The air of freedom is very good, in the first three-year term of the governor of Hubei, although Wu Chaoyue has made a lot of development, established a certain prestige, and successfully bought the hearts of many ignorant people, but he has lived a very aggrieved life, either blackmailed by Mr. Zeng, or monitored by the official and Hua Shana in turn, he did not dare to let go of his hands and feet, trembling, and did not enjoy a good day of the emperor of Hubei for three years. Pen × fun × Pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 ｉｎｆｏ

This kind of aggrieved life finally said goodbye to Wu Chaoyue, with Hua Shana's personal command of the troops to the south to quell the rebellion, there is finally no one in the city of Hubei Province who is higher and more powerful than Wu Chaoyue, no matter what Wu Chaoyue does, he doesn't have to worry about being constrained, and no matter what he does, he doesn't have to worry about someone reporting to the Manchu court.

The air of freedom is indeed beautiful, and Wu Chaoyue is so free that he doesn't know what to do, so he takes the opportunity to drive away the unpleasant local officials in Hubei and replace them with his own people? I'm sorry, the Hubei county officials who dare to do it against Wu Chaoyue have long since ceased to exist, either they were knocked down and driven away by Wu Chaoyue's tricks, or they were killed by the old fox Hua Shana on his own initiative, and the remaining Hubei local officials are just not in line with Wu Chaoyue, but in other respects they are absolutely obedient, telling them to lie on their stomachs They definitely dare not kneel, and they are so obedient that Wu Chaoyue is embarrassed to change people again.

Take the opportunity to remove the commanders of the provinces to control the green battalion? Still embarrassed, Wu Chaoyue's combat effectiveness of the green battalion soldiers is not only not eye-catching, but it will increase the burden when he catches it, and all the green battalion soldiers in Hubei who can fight have already divided their gangs, and they are either controlled by Wu Chaoyue's lackey kingdom, or they are subordinate to Duxing Atong, and the rest of the shrimp soldiers and crabs will not be worth shooting, and forcibly eating them may also arouse the vigilance of the Manchu court and Huashana, so Wu Chaoyue has no consideration at all.

Take the opportunity to buy and co-opt and directly obey the orders of Huashana's superintendent and Eyong? Continue to be embarrassed, Wu Chaoyue is really a little afraid of the old fox Hua Shana's wrist methods, knowing that his supervisor and Eyong must have countless eyeliner staring at him, no matter what big moves he has, he will definitely not be able to escape the eyes of the old fox in Huashana, and at the same time, it is not ordinarily difficult to take the opportunity to completely control Huguang Dubiao and Hubei Eyong. Therefore, without wanting to tear his face with Huashana immediately, Wu Chaoyue could only continue to use military training as an excuse to successively insert his own people into Eyong to grasp military power, and at the same time take the opportunity to win over one or two generals of Huguang Governor and put a few eyeliners in Huashana's directly subordinate army.

Of course, if Wu Chaoyue made up his mind, he could let go of two major things, the first was to vigorously expand the standard that was directly under his orders, and the second was to directly rebel. However, soon, Wu Chaoyue found a very embarrassing contradiction, the vigorous expansion of the army would definitely be immediately discovered, opposed and stopped by Huashana, and the direct rebellion was not strong enough, and at the same time, all the preparations were not made.

Before leaving, Hua Shana had repeatedly told Wu Chaoyue not to repeat the mistakes of Zeng Guofan, although Wu Chaoyue could not listen to this, but Wu Chaoyue dared to bet with his little brother that as long as he dared to expand his army in Hubei, as soon as he received the news in Hunan, Hua Shana would definitely return to Hubei as soon as possible to stop it, and he dared not to listen to Hua Shana, he dared to turn his face with himself, and asked the Manchu court to directly remove himself.

Direct rebellion can get rid of the shackles of the Manchu court and Hua Shana, and expand as much as you want, but after doing so, Hua Shana will definitely bring the Hunan army to explode his chrysanthemum as soon as possible, Du Xing'a will definitely come back with the provincial army and fight hard with himself, and Monk Greenqin will definitely take the Central Plains Qing army down immediately after receiving the news to settle the old accounts with himself. In addition, Shu Bao in Xiangyang and Mianxun in Jingzhou will definitely not call themselves brothers and sisters anymore, and if they can't take the throat of Jingzhou in the first place, the Qing army in Sichuan should come in a short time.

In addition, the timing is definitely not ripe enough, the residual power of the Manchu court is still there, Wu Chaoyue raised the banner against the Qing Dynasty, and many local officials in Hubei may not respond, and the people of Hubei, who have been brainwashed by the Manchu enslavement for more than 200 years, may not fully support it. Wu Lao, who is in Shanghai, and Wu Xiaoping and his wife, who are still living in Xiangshan, will definitely face death.

