If it were not for the coincidence of Lincoln's assassination, Zhu Jinglun pretended to be injured to win Lincoln's sympathy, Zhu Jinglun originally planned to go to the southern United States, then go around Cape Cohen in South America to visit the western United States, and finally cross the Pacific Ocean to return home. Pen, fun, and www.biquge.info

However, it is good to say that the assassination is good, it is not good to say that it is bad, and to say that it is good is to take the opportunity to make Lincoln feel guilty, and it is very likely to affect his judgment, which is of great benefit to Zhu Jinglun, and if it is not good, it is his own news, and it is very likely to intensify the contradictions in the country.

Zhu Jinglun always knew that the internal contradictions within the Ming Dynasty were very acute, even if he had been using the most moderate means to reform, but there were still profound contradictions, because as long as it was reform, it would inevitably touch the interests of those with vested interests, and there would inevitably be a group of people who were dissatisfied, and the biggest contradiction was probably that he was usurping power, separating, and unable to win the hearts and minds of the majority of the elites, which was the biggest and most profound problem.

Once he was assassinated and the news of his fate was uncertain, he did not dare to guarantee that someone would make waves, and he did not dare to guarantee that the Qing army would take advantage of the chaos to attack, and the variables were too great to be calculated with a supercomputer.

The safest way is to rush back to the country as soon as possible, so as to calm down all contradictions.

But the next day Lincoln came again, he said that the United States was willing to recognize the status of the Ming Kingdom, and then he also had a conversation with Zhu Jinglun based on morality, he hoped that the Ming Kingdom could accept the mediation of the United States, and Lincoln hoped to end the war in China, whether it was the war between the Ming Kingdom and the Qing government, or the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom and the Qing government, they were willing to mediate.

Zhu Jinglun pretended to think about it for a while, agreed to the mediation of the United States, and said that the Ming Kingdom was willing to end the war.

In fact, he never thought of continuing the war, he supported the dying Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, the purpose was just to let them drag the Hunan army and give the Ming a few years of time for development, Zhu Jinglun was confident that the Ming Dynasty would be reborn and become a completely different country within five years.

If the Qing court can agree to peace talks, then of course it would be best, and then the two sides will develop each other to see who develops faster.

Unexpectedly, the Americans jumped out at this time, hoping to mediate and mediate the war in China, which of course would enable the United States to gain a considerable international political reputation, which is a great political achievement for a country that has just ended its civil war, has a lot of waste to be rebuilt, and whose leaders are relatively respectful.

Promising Lincoln's skills to let Daming get out of the war temporarily, and being able to sell the United States a favor, why not.

Lincoln was glad that Zhu Jinglun was willing to accept his suggestion, and immediately went to organize a mediation team, and these people would go to China with Zhu Jinglun.

As for whether they can succeed in mediation and what kind of mediation will become, it will depend on how the situation in China develops.

At this time, the Taiping army had launched a siege of Anqing, and the attack and defense were really fast, a few years ago the Hunan army was besieging Anqing, and it was time for the Taiping army to besiege Anqing.

The attack and defense of the two sides are extremely fierce, more than ten years of fighting, has made the Hunan army and the Taiping army not share the sky, especially here in Anqing, when the Hunan army captured Anqing, Zeng Guoquan carried out a brutal massacre, and then Li Hongzhang killed the surrendered Taiping army four kings, four generals, which made the Taiping army understand that in the battle with the Qing army, they either killed each other, or were killed by the other party, there is absolutely no middle way to choose, the Hunan army did not have the habit of surrendering the long-haired thief, plus their own slaughter, It is impossible for them to reconcile with the Taiping army, so they will fight to the death and fight to the last man.

When the Hunan army besieged Anqing, it took a whole year of siege before Zeng Guoquan captured Anqing, and the Taiping army had absolutely no reason to easily capture Anqing in front of the Hunan army, which had a stronger will to fight, so a protracted war began.

