A.D. 1855 the Yellow River diversion, is also the Yellow River in the history of the last major diversion, broken in Henan Lanyang (now Lankao) copper tile box, the turbulent Yellow River water is three shares, one by the Zhao Wang River to go to the south of Caozhou Mansion in Shandong, two shares by the north and south of Dongming County, two by the north and south of Dongming County, through Puzhou, Shandong (now Henan), to Zhangqiu Town, confluence through the transport (canal), always return to the Daqing River into the sea. Pen | fun | pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 All the canals and Daqing River have been affected, and more than 20 prefectures and counties in five prefectures and counties in Shandong Province have been affected, and the yellow water flows across the vast areas of southwest and northwest Shandong.

The reason for the diversion is not important whether it is a natural disaster or a man-made disaster, the important thing is that the consequences caused by it are internal and external troubles, with the Taiping army sweeping through the south of the Yangtze River and endangering the Yangtze River valley, and the Tsarist Russian powers are looking at and delaying, and the financial embarrassment has reached the point of issuing lead money to loot the people's wealth. So much so that after receiving this news, Emperor Xianfeng even shouted out such words with grief and indignation, "Is the sky going to die in my Qing Dynasty?" ”

As a result, as the wise and martial Emperor Xianfeng expected, hundreds of millions of refugees fled from the Yellow Flood Area, but the poor Manchu court could not come up with money and food to help and resettle these even more poor refugees. In order to survive, a huge number of hungry people either pulled the flag to rebel, or defected to join the Taiping Army, the Twist Army and the large and small rebel army, the Anhui Taiping Army obtained a large number of troops to replenish, originally only in the Yimeng Mountains to fight a small fight Ji Wenyuan, the veteran of the Taiping Army, also took the opportunity to sit big, quickly expanded the team to nearly 10,000 people, successively conquered Zhucheng and Anqiu County, for the Taiping Army to create a large area of northern base areas.

There is also the Twist Army, which was about to be suppressed by Seng Lingqin, and the Twist Army also took advantage of the situation to recover, and successively conquered many prefectures and counties in Henan, and the Twist Army Li Shilin once invaded Xiangyang Mansion and De'an Mansion in northern Hubei, endangering the safety of Wu Chaoyue's rear. And Wu Chaoyue was busy establishing the defense line of Tianjiazhen to prevent the Taiping army from counterattacking, and he couldn't take the time to lead the army to suppress it, so he could only throw this burden on his boss Guanwen and let Guanwen organize the Qing army in northern Hubei to suppress and pacify.

The results are not bad, because the twisted army has been flowing to the south of Henan several times before, the previous governors of Huguang and Hubei governors in order to ensure the safety of northern Hubei, early deployed heavy troops in northern Hubei to prevent, Wuchang to Xiangyang and there are waterways to communicate conveniently, relying on the rapid dispatch of troops by the official documents, the Qing army in northern Hubei also rarely fought to drive the Twist army back to Henan. After receiving the news, Wu Chaochang breathed a sigh of relief, but did not dare to have the slightest slackness, and the race against time was only to organize the common people to build forts in Banbi Mountain and Wuwangmiao, and set up water fences and iron cables to block the river, so as to guard against the old rival Taiping Army taking advantage of the situation to attack Hubei again.

During this period, Wu Chaoyue seized the time to do two major things, the first was to jointly impeach Yang Dingguo, the chief soldier of the green battalion of Wuchang Prefecture, for dereliction of duty, cowardice and prostitution in the army, and other conclusive crimes, as a result, the power of the impeachment excerpt jointly signed by the governor was naturally extraordinary, and the angry Emperor Xianfeng even saved the matter of sending Yang Dingguo to Xinjiang to eat wind and drink sand, and Yang Dingguo was directly cut off by a holy decree.

After overthrowing Yang Dingguo, a traitor in the Hunan army, Wu Chaoyue immediately put Wang Guocai, the deputy general of the green battalion who was on his side, into the position of the chief soldier, and asked him to command and rectify the green battalion soldiers in Wuchang and Huangzhou, so that he could play a certain auxiliary role in the future. ——The kingdom in history was so confused that when rescuing Wuchang, he didn't even know that the Taiping army had entered the city of Wuchang, and he stupidly entered the city with the green battalion soldiers, but after being pumped all over the ground by the Taiping army in the area of Snake Mountain, he was still able to be defeated without defeating, and he was able to break through successfully with the defeated army, and he was indeed barely a general.