Under the contradictions and many concerns, Wu Chaoyue finally understood why the brutal rule of the Manchu court could be maintained for more than 200 years, and basically no local governors dared to rebel for more than 200 years.

Then, Wu Chaoyue naturally hated his teacher Zeng Guofan even more, when the Wild Boar Skin IX fled north to Rehe in history, what a good opportunity to raise troops to rebel? Why didn't your teacher know how to catch it?

However, it was okay for Wu Chaoyue, the foreigners sent news in time, saying that the negotiations with the Manchu court had failed, and the British and French forces had decided to go north again to attack Dagukou. ——Coming to this conclusion, of course, it has something to do with Wu Chaoyue's history teacher graduating from a sports school.

In addition, history has entered the era of industrialized countries beating agricultural countries, and there is no longer a need to desperately recruit troops and buy horses and take human lives, and the industrial foundation has been laid well, and it is by no means a dream to expand the army in large quantities and quickly in a short period of time.

Therefore, taking the opportunity of Huashana to leave Hubei temporarily, Wu Chaoyue only let go and did one big thing, that is, to take the opportunity to expand the scale of the smelting industrial base and expand the three Pudelin furnaces to five. At the same time, the production scale of the Guns Bureau was tripled, the production equipment that had been deliberately sealed was taken out and put into production, and a large amount of money and grain were used to hire and train production workers, and they worked hard to produce weapons and ammunition for storage and later use.

Then, another major event for Wu Chaoyue is to wait, wait for the foreigners to enter Beijing, wait for the Xianfeng Emperor to flee to Rehe to kill rabbits, give full power to the local governor, and wait for a better opportunity to raise troops. However, what Wu Chaoyue never expected was that a series of accidents that caught him off guard came one after another............

The first surprise that caught Wu Chaoyue off guard was the sudden anti-foreign sentiment from the people of Hubei! After the British and French armies captured the city of Guangzhou, they captured Ye Mingchen, the governor of Liangguang, and sent him to India.

It is very unfortunate for Wu Chaoyue, Ye Mingchen happens to be a native of Hanyang, Hubei, the family is still very large, rich and powerful, after receiving the news of Ye Mingchen's death, the people of the old Ye family shouted the slogan of excluding foreign countries while holding a big funeral, instigating the people of Hubei to refuse to buy foreign goods, refuse to trade with foreigners, and the members of the Ye family who were too sad and indignant shouted the slogan of the Boxer Rebellion that killed all foreigners. And Wu Chaoyue was forced to have no choice but to strengthen the protection of the foreigners in Hankou, and at the same time personally go to Hanyang to pay tribute to Ye Mingchen, trying to persuade the Ye clan not to blindly exclude foreigners. As a result, he was not only categorically rejected by the Ye family, but also fell into the infamy of a traitor, which made Wu Chaoyue very embarrassed.

Then, another trouble came to the door, Zeng Guoquan, who was studying in the military academy in Hankou, suddenly visited the door in the name of his uncle, and cautiously asked Wu Chaoyue if Zeng Jijing had any accidents during his stay in Wu's mansion? When Wu Chaoyue was surprised and asked the reason, Zeng Guoquan replied truthfully: "That's the case, after Ji Jing returned to Hunan, she has always been depressed, often crying from a person, her sister-in-law asked her the reason, she didn't say, and later her sister-in-law once inadvertently asked her if something happened in Hubei, and she cried even more." My sister-in-law suspected that her becoming like this had something to do with her visit to Hubei, so she wrote to me to inquire. ”

Wu Chaoyue, who inadvertently caused a lot of trouble, was speechless, and wanted to continue to hide it, but he felt too sorry for Zeng Jijing, and after thinking about it, Wu Chaoyue still chose to tell the truth to Zeng Guoquan and honestly confessed his crime of attempted sexual assault. As expected, Zeng Guoquan really jumped up like a crazy lion, clenched his fists with both hands, and frightened Wu Dada and other personal soldiers to quickly draw their guns.

"Uncle Nine, I really didn't mean that incident." Wu Chaoyue said with a sad face: "I can swear to God, I really didn't mean to harm my junior sister, it was because I was too drunk by the flower platform that day, and my junior sister happened to live in Wanzhen's room, so it turned out to be this accident." ”

"Accident?" Zeng Guoquan roared with red eyes, "You will kill my niece for the rest of my life if you have an accident?" ”

"Ninth uncle, ninth uncle, the little nephew is guilty, the little nephew is guilty." Wu Chaoyue apologized again and again, and then said: "Uncle Jiu, if my wife and you don't mind, I can marry my sister and promise to be good to her for the rest of my life!" ”

"My family is a descendant of the saint, can I let my daughter be a concubine?" Zeng Guoquan yelled wildly.

