The year of Jiayin was destined to be an extraordinary era, and in the Far East of China, the fighting between the emerging Taiping army and the Qing army continued. And thousands of miles away, on the Crimean Peninsula, wars broke out between Britain, France, and Ottomans and Russia. I don't know if it's because Xiao Yungui led the Taiping Army to capture the two ports of Shanghai and Ningbo in advance, in short, the breeze of Xiao Yungui's butterfly in the Far East may really affect history. The outbreak of the Crimean War was delayed by eight months, and Britain and France officially declared war on Russia at the beginning of the year.

Although Xiao Yungui knows that this is the butterfly effect brought about by himself or others, or maybe the history of this time and space is quite different from the history he knows, Xiao Yungui believes that some things that will happen will still happen, just like the Crimean War, on the one hand, the ambition of Russia's double-headed eagle expansion, on the other hand, the determination of Britain, France and other countries to protect their own interests, and the contradiction between the two can only be released through war. This result cannot be changed, no matter how strong the wind of Xiao Yungui's butterfly fanned, it will not set off a hurricane to stop the war.

Sometimes when Xiao Yungui and Hong Yuner talk about history and reality, both of them will have a deep sense of powerlessness, and both of them are very clear about the diversion of the Yellow River in the year of Jiayin, but there is nothing they can do to change it. The Yellow River was still under the control of the Qing army, and they were far away in Sufu Province. When they thought of the tragic situation that this diversion would cause to millions of people to suffer and starve to death for thousands of miles, the two seemed to be unable to do much other than never mention the imminent tragedy with their own hearts. They can only bury their heads in the ground like ostriches, pretending not to know about it.

Similarly, Rong Lu, who was still trading and training in Hengyang at this time, couldn't do anything, and Xingzhen, who was pregnant and still raising a baby in the deep palace, couldn't do anything. The Qing government's finances had almost collapsed, and local taxes could only meet the needs of the war. For the cost of repairing the river embankment, which often needs to invest millions of taels, Rong Lu and Xingzhen are powerless. The two of them also chose to forget about this matter, and at the same time, like Xiao and Hong, their hearts were full of powerlessness, and this sense of powerlessness came from the fact that you knew that a tragic event would happen but were powerless to stop it. Sometimes the four of them will have a strange idea at the same time, and it is a kind of happiness to not know.

Xingzhen and Hong Yun'er were both pregnant at about the same time, and the two women were busy with the pregnancy with different moods, and they kept this matter in their hearts. And the two men also chose to use military training to forget about this matter, something they knew but were powerless to change.

Rong Lu's military training in Hengyang was not very successful, and his understanding of military training was not deep enough. He didn't manage anyone before he crossed, and the only thing he could do was buy people's hearts and introduce firearms, as well as the few military knowledge he had gained from military training in later generations.

And Xiao Yungui is different, he managed his father's company before crossing over, and he has been in contact with more people and things. Some of the war memories left by Xiao Chaogui after the crossing were also of great help to him, and he was also a practical school that led the troops all the way. At this point, he did a lot better than Rong Lu.

Shanghai Martial Arts School was established last year. Xiao Yungui set up the martial arts school in Zhabei, across the Wusong River and the British and French concessions. The martial arts school covers a wide area, with military camps, houses, teaching houses, and training grounds, and the entire Zhabei District is a large barracks of the Taiping Army.

Xiao Yungui set up the martial arts school here with deep meaning, he did not want the concession area of the great powers to expand further to the north, he turned Zhabei and other places into a large barracks. Turning it into military land was to cut off the delusion of the great powers to expand the concessions, and at the same time, it was also a kind of silent pressure on the concession powers.

The envoys of Britain, France, the United States and other countries have protested, but Xiao Yungui insisted on setting up a martial arts school here, and he told the ministers of several countries. This is the military academy of the Taiping Army, and there are garrisons here to protect the safety of the concession.

Wenham returned to China at the beginning of the year and was succeeded by John Anderson. Sir Bao Ling, after appreciating the tough tone and insincere kindness of the King of the West, Bao Ling did not dwell too much on this issue. After all, the king of the west is reasonable, Zhabei is not a concession land, as an occupier he can do anything on the land he occupies, although this matter may threaten the security of the concession, but at least for now, the king of the west has been abiding by the treaties signed by the Manchus that were imposed on him.

Bao Ling's attention was more drawn to the construction of the Suzhou-Shanghai Railway and the northward movement of the Anglo-French combined fleet in the Far East to attack the Russians in the Far East. The Suzhou-Shanghai Railway was the first railway built by the United Kingdom in the Far East through Jardine Matheson, and Jardine Matheson invested 30% of the funds to obtain 30% of the future shares of this railway. The original intention of the Baoling was to invest all of it by the British, but the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom had to give the right of way, even the mining rights along the railway.

But after Bao Ling, who went to Suzhou, took the people of Jardine Matheson to negotiate with Xiwang, he did not get what he wanted. Xiwang insisted on not ceding the right of way, but distributed the rights and interests on the railway in the future in the form of shares. To this end, the Xiwang Mansion invested 60% of the total funds to obtain the largest equity of the railway, and the remaining 20% of the Xiwang was distributed to the wealthy merchants of Sufu Province.

