Chen Guangsheng may not have taken this opportunity to completely annihilate Yang Fang's troops, and originally mobilized troops to surround the other party at night, but unfortunately he fled after being discovered, and he could only sigh, feeling that the enemy was too slippery.

Xiang Rong's department actually has a certain combat effectiveness, and he is known as the iron rooster, and his command ability is also considered excellent in the Qing army, but his luck has been a little worse.

The first two battles ended too quickly, and due to the poor level of communication in this era, by the time Xiang Rong knew the news of the defeat of the other two roads, Wang Jiuxuan had already returned to the army, and cooperated with the other troops of Sanyuanguan and Chen Guangsheng's troops who stayed in Guangzhou, faintly and semi-surrounded Xiang Rong's troops.

After Xiang Rong finally figured out the situation, he was frightened and immediately wanted to lead his troops back to Guangxi, but unfortunately the Huaxia army in Guangdong didn't want him to go back easily, so he immediately took the lead in covering up and killing Xiang Rong's troops to the point of blood.

When Xiang Rong retreated to the vicinity of Wuzhou with the remnants, he found that Wuzhou had actually changed its flag, and there was a firearms force of no less than 20,000 that occupied Wuzhou first, blocking his way.

After carefully inquiring about the origin of this army, Xiang Rong couldn't help but feel frightened, it turned out that it was the army of the Black Wood Cliff Demon Sect that had always been regarded as the biggest henchman of the imperial court who stopped him.

It turned out that everyone had paid attention to the Mixed Yuan Sect and the Sanyuan Concept over the years, and they had ignored this number one thief.

Guangxi Demon Sect has been a master for many years because of the legacy of the Demon Venerable of the year, and it is the force with the largest number of high-end martial artists outside the Inhuman Hall of the Qing Court, and the number of fourth-order great masters and innate martial artists in a single round is three points stronger than the Heaven and Earth Society, the largest gang in the world.

Over the years, there have been rebel role models such as the Mixed Yuan Sect and the Sanyuan Sect outside the Demon Sect, and disciples like Yang Tianming inside who have transported ordnance and materials in Qinzhou, and also helped train officers and soldiers, and their strength has increased many times compared to a few years ago.

In the past few years, the Mixed Yuan Sect and the Sanyuan Sect have sold and given away tens of thousands of muskets to the Demon Sect, and even there are hundreds of artillery pieces, which is enough for the Demon Sect to secretly form a pure firearms force of tens of thousands of people by virtue of its huge influence in Guangxi.

The gift package that Xuan Zheng said earlier for the Qing court refers to the Demon Sect.

In the past few years, the Demon Sect has been looking for an open place in Guangxi to secretly train its troops, but on the surface it does not cause much trouble, so that almost everyone in the world has forgotten about them.

However, now it's time for the Tiger to come out.

Taking advantage of Xiang Rong's attack, the Qing army in Guangxi was unprecedentedly empty, and the Demon Sect openly rebelled under the leadership of Dongfang Undefeated and Yang Xiuqing, conquered a large number of prefectures and counties, and also occupied Wuzhou strongly, blocking Xiang Rong's way back.

At this time, Xiang Rong also knew that his end had come, but instead he took the remnants of the army to fight a decisive battle, but unfortunately from weapons and equipment, soldier training to soldier training, they were too far behind the enemy, and in the end, the whole army was wiped out, and he himself died in the battle.

After that, the Demon Sect officially announced a rebellion and declared the founding of the country as the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom.

After this battle, Guangdong and Guangxi were both opposed, even Fujian also fell into the hands of Li Xian, and the Qing court's vital force in Jiangnan was unprecedentedly weak, which suddenly shook the world, and many people of insight expressed extreme doubts about whether the Qing court could continue.

At this time, there was a big event in Fujian.

It turned out that a mysterious cavalry appeared in Fuzhou and fought a big battle with Li Xian's Northern Expeditionary Army.

Li Xian had actually been guarding against this force, and after the battle, he fought steadily and steadily, and did not suffer any losses, but most of his men were infantry, and he was helpless when he retreated after the cavalry attacked, so he could only watch the other party withdraw.

