As Lin Zhe expected, when Huang Zonghan received the good news from Yongying in Yuyao County, he read the letter several times, and finally said with a puzzled face: "Are you sure this is sent from Yuyao Ying?" ”

Huang Zonghan is not puzzled, in the battle between the Taiping army and the Qing army, the Qing army is well-known for its defeat and victory, and in northern Zhejiang, the Zhejiang Qing army commanded by Huang Zonghan was also defeated and retreated in many small-scale battles with the Taiping army.

But now he suddenly said that he had a regiment under his command that was able to defeat the enemy army and behead 200 people without saying that he had equal forces, and his own casualties were only more than 20 people, how could Huang Zonghan believe it!

"Could it be that Lin Zhe is also like everyone else, who lied about the results of the battle?" Huang Zonghan's first reaction was that Lin Zhe lied about the results of the battle, and this kind of thing is not uncommon since ancient times, and now the Qing army also has many lilies about the results of the battle, if Lin Zhe did this, Huang Zonghan would not feel strange.

But the problem is that Lin Zhe's good news said that nearly two hundred people were beheaded, and there were dozens of prisoners, and it was stated that the people who were killed were all old thieves, not ordinary people or new bandits who were coerced in the rebellion.

Although the corpses of the old Taiping soldiers who had fought for several years and the ordinary people who had been wrapped up were not too different in appearance, experienced people could still distinguish them at a glance.

What's more, Lin Zhe also said that he had captured dozens of Taiping soldiers, and the corpses were so fake, but how could you fake the prisoners, it would be difficult to arrest ordinary people and pretend to be them, and those who came to test the results of the battle would not be able to find out immediately when they saw it.

Nowadays, although it is relatively common in the military circles of the Qing army to lie about the results of the battle, this kind of lying is generally exaggerated, that is, if ten people are killed, it is said that twenty, or even thirty were killed. When Shangguan reads these battle reports, he will also consciously compress the water, and if you report that you have killed a hundred, Shangguan will directly press the general and treat it as fifty.

However, no one was like Lin Zhe, and when he reported the results of the battle, he not only had detailed figures, but even a list of prisoners, and also listed a list of captures, such as six large and small flags, 27 muskets, 17 bows and arrows, a number of arrows and ammunition, dozens of swords and spears, and 15 war horses.

It was the first time that Huang Zonghan had received such a detailed battle report, and this was also the reason why he was puzzled, could it be that Lin Zhe's Yuyao County Yongying had really achieved such great results?

However, although Huang Zonghan doubted that the battle report of Yongying in Yuyao County was exaggerated, he was sure of one thing, that is, Lin Zhe did win a battle in Changxing, maybe the actual results were not as exaggerated as Lin Zhe's battle report said, but it should still be won.

After all, although contemporary officials like to lie about the results of wars, there are still few people who dare to say that a lost battle is a big victory, at most a small victory is a big victory, and a fiasco is a small defeat.

Therefore, regardless of whether Lin Zhe's battle report is exaggerated, it is a fact that Lin Zhe won the battle in Changxing, and Huang Zonghan still feels quite pleased with this.

In the current situation of defeat and defeat in the battle between the Qing army and the Taiping army, even a small victory is quite difficult, you do not see in southern Anhui, southern Jiangsu, Henan and other places, in the face of the offensive of the Taiping army, the Qing army in various places is defeated in succession, it seems that there is no hope of defeating the Taiping army.

In this environment, Lin Zhe's victory is enough to dazzle.

Lin Zhe's victory is also Huang Zonghan's victory, you must know that Lin Zhe's troops are regimental training in Zhejiang Province, in other words, they are his troops under Huang Zonghan, and the troops under him won the battle, which will naturally make his face shine.

So, Huang Zonghan waved his pen and sent a letter to Changxing in person, in which he greatly praised the bravery of the Yongying camp in Yuyao County and Lin Zhe's talent in leading the troops, and said that he would personally go up to ask for credit for Lin Zhe.

However, these are all lies for Lin Zhe of Changxing, and more importantly, Huang Zonghan said in the letter that Lin Zhe's Yuyao battalion was quite effective, and that he had won a big victory in the first battle, and hoped that Lin Zhe would do his best to organize and train a few more battalions to expand the scale of the Yuyao battalion and use it to protect the safety of the gentry and people in Zhejiang.

Finally, he also said that the yamen of the governor of Zhejiang could give another thousand taels of silver to the Yongying of Yuyao County every month for military funds, and at the same time, he also asked the Yamen of the Huzhou Prefecture to give the Yongying of Yuyao County a thousand taels of military funds as appropriate.

After receiving Huang Zonghan's letter, Lin Zhe was naturally overjoyed, he didn't expect that his first victory would make Huang Zonghan attach so much importance to it, and he actually doubled the military expenditure for his troops.

What does the increase in military spending represent? It means that more troops can be organized, which is naturally great news for Lin Zhe, who has worked hard to expand his troops.

Although Huang Zonghan increased his military spending, the monthly military expenditure given by the official was only more than 3,000 taels of silver, which was not enough for the actual cost of the Yongying camp in Yuyao County, but the source of military spending for the Yongying camp in Yuyao County was not only the official allocation, but most of it was self-raised.

The military expenses allocated by the government and the military expenses raised by the Yuyao County Yongying at the local level were enough for the Yuyao County Yongying to expand the scale of another battalion.

"An Fei, you prepare, and return to Yuyao tomorrow to recruit troops!" Lin Zhe wrote a letter as he spoke.

