PS: The end of the previous chapter has been modified, so let's go back and take a look at it again, so that we can connect with the plot of the current chapter!

When the news of what happened in Xinjiang reached the Chinese army, it was already late September, and the news was still learned from some Qing prisoners.

Although the Qing army drew a large number of troops from Xinjiang before, there were still a small number of garrison troops, and these few garrison Qing troops were Agubai's opponents, and they could not be said to be defeated, but they had all collapsed before they got close, otherwise there would not be so many Qing troops who knew the news from Xinjiang.

Replacing Shi Qingxuan as the new commander of the Sixth Army was Bian Chengxun, the former commander of the Eighth Division, and the reason why he was able to replace Shi Qingxuan as the commander of the Sixth Army can be said to be something he himself never expected.

Because of the outstanding military exploits of the Sixth Army, it has become the most powerful unit in the Chinese army, and the previous commander of the army, Shi Qingxuan, is a veritable first general in the Chinese army, and his combat achievements are incomparably prominent, so the next army commander should also be a military boss, such as several other current army commanders.

At least when Shi Qingxuan was transferred back to Nanjing to serve as chief of the Joint Staff, many people were eyeing the position of commander of the Sixth Army, such as Shen Chiyun, commander of the First Army, Chen Yuntao, commander of the Third Army, Qu Panyun, commander of the Seventh Army, and Song Xiangtang, commander of the First Division, senior major general, who were also extremely interested in the position of commander of the Sixth Army.

However, at that time, Lin Zhe did not appoint the commander of the Sixth Army at the first time, but asked Bian Chengxun, the commander of the Eighth Division, to temporarily act as the affairs of the Sixth Army.

However, just when everyone, including Byun Sung-hoon himself, thought that he was just a temporary head of the transition period. In late July, Lin Zhe directly removed the word 'acting' from Bian Chengxun. Bian Chengxun was directly appointed as the second commander of the Sixth Army.

This is arguably the most surprising appointment in the Chinese Imperial Military in the past two years!

In the past, Lin Zhe was generally extremely cautious and conservative in the appointment of military generals. Not to mention the army commander, even an ordinary division commander is carefully considered.

According to Lin Zhe's traditional appointment habits, one person should be selected from several relatively idle army commanders to serve as the commander of the Sixth Army, and no matter how bad it is, a major general with deep qualifications and talents should be selected, such as Xu Peng'an, an old qualified division commander of the same era as Shi Qingxuan and others, and for example, he has outstanding military achievements, the main vanguard of the Northern Expedition, conquered Beiping, and is known as killing Xianfeng and capturing Zaichun and many other Manchu royal dignitaries. Song Xiangtang, the commander of the first division of Prince Gong.

In the contemporary Chinese army, in addition to those bigwigs at the rank of lieutenant general, these two major generals are the most famous, and they are also the major generals who are most likely to be promoted in the near future.

However, whether it was Shen Chiyun and other army commanders or senior division commanders such as Song Xiangtang and Xu Pengan, they were not able to sit on the throne of the commander of the Sixth Army.

The commander of the Sixth Army was taken over by Bian Chengxun, the commander of the Eighth Division, who had a slight reputation in the army but was seriously lacking in qualifications.

Bian Chengxun, like many senior military generals, is a student who graduated from the first phase of the Suiying Academy, and his early experience is not mentioned. In 1857 he was still a lieutenant colonel.

At the end of 1857, Shi Qingxuan formed the Sixth Army, and Bian Chengxun was transferred to the Eighth Division of the Sixth Army, first serving as the commander of the 23rd Regiment, and this transfer brought him the rank of colonel. Subsequently, he concurrently served as the chief of staff of the Eighth Division and began to take full responsibility for the formation and training of the Eighth Division.

At the beginning of 1858, the 8th Division was officially formed. Because he assisted Shi Qingxuan in the formation and training of the Eighth Division, he explored a new type of infantry warfare. He made meritorious contributions to the use of rear-loading rifles and tactics, and was appointed by Lin Zhe as the first commander of the Eighth Division. He was also successfully promoted to major general, and in less than a year, he was promoted two levels in a row.

In the later battles of Shanghai, Liaocheng, Jinan, and Tianjin, the Eighth Division under the command of the Sixth Army won frequently, and it can even be said that it was never defeated.

However, since he fought under a famous general like Shi Qingxuan, he had to have the consciousness that he blocked all the light, and the frequent victories of the Sixth Army brought Shi Qingxuan a huge reputation, and everyone attributed the success of the new tactics of the Sixth Army to Shi Qingxuan, which led to a very low sense of existence among other generals of the Sixth Army such as Bian Chengxun.

