Merry Christmas to all!

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The year 1862 was a particularly unpeaceful year on earth, with wars going on all over the world.

In Europe, Bismarck began to pursue an iron-blooded policy, taking advantage of the defeat of Britain and France in the Second Hippon War, and the intensity of intervention in Northern Europe declined, and launched a war to unify the North and South German Confederation in advance. The first to bear the brunt was Denmark, and when King Frederick VII of Denmark was critically ill, the Prussian army launched an invasion, and the Prussian-Danish War, which should have been fought in 1864, broke out early.

In the Americas, the American Civil War entered its second year, and the government of the United States of the North, which had just blocked the attack of the Southern Army, had not had time to rejoice for a few days before the Fredericksburg Bad News occurred, and the 120,000 Northern Army was completely annihilated by the 30,000 Southern Army, and the culprit was the Northern Virginia Army of the Southern Army.

This is an elite unit of the newly formed Southern Army, whose members are all officers and soldiers from the Mexican-American War, who have rich combat experience, but are equipped with advanced weapons from the Shanghai and Shanghai Army, Patriotic rifles and 59-type infantry guns shine in this battle, just like a meat grinder, killing 120,000 Northern troops.

The Confederate Army's unprecedented victory at the Battle of Fredericksburg was so high that Confederate President Davis openly clamored to enter Washington and twist Lincoln's head off and kick it as a ball.

Lincoln cried, cried very sadly, for the death of 120,000 American soldiers in the North, and was also crying urgently, because the Northern Virginia Regiment of the Southern Army, armed with patriotic rifles and 59 infantry guns, had become a tiger, and it was a drugged tiger, and it was marching unstoppably all the way to Washington, and wherever it passed, the army of the United States was completely vulnerable, either killed in battle, or surrendered.

Washington was in jeopardy, and the Lincoln administration set out to move the capital to New York. On the one hand, the promulgation of the Homestead Law and the Emancipation Proclamation of Black Slaves hoped to encourage northerners to actively join the army and block the attack of the Southern Army, and at the same time lure the black slaves of the South to riot, create chaos in the rear of the Southern Army, and delay the pace of the Southern Army's offensive.

Soon, however, another incident made Lincoln vomit blood.

It turned out that at the same time as Lincoln promulgated the Homestead Law and the Emancipation Proclamation, President Davis of the Confederate States also announced the immediate abolition of the circulation of the US dollar in the South, and temporarily used the British Empire, the French Empire, and the Qing Empire as legal tender for the three Allied powers, the British Empire, the French Empire, and the Qing Empire. The dollar was instantly turned into a piece of waste paper in the southern states.

This was not a big deal, but soon the Lincoln administration found that the dollar began to depreciate on a large scale, and a large number of dollars suddenly appeared on the market in the northern states, and they frantically purchased military and civilian goods and fixed assets in the states, and exchanged gold, silver, and foreign currencies in the banks.

As time went on, there were more and more dollars in the market, and in the morning, you could buy a bag of flour for a dollar, and in the afternoon you could only buy three bottles of beer.

The Lincoln administration was an afterthought. But the American people in the north feel it the most, they are not asking for a monthly salary, but asking for a new settlement, and they have just opened their salaries. They immediately went to buy it.

Wall Street banks have closed their doors and stopped exchanging dollars. The bosses of the factories in the North had to carry dozens of sacks of dollars a day to pay the workers, and later, the Americans did not believe in the dollar at all. Payments in foreign currencies such as pounds sterling and francs have been requested.

The dollar has crashed!

The Lincoln administration was powerless to stop it, they couldn't find a reason, and the printing plant in Washington had stopped printing money. The government has recycled dollars on a large scale, but the number of dollars in the market continues to increase, and it is endless.

In the 22 northern states, the collapse of the dollar has caused billions of dollars in economic losses in these states, and the originally powerful northern industry collapsed in an instant, factories collapsed, workers lost their jobs, and social order was chaotic.

The originally good situation was reversed in an instant, and even the northern army was panicked, feeling confused and afraid about whether it could defeat the southern army.

"I found out that it was the Davis government that made a lot of dollars from the southern states to the northern states."

"Davis, goddamn bastard!"

The culprit was found, but it left the Lincoln administration feeling confused and puzzled.

"How did they get the printing press, the plates and the banknotes? And how did they get the dollar coder? ”

"The officials who used to work at the Bureau of Currency Offices secretly fled to the south with currency codes, and other things such as money printing presses, dollar printing plates, and dollar production materials were all brought back from the Qing Empire by that bastard of Warrenham."

"Hua Ruohan, this traitor, he also helped the Southern Army purchase hundreds of thousands of advanced weapons and hundreds of tons of ammunition from the Great Qing Kingdom, and the Northern Virginia Legion became so powerful because of these advanced weapons!"

