If someone had asked in mid-July 1854 what the governors of Jiangsu and Anhui had in common, and if anyone really dared to offend them, the reply would have been, "Both governors are playing partiality in their own provinces!" ”

Jiangning, the capital of Jiangsu Province, and Anqing, the capital of Anhui Province, were now in the hands of the Taiping Army, and in both provinces, the Taiping Army continued to seize territory from the south to the north.

However, on August 6, a large force of the Taiping army marched out of Huai'an and attacked from north to south along the canal.

Ten days ago, on July 22, the Taiping army troops came out of Hongze and advanced directly to Huai'an in the northeast. Huai'an is the confluence of the ancient Huai River and the Grand Canal, and has been an extremely important area in Jiangsu since ancient times. Although in the 21st century, due to the rise of railways, shipping, and highways, coupled with the problem of water shortage in China, the reopening of the Inner 6 Canal was only the beginning, which led to a great decline in Huai'an's status in China. In 1854, however, Huai'an was a real powerhouse.

Wei Ze finally determined the core units of the six armies, the 11th to 15th armies plus the 19th army as a cavalry unit, and except for the 15th army of the Shouzhou Military Subdivision commanded by He Chengge, which could establish division-level troops on its own, the other five armies maintained the establishment of ten brigades. The other four corps can also set up division-level units on their own, and they are mainly used as reserve training units, as well as local garrison units.

On July 24, the Taiping army arrived at the city of Huai'an. On July 25, the Taiping army conquered Huai'an with less than 2oo casualties. Lin Fengxiang, who followed Wei Ze to Huai'an, was dumbfounded. Long before this battle, Wei Ze agreed with Lin Fengxiang that Lin Fengxiang would temporarily guard Huai'an. Lin Fengxiang had four armies and 20,000 people in his hands, and let him garrison Huai'an, and everyone was very relieved.

Huai'an was the confluence of the canal and the Huai River, and the troops spent a lot of time collecting boats. A large amount of equipment, including 100,000 catties of gunpowder, was seized in Huai'an, and it took some time to turn powder gunpowder into granular gunpowder.

This qiē was prepared before Wei Ze ordered the attack on Huai'an, and the matter was not out of the scope of the pre-assessment. Even so, it took 12 days for the troops to complete all the work.

Before Wei Ze led the troops out, Lin Fengxiang reluctantly pulled Wei Ze's arm and said, "Brother Wei, I know that what you have done is not delaying your work, but brother, I really don't understand what you are doing and why you are doing this." When the battle is over, Brother Wei, you have to teach your brother well. ”

Wei Ze replied simply: "Then wait for the next time we meet." ”

Both of them are experienced in battles, and they also hold important positions. I don't have time to talk nonsense here, and I don't have any interest in talking nonsense here.

After Wei Ze's fleet was dispatched, Lin Fengxiang, the current substantial owner of Huai'an, returned to the prefect's yamen. He asked the cronies standing beside him, "Have you found anything yet?" ”

"Back to the Marquis, for King Qi's musket, we really haven't found anything. As for the artillery of the King of Qi, it was bought from the Westerners. I couldn't find out anything. The subordinates only learned that the army of King Qi was very different from ours, and the equipment was also very different. "This subordinate looks at the costume is a checkpoint, and he is also a character who followed Lin Fengxiang all the way to fight. can mention Wei Ze's news, he can't grasp the point at all.

After saying these words, the inspector also looked embarrassed, and he tried to ask, "Master Hou, if you really want to know this, why don't you ask King Qi in person." If you feel embarrassed, you can also ask King Qi through Guò Dongwang. It's not always good for us to inquire in private. ”

Lin Fengxiang shook his head, "These are Brother Wei's own crafts, do you think we will give it if we ask for it directly from him?" Besides, we have already received a great benefit from Brother Wei, and we directly ask him for the muskets that his subordinates are using, even if we sue the king of the east, the king of the east will not agree. ”

After listening to this, the inspector nodded and said yes, the East King can ask Wei Ze to provide Lin Fengxiang with troops and weapons, which is where the East King's authority lies. But the king of the east could not directly ask for the best troops and the best equipment that Wei Ze could use to allocate to Lin Fengxiang. The former is equivalent to borrowing money, and the latter is robbing money. For Wei Ze, it was impossible for the East King to do this.

But the inspection point can also fully understand why Lin Fengxiang did something to "steal the division", Wei Ze's troops showed strong combat effectiveness when attacking Huai'an, far beyond the imagination of Lin Fengxiang and the inspection point who watched the battle next to Lin Fengxiang.

Accurate artillery fire can still effectively kill and injure the Qing army's muskets at a distance of 2oo paces. These two pieces of equipment alone made the other Taiping army units who had truly seen the combat effectiveness of Wei Ze's troops for the first time dumbfounded.

Originally, they only knew that Wei Ze's troops could fight tough battles, dared to fight tough battles, and were willing to fight tough battles, but now they realized that with good guns in hand, Wei Ze's troops did have this confidence. And the inspection point is also very clear, if Lin Fengxiang has such a good thing in his hands, Wei Ze will ask Lin Fengxiang for it, and Lin Fengxiang will not give it to Wei Ze. Not to mention, Wei Ze had already given Lin Fengxiang too many things. As the saying goes, Shengmi fights against rice, and a smart person like Wei Ze will not have any room for relaxation at a critical moment.

Even if he felt that it was not appropriate for Lin Fengxiang to do this, he couldn't think of any other way.