"Then I really can't help it." Wu Chaoyue replied with a wry smile: "I promised Ji Jing that I would marry her, but it was because I considered the situation in your family that I didn't dare to open this mouth until now." ”

If it weren't for Wu Dada and other pro-soldiers who had already pulled out their revolvers and aimed them at Zeng Guoquan, Zeng Guoquan would definitely have pounced and tore Wu Chaoyue apart. However, even so, when Zeng Guoquan left angrily, the soldiers who followed the surveillance quickly sent the news, saying that Zeng Guoquan had returned to Hunan with his luggage, and Wu Chaoyue sighed when he heard the news, and he could only hope that a miracle would appear, so that the people of the Zeng family could figure things out - otherwise, the old Zeng family would follow in the footsteps of the old Ye family and be incompatible with Wu Chaoyue.

At the beginning of March, Zhang Dejian's Hubei spies suddenly sent an urgent report from Anqing, saying that they had found accurate news that the Anqing Taiping Army was about to reinforce the Jiujiang and Hukou battlefields on a large scale, and not only would they send a large number of newly built small and medium-sized warships to the Hukou Taiping Army to help the main force of the Taiping Army's naval division upgrade their equipment, but also rumors that they would transfer three steam gunboats to Hukou to participate in the war.

"Is the news that the long-haired steamer sent to Hukou to participate in the war reliable, can you confirm it?" Wu Chaoyue hurriedly asked.

"It is not possible to confirm it for the time being, but judging from the analysis of signs, it may be very large." Zhang Dejian replied: "Our detailed investigation report shows that since Changmao was equipped with a steamer, we have only fought one battle with Wu Quanmei's sailors in the Xupu area, and by virtue of the advantage of wind direction and ship speed, we sank Wu Quanmei's two red single boats with fewer victories and damaged many ships. ”

Since then, Wu Quanmei did not dare to go west to fight with Changmao, only dared to hide in Wusongkou with the help of the fort to protect himself, and the steamer of Changmao has been idle, and then the sound of letting the steamer go west gradually sounded in Jiangning City, and it is rumored that Hong Xiuquan was very dissatisfied with the excessive consumption of silver by the steamer but not very effective. Therefore, Xia Guan suspects that the rumors that the long-haired steamer is about to sail westward and our are very likely to be true. ”

Wu Chaoyue was silent, and after a long time, he waved his hand to let Zhang Dejian go down and continue to investigate, and then asked Zhao Liewen to write a letter to Yang Wending, asking Yang Wen to inform Du Xing'a and Wang Fu of the bad news, and let Du Xing'a and them prepare for prevention. In the end, Wu Chaoyue called Wu Dadao aside and asked him to send someone to send a letter written in code to Daye and hand it to Rong Hong, so that Rong Hong could contact the secret envoy of the Taiping army and ask why the Taiping army had increased its troops on the western front?

By the way, in order to facilitate secret contact and leakage, Wu Beyond adopted Rong Hong's suggestion and has secretly developed two sets of passwords, one Chinese password is specially used for military purposes, and one English password is specially used by Wu Beyond to contact Rong Hong, who is born against the bone in the back of his head, and the degree of confidentiality is so high that even Zhao Liewen does not know the existence of this set of passwords, but it is also convenient for Wu Beyond to get secret contact with the Taiping Army through Rong Hong.

This time it was obviously in vain, to Wu Chaoyue's surprise again, only a day later, Rong Hong returned to the provincial capital under the pretext of reporting on his work, and personally brought Wu Chaoyue a handwritten letter signed by Yang Xiuqing, the letter was written in English, and the content abandoned those gods and ghosts, to the effect that it was as follows:

"Wu Chaoyue, how can you little Qing demon not believe in your words? This king tried hard to restrain the army and didn't fight you, how did your sailors attack the mouth of the lake several times? Also, this time, you simply sent your demon soldiers directly to Hunan to fight my army, killing so many soldiers in my heavenly kingdom, if you don't collect your troops, you really want to fight me, and this king will accompany you to the end!

This king will tell you one thing clearly, this king has decided to increase his troops on the western front, and he will also send steamers to the mouth of the lake to participate in the war! This king gives you a choice, you now raise an army to create a rebellion against the demons, and this king will join forces with you to kill the demon master of Jiujiang, and draw Poyang Lake as the boundary with you, not contrary to each other, and then discuss the division of land on land!

But if you don't have an army, you don't rebel, you don't make an open covenant with the king. I'm sorry, this king's patience has reached the limit, the water master of the Jiujiang Qing Demon is too threatening to this king, and this king can only kill them! If your sailor joins the war, this king will fight correctly!

