March 1o, Beijing, Yangxin Palace.

"It's a bundle of Yue bandits again!" Xianfeng looked at the lost concert in Nanjing, and his anger trembled a little.

Two days ago, when the news of the fall of Nanjing reached Beijing, Emperor Xianfeng and his ministers could only look at each other and weep. After more than a year of encirclement and suppression of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom became stronger and stronger, and the Manchu Qing Dynasty even lost the important town of Nanjing. The generals were defeated in the hands of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom one after another, and many commanders and commanders even died in the hands of the Taiping army, and their heads were cut off by the Taiping army to show their majesty. Now that this wolf-like army was in possession of Nanjing, the threat to the Manchus was increasing.

In this Taiping army, what impressed Xianfeng particularly was the bundle of Cantonese bandits. The young Xianfeng still has some impressions, probably a year ago at this time, the news about the Yue bandits was first placed on his imperial case. At that time, the Shu Yue bandits attracted the attention of the emperor more than their type.

Since then, there has been more and more news about the Shu Yue bandits. In many movements, the elite of this Cantonese bandit will conquer and win. The Qing army simply could not resist it. When the Taiping army withdrew from Changsha, some people impeached the admiral and Chun for accepting bribes from the Yue bandits after the break, so they sat back and watched the Yue bandits leave and refused to chase after them. He Chun's self-defense recital wrote loudly and deafeningly: "Kou is not afraid of the official army, Anken bribes? ”

When the Taiping army left Changsha three months ago, Xianfeng saw the inevitability of the Taiping army's attack on Jinling. Ordered to start the defense, and without waiting for the Manchu court to complete the military mobilization of the defense of Jinling, the Shu Yue bandits were the vanguard, and fought all the way from Wuchang to Jinling. In order to shirk responsibility, officials at all levels even described the Shu Yue bandits as like a god general.

Now, the Shu Yue bandits not only occupied Anqing, the provincial capital of Anhui, but also hung banners outside the gates of Anqing with the words "Expelling the Tartars and Restoring China".

As the emperor of the Manchu Qing Dynasty, Xianfeng knew the meaning of this better than anyone else. The Tartars naturally refer to the banner people, and the Chinese naturally refer to the Cantonese bandits. In addition to Xianfeng's great-grandfather Yongzheng, who dared to face this problem head-on and confidently declared that "I am the emperor of China", these two sentences are actually a nightmare in the hearts of the Manchu emperors of successive dynasties. When a group of Han people with the Han type of Han people call themselves Chinese, no Manchu emperor will not be afraid.

The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom set the capital of Jinling, changed Jinling City to Tianjing City, and announced the establishment of the Little Heavenly Kingdom. After more than a year of fighting, the Qing army suffered heavy casualties, and after frequent troographies in Hunan, Hubei, Jiangsu, and other places, a large area between the Yangtze River and Huai River was already unavailable. Jinling and Anqing supported each other, and the two lakes, which were vital to the Manchus, as well as Jiangsu and Zhejiang, were within their range of attack. Moreover, the Taiping army still has the possibility of moving north and approaching Beijing. Looking at the map, Emperor Xianfeng felt a headache.

Xianfeng had ordered the Qing army to build a large camp in the north and south of Jinling to besiege the Taiping army living in Jinling. But in this way, Xianfeng's most troublesome Shu Yue bandits got quite a relaxed space to act. According to the latest battle report, they have captured Tongcheng, and there are signs that the troops are pointing directly at Luzhou. Could it be that the real purpose of the Cantonese bandits was the Northern Expedition? The more Xianfeng thought about it, the more frightened he became.

While Xianfeng was considering the possibility of the Taiping army going north on the Yangxin Palace, Wei Ze was also sitting in the study of the Anhui Governor's Yamen in Anqing City, considering the future strategic situation.

The Taiping Army didn't shave, so they didn't shave much. Wei Ze occasionally used scissors to cut the beard on his lips, but he didn't bother to care about the beard on his chin, Wei Ze was not a beautiful beard, and he had a goatee on his chin that was almost two inches long. At this time, while thinking about strategy, he slowly twisted his goatee with his hand.

It's easy to imagine a future strategy, but it's easier for Weese. China's great national strength in the 21st century is a blueprint that seems to be a very good idea. If it does, it will be enough for Weese. But if you want to complete the blueprint in a step-by-step and orderly manner, this is another matter.

After purchasing a batch of British-made flint guns, Weeser tested them, and the current British's standard muskets are much better in quality than those of the Manchu Qing Dynasty. In particular, if the effective combustion rate of the pellet powder can be increased, the range and power of the musket will be greatly improved.

In order to speed up the progress of the military industry, Wei Ze could only do a lot of things. In those years, the Manchu Dynasty mainly imported sulfur, and exported it to the Ryukyus and Japan. Of course, the materials on hand were not enough for such consumption. Building a propeller requires knowledge of metal smelting, and Weeser knows that China's iron ore grades are relatively low. Either it contains more sulfur or more phosphorus, and the proportion of pyrite is very large.

