At the end of the Imperial Council, Lin Hong received the task of "dividing the river and ruling the country", asking to occupy Guangdong, Yunnan, Guizhou, Sichuan, Hunan, most of Hubei, Jiangxi, Fujian, and Zhejiang. The rewards are, of course, exciting, unlocking the Steam Ironclad and related technologies and the Napoleonic Total War civilian tech tree.

Recently, there has been a noticeable agitation in the Royal Army barracks in Guangzhou, where more than 60,000 troops are stationed, namely the Royal Instructor, the Second and Fifth Divisions of the Royal Army. The 3rd Division of the Imperial Imperial Army was stationed in Shanghai, and the 1st Division was now being repaired in Jinling to Nanjing. The 4th Division was stationed in Zhennanguan and was in charge of southern Guangxi, while the 6th Division was in Hainan, and because Emperor Lin Hong moved to Guangzhou, the royal instructor also came to Guangzhou. At present, Lin Hong's army, in addition to the royal instructor and the Praetorian Guard Division, is composed of personnel from the whole system, and his army is composed of ordinary soldiers with system soldiers, which is equivalent to veterans leading new soldiers.

In the eyes of the ordinary soldiers of the Second and Fifth Divisions, the royal instructor is a legendary term, and he lives in a simple place, and he also finds a place where there is no one to train. In private, the soldiers all looked at each other and discussed, this royal mentor was the descendant of the emperor's lineage, and he had powerful weapons in his hands, and each soldier beat them at least ten. There is also gossip that the overseas people of our empire are the backbone of the people, and the reason why these overseas people obey the orders of the current emperor is because this teaching teacher is too powerful, and all the princes have to obey it.

Since May, the originally idle barracks of the Guangzhou barracks have also become lively, and the recruits of the Second and Fifth Divisions have watched dumbfounded as the six division-level troops have entered the barracks.

From the 8th, 11th, 13th Divisions of the Royal Army on the first day, to the 17th, 9th, 12th Divisions on the second day. Among them, the 8th Division is still a cavalry division with all tall horses.

In Shanghai, Nanjing and other places, the 10th, 14th, 15th and 16th divisions were also stationed.

Situ Jia was the chief of staff of the Second Division, and after seeing so many troops stationed, his first thought was that His Majesty the Emperor was going on a northern expedition.

Situ Jia's guess was very accurate, and at the mobilization meeting of officers at and above the battalion level held on the evening of 5 March, the officers were initially informed of the operational deployment strategy for the Northern Expedition. The empire will mobilize nearly 200,000 troops from 10 divisions from overseas to cooperate with the original four divisions in Guangdong and Shanghai, and at the same time go north in three directions.

Situ Jia, who had finished the mobilization meeting, couldn't calm down for a long time, and Zhang Fu, his deputy chief of staff next to him, was already sluggish, "200,000 troops, how many provinces does Your Majesty want to take, is it to unify the whole country?" ”

Situ Jia said lightly: "The rice has to be eaten in one bite, with an army of 200,000, the emperor has taken a fancy to the south, and he wants to rule the river with the Manchu Qing Dynasty." He patted Zhang Fu and said: "The Northern Expedition of the Empire, my second and fifth divisions have been entrusted with important tasks for more than half a year, and we can't be compared to the brothers who are not moving. ”

The two divisions of the original Guangdong, Wu Mengfei and Bai Tangzheng, both had the rank of major general, and the later Wu Qing, Yu Yang and Guo Huaijiu all had the rank of brigadier general. In other words, if you become a division commander, you will become a general.

Nowadays, it is common for the Royal Army to have high ranks and low ranks. As in normal circumstances, the division commander is a brigadier general, the brigade commander is a colonel, the regiment commander is a lieutenant colonel, the battalion commander is a major, the company commander is a captain and lieutenant, and the platoon commander is a second lieutenant. After the formation of the Second and Fifth Divisions, he was directly promoted to the chief of staff of the Fifth Division, but his rank was the rank of major, and among all the chiefs of staff of other divisions, he was also the youngest of the ranks (the others were all parachutes), and the others were the least lieutenant colonels. So this time, he desperately wants to be able to participate in the battle and get honored.

In the autumn of 1831, when Lin Hong's second division captured Guangzhou, Qi Gong, the governor of Liangguang, was dealing with the purchase of private houses outside the city.

At the beginning, Daoguang originally planned to appease the rebellious people in the south (what did he think), so he warned the governor of Liangguang to stay still, knowing that the empire's expulsion order, Daoguang could not do anything, but when the Manchus were discussing who would lead the troops and transfer troops. The Northern Expedition began, and Wu Mengfei, commander-in-chief of the Western Route Army of the Imperial Army, led the 2nd, 9th, 11th, and 17th Divisions from Gaozhou to Lianzhou.