You only have two steamers, and this king has three, when this king's steamer kills your steamer and sails to Wuchang City, don't regret it! ”

After reading Yang Xiuqing's letter ghostwritten by Hong Renji, Wu Chaoyue first read the letter to Rong Hong, and then put it on a candle to burn it, and then casually asked Rong Hong, who already knew his thoughts, in English: "What do you think?" ”

"The time is not yet ripe for revolution." Rong Hong replied in English: "Daye's arsenal has just begun to expand its output at present, and it is difficult to supply you for large-scale operations. The rule of the Manchus is still very solid, and the people's minds are still too stubborn, if you raise the banner of revolution now, there will not be too many people who respond, and the rulers of the Manchus will definitely go all out to suppress this revolution. ”

"Also, don't expect much help from those gods of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom." Rong Hong added in English: "Their battle line is too long, and the main force of the army is far away from Hubei, and if you launch a revolution now, not only will they not be able to help you, on the contrary, you can only contain a large number of Manchu troops for them, and they will not find a chance for development, and they are also very dangerous." ”

"Of course." Wu Chaoyue sneered and said: "Yang Xiuqing is clearly prepared with both hands this time, of course it is best to force me directly to rebel, if I can't force me to rebel, I will start fighting, fighting for the right to control the river in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River, beware of me suddenly turning my face and exerting force, killing their Hukou Sailor and threatening Nanjing." ”

"It's the same with the foreigners." Rong Hong added in a low voice: "Accurate information, the total number of troops dispatched by Britain and France this time is only more than 5,600 people, which is too small. Not to mention whether we can get their support and help in launching the revolution, even if we can win their support and help, they will not be of much help, on the contrary, we will definitely have to pay a heavy price. ”

Wu Chaoyue nodded again and said in English: "I'm also so worried, before that, Xiao Baoling tested my attitude, but he was not the official representative of the British side, and he did not submit official diplomatic documents to me, only verbal support." If I act hastily, even if I can win their support, I will definitely be forced by them to sign more and more dangerous traitorous treaties. ”

"Then what are you going to do with the Taiping Army?" Rong Hong asked.

"No reply, continue to be silent, continue to endure!" Wu Chaoyue gritted his teeth and said: "The Taiping army really wants to fight, I can give them the right to control the river in the Jiujiang area, it's great to take some trouble to transport grain from Ruichang to Jiujiang, anyway, I'm not afraid of them on land." But if the Taiping Army sailors dare to continue to march in, I will never let them cross Tianjia Town one step! Tear your face first, let the Taiping Army know that I can't be used by them if they want to, and then find a way to renegotiate later."

After making this decision, Wu Chaoyue told Rong Hong to cut off secret contact with the Taiping army during the war, to avoid being blackmailed by the Taiping army, and not to contact the Taiping army's secret envoy until he received his own order. After Rong Hong agreed, Wu Chaoyue said very regretfully: "It's a pity, if the strength in my hand is enough, and I am not so tightly bound, I can prepare a little more in advance, this time is definitely a great opportunity to raise troops." ”

After thinking about it, Wu Chaoyue found that he was forced to fight with the Taiping Army again, which was also a lot of benefits, first of all, he gave an explanation to the Manchu court, and got an excuse for himself to further expand the armament war. The second is that sooner or later, he will have to compete with the Taiping Army for control of the Yangtze River route, and if he fights with roughly equal strength, it is not easy to make any mistakes, and he can also take the opportunity to give the hard-working steam warship sailors the opportunity to get actual combat training.

Therefore, while sending Rong Hong away, Wu Chaoyue immediately ordered his last two sailor battalions to prepare for battle, and ordered Liu Kun's army to withdraw to Tianjia Town, renovate and protect the permanent fort he built there, and prepare for a decisive battle with the Taiping Army's sailors in Tianjia Town. In addition, Wu Chaoyue, who had enough food in his hand, also sent a large amount of grain to Jiujiang in advance, so as to prevent the Taiping army from successfully seizing the river surface around Jiujiang and making the Jiujiang battlefield face a crisis of food shortage.

After another period of time, a report came from Jiujiang, saying that the Anqing naval division of the Taiping Army was dispatched to escort a large number of newly-built warships west to the lake for reinforcements, and the three steam gunboats purchased by the Taiping Army from Britain last year were also listed!

After receiving this news, Wu Chaoyue's first reaction was to go to Wenjiujiang and order Wang Fu and Du Xing'a to lead the water division to retreat to Tianjia Town to deploy defenses, and at the same time, he immediately made preparations for personally leading the army to fight Tianjia Town again. However, what caught Wu Chaoyue off guard again was that his retreat order was categorically rejected by Du Xing'a!

"If you want to withdraw, I won't withdraw, I am the governor of Hubei, and I obey the orders of Huazhitai, and Wu Futai has no authority to command me." This is the original words given by Du Xing'a to Wang Fu, the commander of the Wu Army's water division. (To be continued.) )