On the second day of the first month of April, the military department sent a letter of "600 miles to step up" to the governor's camp in Changzhou. Because this edict was issued to Li Hongzhang and Guan Zhuofan, Li Hongzhang sent someone to invite Guan Zhuofan to come and see it together.

In this edict, although there is still a sense of encouragement, the tone of urging is already obvious - "With Li Hongzhang and Guan Zhuofan, that is, the victorious division, gallop to Jiangning to suppress it, so that Hong Rebellion will not be able to rush." As for the soldiers who have served abroad for a long time, and the enemies have the same hatred, the court has compassion for their hard work and praises their bravery, and the ministers and others have added their intentions to follow them to show their sympathy. The referred to the travel period, no need to shirk the delay! ”

After reading it, the two of them had ghosts, and they looked at each other, but in the end, Li Hongzhang opened his mouth first.

"Another will, this is a bit difficult," he said in a deep voice, "will attack Jinling, restore the false capital, this is an immortal honor, who doesn't want to?" However, the situation of the Huai army, Yi Xuan, you know, fought all the way from Shanghai to here, the damage was quite large, the new courage replenished, the training was not enough, and the ammunition was also lacking. During the siege of Changzhou, Cheng Xueqi and Guo Songlin were wounded one after another, and it would be difficult for the entire army to recover if it did not have a period of time to effectively rest. ”

In the face of great achievements, such a bitter complaint and a shirk are really not like his Li Hongzhang's character. Guan Zhuofan smiled secretly in his heart: If the people who are besieging Jinling now are just below, I'm afraid that you, Li Shaoquan, would have been busy waving his army westward and coming to grab merit, right?

Li Hongzhang's pretentiousness can deceive others, but he can't deceive Guan Zhuofan, his mind. guessed thoroughly for Guan Zhuofan.

Will suppress Jiangning. Admittedly, it's a great achievement. However, whoever wants to make this merit must first weigh his own weight, because this time, it is the credit of the Zeng brothers!

Zeng Guofan has been practicing courage in Xiangtan for three years since Xianfeng practiced bravery, and now it has been ten years, and the Hunan army he created has spread all over half of China, and in the end it has reversed the once precarious situation. His ninth brother. Zeng Guoquan, the chief general of the Hunan army, led the Jizi battalion to fight a hundred difficult battles, and finally besieged Jiangning. Seeing that it is about to be completed in the ninth turn, how can you allow others to get involved? Whoever doesn't know the interest at this time and rashly leads the troops to go is tantamount to offending the Zeng brothers to death, and they will immediately become their opponents.

Rival Zeng Guofan? Not only Li Hongzhang refused, but even Guan Zhuofan was unwilling, but what the two people thought in their hearts had the same things. There are also differences.

As far as Li Hongzhang is concerned, he is from Zeng Guofan's door after all. Although in the past year, with the gradual increase of Li Hongzhang's merits, it is no longer a matter of listening to what the teacher says, but between the master and the disciple, there is still a love of incense, and whether it is the future career or the current secret competition with Guan Zhuofan, it is necessary to rely on the teacher's strength, so a shrewd person like Li Hongzhang would rather disobey the decree of the court than go to his "ninth uncle" to take credit.

As far as Guan Zhuofan is concerned, he doesn't have the concern and worry of Li Hongzhang, but the things he is trying to do are bigger and deeper, and he will never make enemies easily. If he fell out with Zeng Guofan at this time, it would be tantamount to putting all the officials of the Hunan army on the opposite side of him, which must not be a wise move.

"Yixuan, since there is this edict, if we don't go, I'm afraid it won't work. However, I think the meaning of the imperial court is that as long as there is a soldier in Jiangsu, it will be a bad deal. Li Hongzhang said sincerely, "To be honest, now that the Huai army is weak, I ask myself if I can't compare with your Xuan army." Since the vanguard of the Xuan army has arrived in the Jurong area, and it is only a stone's throw away from Jiangning, why not let the Xuan army run this trip? ”

"This ...... How embarrassing? Guan Zhuofan was stunned on his face, but he scolded in his heart: Li Shaoquan, do you want to take Lao Tzu as the wronged leader?

"Nothing. Since Huaijun arrived in Shanghai, he has accepted your tolerance every time, this time, how can I rob you again? Li Hongzhang waved his hand and said, "I will sit in Changzhou, preside over the logistics for you, and wait for good news." ”

"Such kindness, Zhuo Fan can't repay it." Guan Zhuofan stood up and thanked him solemnly, "Then it's better to be respectful than to obey your fate!" ”

I don't do the big head, who does the big head?

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Li Hongzhang's words, of course, did not have a good heart, he persuaded Guan Zhuo Fanxi to go to Jiangning, with deep intentions.

Since the day he landed in Shanghai, the limelight of the Huai army has been suppressed by the Xuan army, and Guan Zhuofan's control in Shanghai also made him, the governor of Jiangsu, feel that he has trouble sleeping. As the two armies fought simultaneously, from Shanghai to the west to conquer the lost territory, and until the capture of Changzhou, the situation of one mountain and two tigers became more and more obvious. With Li Hongzhang's shrewdness, he naturally guessed that as long as Jiangning was broken, Pinghong's career would be roughly settled, and Jiangsu's personnel would inevitably change, and the imperial court would always transfer one between him and Guan Zhuofan.

