Near the Lingding Ocean in the southeast of Guangzhou, merchant ships flying the flags of Britain, France, the United States, and other countries broke the waves and marched back and forth between Hong Kong and Guangzhou.

The owners of these merchant ships were Europeans and Americans, but there were also unscrupulous Chinese, who, in order to make money, did not hesitate to take risks to smuggle guns and ammunition from the mainland to Hong Kong and sell them to the British, French and other militaries.

Ordinary weapons and ammunition would not attract the attention of the military of Britain and France at all, and they were not interested in buying the Great Qing Dynasty's firecracker guns and inferior hey medicine, because these things were too backward.

However, the military of Britain, France and other countries are interested in weapons and ammunition from Shanghai and other regions.

This is because Shanghai, under Li Weiguo, the Shanghai army is massively eliminating the traditional muskets, lead bullets, and heys, replacing them with patriotic rifles that use 9mm rifles, as well as smokeless gunpowder.

By the end of 1859, the 16 towns of the main force of the Shanghai army had completed the upgrading of equipment, and some of the traditional muskets they had eliminated, such as P1842, P1851 and other British muskets and local imitation musket models, were resold to Tsarist Russia for the Crimean War, and the other part was issued to the Shanghai Army B Regiment and the police and patrol forces in various places in Liangjiang, but the B Army only had four towns, and the police and patrol police were only 20,000 or 30,000 people, and they could not digest so many weapons. As a result, some of the weapons and ammunition flowed to local regiments in the surrounding areas to train their arms to help them train against the Taiping army and bandits.

At the same time, Li Weiguo's Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau built more than a dozen production lines in order to produce the local version of P1842 and P1851. At the same time, the world, except for the Shanghai army, entered the era of rifles. Only the army of Prussia entered the quasi-rifle age, and the armies of other countries were all in the era of muskets, and there was still a huge consumer market for muskets in the world.

Therefore, although the Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau has gone all out to produce patriotic rifles, the traditional musket production line has not been stopped, and it still produces P1842, P1851 and other muskets and ammunition on a large scale, with up to 100,000 muskets, 5,000 tons of hey medicine and 20,000 tons of raw lead for external sales every year to earn foreign exchange. Most of these weapons and ammunition were transported to Europe and the United States through the merchant fleets in Shanghai, where wars were frequent.

In recent years, the world has been full of wars, such as the Crimea region in southern Europe, the Indian national uprising in South Asia, the South American war, and the anti-colonial war in Africa. Whether it is the legitimate government army or the rebel army of various countries, they need a large number of weapons and ammunition, so that the Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau's muskets and ammunition sales are very good, and they quickly recoup their costs and begin to make a lot of profits.

Although the Shanghai army strictly restricted the flow of muskets and ammunition from the Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau into the hands of the Taiping, Hunan, Huai, and Qing armies in China, the merchants still took risks in the face of huge arms profits. After transporting the arms out of Shanghai, they secretly turned back and secretly sold them to the Huai army, the Hunan army, and even the Taiping army at a high price to obtain huge profits, which is why Zeng Guofan's Hunan army and Li Hongzhang's Huai army and other countries expanded the number of their own armies on a large scale in a short period of time.

Now greedy businessmen have begun to secretly sell arms to the British, French and other military forces. A large number of merchant ships were transporting food and arms to Hong Kong, and they didn't care that the British and French forces were about to attack their country, they only knew money.

On the north shore of Hong Kong Island, Victoria Harbour is busy.

Not far from Victoria Harbour is Victoria City. The castle, which had been under construction since the British occupied Hong Kong Island, was originally planned to be built into the most powerful star-shaped fortress in the Far East to defend against a large-scale Qing counteroffensive. However, the Qing army did not dare to attack Hong Kong Island from the beginning to the end, so after the fifties, the construction was stopped, the scale was reduced, and only some completed artillery positions remained.

At this time, there was only one main street on Hong Kong Island, called Hollywood Street, which connected Victoria Harbour and Victoria City, and led directly to the Governor's Palace in the center of the city.

At this time, in the conference room of the Hong Kong Governor's Palace, the new Governor of Hong Kong, Robinson (September 1859-March 1865), was reporting to the commander of the Allied Forces, Ergin, and the deputy commander Glo, and the British Minister Pruss, the French Minister Bourblon, the American Minister Warren, and the Russian Minister Ignatiev were present as observers.

"So far, we have stockpiled 50,000 muskets, 1,500 tons of hey medicine, and 1,000 tons of raw lead, and in order to cooperate with the coalition forces, we have captured 20,000 laborers from Guangzhou, who will provide logistics services for the coalition forces."

Hearing Robinson's report, Ergin and the others were immediately pleasantly surprised, and praised Robinson for being so powerful and completing a task that was difficult to accomplish in their eyes so quickly.

