1848 Great Qing Charcoal Burners

Chapter 271 The Eastern King's Banquet
"Fourth Brother, it's getting late. If you have no further instructions, I'll head back to Hanyang to handle some official business."

After discussing with Yang Xiuqing the plan to attack Mancheng in Jingzhou, Peng Gang got up to take his leave and prepared to return to Hanyang.

"Seventh Brother, please stay a moment. It's been half a month since we last met, and today is the Mid-Autumn Festival. Let's have a meal together. I have some things to discuss with you." Yang Xiuqing invited Peng Gang to dine at the East Prince's Mansion.

"Oh dear! Look at my memory, I even forgot the date. Please forgive me, Fourth Brother," Peng Gang said in surprise.

"Since it's the Mid-Autumn Festival, why don't I invite all my brothers over so we can eat mooncakes and admire the moon together tonight?"

“We’d already eaten some pancakes together before you came this morning,” Yang Xiuqing said with a smile.

“The rest of us are all in Wuchang, and our residences are mostly on the main street, so it’s easy for us to meet. But you’ve been in Hanyang the whole time, so it’s not so easy for us to meet. Let’s go to the inner courtyard.”

"Then I'll shamelessly ask Fourth Brother for a meal at his residence," Peng Gang replied with a smile.

Since Yang Xiuqing had already put it this way, Peng Gang couldn't refuse, both publicly and privately.

Upon arriving at the inner residence, Yang Xiuqing had already prepared a banquet in the main hall and invited Peng Gang to take a seat.

As soon as Peng Gang sat down, more than ten singers and dancers filed in, singing and dancing to entertain him, and some even played the zither.

"Praise be to God, the Father; praise be to Jesus, the Savior!"

Before starting the meal, Yang Xiuqing clasped her hands together to thank the Heavenly Father and Heavenly Brother for the food. Then, she made a cross with her right hand, from her forehead to her chest, and then from her left shoulder to her right shoulder.

This was the custom of dining in the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom: before starting to eat, one had to express gratitude and remember the kindness of the Heavenly Father and Heavenly Brother.

In addition to the kings, we should also say a word of praise to the Heavenly King.

In addition, there are rules such as not leaning against the table while eating, not crossing your legs, not talking while using your chopsticks, and only finishing one dish before starting the next.

Peng Gang looked down at the table full of delicious food.

Clearly, the kings were not bound by the rule that one must finish one dish before the next dish could be served.

As for whether he is bound by other rules, Peng Gang does not yet know.

Peng Gang imitated Yang Xiuqing's gesture, thanking the Heavenly Father and Heavenly Brother for the food and making a cross sign.

They chatted for a while about the past, including rescuing Feng Yunshan in Guiping, Xunzhou Prefecture, and the events during their time at Zijing Mountain, laying the groundwork for the conversation.

Yang Xiuqing put down his chopsticks and asked, "Seventh Brother, do you think it's possible to hold out if we leave one palace's troops to garrison Wuchang and defend Dongting Lake?"

Although the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom had already formulated a strategic policy of following the river to capture cities, abandoning key points, and focusing on Nanjing.

However, Yang Xiuqing did not intend to give up the large area along the Dongting Lake to Wuchang that he had already occupied so easily. He planned to leave a palace guard to hold the line and buy time for the main army to capture Jiangning.

Yang Xiuqing was confident that he could quickly capture the other cities along the Yangtze River, but he was not entirely certain that he could capture Jiangning quickly.

Qian Jiang, Yang Xiuqing's chief advisor, had traveled to Jiangning. As a native of Jiangnan, Qian Jiang embellished Yang Xiuqing's account of Jiangning.

Although Jiangning City was the provincial capital of Jiangsu, its city walls were inherited from the Ming Dynasty and were of a higher standard than those of the provincial capital, making it a city of capital city standards.

The city wall of Jiangning had a circumference of over 61 li, which was three and a half times that of Wuchang. The walls were all 5.5 zhang high, which was nearly twice that of Wuchang, and the garrison there was also larger than that of a typical provincial capital.

"Whether we can hold out or not, I'm sure Fourth Brother already has the answer in his heart." Peng Gang took a sip of bird's nest and pigeon egg soup and replied, "The army of the First Palace is not large to begin with. With troops stationed in Wuchang and others guarding Dongting, the forces are too scattered and it is difficult to hold out for long."

Yang Xiuqing was a very confident person, so confident that she was somewhat stubborn.

If Yang Xiuqing was confident that the troops of the Imperial Guard were stationed in Wuchang and would be responsible for defending Dongting Lake, he wouldn't have specifically asked about it.

The fact that Yang Xiuqing asked this question shows that he did not intend to leave Peng Gang's Northern Palace to guard Wuchang, and felt that it would be more reliable to take the Northern Palace eastward to attack Jiangning City.

Yang Xiuqing knew that the soldiers of the Northern Palace were both elite and numerous, and that the navy was the best among all the palaces. If the Northern Palace were guarding Wuchang and Dongting, Yang Xiuqing would not have asked this question.

Golden horns, silver edges and grass belly.

Wuchang is the grassy belly in the middle.

