?
"Can Ceng Guofan really fight his way to East and West Liangshan? With Qing Yao's training and equipment, he will lose without a doubt! "
"That's the army, not the navy. If we want to deal with Qing Yao's navy, we can only fight with the navy … "
"Even if we sink a large number of Qing Yao's ships, as long as a small number of ships break through the East and West Liang Mountains, we won't be able to answer to the King Of The East …"
"If you put it that way, our biggest enemy is the King Of The East, not Qing Yao!"
…
This was the first time the General Staff Headquarters had a real water war, so the discussion was naturally particularly intense. However, the result was very ordinary. An iron lock was built on the river between East and West Liangshan. If the Qing Army were to fight Vézé's troops on land in order to break through these iron chains, that would be exactly what they were looking for. Vézé's troops decisively annihilated the Qing Army's land forces. Without the cooperation of the land forces, the Qing Army's navy could do nothing.
If the isolated Qing Army navy forcibly attacked, Vézé's troops could naturally use their artillery to easily annihilate the Qing Army navy standing in front of the iron locks.
Because they had no experience in naval warfare, the focus of their discussion was on whether the Qing Army would send land forces to attack the Taiping army's positions along the river. After the discussion, everyone came to a conclusion. With the strength of Vézé's cannons and the less than one kilometer wide river, any wooden boat that was hit by solid cannons and grapeshot would be slaughtered.
After the General Staff Headquarters finished their discussion, they immediately began to formulate a battle plan. The core of the battle would be the cannons' destructive attacks on the ships on the river. Naturally, the battle plan would start with this core.
With the core in place, the work began to break down. As the saying goes, know thyself, know thy enemy. Not only must one know the movements of one's own army, one must also determine the movements of the enemy. As for how to confirm the enemy's information, first of all, it was the communication system between Anqing and East and West Liangshan. Now that this area was completely under the control of the Taiping army, Beacon Towers became a pretty good option.
During a battle, the first thing they had to do was to ensure the safety of the artillery. They had to figure out how to build the turrets and how to arrange the artillery. Someone was in charge of this. The land forces were unable to participate in the water battle, so the deployment of the land forces was arranged around the defense of the forts.
The war machine known as the General Staff Headquarters was soon fully operational. As the Chief of the General Staff, Vézé was relatively relaxed. What he needed to do was to manage the entire General Staff Department, and he did not need to directly participate in the specific work below.
The King Of The East, Yang Xiuqing, moved very quickly. Vézé had only been in East and West Liangshan for five days, but he had already transported a raft from Tianjin City. It was a floating object made up of huge wooden rafts and boats. First, they used large anchors to anchor these rafts in the middle of the river. Then, they used thick iron chains to link these rafts together. A River Blocking Iron Chain was completed.
With this kind of iron lock, not only did it form a barrier to prevent the passage of ships above and below the iron lock, but it also formed a fast passage on the river. If the positions on one side of the river were in danger, they could easily mobilize the land forces from the other side of the river to provide quick reinforcements.
Two years ago, when the Taiping army attacked Changsha, they had used this method. At that time, Vézé's troops could freely travel between the two sides of the Yangtze River. They were very familiar with this method. With the help of the engineering troops, the river rafts were completed very quickly. It only took three days for the barrier to cut off the Yangtze River to be completed.
On the 7th of November, Vézé's troops began to make further arrangements and training for the defense of the river.
It was also at this time that the King Of The East, Yang Xiuqing, sent another group of troops to "help" Vézé. The leader was Chen Delong.
Chen Delong was Yang Xiuqing's nephew. He was slightly older than Vézé. As the Emperor and Yang Xiuqing's nephew, Chen Delong was quite ostentatious when he saw Vézé. He simply nodded at Vézé, but did not kneel down to greet Vézé.
The faces of the generals who came to greet Vézé immediately darkened. Although Vézé's military etiquette was simple, they did not kneel down, but stood at attention and raised their hands in salute. But this did not mean that the people outside could do the same. When the people from the other troops saw Vézé, they were either veteran generals like Lin Fengxiang or veteran Prime Minister Luo Dagang. These people were also old friends with Vézé. That was why they could talk to each other intimately. Otherwise, there was no way they would not greet Vézé respectfully.
The people did not really care about Chen Delong. Yang Xiuqing's recent actions had made Vézé's subordinates, who were originally far away from Tianjing City, very unhappy. As Yang Xiuqing's nephew, Chen Delong naturally represented a certain attitude of Yang Xiuqing. Chen Delong was only a Emperor and was two ranks lower than Vézé. Seeing that Chen Delong did not kneel down, everyone had their own thoughts.
Wei Ze smiled faintly and stepped forward, saying warmly, "Brother Chen, I'm very happy that you brought troops to help me."
Chen Delong was obviously not as cheerful as Vézé. He replied with a cautious and pretentious expression, "Prince Of Qi, the King Of The East ordered me to come and manage the waterway."
When the river was turned into an iron lock, the people who came to help Vézé told Vézé that they needed to leave a waterway for ships to pass through. If the entire river was completely blocked, there would be no way out if there was a problem that needed to be repaired. Moreover, the area around Wuhu was an area with a lot of ships. A large amount of grain from Anhui passed through here. Therefore, it was necessary to leave a waterway.
