Since the defeat of the Taiping Army's Eastern Crusade, the entire Taiping Heavenly Kingdom has been in a panic all day long, fearing that Li Weiguo will lead the army to attack again, and the generals of the Taiping Army, who originally despised the combat effectiveness of the Shanghai Army, have now also changed color when they hear the name of the Shanghai Army.

Worried about the western expedition of the Shanghai army, the Taiping army built a large number of fortifications in Yuhuatai and Xiaolingwei, but soon came out with incredible news that the Taiping army suffered more than 50,000 casualties in this battle, and the main force was disabled.

For this news, the top level of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom did not believe it, and soon Hong Xiuquan and Yang Xiuqing and others understood Li Weiguo's intentions, this is Li Weiguo is showing weakness to the Qing Emperor, indicating that there is no longer trust between Emperor Xianfeng and Li Weiguo, which is good news in misfortune for the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, which means that Li Weiguo will be lurking in the next few years, and it is impossible to break out a large-scale battle with the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom.

After the crushing defeat of the Eastern Crusade, more than half of the elite of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom was consumed, which made the original aggressive offensive of the Taiping army have to be slowed down.

On the western front, Zeng Guofan learned that Li Weiguo was suspicious of Xianfeng, and also heard folk rumors, the emperor was very jealous of the Han landlord armament, Zeng Guofan was also afraid, so he also learned Li Weiguo's strategy, led the main force of the Hunan army to fight back wildly, and took advantage of the defeat of the Taiping army's eastern expedition to lose morale, captured Yuezhou and Wuchang in one fell swoop, and almost captured the northern king Wei Changhui.

Emperor Xianfeng was overjoyed and made Zeng Guofan acting governor of Hubei. However, Qi Junzao, a university scholar, said, "Zeng Guofan is a squire, and he is like a husband, and he lives in Luli, and when he shouts, more than 10,000 people will rise up from him, and he will be the same as Li Weiguo." None of them are national blessings. ”

Emperor Xianfeng was already suspicious, and a Li Weiguo had already given him a headache, and he regretted letting Li Weiguo take charge of the governor of Jiangnan Province in the first place. I heard that Zhejiang has been under Li Weiguo's military control, in fact, Li Weiguo is already the governor of the two provinces, and his power is too great, although Li Weiguo showed weakness and announced that the main force of the Shanghai army was disabled, but Xianfeng was still suspicious, and with the experience of the past, Xianfeng then withdrew his order to Zeng Guofan. Only the title of squire of the military department of the Zeng State will be rewarded.

Wei Changhui, the king of the north, was beaten to the point that he only had the power to parry but not the power to fight back, and finally had to reactivate Shi Dakai. Although Shi Dakai experienced the lessons of the fiasco of the Eastern Expedition, he was ill for more than half a year. But after all, he is the god of war of the Taiping Army, and the low morale of the Taiping Army needs Shi Dakai to be encouraged.

Soon, Shi Dakai re-led the Western Expeditionary Army and fought with Zeng Guofan in Hunan. Yuezhou, Wuchang and other places were recovered one after another. However, Shi Dakai's elite were all folded in Jiangdong, and the only remaining elite was unable to fight again after fighting with the Hunan army, and finally the Taiping army and the Hunan army were held in Changsha, and they were unable to fight again, and they were transferred to the recuperation period.

At the same time, after Shengbao of the Jiangbei battalion was scolded by Xianfeng, he led his army to attack the Taiping army in Anhui. As a result, the Taiping army deliberately showed weakness and deceitful defeat, and was eager to win. The lone army went deeper, but was ambushed and killed by the Taiping army, and the 50,000 army was annihilated, and then the Taiping army raided Yangzhou and destroyed the Jiangbei camp in one fell swoop.

The Qing court panicked, and finally understood that the Qing army's Eight Banners and Green Battalion soldiers were already vulnerable, and had to reuse the local Han armed forces.

At this time, Su Shun recommended Li Hongzhang as the governor of Anhui, which was approved by the Qing court. recommended Zuo Zongtang as the governor of Zhejiang, but was strongly opposed by Yixin, and Xianfeng didn't want to stimulate Li Weiguo at this time, so he didn't agree.

However, Zuo Zongtang still borrowed a thousand veterans from Zeng Guofan, and with whom Li Hongzhang came to Anhui to form the Huai Army. Zuo Zongtang and Hu Xueyan were friends for eight years, so Hu Xueyan donated 1 million taels of silver and 200,000 stone of grain to Huaijun, and quickly helped Li Hongzhang and Zuo Zongtang gain a firm foothold in Anhui.

