After the defeat of Whampoa, the fleet was not in a hurry to attack, but rested in Whampoa, treating the Qing army as nothing.

After more than ten days of stationing, the port of Huangpu began to resume trade after the initial chaos.

It was impossible for the Tan people, who would starve if they did not do anything, not to do business with the fleet, and a large amount of supplies were sent to the Whampoa camp through their hands.

Supplies that are stable do not need to be replenished from Fujian, but there was an unexpected episode when someone poisoned food. I don't know if it was because there were too many people eating, or because the amount of poison was too small, only a few dozen soldiers pulled their stomachs for more than ten days. Then the army took precautionary measures, selected a few Tanmin merchants who had always been at ease as suppliers, and demanded that they must select qualified food, and that they should purchase from other places, not directly from Canton. In addition, after the food is delivered, it has to be tested, and the first test is to let the Tanmin merchants eat a sample first. The remaining food must be selected in each pot, and the dog is used to test the poison, and only those who are qualified can be eaten.

Zhou Lang's army has never attacked Guangzhou, which is puzzling.

They didn't know Zhou Lang's thoughts, Fujian was not yet stable, and he simply did not have the strength to attack Guangdong. This time, the main ones sent were naval divisions, and there were only 3,000 infantry, and even if they could capture Guangzhou, they would not be able to hold it, and it would be difficult to maintain stability.

What did Lang send someone to do that week.

Is it to retaliate against Zhu Qi's infiltration into Fujian, is it to deter, or is it simply training troops to test the firepower of battleships?

Neither!

He's here to hand over the knife.

Hand the knife to Heshen.

Hand a knife to Beijing in Guangzhou.

Zhou Lang judged that He Shen was afraid of Zhu Jue, but Zhu Jue didn't make a mistake and He Shen couldn't do anything. Then Zhou Lang will find a chance for He Shen to catch Zhu Jue's mistake.

What kind of mistakes can be moved to Zhu Jue?

Of course, it is possible to conquer Guangzhou, but the cost is too high, just to bring down Zhu Qi, it is too cost-effective to let thousands of people go to Guangzhou City to fight.

Therefore, Zhou Lang chose to break through the defense of Humen, establish a foothold outside the city of Guangzhou, and make the reality of the army coming to the city of Guangzhou.

Moreover, Zhou Lang's army was approaching the city, which in itself was a kind of pressure on the magistrates, and with the combat effectiveness of the Qing army, Zhu Jue's most reasonable choice was to stand still. However, when the enemy soldiers approached the city, the governor did not move, which was easy to be criticized. Changlin and Sheng Zhu are not afraid of such magnates as they are spoken, and this situation can be described as their strict defense in the face of heavy encirclement, or they can be described as fearing the enemy and not thinking of making progress, and it is possible to end up as a thief.

It depends on whose voice is louder, a person like Zhu Jue who is not corrupt may be able to use his forgiveness not to offend people, but he is destined to have no friends. Most of the corrupt officials in Guangzhou are Heshen's henchmen, which makes it difficult for Zhu Jue to deceive his superiors and subordinates like Changlin. If He Shen doesn't take the opportunity to find trouble, it can only mean that He Shen is really in love with Zhu Jue.

Zhu Jue, a person who chooses to get out of the mud and is not stained, has set up a sign of integrity for himself, so he can only continue to do things rightly, in an era of righteousness, he may have something to do, in an era of reluctance, he is destined to be difficult.

Attacking is obviously not the right choice, but Zhu Jue's failure to attack is a handle, and he is afraid of the enemy.

So Zhu Jue is also under a lot of pressure.

As a literati, he actually doesn't have many ways, he still gathers troops from everywhere and keeps Guangzhou first, but the thieves have never attacked Guangzhou, and the reinforcements in Guangzhou are gathering more and more, and the pressure on Zhu Jue is getting bigger and bigger, and he even wants the thieves outside the city to attack, so that even if he is defeated, it will be a disadvantage of the war, so that people will not let people pour dirty water on him.

But to launch an attack, Zhu Qi also hesitated, he didn't know Zhou Lang's thoughts, if he went to attack, heavy losses would actually be a sin, and he didn't dare to bet, once he lost his troops, would he be impeached again.

In short, he can't fight now, he can't fight, he can't fight, it's a dilemma!

Zhu Jue is Zhu Jue in the end, and he can climb to his current position step by step in the era of rampant corrupt officials, how can he have no means.

Soon he summoned the city officials and asked for a claim.

There are those who advocate attacking, and there are those who advocate stubbornness.

Zhu Jue said that what everyone said made sense, so he asked the general of Guangzhou to send 3,000 troops to attack, and let the civilian officials who advocated the attack go to supervise the battle.

His move is too ruthless, these civil officials who advocate attacking are often relatively straightforward, most of them are not Heshen's henchmen, they really have a share of loyalty to the court, these people are the same as Zhu Jue, they often have no friends, but they have official reputations, once they disagree with these people, these straight-hearted guys will impeach you if they don't get it right, and they will be used by Heshen in the end.

Then let this kind of person supervise the battle, and if they are defeated, they will shut up.

Sending 3,000 troops is also particular, because the spies sent found that there were no more than 3,000 pirates outside the city, so 3,000 people were sent, that is, no more and no less. defeated, it cannot be said that Zhu Jue underestimated the enemy, but it could give him a reason not to fight.

Three thousand undisciplined Green Shadow soldiers, led by unpopular officers, sailed to Whampoa on a warship. Their plan was to land on the Whampoa sandbar from the small river that the enemy's big ships could not pass, and then kill the opponent's military camp, without any accident, 3,000 people were attacked head-on when they landed on the shore, and only 300 fled back.

