"Nine of the twelve Anglo-French paddle steamers were sunk and three captured. Those who fell into the water were all captured by our troops. Our troops are beginning to salvage enemy ship guns sunk into the sea. "When the latest news telegraph transmission arrived at Weese's office, it was only two and a half hours after Weese received the first telegram.

Weeser didn't feel too happy, twelve of these steam "boats" would definitely not be able to gnaw at the fortress of the Liberation Army. But this was only the beginning, and when he thought about the huge sail battleships of the British, Weeser didn't know whether to be excited or worried. The sail battleships of this era were loaded with hundreds of cannons.

"Governor, have we won?" Foreign Minister Hong Renji, who was called by Wei Ze, immediately asked eagerly as soon as he entered Wei Ze's office. The telegraph room now belongs to an important department in the Governor's Mansion, and the information was originally to be transmitted through the middle-level officials, but now there are full-time personnel in the telegraph room who have direct access to Wei Ze's office, and many of the latest news is Wei Ze who got it first.

Wei Ze nodded slightly, and said in a tone that was not excited at all: "Won the war." Annihilated a small fleet of the British. I invite you to come, and you ask you to arrange for someone to go to Hong Kong and ask Ergin whether he sent a fleet to attack our warships and batteries and whether he meant to declare war. ”

Hong Renji didn't expect the war to start like this, and he was even more pleasantly surprised when he heard that the Humen Fort had set up a battle to annihilate a small British fleet. The water division of the Guangfu Army has always been a weak point, and if it were not afraid of the British water division, the Guangfu Army would have attacked Qiongzhou a long time ago.

Hearing that Wei Ze next ordered someone to test the "formal attitude" of the British, Hong Renji couldn't help but be stunned. The British have fought like this, making it clear that they have entered a state of war, and it is indeed a bit of a superfluous move for Weeser to send someone to talk about it. So Hong Renji asked, "Governor, why did you do this?" We should now send someone directly to declare war on the British! ”

"Now is not the time for a formal declaration of war." There was a hint of regret in Weeser's tone, "Now is the time to determine the specific attitude of the British. We are going to have a formal meeting with the British Plenipotentiary Ergin to ascertain what the attitude of this guy is. ”

Hong Renji knew that Wei Ze was a person who was not afraid of war, and it was because he was convinced of this that Hong Renji thought for several moments before hesitating and asked, "Dudu, don't you want to start an all-out war with the British?" ”

"What do you think, Minister Hong?" Wei Ze asked Hong Renji. If there is one great advantage for people in the 21st century, it is that they are well-informed. With the tremendous progress of society and politics, they have easy access to a lot of high-level information. For example, Weser watched a documentary about the Sino-British negotiations in Hong Kong, in which a representative of the Chinese side foolishly said, "I can go back and discuss" after the British demanded that "China cannot station troops in Hong Kong."

Of course, the deputies did come back to discuss, and then the deputies were immediately removed. China's military presence in Hong Kong represents China's complete sovereignty over Hong Kong, and there is no room for discussion on this issue.

Therefore, Wei Ze also has a kind of tentative mind about Hong Renji, this very famous figure in history does have something and has vision. However, how firmly he can understand and implement the idea of the modern nation-state, Weeser must observe and observe before he can give a judgment.

"Dudu, I also think it's better not to fight." Hong Renji thought for a while and said, "We have a fight with the British, and if the British fight with us for a long time, they always feel that we will suffer......

Hearing this, Wei Ze felt unhappy in his heart. Hong Renji is a talented person, but without military training, it is inevitable that he will look ahead and backward when considering problems. What does it mean that you will suffer losses if you fight for a long time, and you will definitely suffer losses if you fight for a long time, and both sides will suffer big losses. Moreover, the British came all the way to Hong Kong, and they will only suffer more in the long war.