Knowing that Li Hongzhang and Zuo Zongtang arrived in Anhui, Li Weiguo was also surprised, he knew that Li Hongzhang was about to rise, but compared with Li Hongzhang, Li Weiguo was more afraid of Zuo Zongtang at the moment, and Hu Xueyan, the Huizhou business giant, one was a general, and the other was a wealthy man, which would make them rise rapidly, which was a huge potential threat to Li Weiguo.

Fortunately, Li Weiguo took the lead in occupying Zhejiang, otherwise if Zuo Zongtang entered Zhejiang, it would be a greater threat.

There are worries and joys, first Li Weiguo reported to the court to accept Shen Ziyan and Su Yuniang as side blessings, Xianfeng was originally going to arrange a woman to be an eyeliner by Li Weiguo's side, but Li Weiguo took the lead, which made Xianfeng very unhappy, but he couldn't make an order not to allow it, so he had to give up. Fortunately, Concubine Lan has been saying good things for Li Weiguo, which appeased Xianfeng.

As for why Su Sanniang changed her name to Su Yuniang, this is also Su Sanniang's own meaning, she doesn't want anyone to mention Li Weiguo's side Fujin, that is, she subconsciously thinks of Su Sanniang, the master of the Heaven and Earth Society, the female marshal of the Taiping Army, which is very unfavorable to Li Weiguo, and if the court investigates it, it will also be a big trouble.

It can be said that Su Sanniang is thinking about Li Weiguo all the time, which makes Li Weiguo very moved, and he is even more determined to marry Su Sanniang.

Of course, now Su Sanniang is already Li Weiguo's legal daughter-in-law, although she has not yet had sex with her, Li Weiguo believes that this day will come.

As for Shen Ziyan, her father Shen Wansan was not having a good time in Anhui, he was suppressed by Hu Xueyan everywhere, and his business plummeted. Now that Zuo Zongtang has arrived in Anhui, he has made things even more difficult for Shen Wansan, forcing Shen Wansan to be frightened all day long, and finally moved back to Shanghai under the persuasion of Shen Ziyan.

However, Shen Wansan still ignored Li Weiguo, but his attitude was not as bad as before, perhaps because he knew that his arms couldn't twist his thighs, and he already had the intention of being soft.

Shen Wansan handed over the family business to Shen Ziyan to take care of, which was actually equivalent to compromising with Li Weiguo, everyone knew that if Shen Ziyan mastered the family business, it would mean that she would change her surname to Li.

After three years of development, the AIIB under the control of Li Weiguo has now extended its tentacles to some wealthy big cities in China, and now Shen Ziyan is in charge of the Shen family bank, which just combines the Shen family money bank with the AIIB, and uses the financial resources of the AIIB and the Shen family's connections to develop banking business throughout the country.

The renminbi is very strong in Jiangnan Province, and has replaced gold and silver in direct circulation in the market, and with Li Weiguo's military administration of Zhejiang, the renminbi has also flowed into Zhejiang, and the AIIB branch set up in Hangzhou has begun to collect gold and silver hard currency in Zhejiang and issue renminbi for circulation. It is believed that in a few years, it will be able to completely occupy the Zhejiang currency market.

The shareholders of the AIIB are very active, and in the face of considerable profits, they will no longer give Li Weiguo a small stumbling block. Instead, it fully cooperates with the policies implemented by Li Weiguo to expand the market share of the AIIB.

However, Li Weiguo is secretly gradually squeezing out other foreign shareholders in the AIIB, first of all, the AIIB and Shenjia Qianzhuang strong alliance, Shenjia Qianzhuang has branches and contacts all over the country, and in the reorganized AIIB, Shen Ziyan is eligible to get half of the shares of the AIIB, so that. The shareholders did not want to reduce the shares in their hands, so Li Weiguo issued an additional 10 million shares in disguise, diluting the total share of all shareholders' shares. Ostensibly, Li Weiguo's stake was also diluted. However, Li Weiguo and Shen Ziyan together accounted for 70% of the total shares, becoming the largest shareholder, and the other shareholders became minority shareholders.

Fortunately, the AIIB is very profitable, and the annual exchange difference between gold and silver is very huge. As a result, the money earned by each shareholder has increased significantly. In this way, although their actual share of the total stake has dropped, they have not complained much.

