Fireworks in March down to Yangzhou.

Li Weiguo was ordered to enter Beijing, set out from Shanghai, and walked for seven days before arriving in Yangzhou.

Just in time for the countless beautiful scenery of Yangzhou, so he stayed in the West Lake, and was attacked by the assassins of the Taiping Army on the way, and was seriously injured, so he stayed in the hot springs of the West Lake and soaked.

Li Weiguo was deliberately rubbing, he didn't want to enter Beijing, and he didn't want to turn his face with Xianfeng immediately, so at the suggestion of a group of staff, he deliberately rubbed on the road and waited for the opportunity.

At this time, Yangzhou had just gone through two offensive and defensive battles, and the Taiping army once captured Yangzhou and destroyed the Qing army's Jiangbei camp.

Originally, the Qing army was unable to recapture Yangzhou in a short period of time and rebuild the camp in Jiangbei, but Li Weiguo's wings set off a butterfly effect, Hu Xueyan wanted to find Li Weiguo for revenge, but Li Weiguo sat on the two provinces of Jiangnan and Zhejiang, and held 100,000 elite Shanghai troops.

Therefore, in addition to business consultation, Hu Xueyan also made every effort to invest in Li Hongzhang's Huaijun and vigorously assisted Zuo Zongtang, so that Hu Xueyan had a status and a voice in the Huaijun that had just been established for a few years.

With the help of Hu Xueyan's funds, Li Hongzhang's Huai Army was quickly established, which was far faster than the growth rate of the Huai Army in history.

By the seventh year of Xianfeng, the size of Li Hongzhang's Huai army had reached 50,000, of which 20,000 were equipped with muskets and more than 300 artillery pieces, second only to Zeng Guofan's Hunan army. You must know that in history, Li Hongzhang's Huai army reached this scale, but it took ten years to Xianfeng, and now it is three years ahead of schedule, which shows that Hu Xueyan is ruthless, which makes the historical process change very much.

Originally, the Qing army was lost in the Jiangbei camp, and after Yangzhou was captured by the Taiping army, it was unable to recover it at all, but Li Hongzhang and Zuo Zongtang led the Huai army, which had soared in strength, to quickly recover Yangzhou and re-establish the Jiangbei camp.

For this, Xian Fengyi is happy. Li Hongzhang was appointed as the minister of the Jiangbei camp, and Zuo Zongtang and Hu Xueyan were also given official positions.

Li Weiguo was ordered to enter Beijing, he didn't have to go to Yangzhou, he could take the warship of the East China Sea Fleet to Tianjin by sea and then directly enter Beijing, but Li Weiguo took a long detour to Yangzhou, in addition to rubbing the time to enter Beijing, Li Weiguo's real purpose was to personally check the strength of Li Hongzhang's Huai army.

Li Weiguo was not afraid of Hu Xueyan, but he had to pay attention to Li Hongzhang and Zuo Zongtang, both of whom were among the heroes of the Qing Empire, whether it was to suppress the Taiping Rebellion. Or the Northwest Rebellion, or the confrontation with the Great Powers, or even the Westernization Movement, all have their shadows.

If Li Weiguo launched a war to overthrow the Qing Empire, there is no doubt that Li Hongzhang and Zuo Zongtang will be his roadblocks and stumbling blocks, and there will be a war in the future.

Therefore, from the very beginning, Li Weiguo regarded Zeng Guofan, Li Hongzhang, and Zuo Zongtang as the enemy of the Qing Dynasty, so he had to feel the strength of the enemy in advance.

However, because of Hu Xueyan's relationship, Zuo Zongtang and Li Hongzhang did not want to see Li Weiguo. The two sides only met in the officialdom in a pretended way, and as for Li Weiguo's desire to visit the Jiangbei camp and the Huaijun military camp, he was directly rejected by Li Hongzhang and Zuo Zongtang.

In the Slender West Lake Hot Spring, Li Weiguo was lying by the pool. While drinking foreign wine, he enjoyed the massage of the two pretty maids behind him, which was so comfortable that he couldn't move and screamed, happy like a fairy.

Then. Zhuang Jiuxia, the chief of the guard standing outside, received a piece of information, hurriedly came to Li Weiguo's side, bowed down and said, "My lord." S.H.I.E.L.D. report! ”

Li Weiguo took the note, just a look, and the two pretty maids behind him retreated very interestingly.

Opening the note, Li Weiguo took a quick look at it, and then handed it to Zhuang Jiuxia.

Although Zhuang Jiuxia was Li Weiguo's chief of guard and the most trustworthy person, he didn't dare to look at the contents of the note, so he immediately took out a match and lit it and burned the note.

The note stated three pieces of information, one was from the capital, it was Lan Guifei who sent someone to pass the word, Xianfeng recruited Li Weiguo into Beijing and had no malicious intent, all because Lan Gui gave birth to Xianfeng's only prince, so he was deeply favored by Xianfeng, Lan Guifei in order to alleviate Xianfeng's suspicion of Li Weiguo, deliberately said that Li Weiguo paid tribute to the best fetal pills in the West, so that she gave birth to the prince, she was good-intentioned, but Xianfeng was happy to make Li Weiguo enter Beijing, and wanted to reward him in person, and Li Weiguo had a ghost in his heart, so he naturally did not dare to enter Beijing, Concubine Lan only came back to her senses later, but it was too late to regret it.

