But no matter how angry he was, the Qing court was helpless in the face of Lin Zhe's establishment of the emperor, and now the Qing army in Jiangbei was too weak to protect itself, let alone cross the river to suppress it.

He Guiqing, the governor of Zhejiang, who had high hopes, also committed suicide in defeat, which made the Qing court regret and panic at the same time!

You must know that although there are many Qing troops in Zhejiang, there are at least 20,000 or 30,000 people in total, among which He Guiqing served as the governor of Zhejiang, and the new army trained was also quite capable of fighting, and there were mutual victories and defeats in southern Anhui and the Taiping army.

However, Hangzhou failed to hold even half a month, and Zhejiang Province was taken by Yu Shengjun within two months, which made the Qing court have a more intuitive understanding of Yu Shengjun's combat strength.

In the past, they knew that Yu Shengjun's combat effectiveness was very strong, but in the end, they had not faced it directly, they only knew that Yu Shengjun's Taiping Army was defeated and retreated, and they thought that Yu Shengjun's combat power was very strong, so they simply imitated Yu Shengjun to train the new army, and the new army of the Eight Banners and the Green Battalion will not talk about it for the time being.

However, Li Hongzhang's Jianghuai New Army won more with less and conquered Yangzhou in one fell swoop, and the new army trained by Hu Linyi and other Hunan generals in Hubei was also very effective in combat and conquered Wuchang.

This also confirms the strength of Yu Shengjun's combat power from the side, and at the same time, it also makes Ru curious, this copycat version of the Jianghuai New Army and the Hubei New Army have such combat power, so how strong is the combat power of Yu Shengjun as a genuine version?

Now the Qing army on the Zhejiang side was easily defeated by a partial division of Yu Shengjun, and Zhejiang was completely taken within two months, which made the Qing court high-level have an intuitive feeling of Yu Shengjun's combat power.

And this intuitive feeling also brought them greater panic!

This is a partial division of thousands of Yu Sheng's army with such combat power, so what kind of combat power does the main force of Yu Sheng's army hoarded in southern Jiangsu have?

If the main force of Yu Sheng's army crossed the river and went north at that time, would the Jianghuai New Army and other Qing troops be able to resist it?

For this self-question, even the arrogant high-level Qing court is not confident, the Northern Expedition of the Taiping Thief Army, the Qing court has mobilized more than 100,000 people to intercept everywhere, and they are all beaten all the way to Zhili.

If it is replaced by the more powerful Yu Shengjun, will the Qing army still be able to stop it?

With this panic, on the one hand, the Qing court ordered the southern provinces to strictly defend and send troops to conquer Zhejiang and Jiangsu, and on the other hand, it used all its strength to organize and train a new army.

However, the Qing court no longer had much hope for the southern provinces, among the southern provinces, Zhejiang and southern Jiangsu had been occupied by Lin Zhe's Chinese Empire, southern Anhui, southwestern Jiangsu, and some areas in northern Anhui, and northern Jiangxi were occupied by the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. The area south of Nanchang in Jiangxi Province is occupied by Lin Chengting.

Although the two provinces of Huguang have troops, they can't take a Jiujiang, unless they can fly over northern Jiangxi, southern Anhui and other places, otherwise don't expect them to march into southern Jiangsu and Zhejiang. Guangdong is also facing the threat of foreigners and the threat of Lin Chengting's southward, while Fujian, although it is still in the hands of the Qing court, is originally a very typical poor province with few people and many mountains, and it is simply unable to muster up many troops to resist Lin Chengting's eastward advance, or resist the southward advance of Yu Sheng's army in the north.

Letting the southern provinces advance and suppress Yu Shengjun is an empty word!

Therefore, in the face of Lin Zhe's imperial system, the most direct and effective means of the Qing court was to organize and train new armies in the northern provinces.

It is worth noting that this time, the object of the Qing court's vigorous support no longer includes Li Hongzhang's Jianghuai New Army.

In the past two years, Li Hongzhang's Jianghuai New Army, together with the Eight Banners New Army, has also been the main object of support from the imperial court, and the cumulative military expenditure has been no less than millions.

However, after Lin Zhe openly rebelled, it also made the Qing court more worried about the local regimental training run by the local governor, fearing that Zeng Guofan, Li Hongzhang and others would also follow in Lin Zhe's footsteps and raise a rebellion.

Therefore, since the end of last year, the imperial court has focused on the training of the new army in the Eight Banners and the training of the new army in various provinces.

However, the Eight Banners New Army is really muddy and can't support the wall, and even the Manchu magnates who insist on supporting the training of the Eight Banners New Army have to admit that the Eight Banners are really rotten, and it is more difficult to train the New Army from it than to ascend to the sky.

In the past two years, the imperial court has spent millions of taels of military expenditure in order to train the Eight Banners New Army, but now although nearly 10,000 Eight Banners New Army has been formed, as long as you go to the barracks of these Eight Banners New Army, you will find that there are not many people in the barracks on weekdays.

In contrast, the training of the army, which did not receive much support from the imperial court before, was done well

In the first half of last year, the Qing court recruited new soldiers and organized and trained a Gyeonggi training army, and in the second half of the year, the Qing court continued to increase investment, and in order to raise military expenses for the Gyeonggi training army, a large number of green battalions in the Gyeonggi area and Zhili and other places were eliminated, and the freed up military expenses were used for the training of the Gyeonggi training army and the Zhili training army.

By the beginning of 1857, the Qing court had organized more than 8,000 people in the 'Gyeonggi Training Army' and more than 5,000 people in the 'Zhili Training Army'.

