Without knowing that Xuzhou would be quickly breached, the so-called holy decree of Emperor Xianfeng to let Hubei send troops west to encircle Wei and rescue Zhao to alleviate the crisis in Xuzhou once gave Wu Chaoyue a big problem - there was no way to send troops to the army, and if he sent troops, it was likely to cause misunderstanding among the Taiping army, which led to the current confrontation across the lake to be broken and completely disrupted Wu Chaoyue's established deployment. Pen, fun, pavilion www. biquge。 info

But he can't help but give an explanation to Wild Boar Pi IX, and when he has no choice, Wu Chaoyue can only take out the housekeeping skills of countless Manchu officials in the current officialdom - drag! While patting his chest and promising to send troops as soon as possible, he made preparations slowly, preparing to use the last method to besiege the small county of Taihu Lake and hand over to the Manchu court, and at the same time to order the Jiujiang front line, ask the Jiujiang garrison to strengthen combat readiness, and create the illusion of preparing to advance eastward to cover the land division to attack Taihu Lake again.

Wu Chaoyue didn't expect that his order would attract another scolding from Zuo Zongtang, and Zuo Zongtang still scolded in front of Yang Wending, Cao Yanzhong, Du Xing'a and other Jiujiang civil and military officers, "Pig head! Pure pig heads! Feint on the water and sneak attack on land, Changmao has already suffered a loss last time, how can he be fooled this time? ”

"Even if it's all a herd of pigs over there, why do you have to strengthen the defense of Taihu Lake in advance this time, right? Taihu City is surrounded by water on all sides, and if you can't succeed in the first sneak attack, you will never have a second chance, how can you not even understand such a simple truth? ”

has long been accustomed to Zuo Zongtang's arrogant character, Cao Yanzhong, Du Xing'a and Bao Chao and others of course did not say anything, it is not strange, Yang Wending can only continue to continue the habit of continuing to accompany the smiling face, and said: "Mr. Ji Gao, don't blame, there is no way to comfort the pavilion, the emperor wants him to send troops, and his sailors have just changed their clothes, and there is no way to form combat effectiveness, and it is really difficult for him to launch a large-scale attack from the water, so he has no choice, and he can only continue to fight on land." ”

"If you want to preserve your strength, just say it directly, don't make so many high-sounding excuses!" Zuo Zongtang pointed out unceremoniously: "Even if the three newly purchased cannon ships can't be put into battle for the time being, if the Hubei Navy Division really makes a big move, even if there is no certainty of victory in front of the main force of the long-haired Navy Division, at least it will have a great advantage!" ”

"Mr. Ji Gao, I have to shout for Wu Futai." Cao Yanzhong couldn't listen to it a little, and interjected: "Mr. Ji Gao, you haven't been on a foreigner's steamship, I don't know how complicated the structure is and how difficult it is for sailors to train. ”

"Previously, the Hubei Navy Division's steam gunboats were insufficient, and the sailors could only take turns on the ship in batches for training, which would finally buy three good ships, and the sailors must be old with the new, and they needed enough time to train and familiarize themselves with the ships, at this time, all the experienced old sailors were sent to the front line to participate in the war, which would not only delay the formation of the new main warships, but also the possibility of losing countless valuable steam gunboat sailors, those people were all treasures piled out of Wu Futai with silver and coal, There were not many technical soldiers in the entire Qing Dynasty. ”

"And." Cao Yanzhong added, "Especially our sailors still have to take the offensive, Changmao has already followed our example in building a large number of fortified forts in Shizhong Mountain, Hukou, or the capped forts learned from foreigners, so that the steam gunboats can attack Changmao's Hukou defense line head-on, and our losses will definitely not be small." ”

Crazy and crazy, Zuo Zongtang was quite reasonable, and felt that Cao Yanzhong's justification was reasonable, so he also closed his mouth and stopped exposing Wu Chaoyue's shortcomings. However, Du Xing'a on the other side was a little unimpressed, and said: "Although General Cao's words are reasonable, I don't think the long-haired Hukou defense line may not be as difficult to break as you fear. It is true that the long-haired fort is strong, but if our sailors can send your land division to the other side of Poyang Lake, it will definitely not be a problem to take down the long-haired fort on land. ”

"But the question is, how do we cross the lake?" Cao Yanzhong stretched out his hands and asked: "The main force of the long-haired sailors is stationed at the mouth of the lake, and there is a battery on the shore to cover it, how sure are our troop carriers that they can successfully land across the lake?" ”

"The biggest reliance of the long-haired sailor is those two steamships, if we can kill these two steamers first, then the Hubei sailor does not need to dispatch all of them, only need to dispatch the three small steamers, it is enough to obtain the right to control the river at the mouth of the lake."

