Just when the Mixed Yuan Sect was actively preparing for war in northern Zhejiang, a far-reaching event occurred.

It turned out that the headquarters of the Demon Sect in Guangxi, which was far away from Guangxi, was not willing to be lonely, and also sent an army of tens of thousands of people to the north, and under the leadership of Yang Xiuqing, the king of Eastern France, they passed all the way through the pass.

The Demon Sect has many self-sustaining masters, and has a long history, although it has received the help of the Mixed Yuan Sect and the Three Yuan Sect before, but it has always been outside the system of the Huaxia Army.

It was the Huaxia Alliance recently proposed by the Mixed Yuan Sect, and the Demon Sect was also lacking in interest, only the Yang Tianming Department of Qinzhou participated in the name of personal power, but the Demon Sect Headquarters was disdainful.

The army led by Yang Xiuqing, the king of the Eastern French Sect of the Demon Sect, is known as the Taiping Army, equipped with a large number of front-loading smoothbore guns and commercial artillery, and the soldiers and officers have certain actual combat experience, and have also received relatively professional military training.

The most important thing is that the Taiping Army had a large number of outstanding warriors, and its combat methods were very different from those of the Huaxia Army led by Li Xian, and they did not rely entirely on firearms to fight, but adopted the method of recruiting a large number of cold weapon troops and cooperating with firearms troops.

In other words, a small number of elite firearms troops pressed the formation, and then the army with cold weapons such as spears charged with superior fire support, disrupting the ranks of the Qing army, and then taking the opportunity to eliminate them.

The advantage of this is that the consumption of gunpowder and bullets is reduced to a minimum, that is, it gets rid of excessive dependence on gunpowder, and the military materials consumed in the battle can be replenished by using the materials captured by the enemy, and the continuous combat capability is greatly enhanced.

In addition, there are a large number of warriors in the army to assist, and the proportion of warriors participating in the war is far higher than that of Sanyuanguan and Mixed Yuanzong, so they can always use the method of surprise assault to give full play to the special operation method, so that the Qing army that encounters the Taiping Army is always panicked.

The Taiping army was unstoppable all the way, advancing all the way to the Yangtze River basin, and even reaching the border between Hunan and Hubei, which can be described as a vibration in the world.

There are Taiping troops attacking from the west, and there are Huaxia troops attacking from the east, and the people of insight in the Qing court all sighed secretly, it seems that I am afraid that this flower and country will not be protected, at least the south of the Yangtze River may fall into the hands of the rebels.

Both the Qing court and the rebel forces saw the situation very clearly, and when the Taiping army in the west and the Huaxia army in the east converged, it was the time when the southern part of the Yangtze River valley fell into the hands of the rebel forces.

Considering that the rebel forces' water warfare capability is far superior to that of the imperial court officials and soldiers, as long as the water force is used to block Jiangbei's influence on Jiangnan, then all the areas south of the Yangtze River will fall into the hands of the rebel forces.

After that, unless there was a large-scale conflict within the rebel forces, it would not be possible for the rebel army to accumulate enough strength in a few years to make a Northern Expedition and reproduce Zhu Hongwu's counterattack on the Yuan Dynasty.

This point is clear not only to Chinese who have read all the history books, but also to foreigners who have come thousands of miles to do business.

Soon after the news of the Taiping army's march north, Li Xian received requests from a number of foreign consuls.

"The opportunity to rip off money has finally come. Li Xian said to himself, with no sadness or joy on his face.

As many as four consuls came to visit, including two British consuls, namely Pu Ding Cha of Hong Kong and Bafu of Shanghai, as well as Wu Liguo, the American consul in Shanghai, and Mintiny, the consul of Shanghai of France.

Generally speaking, the Chinese regard the successive Shanghai consuls as big figures, especially the early consuls, who arrived in China with their own country's secret missions, and then worked hard to open up the market while cautiously spying on the movements of China's upper and lower classes, and transmitting all kinds of confidential and obscure news to their own country.

However, I am afraid that the truth is very different from what everyone thinks.

Before coming to China, he was the Governor of India, then came to the Governor-General during the Opium War, and also served as the commander-in-chief of the British Expeditionary Force, and stayed in Hong Kong after the war, becoming the highest-ranking British official in China.

As for the Shanghai Consul Bafur, he became the Shanghai Consul only by the recommendation of Pudingcha, and no matter his qualifications, prestige or connections, he was not half a star.

According to the history of Li Xian's world, Bafur did a good job during his tenure in Shanghai, making Sino-British trade flourish, but later Pu Ding Cha was isolated and left Hong Kong, and Bafur's good days came to an end.

It turned out that Bafur made a concession on a large piece of land in the Shanghai area, and then spent about 16,000 silver dollars to buy a large amount of land near the original Wusong No. 2 fort in order to establish a consulate on that land.

Bafur's previous work in China was very fruitful, and he felt good about himself, so he took out 4,000 silver dollars from his pocket and advanced them into public funds, which means that 4,000 yuan of the 16,000 yuan of land purchase money was donated by Bafur personally.

Originally, subsidizing the government with its own money was an absolutely good thing, and it would be praised in any era, but the British headquarters was very unhappy and immediately removed Bafur from his post.

It turns out that there is a rule in Britain that diplomats cannot buy real estate abroad without permission, even if they spend money to donate to the government.

Bafur was removed from his post for such a "trumped-up" reason, and the successor Ali Guo laughed at the consulate land, and the British government did not dislike the land in the slightest.

This shows that Bafur was removed only because of the fall of his old boss and backer, not because he really did something wrong, and it also proves that the British are also very good at doing things that are not right for people.

If the two British consuls were professional officials, the French and American consuls were almost reckless.

The French consul in Shanghai, Mintiny, was only a lieutenant in the navy, and when he arrived in Shanghai, he had nothing to do, and the French unit in Shanghai consisted only of a small, dilapidated church and a watch shop.

In 1853, when he felt that he had been in China for a long time, he decided to return to China for a vacation, so he set off directly for his return, and considering that there would be no French consul in Shanghai after his departure, he randomly promoted a fellow from the original watch shop named Ai Tang to become his acting consul during his absence.

Then, Mintini had a good vacation, and only returned to Shanghai around 1861, kicked out Aitang, who had been addicted to consuls for several years, and became consul again, without any interference from the French government.

It is worth mentioning that Mintini has always maintained a good relationship with the watch shop, and later married his eldest daughter to the owner of the watch shop, Remy, and married his younger daughter to the nephew of the owner Remy.

As for whether there is a suspicion of inferior seniority in doing so, this kind of thing does not need to be too clear.

U.S. Consul Wu Liguo's experience of becoming consul in Shanghai is even more legendary.