In the past six months, Zhu Jinglun has been waiting for this day, and his movements have not stopped, the range of movements is not large, but he has always been moving, focusing on military mobilization. Pen, fun, pavilion www. biquge。 info

The 20,000 well-trained infantry Xin'an Army and Wukeng Army, the main force that he could use, were concentrated in Guangzhou, and those stationed in various places were replaced by other recruits, such as 10,000 Eight Banner soldiers, who were scattered and distributed to Huichao Jiadao and Gaoleiyang Road, so that they could stay away from Guangzhou and Nanshao Liandao, so as not to fight in the future, Zhu Jinglun also had to guard against the rebellion of these Eight Banner soldiers.

Just three days before the exam, suddenly Bai Gui said that he was sick, he was really sick, and he was by no means pretending to be sick.

Zhu Jinglun is still very sure of this, because he has visited Bai Gui, and Bai Gui is indeed seriously ill, the kind that is sick to death.

He had died a long time ago, and historically, in 1859, when the British and French troops had not withdrawn from Guangzhou, he was under the triple pressure of the resistance faction outside the city, the foreigners and the emperor.

But Zhu Jinglun was born out of thin air and rewrote history, he helped recover the city of Guangzhou, so that Bai Gui not only did not die of emaciation, but was promoted to the rank of knight, and finally became the governor of Liangguang, and naturally all diseases were eliminated.

But this time, he was really sick, still haggard under pressure, and when Zhu Jinglun saw him, he had already found that his heart and lungs had begun to fail.

Thinking that Bai Gui was still very helpful to himself during this time, if it weren't for Bai Gui sitting in Guangzhou City to appease "himself" for the Qing court, I'm afraid he would not have had such a long period of calm time, step by step to merge Guangdong into his banner, and he would have to go through a bloody battle to divide Guangdong.

Without Bai Gui in charge, the anti-Zhu faction in Nanshao Liandao would have acted a long time ago, Zhu Jinglun must passively respond to the war, once the battle is a rebellion, at that time the Qing court will inevitably mobilize the Hunan army, the Hunan army in Jiangnan may not be able to move, but the Hunan army in Guangxi Jiang Yili must be able to move.

Jiang Yili is also a general, it is rumored that "less uninhibited, not harmonious in the township, travelers in all directions", in fact, it is the kind of restless youth in the township, the war gave him the opportunity, the Taiping army hit Hunan, Zeng Guofan formed the Hunan army, he signed up for the southern Hunan army of Luo Ze, and the combat bravery was valued by Luo Zenan and accepted as a disciple. Luo Zenan later died in battle, Li Xubin took Luo Zenan's position, Jiang Yili and Li Xubin did not agree, he was surrounded by the Taiping army, Li Xubin saw death and did not save him, fortunately he fought to the death and repelled the Taiping army, and felt that there was no future in the army, so he abandoned the official and went into hiding. At this time, the Qing court promoted his official rank to the prefect level because of his military exploits, and rewarded him with a flower feather.

In troubled times, there is always a chance for this kind of general, he is at home in Hunan, Guangxi Heaven and Earth will revolt, Lao Chongguang can not resist, ask for reinforcements from the Hunan army, at this time the main force of the Hunan army is in the south of the Yangtze River, so Jiang Yili was transferred to aid Guangxi, Jiang Yili set off with 1,500 hometown soldiers, he has been fighting in Guangxi for several years, and is now an envoy of Guangxi, Shi Dakai was driven to Sichuan by him.

Because of the disagreement with the famous general Li Xubin of the Hunan Army, Zeng Guofan and Hu Linyi also did not want to see Jiang Yili, but they often played against Zeng Guofan, and it is said that Zuo Zongtang, who was quite disrespectful, valued Jiang Yili very much, and asked the Qing court many times to transfer Jiang Yili to his command to help, but because Zhu Jinglun was in Guangdong, the Qing court has always pressed Jiang Yili in Guangxi, just to target Zhu Jinglun.

