Li Xiucheng has been in a good mood recently, and he was originally facing many, many problems when he went south to fight, but for the Taiping Army, which was fighting alone in the north and did not have a complete logistics supply system, the biggest problem was supply. At first, Li Xiucheng was very worried about this kind of battle without logistical support, if the Qing army stubbornly resisted and stubbornly held the fortified city, and the Taiping army consumed too much along the way, the materials they carried might be difficult to support Lin Fengxiang's division.

But after the army set off from Jinghai to the south, the battle was surprisingly smooth, after going south along the canal, the cities occupied by the Qing army along the way fell to the wind, or the local county officials or generals led the army to escape, the Taiping army all the way without a single shot and a bullet successively captured Qingxian, Cangzhou, Dacheng and other places, but when they hit Nanpi, they wasted more than a dozen shells, and the army was like a bamboo.

The county official guarding Nanpi was a die-hard, always thinking of martyrdom, but after a cannonball hit, the county official who was righteous and awe-inspiring at the head of the city, took the lead, and defended the sword was killed on the spot, and after the dragons were leaderless, the city raised a white flag and surrendered.

Afterwards, Li Xiucheng learned that the reason why these cities were taken without much effort was somewhat related to the propaganda of Changlu salt merchant Zhang Jinwen and others. Since Zhang Jinwen watched the battle between the Taiping Army and the foreigners in Baodi, he knew in his heart that the world was going to change masters, and more than 20,000 foreign soldiers could defeat more than 100,000 imperial army and retreat, and finally the capital was almost lost, and the Taiping army of more than 40,000 people wiped out the foreigners. I am a Han person, why don't you take the initiative to take refuge, maybe you can still get a dragon in the future?

So Zhang Jinwen then asked to meet the chief general of the Taiping Army. Originally, he only thought that he would meet the leading general of the Taiping Army, but he didn't expect to see the number one person in the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. King Xiao Chaogui of the West. For the name of the king of the west, it can be said that it resounded all over the country, and Zhang Jinwen admired the king of the west even more for daring to take a lone army to the north for adventure as the head of a country. This courage and courage are indeed possessed by a founding king.

King Xi very politely received Zhang Jinwen, and greatly praised Zhang Jinwen, as a wealthy man, who did not surrender to the foreigners when the foreign soldiers entered the country, and took the initiative to take the responsibility of defending the land and protecting the people when the Manchu court could not settle down, which is very rare.

After some praise, Zhang Jinwen showed a red tide and said a few words of humility, and then the king of the West told about the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom's policy towards rich merchants, and also talked about the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom's industrial and commercial policies. In the end, King Xi also talked about the salt and iron policy in Jiangnan.

At first, Zhang Jinwen was slightly disappointed with the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom's salt and iron policy, but Xiwang proposed to build the first factory in the north to produce iodized salt in Tianjin, and planned to let Zhang Jinwen contribute to the technical aspects. After listening, Zhang Jinwen was overjoyed, he had long heard that Jiangnan refined salt was made of zuò, and it was said that what iodine was added to it, and after eating, he would not get big neck disease, and the production cost was greatly reduced. Whoever does this business first will be able to occupy the northern market first.

Next, Xiwang and Zhang Jinwen had a long talk, talking about how to develop the local industrial and commercial economy of Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei in the future, and Xiwang proposed to build a large railway connecting the north and south and to develop maritime trade, which Zhang Jinwen did not dare to imagine. So in front of a beautiful blueprint. Zhang Jinwen strengthened his determination to become a dragon.

Later, the king of the west also said that he wanted Zhang Jinwen to be responsible for raising grain, grass and other military supplies, anyway, after the king of the west conquered Tianjin, the British and French robbers robbed a lot of gold, silver and jewelry. There are also many captives who have found a large amount of money, which can be used for military procurement.

Zhang Jinwen is a businessman. Seeing that it was profitable, he naturally obeyed his fate, and the king of the west proposed to let Zhang Jinwen come forward to contact the wealthy merchants in the north. He called on others not to follow the Manchu Qing Dynasty anymore, and the slogan put forward by the King of the West was that when the Taiping Army came, it would abolish all kinds of harsh taxes and miscellaneous taxes on industry and commerce, and vigorously encourage the development of industry and commerce. And Xiwang asked Zhang Jinwen to contact more wealthy businessmen to meet with Xiwang to discuss the future development of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei.

Zhang Jinwen was overjoyed, of course, he received the order, and the king of the west rewarded Zhang Jinwen with the position of the county guard of Tianjin County, which made Zhang Jinwen even more flattered. After the leading representative of the Changlu salt merchant took the initiative to come up, the king of the west planned to buy horse bones with a thousand dollars and set an example first, so Zhang Jinwen became the first rich northern merchant to take refuge in the Taiping army.

Then Zhang Jinwen sent his family to contact rich businessmen and friends from all over the world, he has been in business for many years, and has a wide range of people in the north, and after the recent strong appearance of the Taiping army in the north, he surrounded the capital and defeated the foreigners who entered the Kou, and everyone's mind changed dramatically, so there was a situation where Li Xiucheng went south to attack the city without a single shot.

At the moment, the Qing army's forces in Zhili and other places were very weak, and most of them were evacuated before the war, and went to the capital or Dagu and other places to fight with the foreigners, and the place was empty. Zhang Jinwen's propaganda made the rich businessmen everywhere watch from the sidelines, and no longer supported the Manchu government, and without the money, food, and regimental training support of the rich businessmen, the Qing army lost its minions. Even big cities such as Cangzhou took the initiative to open the city and surrender after the local regiment trained and killed the county officials.