Du Xing'a said in a deep voice: "At that time, our troop carriers can easily cross the lake under the cover of the superior sailors, as long as they take the shore fort of Longhair, it will be easy to clean up the main force of the long-haired sailors!" ”

"And how do we kill those two long-haired steam gunboats?" Cao Yanzhong asked again: "Changmao's two steam gunboats are far above any of our ships in the Jiujiang Naval Division in terms of speed and firepower, and Changmao's two steam gunboats don't need to fire their guns on the battlefield, just by accelerating the waves, it is enough to overturn the sampan directly, how can it be done?" ”

"We're not opponents head-on, but that doesn't mean we can't do it." Du Xing'a said confidently: "Have you forgotten? When the pseudo-wing king Shi Dakai was at the mouth of the lake, he was inferior to Zeng Butang's Hunan army sailors in terms of both the number and quality of ships, but didn't he still beat the main force of Zeng Butang's sailors to the point that almost all of them were wiped out? ”

"General Du, you mean a sneak attack?"

Cao Yanzhong finally understood Du Xing'a's plan, Du Xing'a nodded vigorously, and said in a deep voice: "We are in the upper reaches, it is convenient to send troops, and now it is late autumn, the north wind is increasing, the wind direction is favorable to us, and it is impossible for the long-haired steamer to stay on the water all the time to prepare for war." We only need to seize the opportunity of the long-haired steamer to return to the port to berth, take advantage of the wind direction and current, and use the sampan clipper to bring more fire-inducing things, and suddenly attack the long-haired port, which may not be without hope of burning the long-haired steamer. ”

Yang Wending, Zuo Zongtang and the others were silent, but Cao Yanzhong said: "It's just hopeful, but not sure, if the sneak attack fails, I'm afraid it will be difficult for our raid team to come back." ”

"There is no such thing as a sure battle, as long as there is hope." Du Xing'a also admitted that he was not very sure, and then turned to Yang Wending and asked, "Master Yang, I don't know what you think?" ”

"This ......." Yang Wending hesitated a little, hesitated for a moment and said: "It's better to be cautious, to be cautious, and to fight less battles if you are not sure." Moreover, the fleet of sailors under the command of the old man is weak, and there is no way to launch such a sneak attack. ”

Duxing was silent, and Yang Wending hurriedly changed the topic, explained to act according to Wu Chaoyue's orders, and then announced the dismissal of the meeting. As a result, it was only after everyone left that Zuo Zongtang asked Yang Wending: "Yang Fantai, why didn't you explicitly prohibit Du Xing'a from doing that just now?" What if he does it without permission? ”

"General Du is the chief soldier of the Hubei Navy Division, and the old man is the political envoy of Jiangxi, so he has no right to give orders to him." Yang Wending replied with a snort.

"Then why don't you remind him that it's better not to take risks? Take the lives of the pawns as a child's play? Zuo Zongtang asked again: "Can't you see it?" After losing the official position of the governor of Hubei, Du Xing'a has always been holding a fire in his heart, always wanting to take revenge? ”

"Mr. Ji Gao, then why didn't you remind General Du?" Yang Wending asked rhetorically, and said with a smile: "In the army, the weight of your words is heavier than that of the old man, why did you forget to remind you?" ”

Zuo Zongtang was speechless, and said mockingly after a while: "No wonder the person who became the governor of Jiangsu in the peaceful years really saw it thoroughly, something happened to the black pot, and someone carried the black pot, and he got a share of the credit, such a good thing, Mr. Yang, of course, you wish the more the better." ”

"Each other, everyone is the same dog." Yang Wending replied with a smile.