The scale of the AIIB's money printing machine has tripled, but it can only meet the circulation and use of Jiangnan Province and Zhejiang Province, as for the field, because the RMB is still wait-and-see, and the people need a period of time to adapt to the stability of the value of the RMB, so the scale of the temporary exchange of RMB is not large. With the current issuance of renminbi by the AIIB, it can cope with it.

The AIIB's huge profits support the various expenses of the Li Weiguo Group. In particular, the military expenditure of the Shanghai army is extremely huge, and the annual military expenditure of 50,000 Shanghai troops is equivalent to the annual expenditure of 1 million soldiers of the Eight Banners of the Qing Dynasty, and this is only in peacetime, once a war breaks out, a small-scale exchange of fire will cost hundreds of thousands of yuan, and if a large-scale battle is a large-scale battle, it will be millions of yuan, which is simply burning money.

It is no wonder, after all, the war consumption in the era of firearms is naturally much higher than that in the era of cold weapons.

Fortunately, dozens of factories in the Jiangwan Industrial Zone have been completed and put into operation one after another, among which the steel plant, cement factory, match factory, paper factory, printing plant, gas plant, water plant, etc. are the first to make profits, and the steel produced by the steel plant is all used by the Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau to make guns, and the supply is still in short supply, forcing Li Weiguo to carry out the second phase expansion plan of the steel plant in advance. The same is true for cement plants, the Shanghai army has built large-scale city defenses in Jiangnan and Zhejiang, which are also in short supply, and the second phase of expansion has also been carried out.

As for the gas plant, water plant, etc., because it is urban infrastructure, the common people can use water, gas for cooking, and lighting lamps, although the cost is relatively high, Li Weiguo in order to develop the people's livelihood so that the people can afford to use, so the price is lowered, the profit alone is meager, but it can not stand the large number of people, because of the war in the south and the number of refugees who moved to Shanghai is huge, and there are many rich people, so the overall profit is still profitable, and it is very considerable.

As for other factories in Jiangwan Industrial Zone, although they have been put into operation one after another, the user group is still not large, such as the fertilizer produced by the fertilizer factory, the people feel that it is expensive, and it is not as good as the farmer's fertilizer, so they use less. Another example is the textile factory, although the cost of the cloth produced is lower than that of the British, but unfortunately the common people buy less, and the traditional economy of male ploughing and female weaving cannot be broken in a short time, and the sales volume is not good, and finally Li Weiguo has to buy it himself, which is exclusively for government civil servants and military officers and soldiers.

Although there are losses and gains, but the overall is still profitable, Li Weiguo likes to take a long-term view, Jiangwan Industrial Zone to be carried out, step by step to drive the whole country towards industrialization, this is the road to a strong country, is what Li Weiguo has to do, although there are still some difficulties, but Li Weiguo believes that he will succeed.

In terms of education, Danfu University has successfully trained three night school graduates, and provided more than 1,500 public officials and officers for the Yamen and the Shanghai Army, so that Jiangnan Province and Zhejiang Province no longer have a shortage of civil servants, and the Yamen has been able to operate normally. It also greatly improved the cultural quality of the officers of the Shanghai Army, enhanced their combat effectiveness, and laid the foundation for Li Weiguo to establish a professional military academy in the future.

Under the management of Rong Hong, Danfu University has set up mathematics, Chinese, English, physics, chemistry, history, geography, biology and other disciplines, although it is a university, but in fact it is taught from primary school students, and each class of students in the first three years is orphans from orphanages, because Li Weiguo wants to train them to study abroad as soon as possible, so priority is given to the school-age children in the orphanage, so that they can master the basic knowledge as soon as possible and lay a good foundation.

In addition to the economy and education, Li Weiguo's greatest concern is naturally the military industry.

Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau has undergone two expansions. The scale of production of British muskets and artillery remained unchanged, at a rate of 2,000 muskets and 20 guns per month. The second expansion was mainly aimed at patriotic rifles, and a full 3,000 workers were added. Each of them was almost a novice, having only learned to build one of the rifle parts, and finally had the final run-in and assembly done by experienced gunsmiths.

After the second expansion, the monthly output of patriotic rifles reached 1,500 units, which allowed the Shanghai army to carry out weapon upgrading.

The new weapons need to be slowly adapted to the officers and soldiers in Shanghai, but fortunately, Li Weiguo has equipped the agents of the Chinese S.H.I.E.L.D. with patriotic rifles, so he selected a group of excellent shooters from S.H.I.E.L.D. to serve as instructors. He was responsible for teaching and training, so that the officers and soldiers of Shanghai quickly mastered the use and shooting methods of the patriotic rifle.

