of attack.

During this period, the city walls only had time to fire one round of artillery shells, a total of no more than ten shells, which caused minimal damage to the Huaxia tribe.

The defender of Xunyang County could not help but feel extremely regretful at this moment. He had never expected that the enemy would really dare to attack the city immediately. Otherwise, if he had sent reinforcements to the city walls earlier, he would not have been suppressed to the point where he could not even raise his head.

Moreover, after knowing that the enemy had appeared, they should have moved all the cannons on the northern city wall used to guard the Yangtze River here. Even if they fired in advance, they could have fired an extra round of shells!

But the current situation seems to be not bad. At least we can surrender and show that we are loyal to the Huaxia Department. We deliberately did not fire in advance. The reason we fired a round of artillery shells was just our duty.

So after Lao Piao used explosives to blast open the broken city gate and rushed into the city with his army, the defenders in Xunyang County surrendered immediately.

"General, I am Yi Xinwan, the defender of Xunyang County, and I am honored to meet you two generals!"

Looking at the Xunyang County defender who was nodding and smiling in front of him, Yuanbao was in disbelief. The other party actually surrendered directly. Was Xunyang County taken down like this?
Lao Piao looked as if it was a matter of course. He patted Yi Xinwan on the shoulder and said with a smile, "You are very good. You avoided a fight and not only saved the lives of your soldiers, but also saved the entire Xunyang County."

"He who knows the times is a hero. The people of Huaxia support the Qing Dynasty, while the people of Xunyang County have been longing for the royal army for a long time!" Yi Xinwan said with a smile.

"Hahaha, well said. The Qing officials were corrupt and the people were living in poverty. But our Huaxia tribe has equal land and low taxes. The people naturally know what to choose. It is rare for General Yi to abandon the dark and join the light.
good very good.

Let's not talk about this for now. Please ask General Yi to gather the Green Camp soldiers and then go to take over the government offices and treasuries at all levels in the city. I will wait for General Yi at the government office!" Lao Piao said with a smile.

(End of this chapter)