The second major event is, of course, the development of Daye Iron Mountain and the adjacent Yuanxiang Coal Mine, Wu Chaoyue didn't worry much about this matter, and directly threw it to the insider Rong Hong and the semi-expert Xu Shou to be responsible, and hung up a signboard of the Daye Iron Works Preparatory Bureau, and explained that Daye County ordered Li Chengzhan to fully assist them. Rong Hong et al.'s main responsibilities are also to explore ore veins and assay ores, and study what mining equipment needs to be purchased and what kind of steelmaking furnaces should be purchased. - Wu Chaoyue didn't want to follow the mistakes of Zhang Zhidong, let alone imagine Zhang Zhidong's great achievements, so in order to boast of his political achievements, he had to build the iron factory in Hanyang, far away from the mining area.

In addition, Wu Chaoyue also did a lot of small things, recommended Liu Di, the prefect of Qishui County, who had previously established miraculous achievements, to serve as the prefect of Huangzhou, and gave Liu Kunyi the real shortage of the prefect of Qizhou, and discovered two capable talents among the people who brought their own dry food to vote, a former Wuchang Mansion catcher Zhang Dejian Shi Peng, who was very good at collecting intelligence, and Shao Yanhong, a Zhejiang man who had learned from Gong Zhenlin and cast a 10,000-pound cannon, and gradually consolidated his shogunate staff. In addition, there are some work such as expanding the army, raising the people, managing civil affairs, and expanding domestic and foreign trade, and through his brother-in-law Nie Shicheng, he managed to get in touch with his fellow countryman Liu Mingchuan, and continued to recruit military generals, etc., and so on, and will not list them one by one.

During this period, Wu Chaoyue never returned to Wuchang, and stayed in Tianjia Town to personally preside over the construction of Tianjia Town's defense line, but what worried Wu Chaoyue was that even if the two forts of Banbishan and Wuwangmiao could be successfully completed, supplemented by movable water fences and iron chains to block the water surface of the Yangtze River, the Hubei Qing army, which had weak water power, could only theoretically prevent the Taiping Army sailors from invading the hinterland through waterways, and it was absolutely impossible to ensure that it was just in case. At the same time, during the construction of fortifications, if the surviving Taiping Army Naval Division suddenly attacked, then the Hubei New Army Naval Division, which had just been expanded to two battalions, had almost no hope of winning, and Wu Chaoyue could only watch the Taiping Military Naval Division take the waterway to kill people and set fire to the hinterland of Hubei, stirring up the situation in Hubei that he had just stabilized with great difficulty.

In this regard, Wu Chaoyue of course asked his right-hand man Zhao Liewen for help, but Zhao Liewen replied helplessly: "Weiting, there is no way for you to kill me this time, unless you can persuade Shi Dakai, the leader of the rebel bandits, not to beat you, or you can find a way to get Yang Xiuqing to give an order to Shi Dakai, and Shi Dakai is not allowed to harass Hubei again, otherwise in the current situation in Hubei, the possibility of long-haired not coming to beat you is almost non-existent." ”

Wu Chaoyue was no longer silent, and once wanted to get in touch with Yang Xiuqing again, but considering the consequences of doing so once exposed, Wu Chaoyue subconsciously dispelled this idea - it was too dangerous. With no other choice, Wu Chaoyue could only pin his hope on his barber teacher again, praying that a miracle would appear, so that his barber teacher could be entangled with the Taiping Army in Jiujiang for a while and buy him more time.

The miracle did not appear, although in order not to give the Hunan army the opportunity to reinforce the Nanchang battlefield, the Taiping army was tightly fortified in the Jiujiang area, and made every effort to prevent the Hunan army from rushing into Poyang Lake to reinforce Nanchang, but in order to cut off the Hunan army's grain and grass supply road, encircle Wei to save Zhao and share the pressure of the Jiangxi battlefield, and at the same time, in order to weaken Wu Chaoyue, a more insidious and dangerous terrible enemy, the tactical plan of sending a partial division to attack Hubei again was still put on the agenda of Shi Dakai, the commander of the western front of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom.

At the critical moment, it was still the barber teacher who saved the disobedient student's life - although the barber teacher is now 10,000 reluctant! When Shi Dakai put this tactical plan that was enough to kill Wu Chaoyue to the military intelligence meeting for discussion, the generals of the Taiping Army unanimously opposed this plan, and the reason was not for anything else, the main force of the Hunan Army is currently in Jiujiang, and it may return to the division at any time to save Hubei.

