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In the middle of July, 1854, if someone had asked the governor of Jiangsu and the governor of Anhui what they had in common, and if someone had really dared to offend the two governors, the answer would have been, "Both governors are playing in their own provinces!"
Jiangsu's Jiangning and Anhui's Anqing were both in the hands of the Taiping army. In these two provinces, the Taiping army was constantly seizing territory from the south to the north.
On the 6th of August, the Taiping army set off from Huai 'an and attacked from the north to the south along the canal.
Ten days ago, on the 22nd of July, the Taiping army set off from Hongze and advanced on land and water towards Huai 'an in the northeast. Huai 'an was the intersection of the ancient Huai River and the Grand Canal. It had been an important region in Jiangsu since ancient times. In the 21st century, because of the rise of railways, shipping, and highways, as well as China's water shortage, the inland canal development had only just begun. This caused Huai 'an's status in China to greatly decline. But in 1854, Huai 'an was truly an important city.
In the end, Wei Ze decided on the core units of the six corps. The 11th to 15th Corps, plus the 19th Corps, which was a cavalry unit. Other than the 15th Corps of the Shouzhou Military Subdistrict, which was under He Chengge's command, which could establish its own division level unit, the other five corps maintained the establishment of ten brigades. As for the other four armies, they could also establish their own division level troops. They were mainly used as reserve troops for training, as well as local defense forces.
On the 24th of July, the Taiping army arrived at Huai 'an. On the 25th of July, the Taiping army took Huai 'an at the cost of less than 200 casualties. Lin Fengxiang, who had followed Vézé to Huai 'an, was dumbfounded. Before the battle, Vézé and Lin Fengxiang had agreed that Lin Fengxiang would temporarily guard Huai 'an. Lin Fengxiang had four corps of twenty thousand people. Everyone was at ease with him guarding Huai 'an.
Huai 'an was the intersection of the Grand Canal and Huai River. The army had spent a lot of time gathering ships. In Huai 'an, they had seized a large amount of equipment, including fifty thousand kilograms of gunpowder. It would take some time to turn powder gunpowder into granular gunpowder.
All of this had been prepared before Vézé gave the order to attack Huai'an, and things did not go beyond the scope of the initial assessment. Even so, it took the army 12 days to finish all the work.
Before Vézé set off with his army, Lin Fengxiang held Vézé's arm reluctantly and said, "Wayne Brothers, I know you're not wasting time, but I really don't understand what you're doing and why you're doing it. When the war is over, Wayne Brothers, you have to teach me well. "
Vézé answered simply, "Then we'll see each other next time."
Both of them were battle-hardened and held important positions. He didn't have the time to talk nonsense here, nor was he interested in talking nonsense here.
After Vézé's fleet set off, the current owner of Huai An, Lin Fengxiang, returned to the prefectural yamen. He asked one of his trusted subordinates standing beside him, "Have you found out anything?"
"Lord Marquis, we really didn't find out anything about Prince Of Qi's guns. As for Prince Of Qi's cannons, they were bought from the Westerners. We couldn't find out anything either. I only know that Prince Of Qi's army is very different from ours, and their equipment is also very different. " This subordinate looked like an inspector based on his attire and was also someone who had fought alongside Lin Fengxiang. But when it came to news about Vézé, he couldn't grasp the main point at all.
After saying this, the inspector looked very embarrassed and tried to ask, "Lord Marquis, if you really want to know this, why don't you ask Prince Of Qi yourself? If you feel embarrassed, you can ask Prince Of Qi through the King Of The East. It's not good for us to ask in private like this. "
Lin Fengxiang shook his head. "These are Wayne Brothers' handiwork. Do you think he will give it to us if we ask him directly? Besides, we have already received great benefits from Wayne Brothers. If we ask him directly for the guns his subordinates are using, even if we tell the King Of The East, I'm afraid the King Of The East won't agree. "
The inspector nodded in agreement. The King Of The East could ask Vézé to provide Lin Fengxiang with troops and weapons. That was the King Of The East's authority. But the King Of The East couldn't directly ask for the best troops and equipment that Vézé could use to be given to Lin Fengxiang. The former was equivalent to borrowing money, and the latter was equivalent to robbing. For Vézé, the King Of The East would never do that.
But the inspector could completely understand why Lin Fengxiang would do something like "stealing". Vézé's troops had displayed great combat power when they attacked Huai An, far exceeding the imagination of Lin Fengxiang and the inspector who had been watching the battle beside Lin Fengxiang.
The accurate firing of the cannons could still effectively kill the Qing Army's guns at a distance of 200 steps. Just these two pieces of equipment were enough to stun the other Taiping army troops, who had seen the combat power of Vézé's troops for the first time.
Originally, they only knew that Vézé's troops could fight tough battles, dared to fight tough battles, and were willing to fight tough battles. Now, they understood that with good guns and cannons in hand, Vézé's troops did indeed have the confidence to do so. And the inspector was also very clear that if Lin Fengxiang had such good equipment, and Vézé asked Lin Fengxiang for it, there was a 99% chance that Lin Fengxiang wouldn't give it to Vézé. Needless to say, Vézé had already given Lin Fengxiang too many things. As the saying goes, 'If you raise a little rice, you raise a little rice, and if you fight a little rice, you become an enemy'. A smart person like Vézé wouldn't give in at a crucial moment.
Even if he felt that Lin Fengxiang's actions weren't very suitable, the inspector couldn't think of any other way.