Bao Ling was reluctant to give up this attempt, because it was very rare to get the opportunity to build a railway in ignorant and backward China. Bao Ling hopes to open the door of China's ancient country through this railway, and he believes that after the Chinese know the convenience of the railway, they will start to build the railway like the United States. He also believed that in the subsequent major road repair environment, even if the king of the West had money, he would not be able to pay such a huge construction cost, and Zuihou would still have to give up a lot of rights of way in exchange for the construction of the railway.

Another thing that gave Bao Ling a headache was the issue of the attack of the combined Anglo-French fleet in the Far East against Russia in the Pacific region. Although the main battlefield of the Crimean War was on the Crimean Peninsula, there were also Russian military facilities in the Far East. According to intelligence, Russia has only four or five warships in the Pacific Ocean that can barely fight, and the rest are some civilian ships, and only about 1,000 marines can fight.

Bao Ling naturally hoped to strike at Russian targets in the Far East, and since war had been declared on Russia, a new battlefield had to be opened in the Far East.

Due to the disparity in forces between the two sides, the Russian governor of Far Eastern Siberia, Muravyov, threw all of Liliang into the Kamchatka Peninsula, the mouth of the Heilongjiang River and Sakhalin Island to hold on.

In April of the beginning of the year, a joint task force composed of the British and French navies arrived in Kamchatka, and Muravyov ordered all the Russian navies to withdraw to the harbor. On April 30, British and French warships launched a heavy artillery bombardment of the military port, blowing up many of the Russian defensive artillery. But the Russians repaired through the night and soon rearranged the defenses.

The British and French navies were at a loss when three Americans who claimed to have escaped from a whaling ship suddenly arrived. Several Americans told the British commander that it would be much easier to attack the Petropavlovsk military port by land than from the sea, and offered to reveal to them the nearest route of the march. The British and French forces immediately sent a 700-strong marine team to land and prepare for a surprise attack on the Russian naval base. But those "Americans" led them into an ambush circle set by the Russian army. By the time they withdrew to the ship, more than half of them had already suffered casualties. The two naval and land attacks of the British and French navies failed to succeed, so they had to retreat to Vancouver and San Francisco in North America to reorganize and stand by.

Bao Ling, who suffered the defeat, naturally felt disgraced, and he needed to mobilize more warships to teach the Russians a lesson in the Far East, but what gave him a headache was that he had very few troops in the Far East, and he didn't think that the navy alone could solve the problem, but how could there be an extra army out of thin air?

Early this morning, when Bao Ling was enjoying breakfast, Midile, who had been promoted to consul in Shanghai, walked in quickly and whispered, "Sir, Xiwang has arrived in Shanghai......

Xiao Yungui did arrive in Shanghai, he landed on the bank of the Wusong River, at the military wharf of the Shanghai Lecture Martial Arts Hall, without pausing for a moment, and rushed directly to the Lecture Martial Arts Hall a few miles away.

After the establishment of the Martial Arts Academy, Xiao Yungui transferred most of the guards and officers around him to the Martial Arts Academy for training, and based on the children's camp, the Guards Youth Army was established.

At the beginning of the establishment of the Lecture Martial Arts School, Xiao Yungui used the military training syllabus written by him and Hong Yun'er to conduct training, and then Xiao Yungui hired some Prussian, British, French, and American retired soldiers as instructors. There are the first batch of nearly 1,300 officers and children in the school, and they will be the first batch of officers to fill the Xidian Taiping Army that has come to Shanghai for reorganization.

Shanghai Jiangwutang is divided into five types of military divisions: infantry, artillery, cavalry, engineer, and baggage. According to the students' strengths, they are divided into classes A and B and focus on learning military subjects, such as topography, city building, weapons, military system, hygiene, etc., and study the military science courses made up by the instructors of Xiwang and Yang. Class C and special classes first learn general subjects and basic military science courses, such as national language, ethics, instrument painting, arithmetic, history and geography, English or French, infantry drill codes, shooting lessons, in-battle duty orders, work lessons, field exercises, etc., and then study the military disciplines and the military science courses issued by the Ministry of War in different disciplines.

The foreign instructors hired by Xiwang are also multi-professional talents, such as the new military department of the baggage military department, and Xiwang hired some retired logistics officers from the United Kingdom to fill them. Although Xiao Yungui knew that Britain's logistical support in the Crimean War was outrageously backward, he still needed these British, and after they compiled the textbooks of the Baggage and Heavy Weapons Department, such as the Codex, Models, and Orders, Xiao Yungui and the people with actual combat experience in the Ministry of War studied and adapted them for a long time, and finally formed the Baggage and Heavy Troops Textbooks that echoed the Taiping Army's current transportation capacity and logistics supply capabilities. Although Xiao Yungui doesn't like dogma very much, he is more worried that an undisciplined transitional hot weapon army will appear on the battlefield, which will be a disaster that kills people. (To be continued......)