Of course, Vézé could not ask for a fee from the grain ships, but he could charge a certain amount of money from other ships. What Chen Delong said about coming to manage the waterway was to charge a fee.
When Chen Delong clearly said that he was here to rob them, the expressions of Wei Ze's subordinates changed one by one. Vézé's troops were not short of money. They had conquered so many cities. When they went north to help, they conquered the cities in Shandong and Hebei, and when they destroyed the Jiangnan and Jiangbei Barracks, they conquered Huai'an and other big cities. These profits were naturally great.
However, no one thought that money was too little. When Vézé was in Anhui, he could collect taxes by paying taxes after the grain was sold. Now that he had left Anhui, he no longer had this income. He had originally planned to attack Suzhou and enter Zhejiang. This was a huge profit. Now that he had been transferred to East and West Liangshan, the troops could only rely on Vézé's original income. Chen Delong had come to take charge of the waterway clearance fees, so Vézé's troops naturally had no income. Vézé's subordinates were naturally furious.
But Vézé was not angry. He asked, "Is there a decree from the King Of The East?"
Chen Delong immediately took out the decree from the King Of The East. It was indeed a detailed order for Chen Delong to manage the waterway clearance fees.
Returning the decree to Chen Delong, Vézé smiled and said, "That's great! I'm not good at this, and now someone is finally here to help me. Brother Chen, you came at the right time. "
Chen Delong was a young man. How could he compare to Vézé, who came from a state-owned enterprise in the 21st century? Hearing Vézé speak so amiably, the hostile expression on his face finally disappeared. He asked, "When can I take charge of the waterway clearance here?"
"You can go now!" Vézé smiled. "But Brother Chen, since you're here, do you know why the King Of The East sent me here?"
"If Qing Yao attacks here, Prince Qi will destroy Qing Yao," Chen Delong answered.
Vézé smiled. "Since Brother Chen knows, then what I want to say is, if there is news that Qing Yao is heading here, then Brother Chen will have to bring your men to a safe place. If anything happens to you, I won't be able to answer to the King Of The East. "
"Of course I know that," Chen Delong replied.
Vézé continued, "Also, this is a war. My troops are not allowed to give formal greetings during wartime. When I saw Brother Chen's greeting was so simple, I was relieved. "
"This …" Chen Delong looked at Vézé, not understanding what he meant. As Yang Xiuqing's nephew, he was quite arrogant and bossy in Tianjing City. He didn't expect Vézé to suddenly make such a strange request, and the reason was quite sufficient.
After thinking for a moment, Chen Delong answered, "I will listen to the Prince Of Qi's instructions."
Hearing this, Vézé's subordinates finally looked better. They naturally couldn't stop Chen Delong from collecting money. If they had to bow to Chen Delong again, they really couldn't accept it.
Vézé specified the place where Chen Delong's troops would be stationed, which was not far from the waterway. At this time, there were already many ships passing through the waterway. Chen Delong immediately began to arrange for his troops to collect money by ship. Vézé just happened to bring his troops back to the camp.
Once they reached the camp, the generals couldn't help but say nasty things. "What does the King Of The East mean by this? Does he want us to starve to the point of starvation? "
Without waiting for the situation to escalate, Vézé asked coldly, "How did the North King get into trouble? It's not like you don't know! If you can make the King Of The East change his mind, then you can say whatever you want. If you can't do it and only want to vent your anger, then I think you might as well keep this anger to warm your stomachs! Then I think you might as well keep this anger to warm your stomachs! The King Of The East knows more than you do! If the King Of The East finds out what you said, he will blame you. How do you think I can appease the King Of The East? "
Everyone knew that Yang Xiuqing had many spies. Moreover, everyone knew how ruthless Yang Xiuqing was in dealing with his subordinates. After hearing Vézé's words, everyone shut their mouths.
Although no expression could be seen on Vézé's face, he was also very angry in his heart. As for the fact that Chen Delong had come to collect money, Vézé wasn't that excited. Vézé didn't care about this bit of money. When he controlled Wanzhong, he collected hundreds of thousands of taels of silver every year.
If he hadn't been transferred to a godforsaken place like East and West Liangshan, Vézé would have naturally opened up countless sources of income after controlling Zhejiang and seizing Shanghai. Being interrupted by Yang Xiuqing was what Vézé cared about the most. Everything else was just a drizzle.
Apart from this depressing matter, in order to protect himself and the generals in his troops who had nothing to do with Yang Xiuqing, Vézé could only treat everyone equally and suppress the dissatisfaction the higher-ups had towards Yang Xiuqing. This method greatly affected Vézé's secret operation to dig out Yang Xiuqing's spies.
This didn't make things difficult for Vézé for long. On the 10th of November, Levis, who was in charge of logistics, secretly brought a middle-aged man to see Vézé.
"Prince Of Qi, this is my uncle," Levis said.
Vézé sized up the middle-aged man. He had the air of a scholar, but not the appearance of a bookworm. Levis's family was a Huizhou merchant. Since this was Levis's uncle, needless to say, he must be a Huizhou merchant.
With the turn of the year, Vézé could roughly guess that this middle-aged man had probably run into trouble in the waterway that Yang Xiuqing's nephew, Chen Delong, was managing, and had come to find Vézé for help.
Although he had some thoughts in his mind, Vézé stood up as if nothing had occurred to him, and said, "Mr. Li, what business do you have here?"
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