However, Wei Ze didn't want to criticize Hong Renji immediately, and sometimes he had to be patient to continue to observe. So Weeser replied: "To fight or not to fight depends on the attitude of the British." If the British do not give up, we have no other way but to fight. ”

"Shall we persuade the British, then?" Hong Renji hurriedly asked.

Wei Ze sighed slightly, "The British are better than monkeys!" Do you think they can't see the situation clearly? They don't need to be persuaded to see it very clearly. Minister Hong, just do the job I gave you! ”

Hong Renji saw that Wei Ze's attitude was very firm, and he no longer expressed his thoughts, but asked a question, "If the British don't answer my question, but ask if we want to officially declare war on the British, then how should I answer?" ”

This question was asked well, Wei Ze, who was originally very disappointed with Hong Renji, felt a burst of relief in his heart, and he smiled and said: "You tell the British that as long as the British side is not prepared to declare war on us, we have no intention of declaring war on the British." The purpose of sending people to meet them this time is to negotiate on the issue of the navigation of ships on both sides on the basis of the current situation! ”

sent Hong Renji away, and Wei Ze was still a little worried about whether Hong Renji could understand what Wei Ze meant. What Weeser wanted to talk to the British about was the question of the existence of the naval power of the Liberation Army. At least in the current Guangdong, the navy of the Liberation Army has begun to store. As long as the British could not break through the fortress of Humen, they would have to face this fact.

Before Weeser could prepare for a military meeting, new information arrived. This information has nothing to do with foreigners, it is completely domestic information. The officials who were "leaning" towards Yu Wei Ze within the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom sent a message that Yang Fuqing and Yang Yiqing had roughly determined that they were willing to accept the title of "Mu Tianyi" and return to the command of the Heavenly Kingdom. Hong Xiuquan changed the commander of the Fifth Army into the commander of the Sixth Army, and prepared to be crowned king.

Wei Ze frowned and ordered the Secretariat to bring up the documents about the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. Not long after, "comrade" Li Yifang came in with a stack of copywriting. There was an index on the copy, and Wei Ze was quite surprised after reading it.

Jiujiang was lost, and Shi Dakai fled. This should have dealt a heavy blow to the Taiping army, but I didn't expect that the Taiping army not only did not collapse, but fought back with all its might on all fronts. Due to the epidemic in Jiangxi, Zeng Guofan's troops in Jiangxi basically lost their combat effectiveness. The Taiping army did not care about the problems of Jiangxi for the time being, and began to make moves in two directions: Anhui and Yangzhou.

First of all, Li Xubin, a general who made great contributions in the battle to conquer Hukou, was killed in the Battle of Sanhe. Also killed were the 5,000 elite troops under Hu Linyi of the Hunan army. At that time, Li Xubin and Jiang Zhongyuan came in contact, and the two sides were preparing to come to a center to blossom, Jiang Zhongyuan's Huai army suddenly moved south, and Li Xubin's troops suddenly advanced eastward. The elite troops of the two sides combined to raid Luzhou, the core of the Taiping army in Huainan.

Li Xubin first successively attacked Tongcheng and other places, but was surrounded and annihilated by Li Yucheng's troops in the Sanhe area. At the same time, Jiang Zhongyuan's headquarters, which had advanced through the army, were attacked by the Taiping army. Li Kaifang led the main force to fight a tough battle with Jiang Zhongyuan. Both sides lost more than 1,000 men each, and Jiang Zhongyuan withdrew after learning that Li Xubin's unit had been annihilated.

Having successively thwarted enemy attacks from Hubei and Huaibei, the Taiping army in Yangzhou began to move north along the canal. Hit out for more than 100 miles in one go, and it actually threatened Huai'an. At a time when the Taiping Army has suffered a series of setbacks in a row, it is indeed not easy to have such an appearance.

Looking back at Yang Fuqing and Yang Yiqing, they decided to accept the command of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom again. Weeser felt that the situation was becoming more and more interesting.

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