The people of Cangzhou are martial, and there are many religious people who believe in Allah, and they were originally mortal enemies of the Christianity believed in the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, but since the desperate resistance of Allah people in Guangxi, the Taiping army later paid great attention to the propaganda of policies such as equality of doctrine and freedom of belief before marching. Before attacking Cangzhou, Li Xiucheng sent dozens of soldiers who believed in Allah to the south to propagate, so the people of Cangzhou not only helped the Taiping army, but also took the initiative to kill the county officials under the encouragement of the Taiping soldiers, and Kaicheng surrendered.

After entering Cangzhou, the Taiping Army took the initiative to protect various halal temples and respected the custom of the parishioners not to eat pork, in fact, in the Taiping Army, soldiers who believed in Allah had long received this respect, and the army had halal food to solve the problem of dietary customs. Therefore, the people of Cangzhou naturally supported the Taiping army when they saw that the Taiping Army really respected doctrine and freedom of belief, and also abolished the Manchu Dynasty's harsh taxes and miscellaneous taxes.

At this time, the policies that Xiao Yungui and Hong Yun'er have adhered to for many years have reflected the benefits, one is to protect private property, unlike the Taiping Army in history, which completely equalized the rich and the poor, and forced the rich businessmen to the side of the imperial court, but used the development of industry and commerce, vigorously developed production, turned a part of the agricultural population into the urban industrial population, reduced land contradictions, and at the same time redeemed the land, confiscated the government, corrupt officials and some heinous large households to distribute the land to the common people, which can be regarded as alleviating social contradictions. At this time, this trick is used in the north, where the population density is not as large as in the south, and it is naturally easy to capture. What's more, the Taiping army defeated the foreigners, greatly increased the confidence of the people, and also declared the great martial arts of the Taiping army, so it has this effect.

The second is to insist on freedom of belief, as early as when the Western King Changsha won over the Heaven and Earth Society, the army was allowed to believe in Buddhism and Taoism and other teachings, and after the Western King took charge of Tianjing, he abolished the bad rule of forcing others to believe in God worship throughout the country, so Confucianism, Buddhism, Taoism and other sects were not persecuted, because even after Zeng Guofan raised troops in the name of respecting Confucianism and defending the Chinese language, this slogan was not typed again in the following years, and no one responded.

Therefore, Li Xiucheng's march to the south this time was very smooth, with almost no loss of guns and ammunition, on the contrary, he received the support of the people in various places along the way, and the Taiping Army bought and sold fairly, and grain, grass, vegetables, fruits, and local specialties were transported to the army in an endless stream for trading. The logistics quartermaster of the Taiping Army even purchased gunpowder, sulfur, saltpeter, medicinal materials and other military supplies from the people, and carried more grain and ammunition than when they set off.

After Li Xiucheng occupied a place, he divided more than 100 soldiers to stay behind, appointed local people with a high reputation as magistrates, gave money and food, and called on local regiments to train and turn into township soldiers of the Taiping Army to jointly defend the place, which can be regarded as establishing the Taiping Army's township officer system and township soldier system in the towns and cities along the way. It's just that the army is going south, there are very few civil officials, this kind of township officials and township soldiers system is only temporary, not as thorough as the one in Jiangnan, and there are still a lot of outdated customs and bad rules in various places, but they can only get through and Lin Fengxiang's land practice, and then send a large number of civilian officials to the north for guidance.

Fortunately, the soldiers who stayed behind were specially selected to be more literate and more sensible, believing that they would be able to handle local affairs well, temporarily stabilize the local situation, and wait for the Taiping army to move north in the future, and then make adjustments.

And the south of Lin Fengxiang began the Battle of Xuzhou when the West King went north, in this direction the Taiping army invested the strength of two field armies, although the news is not clear, but Li Xiucheng believes that Lin Fengxiang's troops have occupied Xuzhou, and then all the way north to fight Yanzhou, Tai'an and other large states, the most likely is to go south with their own soldiers and horses to meet under the city of Jinan.

As a result, Li Xiucheng's troops, who had been advancing all the way, went south to Shandong non-stop, and Dongguang, Fucheng, Jingzhou, Dezhou and other places all went down in one drum, and then continued to invade Shandong, captured Lingxian, and the army came to Linyi.

When Li Xiucheng's forward troops and horses arrived at the city of Linyi, it was already evening, and the Qing army did not dare to go out of the city to fight.

When the news reached Li Xiucheng's desk, Li Xiucheng touched his chin and sighed secretly that he had lost an opportunity, if he knew about it in advance, he would definitely send troops and horses to outflank the south, and he would definitely be able to encircle and annihilate this Qing army in Linyi, but unfortunately let this Qing army run away, otherwise after the total annihilation of this largest Qing army group in Shandong, the whole territory of Shandong would not be in the bag? It seems that he is still too careful with his own soldiers.

But Li Xiucheng did not blame himself for too long, from which he saw the other side, that is, the Qing army in Shandong did not seem to be very enthusiastic about going north to King Qin, at least King Qin's determination was very weak, judging from their scattered forces to defend various towns, these Qing army generals in Shandong still hoped to protect themselves from the territory, and their will to resist was very weak, perhaps they could take other means to disintegrate the Qing army in Shandong.

At dawn the next day, Li Xiucheng asked the captured Qing army deserters to be released, and sent a handwritten letter to the Qing army generals and county officials in Linyi City on his behalf, and this letter was naturally the content of the persuasion to surrender...... (To be continued......)