On the city of Guangzhou, Ye Mingchen, the governor of Guangzhou, who is also the minister of trade, and Bai Gui, the governor of Guangdong, stood on the head of the city, looking at the large camp outside the city, on which stood a huge blue dragon flag on a red background, this kind of flag has been inserted in the whole Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Fujian and Anhui since last year, and now the army flag of the Chinese army is already flying under the city of Guangzhou, and it will fly under the city of Guangzhou in the future.

Looking at the camp of the Chinese army outside the city, which stretched for several miles, although Ye Mingchen was still calm on the surface, he did not show the same frightened look as Bai Gui on the side.

But he had the same mixed feelings in his heart!

Ye Mingchen has been in charge of Guangdong for many years, from Daoguang to the 28th year of Guangdong and then to the 2nd year of Xianfeng as the governor of Liangguang, and it has been ten years.

In Guangdong for many years, he can be said to be the local governor who has dealt with foreigners the most in the Qing court, although his strategy for foreigners is mainly to delay, in short, he can hide if he can, and hide if he can, and strive to avoid dealing with foreigners.

Some people may say that Ye Mingchen's behavior is afraid of foreigners or timid by nature, but in fact it is not, no matter how later history evaluates him as a person, but he was able to become the governor of Guangdong before the age of forty, become one of the feudal ministers, and then sit in Guangdong and the British for ten years, which is enough to prove that he is not as bad as the history books.

No matter what era, the feudal ministers who can govern one side are not vulgar people, and many feudal ministers in the contemporary era are famous in both contemporary and later generations: for example, Xiang Rong on the ground in Jiangnan before; Huang Zonghan, former governor of Zhejiang and later governor of Liangguang; Another example is He Guiqing, the later governor of Zhejiang, and several governors of Jiangsu, Xu Naizhao, Li Hongzhang, and the former governor of Hubei. Hu Linyi, the current governor of Shandong, and Zeng Guofan, who had been appointed by the Qing court as the governor of Huguang, etc.

For these people. You can evaluate their merits and demerits, and in the eyes of future generations, you may think that they are ignorant. But you can't deny their abilities.

In the past few years, Ye Mingchen has to deal with frequent provocations from foreigners on the one hand, and on the other hand, he has to use all his forces to fight with the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, the Chinese Army, and Lin Chengting.

And to be honest, compared to the threat of the Taiping Army, the Zhenhu Army and the Chinese Army, the foreigners are a fart, and it is a big deal to sign a few treaties with them and sell the country. These foreigners don't want the rivers and mountains of the Qing Dynasty, but the Chinese Army and the Taiping Army are not just doing business or anything like that, they want the rivers and mountains of the Qing Dynasty.

Therefore, since last year, although conflicts have broken out with foreigners one after another, and last year the foreigners even attacked Guangzhou once, Ye Mingchen still did not take care of it, nor did he transfer troops from Shaoguan and Fujian to send back reinforcements, but only organized and trained 20,000 or 30,000 people on the spot to slightly strengthen Guangzhou's city defense.

Although Ye Mingchen ignored the threat of foreigners, he had invested all the resources he could use to resist the Zhenhu army and the Chinese army. But in the north, Lin Chengting's Zhenhu army had stopped its large-scale expansion into Hunan and Guangdong since signing a private agreement with Zeng Guofan, and instead focused on internal training.

This Lin Chengting also knew that he wanted to expand his territory. Fighting for hegemony in the world and the like, the most important thing is to have a strong army under your hands, and it is not too important to have territory or anything.

Because so far. The Green Battalion troops sent by Ye Mingchen to Shaoguan and other northern Guangdong were still able to hold on, but in the direction of Fujian to the east, it was a little bad.

Started last year. He transferred nearly 30,000 green battalions and regimental training from Guangxi and Guangdong. In addition, nearly 1,000 Guangdong training troops, who had not been trained easily, were successively dispatched to Fujian and western Guangdong to deploy defenses.

However, none of the 20,000 or so people sent to Fujian for reinforcements have been able to come back, and although the scale of the Third Army's battle in Fujian is not large, it will kill you a few thousand people today, and a few thousand more tomorrow, and the 20,000 troops sent to Fujian by Ye Mingchen will be lost in a few months.

After the loss of Fujian, Ye Mingchen collected the only remaining troops to try to hold Chaoshan Mansion, but at the end of 1857, the Third Army had been reinforced on a large scale, and the 10th Infantry Division, which was able to move south, reached a full strength for the first time in history, with a total of more than 8,000 Royal Army officers and soldiers plus more than 20,000 auxiliary defense troops.

After suffering several successive defeats, the Guangdong defenders, who had lost more than half of their troops, were forced to abandon Chaoshan on their own initiative, and even did not defend Huizhou Mansion, but fled back to Guangzhou with only five or six thousand remaining men.

By now, although the city of Canton had more troops than in the Second Opium War, their situation was not much better.

Ye Mingchen can only use the regular troops of the old 5,000 Green Battalion, in addition to nearly 1,000 Guangdong training troops, as for the rest are recruited from the surrounding areas of Guangzhou to train the militia regiment, although the number is nearly 30,000, but these militia regiments are not even comparable to the green battalion, if you want to rely on them to resist the attack of the Chinese army, it is undoubtedly a fool's dream.

Looking at those Chinese troops outside the city, Ye Mingchen really couldn't think of any possibility of holding Guangzhou City!

