Although the troops began targeted landing drills at the end of last year, they were all carried out off the coast of Fujian, and the officers and men of the Third Division experienced a baptism of storms and waves on the way south after setting out from Quanzhou. Rao is that these southern soldiers have all had the experience of taking a boat, and later experienced some training at sea, but they could not withstand this kind of turbulence, and the space of the sea ship was cramped, and many people were seasick.

After a few days of sailing, the fleet arrived at the Wanshan Islands outside the Lingding Ocean, Wanshan Islands, located in the south of the Pearl River Estuary, is the place where Guangzhou must pass through the sea channel, the Wanshan Islands are stacked on top of each other, such as a camp in the front of Humen, like a giant ship stationed in the sea of the Pearl River Estuary, becoming a natural barrier in South China and an important gateway to Guangzhou. The inter-archipelago shipping lanes crisscross and are the only places for ships entering the port of Guangzhou, Zhuhai and Hong Kong; The Wanshan Islands are just the key point of the sea channel, and the terrain is dangerous, and it is a place where soldiers must fight.

If it had not been for the preemptive occupation of the British and French fleets, the first landing battle of Zhang Wenxiang's Third Division would have broken out here, but it is a pity that as early as last year, when Britain and France blockaded the mouth of the Pearl River, the Wanshan Islands had already fallen, and now it is the British Marines who are guarding the islands, and the British and French fleets are cruising in the waters of the Wanshan Islands.

Therefore, as the vanguard of the southward operation, the 3rd Division was the first to land on the garbage tail island in the Wanshan Islands, that is, Guishan Island. Guishan Island is located in the northwest of the Wanshan Islands, east of the Pearl River Estuary, when domestic and foreign ships enter and exit the Pearl River Estuary routes, it is the maritime transportation hub of the Wanshan Islands. The island is 3 kilometers long, 1.05-2.4 kilometers wide, and has a coastline of 9.40 kilometers in a north-south trend. It covers an area of 3.5125 square kilometers. There are 13 wells on the island, and there are springs in each mountain, which continue all year round. Enough fresh water for tens of thousands of people to drink. The shore of the island is more tortuous, with rocky steep shores and rocky shores, and near-shore reefs scattered. There are a total of 15 harbors along the coast, mainly one bay and two bays, all of which are sandy beaches, and there are 3 "T" shaped piers built by the British in the bay, and there are recommended navigation light posts.

Zhang Wenxiang, Zheng Yantuo, and other members of the command of the Third Division followed the second batch of sampans and small boats to Guishan Island. The commander of the British Marine Corps on the island was a naval captain named Georgia, who led more than 120 British troops to garrison the island. They were not surprised by the arrival of the Taiping fleet. As early as a week ago, they received an order to hand over Guishan Island to the Taiping army.

At the end of last year, in the midst of round after round of quarrels and compromises, the British Minister Baling and the French Minister Blombull had to give up their original conditions. King Xi never agreed to join forces with the British and French forces to fight against the Qing army. The conditions for opening the whole country were also denied. Xiwang only agreed to open Nanjing, Suzhou, and Quanzhou as new treaty ports. The legalization of the opium trade was rejected rhetorically, and the king of the West even refused to use the threat of war as a clause.

Now the British in the whirlpool of war in India do not have much confidence to start a war with the Taiping army, the Taiping army controls almost all the southern coastal towns and ports, and the British will lose a lot of benefits if they start a war with the Taiping army, and they do not think that the Taiping army is a cowardly and rotten Qing army, and the navy and 2,000 marines alone can achieve the goal of bringing the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom to its knees.

So Britain and France temporarily chose to back down, and the three sides initialed an entente, which was just an entente for the Taiping army to fight in Guangzhou in the south. The king of the West paid for the opening of three more treaty ports and the admission of British and French envoys to Tianjing. In exchange for the British and French fleets blocking the Pearl River port, they ceded the right to occupy the Wanshan Islands. At the same time, the two sides agreed that Britain and France would withdraw to the Hong Kong anchorage in the battle of the Taiping army south to Guangzhou. Not intervening in the war in Canton, the Taiping Army, after occupying Canton, promised to restore order and trade in Canton in the shortest possible time.

Although the British were not satisfied with the results of this negotiation, they were helpless, and they could not declare war on the Taiping army in the Far East without suppressing the uprising on the Indian side. According to Grant, the Taiping army was different from the decaying Manchu army, and their performance in a series of battles against Russia, such as Temple Street and Sakhalin Island, had proved that they were not weaker than the Russian army, and even stronger than the Russians, and that in order to bring the Taiping army to its knees, the Anglo-French army must even be prepared to fight another war of the scale of the Crimea, rather than relying only on the 30,000 expeditionary force still trapped in India.

Grant's assessment was a problem for both the Prime Minister and Parliament, and with the opposition of the British Chamber of Commerce and the Rothschilds, the British compromised and temporarily backed down. The British Chamber of Commerce attaches more importance to the upcoming Shanghai-Nanjing Railway and Ningfu Railway, and the construction of the railway from Shanghai to Ningbo to Fuzhou, which is a huge cake, and the annual import of steel, hardware, weapons, etc. by the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom is also very lucrative commercial profits, and the import and export tariffs of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom are also very reasonable, and there are no multiple taxes as the Manchu Qing Dynasty before, and unpleasant disputes can be quickly resolved by the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom government, without the ignorant and ignorant pushing and avoiding of the Manchu Dynasty. As a result, none of the members of the British Chamber of Commerce were willing to go to war with the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. As for the filthy opium merchants, most of them were Indian outbreaks, and the native British merchants looked down on them, and although the British merchants occasionally engaged in the opium trade, they valued their own commerce more.