This battle also exposed the weakness of the Huaxia army, that is, the infantry and artillery were strong, but there was a lack of cavalry, and once it encountered the cavalry that came and went, it was possible to suffer.

However, Li Xian didn't care, and moved a large amount of supplies obtained from Fuzhou back to his old nest by boat, and then led his troops to evacuate Fuzhou, and went straight to Dayuan Island on a boat.

It turned out that compared to Fujian, this Dayuan Island was Li Xian's real purpose.

Fujian has many mountainous areas and poor resources, and there is a shortage of money and grain, so Li Xian really wants to occupy Fujian and invest a lot of resources in governance, which is actually not very cost-effective.

The real purpose of Li Xian's northward march this time, in addition to inciting the battle situation in the world and containing the enemy's main force, the most important thing is to find another base for the Mixed Yuan Sect, preferably in the north of Guangdong, which is conducive to the Northern Expedition in the future.

In many ways, Dayuan Island is suitable for development as a base area.

First of all, from the perspective of geographical conditions, it can contain Fujian and Zhejiang, and it can also carry out trade with Japan and earn funds;

Secondly, Dayuan Island is larger than Hainan Island, and there are more than 2 million residents on the island, so it is easier to develop;

Third, there are large-scale sulfur mines in the north of Dayuan Island, which are rare in China, and there are huge coal mines in Jilong Mountain, which are very suitable for industrial development;

Fourth, there are many plains in the southern part of Dayuan Island, and there are enough water sources, so it is easy to develop agriculture.

In short, the resources of Dayuan Island and the resources of Hainan Island are very complementary, and after occupying this island, the Huaxia Army will not have obvious shortcomings in iron ore, sulfur, timber, coal, grain, saltpeter, etc., which will have great benefits for the next step of industrial development.

Of course, there is also an advantage that the Qing court's strength on the island is extremely weak, whether it is the Qing court's sailors or the masters, cavalry and corpse soldiers of the Inhuman Palace, it is almost impossible to harass them on the island, which can make the Mixed Yuan Sect develop with peace of mind for a long time.

In this Northern Expedition, Sanyuanguan defeated the three-way army and gained great fame; the Guangxi Demon Sect rebelled and obtained the qualification to compete for the world; Li Xian obtained a huge amount of money from Putian and Fuzhou, and also obtained Dayuan Island as a base area, which can be regarded as a real profit.

At this time, Dayuan Island was far less prosperous than in later generations.

At this time, Dayuan Island was only a province in Fujian, with hundreds of thousands of acres of cultivated land and a population of nearly 2 million in the south; in recent years, the northern part has been constantly explored, but it is still very barren, and the population is only 300,000 or 400,000.

The military force that the Qing court could mobilize on Dayuan Island was less than 10,000 regular green battalion soldiers, and although there were still many artillery batteries, the actual effect was also very doubtful.

When Li Xian arrived at Dayuan Island, he naturally occupied the northern part with sulfur mines and coal mines first, and after leading his troops to land, he was like a bamboo, and soon put the entire northern part under his rule.

At this time, the situation in the world gradually became clearer.

Later historians liked to refer to this period as the era of the rise of princes, and in fact this is apt.

Among these cavalry rebel princes, the one with the highest prestige and the strongest military strength is naturally Li Xian's Mixed Yuan Sect.

At present, the Mixed Yuan Sect has 30,000 regular troops, and most of the troops in the army are veterans who have been trained in wars for many years.

It's just that the Mixed Yuan Sect only occupies some prefectures and counties on the southeast coast of Guangdong, and the Dayuan Island that has been occupied recently makes people feel that the territory is not strong enough.

The second strongest among the princes is naturally the team of the Sanyuanguan, and there are also 30,000 firearms troops in their hands, and there are not a few great battles that have been experienced.

Moreover, Sanyuanguan occupies more than ninety percent of Guangdong's territory at this time, and Guangzhou, the most prosperous city in Guangdong, is basically under the control of Sanyuanguan.

