Li Hongzhang was shocked, even if Li Hui had never bragged in his impression, he couldn't fully believe it, "So many people? I'm coughing and coughing, I'm afraid there weren't so many when the former Qing was in its prime! ”

"Of course, most of them can only be qualified as company commanders, uh, a company is about 200 people", Li Hui explained roughly, and then said that officers are only a part of the talents in the door, "Momen is always best at cultivating scientific and technological personnel, compared to the officers who can be quickly trained in China, they are the real treasures!" ”

"Before, the door was skeptical about whether I could succeed, but now Juzi and the elders have full confidence, and the support is naturally better than before, besides, even if it is only for the hundreds of millions of taels of silver I sent back, they have to show something!" , Li Hui's lies became more and more slippery, and he casually explained the suspicion that almost all the gold and silver confiscated would soon disappear, and at the same time expressed his trust in Lao Li through these "secrets" that would have to be disclosed to the public sooner or later, "No way, the island is so big, it is impossible to be self-sufficient in everything, and gold and silver can be bought anywhere, and the size is small, and it is more conducive to secrecy to give them gold and silver directly than to supply materials, and the location of Xia Ke Island cannot be disclosed in any case."

"Hundreds of millions of taels of silver? So much has been seized in such a short time, this has to raid most people's homes? Li Hongzhang was in a cold sweat when he heard this, and he was unprecedentedly afraid of Li Hui, and couldn't help but secretly congratulate himself on his previous choice, "I really can't imagine that this kid is so ruthless, if the old man has been holding his neck and refusing to agree, I'm afraid that our Li family will really be destroyed by him."

Although Li Hongzhang actually knew that Li Hui was already very polite to him, especially after his letters did have an obvious effect. But then again, the news of Li Hongzhang's surrender to the rebel army alone was enough to have a great psychological impact on officials all over the world.

Zhang Xu, the governor of Shanxi, was seriously ill and dying, and was overly frightened after learning the bad news of the fall of the Manchu Dynasty and the death of the empress dowager and the emperor, and died on the same day, leaving Shanxi officialdom in a situation where the dragons were leaderless. A group of officials were not only afraid of the approaching soldiers of the rebel army, but also had Li Hongzhang's letter to descend the steps, and finally Shanxi surrendered without a fight, and an infantry brigade and a military police regiment of the rebel army quickly entered Taiyuan to take over the defense, and the Qing army in Shanxi was reorganized, and Shanxi also became the first province to be peacefully liberated.

Contrary to the situation in Shanxi, Lu Chuanlin, the governor of Sichuan, and Tao Mo, the governor of Shaanxi and Gansu, had just taken office and had not gained a firm foothold in the local area at all. Fortunately, none of them were stupid, and they wisely declared an uprising before their subordinates, at least they made meritorious contributions to save the family.

Sichuan, Shaanxi, and Gansu provinces were thus liberated peacefully, but due to the lack of authority of the two men, there were still some officials who were loyal to the Manchu Qing or had personal ambitions who supported the army and stood on their own, occupied the county seat and even the state capital, and stubbornly resisted the takeover and reorganization of the rebel army, and it was not basically pacified until the beginning of winter.

When the news of the collapse of the Qing court reached Fujian, tens of thousands of troops under his command collapsed instantly, and the Qing army garrison was scattered, and there were less than 1,000 troops left in Fuzhou City, and the troops that Bian Baoquan could command in Fuzhou City were less than 1,000 people.

Although tens of thousands of clan members were just a rabble in Li Hui's eyes, it was enough to frighten Bian Baoquan to abandon the city and flee, but this escape completely destroyed their last bit of morale

Because the bandits didn't know Bian Baoquan's identity (Bian Baoquan claimed to be the governor of Fujian and Zhejiang when he begged for mercy, but his down-and-out appearance didn't look like it. ), attacking them purely to get a vote, no one went to Fuzhou to receive the reward afterwards, and their destruction of the corpse was very complete, and the whereabouts of Bian Baoquan actually became a historical mystery

The success of the Fujian uprising left a certain hidden danger for the future development of Fujian, but the benefits were also obvious, and the complete takeover of the Fuzhou Shipping Bureau made the navy deeply excited. Although Li Hui thought that the Majiang River was shallow and unsuitable for the construction of a large-scale shipbuilding base, and was willing to move it to another place, he was still deeply pleased to be able to accept the teachers of the Fuzhou Shipbuilding School and the technical personnel of the Mawei Shipyard one by one.

Moreover, the Fujian soldiers took it without blood, and there was a greater advantage, that is, the troops sent by Li Hui to capture Fuzhou could go straight to Guangzhou without repairing, so that as long as Li Hongzhang's letter was used to persuade Li Hanzhang, the governor of Liangguang, to surrender, they could immediately take over Guangzhou.

As one of the first cities in China to open up to the outside world (long before the Opium War), Guangzhou can be said to be the third largest wealth center in China, after Beijing and Shanghai, if you don't count Hong Kong, which was occupied by the British, and after the rebel army landed in Guangzhou, it was possible to attack Hong Kong by land!

Although Li Hanzhang's talent and fame are far inferior to his brother's, after all, he has been mixed in the officialdom for so many years, and he has long known that the Qing court only relied on the inertia of ruling China for more than 200 years and Cixi's clever power to hold on to the shelf, so he naturally understood what it meant for the center to be destroyed, not to mention that his younger brother wrote a letter to persuade him, Li Hanzhang quickly made a wise choice.

This relieved Deng Shichang (Note 1), commander of the Chinese coastal defense fleet in charge of the Guangdong raid, and Li Hui, who was far away in Beijing, finally slept peacefully after seeing the good news on the system's message board

Note 1: Li Hui's original plan was that the second ship of Zhijing and nearly 10,000 troops would set off for Fuzhou first, while the four ships of Dingzhen Jinglai and nearly 20,000 troops would go straight to Guangzhou under the command of Deng Shichang, but due to the success of the Fuzhou uprising, an infantry brigade originally intended to conquer Fuzhou (leaving a military police regiment) and the second ship of Zhijing to escort it went south to Guangzhou to meet Deng Shichang according to the No. 2 plan, at this time there were a total of six ships and more than 26,000 army forces in Guangzhou, even if Li Hanzhang did not surrender. It is not too difficult to storm and take Guangzhou. (To be continued.) )