The Rothschilds were very firm in their opposition to the war between Britain and the Taipings, and their reasons were very simple, the civil war between the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom and the Manchu Qing Dynasty must end in the victory of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, and as the largest country in the Far East in the future, the interests of British merchants and the Rothschilds were to manage commercial relations with this country. The ambitious Taiping army wanted to speed up the pace of national construction, which would inevitably lead to more imports of goods and raw material exports, and China's population was 400 million, which was a very large market, and the Rothschilds were even willing to lend money to the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom to end the civil war as soon as possible.

At the same time, people also noticed a new member of the Rothschild family, a beautiful woman from the East, a former female general of the Taiping Army, and now the wife of the youngest son of the Rothschild family, Clifford, whose name is Li Xuanji. Since arriving in England and having a grand wedding with Clifford, Li Xuanji has entered the upper social circle of the British aristocracy. She spoke English by Clifford, spoke it very well when she was in China, and there was no obstacle to communication with the ladies and ladies of the British aristocracy.

Li Xuanji's gentle and virtuous lady, coupled with her profound oriental cultural heritage, enabled her to conquer those ladies and ladies with her personal charm in a very short time. Li Xuanji showed them beautiful Chinese embroidery, carving, cloisonné and other exquisite works of art, and soon Li Xuanji set off a wave of Chinese style in the British upper class, and gradually radiated its influence to the middle and lower classes. At the same time, Li Xuanji's eloquent narration allowed the British to understand the enlightenment of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom and the decay and brutality of the Manchu Qing Dynasty. The Times even set up a column to tell about the deeds of this female general of the Taiping Army (Li Xuanji was once an official to the inspection point) and introduced the deeds of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. The Taiping army was no longer a rebel army in the eyes of the British, but a righteous army for national independence and overthrowing tyranny, and the so-called Manchu imperial power was also imposed on them by the Manchus, and in the eyes of the British, the barbaric Tatars should be overthrown.

Thanks to the efforts of all parties, British Prime Minister Palmerston and the British Parliament agreed to Bao Ling's proposal and agreed to sign a provisional treaty to cede the Wanshan Islands, end the blockade of Guangzhou, and let the Taiping Army complete the occupation of Guangzhou.

However, this compromise was forced, and the interests of the British were not fully realized, which also laid the hidden danger for the outbreak of war between the two sides later. But at least until the British did not settle the Indian incident, the two sides maintained a friendly and cooperative relationship.

Georgia saw Zhang Wenxiang on the beach, Zhang Wenxiang's military rank was already a major general at this time, Captain Georgia first saluted him, Zhang Wenxiang returned the salute and looked at the British soldiers behind him who were ready to evacuate, only to see that they were neatly dressed, with their heads held high, and the arrogance jumped up.

The handover ceremony was very simple, and Georgia and several British officers were completed with Zhang Wenxiang and other Taiping generals. The British built simple barracks and some facilities, but these were not enough for the Taiping army to go south, Zhang Wenxiang ordered the landing troops to unload the supplies as soon as possible, and then began to build barracks on the island, expand the docks and clean up the landing sites.

That night, the British and the Taiping held a simple party, and the soldiers on both sides competed in marksmanship and fighting. The third division was experienced in a hundred battles, and Zhang Wenxiang selected the best soldiers to compete, and naturally the Taiping army defeated the British army, and even drank wine. Early the next morning, the British warship Mel Willy picked up more than 120 drunken British soldiers.

After sending off the British, Zhang Wenxiang recruited some local fishermen as guides and began to prepare to attack the Shajiao Fort and the Dajiaoshan Fort at the mouth of the Pearl River. The Wanshan Islands are the gateway to Guangzhou outside the Lingding Ocean, while the Shajiao Fort and the Dajiaoshan Fort are the gateways to the Pearl River Estuary, and behind them are a series of batteries along the Pearl River, such as Humen. In order to land and capture Canton, it is necessary to capture these forts, and to occupy these forts, it is necessary to first take the Shajiao fort and the Dajiaoshan fort.

Shajiao Fort is located on Shajiao Mountain at the mouth of the Pearl River, on the opposite bank of it is the Dajiaoshan Fort, during the First Opium War, these two forts were destroyed for a time, and later rebuilt and expanded. Suffering from the first opium war, the artillery on the two forts is not fine, the Manchu Qing Dynasty has increased the construction, now the two forts have a total of 64 cannons, of which the Manchu Qing Dynasty has four 10,000 jin cannons, the remaining 8,000 jin cannons ten, the rest are 3,000 jin cannons, which is enough to cover the Pearl River Estuary 3,600 meters wide. There are more than 2,000 Manchu green battalion soldiers and regimental training soldiers and horses stationed on the forts, which can be said to be a bloody investment.

After resting on Guishan Island for two days, while the Third Division successively divided its troops to take over the Wanshan Islands, Zhang Wenxiang and Tang Zhengcai, the general of the Naval Division, discussed and decided to attack the two batteries at night. (To be continued......)