I don't know that Zeng Guofan will never easily return to the army to save the disobedient students, Shi Dakai is of course extremely worried about this danger, after thinking twice, Shi Dakai can only make a relatively safe decision, deciding not to send partial divisions into Hubei for the time being, and at the same time order Luo Gang and Qin Rigang, who are currently stationed in Jiujiang, to strengthen reconnaissance on the battlefield in Hubei, and prepare to find out the real situation of the Qing army in Hubei before making a decision. - Of course, if there is an ideal fighter during the period, Shi Dakai will definitely not hesitate to send a partial division into Hubei to deal a fatal blow to Wu Chaoyue, an old enemy of the Taiping Army who is currently in its infancy in Hubei.

When it comes to the time of intelligence warfare, it is necessary to introduce Wu Chaoyue's newly recruited staff Zhang Dejian, as mentioned earlier, Zhang Dejian used to be the head catcher of the prefect of Wuchang Mansion, after Wuchang City was first broken by the Taiping Army, Zhang Dejian lost his job and wandered on the streets, mixed in the area controlled by the Taiping Army, and gradually found that the Qing Army did a mess of the intelligence work of the Taiping Army, and often did not even know how old the opponent's generals were, and at the same time, the establishment of the Taiping Army was complex, the combat effectiveness of each army and each battalion was uneven, and the official names were strange and numerous. At the same time, he also tortured the decision-making and command organs of the Qing army in disguise, resulting in the Qing army often not even figuring out whether the enemy on the opposite side was the main force or the auxiliary. Zhang Dejian, who had some talent for intelligence collection and analysis, relied on his many years of experience in anti-theft to collect a large amount of valuable information from the Taiping Army through various channels, and wrote a booklet called "Collection of Thieves' Feelings".

However, it is a pity that at the beginning, Zeng Guofan did not pay attention to the valuable information collected by Zhang Dejian, and he also did not believe that Zhang Dejian could do such a big thing on his own. Zhang Dejian, who was greatly disappointed, left the Hunan army camp in a bad mood, and infiltrated the Taiping Army-controlled area in disguise to continue to collect intelligence, and later Zeng Guofan gradually found that Zhang Dejian collected the correct information by collecting the Taiping Army documents, and hurriedly sent people around to find Zhang Dejian's whereabouts, but Zhang Dejian was nowhere to be found, Zeng Guofan regretted it, and regretted that he had to shoot the case several times and sighed.

After the war in Tianjiazhen, Zhang Dejian finally showed up again, but this time Zhang Dejian did not go to Zeng Guofan to ask for his own bored, but ran to Wu Chaoyue to ask for merit and pet, although Wu Chaoyue, who has a sparse history, has never heard of Zhang Dejian's name, but only by talking with Zhang Dejian, he learned about his logical reasoning ability on the details of the military situation, Wu Chaoyue immediately knew that he had picked up a treasure, and immediately accepted Zhang Dejian into his shogunate, entrusted him with the important task of the General Office of the Hubei Intelligence Bureau, and invited him to wear a seven-grade top and reward him, Ask him to preside over the intelligence work for him. Therefore, even if Zeng Guofan knew Zhang Dejian's whereabouts and sent a special letter to apologize, he could no longer poach Zhang Dejian from the command of the disobedient protégé.

Not long after the Jiujiang Taiping Army stepped up its reconnaissance of Hubei, Zhang Dejian's underground intelligence network set up by the lumpen-proletariat, such as unemployed government servants, street gangsters, and boatmen and coachmen, had already discovered and kept an eye on the Taiping Army's meticulous work of no less than 20 people.

He was very satisfied and praised Zhang Dejian fiercely, and Wu Chaoyue, who was good at using the anti-war, did not rush to order the net to be arrested, but discussed with Zhao Liewen next to him the reason why the Taiping Army suddenly increased the intensity of intelligence warfare, and said very worriedly: "It is definitely not a good thing that Changmao cares so much about the military situation in Hubei, if this is really a signal that Changmao is ready to use troops in Hubei again, then we will be in big trouble." ”

Zhao Liewen frowned and nodded, he was also extremely worried about this, and Zhang Dejian on the side was a little inexplicable when he heard it, and said boldly: "Lord Futai, my subordinates take the liberty of asking, why are you and Master Zhao so worried about attacking Hubei again?" In the current situation, it is impossible for Longhair to do this, right? ”

"Why can't Longhair do that?" Wu Chaoyue asked with some confusion.

