Li Hongzhang knew that Jiang Zhongyuan was an anti-smoking faction, so when Jiang Zhongyuan said in a relaxed tone that Wei Ze had led to the possibility of a war between the British and the Guangfu Army because of the ban on smoking in Guangdong, he did not really think that Jiang Zhongyuan was unconditionally happy to see this situation.

However, this was great news for the Manchus. Britain was originally reluctant to transfer some military technology to China, but the emergence of Weeser changed the situation, Weeser used the fire cap gun to gain a technical advantage in the face of the Manchus, and the British were naturally willing to provide corresponding military technology in order to balance the balance of power between the two sides.

"Jiang Gong, can Zeng Gong tell us the technique of how to make a zuò fire cap?" Li Hongzhang asked tentatively. Although Zeng Guofan has a very good relationship with Jiang Zhongyuan, if he is asked to obediently take out the technology, it doesn't feel so right. At least Zeng Guofan has to reap some benefits.

Jiang Zhongyuan replied: "Zeng Gong wrote a letter saying that this money was from Long Live . So I've already asked for long live, please give us the recipe for making zuò fire hats, and let us build a workshop for making fire hats in Anhui. There is really no delay in this matter. ”

Li Hongzhang was relieved after hearing the news, but he is young after all, and he is only 33 years old this year. There are some things in his heart, and he still can't hide them completely. After thinking for a moment, Li Hongzhang asked softly: "Gong Jiang, if Wei Ze really fights with the British, who do you think will win?" ”

"Huh!" Jiang Zhongyuan sneered, "Who can win?" ”

Seeing that Jiang Zhongyuan's feelings finally became excited, Li Hongzhang listened attentively with bated breath. Regarding the big smoke, Li Hongzhang also has his own ideas. Jiang Zhongyuan's attitude is very important.

"The big tobacco tax is already an important source of revenue for the imperial court, and Wei Ze banned smoking in Guangdong, and if the British can't win, they must sell more in other places. The military discipline of the Taiping Army is very strict, and anyone who smokes big cigarettes will be killed! Therefore, the group of wastes in Jiangnan's camp in Jiangbei besieged Jiangling for more than a year, and they did not enter the country at all. If the British increase the sale of cigarettes in Shanghai, I am afraid that they will not be able to fight! Jiang Zhongyuan said in a heavy tone.

Li Hongzhang was stunned for a moment, "Gong Jiang, do you think Wei Ze can win?" ”

"Whoever wins or loses is the same, Zeng Gong has always said that he needs to learn the method of British man-made weapons. If you want to get a way to make a fire hat from Wei Ze, it will be very difficult. But with Weeser here, the British could only come up with the recipe for making fire hats. Such things can only be said to be providential! Jiang Zhongyuan pretended to be relaxed and said, but Li Hongzhang clearly heard the unwillingness in Jiang Zhongyuan's heart at this time. With Li Hongzhang's cleverness, he could probably guess that Wei Ze's technique was not obtained from the British. If the British had sold Weeser Technology, they would have sold more fire caps now and made a lot of money. But he won't just obediently take out the technology of making zuò from the fire hat and sell it to the imperial court. The imperial court is not as good as the traitor, and it has to rely on the power of the traitor to buy advanced weapons and technology from foreigners, which is really a great mockery.

Without waiting for Li Hongzhang to speak again, Jiang Zhongyuan sighed and said first: "At this time, I won't mention it again." Our Anhui is thousands of miles away from Guangdong, and how Wei Ze fights with the British is their business. Let's just worry about going south! ”

“…… Yes, sir! Li Hongzhang replied.

The first target of Jiang Zhongyuan's Huai army south was Fengyang, which was located on the south bank of the middle reaches of the Huai River. However, there are many water systems in this area, and Fengyang is the boundary of the five rivers to the east, which belongs to the area with dense water network. If you want to capture Shouzhou, you have to be able to cut off the Shouzhou reinforcements. If Fengyang can be taken, a nail can be inserted between Hongze Lake and Shouzhou. Create good conditions for the next siege of Shouzhou.