At this time, Vézé was sitting in the commander's ship. Wei Changrong was reporting to him about the military technology of Vézé's troops that Lin Fengxiang's troops had secretly observed. After listening to the report, Vézé replied, "Changrong, you did well."
Wei Changrong was a little confused. "Fourth Uncle, why are you so guarded against Prime Minister Lin?"
Vézé sighed. "Changrong, let me tell you now. The moon doesn't emit light on its own. The light on the moon is reflected from the surface of the moon. I'm sure you believe it now. But if I say this to someone who doesn't even know that the Earth revolves around the sun, that person will definitely think that I'm crazy. They will think that I'm possessed! "
Looking at Vézé's flustered and exasperated expression, Wei Changrong laughed. In fact, a large part of this laughter was because he felt that Vézé's words were both ridiculous and a little sad.
In this era, it wasn't strange at all that people couldn't understand what Vézé was doing. Vézé believed that in this era of China, apart from the people in Vézé's troops, no one could really understand what he was doing. This was because the two sides had completely different views of the world.
No matter what, Vézé's troops had at least popularized the idea that the moon revolved around the earth, and that the galaxy formed by the earth and moon revolved around the sun. Therefore, the waxing and waning of the moon, the changing of the seasons, and why there were 365 days in a year. Why the summer solstice and winter solstice clearly overlapped in the solar calendar and lunar calendar.
After gaining more and more knowledge, one of the biggest changes in Vézé's troops was that they were no longer mysterious about many natural phenomena. As a result of this change, outsiders were increasingly unable to understand Vézé's troops.
Lin Fengxiang couldn't understand the principle behind the ignition of gunpowder, so he couldn't understand why Vézé's troops would heat up the gunpowder, dry it, and then use special machinery to grind the gunpowder into small granules. Most importantly, outsiders didn't know that Vézé had mixed egg white into the water when manufacturing the granules of gunpowder. Therefore, Lin Fengxiang couldn't understand why Vézé could make such a sturdy lump by stirring the gunpowder with a little water. Gunpowder itself was actually quite lacking in adhesion.
Even though he had seen Vézé's fire hat gun with his own eyes and knew that it would ignite after being hammered, Lin Fengxiang still didn't know. However, what was contained in the fire hat? Why would it ignite after being hammered? Why would it ignite normally on rainy days? Lin Fengxiang still didn't know anything. Not to mention why the fire hat gun could make the granules of gunpowder burn more effectively.
It was precisely because of this huge gap in knowledge and understanding that Lin Fengxiang only knew what he saw from Vézé. In other words, he only knew what Vézé had shown to Lin Fengxiang. However, Lin Fengxiang couldn't possibly know that Vézé's flintlocks could still fight normally on a rainy day. If Lin Fengxiang knew that Vézé was actually seriously considering this kind of battle, he would probably be scared speechless.
For Vézé, the spread of technology had become a very uneasy matter. The technology that Vézé had displayed up until now was already available in Europe and had been applied to firearms. Once the foreign devils saw that Vézé had these technologies in his hands, he was afraid that they would dare to sell the same weapons to the Manchu Qing government, which would be very troublesome.
Moreover, nowadays, even an excellent talent like Lin Fengxiang was, in a sense, a pig teammate for Vézé. Once the technology spread to Lin Fengxiang, Vézé was very worried that it would not take long for it to spread to the Qing Army. Therefore, Vézé's guard against Lin Fengxiang was actually no less than his guard against the Qing Army.
However, this time was coming to an end. Vézé thought that once he took down the Jiangbei Barracks near Yangzhou, he would let Lin Fengxiang return to guard Yangzhou. At that time, Vézé could return to the south of Huaihe River and continue to operate the Huaihe River defensive line. The Jiangnan side could be completely handed over to Lin Fengxiang. As long as Vézé guarded the Huaihe River, the Taiping Rebellion would have a stable source of soldiers and food production.
This time, when Vézé took the boat in the canal, he did not get seasick. One of the reasons was that the water in the canal was not fluctuating, the other was that the Qing Army cooperated with him.
"Chief of the General Staff, there is a Qing Army ahead!"
"Chief of the General Staff, the Qing Army is in formation. Looking at the situation, there are 500 Qing Army, and 1500 local regimental trainers. "
"Chief of the General Staff, our army has completely annihilated the Qing Army. What should we do with the prisoners? "
"Chief of the General Staff, the Qing Army has been shot. The regimental trainers have each been given a pair of underpants. They have all been released. "
This kind of report came almost every other day. During the battle, Vézé could also disembark from the boat to command the battle at the headquarters of the General Staff, or at least wait there for news. According to the statements of the captured Qing Army generals, after Vézé seized Huai'an, Xianfeng issued an edict that the Qing Army south of Huai'an was to organize troops and fight the Taiping army if they encountered them. This edict was extremely forceful, stating that as long as the Taiping army passed through, the local Qing Army did not fight the Taiping army. Regardless of the reason, Xianfeng would execute the local officials on the charge of desertion.
At this time, imperial power had not yet collapsed. Since Xianfeng Emperor had issued such an order, even if the local officials wet their pants in fright, even if they were frightened to the point of weeping bitter tears, they still had to find a way to pretend that they had carried out this order. At the very least, they had to follow the rules of officialdom to deceive Xianfeng Emperor.
When the sovereign calls for his subjects to die, the subjects must die! Although Confucius never said such nonsense, this was the attitude of the Manchu Qing court.
PS: Today there is only one chapter, R1058.
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