Just when the city of Beijing was rejoicing that the bandits attacking Huai'an were finally repelled by the official army, there was another piece of news poured on the head like cold water, that is, the Jingwu army actually hijacked Caoyin!

Things have to start with the Northern Route Army of the late summer offensive, that is, Wang Sanwu all the way.

It turned out that when Wang Sanwu was ordered to release Li Rongfa and his horse, he led his troops north and entered Huai'an City as reinforcements.

Out of gratitude and fear, every day in Huai'an City, in the name of the labor army, someone invited Wang Sanwu and his cadres to eat and drink, but after Wang Sanwu entered Huai'an City, he only occupied the various city gates in the name of assisting in defense, and then stayed in the barracks and closed the door, and refused any banquets from the outside world.

It's okay to get here, Huai'an has made up his mind from top to bottom, and he has praised this disciplined army of soldiers and horses, and feels that with such a team of soldiers and horses stationed, Huai'an's safety is no longer a problem.

However, just when everyone was just relaxing, Wang Sanwu suddenly made a big thing, that is, he robbed the silver that was ordered to be transported to Beijing.

The so-called Cao Yin, in fact, is a kind of tax paid to the national treasury in various places, but these taxes are mainly in the way of Cao Yun, so it is also called Cao Yin.

Because Caoyin is related to the tax revenue of the imperial court, the Qing court is very concerned about this, and set up a Caoyun governor in Huai'an to pay close attention to this matter.

Due to the disadvantages of the traditional river cao, since the Daoguang period, the Qing court's cao transportation was mainly based on sea transportation, and the grain and silver transported by sea accounted for more than half of the cao transportation. After the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom captured Nanjing. The mode of transportation mainly relied on shipping, especially after the diversion of the Yellow River in 1855, the river in the eastern section of the river was almost cut off. Therefore, the main way of Cao Yun is to go from Suzhou to Shanghai, and then take the sea route from Shanghai to Tianjin, almost ninety percent of which is by sea, and Hecao is almost completely suspended, which also leads to the status of Huai'an's Cao Yun Governor is becoming more and more embarrassing.

However, since Emperor Xianfeng had a bad relationship with Britain and France, although the main force of the combined British and French fleet was destroyed by itself. However, the remaining fleet still had the ability to block the port of Shanghai, so in order to collect taxes, the river had to be reactivated.

Before, due to the deterrence of the elite army. The Taiping Army did not cause substantial deterrence to the Lianghuai region some time ago, which led to a rare period of peace in the Lianghuai region, and during this time, Caoyin from all over the country gathered one after another. By the time Li Rongfa led his troops to attack Huai'an. More than three million taels of silver have been gathered in Huai'an City, which can be said to be the largest amount of silver that the Taiping army has relied on since the uprising.

It is precisely because of this that the Taiping army will be so enthusiastic about the lone army to attack Huai'an, in order to actually store the three million taels of silver in the city.

Originally, Li Rongfa was about to succeed, but unfortunately, due to the summer offensive launched by Li Yongji, the strategy of grabbing and leaving failed, but Li Rongfa was before leaving. still deliberately revealed this news to Wang Sanwu, and the intention is naturally self-evident. It is to instigate Wang Sanwu to rob the silver.

In Li Rongfa's view, once the people of the Jingwu Army hijacked Caoyin, it would be a complete turn of face with the Qing court, after all, this kind of thing cannot be hidden, and the situation will be even more chaotic at that time, and only if it is more chaotic can the Taiping Army fish in troubled waters.

Let's not talk about what Li Rongfa thought, Wang Sanwu himself was really tempted by this silver, so after he let Li Rongfa go, he hurriedly drove into Huai'an.

However, after entering Huai'an, he did not act immediately, but first sent secret agents to investigate everything about Caoyin, after all, he was also suspicious of Li Rongfa's words, and he was afraid of falling for the other party. However, when it was found out that Huai'an City did indeed have nearly three million taels of silver, and there were more than one million stone grains, he no longer hesitated, and directly sealed Huai'an City in the name of martial law, and seized the Cao Yin Cao Grain that was about to be released into Beijing, announcing that these were all military expenses of the Jingwu Army, which was actually a blatant robbery.

As Li Rongfa expected, this incident really shocked the city of Beijing, especially Emperor Xianfeng, who was even more angry after hearing about this and threw four or five teacups in a row.

At this time, Emperor Xianfeng's setbacks were still relatively small, his morale was relatively high, and he thought that the troops of the imperial court still had a certain combat effectiveness, which gave Emperor Xianfeng a lot of confidence.

As soon as the so-called emperor had soldiers, he immediately became capricious, and the time happened to be September again, and the weather was no longer so hot, so this time Emperor Xianfeng no longer tolerated Li Yongji. not only issued an order to applaud Li Yongji, took away his top flower feather and yellow coat, but also asked Li Yongji to quickly spit out the silver, then the merits and demerits will be offset, and the past will not be blamed, otherwise it will be strictly punished.