At this time, the Huai army went through a series of expansions, and the Huai army approved by Emperor Xianfeng had 32,000, and the actual strength had reached 48,000. Jiang Zhongyuan had his own strategy of selecting and training troops, first of all, he recruited sons of good families with simple personalities as much as possible into the army, and the newly recruited troops should also be separated from the green battalion, and the new troops in the province were also infected with the bad atmosphere of the green battalion.

On April 3, more than 20,000 troops of the Huai army began to attack Fengyang. In addition to organizing defense, the Taiping army also hurriedly sent the news to Tianjing City.

At this time, the city of Tianjing was basically restored to calm, and the traces of the Tianjing Rebellion were basically invisible. The market still follows the various systems and regulations set by Yang Xiuqing, and is strictly managed. There was no command, and no one dared to walk around.

The Wing King Shi Dakai finally refused to accept the title of Righteous King, but accepted the title of Prime Minister of Heavenly Affairs and became the administrative leader of the Heavenly Court. As a loyal to the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, Lin Fengxiang was named King Zhang. Unconsciously, the system of kings in the kingdom of heaven has also undergone great changes. From the original king of the direction who ruled the Quartet, to the prince king named after the place, now he has become a new prince with all kinds of nice terms. The relationship between the central and local governments of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom is also subtly mapped.

In any case, the chaotic situation in Tianjing City finally came to an end. The long-awaited Wing King Shi Dakai took charge of the government, and an old qualified brother like Lin Fengxiang once again became the prime minister of Tianguan. This prime minister is different from the previous prime minister, after the fall of the East Prince's Mansion, the six Shangshu were destroyed together. Therefore, the heavenly officials, earthly officials, spring officials, summer officials, autumn officials, and winter officials of the heavenly kingdom, the six types of prime ministers have turned into the positions of the six Shangshu. The other prime ministers in the past were all dismissed.

From an institutional point of view, this in itself is the right thing to do. Whether it is the formalization of the organization, or the attempt to gradually make the title famous, it is the direction that the entire kingdom of heaven is moving step by step in the direction of tradition. The prime minister of Tianguan is one of the six ministries, and he manages the errand of the ministry, which is a big offense. When Yang Xiuqing was alive, no one dared to stab Yang Xiuqing, so he was in power. Now that the king of heaven Hong Xiuquan resolutely asked Lin Fengxiang to do this, Shi Dakai also asked Lin Fengxiang to take up the post with some surprises, and he could only grit his teeth and insist.

The news that the Huai army was preparing to go south half a year ago was there, but the Huai army's actions dragged on. Facing the bigwigs of the Heavenly Kingdom, Shi Dakai said in a deep voice: "I am not equipped enough for the fire hat gun, but how should I deal with it?" ”

Everyone didn't expect that the key content raised by Shi Dakai turned out to be about weapons. Wei Ze, the king of Qi, was a figure who fled from the Taiping army, and in terms of technology diffusion, the Taiping army benefited much more than the Qing army. At least Yang Xiuqing once wanted Wei Ze to take on the heavy responsibility of replacing the Taiping arms. Even if Wei Ze ran away, the fire cap gun was not a rare thing for the Taiping army. The key is this fire hat making zuò process.

As the supreme administrator of the Heavenly Kingdom, Wing King Shi Dakai's expression was also a little anxious, "Now there are more than 200,000 brothers in the Heavenly Kingdom, less than 20,000 fire cap guns, and the fire hat system is slow, not only Jiang Zhongyuan, but Zeng Demon Head is pressing step by step, and the brothers of Jiujiang are already in danger." If the weapons are insufficient, we are afraid that we will suffer some losses! ”

The quality of mercury thunderate copied by the Taiping Army from Wei Ze is not very stable. Of course, they don't know that this is because when making sulfuric acid and nitric acid, the oxidation process of their products is not high, and the content of sulfurous acid and nitrite is high, and the texture of mercury thunder acid is naturally very problematic. In the processing of firearms, because of the lack of knives made of crucible steel, the output of the artisan battalion of the Taiping army was higher than that of the Qing army, but it was still not as good as Wei Ze's factory.

