Section 146 is forced to make peace by war

Zuihou, at the end of the letter, wrote that if he agreed to peace talks, he would send a mission from Lingao in a few days. As for the venue of the negotiations, it can be located in Macao. If there is a reply from the Cantonese side, they can also go to Macao to ask the Society of Jesus to deliver the letter.

"According to the humble opinion, now there is only a council." Li Xijue said cautiously.

Suppression is not successful, only the line. Wang Zunde's heart was shrouded in pain. He knew very well that it might not be his turn to appease him. And the emperor may not allow him to be appeased.

That is, it cannot be suppressed, and it cannot be touched. I can't even talk about what can be done. This powerlessness enveloped him, and he did not speak for a long time. It wasn't until Li Xijue whispered that he should give the emperor a twist, that he was shocked.

After such a big defeat, this cannot be concealed in any way. As soon as other people's twists and turns are on, they will have no initiative. Li Xijue could only remind Dong Weng that this matter should be handled as soon as possible, quickly, and without delay.

Wang Zunde nodded, although he couldn't think of how to write this letter, but Li Xijue's words were completely correct.

The feeling of mental burnout gripped his heart, and he just nodded and said, "Just Mr. Yi." As he spoke, he waved his hand weakly and let Li Xijue go out.

"Lü Zan's letter—"

"We'll talk about it another day."

After Li Xijue came out, he brought the other staff members to discuss. Everyone unanimously agreed to draft the recital first, play it to the court as soon as possible, and leave a regression first. At that moment, a staff member who was specially responsible for drafting the draft was arranged to draft the manuscript overnight. On the other hand, he sent people to Guangzhou City to discuss the aftermath with Governor Li Fengjie and others.

As for negotiating peace, Li Xijue did not have the courage to advocate for it, and Lu Yizhong's letter could not be leaked out. He just secretly sent people to Macao to see if the Australians had come to Macao to discuss again.

The most difficult thing is the remnants of He Rubin who are now trapped in Haikou: thousands of men and horses are now trapped in Haikou and Qiongshan, with no food and grass, no reinforcements outside, and even the news has been completely cut off.

If He Rubin was also killed or captured, it would be even more shocking than the defeat of the official army in Chengmai -- comparable to the defeat of Lu Qin in the sixth year of the Apocalypse. That's really going to shake the two wides.

Li Xijue muttered at the staff meeting: "It would be nice if He Zhen and the others could be withdrawn safely." ”

"Now that the strait is locked, our soldiers and sailors are not in a good position, how can we cross it?" Some of the staff members shook their heads again and again.

The thieves' sailors showed their superiority in the skirmish blockading the Qiongzhou Strait, and the Guangdong sailors were simply powerless to contend with them.

"You have to sneak into Qiongzhou quietly and get in touch with He Zhen. After all, there must be news about how many people are left in the official army now, and what the morale is. ”

"What if you know, if you don't quickly recruit the thief, I'm afraid that He Zhen's department will ......"

"Do you want to enlighten the army lord and ask him to quickly transfer Chen Zhentai to Zhaoqing to discuss, and see if he can mobilize people to respond to He Zhen?"

Chen Ting is the deputy commander-in-chief of the Guangdong Auxiliary Guard, stationed in South Australia. Although he is nominally called "Deputy Chief Soldier", he is actually not subject to He Rubin's control. It is a town army commander who guards one side alone.

"What's the use of his men and horses?" Li Xijue had no hope of any military action to resolve the stalemate -- since the 20,000 officers and troops could not defeat Lingao and defeat him, even more so a few thousand people.

There was silence in the warm pavilion for a while, and the staff and assistants of the governor's yamen looked at each other. Thinking about it, there is really nothing to do except "caressing".

In the operations command room of the Navy's Command Department building in Bopu, in front of the walls of the huge Guangdong-Hainan charts, Chen Haiyang, the head of the Navy's Command Department, is holding a staff meeting.

Present at the meeting were the Navy's staff and a number of veteran officers. There were also two veterans who were not naval officers in attendance, one of whom was the naval adviser Wen Desi. As a naval and shipbuilding authority in the Age of Sail, his say was significant. Then there is permission to work in the intelligence bureau. This person's current title is Naval Intelligence Staff Officer, who is responsible for collecting and organizing naval military intelligence. However, according to the license, he was a "handyman who does everything" in the Foreign Intelligence Service.

This unprofessional naval staff group highlights the dilemma of the navy's specialization. There are fewer people who have served in the navy than in the army, and there are no staff officers at all. As a result, most of the work of the staff officers fell on the heads of the two highest organs of the navy, the People's Commissar of the Navy and the Chief of the Naval Orders, who were regular naval officers. As for Li Di, a naval officer who could not go to sea, he had always served as the commander of the naval fortress and the director of the harbor, and now Chen Haiyang simply appointed him as the chief of staff to learn the staff business.

