PS: Excitement is coming, begging for subscriptions, asking for monthly passes, begging for covers

The international community has changed dramatically, and the Crimean War broke out in the West, involving more than a dozen countries. In the eastern part of the Celestial Empire, the bloody battle between the Taiping army and the Qing army also entered a white heat.

Although the Northern Expeditionary Army of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom lost Su Sanniang, a fierce general, it was suppressed by the Qing Army's Shengbao Department in the early stage, and it was very embarrassing. But since the Taiping army entered Henan, the situation suddenly improved.

This is because Henan is in the midst of a great drought, thousands of miles of red land, corrupt officials and corrupt officials withhold money and grain for disaster relief, landlords raise rents and interest rates to pass on losses to farmers, profiteers take the opportunity to raise prices, and the imperial court has no money to suppress the Taiping army and increase taxes, resulting in the people in the Central Plains region living in poverty.

The Taiping army entered Henan, wantonly hunted and killed banner people, tried corrupt officials and corrupt officials, forcibly confiscated the land and money and grain of landlords and merchants, and distributed them to the poor people, causing a large number of ordinary people to join the Taiping army, causing the Northern Expeditionary Army to surge in strength, and quickly making up for the passive situation caused by Su Sanniang's departure.

In the spring of the fourth year of Xianfeng, the Northern Expeditionary Army marched all the way, entered Hebei, and approached Tianjin, which immediately shocked the world. Qing Emperor Xianfeng immediately fled the Forbidden City in the name of hunting and fled to Chengde.

At the same time, the Taiping army's westward expedition also achieved a great victory in Jinggang, defeating the Hunan army of Zeng Guofan and entering Hunan.

The situation of the Taiping Army was very good, Hong Xiuquan and Yang Xiuqing did not expect tens of thousands of Northern Expeditionary Army to be able to overthrow the Qing court, so the supply to the Northern Expeditionary Army was interrupted and they fully supported the Western Expedition. As a result, when they learned that the Northern Expeditionary Army had fought all the way to Tianjin and was close to Beijing, the two of them woke up like a dream, immediately regretted it, and hurriedly sent the Second Route Reinforcement Army to the Northern Expedition.

However, the Second Route Northern Expeditionary Army was not so lucky, and as soon as it crossed the river into Anhui, it was met with stubborn resistance from Pang Jingsong, the governor of Anhui. This Pang Jingsong didn't have so much energy, but a few months ago he received financial support from Hu Xueyan to buy a large number of ordnance, grain and grass. Zuo Zongtang, the general of the Hunan Army, also looked at Hu Xueyan's face and sent a few capable generals to Pang Jingsong, which made the strength of the Huai Army in Pang Jingsong's hands greatly increased, and blocked the Taiping Army's Second Route Northern Expeditionary Army in Fengyang, unable to advance an inch.

On the other side, before Xianfeng escaped from the Forbidden City, he once again activated Prince Gong Yixin, and made him the minister of the military aircraft foreman, leading the army to kill the Taiping army that entered Tianjin.

Yi Xin was not low-key, and immediately sent someone to deliver a letter to Li Weiguo in Shanghai. Seek support from Li Weiguo.

Li Weiguo has now been classified into the Sixth Master faction, and he knows that the court will rely on Yixin to speak for him in the future, so he must help with this favor.

At this time, there were more than 48,000 people in the Shanghai army, Li Weiguo knew that the forced abduction of Su Sanniang had made Hong Xiuquan and Yang Xiuqing dissatisfied, and the cooperative relationship between the two sides was cracked, so he had to take more precautions, the original Jiangdong camp and Jiangnan camp only had 5,000 troops, and then Li Weiguo increased to 20,000 people, always alert the movements of the Taiping army.

The remaining 28,000 Li Jiajun served as reserves. As soon as there is a change in the Gangdong camp or the Jiangnan camp, reinforcements will be immediately reinforced. Among them, 10,000 soldiers and horses were stationed in Shanghai, Wusong and Songjiang all the year round to protect Li Weiguo's lair, and the remaining 18,000 people were assigned to various county towns in Susongtai. Guarding the place.