At the same time as issuing the order, he also transferred the troops of Seng Lingqin into Xuzhou, threatening Huai'an City, where Wang Sanwu was stationed, and putting on a posture that if you are disobedient, I will beat you.

The emperor's actions naturally attracted the attention of the world, and the governors of all places thought that the nature of this matter was very strict, Li Yongji was certainly at fault, but the court's handling was also excessive, and a bad one would force Li Yongji to rebel, and at that time, the world was really shaken, and Shenzhou was shaken.

Because people with a discerning eye know that the imperial court can't help the elite army that has become the climate, and the Mongolian horse team of Seng Lingqin is a paper tiger, if you don't fight, it looks like you still want to be like that, once you rashly use force, it's okay to win, once you lose, the face of the court will be completely gone.

In this regard, Zeng Guofan reacted the most violently, and successively sent excerpts to the imperial court, so that the imperial court could treat this time calmly, and at the same time sent Li Hongzhang to Suzhou, ready to persuade Li Yongji, so that he should not act rashly and return the silver to the imperial court as soon as possible.

In Zeng Guofan's view, the core of this matter is the silver, as long as Li Yongji spits out the silver, even if he spits out half of it, it is good to make a formality, there is still room for turning around in this matter, otherwise it will really be stiff, and then everyone will not be happy.

In fact, Emperor Xianfeng also regrets it a little now, regretting his impulsiveness, but since the matter has been done, it is not appropriate to take back his fate at will, so it is so deadlocked. However, he still quietly ordered the monk Lingqin to stay in Xuzhou and not to move, trying not to stimulate the Jingwu army, and at the same time sent a fast horse to chase back the Qin Cha who had previously carried the holy decree of Shen Li Yongji. In addition, a softened decree was changed.

On the whole, Emperor Xianfeng still pinned his hopes on making Li Yongji obedient and spit out the silver as soon as possible. And then he was generous and not guilty.

On the surface, Emperor Xianfeng seemed to be out of breath and still favored Li Yongji, but from the bottom of his heart, this setback made Emperor Xianfeng very uncomfortable, and he killed Li Yongji, a person he was very optimistic about, for the first time, and for the first time began to face Li Yongji and Jingwujun. And let people try their best to collect relevant information about this Li Yongji.

It's a pity that time passes day by day, Wang Sanwu. In other words, Li Yongji did not express the slightest opinion on this incident, nor did he mean to return the silver to the imperial court, but just transferred the silver and grain to Wuxi, and I ate it with a clear appearance. What kind of attitude can you put on me.

As a matter of fact. Li Yongji really didn't know about this matter beforehand, although he had a bad intention, but he didn't want to tear his face with the Qing court for the time being, and he didn't think of the idea of moving Caoyin, that is to say, this robbery of Caoyin was purely caused by Wang Sanwu himself.

However, the thing has already been done. Internally, Wang Sanwu can be punished or punished for crimes without asking for instructions, but externally, he cannot do so. Rather, it shows a posture of holding on to the end.

In other words, Li Yongji took the matter of Wang Sanwu's hijacking of Caoyin to himself and counted it on his own head, and as a result, this matter became that Wang Sanwu was ordered to rob Caoyin, and he did not act privately, which is equivalent to exonerating Wang Sanwu from the biggest crime of acting without authorization.

Up to now, Li Yongji has also understood a truth, that is, many things should not be taken too seriously, just like discipline, and strict requirements in peacetime are enough, but if you still blindly strict requirements during combat, it will definitely be a bad thing.

Although Wang Sanwu acted without authorization this time and caused a lot of trouble to himself, if he shirked his responsibility at this time, it would be detached from morality, on the contrary, if Li Yongji took this matter on his own, everyone's trust in him would be higher.

As for how to prevent the recurrence of such things, this is also easy to do, and it is possible to strengthen ideological education, strengthen the intelligence and supervisory organs, and take advantage of this opportunity to place gendarmes around the senior commanders and increase the supervisory power of the gendarmerie, especially to give the gendarmerie the power to supervise the communications department, so as to have a more secure and solid control over the various units.

In Li Yongji's plan, this gendarmerie should be given more functions in the future. In the future, the gendarmerie will have to operate independently, strictly inspecting military discipline and supervising the command of its commanders, and at the same time be concerned about the operation of the troops.

In order to normalize the gendarmerie system, it is necessary to build branches on the company, and the units at the company level must have the existence of the gendarme, and efforts should be made to build the gendarmerie units into special institutions similar to those of the Jinyi Guard and the SS Guards of later generations.

To put it simply, every commander above the company must have a deputy commander subordinate to the military police by his side, and the deputy commander who belongs to the military police usually has a deputy position, for example, the company commander must have a deputy company commander next to him who is a military policeman, and a deputy battalion commander next to the battalion commander who is a military police.