"Hua Ruohan, this bastard, who recommended him to be the minister to China in the first place?"

Everyone immediately looked at Lincoln, who only moved his lips and didn't speak for a long time.

"Puff ......"

A mouthful of old blood spurted out, and Lincoln collapsed in grief.

In Asia, the Japanese archipelago is also experiencing war.

Since Britain lost the Second Apio War, its interests in China have been seriously harmed, and there is no one-sided most-favored-nation treatment, no low tariffs, and no windfall income from the Yapian trade, all of which has made the British government angry and the British military aggrieved.

Just in time for the conflict between the Satsuma Domain and the British army, the British government and the aggrieved British military finally found a punching bag and immediately attacked Japan.

The Sato-British War broke out, and the enraged British bombarded Kagoshima with naval shells, and then the British landed and engaged in a fierce battle with the Shimazu Guards of the Satsuma domain. In the end, the Satsuma domain was defeated, and the British army began a bloody revenge, ravaging the local Japanese.

In March 1862, the British army expanded the war, and the British ships sailed into Edo Bay to launch a full-scale war against the Tokugawa shogunate, and all the anger they had suffered from Li Weiguo was spread on the Japanese.

In the Qing Dynasty, the most brutal killing war in history was also staged.

The Qing Empire and the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom fought a full-scale decisive battle, and the Hunan army, the Huai army and the Shanghai army launched an attack on the Taiping army from all sides. The Shanghai army only thundered and rained, and after easily capturing Xiaolingwei, it turned into a defensive posture. He returned to the state of 1853 with the Taiping Army, and did not fight or make peace.

Although Zeng Guofan and Li Hongzhang temporarily gave up the idea of rebellion, they couldn't resist the temptation of being the first to capture Tianjing.

Although the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom experienced a serious loss of national strength after the Tianjing Rebellion. However, the Taiping Army still had more than one million, and although Li Weiguo did not conduct private arms transactions with the Taiping Army in recent years, a large number of old-fashioned muskets and artillery produced by the Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau were exported to foreign countries, and since the Anglo-French allied forces were able to buy a large number of weapons and ammunition from foreign merchants, the Taiping Army was the same, and they used the so-called religious relations to buy the muskets and artillery produced by the Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau from some British believers. The British were greedy, and the huge income from the price difference made them take risks and help the Taiping army buy weapons and ammunition by any means, thus strengthening the strength of the Taiping army.

In the later period of the Taiping Army in history, the fighting quality of the soldiers was not as good as that of the early stage, but the weapons and equipment were much stronger than those in the early stage, and they basically used firearms. Otherwise, it would be impossible to resist the Qing army at all, especially since Tianjing has been besieged for many years and has not been breached, and it is impossible without the support of a large number of firearms.

A rising star of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. Li Xiucheng and Chen Yucheng were crowned kings, although they were both defeated by Li Weiguo, especially Chen Yucheng almost died in the hands of Li Weiguo in the battle of Yuhuatai, and now they have grown into handsome talents who are in charge of themselves. And Hong Xiuquan's brother Hong Renji returned to China. helped Hong Xiuquan a lot, and revitalized the originally decadent Taiping Heavenly Kingdom.

But it was too late, facing Zeng Guofan and Li Hongzhang, who had become the climate. Even if Li Weiguo did not intervene, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom was doomed, it was only a matter of time.

The civil war was too cruel, before the Taiping army captured a Manchu city, it would kill all the bannermen and rich people inside, and now the Hunan army and the Huai army captured a Taiping army city, it was even more cruel, almost every time they would slaughter the city, regardless of men, women and children.

The war is together, and the lives are devastated.

At the same time that the Huai Army and the Hunan Army were smashing the Taiping Army, Li Weiguo also carried out the third major expansion of the Shanghai Army, which was also the sixth reorganization.

A year and a half have passed since the Second Yapian War, and the victory in the Battle of Songhu has made the Shanghai army famous all over the world, and its morale is unprecedentedly high.

When Li Weiguo announced the third large-scale expansion of the army, not only school-age youths in Jiangnan Province and Zhejiang Province enthusiastically joined the army, but even aspiring young people from other provinces rushed to Shanghai one after another, filled out volunteer forms, and asked to join the Shanghai army.

Li Weiguo is already a great hero in the eyes of the people of the whole country, resisting foreign humiliation and promoting the prestige of our country, but all young people with great ambitions and full of enthusiasm are willing to serve as soldiers under Li Weiguo's account, and even some officers and soldiers who are talented but unwilling in the Hunan army and the Huai army have also come to Shanghai to serve as soldiers.