Zhu Jue couldn't help himself with grief, and said that he must bring back the body of his loyal minister.

Zhu Jue found a sufficient reason to communicate directly with the Haikou outside the city, Changlin and Shengzhu did not have such trouble negotiating with Zhou Lang back then, and directly asked Cai Shiwen to contact him, but Zhu Jue couldn't, because he couldn't block the news, and sent someone to negotiate, which was to secretly communicate with the thief.

Of course, Zhu Jue sent people to contact, not like Changlin and Shengzhu, who retreated from the enemy through negotiations, and the besieging of Guangzhou at that time was nominally Magalny's mission, which was for trade, so negotiations may be able to withdraw the army. But this time it was Zhou Lang who besieged the city, he was a thief, and he was fighting with the imperial court for the world, Zhou Lang had already occupied Fujian, and of course he came to Guangzhou to occupy Guangdong.

Therefore, Zhu Qi had no intention of negotiating at all, he sent people to test the other party's motives, because no matter how you look at it, Zhou Lang doesn't seem to have come to seize Guangzhou, let alone prepare to seize Guangdong, otherwise he wouldn't have sent so many people.

Zhu Qi sent his staff, and also found the East India Company's Taipan to contact the center, and also to be a witness, so as not to lose the reputation of a thief, so he couldn't just send his own people.

Brown Taipan agreed to be an intermediary, he met Zhou Lang, on behalf of the East India Company and Zhou Lang allied with him, the East India Company's analysis of Zhou Lang's group, also believed that it was more like a regular army than the Qing army, and the military discipline was good, and Brown thought that the danger of dismissing Zhou Lang's army was very small.

And he really wanted to solve the situation in Guangzhou, which was now occupied by Zhou Lang and Huangpu on the one hand, and the Qing army was gathering heavy troops and blocking the passes, which seriously affected the trade order.

Zhu Jue's staff was very smart, and the temptation was very subtle, and he first made a request, intending to return the corpses of the officers and soldiers who died in the war. Fleet Commander Qiu Tong agreed without making any requests. On the contrary, the staff continued to probe and threatened that there were 100,000 troops in Guangzhou, and persuaded the other party to retreat as soon as possible, so as not to die without a place to be buried.

Qiu Tong laughed, saying that he was a hero on the water, and even if there were millions of Qing soldiers, he could not come and go on the water.

Zhu Jue asked Brown to be the middleman is really looking for the right person, because Brown will definitely make a request, and Brown directly hopes that Qiu Tong can withdraw the army. Qiu Tong didn't agree, and Brown asked why he was willing to withdraw the troops? Qiu Tong said that they would not withdraw their troops and would always occupy the place.

Brown was in a hurry, and he told Qiu Tong that this would not make sense, and would only affect the normal trade of Guangzhou. He suggested that Qiu Tong could negotiate with Guangzhou, and the two sides reached an agreement to withdraw the troops.

Qiu Tong said that he was not here to influence trade, but to collect taxes. If you want to do trade in Guangzhou, you have to pay taxes to him.

Brown was inexplicable, he knew that the Zhou Lang group was currently a rebel, and the rebels ran to the city of the official army to collect taxes? What is the situation!

However, Brown refused, saying that the East India Company could not accept paying taxes to Qiu Tong and considered it a robbery. Brown argues that they can only pay taxes to the legitimate Canton government.

Qiu Tong said that he would not be allowed to enter the port without paying taxes, and that Huangpu Port was controlled by him anyway.

Brown was helpless and said that the East India Company would go to Zhou Lang to protest!

Not only did Qiu Tong not care, but before leaving, he also gave Brown a stack of printed tax collection rules, detailing the method of tax collection. Ask Brown to help convey to the foreign merchants in the city, telling everyone that trade has not been interrupted, so that they can rest assured that as long as they pay taxes legally, everything is not a problem.

After listening to the report of the staff word by word, Zhu Jue was silent for a moment, and he felt that Haikou's statement was probably reasonable.

Maybe these pirates are really here to collect taxes.

Zhu Jue also read Qiu Tongfa's tax rules in detail with great interest, and found that the method of tax collection was very simple: according to the number of masts, one mast was 1,000 taels of silver, and only after paying it did it enter the port, and the port was exempt from duty. In this case, a three-masted ship will need to pay three thousand taels of silver.

Zhu Jue felt that the pirate tax was not expensive.

Of course, this is relative to the Manchus.

After studying the tax collection books recorded by the government for half a lifetime, some experts were pleasantly surprised to find that the harsh taxes and miscellaneous taxes mentioned in the original history books were all deceptive, and they hyped up that China's tax rate during the Ming and Qing dynasties was the lowest in the world.

These experts are really stupid to read, they don't even know the accounts recorded by officials, they just show them to the above, of course, the money handed over to the government is small, but the money handed over to officials cannot be less.

According to the positive tax promulgated by the imperial court, the tax rate of all Chinese dynasties is not high, and the tax of farmers in the Ming and Qing dynasties even accounted for only 5% of the harvest, but the common people still can't live, and they still feel that the harsh government is fiercer than the tiger, why? Because when officials make money for themselves, they don't think about how much the court's regular taxes are, but only how much they can squeeze out of the people.

This kind of blackmail could not even be endured by the wealthy British East India Company, so the British captain Hong Renhui went to Beijing to sue the emperor in the twenty-fourth year of Qianlong (1759).