There were no factories, no equipment, and the Taiping army had seen new weapons, and their need for redressing became particularly strong. The reason why Weese was able to win the battle was discussed many times by the Heavenly Brothers. The sharp firearms in King Qi's hands are the unanimous opinion of everyone. Although Lin Fengxiang also emphasized the General Staff system many times, but if he wanted to learn this system and imply a comprehensive reform of the Taiping military system, Shi Dakai was naturally unwilling, and the Heavenly King Hong Xiuquan himself also raised strong opposition. Lin Fengxiang has been a fortune teller, and he has a good set of dealing with people, and he also has a lot of experience in observing people's hearts. Of course, he could see clearly that after the Tianjing Incident, anything that touched the fundamental system of the Kingdom of Heaven might be extended to the negation of Hong Xiuquan, and Hong Xiuquan would naturally resolutely oppose it.

The system cannot be implemented, and the only thing that can be recognized is Wei Ze's equipment. The generals of the Heavenly Kingdom were not afraid of the Qing army, and what they needed most now was red powder (gunpowder) and sharp pawns.

This is not the first time Lin Fengxiang has heard Shi Dakai say this, the importance of Jiujiang is self-evident, the two gateways of Tianjing City on the Yangtze River, the first is Jiujiang, if Jiujiang is lost, the next is Anqing. These two gateways blocked the Qing army in the upper reaches of the Yangtze River, unable to go downstream. Lin Qirong on the other side of Jiujiang has been begging for help, but Zeng Guofan has heavy troops under Jiujiang and uses barracks to drain the water around Jiujiang. Two successive rescues failed to relieve the siege because of insufficient troops. In addition, Zeng Guofan's troops included a large number of musket guns and new artillery purchased from the British, which were powerful and dense. It undoubtedly increases the difficulty of the rescue.

Shi Dakai believed that it was necessary to gather the Western Expeditionary Army and the Anhui Army to jointly attack Jiujiang in order to win. However, the Taiping army was under pressure from all sides at this time, and could not immediately complete a military movement of this scale. And the advantages of the Hunan army in weapons also make everyone's hearts even more bottomless.

At this time, Lin Fengxiang was helpless, he finally said: "If it doesn't work, I'll send someone to contact King Qi and ask him to support ......us for the sake of the brothers of the heavenly kingdom."

After hearing this, these important ministers of the Kingdom of Heaven did not say anything, this is undoubtedly a good way, and Lin Fengxiang is not the only one who thinks of this method. can dare to say it publicly, maybe there are only two people in the entire heavenly kingdom, Shi Dakai and Lin Fengxiang.

The Tianjing Rebellion has finally subsided now, and after everyone got rid of the initial chaotic mood, they were finally able to look at the problem more rationally. Many people used to think that Wei Ze's departure was a betrayal of the Kingdom of Heaven, but now everyone thinks about it, if Wei Ze does not leave, as the most powerful military group in the Kingdom of Heaven, if the Heavenly King Hong Xiuquan can't kill Wei Ze, it will definitely be restless. And if Wei Ze does not seize the central power of the Heavenly Kingdom, he will not be able to sleep at night in the face of the hostile Heavenly King.

If Wei Ze seized the central power of the Heavenly Kingdom, what choice would these Heavenly Kingdom ministers have? There is probably no other way to go except to get up and fight to the end with Wei Ze.

Wei Ze broke away from the kingdom of heaven, so that the powder keg-like situation cooled down in an instant, and everyone was able to solve the problem more calmly. Weese's departure from heaven is a righteous enough action. Of course, since Wei Ze talked about righteousness, everyone naturally had a sense of injustice when facing Wei Ze. More importantly, this "unrighteousness" is borne by the king.

Therefore, the Heavenly King also pretended to send a few edicts to Wei Ze, hoping that Wei Ze could come back. and declared that Wei Ze was still the king of Qi in the kingdom of heaven. But that's all, everyone knows that the king is just for show.

Now that he asked Wei Ze for help because of the weapon, he was indeed looking for the right person. However, except for important ministers such as Shi Dakai and Lin Fengxiang, others really dare not mention such a building.

Everyone's eyes fell on Shi Dakai, Shi Dakai thought for a while, and finally said: "Please ask Prime Minister Lin Cheng to handle this matter!" ”

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