"You also did it with me before the recruitment, you know what to do, I won't say more, just two points, the first is that the recruitment must be carried out in strict accordance with the recruitment regulations, don't find anyone. Second, if we can't recruit enough soldiers in Yuyao, then we can go to a few neighboring counties to recruit! ”

Since Lin Zhe wanted to expand the army, the first thing he did was naturally to recruit more soldiers.

The matter of recruiting soldiers may be very simple for other armies, and it is enough to directly recruit soldiers on the spot or even pull strong ding, but it is not easy for the Yongying camp in Yuyao County.

First of all, the regional problem, as a typical local gentry army, Yuyao County Yongying is actually very geographically restrictive, at present, all the soldiers and officers of the battalion are from Yuyao County, and a considerable part of them are the children of the Lin family's small households, nursing homes and other dependent on the Lin family.

This nature is actually very similar to that of Zeng Guofan's Hunan army, and the loyalty and combat effectiveness of the troops are more dependent on local concepts, relatives and friends, and other relationships.

In addition to this, it is also related to the recruitment regulations of the Yuyao County Yong Battalion, and there are actually a lot of rules and regulations for recruiting new recruits in the Yuyao County Yong Battalion.

These many requirements greatly limit the area where the Yongying in Yuyao County can recruit soldiers, and it must be in a place where the Yongying in Yuyao County has great influence and has a good relationship with the local government before it can be recruited, otherwise it will be a big problem to even pay the families of soldiers if they can't recruit qualified soldiers.

That's why Lin Zhe sent people to go back to Yuyao directly to recruit troops, and at the same time, considering that the Gao Su zhì soldiers in the Yongying camp in Yuyao County were also limited, Lin Zhe also planned to go to several counties near Yuyao to recruit troops.

After Lin Anfei heard Lin Zhe's arrangement, he suppressed the joy in his heart and immediately said: "The ministry must live up to the trust of adults!" ”

Lin Zhe nodded, handed the envelope he had just written and handed it to Lin Anfei and said: "This trip back to Yuyao to recruit troops, you may also need the assistance of the county government, if you encounter trouble, you can hold my letter and go to Huang County Order!" ”

To expand the army, it is naturally not enough to have only soldiers, but also to have weapons, and for the procurement of weapons, Lin Zhe did not bother the people inside the Yuyao battalion, but directly entrusted the people of his own business house to purchase them in Shanghai.

The person in charge of this matter is Pan Lixuan, the chief manager of the Shanghai Commercial Bank of the Lin Family Commercial Bank, who is about 50 years old, and like the other big treasurers and high-level managers of the Lin family, he has also been an old man in the Lin Family Commercial Bank for decades.

Since he was a teenager, he has been an apprentice in the Lin family firm, then as a buddy, a low-level manager, the shopkeeper of the county and town store, then the chief shopkeeper of the big city firm, and finally the chief shopkeeper of the Lin family firm in Shanghai, becoming several of the most powerful shopkeepers in the Lin family firm.

Because the main business of the Lin family is raw silk, nearly half of its raw silk business is sold at home and abroad, in fact, nearly half of the raw silk of the Lin family is directly exported, and with the opening of the two treaty ports of Shanghai and Ningbo, the status of the Lin family in these two places is also growing rapidly, more and more important.

Previously, he was responsible for the purchase of the batch of 600 Mini Bu' guns used by the Yongying camp in Yuyao County.

This time, when he received a letter from Lin Zhe saying that the expansion of the army was about to urgently need a thousand Minibu guns, at least six guns of twelve pounds or more, he frowned.

The weapons on this list are not very easy to procure!

Artillery is okay, the problem is not too big, after all, there are still a lot of artillery in the Far East, as long as you are willing to give a high price, it is not too much of a problem to purchase these six guns and form an artillery company.

But the Mini rifle is just not easy to solve, and the reason is not the price, nor the refusal of the nominally neutral foreigners to sell the arms.

But now in Shanghai, it is really difficult to find a large number of Mini Bu' guns!

The Mini rifle gun, this thing is not a new thing, the French army began to equip and use it on the battlefield on a small scale in the forties, and the British army also began to convert the old brown bass musket musket into a rifled rifle rifle to fire Mini bullets, and the transformed rifle gun is the "Enfield P1851 rifle", and the Mini rifle "gun" purchased and equipped by the Yongying in Yuyao County was this rifle.

In 1853, that is, this year, the British army began to officially equip the famous 'Enfield P1853 rifle'.

It's just that for the British Army, although the Mini Infantry gun is not a new thing, but in the current Far East, the Mini Infantry gun is still a tall thing, and even the British troops stationed in Hong Kong, Shanghai and other places are not equipped with Mini Infantry guns, or use the old brown bass P1842 firing smoothbore guns.

The 600 Enfield P1851 rifles purchased and equipped by the Yongying in Yuyao County before can only be regarded as an accident, they were not purchased from the British army, but directly from a foreign firm, and this batch of P8151 rifles can appear in the Far East, which is also a separate accident, after all, it is not the norm for the captain of the foreign company to transport the P1851 rifles to the Far East for sale.

Now that he wants to buy P1851 rifles on a large scale, he can't find so much stock in the whole of Shanghai, and this is what makes him difficult.

If you order now, those foreign companies will transport it from Europe, and it will take at least half a year to go back and forth, and such a long time is absolutely unbearable for Lin Zhe.

In this regard, Pan Lixuan was very embarrassed, it was not difficult to purchase foreign guns, there were many old smoothbore rifle guns in the Far East, and the key was that there were no Mini rifle guns he wanted.

What to do?

This is a real problem in front of Pan Lixuan!