"The defeat at the Battle of Changzhou deprived the Tatars of their military ability to restrain the rebels. The Pen, Fun, and Pavilion www.biquge.info empire had lost its most important treasury, the rebels had cut off the north and south of the empire by land, and the only territory that the Tatar government could directly control was the relatively poor north, and the site of this strategic duel was thousands of miles away from Guangzhou, but its influence was already in play.

In mid-April, more and more Chinese pirates gathered under the banners of the two military groups of Zhang and Zheng. In particular, Zhang, the son of the leader of the rebel army and the commander of the navy in the southeast sea appointed by the generalissimo who led the rebels to victory step by step, Zhang and Zheng's power and strength are growing rapidly every day. Little by little, the Tatars' superiority in the waters of Guangdong and Fujian is disappearing.

At the same time, on land, the dominance of the Tatars throughout South China was rapidly declining, and confidence in the Tatar government was shaken by every strata of society. The Honourable Mr. Poon Chun Seng was also disappointed by the development of the situation. Frankly, there have been major setbacks in the Empire's counterinsurgency strategy. Once the rebels move southward on a large scale, it will be impossible for them to resist the rebels' attack with the existing military forces of Fujian, Guangdong, and Guangxi provinces.

……”

Robert Peel, chief executive of the British East India Company's Canton office, was writing to India's governing council suggesting that the company immediately cease arms trade with the Tatars, as Canton would soon be ruled by rebels.

“…… The raw silk and tea that the company needed, and everything that China needed, were under the control of the rebels. To lose trade in Canton because of a little arms interest is the greatest stupidity in the world. ”

Although last time the rebel spies burned the East India Company's trading house to the ground. But in the face of interests and glittering money, it is a 'little unpleasantness' that is not worth remembering in the past.

Robert was a senior senior of the East India Company in Canton, so he was able to sit in the position of chief head of the 'office'. Despite the fact that this is a new organization that has been established for less than a year, it oversees all that the East India Company has to do in Canton.

Robert has entrusted Pan Zhencheng to contact the secret camp of the Fu Han army in Guangdong. He believed that the rebels would never turn a blind eye to a 'big man' like Pan Zhencheng. Even if Pan Zhencheng is acting in the interests of the Tatar Empire today, who knows if he has another side? Robert thinks there must be a secret connection between them.

Putting down the quill pen, Robert once again picked up a document at hand, which was the 'good news' posted in the city of Guangzhou by the secret camp of the Fu Han Army in recent days, Robert knew Chinese characters and could speak good Chinese. So he doesn't have to translate to know what the text is about.

The Fu Han army is already threatening to go south to attack Liangguang.

Because they have already taken Hangzhou and Ningbo, they will soon be able to open up the connection with Fujian. The brothers Zheng Lianfu and Zheng Lianchang also submitted to Chen Han, and the generalissimo of the rebel army named the Zheng brothers as the chief and deputy commander of the Nanyang Naval Division.

"Mr. Robert, are you still watching this old news?"

The door was opened by Robert's servant, and Luis Paolo Ribeiro walked out. In Guangdong in April of the lunar calendar, the climate can no longer find a trace of cold, and Ribeiro has a thin layer of bright sweat on his forehead, only to blame him for dressing too neatly.

"Of course. The miracles of Sir Francis Drake have been repeated in this ancient country, and I can't ...... Robert stuck, he couldn't find a fitting word to describe his psyche. Say envy? This is inappropriate, he is now facing a Portuguese native of Macau. And to say ridicule is to lie. Man's pursuit of honor and profit is innate.

"The world is completely different from Europe, isn't it?" Robert shrugged his shoulders and said a sentence that many Chinese in the troubled times have taken as the program: "The prince and the general, rather there is a kind!" ”

Chinese know this sentence. They don't have much respect for bloodlines. ”

"Besides, Zhang Qiu and the Zheng brothers are not the rebel Sir Drake, and you must not underestimate their personal ambitions. I suggest that you should look more at the mouth of the Yangtze River, not far from Changzhou, where the surface forces of the Tatar fleets are the real navy of the Fu Han army. ”

Robert invited Ribeiro to sit down, and the two quickly turned to business, Ribeiro was by no means here today to debate with Robert about whether Zhang Deng was reliable or unreliable.

"Mr. Robert, do you want to see the rebels for what they really are?"

Ribeiro took out a piece of paper from his pocket and handed it to Robert, it was all written in Chinese characters, this was the latest news posted by the Fu Han Army in the city of Guangzhou, and Ribeiro used it as a gift for himself to Robert.

Robert didn't care to look at the latest news, his eyes widened, "You guys...... Going to meet the rebels? Right now? ”

Guangdong was still firmly in the hands of the Tatar government, and they still had enough strength to completely wipe out Macao.

"In the Battle of Changzhou, Captain Blanco and twenty or thirty Portuguese artillerymen who accompanied the army tragically became prisoners of war of the Fu Han Army. Both the Macau Council and the Otto have the duty and the necessary obligation to rescue them as soon as possible. "Of course, it must be as soon as possible, the last tragedy of Fernandez and others, the whole of Macau does not want to see it again.

