After more than two hours of conspiracy, Xu Naizhao and Gil Hang'a were finally persuaded by Wu Jianzhang, and the three rushed to the French consulate. Pen, fun, pavilion www. biquge。 After knowing the purpose of the two's visit, Burblon asked the British consul Allean and the new American commissioner to China, Maillyn.

The two sides began to negotiate.

Perhaps because he saw the power of the foreigner's weapon, Gilhanga was really frightened.

In the face of the aggressive demands of the foreigners, Xu Naizhao still wanted to refuse, but Gilhanga had already begun to mess up, and he was afraid of angering the foreigners. And Wu Jianzhang, who served as the translator, was full of promises, and he translated Xu Naizhao's refusal into a warm approval and agreed very much.

Foreigners are naturally overjoyed. Ali Guo took the lead, took out the agreement that had been prepared a long time ago, and suggested that Wu Jianzhang sign it and confirm it.

Wu Jianzhang saw that this was a four-party agreement between the United States and France on customs duties and concessions in Shanghai.

The first part of the agreement stipulates that the consuls of the United Kingdom, the United States and France will each appoint a "tax department" to manage the customs. The agreement also explained in detail the specific methods of managing Shanghi Customs, and the Manchu Governor of Jiangsu, Yamen, and Shanghi Provincial Affairs Department jointly signed nine "customs taxation rules" with the three countries, and each of the three countries sent one person to form a "Tariff Management Committee" to directly manage Shanghi Customs, so the sovereignty of Shanghi Customs was betrayed to foreigners.

Then, the second part of the Quadripartite agreement deals with the concession issue.

The Jiangsu Governor Yamen and the Shanghai Provincial Bureau recognized the "Regulations on Land in the British, American, and French Concessions in Shanghai," and not only promised not to unilaterally take the initiative to increase the rent of the land, but also allowed Britain, France, and the United States to establish political regimes and law enforcement agencies such as Yamen and Yamen and Arrest in the Concession, and the Chinese and even Qing officials in the Concession also had to enforce the laws of the Concession.

Such an agreement to turn the concession into a country within a country was signed by Wu Jianzhang.

In return, Britain, the United States and France agreed to intervene to persuade the rebels of the Little Knife Society in Shanghi City to surrender the county seat.

On the morning of the next day, Britain, the United States, and France sent the British Vice Consul in Shanghi as a representative to enter the city of Shanghai to negotiate with Liu Lichuan and others.

What Wei Tuoma said was that as long as the rebels withdrew from Shanghai County, they could go to the concession, and their foreigners would come forward and ask the Manchus to pardon the rebellion of the people.

For this kind of request, neither Liu Lichuan nor Chen Alin can accept it at all, and the negotiations naturally have no result.

Wei Tuoma had no choice but to return to the concession. In the afternoon, Consul Ali Guo came forward in person, and only sat in the front hall for half a day on the cold slab table, and no one came out to pay attention to it. In the end, Ali Guo became impatient and noisy, and Liu Lichuan and Chen Alin came forward to talk to him.

Liu Lichuan's idea was to agree to give up Shanghi, enter the concession, and the foreigners would come forward to send them to the territory of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, so that he could at least get a marquis in the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. But before he could say anything, Chen Alin made a statement: he resolutely disagreed to leave the county.

At this time, Chen Alin integrated the subordinates of Li Xianchi and others, and his strength in the rebel army was already in the first place. Although he is still nominally ranked second, his actual impact is even greater than that of Liu Lichuan. Chen Alin was reluctant to leave Shanghi and wanted to stick to the county seat, and Liu Lichuan was helpless.

Seeing that he could not make sense of the rebel army, Ali Guo retreated and took out a neutral statement, asking Liu Lichuan and Chen Alin to issue a notice to the rebel army, "It is forbidden to cross the concession with weapons, and violators will be severely punished."

The head of the Little Knife Society immediately drew up this proclamation, and finally the British side approved it, and the proclamation only forbade armed passage through the concession area north of Yangjingbang, and did not include the French concession south of Pidgin. On the one hand, in order to protect the rights and interests of the rebel army, and on the other hand, they only attached importance to the opinions of the British and were not very interested in the French, so they categorically refused to make any further changes.

At this time, Xianfeng was very angry that Xu Naizhao, the governor of Jiangsu, had not conquered Shanghi for more than a month, and directly commented on Xu Naizhao's report on the siege of Shanghi: "The thief is not getting poorer, and he is uncertain about the recovery." Xu Naizhao, you have been useless for a long time, and it is very hateful to use this perfunctory. ”

Xu Naizhao became more and more frightened. I was anxious all day long, anxious to attack the city as soon as possible.

The next night, Xu Naizhao personally supervised the formation, excavated the pit tunnel, filled it with thousands of catties of gunpowder, and then closed the pit mouth and placed the fuse. In the early morning of the next day, the Qing army lit the fuse, with a loud noise, the bricks and stones flew into the air, the city wall of more than two zhang was blown down, several houses in the city were also blown up, and hundreds of Qing soldiers rushed into Shanghi City from the gap.

But what I didn't expect was that the city had long been prepared to use the crypt method to attack the city outside the city, and behind the city wall, a wide inner moat was dug, and the moat was covered with nail stones, blocking the Qing army's advance.

The Qing soldiers who were blocked in the gap of the city wall were shot and killed by the rebels on the other side of the trench, and the hundreds of Qing soldiers died in the ditch except for more than 20 people.