Zuo Zongtang had nothing to say again, and only after a while did he hold back a sentence, "I, Zuo Zongtang, was careless in choosing the scene, and I was taken bad by you." ”

As expected by Yang Wending and Zuo Zongtang, it had not been three days since the incident, and it was only on the evening of the third day, and Du Xing'a, who had already been snatched away by the kingdom, really couldn't hold his breath. In order to take revenge and gain face, without being directly controlled by Yang Wending, taking advantage of the favorable wind direction and the opportunity for the Taiping Army's steam gunboat to return to Hong Kong for the night, Du Xing'a organized a naval division death squad composed of 50 military sampans and 300 soldiers.

It's a pity that the almost successful sneak attack plan was destroyed by the unstable wind direction, under the leadership of Duxing Abe general Wuguo, the death squad of the Hubei Navy Division has secretly crossed the Taiping Army's cable defense line between Shizhong Mountain and Zhangjiazhou, but just as it was about to approach the Taiping Army Navy Division's camp, the sudden change in wind direction made the Wuguo fleet lose its speed advantage, and could not rush directly into the Taiping Army port to set fire to it desperately. Naturally, it was quickly discovered by the Taiping Army's sailor patrol fleet.

Then, of course, everything was over, the Taiping patrol fleet immediately sounded the gong alarm, and the night fleet hurriedly attacked to meet the battle, even if it was caught off guard, it quickly entangled the Wuguo fleet by virtue of the numerical advantage, and did not give the Hubei Navy Death Squad the opportunity to get close to the steam cannon ship and set fire to the ship, and with the Taiping Army going out of the port to fight more and more, and two steam cannon ships quickly leaving the port to prepare for war, the Wuguo fleet was left with only one option to flee in a hurry.

Worse is still to come, the experienced Taiping Army Naval Division commander Wei Jun expected that Du Xing'a would inevitably have a rear army to respond, and immediately ordered the steam cannon ships to sail upstream at full speed to intercept Du Xing'a's rear army, and only used a sufficient number of sampan fleets to deal with the main death squad of the Hubei Navy Division, and the main force went west to help the steam cannon ships. As a result, when the steamships of the Taiping Army, which had an absolute advantage in speed and tonnage, came to the front, the rear army arranged by Du Xing'a naturally suffered another big defeat.

In the end, the 300 death squads came back with less than 100 people, including Wuguo, who were killed in the scuffle, and the rear army led by Liu Liansheng also fled back to the north gate of Jiujiang to get the protection of the fort after paying a lot of price, and the Taiping army sailors made a lot of gains, and also robbed two of the Qing army's towing boats.

Although Yang Wending and Zuo Zongtang both had a good conscience, they did not condemn Du Xing'a's crime of sending troops without permission, and comforted Du Xing'a a few words, saying that victory and defeat are just a common thing in soldiers. However, Du Xing'a, who was straight, still honestly wrote a letter to Wu Chaoyue to ask for guilt, and begged Wu Chaoyue, who was temporarily acting as the governor of Huguang, to be gracious and transfer him to the Lu Division as soon as possible. -- To be honest, when Hua Lao Fox handed over the Hubei Navy Division to Du Xing'a's command, it was indeed a mess of mandarin ducks, and it was too short to catch ducks on the shelves and employ people, if Du Xing'a was changed to lead the army and cavalry, Du Xing'a would never have been able to lose two disgraces in front of the Taiping army.

A large part of the reason is that the loss is due to luck, of course, Wu Chaoyue will not clean up Duxinga for this defeat that did not hurt his muscles and bones, on the contrary, Duxinga's defeat also gave Wu Chaoyue an excuse to explain to Emperor Xianfeng - it's not that I don't fight, it's that the long hair is too powerful to beat. Therefore, in addition to replying to Du Xing'a to comfort Du Xing'a, Wu Chaoyue also seriously considered how to re-appoint Du Xing'a, so that Du Xing'a could give full play to his strengths in land warfare, and he could also take the opportunity to take back the military power of the Hubei Naval Division, which was not too bad.

