Zuo Zongtang in the big tent was also taken aback when he heard this, hurriedly took the letter and hurriedly glanced at it, and said in a lost voice: "The inner guards of the Qing court actually went south to Shanghai? Shangyu spare place? Isn't it the sticky rod established by the original Yongzheng Emperor? ”

Xiao Yungui doesn't seem to know what sticky rod is, and he doesn't know what Shangyu spare place is, he only cares about the person mentioned in the letter, Rong Lu! This person will be a big celebrity next to the Empress Dowager Cixi in the future, and it is Rong Lu and Yuan Shikai who made the Hundred Days Restoration fail.

"Shangyu spare place? Sticky rods? What is it? Xiao Yungui didn't understand, Zuo Zongtang told the origin of the sticky rod and the Shangyu backup place, and at the same time told some secrets that were circulating in the market, Xiao Yungui understood: "It turned out to be blood droplets, you said blood drops earlier, I understood." Then he said to himself: "It turns out that Rong Lu was also a blood drop? ”

Zuo Zongtang frowned and said: "The blood droplet is just a rumor among the people, and the sticky rod is its proper name." ”

Xiao Yungui waved his hand and said: "There are many people who know the nickname, blood drops, I can't imagine that the Xianfeng Dog Emperor actually moved this thing out again, it seems that our Bai Zetang has met an opponent." ”

Zuo Zongtang muttered: "The Shanghai Knife Society and other gangs must be saved, otherwise we will lose a big arm when we capture Shanghai." ”

Xiao Yungui nodded and said: "Exactly, but we are now attacking Suzhou, Lin Fengxiang and Li Kaifang's troops are attacking Hangzhou, and the rest of the soldiers and horses can't get out of the way, so we can only let Tong Qiangsheng lead Bai Zetang's brothers to inform the Little Knife Society as soon as possible, hoping that they can receive the news and start an incident in advance, so that they can kill the Qing Demon by surprise, and if necessary, the Guiyun firm that has already established a foreign bank in Shanghai can also cooperate......"

Xiao Yungui and Zuo Zongtang didn't know about the Qing court's borrowing of troops from foreigners, but they just asked Tong Qiangsheng to send news to the Little Knife Society. After Tong Qiangsheng received Xiao Yungui's instructions, he immediately looked for Liu Lichuan, the leader of the Little Knife Society, and only later did he find out that Liu Lichuan had left the city and gone to Tangwan. Tangwan is the territory of the Qingpu Anti-grain Rebel Army, Liu Lichuan went there to naturally contact the local rebels, and Tong Qiangsheng prepared to rush to Tangwan to report the news.

Before leaving, Bai Ze's cousin, who was monitoring Rong Lu and others, came back with injuries to report, and the brother who was watching was seen through by the imperial court eagle dog, and only two escaped back after three people died. But the news they brought back surprised Tong Qiangsheng a lot, the Qing court actually borrowed troops from foreigners to deal with the small knife society in the city, and Rong Lu personally led a foreign soldier to Tangwan to arrest the head of the meeting.

Tong Qiangsheng didn't dare to slack off, so he had to order someone to send a message to the king of the west, and he hurried out of the city and rushed to Tangwan with his men to rescue Liu Lichuan and others.

Since the British minister Wen Han left Nanjing, Xiao Yungui began the Eastern Expedition in two ways, one was personally commanded by Xiao Yungui, Zuo Zongtang and Hong Yuner accompanied the army, Ji Wenyuan and Lin Qirong were generals, leading 25,000 men and horses to attack Dantu, Changzhou, Wuxi, Suzhou and other places. The other route was led by Lin Fengxiang and Li Kaifang with 30,000 horses and horses to attack Jintan, Liyang, Yixing, Huzhou, Hangzhou, and Jiaxing. The two armies agreed to capture Suzhou and Hangzhou, and besiege Shanghai from Suzhou and Jiaxing, and Zuihou joined forces in Shanghai.

With the army of the king of heaven and the king of the east to Wuhu, the people of the west hall along the river retreated to the east, and the generals of the west hall who guarded everywhere returned to the command of the king of the west, only Li Yiwen was a little farther away, and did not catch up with the eastern expedition, the king of the west ordered Li Yiwen to guard Nanjing, waiting for the arrival of the army of the king of heaven and the king of the east. Zhenjiang and Guazhou were guarded by Luo Xuan and Zhu Xineng respectively, and together with the water camp, they were stationed in Zhenjiang, and most of the water camp ships did not participate in the Eastern Crusade.