"Great, I thought that after the coalition forces arrived in Hong Kong, they would have to prepare for a while before they could launch an attack, but now that you have the supplies you have prepared for the coalition forces, I believe that our attack can be advanced. I will report back to the House of Lords and ask for credit for you, Your Excellency the Governor! ”

After Elgin finished speaking, Gro also said: "On behalf of the French government, I also thank His Excellency the Governor-General!" ”

However, while congratulating the American Minister Warren, who was in attendance, he suddenly raised a question.

"Ladies and gentlemen, don't you see the problem? 50,000 muskets, 1,500 tons of medicine, this is not so easy to raise food, this is military supplies, even in Europe I am afraid it is not so easy to raise, the Governor has just been in office for less than three months, and he has raised so many military supplies, I admire you at the same time, I also want to know one thing, in this backward East, where did so many weapons and ammunition come from? Don't you doubt it? ”

was reminded by Hua Ruohan, everyone nodded one after another, where did such a huge military material come from, you must know that 50,000 muskets and 1,500 tons of medicine are enough to arm a powerful army.

Ergin also suddenly realized this, turned to Robinson and asked, "Your Excellency, please answer Mr. Warrohan's question truthfully!" ”

Robinson then said: "I have seen that this batch of muskets is basically a copy of P1842 and P1851, and as far as I know, only one person in the Far East has received a complete set of P1842 and P1851 production technology from our British Empire. ”

Ergin immediately frowned and asked, "You mean that these weapons and ammunition were all purchased from Li Weiguo's hands?" ”

"It's incredible! Li Weiguo is our enemy! ”

"yes, that's the biggest joke I've ever heard! Let's hope not! ”

Everyone was amazed.

Robinson nodded and said, "In the Far East, only Li Weiguo's Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau has the ability to mass-produce P1842 and P1851 imitation muskets. We did not get these weapons and ammunition directly from Li Weiguo. It was obtained through the transfer of hands by Chinese businessmen, and if Li Weiguo knew that the weapons and ammunition produced by his arsenal were in our hands, he would probably be half angry! ”

Robinson laughed, but he didn't know that everyone, including Ergin, couldn't laugh.

The reason is very simple, they found that Li Weiguo's real strength is far stronger than they imagined, and the fact that Li Weiguo can sell such a huge amount of weapons and ammunition to the outside world can prove that the weapons and ammunition reserves in his hands are very sufficient, otherwise Li Weiguo would never allow the Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau to export weapons and ammunition to the outside world.

This is basic military common sense, but unfortunately Robinson doesn't understand it, but it doesn't mean that Ergin and others don't understand it.

Robinson laughed. Seeing that no one echoed him, he suddenly said embarrassedly: "What's the matter, is this worth our pleasure?" ”

Erjin smiled bitterly: "On the contrary, I thought that Li Weiguo's strength was very strong, so I have been sending a large number of people to collect his intelligence in the past year. Knowing that Li Weiguo's Shanghai army was very strong in combat and had recently expanded to more than 200,000 people in 16 towns, I temporarily applied to Downing Street to give the Indian royal family the benefit of mobilizing 100,000 Sikhs from India, so that the strength of our two sides was equal. Only then did we have the determination to defeat Li Weiguo. But from this batch of munitions, I saw the powerful military industrial capacity under Li Weiguo's hands, and I originally planned to come to a full-scale war and conquer the Qing Empire. But now it seems. If it drags on for one more day, we will be in danger of defeat, and the war against China can only be resolved quickly, because our logistical supply is too difficult. It is far less powerful and convenient than Li Weiguo. ”

Robinson roughly understood that the war was fought with the consumption of military supplies, and there were dozens or even hundreds of battles in a large-scale war. Every battle will lose soldiers, weapons and ammunition, gun damage, ammunition consumption, will be less and less, in the end whoever runs out of guns and ammunition first, then it is basically equivalent to losing the war.

Of course, there are many factors that determine the outcome of a war, and the above is only a purely military consideration.

"Order the coalition forces to give up resting in Singapore and quickly assemble in Hong Kong, we have been delaying for more than a year, and we can't drag it out any longer!"

Ergin gave the order, and Glo agreed.

At this time, the Russian minister Ignatiev stood up and said: "Since you are going to act in advance, then I must also report to my government as soon as possible." According to the previous agreement, on the one hand, our government will cover the military operations of the coalition forces under the pretext of mediation, and on the other hand, our government will also send troops to Siberia, and we will launch an attack from the northeast and northwest of the Qing Empire. ”

Ergin stood up and said: "Very good, although we are enemies in Europe, our interests in Asia and the entire Far East are the same, and I hope that this time we will cooperate happily." ”

Because in the espionage operation, a large number of Russians were executed as spies, which made the Tsarist government very annoyed, and originally planned to take advantage of the Anglo-French coalition army, but now the Tsarist Russian government has decided to act with the Anglo-French coalition army.

It's just that Britain, France, the United States, and Russia never expected that they hadn't started attacking Li Weiguo yet, and Li Weiguo had already taken action against them first.