Using pyrite to make zuò sulfuric acid, Wei Ze's little knowledge can also be carried first. Although the efficiency is low and the quality is poor, it is still a self-sufficient method. This knowledge was gained from articles that introduced how the Eighth Route Army worked its own strength. Pyrite is crushed and heated in an inverted clay pot to allow the water to absorb the decomposed sulphur dioxide to make sulphurous acid. Then slowly oxidize step by step to make a mixed liquid of sulfurous acid and sulfuric acid. These mixtures are heated with saltpeter to obtain nitric acid.

The separated nitric acid reacts with cinnabar, that is, mercury oxide, to obtain mercury nitrate. Mercury nitrate is mixed with pure alcohol, and the resulting solid is mercury thunderate.

Enlarge the hole between the fire pool of the flint gun and the chamber of the gun, put some mercury thunderate in the copper fire cap, stuff the copper fire cap into this enlarged hole, and hit the copper fire cap directly with the trigger, detonating a trace amount of mercury thunderate in the copper fire cap. The high-temperature flames from the mercury thunderate explosion were violently shot into the torn bullet casing, which ignited a large amount of granular gunpowder in an instant.

However, Weize has seen pyrite specimens commonly known as "fool's gold" in foreign countries, and the yellow-orange-orange iron ore looks very good, but Weezer is not a prospecting professional and does not know how to find this pyrite. Fortunately, when he was in Hankou, Wei Ze desperately collected a lot of sulfur. It is easier to make sulfuric acid directly with sulfur, even if it is uncertain how to get sulfur in the future, so you have to hold it first.

After many years of practice, Weizer successfully made a part of mercury rayate. But there is another problem involved, which requires a group of guys with chemical knowledge to do this important work.

Weeser has been extremely slow to train technicians rather than mechanics. Weeser finally understood how great the industrial nation really was. Before he was ten years old, his parents took him to make a lot of scientific small practical products, a large number of high-purity chemicals, and all kinds of cheap practical equipment. This made it easy for Weeser to embrace the idea of chemistry.

In Weezer's troops, everything had to start from scratch. Even those warriors who have been selected and are more receptive to natural science make them understand the elements, let them understand that the human body, including the human body, is composed of incomparably fine elements, and it is really more difficult than ascending to the sky. It's not that you can't learn, it's that you don't admit that it's true.

Atoms and molecules are simply invisible to the naked eye. For Wei Ze, what the book says, what his parents say, and everyone around him also thinks so, and he believes it. But Wei Ze's subordinates did not have this environment, and how to make them have this concept required a lot of chemical practice to educate them.

One of the basic conditions of chemistry is glassware, and there are guys in Anqing who know how to burn bricks and porcelain, but there are no craftsmen who know how to fire modern glassware. Even with the recipe he learned in chemistry class, sand for silica, Wiese didn't know how to distinguish limestone, and sodium carbonate was even more difficult to get. Wei Ze knows that Henan Tongbai has the largest trona mine in Asia and the second in the world. But he didn't know how to prospect, and he didn't control Henan. This qiē made Wei Ze feel painful.

Tugging his goatee hard, Wei Ze made up his mind, "It seems that the establishment of a modern industrial system and a scientific system is not something that can be implemented on a large scale now!" ”

But Wei Ze is still unwilling, Anqing is a place where the style of learning is very prosperous, even if he is a pawn of a peddler, he may not have read the Four Books and Five Classics. If we can make full use of the human resources in this area, we may be able to cultivate some human resources in a short period of time that we can hope for in the future.

Thinking of this, Wei Ze no longer tugged at his beard, but scratched his head. He now understands what it means to be able to fight the world immediately, but not to rule the world. The group of warriors under his command who are quite good at fighting may not be competent officials at this stage.

The future is plump, and the reality is very backbone. Weser let go of his head-scratching hand, forcing himself to put his thoughts back to reality. If we can't build a modern scientific system and a modern industrial system, we should first build a new army and a military-industrial system that will serve this new army.

And in order to build this new army, the first thing to do is to establish a base area. For people in the 21st century, among the common words that immediately come to mind when it comes to rebellion, "base area" is undoubtedly one of the words with the highest proportion of occurrences. The base areas can provide food and soldiers, and they have food in their hands, so they don't panic. And the source of soldiers means the barrel of a gun, and the power comes out of the barrel of a gun. How to establish a base area depends on the management of the locality.

Just as Wei Ze was thinking about how to establish a base area, the guards came in to report, and Zhang Yingchen asked to see him.

"Let him in!" Weeser said.

As soon as Zhang Yingchen came in, he said: "Prime Minister, you haven't come out to work much in the past few days, everyone is waiting for your order!" ”

"There are some things I haven't figured out yet." Weser said in an understated tone as much as he could.

"Prime Minister, is there anything else you don't understand?" Zhang Yingchen immediately began to line up with sycophants.

Wei Ze smiled bitterly, "Ying Chen, what is the matter with you coming to me?" ”

Zhang Yingchen's tone was more nervous, "Prime Minister, on the other side of the river, we caught a lot of deserters?" They all escaped from Tianjing City. ”

"Is it a deserter from our Taiping Army?" Weeser asked.

"Yes. They are deserters from our Taiping Army, and they all joined our Taiping Army in Wuchang. Zhang Yingchen replied. After finishing speaking, he added, "There are men and women here, all of whom want to go back to their hometown in Wuchang." ”

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