"Stop... You despise the old man so much......" Li Hongzhang slammed the table with a bang, furious. He really couldn't understand how this Xiao Letian could insult himself so much even if he had a strong army under his command, even if he didn't get a bargain today.

"Do you think you have won today? What you are facing is only a part of the 100,000 Huai army, even if my 100,000 Huai army is just a wave among the millions of troops of the Qing Dynasty, do you really think that you are an invincible commander?"

"The imperial court really wants to deal with you, there is a way, 500,000 Hunan troops, and a million green battalions can drown you alive...... What's so great about you? It's just that the long-haired army is just flat, the twist army is undecided, the court gives you a chance to mend your ways, you don't take the court's mercy as weakness..."

Xiao Letian turned his head and glanced at him, "You better be an official, you don't have a dream of a big country in your heart, you're just a guard dog......"

"Presumptuous..."Li Hongzhang's roar almost caused the two armies to go off the rails: "The dream of a great power? I know what you want to say, isn't it the old man's argument about Xinjiang? What is wrong with me, then Xinjiang is full of Gobi deserts, snowy mountains and mountains, few people and poor land, what is there to defend?"

"As long as we Han people hold the line of Jiayu Pass, we will naturally be like Mount Tai, so what's the use of wasting money and grain on him? Why don't we concentrate our limited money and grain on the coast? You must know that the foreigners' warships are our henchmen and great enemies..."

"We pool our money, build forts along the coast, and buy large coastal defense artillery, so that as long as we hold the coastal defense, will the foreigners still be able to attack and enter?

Li Hongzhang roared and shouted, "What's wrong with me? What's wrong with me..."

"Hahaha......" Xiao Letian said with a wild laugh, "Haiphong? Just because you still know Haiphong? What can you do other than build some forts with stones, and then buy some backward and obsolete artillery? By the way, you can still be corrupt, and you will have to embezzle at least half of the construction of a fort, isn't this how the Qing taxes you mentioned go into your pockets?"

"Of course, you will also buy a few foreign warships to serve as a façade, it looks extremely powerful and scary, but you can't do anything but add some face to the court...... You won't buy the latest cannons, you won't add new flowering shells, and you'll even dry your clothes on the cannons......"

"In your eyes, defense funds can be embezzled and misappropriated at will... You'll even stuff sand in the shells just to make that little bit of money......"

Xiao Lotian almost shouted, "In the end, you will be sunk by the weakest enemy with such a fleet, and then those batteries will be demolished by the enemy's army one by one...... There will even be two fucking foreign armies at war on the land of the Great Qing Dynasty, and you will not dare to intervene in the slightest, but will remain neutral..."

"This is your strategy......?

Li Hongzhang was scolded stupidly, his hands trembled, and he pointed at Xiao Letian like a pendulum, "You, you, you...... What are you talking nonsense? Are you crazy to ......?"

It's no wonder that Li Hongzhang is scolding, and no one can understand what Xiao Lotian said except himself, because he said something that has not happened in the future.

Although it is said that it has not happened in the future, but in terms of Li Hongzhang's attitude towards the rebellion in Xinjiang and the inertial thinking that the Manchus have always had, I am afraid that the tragedy in history will have to be repeated.

Xiao Letian scolded to relieve his hatred, but Li Hongzhang was wronged, he himself will always be a loyal minister and a capable minister, and he will not admit to the trumped-up charges.

"Xiao Letian, stop me, why do you tarnish my innocence out of thin air? You make it clear to me......" Li Hongzhang slapped the table, and if he had a knife in his hand, he would definitely stab him in a transparent hole.

Xiao Letian stretched out his hand and pointed at the refugees who were cleaning up the wounded soldiers, and said coldly: "You have already driven the people into battle as meat shields, what else can you not do?

Li Hongzhang's face turned pale, he gritted his teeth and said, "That's a matter of urgency... Ci is not in charge of the army, righteousness is not in charge of wealth, I don't believe you, Xiao Letian will not do this when he encounters a strong enemy? Don't speak too highly of yourself......"

"Phew......" Xiao Letian spit on the ground with a mouthful of thick phlegm, "I don't know if you have the face to meet the saints of the past after you die, and I don't know what Confucius will give you..."

"Okay, don't talk nonsense, now there are two ways in front of your Huai army, either get out of the way, or fight, don't think that I can't deal with you if you hide in the canal, you'd better not force me..."

The negotiation reached an impasse, and Li Hongzhang found that Xiao Letian was as smelly and hard as a stone in the pit, and he had already put down his body, but he didn't even bother to open the door to negotiation.

"Xiao Lotian... Even if you want to rebel, you won't be so arrogant... When Wang Mang was not humble...... You're bringing about your own destruction..."

Xiao Letian strode towards his own formation, didn't even bother to turn his head back, just waved his hand and said, "If you want to fight, you will fight, if you want to go, you will go, how can there be so much nonsense... If you want to rely on Su Qin Zhangyi's sharp mouth to convince me, you better save your energy..."