However, on the one hand, the Taiping army, with the help of the Ming navy, began to besiege Anqing, and on the other hand, their capital Tianjing was also under siege by the Hunan army, and the situation was far more complicated than ordinary people imagined.

Zeng Guofan is a very patient, strong-willed person, he knows that defending Anqing is more important than seizing Tianjing, only Anqing in hand, the rear of the Hunan army, Hunan, Hubei can be safe, there will be a steady stream of military salaries and all kinds of materials, once Anqing falls, let alone attack Tianjing, the two lakes will fall into war.

Therefore, Zeng Guofan saw that the situation was unfavorable, and immediately transferred his younger brother Zeng Guoquan's troops back to Anqing, but Zeng Guoquan refused, and he assured Zeng Guofan that he would definitely be able to capture Tainanjing within a month, and it happened that Tianjing's spears had gone to Anqing, and he just took the opportunity to launch a general attack.

This is not the first time Zeng Guoquan has disobeyed.

In October of the 11th year of Xianfeng (1861), the Taiping army suddenly attacked Shanghai, and the Shanghai gentry rushed to Anqing to seek help from Zeng Guofan. At this time, Shanghai was in turmoil due to the war of the Taiping Army, and a large number of wealthy people moved in, which was rich and prosperous, and the salary was sufficient. In order to persuade Zeng Guofan to leave the army as soon as possible, the gentry who came to beg for the division proposed that they could receive 100,000 taels of silver from the Hunan army every month, and Zeng Guofan agreed and asked Zeng Guoquan to send reinforcements.

However, at that time, Zeng Guoquan had just captured Anqing, transferred the army to Tianjing City, and wanted to break through Tianjing and win the first merit of destroying the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, so he did not go far to Shanghai, but Li Hongzhang took the initiative to ask for help and recruited 6,000 Huai troops.

This time it has been more than three years since the siege of Tianjing City, but Zeng Guoquan still refuses to give up Tianjing, he even thinks that the Taiping Army has become the end of the strong crossbow, and he is about to push it at the end, at this time to give up Tianjing, it is really unwilling, so in the reply, he repeatedly promised that he could capture Tianjing, and then immediately went to take the siege of Anqing.

So Zeng Guoquan forcibly urged the Hunan army, which was already demoralized to the extreme, to attack Tianjing City, the number of Hunan troops besieging the city was only 30,000, but now there are more than 10,000 people who can still move, they have been in arrears for more than a year, and the better point than the Taiping Army is that they have never run out of food, Zeng Guoquan prepared on both sides, while solemnizing military orders, while telling the soldiers that there are countless gold and silver treasures in the city, once Tianjing is captured, the soldiers are allowed to loot for ten days.

Since last year, Zeng Guoquan has been organizing soldiers to dig more than ten tunnels outside Chaoyang Gate, Shence Gate, and Jinchuan Gate, preparing to collapse the city wall, but they were all destroyed by Li Xiucheng leading the Taiping Army from the city.

Coincidentally, one of their tunnels was dug under the Taiping Gate recently, and after a large amount of gunpowder was piled up and ignited, it actually blew down a section of the city wall more than ten zhang long on the left and right of the city gate.

After Li Xiucheng learned the news that the city wall was blown up, he did not panic, but he was a little remorseful, he was still careless, and he thought that the Hunan army had been demoralized to the extreme, and it was impossible to launch an attack, so he was planning where to break through, but he didn't expect that the other party still had the strength to attack the city, and he was a little negligent about the city defense for a while.

Now that the conditions are good and the army has recovered, not only is it in good health, its morale is extremely high, and its weapons and equipment have been replaced with new ones, but they don't want to relax their hearts.

While regretting, he organized soldiers to defend the city, and he felt that it was impossible for the Hunan army to attack the city at this time, and it was impossible to take Tianjing City.

In fact, the attacks of the Hunan army were repulsed in waves, but they encountered a new problem, and the Ming army outside the city asked to enter the city to assist in the defense this time.

The attitude of the Ming army was fierce, they thought that the safety of Tianjing was related to their safety in Tianjing, and once Tianjing City was lost, they would not be able to stay in Xiaguan, so they asked to enter the city to help defend.