Li Hongzhang knew very well that no matter what the imperial court thought about this matter, he still had to seek Zeng Guofan's opinion. And this teacher of his own, although the kung fu of the word "forbearance" has been cultivated to the extreme, but Jiangning is where the fundamental interests of the Zeng family and the Hunan army lie, and he will never back down in this regard.

Guan Yixuan is still young in the end, and he is eager for meritorious service, but he can't see through this layer! Li Hongzhang's face showed a hint of a smile, as long as the Xuan army arrived in Jiangning, it would almost be equivalent to openly stepping on the Hunan army, and from then on, there would be an insoluble knot between him and the Zeng family.

As for their own Huai army, of course, trimming is just a pretext, as long as the Xuan army leaves, of course, the Huai army will not be idle in Changzhou, and will soon march to Zhejiang! Li Hongzhang thought to himself, speaking of which, this is still a reminder from his Guan Yixuan.

"I heard Zhao Zhusheng say that now the long hair in Jiaxing Huzhou is very empty, and the soldiers have been transferred to the south to fight against Zuo Jigao's Chu army." Guan Zhuofan said intentionally or unintentionally, "I was still thinking about whether I could make a fuss." ”

This sentence made Li Hongzhang quite excited-Zeng Guoquan is not easy to provoke, but what does it matter if he steps on Zuo Zongtang's territory? Anyway, the shili of the Chu army, even Hangzhou has not been crossed, speaking of which, the Huai army is to help him, and it is very high-sounding. And Jiaxing Huzhou, to be rich, this is a big haode opportunity, don't let it go.

As Li Hongzhang thought, Xuanjun really began to move, and he acted quickly, and he refused to waste almost any time, just like he looked like he was making meritorious contributions. The German and Jianzi regiments stationed in Danyang advanced to the area of Qixia Town in the northeast of Jiangning, and Hua Er led two foreign gun regiments to advance head-on to Suoshu Town east of Jiangning, while Ding Shijie led Daniel Zhang's horse team and Kezi regiment and set up camp in Fangshan, forty miles south of Jiangning. In addition, Guan Zhuofan transferred two newly formed regiments, the Lin Regiment, and the Lu Regiment, to deploy between the above three points as an echo.

Ding Ruchang's Xuanjun Naval Division, also from the Taihu Lake entrenched for a long time, raised the fire and anchored, out of the Wangyu River into the Yangtze River, Shuojiang River, straight to Jiangning.

All of a sudden, more than 20,000 people from the eight regiments of the Xuan Army, plus a naval division, Chen Bing was on the periphery of Jiangning, watching the big city, and he was quite eager to try.

The arrival of Xuan Jun made the two people inside and outside Jiangning City jump up in unison.

In Jiangning City, it is Li Xiucheng. In Shanghai and Suzhou, he suffered the great losses of the Xuan army three times before and after, and deeply understood that this Xuan army was completely different from Zeng Guoquan's Hunan army. With the essence of the Xuan army's equipment and strong combat power, the Taiping army was no longer able to confront it head-on. The Taiping Army, which could still compete with the Hunan army outside the city, could no longer have the luxury of field warfare, and could only hold on to the city.

Outside Jiangning City, it is Zeng Guoquan. He never imagined that someone would really dare to brush his tiger whiskers and openly lead troops to Jiangning, which he regarded as forbidden! The person who came was the Manchurian upstart who didn't know the height of the sky, and the Xuan army under his command was also the "flag battalion", and Zeng Guoquan had no way to take him for a while. This Zeng Jiu Ye is not like his brother who has a kung fu with the word "forbearance", so he was so angry that he was violent, not only did he ignore the Xuan army in the camp, but also scolded in the tent, and Liu Xunji, who came to contact, couldn't even enter his auspicious camp, so he was driven back.

It is strange that both the enemy and the enemy, who are fighting in Jiangning, actually hate this newly arrived army. However, such a reaction, especially Zeng Guoquan's outrage, was already expected by Guan Zhuofan. He set up his camp, together with Wall, in the camp of the First Regiment of Foreign Guns, chatting with those Western officers every day, learning to play Western chess with Forrestal, and flipping through idle books in his tent, calmly and leisurely.

"Mr. Guan, Xiangjun Weishenme doesn't welcome us?" Forrest casually entered an infantry on the chessboard and asked puzzledly, "They only have 50,000 men here, and we have come to support them strongly." ”

Forrestal's white grid soldier is still two steps away from reaching the bottom line and becoming a queen, so it is extremely powerful. Guan Zhuofan hugged his head and thought hard for a long time, so he had to take a car back and watch it first. After taking this step, he looked up at Forrestal.

"The Hunan army thinks that there is only one pot of rice, and if we eat more, they will eat less."

Forrest understood that this was a matter of merit, and after thinking about it, he said worriedly: "Then we can still have merit if we are idle here every day?" ”

"It's like you, a white soldier, have come here, although you haven't eaten a single one, but you have already forced me to hurry." Guan Zhuofan smiled slightly, pointed to the chessboard and said, "Can you say that it has no merit?" ”

These intrigues are not what Forrest is good at, he feels that Mr. Guan's words have a deep meaning, and he seems to understand whether he understands or not, thinking about it with his heart, Thurin has already hurried in.

"Master, Lord Zeng Guofan, the governor of Liangjiang, has arrived in Jiangning from Anqing, and urgently summons you to meet at the Yuhuatai camp."

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(Tomorrow's third watch)

*(To be continued......)