After Xiao Yungui led his troops eastward, the Qing army had little resistance along the way, and the original commander of the Qing army, Xiang Rong, felt that his troops were insufficient, and in the face of the Taiping army's fierce offensive on both sides, he had to retreat to important cities and wait for reinforcements. Xiang Rong's arrangement was also divided into two routes, one was led by Zhang Guoliang and the new governor of Jiangsu, Xu Naizhao, and others retreated to Suzhou, and the other way he personally led and guarded Hangzhou with the Hangzhou general Du Xing'a. Xiang Rong wanted the cities along the way to divide the strength of the Taiping army, and then fight a decisive battle with the menacing Taiping army under the fortified city.

However, Xiao Yungui and Zuo Zongtang did not divide their forces, and the cities occupied along the way, such as Dantu, Changzhou, and Wuxi, were all stationed in the West Hall after Nanjing. The two Eastern Expeditionary Brigades did not divide their forces, and in only ten days, Xiao Yungui had already hit the city of Suzhou, and Lin Fengxiang and Li Kaifang had also hit the city of Hangzhou.

Xu Naizhao, the governor of Jiangsu, and Zhang Guoliang's Qing army retreated to Suzhou early, and only then did they arrive in Suzhou, Zhang Guoliang, with many years of experience in fighting with the Taiping army, ordered Ma Dezhao, the chief soldier of Daming Town, to "first order the people to be dressed, the second to relocate, and the third to order arson", preparing to burn the houses outside the city to the ground, so as to prevent the Taiping army from relying on these houses and houses to approach the city wall and attack the city.

Ma Dezhao complied with the order to set fire, and in an instant, known as "the first and second class of the world's first and second class romantic and wealthy places", the Nanhao Street outside the Changmen, the line from Shantang to the Tiger Hill, and the Zhongshi Street in the Changmen to the Jiejiaqiao, Wu Chaofang and other places were reduced to ashes, and some guerrillas of the Qing army took the opportunity to loot on a large scale, and the people of Suzhou were all forcibly moved to the city, and the people complained for a while.

After Xiao Yungui's soldiers arrived, they started a battle with Zhang Guoliang's Qing army for the camp in the dangerous place outside the city. In this expedition, Xiao Yungui divided the foreign cannons obtained from Wen Han into two parts, one of the seven cannons was handed over to Lin Fengxiang and Li Kaifang for use, and the remaining ten were with him. After arriving at the city of Suzhou, Xiao Yungui ordered the artillery team to deploy the foreign cannons and bombarded the camps outside the city of the Qing army in important places such as Shantang and Tiger Hill.

The foreign cannon on the HMS Hamils was a 24-pounder breech-loading rifled gun that was the mainstream equipment of the British Navy at that time. In 1846, the Italian Major Cavelli created a breech-loading rifle with two rotating rears engraved in the breech of the breech and loaded with cylindrical shells, which made a revolutionary leap forward in the artillery jishu. Soon after, Whitworth, a British gunsmith, produced a breech-loading rifled gun, but he replaced the rotating rifled line with a circling six-angular breech. Compared with the front-loading gun, the rear-loading gun was changed from muzzle loading to tail loading, which increased the rate of fire. There are perfect locked gun doors and tight plugs, which solve the problem of gunpowder gas leakage caused by the diameter of the shell of the front-loading gun is smaller than the caliber of the fire bag; The rifling is engraved in the barrel, and the pointed cylinder is fired at the same time, so that the projectile has a stable trajectory after ejection, which improves the accuracy of hitting and increases the firing range; It is convenient and safe to load shells in battery batteries, including land bunkers and warship suit compartments. The British began to install breech-loading rifled guns in 1850, first of course, from the British Imperial Navy, which they were proud of, and the guns on the HMS Hamils were replaced with this breez-loading rifled guns in 1851.

Due to the long range and high accuracy of the newly acquired artillery of the Taiping army, the Qing troops in Shantang and Huqiu could not resist, and after a day and night of fierce fighting, the Qing troops outside the city suffered heavy casualties, and the rest were scattered or surrendered, and only more than 1,000 Qing troops retreated into the city. After clearing the periphery of Suzhou, Xiao Yungui waved his army to besiege the city of Suzhou and prepared to start the siege.

