The nine little wives were all sent to live in the concession, and the cash of the property was also transferred, and a considerable part of the storage was buried deep underground, but Wu Lao comprador categorically rejected the kind persuasion of Zhou Tenghu and others to let him go to Hong Kong to live temporarily, and insisted on staying in Shanghai to guard the lonely city with Wu Jun's soldiers.

"Your king of Zhennan is the grandson of the old man, Shanghai is his jurisdiction, the old man does not stay to guard Shanghai for his grandson, who is willing to give his life to the old man's grandson to guard Shanghai?"

"Danger? When the old man followed Lin Wenzhong to guard Guangzhou back then, it was ten times more dangerous than now! The old man was never afraid back then, is it that he is getting old now, but he wants to learn from those eggless deserters?! ”

This reason and this passage helped Wu Lao comprador block the mouths of Zhou Tenghu and Deng Siyuan and others, and also helped Wu Lao comprador persuade more wealthy businessmen and giants to donate more money to the Wu army in Shanghai to buy military weapons and recruit auxiliary regiments for training. However, another consequence was that her granddaughter-in-law Zhou Xiuying refused to take Wu Nianyue to Hong Kong, and insisted on staying in Shanghai with Wu Lao compradors, and asked in turn with Wu Lao compradors' reasons: "Grandpa, Nianyue is Chaoyue's only son, if he and I don't stay to help defend Shanghai, who else can we expect to sell our lives to Chaoyue to defend Shanghai?" ”

and Xiao Nianyue, who is extremely close to Wu Lao comprador, also insisted on not leaving, and must stay by Wu Lao comprador's side. Unable to resist the baby great-grandson and granddaughter-in-law, and considering that Ningbo is already the territory of the Taiping Army, and the ports and terminals such as Guangzhou and Fuzhou are still under the control of the remnants of the Qing Army in the southeast, it is not safe enough to take the sea route, so the old comprador Wu had no choice but to sigh and say: "Okay, then let's stay, of course it is best to hold Shanghai, if we can't hold it, we will flee together, if we can't escape, we will die together." ”

Wu Lao, who has always been superstitious, later regretted that he mentioned the word dead in front of his baby great-grandson, and the result was not unexpectedly unlucky, Zhou Tenghu finally led the Shanghai Wu army to defeat the Taiping Army's Lu Shunde Department and Tan Shaoguang's Department, stabilized the situation a little, and basically contained the Taiping Army's offensive. Bad news immediately came from Hangzhou, saying that Li Xiucheng had decided to personally lead the Taiping army of Jiangsu and Zhejiang to attack Shanghai, and at the same time, there was another scene of chickens and dogs at home and abroad, and Wu Lao comprador couldn't help but quietly slapped himself in the face where no one was, and blamed himself: "It's all to blame for the old man's crow's mouth." ”

"Wow! Wow! Wow! Wow! ”

It was another bad day, just received the bad news that Li Xiucheng's army had set off from Hangzhou to Shanghai, and more than a dozen pitch-black crows flew from somewhere, and kept screaming on the roof of the back hall of Wu's mansion as if they had taken the wrong medicine, and they couldn't leave when they were driven away by the servants.

"Phew! Depressed Star! ”

The old comprador Wu, who was discussing the military situation with Jin Anqing in the back hall, was already in an extremely unhappy mood, and when he heard this unfortunate voice, he inevitably felt even more unlucky, so he simply shouted at the soldiers next to him: "Go, shoot, and hit those desolate stars on the roof!" ”

"Master, this is the back hall." The soldier hurriedly reminded: "Young Master Sun's room is not far from here, will shooting him scare him?" ”

"Master Wu, you don't need to be angry." Jin Anqing also smiled and said: "Saying that the crow is called bad luck, it is just the words of the folk fool and stupid woman, in fact, in the history books, the crow is the real auspicious bird, the annunciation bird, and the crow song is also the real good luck." ”

"Meisheng, what did you say? Is the crow an auspicious ANGELO bird? ”

Wu Lao comprador looked at Jin Anqing suspiciously, with an old man's expression of reading less and don't lie to me, but fortunately, Jin Anqing did not lie to Wu Lao comprador, and replied with a smile: "It's true, there are such words in "Zuo Biography" and "Historical Records" - the crow announces the good news, and there is Zhou Xing. ”

"The crow announces the good news, and there is Zhou Xing?" Old comprador Wu's eyes widened, and it was true that he had never heard such a sentence.

"When Zhou Jiangxing was prosperous, there was a big red bird and the god of the valley gathered on the king's house, the king of martial arts was happy, and all the doctors were happy."