When Xiao Lotian returned to his main formation, he sneered and said, "Obviously, they don't know what we're doing in Europe. They all think they are uncles, I see contempt in his eyes, and Li Hongzhang looks down on me at all......"

"These idiots, if they had known that we had defeated the French twice in a row, and that Austria would have rushed over like wagging dogs..."

Molière said on the side, "That's fine, it's the time difference that gives the prime minister's military might room to be used, and a wild victory is more useful than your tongue, hey...... This is the result of the inefficiency of information transmission..."

If the Manchus had listened to the advice of Zeng Guofan and Fuqing and invested in building a telegraph line connecting the north and south, more than a year would have been enough time to get from Beijing to Shanghai.

The structure of the earliest telegraph line was very simple, as long as it cost a little money to build a wooden pole along the post road, the light and fluttering telegraph line was also involved, as long as there was no corruption, such a telegraph line had 200,000 taels of silver.

Is this money still worth money for the Manchus? The royal family saved a bite from the food expenses. As long as there was this telegraph line, the news of Nanyang would be sent from the south to the capital in an instant, and as long as Cixi's head did not enter the water, it was impossible for her to launch a campaign against Tanggu without knowing that Xiao Letian was victorious in Europe.

As the old saying goes, soldiers and horses go first before they move food and grass, but this is not the case in real wars, and real wars are always about intelligence first. The Manchu Qing Dynasty did not understand this truth, or they did not believe in Western technology at all, and the sound of thousands of miles was a myth to them.

Li Hongzhang and Xiao Letian both retreated, and the battlefield was temporarily in a stalemate, although Xiao Letian provoked Li Hongzhang and asked him to hurry up to a decisive battle, but Li Hongzhang was not stupid, Xiao Letian's four rapid-fire guns have not come up with a countermeasure until now.

The Huai army that attacked the sneak attack announced that it was 3,000 people, but in fact there were 4,005 people, of which 1,005 were suspicious soldiers. Li Hongzhang originally thought that the sneak attack of the small 5,000 troops on 1,000 was a stable victory, but he didn't expect the battle to be like this.

Li Hongzhang didn't know how much ammunition Xiao Letian's army still had, but he knew that the more than 3,000 lives he had left might not be enough, and the only way now was to wait, waiting for reinforcements from the capital.

Since the Huai army did not move, then the new army moved, Wang Huaiyuan organized a total of three charges in an attempt to break through the enemy's defense line, but the Huai army gave full play to the advantages of the terrain, using ditches and woods to fight hand-to-hand combat with the charging new army, and the three charges did not achieve the expected goal, and the battlefield situation was stalemate.

The main battlefield was stalemate, but on the official road in the northwest of the battlefield near Langfang, the torrent was staring at the wind and rain and moving forward rapidly, and it was the 3,000 war horses and 10,000 patchwork Beijing garrisons.

Cixi has made a bloody investment this time, and one of these soldiers counts as a first ten taels of life money, thanks to the small treasury of the Empress Dowager Xi, which is quite sufficient, if you are poorer, this battle will not be able to be fought.

Not only that, but there was also a reward of silver, and each person was fifty taels, which he cashed out as soon as he won the battle. Mailer, who was imprisoned in the Ministry of Internal Affairs, was also released to make meritorious contributions, and even several governors of the Ministry of Internal Affairs were also dispatched.

What's even more surprising is that An Dehai was sent out by Cixi as a prison army, and this 10,000 people is the last hope, and Cixi must ensure that nothing goes wrong.

It was only a distance of more than 100 miles from Beijing to Langfang, and in later generations, as long as there was no traffic jam and an hour's drive, it would only take six or seven hours to change to the forced march of the new army.

But for these pampered Eight Banner soldiers, the team walked a whole night and only walked half the way, and when the Huai Army and the New Army began to exchange fire this morning, the group of soldiers did not see the shadow of Langfang.

"Oh, my ancestors... We just can't run...... It's been a whole night, and I've never suffered such a big sin......"

"That's it, don't run, don't run...... Let Langfang fire us up, we have to eat, we can't fight this battle when we're hungry..."

"Okay, okay, that master has a bubble in his hand...... I'll fucking buy it for ten taels of silver, and this money for a dog day is a bastard......"

When the new army and the Huai army were at a stalemate, the reinforcements from the imperial court finally arrived, and at this time they were not even five kilometers away from the battlefield.

Mailer was going to be guilty today, he galloped back and forth on his horse, and shouted in the ranks of dead snakes, "Get up, damn it, now it's not even ten miles away, and you can rush over it in half an hour...... Raising soldiers for a lifetime is used for a while, and the court raises you just to see the current one, and roll it up for Lao Tzu..."

If Mailer says good things, maybe someone will listen to him, but this scolding guy won't do it, "Fuck your grandma, Mellor, get out of here...... Master, I am also the uncle of Shangsanqi, you kid is playing tricks with me, you can even drown you when your uncle pees..."

"The brothers beat him, this bastard has lost the battle in a row, and he dares to shout at us, beat him..."

This book was first published from 17K Novel Network, the first time to see the genuine content!R405