But even if his reputation is not obvious, many officers within the military have never heard of Bian Chengxun's name, but Lin Zhe has always had a very profound impact on him.

When Shi Qingxuan was training the Sixth Army, when he was exploring new infantry tactics, he could never leave Bian Chengxun's assistance, and Bian Chengxun's role in the formation of the Sixth Army was not much less than that of Shi Qingxuan, otherwise he would not have been promoted two levels in a short period of time last year and then promoted to the commander of the Eighth Division in one step, crossing the threshold that countless school officers could not cross, and becoming a major general of the army.

In the subsequent series of battles, Bian Chengxun also gave full play to the advantages of new infantry tactics, won several great victories in a row, and won the title of viscount for himself.

The Sixth Army is the unit that Lin Zhe focuses on, others don't know, but Lin Zhe, the commander of every battalion below of the Sixth Army, knows a little about it, and he is familiar with the resumes of officers above the regiment commander, so when Bian Chengxun's name appears on many good news, it naturally makes Lin Zhe's influence on him more profound.

So although the previous Bian Chengxun was not well-known within the Chinese military, he was already in the heart of the emperor, but Lin Zhe didn't say that no one could know, and even Bian Chengxun himself didn't know.

After Shi Qingxuan was transferred from the Sixth Army this summer, Lin Zhe suppressed the criticism within the military and personally promoted Bian Chengxun, a rising star in the military, to the position of commander of the Sixth Army.

Even in order to allow Bian Chengxun to gain a firm foothold in the position of commander of the Sixth Army, Lin Zhe sent him a letter of appointment as the commander of the Sixth Army, and also gave him the epaulette of the lieutenant general of the army, as well as a bunch of miscellaneous rewards, such as a mansion located in the inner city of Nanjing, a Yanma bred by the Royal Horse Farm, and a saber worn by Lin Zhe in his early years.

Lin Zhe told the other senior generals of the military through a series of rewards. This person is valued by Lao Tzu, don't worry about dragging him back.

All this is to allow Bian Sung-hoon, who can be said to be seriously lacking, to gain a foothold. Don't fall in the face of criticism.

Bian Chengxun gained Lin Zhe's importance, and his heart was naturally full of excitement. And his reward to Lin Zhe was to take Xi'an and recover the whole of Shaanxi.

And when he was waiting to take Lanzhou and report the victory to Nanjing, he learned from many military prisoners that a person named Agubo suddenly appeared in Xinjiang and occupied most of Xinjiang.

"From the news obtained from those Qing prisoners, we can basically judge that this Aguba is a general of the Kokand Khanate, there is no doubt that this is an invasion of our Great China by the Kokand Khanate, and we should immediately send troops to clean them up!" Fei Caishi, commander of the Ninth Division, said: "Now the Qing army here in Gansu is just surviving, and there is no need for me to wait for more than 20,000 troops here, we should immediately divide our troops and go to Xinjiang!" ”

However, on the other side, the new commander of the Eighth Division, Huang Bin, said: "This Gansu is vast and sparsely populated, although the number of Qing troops in this place is already small. But clearing them one by one will also contain most of our troops, and Agubai on the Xinjiang side is said to have 50,000 troops, and those Qing prisoners say that these Aguba's army has a lot of cavalry, and the infantry is also widely equipped with muskets, and the combat effectiveness is not weak! ”

"You still believe what those captives say, in their eyes, even ordinary bandits are strong in combat, as for Agubai's 50,000 army, I don't believe it, didn't Duxinga claim to have 300,000 troops in Shandong? Isn't Shi Dakai in Hubei and Sichuan claiming to have a million troops? Even Lin Chengting said that he had an army of 200,000, but how many were there? It's good to have half of them! "It is obvious that Fei Caishi wants to send troops to Xinjiang immediately.

While several of his subordinates were arguing, Bian Chengxun himself was also thinking about the sudden chaos in Xinjiang. The timing of the sudden appearance of Agu Bai is really a bit of a coincidence, just at the time of the collapse of the Qing court and the rebirth of China. Taking advantage of the Qing army's comprehensive retreat in Xinjiang, the Chinese army's front had not yet entered Xinjiang. In one fell swoop, it occupied most of Xinjiang.

Moreover, up to now, Bian Chengxun still has not figured out whether this Aguba's occupation of Xinjiang is his own behavior. Or is it an invasion under the auspices of the Kokand Khanate.

Or is it with the support of the Russians and the British?

The northwest of Xinjiang is the Russians, the west is the Kokand Khanate, and the south is India, which is controlled by the British.

Although Bian Chengxun has led his troops to fight abroad all the year round, he also knows some news from Nanjing, although China has already signed an armistice with Britain and France last year and signed a treaty, Britain and France have officially set up legations in Nanjing, and the Chinese Empire has also set up corresponding legations in London and Paris.