In the past two years, Jiang Yili has returned to Hunan many times to recruit troops, and at present, Jiang Yili has 20,000 troops, sitting in Wuzhou, and can send troops to Zhaoqing at any time.

As for the 100,000 township warriors recruited by a group of civil officials in Nanshao Liandao, on the contrary, a group of rabble is not a big threat, I heard that in order to feed these villagers, they scraped the land in Nanshao Liandao, and drove the merchants and rich gentry crazy, even if Zhu Jinglun didn't beat them, it is estimated that they themselves could toss themselves to death.

But Zhu Jinglun's coping strategy is to fight Xiangyong first, he wants to break up the 100,000 Nanshaolian Daoxiang Yong with one blow, and then let these civil officials slowly close the endgame, Zhu Jinglun took advantage of this time gap to attack with all his strength and fight a decisive battle with Jiang Yili in Zhaoqing.

The plan had already been made, and the soldiers were also mobilized, but the only thing I didn't expect was that Bai Gui was dying at this time.

If Zhu Jinglun doesn't care, he will die.

But Zhu Jinglun is still a little hesitant, it's not that he can't bear it, he doesn't have any guilt about Bai Gui, it's not that he Bai Gui died early, in Zhu Jinglun's heart, Bai Gui has always been a traitor who has cooperated with foreigners and served as a puppet for foreigners, this is the national righteousness, yes, yes, no, it has nothing to do with feelings at all, the reason why he saved Baigui is that he still has a little hope, if this guy lives, maybe he can play a little role in the future.

So he quietly helped Bai Gui to cure the disease, and the mechanical body wanted to save this level of disease, and he just had to catch it.

But he was not cured at once, so that he still maintained a sick attitude, but there was no need to worry about life.

He came out to make trouble at this time.

He told Zhu Jinglun that he had no heart to stay in Guangdong, and he begged Zhu Jinglun not to oppose the imperial court, but to wait for him to die, and he said please send him back, he wanted to be buried in Beijing after death, and buried with his ancestors.

Zhu Jinglun fulfilled his latter request, sent a ship to send him to Shanghai, and handed him over to the Shanghai Customs.

As soon as Bai Gui left, and then when the bell for the provincial alternate official examination rang, the townspeople of Nanshao Liandao rushed into the boundary of Guangzhou Prefecture.

Zhu Jinglun is not playing in the past half a year, he has professional staff officers, and he has already formulated several response plans, seeing that Nanshao Liandao is brave, out of Shaozhou Mansion and directly to Fogang Hall, he immediately has a complete set of action plans, blocking his main force in the north of the Fogang Hall, and the main force will cross Daluo Mountain to the flank for a big detour.

Where has Xiang Yong seen this kind of general battle, Zhu Jinglun's army, at present, only the two armies of Xin'an and Wukeng can achieve this kind of strategic organizational ability, the two armies will directly defeat the so-called 100,000 Xiangyong in a battle, and they will retreat immediately before they can pursue, 20,000 new troops, just equipped with muskets, the artillery is only equipped with 30 cannons, and the Dahong Army composed of the peasant army of Dahongguo, which has completed the whole training, immediately attacked, all the way along the Beijiang River to Yingde, and the main force turned back to Guangzhou, and there were already sailors on standby at the wharf. They will move to Zhaoqing and join the Hunan army Jiang Yili.

The students in the Guangfu School Palace don't know what's going on outside at this time, one by one burying their heads in answering questions, the sadness and hard work they have paid during this time, people are extremely sighing, the desire of the poor scholars to advance makes everyone forget to sleep and forget to eat, the four books and five classics of their passing can be memorized backwards, Zhou Zheng, who wrote eight articles, even mathematics and geometry are gnawed down, I dare not say how good it is, anyway, the example problems that the teacher talked about, that is every symbol is packed in the brain.

When they were either satisfied, or annoyed, or walked out of the examination room like ashes, Zhu Jinglun's army had already arrived in Zhaoqing.