From a certain point of view, the gendarmerie system that Li Yongji intends to engage in has already departed from the original meaning of the gendarmerie and has become a kind of party-guard-military system, which is still quite beneficial to strengthening the control and cohesion of the troops, because in this case, there will be much fewer such cases of disobedience to commands.

It is precisely because of Li Yongji's strong support that Wang Sanwu has become bolder, not only strengthened the city defense of Huai'an on the spot, but also raised 30,000 broadsword militia, and personally sat in Huai'an, moved his own headquarters to Huai'an City, and even sent a regiment to take Haizhou down in the name of assisting in defense, and then with the help of Haizhou's maritime supply line, Huai'an was a horn, and Xuzhou's monk Greenqin-for-tat.

Some people want to de-escalate the situation, while others want to escalate it. Li Xiucheng didn't say anything, he has been constantly radio to persuade Li Yongji to oppose the Qing Dynasty recently, but he didn't say anything like taking refuge in heaven, probably knowing that it was useless to say it.

In Li Xiucheng's view, once Li Yongji and the Jingwu Army oppose the Qing Dynasty, the situation will become a situation of the Three Kingdoms, and then they will have a chance in the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, after all, everyone will have to deal with the Qing court first, and there will be no need to fight with the Jingwu Army.

To tell the truth, Li Xiucheng is not afraid of fighting with the Qing court at all, but when he thinks of the Jingwu Army, especially the situation of the Battle of Suzhou, he always has a headache in his head, and he always has all kinds of excuses to avoid it, in fact, even he doesn't know that he is actually afraid of the Jingwu Army.

That's right, he was really afraid, the battle of Suzhou had too much impact on him, and it had already knocked off his self-confidence, if it weren't for that, he wouldn't have retreated from Li Yongji again and again.

Although Li Xiucheng made a lot of excuses for himself, no matter how many excuses he had, he couldn't change the fact that he kept retreating in front of the Jingwu army and didn't dare to fight with the other party.

In addition, the British and French also frequently appeared around Li Yongji, hoping that Li Yongji would release the two white mercenaries of Chang Jiejun and Chang Shengjun, and secondly, they tried their best to persuade Li Yongji to oppose the Qing Dynasty and decided to give Li Yongji greater support.

By this time, the British and the French had already understood that after the Qing court had just executed Pashali and others, it was difficult to talk about peace in the short term, and after the destruction of the Anglo-French combined fleet, I am afraid that it would be difficult for Britain and France to send troops to intervene in a short period of time, so funding the opposition forces was the only way.

In the past, they focused their support on the Taiping Army, but now it seems that the Taiping Army is quite unreliable, and the only way to protect their interests in the future may be Li Yongji, a young warlord.

Fortunately, Li Yongji seems to have opened up more than most people, he is not opposed to communicating with foreigners, he also advocates opening the country, and even wants to engage in free trade very radically, which are all benefits that foreigners wanted in the past but could not get.

Why did the British fight the Opium War? Didn't the British know the disadvantages of opium? It is really that the Chinese are too stubborn, they have been closed off from the country, and they only sell things and do not buy things, and the silver flows into China but does not flow out, which is an abnormal transaction. There is no way, so I chose opium to make money, if China is willing to open the door to trade with them normally, everyone has dealings, why bother to fight for life and death.

The reason why the British and the French did not immediately agree to Li Yongji's conditions was because the Jingwu Army did a good job of secrecy at that time, so that they were still a little incomprehensible at that time, thinking that the Taiping Army was more powerful, so they thought about supporting the Taiping Army.

According to their thoughts at the time, as long as they supported the Taiping Army and gave the Taiping Army enough foreign guns and artillery, with the number and combat effectiveness of the Taiping Army, I am afraid that the Jingwu Army may not be able to resist it, no matter what, the number of the Jingwu Army is too small.

What the? What was the Battle of Suzhou? One or two victories or defeats are nothing, and at that time, the elite army was all foreign guns and artillery, if the Taiping army was also equipped with a large number of foreign guns and artillery, then the situation would be different.

But now seeing that the Taiping Army is vulnerable to the attack of the Jingwu Army, and the Jingwu Army, which has always been very mysterious, has also revealed its ferocious minions and strong strength, and the Americans seem to have hooked up with Li Yongji for a long time, so at this time, it is logical to abandon the Taiping Army that looks weak and find a more enlightened and stronger Li Yongji to cooperate.

In the past, Li Yongji has always refused to oppose the Qing Dynasty, which is the most criticized place in Britain and France, but now after this incident, let them think that the opportunity has come, as long as Li Yongji takes the opportunity to rebel, then China will actually fall into a situation of fragmentation and chaos among the princes, and at that time, a divided China will be more in line with the expectations of the great powers. (To be continued......)