What is military training? Its name is taken from the 'cutting the old and training the new', which is basically the meaning of the new training army, and its military system imitates the Yu Shengjun, the Hunan army, and the Jianghuai New Army.

Due to the shortage of foreign guns, there were about 13,000 people in the Gyeonggi Training Army and the Zhili Training Army, but they were equipped with less than 4,000 foreign guns and less than 10 foreign guns, most of which were still equipped with old-style arquebuses and artillery, and cold weapons were also commonly equipped.

However, even so, these training troops that are still being organized and trained have become the most important armed forces in the central government of the Qing court, and at present, the Gyeonggi training army and the Zhili training army have successively moved south to Henan, and northern Anhui has advanced to suppress the twisted army.

As for the Hunan Army and the Jianghuai New Army, although they are more and their combat effectiveness is stronger, everyone knows that these armies are the private armies of those generals and do not belong to the imperial court.

From this point of view, it can also be said that this training army is a successful example of the Qing court's formation and training of the new army in recent years!

What the Qing court has to do now is to continue to increase the pace of training the army in Gyeonggi and Zhili, and at the same time, it is also an edict to order local governors in Shanxi, Henan, Shandong, and the three eastern provinces to organize and train new troops.

If the Qing court is given enough time, it is not impossible to get more than 100,000 training troops!

Not to mention how the Qing court and the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom reacted, but Lin Zhe continued to rectify internal affairs and sent troops out!

On February 20, 1857, Lin Zhe issued an edict on the reorganization of the Royal Chinese Army.

The army part of Yu Shengjun was renamed the 'Royal Chinese Army', and the accompanying camp school was changed to the 'Royal Chinese Army Military Academy'.

In addition to the name change, Lin Zhe also officially ordered the mixed regiments in each infantry division to be reorganized into pure infantry regiments, and the artillery and other units under it were directly under the jurisdiction of the divisional headquarters of each infantry division, so as to form a real division-level establishment force.

As a matter of fact, this kind of reorganization began two months ago, and after two months, the divisions have completed the gradual integration, and although the mixed regiments still bear the name of mixed regiments, the auxiliary units under each division have already been transferred to the direct jurisdiction of the division headquarters, and now the units under the second and third divisions can directly change their names.

The Fourth Infantry Division was a little more troublesome, but Lin Zhe had already decided to upgrade the 10th Mixed Regiment to the 10th Mixed Brigade that went south to Fujian, and the other 8th Mixed Regiment and 9th Mixed Regiment were reorganized on the spot.

At the same time, all the original first-class auxiliary defense regiments and some second-class auxiliary defense regiments were upgraded to regular infantry regiments of the Yusheng Army, and all divisions and mixed brigades were added to make each division and brigade reach full strength.

By the time Lin Zhe led his army to Changzhou, the Royal Chinese Army had been organized into five infantry divisions and two mixed brigades, and the above-mentioned troops had achieved the basic establishment of three infantry regiments under the jurisdiction of the division and two infantry regiments under the jurisdiction of the mixed brigade.

However, artillery, artillery, baggage and other arms are strictly lacking, and only the First Infantry Division is really full, and among other units, the Second Infantry Division has only three artillery companies, two baggage battalions, and one cavalry company. The 3rd Infantry Division also had only two artillery companies, a baggage battalion, and a cavalry company.

The 4th Infantry Division had four artillery companies, two baggage battalions, and one cavalry company.

The Fifth Infantry Division is a completely new unit, and although it is organized according to the full strength, in fact many artillery pieces are not in place, but one of the cavalry regiments to which it belongs is fully formed.

At present, the total strength of the above-mentioned troops is about 40,000 people, of which only half are veterans and elites, a small half are pure recruits, and some are soldiers who have been upgraded from the auxiliary defense regiment.

However, this is also a necessary measure to build a large number of regular troops, even if the combat effectiveness is reduced, we must endure it.

In addition to the reorganization of a large number of regular troops, Lin Zhe also rectified and changed the auxiliary defense regiments, unified and reorganized a large number of the original second-class auxiliary defense regiments and third-class auxiliary defense regiments, and abolished the previous distinction between first-class, second-class, and third-class defense regiments. In accordance with the principle of proximity and taking the three auxiliary defense regiments as the benchmark, a total of eight auxiliary defense divisions from the 1st Auxiliary Defense Division to the 8th Auxiliary Defense Division were organized and trained.

Each of these auxiliary divisions numbered about 4,000 men, and was basically equipped with local materials, mainly equipped with captured arquebuses, cold weapons, and some old small-caliber artillery.

The total strength is about 30,000 people, but although there are quite a few people, the combat effectiveness of the auxiliary defense force is not good, not to mention that a small number of first-class auxiliary defense regiments and second-class auxiliary defense regiments that can fight have been transferred to the royal army, so the combat effectiveness of these newly formed auxiliary defense regiments is really worrisome, and some of them can only serve as civilian coolies, and the other part can only be used as cannon fodder.

Regardless of whether it is good or bad, the Royal Army and the Auxiliary Defense Force combined, the total number of army troops of the nascent Chinese Empire is nearly 70,000, and if you add 5,000 people in the navy, then the entire armed forces of the Chinese Empire are about 75,000 people, and if you add a little water, it is said that there is no problem at all with 100,000.

The vast majority of the above-mentioned troops are stationed in southern Jiangsu, near Tianjing, in northern Zhejiang, and southern Anhui, and it would be a waste to hoard such a large number of troops in this area, if they do not fight!

On February 28, Lin Zhe personally drove the expedition and commanded the 1st, 3rd, 5th and 3rd Divisions of the Royal Army from Changzhou to the west.

And the Chinese Empire's westward expedition also rekindled the war in the south of the Yangtze River! (To be continued.) )