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March 10th, Beijing, Yangxin Palace.
"It's the Cantonese bandits again!" Xianfeng trembled with anger as he read the memorials about the fall of Nanjing.
Two days ago, the news of the fall of Nanjing reached Beijing. Emperor Xianfeng and his officials could only look at each other and weep. After more than a year of encirclement and suppression of the Taiping Rebellion, the Taiping Rebellion was getting stronger and stronger. Manchu Qing even lost Nanjing, a strategic city. The generals were defeated one after another by the Taiping Rebellion. Many commanders and commanders even lost their lives to the Taiping army. Their heads were chopped off by the Taiping army to show their power. Now that the wolf-like army occupied Nanjing, the threat to Manchu Qing was growing.
Among the Taiping army, the one that left the deepest impression on Xianfeng was the Cantonese bandits. The young Xianfeng still had some impression of them. It was around this time a year ago that the news about the Cantonese bandits was placed on his desk for the first time. At that time, the Cantonese bandits attracted the attention of the Emperor because of their hairstyle.
Since then, there was more and more news about the Cantonese bandits. In many memorials, the elites of the Cantonese bandits were invincible and victorious. The Qing Army was unable to resist them. When the Taiping army withdrew from Changsha, some people accused Commander He Chun of accepting bribes from the Cantonese bandits. That was why he watched the bandits leave and refused to chase after them. In Hechun's self-defense memorial, he wrote in a powerful and deafening voice, "The bandits are not afraid of the imperial army, why would they be willing to bribe them?"
Three months ago, when the Taiping army left Changsha, Xianfeng saw the inevitability of the Taiping army attacking Jinling. He ordered the defense to start. Before the Manchu Qing court could complete the defense of Jinling, the Cantonese bandits were the vanguard and attacked from Wuchang to Jinling. In order to shirk responsibility, the memorials of officials at all levels described the Cantonese bandits as divine soldiers and generals.
Now, the Cantonese bandits not only occupied Anqing, the provincial capital of Anhui, but also hung banners outside the city gates that read "Expel the Tartars and restore China".
As the Emperor of Manchu Qing, Xianfeng knew the meaning of these words better than anyone. The Tatars naturally referred to the Bannermen, while the Zhonghua naturally referred to the Cantonese bandits. Except for Xianfeng's great-grandfather, Yongzheng, who dared to face this question and confidently declared, "I am the Emperor of China," these two sentences were actually the nightmare of the Manchu Qing emperors. No Manchu Qing Emperor would not be afraid when a group of Han people with Han hairstyles consider themselves to be Chinese.
The Taiping Rebellion established the capital of Jinling and changed it to Tianjing City. They announced the establishment of a small Heavenly Kingdom. After more than a year of fighting, the Qing Army had suffered heavy casualties. The armies of Hunan, Hubei, Jiangsu and other places had been frequently mobilized. A large area between the Yangtze and Huaihe Rivers was already unmanned. Jinling and Anqing supported each other, and the two lakes, which were vital to Manchu Qing, as well as Jiangzhe, were all within their attack range. Moreover, the Taiping army still has the possibility of marching north and directly toward Beijing. Looking at the map, Emperor Xianfeng felt a headache coming on.
Xianfeng had already ordered the Qing Army to build two big camps on the north and south of Jinling to besiege the Taiping army in Jinling. But this gave Xianfeng's biggest headache, the Cantonese Bandits, a relatively loose space to move. According to the latest battle reports, they had already taken Tong City and there were signs that they were heading straight for Luzhou. Could it be that the real purpose of the Cantonese Bandits was a northern expedition? The more Xianfeng thought about it, the more frightened he became.
While Xianfeng was in Yangxin Palace thinking about the possibility of the Taiping army marching north, Vézé was also sitting in the study of the Anhui Inspector-General's yamen in Anqing, thinking about the future strategic situation.
The Taiping army didn't shave their hair, so they didn't shave their beards. Vézé occasionally used a pair of scissors to cut the beard on his upper lip, but he was too lazy to care about the beard on his chin. Vézé wasn't a bearded man, he had a goatee almost two inches long on his chin. At this moment, he was thinking about the future strategy while leisurely twirling his goatee with his hand.
It was easy to imagine the future strategy like a heavenly steed soaring into the sky, and it was even easier for Vézé. The powerful national power of China in the 21st century was a very imaginative blueprint. If it could be done, it would be enough for Vézé. However, completing the blueprint step by step in an orderly manner was another matter altogether.
After purchasing a batch of British flintlocks, Vézé tested them and found that the quality of the standard British flintlocks was much better than that of Manchu Qing. Especially after using the paper bullets made with gunpowder, if he could increase the effective burning rate of the gunpowder, the range and power of the flintlock would be greatly improved.
In order to speed up the progress of the military industry, Vézé could only use the primitive method to start many things. These days, Manchu Qing's sulfur was mainly imported, and the export was from Ryukyu and Japan. Of course, Vézé didn't have enough resources on hand. Making propellers required knowledge of metal smelting, and Vézé knew that the grade of iron ore in China was relatively low. It was either high in sulfur or high in phosphorus, and the proportion of pyrite was very high.
