Gordon was the regimental officer who replaced the wounded Bai Qiwen and acted as the regimental officer of the 2nd Foreign Gun Regiment. He was British, had served as a captain in the British army, and he served as the regimental officer thanks to the recommendation of the British consul Ali Guo to Wall, and at that time Kwan Zhuofan was relying on the National Defense Bureau to provide ordnance, so he had to buy this face.

It's not that there's anything wrong with Gordon - in fact, he's a very good fighter, and he's a pretty decent man. But with the pride of a British officer, he was always unwilling to be convinced that he could only be an acting regimental officer, under Wall, and always wanted to fight and make meritorious contributions. Guan Zhuofan said that he had a "big heart", which is what he was referring to.

At the same time, according to Guan Zhuofan's Jihua, within the Xuan army, the British and French officers should be gradually cleared out. This is not only an emotional intimacy, but also has a lot to do with the future plan -- after all, one day, it will be necessary to turn against Britain and France. Some time ago, he had already deliberately concentrated these British and French soldiers into the Second Regiment of Foreign Guns. Now that he had such an opportunity, he did not hesitate to transfer Gordon to Li Hongzhang.

It's not just as simple as keeping Jiading.

Guan Zhuofan has full confidence and concludes that Gordon will definitely bring great trouble to Li Hongzhang in the future.

This layer of intention is not only incomprehensible to the American thinking like Wall, but even Liu Xun, who has always been deep, is difficult to understand. And Gordon didn't even think about it, so he happily led the 1,300 men of the 2nd Foreign Gun Regiment and eight field guns, and immediately opened them and threw them into the battlefield outside Jiading City from the south.

With the new firearms and equipment and new training, the combat strength of the Xuan Army was indeed higher than that of the Taiping Army and the Huai Army. Not only did it immediately tear through the encirclement of the Taiping army. And directly broke through a round fortress that had fallen in the west of Jiading City. Then, with the cooperation of the Huai army in the city and the Huai army in the "Tiansheng Fort", another round fortress was also captured. In this way, the Huai Army's third base in the west of the city was fully controlled, and the once critical battle situation was greatly alleviated at once.

Li Hongzhang was overjoyed, and first rewarded Gordon's group of people with 20,000 silver, and then ordered to garrison Qingpu. Liu Mingchuan, who was doing nothing, came to the aid of the starry night, ready to take advantage of the momentum to have another good fight with Li Xiucheng in the north of the city.

I never thought that this time I would lose Qingpu City.

The problem is the handover. It is said that since Liu Mingchuan took away the main force of the garrison, he must declare to Ding Shijie, who is in Songjiang, that Ding Shijie will send the Xuan army to take over the defense of Qingpu. However, Liu Mingchuan thought that the Qingpu defense area was not easy to come by, and he was reluctant to give up, so he was lucky. It is believed that since the start of the war, Tan Shaoguang's Taiping army in the middle has only done kung fu outside Songjiang City. Never sent a single soldier to attack Qingpu, so why hand over Qingpu City to the Xuan army? He thought to himself, this was originally a defense area let out by the Xuan army, and if it was returned to others, Li Zhongcheng would no longer be able to ask for it.

Just such a mistake in thinking turned into a big mistake. As soon as Liu Mingchuan's team left the city, they were immediately detected by Tan Shaoguang. There were nearly 20,000 people in the middle route army under Tan Shaoguang, and 6,000 were divided that night, led by Gao Yongkuan, and attacked Qingpu. At this time, the Xuan army in Songjiang and Sijing was completely in the dark, and by the time the alarm came, the situation in Qingpu was already critical.

Ding Shijie was shocked, so he had to send two battalions of the first regiment of foreign guns closest to Qingpu and half of the battalion of the Kezi regiment under the leadership of Forrest, without artillery, to rush to Qingpu at night, and on the other hand, he sent people to Sijing to send a telegram to Guan Zhuofan.

Guan Zhuofan was woken up in the middle of the night by Zhang Shun knocking on the door, and got up in his clothes, but he got such a news, and he didn't feel sleepy at all. The lights in the yamen of the feudal division were bright, Guan Zhuofan came to the signing room and sat down, compared and drew on the map for a while, thinking that the matter was in a hurry, and the more than 1,000 people of Forrest alone were not sure, so he exchanged telegrams with Sijing, first ordered the Xuanjun horse team on the west side of the Songjiang River at the moment, and then sent two battalions to help, and ordered Ding Shijie to report the battle situation in Qingpu at any time.

In the midst of such anxious waiting, staying up until the moment of dawn, a telegram was sent from Sijing, but it was Daniel Zhang's signature, and the content was only one sentence.

"Qingpu fell, and the Fu devil was caught by Long Hair."

*

*

The plot of Forrestal's capture is quite bizarre.

As soon as Liu Mingchuan left, the defenders in Qingpu County were only left with 300 Huai troops and some county soldiers. When Forrest arrived with his troops and entered the city from the east gate, the Taiping army had already broken through the west city first, and poured into the city in a large way, and the defenders were scattered.