Jin Anqing first recited an ancient text, and then explained: "The big red bird is a crow, when King Wu of Zhou decided to cut down, there were many crows circling the palace of King Wu of Xiqi and chirping, King Wu of Zhou and the ministers of Xiqi were overjoyed, and they all felt that this was a good omen, and then the army of Xiqi really successfully entered the court, eliminated the Shang Dynasty, and created the Zhou Dynasty for more than 800 years. ”

"In addition, in the Tang Dynasty poet Zhang Ji's "Crying in the Dark Night", there is also such a story of the crow announcing the good news, and there is an official who commits a crime ......."

"Meisheng wait! The old man remembered! ”

The sudden shouting of the old comprador Wu interrupted Jin Anqing's flickering, and when Jin Anqing shut up in doubt, the old comprador Wu danced and shouted: "Meisheng, the old man remembered, it was the same last time, a large group of crows kept screaming around the old man, and then it didn't take long for the old man to know Nian Yue's whereabouts!" At that time, the old man thought it was strange, how could it be that the crow came to give me good news? ”

"Master Wu, what do you mean by that? Why can't the younger generation understand? ”

It was Jin Anqing's turn to be full of doubts, and the old comprador Wu didn't hide it, and immediately told Jin Anqing about the situation when he and his baby great-grandson met for the first time, and the result was also a coincidence, the old comprador Wu had just finished introducing the situation, and before Jin Anqing could make any comments, there were soldiers outside the door who rushed to report and said: "Master Yu, someone from the foreign dock came to report, saying that there were two flags of foreign ships that had never been seen docking, and the owners of the foreign ships wanted to see you by name, and said that they had the official document of the king of Zhennan in their hands. It was the king of Zhennan who personally invited them to come to the Daqing Gun Factory to make foreign guns and foreign cannons in our Daqing Dynasty. ”

"Foreigners who came to the gun factory?!"

Old comprador Wu and Jin Anqing let out an exclamation at the same time, and after glancing at each other in great surprise, Old comprador Wu and Jin Anqing also looked up together to see the roof where there were still crows chirping, and said in unison: "It's really here to report the good news?!" ”

Maybe it was really a special trip to report the good news, when Wu Lao comprador and Jin Anqing hurriedly led their soldiers out to the dock, just out of the backyard, the group of crows that screamed more than once spread their wings as if they had taken the wrong medicine, and flew together in the direction of the outer dock of the Huangpu River. Seeing this scene, the old comprador Wu, who had been cleansed by Jin An, was not only no longer confused, but also had a little joy in his heart............

"The crow announces the good news, there is Zhou Xing, more than 800 years of rivers and mountains, a good omen, a good omen!"

…………

It is a pity that although Nobel and his son brought most of the equipment of their family arsenal to Shanghai, it is not yet possible to guarantee whether the charcoal sent in the snow can be used, because Nobel only brought the core equipment of his own arsenal, and many auxiliary equipment must be produced locally in China, and at the same time, the workers who can operate these machinery and equipment also need to be trained to take up their posts, and the source of raw materials is a problem that is difficult to solve immediately. Therefore, although the machinery and equipment brought by Nobel and his sons could produce advanced weapons, including Ritch rifles and mines, they could not be put into production in any short period of time.

After carefully understanding the equipment and raw materials of the Wu Army Arsenal in Shanghai, the old Nobel directly told Wu Lao Comprador and Zhou Tenghu and others: "I can't do picric acid explosives, I can't make them if the raw materials are insufficient, but I can guarantee a large supply of nitroglycerin explosives, and my son and I have developed a warm heating process that can safely and quickly produce nitroglycerin in large quantities." ”

After learning that nitroglycerin explosives were the secret weapon of the Wu army in Hubei Province after the technicians of the military arsenal learned that the Hubei Wu army defeated the Tsarist Russian army, Zhou Tenghu and Wu Lao comprador were of course overjoyed together, and immediately asked Nobel and his son to produce nitroglycerin explosives in large quantities. However, the old Nobel said: "Zhou, Wu, I can produce nitroglycerin explosives for you, and I can also produce thundermercury for detonation, but I don't know how nitroglycerin explosives are used on the battlefield." ”

"Isn't it in a flowering shell?" Zhou Tenghu asked suspiciously.

"Of course not, not to mention the fuse, it takes countless hours to study and experiment just for a passivation problem."

Old Nobel shook his head with his hands, and said with regret: "Regarding this, you should be blamed for the king of Zhennan of the Qing Kingdom, he has studied and solved these problems, but he has strictly sealed the key core technology, so the only way I know to use nitroglycerin explosives now is to use a detonator to detonate it directly." ”

Zhou Tenghu frowned, but Wu Lao comprador was very curious to learn from the Nobel father and son about the specific method of detonating nitroglycerin explosives with a detonator, and when he learned that nitroglycerin explosives could be detonated in a large paper tube like a firecracker, Wu Lao comprador was still thoughtful, and after thinking for a while, he said directly in English: "Mr. Nobel, please hurry up and start producing that new gunpowder, how to use it, I will figure out a way." ”