The Qing soldiers tried to rush into the city through the gap again, but the bricks and stones of the rebels on the walls on both sides of the city wall fell one after another, and the muskets on the opposite side of the trench killed hundreds of Qing soldiers.

The Qing soldiers could only retreat. But Xu Naizhao was in a hurry, he, Gilhang'a, and Wu Jianzhang personally supervised the battle, and claimed that whoever attacked the city first would be rewarded with 30,000 taels of silver, and those who retreated immediately beheaded on the spot, forcing the Qing soldiers to rush and kill. Under the heavy reward, the morale of the Qing soldiers was high, and they were about to enter the city.

At this time, it suddenly rained heavily in the sky, and the Qing army was drenched like chickens in soup, their feet were stuck in the mud, the arquebus powder was also drenched, the guns were useless, and the Qing army had to retreat.

Another siege was unfavorable, and Xu Naizhao was depressed! He wrote to report that "I don't want the rebels to gather to resist the soldiers, so that many innocents will be killed", but it was caused by the rain on the previous day, and the army could only retreat, perhaps this was the will of God.

A few days later, the salty harvest arrived in the letter and was furious!

Xianfeng thinks that this Xu Naizhao is simply an incompetent person like a rice bucket waste, and he still values him before.

A few days later, a holy decree from Xianfeng arrived outside Shanghi City.

In the holy decree, Xianfeng reprimanded Xu Naizhao for his ineffective efforts to suppress the traitorous party, his hard work and salary, and his long-term fruitlessness, and he was even held hostage by foreigners, and decided to dismiss him. But although he is incompetent, he can still do his errands diligently, and he will not be held accountable, but handed over to Rong to send and appoint.

The most beneficiary was Gilhanga, and in the holy decree, Xianfeng promoted Gilhanga to the governor of Jiangsu.

And Wu Jianzhang was also scolded by Xianfeng, scolding "Yongyi to raise thieves" and bad errands, and lost Shanghai City. However, because he also had to communicate with foreigners, Xianfeng did not dismiss him from his post and investigate, but only fined him for 10 years and fined 500,000 taels of silver.

When the new governor of Jiangsu, Gil Hang'a, saw Xu Naizhao's fate, he was also terrified in his heart, and decided to conquer Shanghai City at all costs. And Wu Jianzhang was even more panicked, hearing that he was scolded by Xianfeng for "bravely raising thieves, doing bad errands, and losing Shanghi City" and other crimes, no matter which one, it was enough for him to be a capital crime, but Xianfeng did not put him in prison, but just wanted him to atone for his crimes and conquer Shanghi.

The two men hit it off, and after a little deliberation, they met with the French minister Bourblon, who had a grudge against the rebels in the city. When Bourblon learned that the two of them were coming, he was overjoyed, and only made a slight request to expand the current 300 acres of French concession to 1,200 acres, and agreed to cooperate with Gilhanga to attack the rebels in Shanghi City together.

It just so happened that the men of the French naval commander, Admiral Rawell, arrived in Shanghai on the cruiser "Joan of Arc", and with the addition of more troops, his mind became active. Rawell was extremely hateful of the Knife Society's rebels, openly declaring that "it is a disgrace to human civilization to allow the existence of traitors."

As a result, Rawell led more than 400 French troops to cut off the communication between the French Concession and Shanghai City, and together with the Qing army, built a boundary wall to cut off the traffic between the other British Concession and the American Concession and Shanghai City.

Liu Lichuan and Chen Alin hurriedly sent people to protest to the foreigners, asking the British to come forward and coordinate the French to remain neutral. But Ali Guo had already been greeted by Burblon and ignored him.

Liu Lichuan was anxious, and once again proposed to Chen Alin to give up Shanghi, break through to Zhenjiang Mansion, and defect to the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom.

Chen Alin still disagreed, and was only willing to stick to Shanghi City. He believed that the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom was completely unreliable, and Liu Lichuan issued a proclamation claiming to be incorporated into the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, but the Heavenly Kingdom did not react. And Liu Lichuan wrote a letter to the king of heaven, asking for troops to be sent to support, but there was no response.

Obviously, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom did not wait to see the rebel brothers. There is no way to call for help.

What followed was even greater trouble: there were nearly 30,000 people in Shanghai City, including the rebels and the people, who ate and drank countless amounts of food every day.

There is not much grain stored in Shanghai City, and it all depends on the transportation of Zhejiang, Songjiang Mansion and Suzhou Prefecture. But now Shanghi has been besieged for many days, and the food in the city is slowly running out.

The strict blockade of the Qing army and the foreigners made the rebels in the city difficult, and they could not get the support of the peasants in the suburbs, could not replenish the soldiers, and at the same time could not obtain external supplies such as food and ammunition, and the situation became very serious. Grain stocks became scarcer, and the price of rice continued to rise, until later, there was no more food to sell.

Later, the brothers of the Little Knife Society in the city not only killed cattle and horses for food, but also killed and ate all cats and dogs, and began to eat grass roots and tree bark.

Liu Lichuan and Chen Alin both fell into despair.

What is even more desperate is that the ammunition of the rebel army is about to run out, and the soldiers of the rebel army are demoralized and full of complaints, and they no longer obey the orders of Liu Lichuan and Chen Alin.

Seeing that it is difficult to hold on to Shanghi County, if it does not break through, the rebels will all be buried in Shanghi City. In desperation, Liu Lichuan and Chen Alin prepared to convene leaders from all walks of life to discuss how to break through the siege and break out of the blockade of the Qing army and foreigners.