Using pyrite to make sulfuric acid, Vézé's knowledge was enough to handle it. Although the efficiency was low and the quality was poor, it was still a self-sufficient method. This knowledge was obtained from the article that introduced the Eighth Route Army's self-reliance and hard struggle. Crushing the pyrite, then heating it in an inverted earthen jar, letting the water absorb the dissolved sulfur dioxide, making it into sulfurous acid. Then step by step, slowly oxidizing it, making a mixture of sulfurous acid and sulfuric acid. Heating this mixture with saltpeter, producing nitric acid.
The separated nitric acid reacted with cinnabar, which is mercury oxide, to produce mercury nitrate. Mixing mercury nitrate with pure alcohol, the solid obtained was mercury fulminate.
Widen the hole between the flintlock's fire reservoir and the gun's bore a bit, and then put some mercury fulminate inside the copper fire cap. Insert the copper fire cap into the widened hole, and then directly hit the copper fire cap with the trigger, detonating the trace mercury fulminate inside the copper fire cap. The high temperature flame from the explosion of mercury fulminate would fiercely shoot into the torn paper bullet, instantly igniting a large amount of gunpowder.
However, Vézé had seen samples of pyrite, commonly known as "fool's gold" in foreign countries. The yellow-orange pyrite looked good, but Vézé didn't have a professional background in prospecting, so he didn't know how to find this pyrite. Fortunately, when he was in Hankou, Vézé had desperately collected a lot of sulfur. It was easier to directly use sulfur to make sulfuric acid. Even if it was uncertain how to get sulfur later, he had to hold on for now.
After many experiments, Vézé succeeded in making a part of mercury fulminate. But it involved another problem, which required a group of people with knowledge of chemistry to do this important work.
On the other hand, Wei Ze's progress in training technicians instead of technicians was extremely slow. Vézé finally understood how great industrial countries were. Before he was ten, his parents took him to do many small scientific experiments, a large number of high-purity chemicals, and a variety of cheap experimental equipment. All of this made it easy for Vézé to accept the concept of chemistry.
In Vézé's army, everything had to start from scratch. Even for those soldiers who had been selected to accept natural science, it was really difficult to get them to understand the elements, to get them to understand that everything, including the human body, was composed of incomparably minute elements. It wasn't that they couldn't learn, it was just that they didn't want to admit it.
Atoms and molecules were invisible to the naked eye. For Vézé, this was what the books said, this was what his parents said, and this was what everyone around him thought, so he believed it. But Vézé's subordinates didn't have this kind of environment. How to get them to understand this concept required a lot of chemistry experiments to educate them.
One of the basic conditions for chemistry experiments was glassware. There were people in Anqing who knew how to make bricks and porcelain, but there were no craftsmen who knew how to make modern glassware. Even with the formula he learned from chemistry class, using sand for silica, Vézé didn't know how to distinguish limestone, and sodium carbonate was even more difficult. But first, he didn't know how to explore, and second, he didn't control Henan. All of this made Vézé feel like he wanted to die. All of this made Wei Ze feel so much pain that he wanted to die.
But Vézé still didn't want to give up. Anqing was a place where learning flourished. Even the commoners might have read the Four Books and Five Classics.
But Wei Ze was still dissatisfied. Anqing was a place where learning flourished. Even the peddlers and servants might have read the Four Books and Five Classics. Thinking of this, Vézé stopped tugging at his goatee and started to scratch his head.
He finally understood what it meant to be able to conquer the world immediately, but not to rule it. The soldiers under his command who were good at fighting might not be able to become competent officials at this stage. The soldiers under his command, who were good at fighting, might not necessarily be capable officials at this stage.
The future was rich, but the reality was weak. Wei Ze put down the hand that was scratching his head and forced himself to return to reality. If he couldn't build a modern scientific system and a modern industrial system, he should at least build a new army and a military system to serve this new army.
And in order to build this new army, the first thing he needed to do was to build a base. For the people of the 21st century, the term "base" was undoubtedly one of the most common terms that came to mind when it came to rebellion. A base could provide food and soldiers. With food in hand, there was no need to panic. The source of soldiers meant the barrel of a gun, and political power came from the barrel of a gun. As for how to establish a base, it depended on the management of the place.
Just as Vézé was thinking about how to build a base, a guard came in to report that Zhang Yingchen wanted to see him.
"Let him in!" Vézé said.
As soon as Zhang Yingchen came in, he said, "Prime Minister, you haven't come out to work for a few days. Everyone is waiting for your orders!"
"There are some things I haven't figured out yet." Vézé tried to say it in a light tone.
"Prime Minister, is there anything you haven't figured out?" Zhang Yingchen immediately started to flatter.
Vézé smiled bitterly, "Yingchen, why are you looking for me?"
Zhang Yingchen sounded nervous, "Prime Minister, we caught a lot of deserters across the river. They all escaped from Tianjing City. "
"Are they deserters from our Taiping army?" Vézé asked.
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