Of course, Li Di's academic performance in staff officers is not very good, and he is still at the most unqualified level -- an amateur naval officer who knows little about basic naval operations has too many courses to make up for as a professional staff officer.

The Navy has now taken on the task of blocking the Qiongzhou Strait. Strictly speaking, this cannot be regarded as a blockade of the strait, because the navy actually only blocked the ports under the control of the officers and troops in Shenying Port and other places in Qiongshan County, in order to prevent the remnants of the officers and troops from receiving reinforcements from the mainland. Other ships entering and leaving the strait were ignored.

All ships entering and leaving these ports were seized and escorted to Ma Yuan for disposal, and all cargo vessels attempting to be transported from the ports of Qiongshan were confiscated. If it is true that the civilian ship was sealed by the government, the owner of the ship is allowed to redeem the ship cheaply.

This blockade is devastating for the flow of goods in Qiongshan. It is true that the Fubo army did not blockade the ports of Wenchang and other places that were still in the hands of the official army, but the ports of other prefectures and counties were of no help to Qiongshan's own transportation -- the prefectures and counties of Hainan relied almost entirely on the shipping of large quantities of goods on the coastal routes. Due to the harsh state of the post road, it is almost impossible to transport goods over long distances.

Tang Yunwen saw that most of the blockade thief warships were small and medium-sized ships, and the number was not large. Several attempts were made to break the blockade at sea, but each time they were defeated—the ships of the navy were not comparable in equipment and training to the medieval level of the Great Ming Navy. The Zuihou Navy Division ship completely retracted back to Baisha Water Village and no longer sorted.

Although Qiongshan itself was not short of grain, and the summer grain was about to appear, the despair of losing contact with the outside world made the morale of the officers and soldiers trapped in Qiongshan even lower.

The initial goals of the naval blockade have been reached. The Executive Committee was of the view that the state of war could not continue as such, and that it must be ended as soon as possible - the impact of the war on the economy was too great, especially the stagnation of foreign trade. Originally, a large amount of materials, manpower and money could be obtained from the direction of Guangzhou Railway Station every month. Now, except for a small number of people and materials that can be transported from Foshan, Leizhou and other places, this channel is basically cut off.

It is not only the transport channels that are lost, but also the commercial network. Until the situation became clear, the mainland's business partners were silent about continuing to distribute "Australian goods". As a result, exporting goods to Lingao has become a potentially high-risk business and has become expensive.

Originally, the executive committee planned to wait for Xiong Wencan to appease him, and the two sides held peace talks. However, it seems that Lao Xiong will have to come to Liangguang for another stage - according to the historical process, he will be able to get Chongzhen for five years before he can become the governor of Liangguang and the governor of Guangdong. The traversal can't wait. It was decided to start "peace work" as soon as possible to end the hostilities between the two sides - at the very least, to restore the flow of goods

Although many of the senators were skeptical about how Wang Zunde or Li Fengjie were going to deceive their superiors and subordinates to cover up this great rout and seek peace again, the Executive Committee held that this was their business and had nothing to do with the Senate -- provided that they had the will to seek peace.

The Executive Committee held a secret meeting on the development of the post-war situation. About 30 or so elders were invited to discuss and predict how the situation would develop in the future. The veterans believe that it is extremely unlikely that Guangdong officialdom will fight again, but they should be wary of the possibility that the other side may adopt the routine of "no war, no peace, no surrender and no departure."

"During the Opium War, after realizing that the means of war could not be used against the British, they did not dare to negotiate peace in private, and they were unwilling to give their lives to fight in vain, so they used such turtle tactics." Yu Eshui warned at the meeting, "If the Guangdong government adopts such methods, the threat to us will be the greatest." ”

In this way, the Crossing Group had no choice but to follow the example of the British, who continued to expand the scale of the war until they forced the Emperor himself to make a decision to sue for peace. But the war potential and combat machine of the Crossing Group cannot be compared with that of the British in 1840. Zuihou, who crushed Daoguang's resistance, was a straw, and the troops were under the city of Nanjing, and the long-range delivery Liliang needed to make a military operation to cut off the transportation of Cao was not something that the navy could do.

"In addition, we have to take into account that Qiongzhou itself is too remote and is not a major place on the map of the Ming Dynasty. Five or six years of loss is not a particularly important thing for the Ming regime, which is now full of smoke on all sides. It is entirely fair to say that for us we are in a protracted state of war - albeit without armed conflict. ”

Therefore, the tone of the meeting was to take advantage of the fact that the Guangdong officialdom was still in a state of chaos, to quickly spread the flames of war to the foot of Guangzhou, the richest city in South China, and to force the Guangdong officialdom to sue for peace before the worse situation occurred. At least Li Fengjie will definitely not be able to sit still. As long as he can't sit still, he has to make peace.