The news of the killing of the minister Sang Kun returned to the imperial capital, which immediately caused the Jinluan Palace to explode, causing a lot of trouble.

This is not a trivial matter, the dignified minister represents the imperial power, and the killing of the minister is equivalent to the emperor being slaughtered. In particular, the identity of this minister is even more unusual, he is the king of Mongolia, Xianfeng's brother-in-law, and it is said that he is still related to Zeng Lingqin, and his death can be said to have caused a big uproar.

The Sushun faction seized on this matter and did not let go, and it was Li Weiguo who killed people and killed them. However, in today's court, it is no longer the Sushun family, and Prince Gong's strength is also expanding.

Since Yi Xin returned to serve as the Minister of Military Aircraft Foreman, Xianfeng ordered Yi Xin to lead the Northern Qing Army to suppress the Northern Expeditionary Army of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom in Tianjin and Hebei, and finally succeeded in eliminating the Northern Expeditionary Army, which made Yi Xin very favored, and gained a foothold in the court with his military merits, and developed some forces, which could compete with the Sushun faction.

Yi Xin also has doubts about Li Weiguo in his heart, but from his standpoint, Li Weiguo must not be allowed to have an accident at this moment, because everyone knows that Li Weiguo is Yi Xin's faction, and once Li Weiguo has an accident, Yi Xin will inevitably be implicated and jointly responsible. At the same time, Li Weiguo is a member of the party who supports the army, echoing Yi Xin from afar, if something happens, it is equivalent to breaking Yi Xin's arm.

Yi Xin naturally understands these truths, so as long as Li Weiguo does not rebel for a day, Yi Xin has to take care of things for him and wipe his buttocks.

This is due to interests, so Yixin fought hard to refute Su Shun in the court and exonerated Li Weiguo.

But no matter how Yixin and Su Shun quarrel, the final decision lies with Xianfeng.

Originally, Xianfeng was a suspicious person, he suspected that Li Weiguo had hooked up with the Taiping Army in private from the beginning, but Sang Kun's death made Xianfeng hesitate again, the more he thought about it, the more he thought that there were many doubts in the middle, and then thought of the struggle between Su Shun and Li Weiguo, and said that Li Weiguo was framed by Su Shun and explained it.

Xianfeng's suspicious personality made him contradictory in this matter, after all, Li Weiguo was a local magistrate who held military power. If there is no conclusive evidence, Xianfeng does not want to move Li Weiguo, and he still expects Li Weiguo to exterminate the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, but he is not forcing Li Weiguo to rebel, especially when the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom is in full swing, it is too stupid to force Li Weiguo to rebel.

Back in the harem, Xianfeng naturally thought of Lan Guiren. Now Lan Guiren uses the mask and skin care products that Li Weiguo paid tribute to her every day, making Lan Guiren more and more white and beautiful, coupled with Lan Guiren's shrewdness, Xianfeng is so fascinated that Xianfeng can't do without her.

Especially in recent times. In addition to asking Lan Guiren to write and correct the folds, Xianfeng often talked to Lan Guiren about various court affairs, and also allowed Lan Guiren to express his opinions.

So Xianfeng told Lan Guiren about the Sangkun case and wanted to hear Lan Guiren's opinion.

It's just that Xianfeng didn't know that his favorite Lan Guiren had already secretly hooked up with Li Weiguo.

At this moment, as soon as Lan Guiren heard Xianfeng mention the Sangkun case, he naturally wanted to help Li Weiguo speak.

I only listened to Lan Guidao: "Your Majesty, the concubine thinks that Sang Kun died within the jurisdiction of Li Weiguo, and it must be that Li Weiguo learned that the emperor knew about his collusion with the Taiping Army." He has a weak heart, so he kills people and kills people. ”

Xianfeng nodded and continued to ask: "What Lan'er said has some truth, but with Li Weiguo's shrewdness. He knew that I had sent people to investigate him secretly, so how could he dare to kill people in broad daylight in his own territory? Even if you want to kill people, you have to clean yourself up first so that people don't doubt it! ”