Jiang Yili's Hunan army, before them, has been down the river, completed the encirclement of Zhaoqing, built a village on the three sides of the highland, Zhaoqing Mansion Gaoyao City, at this time three sides were surrounded, leaving only the east for the que, but the earliest war, first started in the south of the city, because the south of the city of Gaoyao City is adjacent to the water, the two sides of the water division launched a fierce battle here, first to fight for the right to control the river.

Zhaoqing Port can dock 1,000 tons of ships in later generations, the Pearl River waterway compared with the Yangtze River, the water flow is more abundant, siltation is not serious, so although the shipping capacity is slightly inferior to later generations, but the problem of navigable 500-ton ships is not big, plus the preparation period of the first half a year, Zhu Jinglun did not hesitate to dredge through the main channel from Guangzhou to Zhaoqing, and reinforced the major wharves in Zhaoqing, which allowed his gunboats to pass unimpeded.

Each gunboat had a displacement of 500 tons and was equipped with 10 cannons of various types, allowing Zhu Jinglun's sailors to crush the sailors of the Hunan army in terms of firepower.

The advantage of the Hunan army lies in their numbers, and during Jiang Yili's time in Guangxi, he built a large number of warships, as many as 200.

One side has a firepower advantage, the other side has a numerical advantage, so that this water battle has become extremely tragic, from the morning encounter, until the night, the Hunan army has never retreated, trying to rely on the numerical advantage to rush close to the Guangdong warships to seize the ship or arson, this side relies on the firepower advantage to form a line array, the use of dense firepower, the Hunan warships into wood chips.

The Guangdong Navy was unwilling to fight at night, and slowly retreated before the sun set, and anchored in the area of Antelope Gorge, intending to launch a new attack after dawn, and after a day of water fighting, they believed that they had sunk nearly half of the warships of the Hunan army, and whether it was a US naval adviser or an inexperienced naval officer, they all believed that the other side no longer had the strength to compete with them for the right to control water.

But when they had just left, the night enveloped the earth, and the smell of gunpowder had not yet dissipated, there were two loud noises outside Zhaoqing City, and the Hunan army captured the two fortresses guarded by the officers and soldiers of Guangdong.

One is the Guiding Mountain on the north bank of the Xijiang River, which is located in the southwest of Zhaoqing City, the terrain is not high, but it sits on the riverbank plain, the southern part of the mountain is protruding from the river, the river is urgent, it is a lonely mountain and hills, if it is just that, it does not matter, but the urgent river flow in the south of this mountain is not to say, the fatal thing is that there is a same mountain on the other side of the river.

The mountain on the south bank, shaped like an incense burner, like the ancient Ding again, is called Dading Mountain, the foot of this mountain stretches out about 80 feet from the heart of the river, there has been a temple called Dading Temple. It's really damning.

"Gaoyao County Chronicles" records: Dading Temple was built in Dading Mountain, Yongzheng two years, the army Kong Yuxun ordered the people of Wanxi to expand and expand, since Qianlong to Daoguang, there are additional constructions.

Why did the Qing court order people to expand the temple, not because he believed in Buddhism, but because he valued the geographical location here.

Guding Mountain and Dading Mountain are deep into the Xijiang River, forcing the river into a canyon, called Dading Gorge, who occupies the two mountains, who controls the Xiajiang, the Hunan army dragged the Guangdong Navy at the cost of more than half of the battle losses of the water army, but the result is to seize the two mountains, their water army suffered heavy losses, but they controlled the river gorge, this battle is their victory.

This result immediately woke up the proud US Navy officers and the navy of the outstanding officers selected from the army to be officers, and let them know that the Hunan army is also capable of fighting, especially water battles.

That night, the naval officers collectively pleaded guilty to Zhu Jinglun, and Zhu Jinglun replied that he would fight hard and defeat them, and that was all, and that he did not intend to interfere with the officers' command.

The next day, the army and navy coordinated and began a landing operation, intending to cooperate with the land and water to carry out operations around the two mountains, and at this time the real large-scale battle could be regarded as the real start. (To be continued.) )