On the first day, when he began to bombard the city wall of Suzhou, Xiao Yungui received a letter from Tong Qiangsheng, knowing that the Qing army began to mobilize the Guangdong Navy Division to go north, he immediately understood that he had to quickly capture Suzhou, and then wave the army to Shanghai.

The next day, Xiao Yungui ordered all armies to strengthen the offensive, and the artillery beckoned to the city wall as if they didn't want money. When he was fighting happily, Xiao Yungui received the news from Bai Zetang again, and when he opened the letter, Xiao Yungui couldn't help but be angry, these dead foreign devils had just signed a treaty with themselves, and when they returned to Shanghai, they lent troops to the Qing army to help suppress them, they are really a group of treacherous villains!

"Fucking dead foreign devils! A bunch of scoundrels! Perfidious villain! Something that gives birth to a son without an asshole! A series of vicious curses popped out of Xiao Yungui's mouth, this guy's voice has always been loud, which startled Zuo Zongtang beside him, Zuo Zongtang asked anxiously why, Xiao Yungui handed Bai Zetang's letter to Zuo Zongtang.

After Zuo Zongtang looked at it, he laughed instead of being angry, Xiao Yungui said curiously: "What are you laughing at?" ”

Zuo Zongtang took a deep breath and sighed: "King Xi, King Xi, you are a person who does great things, and you should know that you are cheating, whether a foreign devil betrays the treaty or abides by the treaty, it is someone else's business, you can't pin your hopes on others." As the saying goes, how can everyone be of one mind? How can everything be done? When encountering setbacks and betrayals, instead of getting angry and scolding, it is better to think about how to solve the problem. The commander of an army and the commander of a party should have the courage to collapse Mount Tai in front and not change color, so that the people below have confidence, so that no matter what we encounter, we can have the confidence to solve it. ”

Xiao Yungui touched his chin thoughtfully, worthy of Zuo Zongtang, his speech is really level, when there are troubled times, this kind of deceitful and treacherous thing should be commonplace, and he has seen a lot in later generations, so he really shouldn't have such a big temper. He is the commander of an army, and he really can't lose his calm judgment because he is angry.

At that moment, Xiao Yungui took a deep breath and smiled: "Thank you Mr. Zuo for reminding me." Then he took the letter and read it carefully, the more he looked at it, the more he felt that something was wrong, and looked up at Zuo Zongtang's smile and silence, Xiao Yungui frowned and said: "This matter is very strange, it stands to reason that Wen Han and the others really want to use the help of the teacher to help the Qing demon to fight us, and he doesn't have to go to Nanjing to sign any treaty with us at all." If you want to deceive us and set a trap, if you want to turn your face, it should be when we arrive in Shanghai, when we have no precautions against foreign soldiers, we suddenly make trouble, why do we send troops to help clear the demons with great fanfare? ”

Zuo Zongtang stroked his beard and said with a smile: "The letter said that the foreign devils helped the Qing army to suppress the Little Knife Society, and the Little Knife Society is not our Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, and the foreign devils seem to ignore it, and it is estimated that the Qing court must be promised heavy profits, and the foreign devils must have expected that they will not violate the neutrality treaty with our Heavenly Kingdom, and they can get generous gifts and stabilize the situation in Shanghai, so they will naturally send troops to help suppress it." ”

Xiao Yungui nodded and said: "Yes, we have never told foreign devils that Xiaodao will be our people, and Xiaodao will only be afraid and will not admit that they are people from the Tianping Heavenly Kingdom, they originate from the Heaven and Earth Society, and maybe they still hold their dreams of recovering the Qing Dynasty." ”

Zuo Zongtang hummed and groaned: "I originally thought that when we invaded Shanghai, with the strength of our Heavenly Kingdom soldiers, we would still be able to capture the knife meeting, but now it's good, before we reach Shanghai, the knife society will be wiped out by the Qing court, how did the Qing court think of us going ahead this time?" Then he sighed lightly and said: "The only way to do this is to first divide a group of men and horses to attack Shanghai lightly, and immediately find the foreign devils in Wenhan and tell them that our Taiping army is coming!" ”