"Changmao sent troops to Hubei at this time, didn't he look for his own death?" Zhang Dejian said even more suspiciously: "Zeng Butang's main force of the Hunan army is on the periphery of Jiujiang, even if the river and the north bank road are not blocked, as long as Changmao dares to enter Hubei, Zeng Butang can join forces with us to make dumplings with Changmao." If his subordinates were the commanders of the army on Changmao's side, his subordinates would not dare to send troops to Hubei easily at this time? ”

Wu Chaoyue smiled bitterly when he heard this, and said: "Shi Peng, although your words are very reasonable, and it should be like this according to reason, but you don't know the inside story, and if you want my teacher to return to the army, you will never think ......." Yes! ”

"Ahh

Zhao Liewen next to him also let out an exclamation with Wu Chaoyue almost at the same time, Wu Chaoyue quickly put away his wry smile and glanced at Zhao Liewen, after seeing the surprised look in each other's eyes, Wu Chaoyue and Zhao Liewen, the unscrupulous pair, finally suddenly discovered that they had made a key logical mistake - the Hunan army would never easily return to the army to save Hubei, which Wu Chaoyue and Zhao Liewen both knew, but it was absolutely impossible for the Taiping army to know!

Wu Chaoyue and Zhao Liewen both knew very well that it was difficult to resist with the current strength of the Qing army in Hubei, especially on the waterway, but it was impossible for the Taiping army to know this! From the perspective of the Taiping Army, the current battlefield of Tianjiazhen is a huge trap, as long as the Taiping Army dares to divide troops to fight Tianjiazhen, the Hunan Army can make dumplings for the Taiping Army with a return rifle!

Thinking of this, Wu Chaoyue, who was overjoyed, first viciously praised Zhang Dejian again, asking him to express some opinions from the side of the Taiping Army in the future, and then ordered Zhang Dejian to command the thugs of the Hubei Intelligence Bureau to secretly arrest several Taiping army details, and without alarming other Taiping army details, grab a few tongues to interrogate confessions, and ask whether these details were to open the way for the Taiping army's advance, or just to find out the truth of the Hubei Qing army. At the same time, Wu Chaoyue also explained not to alarm the other Taiping troops who had been exposed for the time being, and it might be useful to stay.

The Hubei Intelligence Bureau did a very good job of secretly arresting the Taiping Army, and without alarming outsiders, the thugs under Zhang Dejian's command used the three methods of sweat medicine to beat the rollers and put sacks on them, and quietly caught the four Taiping Army who were acting alone. And after escorting these unlucky Taiping soldiers to the Wu military camp, Zhang Dejian took out his rich experience as a head catcher in the past, and used all kinds of tricks to pry open the mouths of three of them, and asked them to sneak to Tianjia Town mainly to spy on the number of garrisons of the Qing army and the construction of Tianjiazhen forts, not to act as a pioneer for the Taiping army to march into Hubei. helped Wu Chaoyue let go of some of his long-hanging hearts.

After confirming that the Taiping Army's sudden increase in intelligence warfare in Tianjiazhen was not intended to prepare for the recent invasion of Hubei, Wu Chaoyue, who had relaxed a little, did not hesitate, and immediately discussed with Zhao Liewen how to arrange an empty city plan to intimidate the Taiping Army, so that the Taiping Army did not dare to move into Hubei for the time being. However, just when Wu Chaoyue and Zhao Liewen were discussing hotly, a personal soldier suddenly came to report from outside the tent, saying that Rong Hong, the director of the Daye Iron Works Preparatory Bureau, wanted to see him, and directly said that there was good news to tell Wu Chaoyue.

Since it is good news, Wu Chaoyue of course has to listen to it as soon as possible, temporarily put down the things in hand and personally welcome out of the tent, but just met with Rong Hong in front of the big tent of the Chinese army, Rong Hong really gave his hand to Wu Chaoyue again and again as soon as he met, and said with a smile: "Congratulations to Wu Futai, congratulations to Wu Futai, good news!" Great news! The ore and petrochemical test results of several open-pit mines of Daye Iron Mine have all come out, and all of them are low-phosphate ore! Among them, the Daowan mining area, which has the thickest ore layer, has a phosphorus content of first-class iron ore as low as only 0.05%, and second-class ore as low as 0.08%, all of which are below the qualified steel standard of no more than 0.08% phosphorus content! As long as you pay attention to the screening of ores and the use of low-phosphorus coke, you can directly smelt qualified steel with the Pudelin furnace, the mainstream steelmaking furnace in Europe and the United States! ”

didn't have time to scream, Wu Chaoyue's mouth suddenly opened and dislocated, Rong Hong continued to hit Wu Chaoyue, and said even more excitedly: "There is a better mine!" Although the ore reserves are smaller, the phosphorus content of the ore is generally about 0.02% to 0.03%! It is the best steelmaking ore that is extremely rare in Europe and the United States! ”

pinched his thigh vigorously to confirm that he was not dreaming, held his chin back to its original position, and snatched the test report in Rong Hong's hand, Wu Chaoyue looked left and right, looked at it again, rubbed his eyes more than once, and finally confirmed that the test report was exactly the same as Rong Hong's introduction. Wu Chaoyue was even more dumbfounded, and muttered, "Am I dreaming?" Or did Rong Hong make the wrong test? Or is it because I don't know if I have a bad history, Daye Iron Mine is not only high-phosphorus iron ore, but also some ultra-low phosphorus high-quality iron ore? ”

…………

The book shows that Wu Chaoyue is not a dream, and Rong Hong's laboratory is not wrong, but Wu Chaoyue's history is too sparse, and he does not know an amazing truth - the low phosphate ore reserves of Daye Iron Mine are actually not much different from the high phosphate ore reserves! And low-phosphate ore is the easiest open-pit mine to mine!