The side that broke the city was always imposing, coupled with the street fighting in the dark, the hand-to-hand combat, the firepower of the Xuan army could not be fully exerted, so it was impossible to expel the Taiping army. With the steady arrival of the Taiping army, Forrest could not determine how many enemies there were, and feared that the Qianxuan army would be trapped inside the city, so he decided to withdraw from the city first. Before retreating, a charge was organized to repel the Taiping army that surrounded the county government, and not only took out Li Wenyuan, the county magistrate, and other cadres who were trapped here, but also rushed out more than 70,000 taels of silver in the county treasury in the rain of bullets.

The bad is bad in this lot of silver. Forrest was a simple man, and was reluctant to let the silver fall into the hands of Longhair, and decided to ship it out.

Seventy thousand silver, enough six thousand catties, according to the theory that there is no way to take it away, but not far from the county office, is the river leading to the outside of the city, and there are two steamboats moored next to the small wharf. So this batch of silver was transported onto the ship, and Forrest personally escorted it, while Li Wenyuan and Xuanjun's brigade withdrew from the original road from the east gate.

Unexpectedly, the Taiping army was advancing extremely rapidly, and there were already squads infiltrating to the east of the city. The Xuanjun brigade went out of the city safely, but the sluice gate of the river was occupied by a small group of Taiping troops, and regardless of any mechanism, they cut the cable with a big knife and lowered the gate of the sluice gate. And the east gate of Qingpu, after the withdrawal of the Xuan army, was also occupied by the Taiping army, and when Daniel Zhang arrived with two battalions of horses to meet Li Wenyuan and others, he found that the "Fu Devil" did not come out, and when he wanted to attack the city again, it was too late.

At this time, the two steamboats that Forrest had taken were turned into turtles in urns, and after a short battle, all of them were captured, in addition to himself, two Americans, one Portuguese, and thirty-four soldiers of the Xuan army.

When Guan Zhuofan received the detailed report, the sky was already bright. He was in the main hall of the Yamen of the Domain, and after hearing the situation before and after, he was stunned at first, then at a loss, and finally came back to his senses, was furious, looked around, grabbed a celadon vase, and slammed it on the ground!

Liu Xunjiao, Ding Ruchang, and Tulin in the hall were all taken aback. Looking at Guan Zhuofan again, he had already sat back in the chair, stroking his forehead and pondering.

"Xuan Shuai......" Liu Xunji said softly.

"Mr. Liu, please write a letter for me to your one who is the same year." Guan Zhuofan raised his head, but his voice was unexpectedly calm, "Report the matter to him as it is, as for how to deal with this matter, just say that I will listen to his Li Zhongcheng's orders." ”

When he said "how to deal with it", of course, he meant Liu Mingchuan. Tracing back to the source, it all started with Liu Mingchuan's failure to say hello and leave the defense area without permission. In Guan Zhuofan's heart, he naturally wanted to arrest him and shoot him with one shot, but after all, he was the general of the Huai Army, and now he couldn't turn his face with Li Hongzhang, so he had to give this topic to Li Hongzhang first.

"Yes." Liu Xunjiao agreed, and said, "Xuan Shuai, now you have to quickly try to save Forrestal." ”

It goes without saying, just that there must be a comprehensive approach. Guan Zhuofan looked at Liu Xunjiao and waited for him to say the following.

"There have been examples of foreigners being captured. The first time Changmao fought in Shanghai, when Xuan Shuai was not there, there were foreign soldiers captured in Wall's foreign gun team, and at that time he was looking for a Chinese person, contacting Longhair, and getting things to exchange people back. ”

"What to for?"

Liu Xun hesitated slightly, and said: "It's nothing more than an arms ......."

Guan Zhuofan was speechless, stood up, paced in two circles in the hall, sorted out his thoughts, and said categorically: "No!" ”

Since he said "no way", he already has other plans.

"Forrest is naturalized, he is not a foreigner now, he is Chinese. If he is captured, he has to exchange things, so what about the generals who fall into the hands of Long Hair in the future? What's more, exchanging arms for people is tantamount to funding the enemy, you have to think more about it, who will these arms hit in the future? ”

"Yes, my subordinates want to ...... left," Liu Xun said ashamedly when he saw sweat on his forehead.

"Mr. Liu, you don't have to blame yourself. Your proposal wasn't wrong, but it's not the same time that it used to be. Guan Zhuofan was expressionless, and said slowly, "When Changmao first attacked Shanghai, there was no Xuan Army, and he only relied on Wall to deal with it alone. Now I have more than 10,000 elites in my hands, armed to the teeth, and I am about to choose people to devour, this is the difference! “

"Yes!"

Guan Zhuofan looked at a distant place and sneered: "I want to train the army in peace, but the long hair has provoked me...... If you want to say exchange, you can do it, but not with arms. ”

"May I ask Xuan Shuai," Liu Xunji was bent by the momentum in Guan Zhuofan's words, and asked cautiously, "What should I exchange for?" ”

"Take their lives!" Guan Zhuofan squeezed out this sentence from between his teeth, turned his head and said to Ding Ruchang and Tu Lin, who were standing upright next to him: "Order: Open in the afternoon and advance my camp to Sijing!" ”

*

(The second watch is around 6 p.m.) ）

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