Lan Guiren immediately made a surprised expression, pretended to be suddenly enlightened, and said, "Ah." When the emperor said this, Lan'er also felt reasonable. Indeed, if he wants to kill and kill his mouth, he should not be in his own territory. But if it wasn't Sangkun he killed, then who would kill Sangkun? ”

Xianfeng suddenly smiled: "Lan'er can see this layer, she is already smarter than many women." It's just that you don't understand politics, then Li Weiguo is the old man of the sixth child, and he has always worked against Su Shun's faction. It was Su Shun who reported that Li Weiguo colluded with the Taiping Army, and the suspicion of framing cannot be ruled out. ”

Lan Guiren said deliberately: "Hearing what the emperor said, the concubines seem to understand that if Li Weiguo really colludes with the rebels, it is indeed too unbelievable." The emperor still remembers the Meiling victory a few days ago, the Shanghai army eliminated the rebel North King Wei Changhui's 20,000 elite and 3,000 iron bear cavalry, I heard that the Taiping army has gone east, the Shanghai army is about to fight a decisive battle with it, if Li Weiguo colludes with the rebels, this doesn't make sense! ”

Being so "guided" by Lan Guiren, Xianfeng suddenly figured it out, and said: "It's not for Concubine Ai's reminder, I almost blamed Li Aiqing, if this is to force loyalty to rebel, wouldn't I be too mediocre!" ”

Thinking of this, Xianfeng immediately dictated, asked Lan Guiren to write on his behalf, and issued an edict to reward Li Weiguo for his contribution to recovering Hengzhou Mansion, adding the rank of right attendant of the military department, entering the first-class light car captain, and rewarding Hua Ling.

At this time, Li Weiguo, as the governor of Jiangnan, was only from the second-rank official position, and the addition of the title of the right attendant of the military department was equivalent to having the status of the second rank, and although the captain of the light car was the third grade, it belonged to the title and was superior. Especially at the end, the flower feather is something that countless officials dream of.

These things are of little use to Li Weiguo, to be precise, Li Weiguo is not rare at all, in his words, he hopes that Xianfeng will be practical, and it is better to give a few million taels of silver than anything else.

However, Li Weiguo is still very happy, not because of his promotion and reward, but because he has successfully fooled around the past again, temporarily stabilized Xianfeng, and can have more time to develop and strengthen his strength.

Of course, while Li Weiqing was fortunate, he also had to pay the price, because the Taiping Army's 100,000-strong army had already arrived in Longtan Town, and they exchanged fire with the Shanghai army in Longtan Town, and the battle was very fierce.

Li Weiguo's mind was instantly attracted to Longtan Town, because the general of the Taiping Army who led the 100,000 Taiping Army to the east was Shi Dakai.

For Shi Dakai, Li Weiguo still admires him very much, a rare famous general in modern history, but unfortunately he was born at the wrong time, and was suspected by Hong Xiuquan and finally left Tianjing and defeated the Dadu River.

Now that Shi Dakai was recalled by Hong Xiuquan and Yang Xiuqing from the battlefield on the Western Front (Wei Changhui was transferred to the Western Front) to preside over the Eastern Expeditionary Army, it can be seen that Hong Xiuquan and Yang Xiuqing were really angry about Li Weiguo's raid on Meiling and annihilation of the 23,000 elite of the Taiping Army.

Li Weiguo convened a military meeting and said to a cadre of staff and generals: "This will be a bloody battle, very arduous, and it will be the first real opponent of our Shanghai army since its establishment. ”

Li Weiguo's words are very domineering, in the eyes of others. As soon as he heard Shi Dakai's prestige, even if he wasn't startled, he would at most say something like 'you have a good strategy to retreat from the enemy', but when it came to Li Weiguo's mouth, the good strategy for retreating from the enemy became sweeping away the strong enemy, what a domineering thing this is!

When the staff members heard Li Weiguo's tone, they couldn't help but feel a wave of respect in their hearts, only such a leader can be qualified to dominate the world. Only with such an ambitious and domineering leader can there be a bright future.