"It will definitely not work to put Duxing'a on the northern front, how about putting it on the Jiangxi front? It seems that there is something wrong, if he refuses to support me when I raise the army, Ma Xiuru also adds to the chaos, and with the financial support of half of Jiangxi, there will be a strong enemy under my nose immediately. ...... Hunan, ...... Anhui. ”

When carefully thinking about how to place the banner general Du Xing'a, who was not a Manchurian, there was a report from outside the door that Zhang Dejian asked to see, and when Wu Chaoyue ordered the summons, Zhang Dejian quickly came to Wu Chaoyue with a summary of information, and said while saluting: "Lord Futai, there are unconfirmed folk rumors, Yunnan Zhaotong suddenly broke out into a thief mutiny, the thief leader Li Short Tatar led the crowd to cut braids and grow hair, gathered tens of thousands of people to attack Sichuan, and successively conquered many Sichuan Xuzhou prefectures including Yunlian and Gao County, He also defeated the officers and troops sent by the military sect in Sichuan, developed the thief situation to tens of thousands, and is currently besieging Yibin. ”

"Impossible, right?" Wu Chaoyue was surprised and asked: "The thief has become so big, why don't you inform us of the slightest news from Youfeng and the military gate?" ”

"I don't know why." Zhang Dejian replied in a deep voice: "However, affected by this rumor, the price of salt in Hubei Province, Hanyang and Hankou has skyrocketed, and some illegal profiteers have begun to dump salt on a large scale. ”

Affected by the destruction of the war, Hubei has long been unable to eat Huai salt and Zhejiang salt, and Yibin is not far from the major salt wells in Sichuan, which is related to the supply of salt in Huguang Province and even Jiangxi, Wu Chaoyue certainly does not dare to ignore this problem. When I hurriedly took over the summary of the information collected by Zhang Dejian and took a closer look, I saw that most of the information was provided orally by businessmen who had come to Hubei from Sichuan to do business, and it seemed that the words were conclusive. Wu Chaoyue was even more strange when he saw it, and said secretly: "Strange thing, such a big thing happened in southern Sichuan, and it has directly threatened the Zigong Salt Farm, the largest money bag in Sichuan, Youfeng, who is the acting governor of Sichuan, why hasn't you given me news yet?" Don't....... ”

After patting his forehead, Wu Chaoyue suddenly came to his senses, because Wu Chaoyue suddenly remembered an important question, the current governor of Sichuan in the Manchu Qing Dynasty is the temporary acting of the Chengdu General Youfeng, in this case that the governor of this province is actually the emperor of the province, and the people who have a good life will certainly not smear the Manchu court on his face and let him hand over the throne of the Sichuan Emperor. Therefore, unless it is really allowed to let the Yunnan rebel army lay down the Sichuan salt field, which affects the supply of salt in Huguang and Yunnan-Guizhou, of course, there is a military gate that can cover it up, and it can be concealed.

Understanding this truth, Wu Chaoyue of course immediately set his eyes on the real shortage of the governor of Sichuan, and immediately thought of the white glove candidate for himself to occupy the country of abundance, and said secretly: "Grandpa Yang, I can't imagine that you can't be the emperor of Jiangxi before, it's a good thing, for the sake of Yuru being beautiful and virtuous enough, the opportunity to help you become the emperor of Sichuan soil, this time I won't miss it again no matter what." ”

After making up his mind, Wu Chaoyue of course immediately ordered Zhang Dejian to select capable spies, disguise himself as businessmen and rush to the Sichuan Salt Works to collect first-line intelligence, and at the same time strengthen the collection of relevant intelligence on the Sichuan Salt Works. He also asked the master to write an official document and send it to Chengdu through the post station to contact Youfeng, the acting governor of Sichuan, and question him about the truth of the rumors among the people in Hubei.

Relying on the fast and convenient shipping of the Yangtze River, the news that the Yunnan thief army was besieging the important town of Yibin was quickly confirmed - it was the accurate news directly brought by the Sichuan salt merchants who came to Hubei for refuge, and reported many important information about the Yunnan thief army to Wu Chaoyue, who had a sparse history, and let Wu Chaoyue know that this thief army had three major leaders, called Li Short Tatar, Lan Dashun and Lan Ershun, and also let Wu Chaoyue know a joke that actually existed - after the Xuzhou prefect was surrounded in Yibin, He actually tried to buy Li Xiaotar to surrender with 100,000 taels of silver, but was categorically rejected by Li Xiaotar.

"The more incompetent the better, and the more you hide it if you have a military door, the better." While smiling secretly, Wu Chaoyue couldn't help but rub his hands a little excitedly, "The country of abundance, the Yanjing money bag, if I can take this opportunity to take it directly in one go, my rear will be much more solid." (To be continued.) )