The first batch of 1,000 people participated in the trial, but the composition of this 1,000-person team has changed accordingly. Since they no longer used muskets, the battle formation naturally had to be changed, and it was no longer possible to use a large phalanx dense formation, and the soldiers and soldiers were directly dispersed. Keep the skirmishers at a distance. In this way, the previous thousand-man team formation is not suitable.

Therefore, Li Weiguo began to reorganize this thousand-man team, and the thousand-man team, the hundred-man team, and the ten-man team were changed into battalions, companies, and platoons, with 1,000 people in each battalion, one battalion commander, one battalion deputy, and one battalion staff officer, and three companies under its jurisdiction, each with 300 people. There is a company commander, a company deputy and a company staff officer, and the company has three platoons under its jurisdiction. There are 100 people in each platoon, one platoon, one platoon deputy, and one platoon staff officer, and each platoon has three squads, 30 people per squad, and one squad leader and one squad deputy.

This is only a purely combat unit, and as for the logistics, reconnaissance, and medical units, Li Weiguo is still exploring them for the time being, and has not yet worked them out.

Of course, Li Weiguo could completely copy the military system of the PLA in later generations, but he knew that this would not work at all, because the weapons and equipment used by the two were different, and without advanced weapons such as aircraft, tanks, armored vehicles, mortars, infantry guns, heavy machine guns, squad light machine guns, and assault rifles, he could not copy the PLA's establishment, because the firepower and striking capabilities of the two were different, and if they were rigidly copied, they would kill the troops.

In the same way, it is impossible for Li Weiguo to copy the military establishment during World War I and World War II, because different periods of the army, different firepower allocations, and different enemies require different military establishments. This is also the real reason why the military establishment of the armies of various countries is different at different times.

Just like the 1,000-man and 100-man units set up by Li Weiguo for the Shanghai army, they were established in light of the principle of musket line operations and in accordance with local conditions, and they are the military establishments that can best bring into play the firepower of the Shanghai army's musketeers in salvo.

Now that the equipment of the Shanghai army has been changed from muskets to rifles, it naturally has to adapt to the new military establishment of new rifle firepower.

However, Li Weiguo was also exploring experiments, so he only set up a battalion to arrange troops and use them for combat to test the advantages and disadvantages of the new military system, so that in the future, a more perfect establishment could be drawn up and the combat effectiveness of the Shanghai army could be brought into full play.

As a large number of patriotic rifles continued to be manufactured, the original old British muskets were in danger of becoming obsolete.

Li Weiguo was a shrewd man, and he immediately found the British minister Bao Ling, intending to sell these muskets that the Shanghai army did not want back to the British.

When Bao Ling heard this, he was so angry that he almost vomited blood, and he was naturally reluctant to buy back what he sold, although Bao Ling knew that the British army was in urgent need of a large number of weapons and equipment at this time, because the British army dispatched more than 100,000 people in the Crimean War, and the workers of the British arsenal in China were on strike, resulting in a serious shortage of weapons. But Bao Ling just didn't want to do this business with Li Weiguo.

Li Weiguo was not in a hurry to sell muskets to the British, and he then approached the French minister, Bourblon, but the French did not lack muskets and did not like to use British-made muskets, so Bourblon refused.

Li Weiguo was still unwilling, and immediately found the Russian minister Buglon and sold him muskets.

At this time, Russia was in a disadvantageous position in the Crimean War, Britain, France, Austria and Turkey formed a coalition of more than a dozen countries, millions of troops, so that the Russian army could only hold on and it was difficult to counterattack, and at the same time, Russia was in a serfdom society, low productivity, difficult supply of weapons, and fierce on the battlefield, which made the consumption of weapons serious, and some Russian soldiers used a musket, which made the Russian government very annoyed.

When Buglon heard that Li Weiguo wanted to sell British-made muskets to Russia, he was naturally happy and immediately started negotiations with Li Weiguo.

Although most of the muskets in Li Weiguo's hands were second-hand, the Russians were in dire need of weapons, so Buglon did not bargain with Li Weiguo and was willing to buy them at a brand new price.

Li Weiguo was immediately overjoyed, and immediately promised to provide the Russians with 5,000 muskets within a month, 10,000 within three months, and 20,000 within a year.

In this way, the second-hand musket that Li Weiguo bought from the British at a high price is now sold to the Russians at a brand new price after a few years of use, not only all the money spent back then, but also a small profit.

This kind of trade was later learned by arms dealers all over the world, and they were all shocked and had to admire Li Weiguo's shit luck. (To be continued......)