At this time, Wei Ze was sitting in the handsome boat, and Wei Changrong was reporting to him the military technology of Wei Ze's troops that Lin Fengxiang's troops had secretly checked. After listening to the report, Wei Ze replied: "Changrong, you did a good job. ”

Wei Changrong was a little puzzled, "Fourth uncle, why are you so guarded against Prime Minister Lin?" ”

Wei Ze sighed, "Changrong, I'll tell you now, the moon itself is not light, the light on the moon is the light on the surface of the moon reflecting the sun. You must be convinced by now. But if I were to say this now to someone who doesn't even know that the earth revolves around the sun, that person will think I'm wrong. You'll think I'm evil! ”

Seeing Wei Ze's somewhat angry appearance, Wei Changrong laughed. In fact, a large part of this laughter is that Wei Ze's words are both ridiculous and real, which is a bit sad.

It's not surprising that this day and age can't understand what Weezer is doing. Wei Ze believes that in China in this era, no one can really understand what Wei Ze is doing except for the people in Wei Ze's army. Because the two sides have completely different views of the world.

No matter what happened in Weeser's troops, the idea that the moon revolves around the earth and the galaxy of the earth and the moon revolves around the sun. So about the waxing and waning of the moon, about the change of seasons, why there are 365 days in a year. Why is it that in the solar calendar and the lunar calendar, the summer solstice and the winter solstice coincide unequivocally?

As they learned more and more, one of the biggest changes in Weese's troops was that they no longer had a sense of mystery about many natural phenomena. As the price of this change, the people outside are increasingly unable to understand Weese's troops.

Lin Fengxiang couldn't understand the principle of gunpowder flashing, so he couldn't understand why Wei Ze's troops had to make gunpowder paste and then dry it, and then use special machinery to crush the gunpowder blocks into small pellets. The most important thing is that because Wei Ze mixed egg whites into water when he made granular gunpowder, people outside did not know, so Lin Fengxiang couldn't understand why Wei Ze could make a very strong lump by stirring the gunpowder with some water. Gunpowder itself is actually quite uncohesive.

Even if he had seen Wei Ze's fire cap gun with his own eyes, he knew that the fire cap would fire after being hammered. But what was in the fire cap, why that thing would catch fire under the blow, and why that thing could fire normally on a rainy day, Lin Fengxiang still didn't know anything. Not to mention why the cap gun can make the granular powder burn more effectively.

It is this kind of world-wide knowledge gap and understanding gap that Lin Fengxiang only knows what he saw from Wei Ze. In other words, he only knew what Wei Ze let Lin Fengxiang see. But Lin Fengxiang couldn't have known that Wei Ze's musket team could still use muskets to fight normally even on a light rainy day. If Lin Fengxiang knew that Wei Ze was actually thinking about this kind of battle very seriously, he would be so frightened that he couldn't speak.

For Wei Ze, the worry about the diffusion of technology has become a very uneasy thing for him. The technology that Weeser has demonstrated so far has been available in Europe and has been applied to firearms. Once the foreign devils saw that Wei Ze had these technologies in their hands, they were afraid that they would dare to sell the same weapons to the Manchu government, which would be a very troublesome thing.

And even if he is an outstanding talent like Lin Fengxiang these years, he is also a pig teammate in a sense for Wei Ze. Once the technology dared to spread to Lin Fengxiang, Wei Ze was very worried that it would not be long before it spread to the Qing army. Therefore, Wei Ze's defense against Lin Fengxiang was actually no less than the defense against the Qing army.

However, this time is almost over, Wei Ze thinks that once he captures the Jiangbei camp near Yangzhou, let Lin Fengxiang come back to defend Yangzhou, and then Wei Ze can continue to return to the south of the Huai River to continue to operate the Huai River defense line. Jiangnan's side can be handed over to Lin Fengxiang and them to deal with. As long as Wei Ze guards the Huai River, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom will have a stable source of soldiers and grain production.

This time, Wei Ze did not get seasick when he took a boat in the canal, and the lack of fluctuation in the water in the canal was certainly one of the reasons, and the cooperation of the Qing army was also another reason.

"Chief of the General Staff, there is a Qing army ahead!"

"Chief of the General Staff, the Qing army is in a formation of two thousand. Depending on the situation, there are 500 Qing troops, and 1,500 are local regimental exercises. ”

"Chief of the General Staff, our army has completely annihilated the Qing army. What to do with the captives? ”

"Chief of the General Staff, the Qing army has been shot. One of the group trainers left a pair of pants, and they were all released. ”

Such reports are almost every other day, and when there is a war, Weeser can also get off the ship and direct the battle at the General Staff, at least there to wait for news. According to the confession of the captured Qing general, after Wei Ze captured Huai'an, Xianfeng issued an order that the Qing army in all places south of Huai'an should organize troops and fight when it encountered the Taiping army. There was a very strong part of this decree, saying that as long as the Taiping army passed by, the local Qing army did not fight the Taiping army. Whatever the reason, Xianfeng would execute local officials on charges of desertion.

At this time, the imperial power had not yet collapsed, and since Emperor Xianfeng had given such an order, even if the local officials were so frightened that they peed their pants, even if they were so frightened that they cried bitterly, they had to find a way to pretend that they carried out this order. At least they have to fool Emperor Xianfeng according to the rules of officialdom.

The king calls the ministers to die, and the ministers can't not die! Although Confucius never said such nonsense, this was the attitude of the Manchu court.

PS: There is only one chapter today

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