Li Weiguo smiled bitterly, knowing that this future Cixi has a lot of scheming, now even if Xianfeng does not suspect him Li Weiguo of plotting to rebel, Cixi will inevitably suspect Li Weiguo in her heart, but now the two are in the same boat and use each other, so it is impossible for Cixi to expose Li Weiguo's ambitions, but if Cixi takes power in the future, it may not be.

Let's take one step at a time!

As long as the current Xianfeng doesn't have the intention of killing Li Weiguo!

Of course, if you are not afraid of 10,000, you are afraid of what happens, Li Weiguo can still not enter Beijing without entering Beijing, try to rub on the road!

The second piece of information came from the Hong Kong station of the S.H.I.E.L.D. secret service, indicating that Britain and France had begun to assemble troops.

Since the end of 1856, with the end of the Crimean War, the military power of Britain and France began to tilt towards Asia, during the three-year Crimean War, Britain and France produced a large number of military and civilian materials, with the end of the war led to overcapacity, coupled with the war during the war Britain and France printed a large number of money, and Li Weiguo to Britain and France large-scale import of money, resulting in a large number of depreciation of the pound and franc, and Britain and France a large number of goods squeezed and squeezed to sell, urgently need to expand the consumer market.

With the failure of dozens of British and French giants to invest in the American railway market, the losses were heavy, triggering the American economic crisis, the first world economic crisis from the Americas to Europe, forcing Britain and France to pass on the losses caused by the economic crisis and the Crimean War.

However, at this time, the Yarrow Incident and the Mashenpu Incident occurred in the Qing Empire, giving Britain and France an excuse to use force.

Li Weiguo knew in his heart that if the time was not bad, in another month or so, the British and French forces would invade Guangzhou.

Li Weiguo really wanted to remind Ye Mingchen, the governor of Liangguang, but when he thought of his situation at this time, if he told Ye Mingchen that he was prepared, then the British and French forces would probably not be able to capture Guangzhou, which was not enough to make Xianfeng afraid, Xianfeng would not think of Li Weiguo if he was not afraid, so Li Weiguo would have to enter Beijing obediently. On the other hand, if the British and French forces captured Guangzhou and captured Ye Mingchen, then Xianfeng would be afraid. will think of Li Weiguo, because Li Weiguo is the only local leader who has the ability to confront the British and French coalition forces, then Xianfeng will definitely not let Li Weiguo enter Beijing again, but will ask Li Weiguo to return to Shanghai, sit in Jiangnan, resist the British and French coalition forces, recover Guangzhou, etc.

This is also why Li Weiguo has been slowly entering Beijing, just waiting for this opportunity.

As for the third piece of intelligence, it is from the Yangzhou Intelligence Station of the China S.H.I.E.L.D. Bureau, which is responsible for collecting intelligence on the Huai Army. It also comes with the recent information of the Taiping Army.

"Unexpectedly, in just three years, the Huai army has expanded to 50,000 people, of which 20,000 are equipped with muskets and artillery, and the British have been invited as instructors!"

Hearing Li Weiguo's words, Zhuang Jiuxia on the side was also extremely surprised, and said: "The Huai Army invited the British to be instructors, wouldn't that mean that they would also learn about the training of our Shanghai Army from the British?" If our Shanghai army fights with the Huai army in the future, it will be a great disadvantage! ”

Li Weiguo smiled and said, "It's okay. Our army has basically changed to a new type of rifle, no longer uses front-loading muskets, and the set of musket queue tactics taught by the British instructors back then has also been abandoned, even if the British tell the Huai army that it is useless. In addition, the establishment of our Shanghai army has also been changed. A new mode of warfare will be adopted, and if the Huai army engages us with the old-fashioned tactics of musket line formation, they will inevitably suffer great losses. ”

Zhuang Jiuxia thinks about it, and now the Shanghai army has completely eliminated the British-made front-loading firing smoothbore gun. Changing to a patriotic rotary pull-back rifle, whether it is a shooting distance, shooting accuracy, or loading speed, it is more than ten times ahead of the British musket, which is not a concept at all. Plus the whole army has now completed the reorganization. The previous line tactical formations of 10,000 people, 1,000 people, and 100 people have also been replaced by battalions, companies, and platoons, and the tactical movements are completely different from before, changing from the tactics of concentrated line columns to the tactics of dispersed positions.

At this time, the Shanghai army had a main force of 100,000 troops, numbered from the first town to the eighth town, each town had jurisdiction over 2 infantry brigades, each brigade had jurisdiction over 2 infantry regiments, each regiment had 3 battalions, each battalion had 4 companies, each company had 3 platoons, each platoon had 3 squads, and each squad had 14 soldiers. The 1st Artillery Regiment has 3 battalions, 3 companies per battalion, 3 platoons per company, 3 squads per platoon, and 14 soldiers per squad. The 1st Cavalry Regiment has 4 battalions, 4 companies per battalion, 2 platoons per company, 2 squads per platoon, and 14 soldiers per squad. The 1st Engineer Battalion has 4 companies, 3 platoons per company, 3 squads per platoon, and 14 soldiers per squad. The 1st Battalion of the Baggage Corps has 4 companies, 2 platoons per company, 3 squads per platoon, and 14 soldiers per squad. There are 748 officers and staff officers in the town, 10,436 front-line combat soldiers, and 1,328 logistics soldiers, a total of 12,512.