Wuchang and Dongting are indefensible and vulnerable to attack from all sides. To secure Wuchang and Dongting, forces must be divided to capture Jingzhou, Xiangyang, and Changsha. While the Northern Palace, after the forces are divided, can still defeat the Qing army, it is contingent on withstanding a prolonged war of attrition with the Qing.

Furthermore, Yang Xiuqing regarded Jiangning as his little paradise.

Historically, regimes in the Jiangnan region have been destroyed.

For example, when the Western Jin Dynasty destroyed the Eastern Wu, the Sui Dynasty destroyed the Chen Dynasty, and the Northern Song Dynasty destroyed the Southern Tang Dynasty, they mostly launched their troops from the middle and upper reaches of the Yangtze River, rather than directly forcibly crossing the natural barrier of the Yangtze River.

"In that case, the only way to hold out is to consolidate our forces along the Dongting Lake coast to the line between Desheng Prefecture (Yuezhou Prefecture) and Wuqiang," Yang Xiuqing said after a moment of contemplation.

"Whether we can hold it or not is another matter, but it's definitely safer than defending Dongting Lake," Peng Gang said.

By focusing their forces on the riverside region from Yuezhou Prefecture to Wuchang, they could concentrate their forces more effectively. Whether they could hold it was still uncertain, but it would certainly last longer than defending Dongting Lake.

After finishing their official business, Yang Xiuqing clapped his hands.

The singers and dancers in the hall gradually left, and a new group of women entered in their place.

Thirty-five young women from official families in the Jianghan region walked gracefully into the main hall, their skirts flowing smoothly, heads slightly bowed, without uttering a word, to pay their respects to Peng Gang and Yang Xiuqing.

"None of the Cangwu women sent to Seventh Brother last time have been married by him. I suppose it's because Seventh Brother comes from a scholarly family and has high standards; ordinary women don't meet his standards. These are all daughters of officials from Wuchang Province. Seventh Brother must not be so picky." Yang Xiuqing gestured for the woman who had been playing the zither to come to the front, then looked at Peng Gang and asked.

"Do you know who she is?" Yang Xiuqing asked, pointing at the woman.

The girl looked to be about sixteen or seventeen years old. She didn't wear heavy makeup, but her natural beauty was enough to captivate anyone.

Her features exude the elegance and refinement cultivated by a scholarly family, yet they cannot conceal the lively innocence of a young girl. Her demeanor is gentle and reserved, and her gaze carries a hint of melancholy and a touch of wit.

"I really don't know. May I ask which family she comes from, Fourth Brother?" Peng Gang looked the girl up and down before quickly shifting his gaze away from her.

It's not that the woman wasn't pretty enough, nor that Peng Gang was indifferent to women.

At sixteen or seventeen, which would be the age of a high school student in later generations, she had not yet fully grown up. Moreover, the girl had bound feet, which did not fit Peng Gang's aesthetic standards, so Peng Gang was not very interested.

Peng Gang's gaze then swept over the feet of the other women, about two-thirds of whom had bound feet.

In Guangxi and southern Hunan, especially Guangxi, most women participate in labor, and very few women bind their feet, especially Hakka women, who basically do not bind their feet.

In the early days, the wives of the kings who married in Guangxi were less likely to have bound feet; most had natural feet.

Upon arriving in the prosperous Jianghan Plain, the number of women with bound feet suddenly increased.

“This woman is Cheng Lingnan, the daughter of Cheng Yucai, the Governor-General of Huguang under the puppet Qing dynasty.” Yang Xiuqing was quite surprised to see that Peng Gang’s gaze only swept over Cheng Lingnan a few times before looking away.

When Chen Chengrong found Cheng Lingnan in the Governor's Mansion, he almost couldn't walk.

Even Yang Xiuqing herself was not as calm and composed as Peng Gang when she first met Cheng Lingnan.

Cheng Lingnan was also secretly surprised. She believed that her beauty was enough to seduce these peasants from western Guangdong and find shelter for the Cheng family, thus protecting them.

To everyone's surprise, the Northern King seemed to have little interest in her.

Thinking of this, Cheng Lingnan felt uneasy, and a trace of panic flashed across her pretty face.

The Eastern King reluctantly gave her up to the Northern King. If the Northern King did not accept her, what would become of the Cheng family?
Although Cheng Lingnan hadn't left the house for the past two weeks, she had still heard about the fates and destinies of other officials and their families in Wuchang.

“Cheng Yucai is already sixty-seven or sixty-eight years old, I never expected she would have such a young daughter,” Peng Gang said.

Peng Gang still has some recollection of Cheng Yucai, the Governor-General of Huguang, as Cheng Yucai was the first to defend Hengyang.

However, Cheng Yucai retreated to Changsha without a fight, and Peng Gang had no chance to capture or kill the Governor-General of Huguang.

The marriage that Zuo Zongtang arranged for Peng Gang was with Wang Quan, a sixth-generation descendant of Wang Fuzhi. Wang Quan and Cheng Yucai were the same age, but the matchmaker Zuo Zongtang arranged for Peng Gang was Wang Quan's granddaughter, not his daughter.

Peng Gang's focus was so peculiar that Yang Xiuqing was speechless.

(End of this chapter)