1850 American Gold Tycoon

"Expanding the conflict? No." Liang Shaoqiong shook his head.

"On the contrary, I hope that the two countries will be on good terms again. Among the thousands of officials in the Qing Dynasty, no one hopes that the Qing Dynasty and Great Britain will be on good terms again than me. Therefore, as long as you cooperate, I will try my best to protect your personal lives." Safety."

This is what Liang Shaoqiong thinks in his heart. It is more in line with his own interests and the interests of the Liang family to maintain peace between the Qing Dynasty and Great Britain and continue to make a fortune silently. The British and French allied forces are more difficult to deal with than the Hong Yang bandits. This is a lice on the monk's head, it is obvious.

The reason why he fought against Britain and France was because Britain and France had violated his core interests and he had no choice but to do so.

"What about the safety of our property?"

Hearing that Liang Shaoqiong was willing to protect their personal safety, the British gentlemen in the Hong Kong Governor's Office breathed a sigh of relief, but they felt that Liang Shaoqiong seemed to be deliberately ignoring an issue.

Liang Shaoqiong only emphasized protecting their personal safety and did not mention the safety of their property at all.

"There's nothing I can do about this." Liang Shaoqiong spread his hands and said helplessly.

"As you have said, the Qing Dynasty is a country composed of barbarians, and my army is an army composed of a group of even more barbaric people.

Their military discipline is corrupt and disorganized, and even I have difficulty restraining them effectively. "

The British gentlemen in the Hong Kong Governor's House turned pale when they heard this. The Liang family are really more scoundrels than the last, but they still have nothing to do with these scoundrels.

The flag bearer of the Guangdong Navy came to the flagpole of the Hong Kong Governor's Office, lowered the Union Jack flag, and replaced it with the flag of the Guangdong Navy.

"Hong Junmen, Hong Kong has been retaken. We have captured many British and barbarians. You can rest in peace." Kang Enze looked towards the direction of the Pearl River Estuary where Hong Mingxiang died for his country.

At the same time, at the Pearl River Estuary, the fighting continued.

The British and French fleets and the Umbrella fleet are engaged in a naval battle at the Pearl River Estuary.

Major General Spence now regrets having issued the foolish order to destroy the Sand Point and Big Point forts.

He did not expect that the navies of the two major powers, Britain and France, would lose control of the sea when fighting in the Far East.

If the Shajiao Fort and the Dajiao Fort are still alive, they can completely use the Shajiao Fort and the Dajiao Fort to fight against this Qing fleet of unknown origin and gain a firepower advantage.

The naval battle at the Pearl River Estuary lasted from 1:00 noon on Christmas Day to 6:00 in the evening, and it lasted for a full five hours, but there was still no winner.

After the Hong Kong Island Fleet returned to the Pearl River Estuary, the two sides showed an evenly matched situation.

The British and French forces had a clear advantage in the total tonnage of the fleet, and the sailors had more practical combat experience. The ships that Umbrella's fleet excels in ship-to-ship combat are all cutting-edge warships, and the Sacramento naval guns used have a faster rate of fire and higher accuracy than the British and French naval guns.

Of course, the two ironclad ships of the Umbrella fleet are the most troublesome for the British and French fleets.

They desperately found that as long as the two ironclads were separated from them by a certain distance, their existing cannons could not cause effective damage to the hulls of the two ironclads.

The French ships Futura and Machine Gunner, both large ships with a displacement of more than 3,500 tons, tried to rush forward and engage in hand-to-hand combat with the opponent's two ironclads.

However, the Futura and the Machine Gunner, which broke away from the formation, were quickly attacked by the opponent's naval guns and were seriously injured.

The charge tactics of the French ships Futura and the Machine Gunner failed. The British and French fleets could only continue to use explosive bombs to wash the decks of the two nasty ironclads from a distance in order to suppress the firepower of the two ironclads.

However, the turrets of the Pioneer-class ironclads were protected by steel armor. The deck-washing tactics of the British and French forces had a certain effect. They did cause certain casualties and troubles to the sailors on the ship, but the effect was limited.

The British and French fleets focused their attacks on the Bold-class frigates of more than a thousand tons and a group of Loach-class gunboats.

