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The Xianfeng Emperor had two copies of Vézé's declaration in his hands. The first was the declaration before Vézé left the Taiping Rebellion. The second was the declaration after Vézé captured the city of Canton. These two declarations made the young emperor extremely unhappy. As the Emperor, it was not a big deal to be scolded by the rebels in the declaration. This was just an inevitable problem brought about by the position of the Emperor. What made Xian Feng unhappy was that Vézé had exposed some of the internal systems of the imperial court, as well as his fierce criticism of these systems.
The ratio of the Manchu imperial examinations and the ratio of Manchu officials were originally the methods the Manchu Qing court used to restrict the power of the Han people. To the Xianfeng Emperor, this was nothing special to discuss. However, when Vézé used the evidence that Manchu Qing was a Tatar and Manchu Qing never really regarded himself as China, it really struck the young emperor's heart. This was not because Vézé was lying, but because Vézé was telling the truth. Xian Feng himself had deeply considered the relationship between China and Manchu Qing. This time, he was taught a good lesson by Vézé.
Ceng Guofan had also made a comprehensive rebuttal to the issue of the Taiping Rebellion's God-worshipping religion. Vézé had made it clear in his second declaration that he did not believe in God-worshipping religion and only joined it for the sake of overthrowing Manchu Qing. Ever since he joined, Vézé had put all his energy into attacking Manchu Qing. It was obvious that Wei Ze was trying to show off his martial prowess. He boasted about his history of conquering a large number of cities and killing a large number of high-ranking Manchurian officials in the declaration. He claimed that he only focused on fighting Manchu Qing every day, that he did not care, and that he did not have time to participate in the religious activities of the God Worshipping Sect. It became very difficult for Ceng Guofan to include Vézé as a heretic.
Of course, Xian Feng ordered his men to compare the history of the war recorded in this arrogant and boastful declaration with the records of the Qing court, and found that the situation on both sides was completely consistent. Only then did Xian Feng begin to deeply regret his decision to allow Vézé to freely travel south to Guangdong. In the Taiping Rebellion, Yang Xiuqing and Vézé together accounted for about 70% of the meritorious service. Allowing Vézé to go south was based on the belief that the Taiping Rebellion was the root and Vézé was the tail. Now, it seemed that there was still room for discussion as to who was more important between the Taiping Rebellion and Vézé.
At that time, there was no room for regret once the strategy was decided. After Vézé occupied Guangzhou, he began to conquer other parts of Guangdong. All the military forces of the imperial court were used to deal with the Taiping Rebellion and the Tian Di Hui in Guangxi, so the strength of Guangdong became completely empty. It was inevitable that Vézé would completely seize Guangdong.
"Your Majesty! Ceng Guofan has an urgent memorial! "A eunuch came in to report.
"Give it to me!" Xian Feng immediately said. At that time, it was Ceng Guofan who suggested that Vézé go south. When Xian Feng heard that there was a memorial from Ceng Guofan, he was also quite angry.
After the memorial was delivered, Xian Feng only read it for a while before he felt somewhat happy. Since the defeat of the Battle of Hukou, Ceng Guofan changed his strategy of fighting against the Taiping army and adopted the method of "forming a strong stronghold and fighting a slow battle". The Qing Army built a long trench from the Guanpai to the end of Baishui Lake. It was more than 30 li long, three and a half feet wide, and two feet deep. There were six trenches in total, surrounding Jiujiang on three sides. The memorial said that at this time, the long trenches had already been built and tightly surrounded Jiujiang, which was guarded by the Taiping army. The Xiang Army's navy, which had been blocked in Poyang Lake, took the opportunity to rush into the Yangtze River and converge with the Xiang Army's navy on the Yangtze River.
Based on this situation, it wouldn't be long before the Qing Army would be able to capture Jiujiang and open up the route between Poyang Lake and the Yangtze River. At that time, the Xiang Army would attack upstream and recapture Wuchang. Once they controlled the waterway upstream of Jiujiang, the Xiang Army would be able to go downstream, break through Jiangning, and completely eliminate the Guangdong bandits.
Seeing this, Xian Feng felt that Ceng Guofan's original plan might be reasonable. No matter how fierce Vézé was, he only had a little more than 40,000 troops. If he could clean up the Taiping Rebellion in the next year, tens of thousands of troops would come south to attack Guangdong. Vézé wouldn't be able to resist.
He turned his attention back to Vézé's second declaration. In the declaration, Vézé said: Ye Mingchen let the local forces in Guangdong form their own regiments to attack Tian Di Hui. This matter happened before Vézé went south to Guangdong. Vézé couldn't punish the local regiments because of this. Now that Vézé controlled Guangdong, all the regiments that had conflicts with Vézé's troops before June 23rd would be forgiven by Vézé. But after June 23rd, wherever Vézé's declaration went, there were regiments. If they dared to attack Vézé's troops, Vézé would think that the regiments had attached themselves to the Manchu Qing bandits and certainly wouldn't be spared.
The term Manchu Qing bandits couldn't provoke Xian Feng. The declaration revealed that there were still many regiments in Guangdong and Vézé still didn't have the ability to destroy them. If he could make full use of these regiments to prevent Vézé from entering these places, then he could make Vézé lose his footing in Guangdong in the short term.
The imperial court had already discussed this matter and ordered people to take boats from Fujian to Guangdong to post the declaration. Those who could kill a single Vézé soldier would be rewarded with a meritorious service. Those who could occupy a county under Vézé's control would be made a county magistrate. Those who could occupy a prefecture city under Vézé's control would be made a prefectural magistrate. Those who could occupy a provincial city would immediately be made a provincial governor. Since Guangdong was no longer under Manchu Qing's control, the Manchu Qing imperial court could, of course, confer officials without hesitation.
In fact, everyone in the Manchu Qing imperial court knew very well that these militias might not have the ability to deal with Vézé's troops. However, as long as they could fight with Vézé's troops and resolve their mortal enmity with Vézé, then it would be fine. Vézé's troops weren't familiar with Guangdong and didn't have the ability to distinguish which militias were protecting themselves and which militias were truly hostile to Vézé. After inciting Vézé's fear and hostility towards the militias, Vézé would probably go all out and massacre the militias. Once this massacre started, Vézé wouldn't be able to truly occupy Guangdong.
Stirring up inter-provincial and local conflicts was the Manchu Qing's specialty. Xian Feng didn't think that Vézé, a bandit from the mountains, could break through the Manchu Qing's method of dividing and ruling. Although Ye Mingchen was defeated by Vézé, his method of group training had completely inherited this technique. Even a local rebel force like Tian Di Hui couldn't establish a foothold in Guangdong and had no choice but to run to Guangxi and Jiangxi. For Vézé, who was anxious to establish a foothold in Guangdong, the more anxious he was, the more mistakes he would make. When Vézé saw the militias as his greatest enemy, the militias would really fight to the death with Vézé.
Thinking of this, Xian Feng ordered people to draft an imperial edict. In the edict, Ceng Guofan was ordered to seize the opportunity to attack Jiujiang. Once Jiujiang was conquered, he would immediately go downstream and attack Jiangning to exterminate the Guangdong bandits.
After sending out the edict, Xian Feng suddenly thought, would the Guangdong bandits be exterminated first, or would Vézé be exterminated first? This question was really hard to answer.
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