A loud bang came, followed by a large earthquake trembling, like an eight-magnitude earthquake.

Ergin, who was hugging the beautiful woman, was suddenly paralyzed with fright, and he hurried out of the door, just as he met the guards who came to report in a hurry.

"Report to Your Excellency Commander, there has been an explosion in our arsenal!"

"What?"

When Ergin heard that the arsenal had exploded, his whole person was stunned.

At this time, a series of explosions were heard, and the ammunition in the arsenal was detonated one after another.

Ergin was awakened, and when he looked up, he saw that the flames in the direction of the arsenal in the distance were blazing, lighting up the entire night sky, as if the end of the world had come.

The sound of the explosion alarmed everyone on the whole island of Hong Kong, and Ergin hurriedly mobilized troops to try to rescue the guns and ammunition in the arsenal, but to his disappointment, all the rooms in the arsenal exploded almost simultaneously, and more than 50,000 muskets and more than 1,500 tons of medicine were destroyed.

"How is this possible?"

Shocked by the arrival of the Governor Robinson, he said: "We are very careful about storing medicines. Fifteen hundred tons of poison were stored separately in three rooms, and even if one room exploded accidentally, the other two rooms could not have exploded because of the great distance between them. ”

Ergin pointed to the corpses of several British soldiers near the arsenal and said angrily: "There is no need to think about it, this is clearly thinking that the explosion was made, you look at the wounds on their bodies, they were killed by a knife inserted into the heart from the lungs, this is a very professional killer's doing, they must have blown up the arsenal." ”

Only then did Robinson notice the corpses of several British soldiers around him. I thought it was killed by an explosion.

"Oh no, the granary in Kengshuiwan is also on fire!"

At this time, a British soldier suddenly ran and shouted, and Ergin suddenly stumbled when he heard it, and almost fainted.

"Damn it, go put out the fire, the ammunition depot is gone, we can't afford to lose the granary anymore!"

"No, immediately blockade Hong Kong Island, the enemy must still be nearby!"

Ergin was already in disarray. However, a large number of British troops were sent to blockade Hong Kong Island, preparing to capture the enemy who had blown up the arsenal and burned the granary.

On a small plateau near Taiping Mountain, Li Jun was observing the fire in the arsenal and granary through a telescope.

"The explosion of the ammunition depot was successful, and the enemy's weapons and ammunition should be fully reimbursed!"

"The fire in the granary was also very big. We destroyed the waterwheel, and even if they put out the fire, there wouldn't be much food left! ”

Li Jun nodded, as the commander of the panda burning incense this time. He's done with it.

Thirty elite agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., plus two hundred elite officers and soldiers drawn from various towns of the Shanghai Army, were carefully planned. Sneak attacks on the arrogant British arsenals and granaries will naturally succeed.

Yang Pei, an officer of the Shanghai Army, came to Li Jun's side with an excited face and asked: "At first, I thought that this operation required a strong attack to blow up the arsenal, but unexpectedly, you guys blew up the ammunition depot unconsciously, if we knew this, we wouldn't have used it, you people from S.H.I.E.L.D. are really powerful, admire!" ”

Li Jun smiled and said, "This time it was just a fluke, originally I also planned to storm the ammunition depot, but I got a batch of new equipment before leaving, so I changed my plan temporarily." ”

Yang Pei suddenly remembered the new equipment in Li Jun's hand and asked, "By the way, what are those new weapons you use?" ”

Li Jun said with a smile: "Some new scumbag medicines, we Lord Li personally made them. Like the dough thing called C4, something with a big fingernail cover is enough to detonate an entire ammunition depot, we disguised ourselves as laborers to carry ammunition in, and brought C4 in, and the British soldiers couldn't find out that it was scum. ”

Yang Pei exclaimed: "My lord, he is really powerful, but how did you make C4 detonate?" ”

Li Jun took out a small clockwork and pointed to it: "This is called clockwork, let's take it apart and bring the parts into it and assemble it again, combine it with C4, and set it to automatically detonate C4 after a few hours." ”

Yang Pei nodded, with an expression that was the same.

"By the way, the speed at which you burned the grain was really fast, a full hour faster than I expected, we just blew up the arsenal here, and the granary on your side also caught fire, how did you do it?"

This time it was Yang Pei's turn to be proud, he pointed to a jar behind his back, and said, "Do you see this?" This is called a flamethrower, which is compressed gasoline and air, as long as you press the button on the guard, you can spray out more than ten meters of flames, and the granary was ignited instantly. ”

Li Jun and Yang Pei touted each other, anyway, the task was completed, no matter how much they bragged, they knew in their hearts that the danger when they acted was definitely not as easy as they said, and it would definitely not work without real skills.

Soon, all the people involved in the operation were gathered, and a merchant ship came to meet them on the beach, and everyone quickly evacuated.

At dawn, the British army completely blocked Hong Kong Island and the surrounding waters, but Li Jun, Yang Pei and others had already fled. (To be continued......)