Li Weiguo would never send the elite of the Li family army to Tianjin to help Yi Xin, but he couldn't help but give Yi Xin face, so Li Weiguo temporarily selected 2,000 young men from the newly established dozen or so refugee concentration camps and distributed muskets to them. A group of veterans were selected from the barracks to serve as their commanders, and a few clever agents from S.H.I.E.L.D. were selected as their commanders. With these two thousand recruits, he arrived in Tianjin by sea by ship and was placed under Yixin's tent.

Li Weiguo didn't plan to come back from this army, which was equivalent to giving it to Yi Xin, and those agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. just took this opportunity to stay by Yi Xin's side and became Li Weiguo's eyeliner.

Yi Xin was very happy to get these two thousand musketeers, and praised Li Weiguo very much. In fact, his original intention was just to test Li Weiguo's reaction, he was a prince, so it was naturally impossible for him to personally lead troops to the battlefield, so the two thousand musketeers sent by Li Weiguo became Yi Xin's personal guards, even if there was a battle, Yi Xin would not be willing to let them go to the battlefield, because Yi Xin was also a smart person, and at this time he should cultivate his own strength and consume the power of his political enemies.

There were more than 100,000 elite Qing troops in Tianjin, as well as tens of thousands of Mongolian cavalry in Zenglingqin to participate in the battle, and the Taiping army had no backup, it was already the end of the strong crossbow, and it was a matter of time before it was defeated.

Yi Xin is very smart, he knows that as long as the Taiping army has no backup, it will also consume this Northern Expeditionary Army. Therefore, in the name of Minister Wang, the military aircraft foreman, he ordered the Hunan army to recover Yuezhou within three days under the command of Zeng Guofan, otherwise military law would be involved. Yi Xin knew that Zeng Guofan was on Su Shun's side, so he wanted Zeng Guofan to fight to the death with the Taiping army, on the one hand, to weaken the strength of Su Shun's minions, and on the other hand, to let the Hunan army attack Yuezhou, which was to contain the main force of the Taiping army's westward expedition, forcing Hong Xiuquan and Yang Xiuqing not to dare to draw more troops to support the Northern Expedition.

At the same time, Yi Xin also ordered Li Weiguo to send troops to attack Jinling, but the order given to Li Weiguo was not a death order, but just asked him to contain the Jinling Taiping Army as much as possible, which is very different from Zeng Guofan's treatment, it can be seen that Yi Xin completely regards Li Weiguo as his own person, which is clearly the meaning of letting Li Weiguo preserve his strength.

Li Weiguo naturally understood what Yixin meant, and immediately dispatched troops to make the Li family army of the Jiangdong battalion and the Jiangnan battalion pour out and put on a posture of storming Jinling.

Of course, Li Weiguo still secretly sent someone to inform Hong Xiuquan. It's a pity that Hong Xiuquan couldn't believe Li Weiguo at this time, and he immediately recalled the Second Route Northern Expeditionary Army and defended Jinling.

When Li Weiguo saw that Hong Xiuquan had recalled the Second Route Northern Expeditionary Army, he knew that his goal had been achieved, and immediately ordered Li Jiajun to give the Taiping army on the opposite side a cannonball to eat, and then ordered the troops to be collected and returned to the camp.

At the same time, on the battlefield in Hunan, Zeng Guofan knew that Yixin Gongfang's personal vendetta deliberately corrected him, but there was no way, even Su Shun couldn't speak at this time, after all, the Taiping army had reached the feet of the Son of Heaven, and Yi Xin wanted to kill Zeng Guofan's minions at this time, which was really smart.

Zeng Guofan had no choice but to lead the Hunan army to attack Yuezhou with all his might, and finally took Yuezhou after paying a heavy price.

But at this time, because Li Weiguo withdrew from the army, the pressure on Tianjing decreased sharply, Hong Xiuquan and Yang Xiuqing immediately sent Shi Dakai to preside over the affairs of the Western Expedition, and the Taiping army fought back frantically, encircled and annihilated Zeng Guofan's naval army in Xiangtan, and defeated the Hunan army. Reoccupy Yuezhou.