However, the signing of the treaty does not mean that the two sides can already shake hands and make peace, the signing of the treaty is only a compromise between the two sides, and the Hong Kong issue, the British challenge to China's suzerainty over Burma, Nepal and other places, and even want to get involved in Tibet, these are all one of the many contradictions between China and Britain in the future.

The same is true on the Russian side, recently a small number of princes on the Mongolian side rebelled, declaring that they would not obey the central leadership of the Chinese Empire, and even wanted to become independent or something, causing Wang Luyun's cavalry to run around on the Mongolian side in order to suppress the rebels, and then after the Chinese army entered the northeast, when the 14th Division annihilated the remnants of the Qing army in the northeast, it was found that the Russians began to infiltrate into the area north of Heilongjiang.

At the same time, the Russian side has always demanded that the Chinese Empire recognize the "Aihui Treaty" signed by Russia and the former Qing Heilongjiang general in 1858, but the Chinese Empire naturally absolutely does not recognize it, in order to demonstrate the empire's sovereignty over the area north of the Heilongjiang River, the 14th Infantry Division has even sent two infantry battalions across the Heilongjiang River to the Russian-controlled area north of the Heilongjiang River before it has completely cleared out the remnants of the Qing army in the northeast. At the same time, the navy also sent a detachment of four steam gunboats into Heilongjiang.

In 1859, the Chinese army and Russia had already engaged in many armed clashes in the area north of the Heilongjiang River, resulting in dozens of casualties on both sides, and the Heilongjiang Detachment of the Imperial Chinese Navy even shelled the local Russian warships, destroying a Russian river gunboat.

Although these conflicts with the Russians and the British were some minor problems, and the Chinese military did not even react much when the civil war was still not over, and they were not mentioned at the strategic meeting, it is still undeniable that the current external environment of the Chinese Empire is actually quite bad.

There were frequent conflicts with Russia in the north, conflicts with Britain in the south, and the French and even Americans came to the door every now and then.

It's just that these external problems were ignored by the upper echelons of the empire, consciously or unconsciously, and there was no sense of fear that later generations trembled when they mentioned the European and American powers!

Why?

Because the nascent Chinese Empire had just defeated the Anglo-French coalition and had captured tens of thousands of Anglo-French prisoners of war, the Chinese of this era still maintained a kind of pride in the Celestial Empire.

Whether it is Bi Yu and other civil officials in the cabinet, or Shi Qingxuan, these generals actually do not regard these so-called external conflicts as the same thing, the threat of the Russians and the conflict with the British are far less threatening to them than Lin Chengting and Shi Dakai.

After they unify the country, the so-called British and Russian threats are a fart!

They did not experience the disastrous defeat of the Second Opium War, but they still maintained the unique pride of the Chinese nation, and the mentality of treating people from other countries as barbarian natives except for the Celestial Empire still maintained.

And this mentality has good and bad, the good thing is that they still maintain strong self-confidence and will not be scared because of a foreigner's words, but there is also a disadvantage, that is, they cannot fully recognize the changes in the outside world.

The upper echelons of the empire did not pay much attention to external problems, but the generals at the front could not turn a blind eye, such as the 14th Division, which was under great pressure in the northeast, and Wang Lüyun, who was exhausted by the Russian chaos on the Mongol side.

Now, I have to add a Bian Chengxun!

Bian Chengxun wrote the news from Xinjiang as an urgent military situation, and asked Nanjing what to do, and then sent people back to Nanjing as soon as possible, but due to the current level of communication, it would take at least a month or two for Bian Chengxun to get feedback from Nanjing.

However, for the vast and sparsely populated northwest region, the time difference of a few months is nothing, because even if Bian Chengxun's troops are going to Xinjiang, they will have to travel for many months.

China is so big, and the farther the troops are from the plains along the northeast coast, the time for this march and battle is calculated in months, and it is extremely normal for the news to be delayed for a few months.

This is why it took only a few months for the Chinese army to capture the eastern coastal area, and even the advance of the Northern Expedition was very fast, but after entering the summer of 1859, the movement of the Chinese army seemed to be getting slower and slower, and even the people in the Jiangnan region no longer felt that the empire was still at war.

Not to mention ordinary people, even many officials, including Lin Zhe himself, have gradually shifted their main energy from the military to the industrial economy and people's livelihood affairs.

In order to show his attitude of attaching importance to industrial development, in October 1859, Lin Zhe went out to visit the Dangtu Industrial Zone in Taiping Province in southern Anhui, and was expected to go to support the completion and commissioning ceremony of the second phase of the steel plant of the Jiangnan Mining Company! (To be continued.) )