They hoped to sink the opponent's frigates by using solid bombs, and finally take down the two ironclads.

Although the Bold-class frigate is a wooden-hulled frigate, it is not completely without protection. The sides of the Bold-class ship are also covered with cast iron armor, which has a certain degree of protection.

It's just that it is not immune to the damage of large-caliber naval guns like the Pioneer-class ironclads, but its defensive effect against 9-pound guns and 12-pound guns is still good.

The two sides continued to fight fiercely at the mouth of the Pearl River until after sunset, with no intention of armistice.

At 9 o'clock in the evening that day, the senior leaders of the British and French coalition forces received accurate intelligence and learned that Hong Kong Island had been lost, and that it was of little significance for them to return to support Hong Kong Island.

In order to save the limited ammunition, the senior leaders of the British and French coalition forces made the decision to voluntarily withdraw from the battlefield.

This naval battle lasted for a full 8 hours. The determined results of the British and French coalition forces were to sink the opponent's 4 Bold-class battleships and 5 Loach-class gunboats.

Compared with the results achieved, the British and French fleets themselves suffered greater losses.

The British ships Coromandel, Pegasus, Punjab, Barracuda and Providence were sunk.

The French ships Folly, Gunner, and North River were sunk.

In this naval battle, the ironclads left a deep impression on the top brass of the British and French coalition forces, and became a lingering shadow on the top brass of the coalition forces.

If the other side did not have these two ironclad ships attracting firepower at the front resistance line, they would have broken through the blockade and successfully returned to Hong Kong Island. This is the unanimous view of the top leadership of the coalition.

The presence of ironclads was the reason they couldn't win.

Seeing the British and French forces retreating, the Umbrella fleet did not pursue them.

Firstly, their losses were not small, and secondly, the Humen fort group had not been completely destroyed by the British and French forces, so it was very dangerous to pursue them rashly.

Hong Kong Island was lost, but Guangzhou City had not yet been captured.

The British and French forces now faced the risk of being attacked from both sides by the Qing army, and the war situation was very unfavorable to them.

In order to break this unfavorable situation, the senior leaders of the British and French coalition forces, which lost the logistics supply base of Hong Kong Island, made a very bold decision: to directly attack Guangzhou City after dawn.

At this time, Liang Shaoqiong also sent a message to Ye Mingchen, who was still in Guangzhou City, asking Ye Mingchen to stick to Guangzhou City and buy time for him to regroup and mobilize his troops and attack the remnants of the British and French allied forces from both sides.

In Guangzhou City, Ye Mingchen was not idle either. The governor was thinking hard about how to defend Guangzhou City.

After praying to Buddha to no avail, Ye Mingchen turned to setting up an altar to support the gods (similar to the feudal superstitious game in which Bixian invites gods), and consulted a group of charlatans who pretended to be gods and ghosts to seek guidance from the gods.

How could these fuji divine men directly reach Tianting, and how could they know any method of defeating the enemy? They just ignorantly regarded Western gunboats as demonic methods.

The gods suggested that Ye Mingchen use traditional methods to ward off evil spirits: using black dog blood, toilet feces, menstrual belts and other filth to deal with the attack of the British and French forces.

What's outrageous is that one dares to say it and the other dares to believe it.

As if he had found a treasure, Ye Mingchen ordered his soldiers to collect black dog blood, feces and aunt's cloth throughout the city. He decided to use these as weapons to break the British and foreign magic, causing their guns and cannons to malfunction, and the soldiers to retreat on their own.

"Old immortal, has Lu Zu sent an oracle?" Ye Mingchen asked the old Taoist who presided over the Fuqi with great expectation.

Lu Zu is Lu Dongbin, the god that Ye Mingchen most believes in. While he was under house arrest in India, he still recited and copied the "Lü Zu Jing" all day long, which shocked the Indian soldiers guarding him and thought that Ye Mingchen was an extremely devout person.

This old Taoist with an immortal spirit does indeed look like a Taoist master.

Faced with Ye Mingchen's expectant inquiry, the old Taoist who was calm on the surface but panicked on the inside had no choice but to excuse himself on the grounds that the secret must not be leaked.