Zeng Guofan lost Yuezhou again, and when he thought of Yixin's death order, he immediately committed suicide by jumping into the river.

This is Zuo Zongtang who stopped Zeng Guofan and said: "My lord, I am not afraid that there will be no firewood to burn in Qingshan, Yuezhou is lost, we still have Changsha, and we can make a comeback." ”

Zeng Guofan said with a bitter face: "You don't understand, Yixin knows that this official is a person from Lord Sushun's side, and he lost Yuezhou this time." He will kill me, and in order to avoid affecting his family and soldiers, this official can only apologize with death. ”

Zuo Zongtang frowned and said: "Prince Gong is far away in Beijing, and it will take some time for the news to come back, as long as the adults recapture Yuezhou during this period, even if Prince Gong punishes the adults, Lord Sushun over there can also speak, right?" ”

Of course, Zeng Guofan didn't want to die, and after listening to Zuo Zongtang's words, he also felt that it made sense. So he nodded and said, "Does the Left Commander have a clever plan to recapture Yuezhou?" ”

Zuo Zongtang said with a smile: "Your Excellency, don't worry, the last general secretly dug a secret passage in Yuezhou before, let's regroup and enter Yuezhou City by surprise from the secret passage." We will definitely be able to retake Yuezhou! ”

"If you can recapture Yuezhou this time, this official will have a good reward!"

Zeng Guofan was immediately overjoyed, no longer looking for death, and immediately fled the Xiangjiang River and returned to Changsha under the protection of Zuo Zongtang. Gather the remnants of the defeated army and prepare for a counterattack on Yuezhou.

The Taiping army and the Qing army were stumbling, and Li Weiguo originally sat on the mountain to watch the tiger fight. I thought I didn't have anything to do with myself for the time being.

But he soon discovers that a huge crisis is looming, and the center of the storm is his home of Shanghai.

This incident began four months ago, when Li Weiguo was robbing relatives in Anhui Province, and in the American Concession of Shanghai, the US Minister to China, Ma Shali, arbitrarily declared Shanghai to American businessmen as a free port and no longer paid taxes to the Shanghai River Customs.

The reason why Ma Shali was so bold was because he found that the strength of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom had swelled unprecedentedly, and the Qing army was unfavorable from all sides, but it made the Taiping army commander drive straight into the Forbidden City, and the Qing court had no time to take care of the foreigners, let alone offend the foreigners at this time.

Mashali is very patriotic and wants to expand American interests in China as much as possible, which is why he does this.

This move immediately caused a shock in the whole Shanghai Road, and the British and French legations chose to remain silent to see how the government would deal with it.

At that time, Li Weiguo was not there, and the officials of the Shanghai Jiang Customs dared not speak out, which made the American businessmen think that the Jiang Customs had acquiesced, so they stopped paying taxes and freely entered and exited the Shanghai River.

When Li Weiguo learned of this incident after he returned, he was immediately furious, and immediately dismissed the original court officials of Jianghaiguan in the name of "Tongyi and raising thieves", and replaced all of them with Li Weiguo's own people, completely taking Shanghai Jianghaiguan into his own hands.

Subsequently, Li Weiguo sent a note to the US Minister to China, Ma Shali, and made solemn representations, demanding that Ma Shali retract his false words and apologize, and at the same time recover taxes from all American businessmen.

The move sparked an immediate backlash from the U.S. legation and U.S. businessmen, who refused to apologize and who refused to pay back taxes.

The two sides broke up unhappily, and then Li Weiguo ordered all the anti-smuggling ships of the Jianghai Customs Division to be dispatched to forcibly intercept all the American merchant ships passing by, detain people and goods, and deduct the taxes owed before.

The U.S. Legation responded quickly, and Mashali lodged a strong protest with the Upper Customs. Shanghai Customs has now replaced Li Weiguo's people, and after receiving Li Weiguo's instructions, he resolutely refused to be accustomed to the Americans' stinky problems.