"The main Tatar forces in South China were wiped out by the rebels, and many Chinese I know are pessimistic about the prospects for the war. It is believed that when the rebels marched south, Guangdong's military strength was simply unable to resist. ”

"So Macau should prepare early." Just like the Manchu Qing in the past, the Portuguese in Macao are now going through it again.

Ribeiro came here to be a good sale of Macau to the British, and when they went to meet the Han army, they did not forget the British. The smoke of the Seven Years' War had just cleared, and the Portuguese were still clinging to the thighs of England. Besides, the strength of Westerners in China at this time is still very weak, if they can't unite and work together at this time, then at this turbulent juncture, they are likely to encounter a catastrophe.

At the most critical juncture, the Western power that could support the Portuguese in Macao was not the weak Portuguese kingdom thousands of miles away, but the British who were close at hand. The British, who had just won the Seven Years' War, and the Portuguese, who had entered the war in 1761, two years before the end of the war, were among the allies of the British.

After Ribeiro made an agreement with Robert, he got up and left the merchant house, and Robert had the opportunity to see the latest news brought by Ribeiro at this time.

"It turned out to be a compensatory for civilians who were accidentally injured in battle, as well as the treatment of Tatars in the war...... "The flag soldiers of the Battle of Changzhou and the flag soldiers of the Battle of Hangzhou."

"Twenty silver dollars for the dead, two to ten silver dollars for the injured, fifteen silver dollars for the injured and disabled, and the corresponding tax care, and the official land will be given priority to rent ...... seeds" Robert did not deny this figure, four pounds per person, and with his knowledge of China, this figure seems to be not low.

All the soldiers of the Eight Banners with knife wounds and gunshot wounds were killed on the spot. "Oh, what a brutal and cruel decision."

The captured Eight Banners and above the rank of the rank of the Commander and the civil and military attachés above the garrison level were all beheaded, the men over the age of five in the family were executed, and the women and children were sent to the Fu Han Army as slaves; Those who voluntarily surrender to the rank of the subordinate and above and the civil and military attaché above the garrison are equivalent to those who are subordinate to the commander and below and the civil and military attaché below the fifth rank, and are sentenced to 20 years of service, and their families follow; The most ordinary, unofficial flag soldier, sentenced to ten years of service, followed by his family. As for the men in the family who have died in battle, then they will be promoted to one level after entering the category with the status and rank of the man before his death, and there will be a thirty year drop above the twenty years of service!

Robert frowned unconsciously, put down the tabloid, his mind was full of rumors that 'the Fu Han army was going to kill all the Tatars', such news was very popular in Guangzhou, especially recently, because of the scolding of the Eight Banners in Guangzhou. Many of those rumors do not seem to be false. So what's going on now?

As long as you are willing to surrender and take the initiative to surrender, you can have no less. Although there are still twenty years of service waiting for them.

"The rebels relaxed their policy towards the Tatars?"

Although the punishment is still very severe, it is not a matter of killing them all, and there is still a glimmer of hope. Do they want to use this policy of 'no resistance, no killing' to shake the Tatars built in Guangzhou and Fuzhou?

Robert suddenly felt a sense of tension in his heart, this kind of policy of the Han Army, this kind of 'long-term vision', doesn't it mean that they are indeed looking at Guangzhou? Otherwise, why would they sell it well?

"Hey, Finley, go call Mr. George, I've got something to look for him." Robert suddenly felt a dullness in his chest, as if a large stone had pressed against it, and he called out to the servant outside the door.

……

At the same time, Chongming Island, the last fortress of the Qing army on the Yangtze River.

When Changzhou was still insisting, Chongming Island was a torch of the Manchu Qing Dynasty on the Yangtze River, dazzling and bright. It is intertwined with Changzhou's land and water, not only militarily, but also spiritually, to be established as a symbol. Emperor Qianlong's holy decree of reward was sent to Chongming Island like money.

Huang Zhenggang himself was named a second-class man, given a yellow coat, double eyes, and the name Shangyong Baturu. The heavy generals of land and water under him have all been rewarded, and almost everyone has the same rank as the captain of the cloud cavalry and the captain of the light car. At the beginning, the Chongming Island scholars who were also encouraged were full of horses.

Huang Zhenggang retreated from Jiangyin to Songjiang, and then retreated to Chongming from Wusong, pulling all the men, horses, materials, and military supplies he could gather to Chongming.

This large island of silt and sediment has never left a worthy mark in the history of modern Chinese warfare, but in the eyes of the Chinese people at this time, it was the first line of defense at the mouth of the Yangtze River.

In the coastal defense ideology of the Ming and Qing dynasties, Chongming was regarded as the gateway to the south of the Yangtze River and the sea, and it was an important town on the first line of coastal defense that must be defended. The Manchu Qing Dynasty once arranged six battalions of sailors here, and even if the time came to the middle of Qianlong, there were also four battalions of sailors and more than 3,000 soldiers.