The situation was urgent, and Ye Mingchen ignored the old Taoist's refusal and kept asking questions.

Seeing that there was really no way to evade it, the old Taoist had no choice but to say: "Lu Zu has sent down an oracle. Master Zitai, please be at ease. The British barbarians will retreat within a hundred days!"

Ye Mingchen, who received Lu Zu's oracle, was greatly relieved and in a good mood. He rewarded these talented men generously.

Ye Mingchen thought to himself, it is not in vain that I believe in Lu Zu. Lu Zu will still protect me after all.

In the early morning of December 26, 1857, the remnants of the British and French allied forces invaded Guangzhou City and easily captured the provincial capital after suffering single-digit casualties.

The defenders of Guangzhou City threw down the toilet that was placed at the top of the city. Before they had time to splash the toilet, they collapsed and fled for their lives.

Ye Mingchen himself was captured by the British army on his way back to the Governor's Yamen.

The British and French allied forces searched for Bai Gui, the governor of Guangdong, and Muten, the general of Guangzhou, in the city. They learned that these two bannermen had already run away, so they had no choice but to support the uncooperative Ye Mingchen as a puppet and informed the whole city that Guangzhou City was temporarily under the control of Ye Mingchen. Governed jointly with the British and French forces.

At this point, Guangzhou was lost.

In retaliation for Liang Shaoqiong's uncle and nephew's seizure of Hong Kong Island, the British and French allied forces burned Liang Shaoqiong's coal mine in Baiyun, and the fire burned for several days.

The fall of Guangzhou also completely ruined Liang Shaoqiong's plan to attack the remnants of the British and French coalition forces from the north and the south.

The main force of the British army starting from Xingzhou Island is about to arrive in Guangdong. Now they are at risk of being flanked by the British and French forces and being surrounded and annihilated.

With the help of Liang Shaoqiong and Fang Jianyuan, Liang Yao recruited Xiangshan civilians to strengthen the defense facilities around Xiangshan Port. At the same time, the cannons shipped from California were assumed to be installed on highlands such as Cheqi Mountain, Mount Davis Ridge, and Cape Collinson.

Build fortifications and set up machine guns at several of the most likely landing sites for British troops, including Taikoo Estate and Victoria Harbor, in preparation to defend Hong Kong Island.

The easy fall of Guangzhou also made Liang Shaoqiong realize that if he wanted to change everything, having military power alone would definitely not be enough.

He must climb to a higher position, such as Ye Mingchen's position, become a frontier official, and have his own political power in order to achieve greater achievements. That way they won't be played by Ye Mingchen, Bai Gui, Muten and the like.

Looking at the fire soaring toward the sky in the direction of the white clouds, Liang Shaoqiong's heart was bleeding. Rather than saying that it was the mine that was burning, it was better to say that it was Liang Shaoqiong's white money that was burning.

Since the British and French allied forces occupied Guangzhou, they have been limited by insufficient troops and have not made any next moves. They just huddled in the city and waited for the arrival of the main British army.

January 3, 1858.

The main force of the British army, which the remnants of the British and French allied forces in Guangzhou had been waiting for, finally arrived in the Pearl River Delta region.

53 British warships flying the white flag, carrying more than 8,400 British troops, wandered in the waters near the Pearl River.

This army is the East India \u0026 China Fleet, the British Empire's Far East Expeditionary Force, and the main force in this trade war.

The leader of this powerful British fleet was the famous British Royal Navy Admiral Michael Seymour, and the commander-in-chief of the army was General James Hope Grant. Elgin, the British Empire's plenipotentiary envoy to China who was responsible for this war's diplomatic operations, was also among them.

In the mid-19th century, this was a military force capable of destroying a country.

This was the first time in Liang Yao's life that he had the honor to witness such a large-scale British army.

Due to the huge disparity in strength between the two sides, Liang Yao prohibited the Umbrella fleet from leaving the port to fight, but continued to stay in Xiangshan Port as an existing fleet.

Unless the British fleet made every effort to attack Xiangshan Port, Liang Yao would not easily put the naval assets that had taken him 8 years to accumulate into battle.

Although Xiangshan Port is important, it is not Jinshan Port after all.