Especially Li Hongzao, who had just joined Li Weiguo's group, was suddenly excited, and first said: "The Taiping Army's 100,000-strong army is crusading eastward. The scale is huge, Shi Dakai has just been transferred from the western front to the eastern front, the western front is bound to be unstable, just notify the Lord Zeng Guofan, and order his Hunan army to attack Jiujiang and Anqing, which will inevitably make the Taiping army worry about the safety of Tianjing and withdraw the troops, and when the time comes, the main force of the Shanghai army will take advantage of the situation to pursue, and it will inevitably be a big victory! ”

Li Hongzao finished speaking with confidence, but saw that all the staff and officers, including Li Weiguo, were silent.

Li Hongzao didn't know why. was immediately embarrassed, and thought that his strategy was not clever.

Wu Yong then smiled and said: "Lord Li's strategy is good, but it's a pity that our family went to Anhui some time ago and offended Hu Xueyan, a giant businessman in Anhui. And Hu Xueyan's brother is called Zuo Zongtang, and now he is quite valued under the account of Zeng Guofan, so that there is a gap between our family and Zeng Guofan, so it is a little difficult for your strategy to implement, Lord Li. ”

Li Hongzao suddenly realized. Only then did I remember that before I came, I had indeed heard that Li Weiguo led the army to Anhui to rob his relatives, which was no longer a secret, and this matter was spread throughout the capital and even the whole world.

Li Weiguo coughed lightly. Although he didn't see him blushing, he was still a little embarrassed, and his eyes signaled to Li Hongzao to apologize.

At this time, Chen Jingnan suddenly said: "Although it is unreliable to expect Zeng Guofan to send troops to deal with it, what Jiyun said reminds us, how about dividing troops to attack Tianjing?" ”

Jiyun is Li Hongzao's cousin, because Li Weiguo values Li Hongzao, so many people, including Chen Jingnan, call him by his cousin.

Wu Yong nodded and said: "What Mr. Chen said makes sense, the Taiping Army's 100,000 army is marching eastward, and the main force is currently forcing Longtan Town, and the defenders of my Jiangdong battalion can rely on the terrain of Xiaomao Mountain to defend, and then the troops of my Jiangnan battalion can go out of Maoshan and attack Tianjing through Xiaolingwei, even if they can't take Tianjing, they can also scare Hong Xiuquan and let him withdraw his troops." ”

Li Weiguo shook his head and said: "If the coach is Wei Changhui, then Hong Xiuquan and Yang Xiuqing are afraid that Tianjing will make a mistake, and it is possible for him to go back!" But the boss is Shi Dakai, this person is well versed in strategy and the art of war, and he must have seen our plan to encircle Wei to save Zhao, I don't think he will retreat. ”

Chen Jingnan said: "What the Lord said also makes sense! ”

At this time, Li Hongzao suddenly said, "Isn't there still a navy, my lord?" I heard that they are all advanced warships of foreigners, why not march from land and water and approach the city of Tianjing, maybe you can achieve miraculous results! ”

Li Hongzao's words made Wu Yong, Chen Jingnan and other staff members all shine in their eyes, and they all looked at Li Weiguo.

It's just that Li Weiguo frowned a little, although his East China Sea Fleet was well equipped, it was still only a short time old, and it had not yet formed a real combat effectiveness.

Seeing Li Weiguo's worries, Wu Yong said for him: "The East China Sea Fleet is still in training, and it is okay to be responsible for transporting troops, but if it really fights with the Taiping Army's naval division, it will take time." ”

Li Hongzao was suddenly a little disappointed.

However, Chen Jingnan said suddenly: "Although the training time of the East China Sea Fleet is still short, our goal in this battle is not really to capture Tianjing City, we only need to kill Hong Xiuquan by surprise, so that Hong Xiuquan has to ask Shi Dakai for help, as long as Shi Dakai divides his troops to help, we can concentrate our forces to encircle and annihilate it." ”

Li Weiguo thought about it, since the East China Sea Fleet was established, they should always be allowed to manage the baptism of blood and fire, and only after fighting a tough battle will the navy grow faster.

So Li Weiguo nodded and said, "Okay, let the East China Sea Fleet attack!" (To be continued......)