The soldiers and warships on Chongming Island have been reduced several times, but the foundation here is still there!

Huang Zhenggang led his troops to retreat to this place, with complete land and water, forts and warships, which could be attacked and defended, and he was familiar with geography, so he really 'blocked' the mouth of the Yangtze River.

Chen Ming also attaches great importance to this island, when Chen Jigong was running a shipyard and organizing a fleet, a very important task was to find out the water situation of the generation of the Yangtze River estuary, and also set up a secret camp on Chongming Island. But looking at the map and carefully sailing, the sailors of the Fu Han Army could not compare to the sailors of the Qing Army who could walk through the estuary with their eyes closed.

Yang Shijin took the sailor to chase to Chongming, and the warships on both sides fought several times, the Qing army's ships and firepower were not as good as the Fu Han army, but they relied on their familiarity with the water conditions, which led the Fu Han army to pursue the sailors, and the large thunder boat and bird boat in the queue were stranded twice, although they sailed away after the high tide, but also made Yang Shijin and other generals have palpitations.

So much so that the Qing army in Changzhou was wiped out, and Huang Zhenggang was still like an unbeatable Xiaoqiang, bouncing around Chongming Island.

"Zhoushan is a ripe fruit, but before we pick the fruit of Zhoushan, we must take Chongming down."

Chen Ming did not return to Nanjing, nor did he go to Suzhou and Hangzhou, but went to Wusong. With successive victories on land, the time has come for the stalemate in the water war to be broken. And Hangzhou has already won, and Ningbo has also taken it. Even if the fleet of sailors went straight out of the Yangtze River to attack Zhoushan, they did not have to risk being intercepted by the naval division of the Chongming and Qing armies and then return to Wusong, they could directly go to Ningbo to dock and replenish.

When Chen Ming was alone, he didn't know how many words of 'damn' he scolded Chongming. Before the start of the fight, he thought that the sailor would be able to determine the victory early, but who knew that the water war would drag on so much, and it has been dragging on until now. The Qing army's sailors were just like their Lu Yong, and the two sides were not at all in battle as Chen Ming imagined, hula and fiercely charged.

With the strategy of the Fu Han army against Zhejiang, those Jiangnan official eunuchs who were less than a pot with the Fu Han army and some of the banner people who escaped, the way to flee south to Guangdong has been cut off, and it is not a good place to go west into Jiangxi, so they can only flee to the sea. The current Zhoushan Dinghai is regarded as a 'paradise blessed land'.

How many wealthy and noble eunuchs pulled their gold and silver floating wealth to Dinghai by boat, and then took Dinghai as a transit point, took a boat to Dinghai to northern Jiangsu, and then went north to Beijing and Tianjin. However, the sailors of the Fu Han Army were dragged by Huang Zhenggang on Chongming Island.

Yang Shijin persuaded Huang Zhenggang to surrender several times, saying that if Huang Zhenggang surrendered, he was willing to give way, but he was sternly refused, and the angry Yang Shijin scolded Huang Zhenggang for being a 'thief' and a 'traitor'!

"There is a bird for scolding, can you scold Huang Zhenggang to death?"

"The Marine Battalion has been training for 20 days, and the Secret Battalion has also opened up relationships for you." It doesn't matter if the relationship is big or small, it's still a relationship anyway. "Think about it yourself."

"How to knock Chongming down, as soon as possible!"

"Chongming must be taken! Take Chongming! ”

……

On the fifth day of the fourth month, Zhoushan Islands, Dinghai.

The sun was in the west, and at four o'clock in the afternoon, the Qing army suddenly imposed martial law in the whole city, and no one was allowed to walk on the streets. In an ordinary house in the south of the city, the Qing army had just been under martial law, and Chen Jigong hid here. Such a big movement is not to arrest him, but that the Qing army must have some special action!

He very, very much wanted to know what the Qing army was going to do, but his people couldn't go out at all now.

Time passed little by little, five or six o'clock, dusk and sunset, and martial law was still in place. Chen Jigong hurriedly circled around the house, but he could only wait.

As night fell, Dinghai County was quiet, and the streets and alleys continued to be guarded by soldiers. The Qing army even sent soldiers to form patrols to patrol the streets and alleys of the city.

It's just that most of the Qing soldiers in Dinghai are stragglers who have withdrawn here on land, and both morale and military discipline are very problematic.

In the quiet of the night, a bearded Qing soldier Qian Zong kicked open the door of a tavern, put a knife on the neck of the bitter and timid shopkeeper, and then the kitchen of the tavern immediately became busy.

"If you don't have Shaoxing's daughter red, then take Shikumen's rice wine. I want Shikumen! Mr. Qian slapped the table and shouted.

The next day, Dinghai was still under martial law, but the Qing army could only impose martial law on land, and they couldn't stop the carrier pigeons in the sky.

Shikumen rice wine, this is a new brand in the south of the Yangtze River, and the origin is Shanghai! (To be continued.) )