In 1831, when the emperor's ** team captured Guangzhou, Daoguang had ordered to send reinforcements from surrounding provinces into Guangdong for defense, and Liang Zhangju, the governor of Guangxi, escorted 2,000 Guangxi soldiers, together with Huguang soldiers, etc., obeyed the command of Yishan to suppress thieves.

After the fall of Guangzhou, it gave Guangxi several major shocks and insecurity, and the successor of the famous minister Liang Zhangju, Zhou Zhiqi, was a more famous poet in the late Qing Dynasty, and after serving as the governor of Guangxi, he also had suggestions on disaster relief and agricultural affairs. However, as a good governor, he lacked sufficient knowledge and preparation for our Imperial Army. Out of arrogance, he also looked down on Qi Gong, the governor of Liangguang who was thick enough to claim that he could only be a Taiping general and never lead troops to fight.

Zhou Zhiqi heard that the southern thieves were interested in firearms, so he ordered several skilled craftsmen known as You Shan firearms brought by his spies from Vietnam to make muskets, but what these craftsmen could make was only the earlier front-loading smoothbore guns, and the small production mode of the handicraft workshop had extremely limited output.

Before these muskets could be equipped with the Guangxi Green Battalion, Wu Mengfei's 40,000-strong army had already marched into Guangxi. Wu Mengfei's Western Route Army was actually divided into two routes, one from the north, out of Xinyi, to attack Yulin Mansion in Guangxi, and one route from Wu Dafei personally to take Lianzhou Mansion from the south.

Zhuge Geng, who had set out earlier, led the 9th and 15th Divisions to successfully take Luchuan County, Yulin Prefecture, and was attacking Bobai.

Zhuge Geng's face was white and beardless, but he liked to keep touching his non-existent beard, he touched his chin and said, "I didn't plan to use it twice in one scheme." Bobai and Luchuan counties looked at each other, and the sound of guns and cannons in Luchuan was chaotic, and no matter how stupid Bobai was, he knew that it was the southern thief who came over. ”

The staff officer did not correct his joke, but said: "Then general, whether we continue to besiege the city or forcibly attack the city, the artillery regiment is ready." ”

Zhuge Geng looked at Bobai's low city wall and the few frightened Qing soldiers standing on the city wall, and said with a slight smile: "Artillery, hehe, let's each do artillery today!" ”

Then he ordered 20,000 soldiers to make Bobai impassable, and distributed many cone-shaped improvised microphones to the soldiers, and instructed the soldiers to shout: "The county officials of Bobai should quickly raise the city and surrender, otherwise there will be no artillery bombardment of the city, and there will be no tiles left!" ”

This shout, everyone shouted in unison, shouted endlessly, and shouted dozens of times.

It didn't take long for Bobaizhi County to open the city gate, tie himself out of the city, and surrender the city.

The staff officer grinned and said, "General, this plan of 10,000 artillery bombardments of the city is really powerful!" ”

Zhuge Geng smiled slightly, and said: "There are only more than 100 people in Bobai's garrison, and the city is small, so it can't be defended, I just give this 'love of the people like a son' a reason for the county to surrender." ”

He looked at the sky and ordered: "Surrender the weapons of the Qing soldiers, leave 300 infantry to defend the city, and the army will continue to go north with me, and the next target will be Yulin." ”

After Zhuge Geng took two cities in a row, the Western Route Army finally encountered the first wave of fierce resistance from the Qing army. On the evening of May 15, Wu Mengfei's unit arrived at the outskirts of Hepu, the Lianzhou Governance Office, and the sergeants did not light fires or make noise, but only ate dry food and slept in clothes.

In the early morning of March 16, 1832, the artillery regiment of the 2nd Division opened fire on the city of Hepu with the flying wind. Under the shells of several new, large-caliber rifled guns, the eastern gate of Hepu City was vulnerable and was shattered by shells. Immediately, Wu Mengfei ordered a regiment of troops to break into the city and occupy the city.

It's just that when Jiang Chenqu, the leader of the siege regiment, led his troops to attack the city gate, he was attacked by the Qing soldiers who had been ambushed inside the city gate for some time.

"Kill, a southern thief has two taels of silver for his head, brothers!" The Qing army general shouted and stepped forward with his sword.

The second division was a unit during the Guangdong War, in addition to good war quality, there was also a good war experience, not to mention that the second division was recruited for Lin Hong's self-built imperial soldiers, although now both equipment and tactics have changed, but the courage of the soldiers is still undiminished. Jiang Chenqu's regiment had already been bayoneted when it entered the city, although it was caught off guard by the ambush, but Jiang Chenqu shouted loudly and formed a dense circle formation, and started a white-edged battle with the Qing soldiers, because led by the system soldiers, the empire absolutely suppressed the Qing soldiers in the white-knuckle battle.

At 2 o'clock in the afternoon, the whole city was cleared, and the siege regiment suffered heavy casualties, and only 30% of the strength remained.