In this case, why was the steel track produced by the Hanyang Iron Works founded by Zhang Zhidong unwilling to purchase even China's own railway projects at that time? The answer is that at that time, the Chinese railways were built by British engineers, and the right to purchase rails was in the hands of British engineers, and British engineers purchased rails from their own steel mills, and they could get a 5% rebate for each transaction! That's why I did my tricks and feet in the test results, slandering Zhang Zhidong's railroad tracks as unqualified!

Later, why did the Hanyang Iron Works switch to a Martin furnace that can remove phosphorus? The answer is very simple, after Zhang Zhidong handed over the control of the Hanyang Iron Works, the ores that the Hanyang Iron Works was able to purchase in Daye Mine were all high-phosphate ores! In addition, the phosphorus content of the coal in Pingxiang Coal Mine was also a little high, so Hanyang Iron Works was forced to abandon the previously purchased Besaima steelmaking furnace and replace it with Martin furnace!

So, the last question is, where did the low-phosphate ore of Daye Iron Mine go? Why can't Hanyang Iron Works buy low-phosphate ore?

Before answering this question, it is rare for the author to shout for the Manchu court, this question really has nothing to do with the Manchu court, they do not know and do not understand from beginning to end, and they are deliberately blinded, and they have always thought that Zhang Zhidong is incompetent to smash the Hanyang Iron Works, and later people also think that Zhang Zhidong does not understand chemistry and purchased the wrong steelmaking equipment, so that Zhang Zhidong suffered a hundred years of injustice!

In fact, long before the purchase of steelmaking equipment, Zhang Zhidong had already attached great importance to the problem of high phosphate rock!

Hanyang Iron Works was founded in 1890.

"The Complete Works of Zhang Wenxianggong", "Selected Historical Materials of Han Yeping Company" and "The Complete Works of Zhang Zhidong" and other historical documents have recorded that between 1 and 3 o'clock in the morning on October 12, 1889, Hong Jun, the envoy of the four countries in Europe at that time, sent a telegram to Zhang Zhidong from Berlin, Germany: "The two methods of steelmaking, said to be different in the color hemp, said to be the Tuomai brigade, depending on the amount of phosphorus in the iron quality, the furnace is also of different value, pray for the rapid take of Jin Iron (Daye ore) test." ”

Between 9 o'clock and 11 o'clock on the same night, Zhang Zhidong called back: "If the furnace needs to be able to refine phosphorus, please inquire about the pricing and return early." …… Jin Tie picks up and delivers too late, don't wait. ”

It can be seen that at that time, for the sake of prudence, Zhang Zhidong not only knew the importance of the phosphorus content of steel, but also preferred to spend more money to buy steelmaking equipment that could remove phosphorus!

So, what's the real answer?

It's a traitor!

Sheng Xuanhuai and Li Weige, the two traitors, are ghosts!

After being deliberately wronged by British engineers, Zhang Zhidong, who was indistinguishable, was forced to hand over the control of Hanyang Iron Works to Sheng Xuanhuai to supervise and run the business, knowing that the ore of Daye Iron Mine was actually qualified, Sheng Xuanhuai and Li Weige deliberately let Hanyang Iron Works only use high-phosphate ore with extremely high smelting cost to make steel, and sold the precious low-phosphate ore to other countries for profit! After Zhang Zhidong's death, the initiator Li Weige deliberately wrote a book and poured all the dirty water on Zhang Zhidong, who was already unable to justify!

Historical data show that in the eleven years from 1900 to 1910, the Daye Iron Mine controlled by Sheng Xuanhuai and Li Weige sold a total of 904471 tons of unqualified high-phosphate ore to Hanyang, and sold 776902 tons of valuable low-phosphate ore to Japan!

"The Metallurgical Bureau selects and transports phosphorus light and good mines (transport day), retains phosphorus for self-use, and communicates with each other." ——These are Sheng Xuanhuai's original words in reply to the Japanese superintendent in Daye, Kimio Nishizawa. (To be continued.) )