The "town" of the Shanghai Army is roughly equivalent to that of foreign divisions, because of the different national conditions of the war, the number of division-level troops required by various countries varies greatly in different historical periods due to different operational needs, with some divisions having 10,000 troops and some having 20,000 to 30,000 troops.

Each town of the Shanghai army is divided into infantry, artillery, cavalry, and baggage soldiers, and the infantry uses patriotic rifles, which far exceed Western muskets in terms of shooting distance, accuracy and rate of fire, and far exceed the firearms used by the Qing army and the Pacific Ocean to carry out front-line combat missions; The artillery provides artillery support in the rear, because the research and development of rear-loading artillery is much more difficult than that of rear-loading rifles, Li Weiguo has been sending people to seize the time to develop it, so the Shanghai artillery still uses front-loading artillery, but the hydraulic brake used in the artillery carriage is more advanced than Western artillery, and more advanced than the artillery of the Qing army and the Taiping army. The cavalry is responsible for patrolling, scouting, covering the safety of infantry and runners, and conducting cavalry raids when necessary; The baggage soldiers are responsible for transporting weapons, ammunition, military rations, and other military supplies, which are greatly improved than before, and no longer use ordinary people as hard labor, but are selected from the second-line troops of the Shanghai Army, and are distributed with weapons, so that they have a certain combat effectiveness and self-protection ability.

The ranks of the Shanghai Army have also changed due to the change of the military system, and there are generals, lieutenant generals, major generals, colonels, lieutenant colonels, majors, captains, lieutenants, second lieutenants, sergeant majors of grades 1 to 6, privates, privates, and privates. Recruits are automatically promoted to private after three months of training, automatically promoted to private after one year of service, automatically promoted to senior sergeant after two years, and promoted to sergeant major after three years of military merit, and ordinary soldiers can be promoted to sergeant major of the sixth grade up to the same salary as a major after three years of military merit. Officers and above all need to have knowledge of primary school culture or night school culture courses, and exceptions can be made, but ideological and political education must be passed, and no matter how good those who are not loyal to the Shanghai army or Li Weiguo are, they should not want them.

The new establishment and equipment of the Shanghai army have always been kept secret, and the outside world does not know that this will be Li Weiguo's greatest reliance, and he is ready to use it against the British and French coalition forces, because Li Weiguo has thoroughly figured out that no matter how the Qing court compromises with Britain and France, it is impossible to avoid the invasion of the British and French coalition forces, because once an economic crisis occurs in the capitalist world, foreign war is an inevitable choice, and there is no one.

In the second Opium War in history, the reason why the British and French forces did not attack Shanghai was because Shanghai had been occupied by the British and French forces in 1853 when the Little Knife Society rebelled, and the customs fell into the hands of the British and French, and the only valuable place in Shanghai was the concession, and it was obvious that the British and French forces could not invade their own concessions.

But this time it was different, Li Weiguo prevented the customs from falling into the hands of Britain and France, and operated Shanghai very prosperously, the scale of the Jiangwan Industrial Zone can be much larger than the British and French concessions, especially the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, which has always been fat in the eyes of Britain and France, so once the war starts, the British and French forces will almost inevitably attack Shanghai for large-scale plunder.

Shanghai is Li Weiguo's lair, and he will never allow this kind of thing to happen, so it is inevitable that the Shanghai army will fight with the British and French forces.

At this moment, the 100,000 Shanghai troops were ready for war.

Li Weiguo was injured under the pretext of being assassinated, and after soaking in the Slender West Lake Hot Spring for ten days, there was still no news of the British and French forces attacking Guangzhou, so he could only continue to set off and pretend to go to the capital, at least for the sake of face, he had to let Xianfeng go to Taiwan.

It's just that when Li Weiguo left Yangzhou, he ran into Hu Xueyan again.

Hu Xueyan deliberately waited for Li Weiguo at the gate of the city, and when he saw Li Weiguo coming, he immediately led people to block the way.

"The surname is Li, you get out of here for me and give Zi Yan back to me! Otherwise, I'll fight with you! ”

Hu Xueyan let out a loud shout, held a musket, and aimed at Li Weiguo's team. At this time, he was already a court official, and he led thousands of soldiers and horses of the Huai army, each armed with muskets, to occupy the favorable terrain near the city gate.

The 1,000 personal guards brought by Li Weiguo were well-trained, and when they saw that the other party showed hostility, they quickly escorted Li Weiguo, pulled the bolt of their guns one after another, loaded their bullets, and aimed at the surrounding Huai soldiers.

The battle is on the verge of breaking out! (To be continued......)

PS: I'm going to kill the foreign devils right away, begging for subscriptions, asking for monthly passes