In the face of the Chinese army approaching the city of Guangzhou, not only Ye Mingchen was so pessimistic that he had no confidence at all, but at the same time, Count Ergin in Hong Kong also had some concerns.

The Earl of Ergin had already come to Hong Kong with a letter of appointment last year to take up the post of commander of the Anglo-French forces, and in November last year, he had already assembled more than 6,000 British and French troops.

But what made him angry was that Bao Ling and other diplomats from Britain and France were still negotiating with the Chinese Empire in Shanghai, and vetoed his plan to lead troops to Guangzhou several times.

As for the reason, they said that even if the coalition forces were extremely brave and conquered the city of Guangzhou, it would not help!

Why?

Because this Guangzhou was not in the hands of the Chinese army, but in the hands of the Qing army, and even at that time the whole of Guangdong was not in the hands of the Chinese army, how could you fight the Qing army and make the Chinese empire submit?

But what makes people even more depressing is that if they fight the Qing army, even if the Qing court submits and sells the whole of China to the Anglo-French alliance, it will have no effect, because the Qing court will not be killed by the Chinese empire in a short time.

These foreigners are not fools either. They have seen the Chinese army, and they also know that the Chinese army has won consecutive battles in the past year. The reunification of China by the Chinese army is not an impossible thing, but a matter of how much time it will take.

Other words. It is useless to subdue the doomed Qing court and sign treaties now, because when the Chinese Empire unifies China, these treaties will be a piece of waste paper. Now the Chinese Empire refuses to even recognize the Treaty of Nanjing, and you still let them recognize the treaty between the Qing court and the foreigners after the independent rebellion, isn't this a joke!

So if they want to get the benefits they want, they have to get it from the Chinese Empire!

And this is also the reason why Bao Ling gave Lin Zhe an ultimatum to war, and it is also the reason why he opposed Erjin to send troops to Guangzhou first several times.

On the one hand, the First Opium War has proved that even if you foreigners occupy the whole of Guangdong, don't expect to make these Chinese who claim to be the superior country of the Celestial Empire submit. If you want to make the Chinese submit, the best way is to go straight to the Yellow Dragon, and the troops will come to the city of Nanjing or even conquer it.

But it is not easy to smash the Yellow Dragon directly, it is really not enough to rely on Ergin's five or six thousand people, these foreigners know the Chinese army, these Chinese troops are also modern armies with Mini rifles, although the combat effectiveness is weaker than the armies of the great powers, but there are many troops.

The recent changes of the Chinese army could not hide from these foreigners, and they also knew that once they landed in Shanghai. The Chinese army that may face is definitely not 12,000 people, but 34,000 or even more.

Therefore, the Anglo-French forces also needed time to prepare.

But now, the situation has become different, and the Chinese army is moving south to Guangdong. Even if the troops are under the city of Guangzhou, and once the Chinese army also takes the city of Guangzhou, then the next will not be good for the British and French forces in Hong Kong.

Let's take an analogy. In case the main force of the Anglo-French alliance goes north to Shanghai, the Chinese army in Guangzhou will come to draw salaries. What if you come directly to attack Hong Kong?

If this is to be prepared, then the forces of the Anglo-French alliance will be greatly pinned.

It was already difficult for the Anglo-French forces to draw a large number of troops. If a large number of troops are to be pinned down on the Guangdong side, then it will be even more difficult to land in Shanghai at that time.

Based on these considerations, Count Ergin is not ready to wait for the results of the negotiations on the Shanghai side, he will send troops!

Anyway, the negotiations in Shanghai have been going on for more than half a year, but so far they have not been negotiated, and it can be seen at a glance that this is the Chinese Empire stalling for time, and it will not be good if it waits any longer.

However, in order to avoid diplomatic trouble, the Count of Ergin did not directly declare war or attack in the name of the like, but chose to send troops to Guangzhou on the grounds of protecting the expatriate.

The Earl of Elgin was not a diplomat, he could be appointed commander-in-chief of the Anglo-French forces by the British mainland, and once the war broke out, he was not a hesitant person, since the decision was made, he gave the mobilization order when the Chinese army came to the city of Guangzhou, and his soldiers began to board the ships the next day.

Then a huge fleet, which had never been seen on the ground in the Far East, set sail from Hong Kong, carrying up to five thousand army soldiers on board, in addition to the navy's own crew.

The British sent troops, and they did not care about the negotiations that were still going on in Shanghai, but chose to send troops directly to Guangzhou, which surprised Qu Panyun, the new commander of the Third Army.

"These barbarians have to intervene in Guangzhou, right?" Qu Panyun snorted coldly and then turned his gaze back to the map of the Pearl River Delta region on the wall.

After a while, he said: "Order, the whole army will end its rest ahead of schedule and launch a general attack on Guangzhou in the afternoon!" ”

After saying this, he also said in a self-talking tone: "Guangzhou must be taken before the foreigners land in Guangzhou!" ”

When Qu Panyun chose to attack the city in advance, Ye Mingchen in the city was already in chaos!

"Report, the rebel army outside the city has moved, and it seems that there is a siege!"

"Report, a large number of foreigners' fleets have been found at the mouth of the Pearl River outside the city!"

After hearing the report of the Chinese army outside the city and the foreigner fleet going up the river, Ye Mingchen finally couldn't stand still, sat down with a butt, and muttered: It's over! Finished! (To be continued......)