Over the past year or so, the Ming army has mentioned the problem of entering the city countless times, and Li Xiucheng has shirked it in various ways, he thinks that letting such an army into the city is not a good thing for the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, he has learned about the combat effectiveness of the Ming army, he thinks that it is no less than the elite of the Taiping army and the Hunan army, and the weapons and equipment are still excessive.

Li Xiucheng still shirked this time, but the other party's attitude was resolute, tougher than before, and even said that if the Taiping army did this again, they would have to evacuate Tianjing, and their warships would also be withdrawn.

Just when Li Xiucheng decided to allow the other party to send some soldiers into the city to assist in the defense, his army repelled the Hunan army, this is good, the Ming army has no reason to enter the city, he immediately invited Chen Ada and Wen Yuan to enter the city, one of these two people is the commander of the navy, the other is the commander of the infantry, told them that the Taiping army has repelled the Hunan army, but after seeing the city defense, Wen Yuan proposed with great interest that the Taiping army should counterattack, and the Ming army is willing to do Xianfeng, so it will start a counterattack from the Taiping Gate.

After Li Xiucheng persevered, he promised the Ming army to send 3,000 soldiers to participate in the counteroffensive, and the Taiping army would draw 20,000 people to cooperate, which accounted for 40% of the Taiping army's current 50,000 troops in Tianjing.

The vanguard of the Ming army made Li Xiucheng extremely embarrassed, because among the 3,000 people sent by the other party, there were 2,000 Eight Banner soldiers.

The Taiping Army's consciousness propaganda has always regarded the Qing army as monsters, and these Eight Banner soldiers are obviously hardcore Qing demons, but the Ming army sent these people to help, which is very disgusting.

Zhu Jinglun seems to have a bad taste for disgusting people, he used Hong Xiuquan's allusion to imitate Jesus' resurrection, disgusted a missionary in Shanghai, and now used the old soldiers of the Eight Banners to disgust the balance of heaven, and then the Hunan army should be disgusted.

Li Xiucheng found that these Eight Banners soldiers did not have a good impression of them, and swaggered all the way, shouting at the Taiping soldiers that they were Qing Demons, which made the Taiping Army old men who came out of Guangxi in the city extremely dissatisfied, but they were all suppressed by Li Xiucheng.

Li Xiucheng was also very curious about how the Ming army could recruit banner people to serve as soldiers, and also curious about the combat effectiveness of these Eight Banner soldiers.

He saw that the 3,000 troops were marching neatly and slowly towards the Hunan army's position, and soon the Hunan army opened fire, and Li Xiucheng ordered the artillery in the city to fire back, and now Li Xiucheng can be equipped with quite a lot of artillery, and in the past year, he has bought 10,000 cannons from the Ming army alone, and he doesn't know how they produced so many cannons.

The artillery of the Ming army was also erected on the city, and the two artillery quickly suppressed the earthen artillery of the Hunan army, covering the vanguard until the first long trench of the Hunan army.

The cavalry of the Hunan army counterattacked and captured a considerable number of Eight Banners soldiers at once, but the Ming army was able to form a formation and fight and retreat, and fled back to most of them.

Fu Zhuli, who was also watching the battle in the city, looked very bad, he felt that this was clearly to send his men to death, and he was now the commander of the Eight Banners of Tianjing.

"That's enough!"

He protested angrily to Chen Ada.

Chen Ada was expressionless: "Hmm." After eating my Ming Emperor's military salary for five years, don't you fight a battle for the emperor, do you think it's righteous? ”

Raising soldiers for a thousand days and using soldiers for a while, they have eaten more than a thousand days, and today it finally came in handy, but it made Fu Zhuli feel extremely ashamed, and walked down the city tower with a muffled snort, with a lonely look on his face, why did the Eight Banners soldiers fall to today, he is more and more disgusted with the Han people, whether it is the Ming army or the Taiping army, or even the Hunan army outside the city. (To be continued.) )