This time, the reorganization of the Shanghai army and the expansion of the army were carried out at the same time, and the Shanghai army after the reorganization was not called the Shanghai army to the outside world, but because Li Weiguo was crowned the king of Wu, and the jurisdiction was two rivers and four provinces.

Although the name has been changed, the military regulations, military discipline, and military spirit of the Shanghai army remain unchanged, and the three major disciplines and eight points of attention are iron-clad regulations, and the new officers and men of Wu must still strictly enforce them and do not tolerate favoritism.

The previous 16 towns of the Shanghai Army remained unchanged, numbered as the 16 towns of the Wu Army, of which the first town to the eighth town retained the complete structure, not scattered or reorganized, and the internal was still called the eight towns of the Shanghai Army.

In addition, the officers and men of the 9th to 16th towns were all scattered, half of the personnel were retained, and the other half was replenished from the B type of regiment. The rest of the personnel were assigned to the newly established towns from the 17th to the 54th towns, and the veterans led the new recruits to rapidly improve the combat effectiveness of the new army.

The distribution of recruits to the new army is very strict, and recruits from all over the country are assigned to a unit in each province.

For example, in the 20th town of Zhili Province, the location of the military camp will also be named the Zhili Town Guard, and in the future, the military resources of the 20th Town will be directly supplemented by the Zhili Town Guard, referred to as the Zhili Army.

The other towns are stationed in different provinces, and the names of the towns are named after the corresponding provinces.

Among them, the 17th town is stationed around Gyeonggi, the 18th town is located in Shandong, the 19th town is located in Henan, the 20th town is located in Zhili, the 21st town is located in Shanxi, the 22nd town is located in Shaanxi, the 23rd town is located in Hunan, the 24th town is located in Hubei, the 25th town is located in Anhui, the 26th town is located in Jiangsu, the 27th town is located in Zhejiang, the 28th town is located in Jiangxi, the 29th town is located in Fujian, the 30th town is located in Guangdong, the 31st town is located in Guangxi, and the 32nd town is located in Gansu. The 33rd Town is located in Yunnan, the 34th Town is located in Guizhou, the 35th Town is located in Sichuan, the 36th Town is located in Fengtian, the 37th Town is located in Jilin, the 38th Town is located in Heilongjiang, the 39th Town is located in Yili (Xinjiang), the 40th Town is located in Uriya Sutai (Outer Mongolia), the 41st Town is located in Ulanqab (Inner Mongolia), the 42nd Town is located in Krawusu (Tibet), and the 43rd Town is located in Xihai Erut (Qinghai).

In addition, feudal states were also allotted quotas. Among them, the 44th town is located in North Korea, the 45th town is located in Ryukyu, the 46th town is located in Vietnam, the 47th town is located in Nam Chang (Laos), the 48th town is located in Siam (Thailand), the 49th town is located in Myanmar, the 50th town is located in Lanfang, the 51st town is located in Gorkha, Je Mangxiong, and Bhutan, and the 52nd, 53rd, and 54th towns are located in Kokand, Kazakhstan, Burut, Buhar, Shanke, Aiwuhan and other West Asian vassal states.

These names are not worthy of the name for the time being, but it can be seen that Li Weiguo's ambition is not only to control the entire Qing Empire, but also to control all the countries that have become vassal states, although such as Gurkha (Nepal), Zhe Mengxiong (Sikkim), Bhutan and other countries have long stopped paying tribute to the Qing Dynasty, and the Lanfang Kingdom has been destroyed by the Netherlands, but in Li Weiguo's heart, as long as they have been a vassal state, they will still be a vassal state of China in the future, and they will never change.

Of course, Li Weiguo has only set the general principles and policies, and when they are implemented, he will formulate different plans according to local conditions and different situations.

The third large-scale military expansion actually set the general tone for unifying the whole country and restoring China's hegemony.

There were as many as 50,000 or 60,000 aspiring young people from all provinces in China who came to enlist in the army, and in addition, Li Weiguo sent people to each province to recruit soldiers, and finally completed the recruitment of new recruits from 20 towns.

The recruits from these twenty towns came from 17 provinces in China, except for Jiangxi, which was temporarily ignored due to the control of the Taiping army, and the other provinces such as Hunan, Anhui and other areas controlled by Zeng Guofan and Li Hongzhang were very smoothly recruited.

Of course, in addition to the eighteen provinces in China, there are also five generals' jurisdictions, but unfortunately they are all ethnic minority areas, and the worship of Li Weiguo is almost zero, and they even hate Li Weiguo, because Li Weiguo is a Han people, and the fourth-class Han people actually turned over and became the king of Wu, which is a hero for the Han people, and it is insect repellent for their ethnic minorities.

Therefore, people from these places did not come to Shanghai to enlist in the army, and they even raised their vigilance against Li Weiguo. (To be continued.) )