Many people privately believe that if it weren't for the fact that the Mixed Yuan Sect had military wizards like Li Xian, who were rare for hundreds of years, in terms of overall strength, I am afraid that the Sanyuan Concept would still be above the Mixed Yuan Sect.

The third strongest force is the Guangxi Demon Sect that has only recently raised troops to rebel, and the Demon Sect has been the most famous rebel expert in China for thousands of years, and there are countless masters in the sect, and it is far above the Sanyuan Concept and the Mixed Yuan Sect.

This time the army rebelled, and the Demon Sect first helped Sanyuanguan annihilate the Xiangrong Department, and then took the opportunity to sweep through Guangxi and take Guilin as its own, which can be called menacing.

The military strength shown by the Demon Sect this time was 20,000 pure firearms troops, second only to the Mixed Yuan Sect and the Three Yuan Sect in terms of numbers.

However, Li Xian, Wang Jiuxuan and the others understood that the biggest problem of the Demon Sect was poverty, and there was no industrial base to support it, and all firearms were provided by the Mixed Yuan Sect and the Sanyuan Sect at low prices, so the weapons they possessed were naturally not very good.

The Demon Sect declared the founding of the country after occupying Guilin, known as the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, and the army became the Taiping Army, but most of the muskets used by the army were cheap but backward smoothbore guns, and it was enough to fight the green battalion soldiers, but the real strength did not match its prestige.

The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom currently owns most of the land in Guangxi, and Qinzhou in Guangdong is backed by Yang Tianming's forces, and there are many masters within the sect.

The fourth strongest strength is the Heaven and Earth Society.

At present, the Tiandihui mainly operates Qiongzhou and Danzhou on Hainan Island, Qiongzhou is governed by Qin Rigang, and over the years has cultivated a firearms force of 5,000 people, and Danzhou is personally led by Chen Jinhua, the chief helmsman of the Tiandihui, and also has a force of 5,000 people.

Heaven and Earth will look at the army of only 10,000 people, but there are many branches in the provinces of Nanyang and Jiangnan, although they usually do their own thing, but once the flag is raised, they can help each other, so they cannot be underestimated.

What's more, there are many brothers of the Heaven and Earth Society in Nanyang, who have actively carried out Nanyang trade over the years, made a lot of money, and are very willing to invest in the army, the soldiers use advanced rifled guns, and there is a naval army with a certain scale, which is not much worse than the Demon Sect in general.

The fifth force is the Yazhou Coalition Army established by the Huashan Sword Sect Qi Sect and the Lin family of the Fuwei Dart Bureau, which also has about 5,000 firearms troops in hand, and a few years ago found a large scale of iron-rich ore in the Tiandu area of Sanya, and then sold iron ore to the Mixed Yuan Sect and Sanyuanguan, becoming the most important source of iron ore for the above two factions.

Therefore, the Mixed Yuan Sect and the Sanyuan Sect have always vigorously supported the development of the Yazhou Coalition Army, and the weapons are the best, but the prices are very low.

In short, it is somewhat impossible to seize the world with the strength of the Yazhou coalition army, but it has a good cooperative relationship with other factions, and there are many children who are real power officers in the Huaxia army, and at least they will have no worries about food and clothing in the future.

By this time, the four provincial-level regions of Guangdong, Guangxi, Hainan, and Dayuan had raised troops against the rule of the Qing court, and had a total of 95,000 firearms troops.

On the other hand, the Qing court still had 900,000 troops on the surface, and once the war was urgent, it could still recruit more than 300,000 Manchu and Mongolian cavalry, which still had an advantage on the surface.

At the same time, the Qing court's Inhuman Hall also has extremely strong armed forces, including a large number of human warriors trained by the Inhuman Hall for hundreds of years, as well as the Eight Banners cavalry secretly cultivated, and an extremely large number of corpse soldiers and white-armored soldiers.

In general, the rebel army had more advanced weapons and more advanced military concepts, but in terms of purely military strength and the ability to invest resources, it was still at a disadvantage compared to the Qing court.

Under these circumstances, the wheel of history slowly advanced, and the struggle between the Qing court and the rebel forces gradually entered a white-hot stage.