Ma Shali was furious, and immediately after returning home, he organized the American troops in the legation to personally escort the American merchant ships, hoping to force Li Weiguo to submit by force.

However, Ma Shali's calculation was wrong, and he never expected Li Weiguo to fight back with a tougher attitude.

On February 3, 1854, on the Chongming section of the Yangtze River estuary, the anti-smuggling ship of the Shanghai Jianghai Customs was shot by the American soldiers above when it intercepted the American merchant ship Pigeon, resulting in one death and three injuries.

In the afternoon of the same day, Li Weiguo received a report and immediately ordered more than 400 warships of the Wusongkou Navy to block the pigeon that was returning home, and the Shanghai soldiers exchanged fire with the 23 American soldiers on the American ship, killing seven and wounding three, while the rest of the American soldiers were frightened and immediately surrendered and captured.

The Shanghai army seized the pigeon steamer, and after interrogating the American prisoners, it was learned that Kerry, the American second lieutenant who had ordered the shooting and death of the Jiang Customs inspector in the morning, had returned to the US legation.

Li Weiguo knew that this was because Ma Shali realized the seriousness of the situation, so he left Second Lieutenant Kerry in the legation, so that under the terms of extraterritoriality, he could protect Second Lieutenant Kerry.

But Li Weiguo didn't care about that, he knew that the United States in this period was a small follower of Britain and France, in addition to its strong industrial strength, its military strength was far worse than that of Britain and France, so Li Weiguo was not afraid of offending the United States.

So Li Weiguo immediately ordered 3,000 Li Jiajun to march into the American concession in full armor, surround the American legation, and demand that Ma Shali hand over Kerry.

At this time, Ma Shali was also frightened, he never thought that Li Weiguo would be so bold and dare to lead troops to forcibly break into the American concession and directly ask him to hand over people.

Ma Shali had already gathered 300 American soldiers in the concession to surround the legation, but in the face of the 3,000 loaded Li Jiajun, the killing spirit alone made Ma Shali and the 300 American soldiers frightened.

Seeing that Li Weiguo could not be defeated by force, Ma Shali moved out the Sino-US Wangxia Treaty, indicating that the Kerry murder case should be tried by a US court.

However, Li Weiguo had already been prepared, and the Wangxia Treaty stipulated that civil disputes could be handed over to the US courts for trial after reaching an oral agreement, but the Daqingjiang Customs law enforcement officers shot and killed by Kerry were not civil disputes, and they must be handed over to Su Songtai's military preparation and Yamen for trial, and they should be handled in accordance with the laws and regulations of the Qing Dynasty.

Ma Shali immediately threatened Li Weiguo whether he wanted to start a war with the United States, and Li Weiguo directly replied to the other party that he did not take the United States seriously at all.

Ma Shali was immediately discouraged, and he couldn't defeat Li Weiguo in civil and military fights and psychological warfare, so he was forced to hand over Kerry to Li Weiguo.

In front of Ma Shali and the US legation personnel, in front of the US military, and in front of all the Americans and Chinese in the US Concession, Li Weiguo sentenced Kerry to death on the spot, broke him down with one shot, and handed over his body to Ma Shali.

This move immediately stimulated Mashali and all the Americans, and the two sides immediately became tense and almost fought, when the British minister appeared in time to stop the two sides from fighting.

This incident spread all over Shanghai, and the people immediately became happy, and the common people rushed to tell each other, praising Li Weiguo as a contemporary Lin Zexu and a national hero.

After secret talks with Bao Ling and the French minister, Ma Shali left Shanghai and returned directly to the United States to report the situation.

Li Weiguo couldn't know what the three of them talked about, but he didn't have to think about it to know that these three guys must be plotting something.

Sure enough, three months later, the US government's newly appointed minister to China, Mai Lian, arrived in Shanghai, accompanied by the US Asian Fleet, which had just flaunted its military might in Japan and forced Japan to sign an unequal treaty.

The situation in Shanghai suddenly became tense. (To be continued......)