Dominate the Country

[Thanks to ‘Xingshi123’ for the 500-coin reward]

After leaving the flat Hangzhou Bay, there are more mountains and hills in the central and southern parts of Zhejiang.

From Shaoxing to Jinhua, Yiwu is the first place.

At this time, Yiwu was not a well-known small commodity distribution center in the world in the 21st century. Yiwu was just an ordinary land of fish and rice in the south of the Yangtze River. The Qing government in Yiwu also organized militia training, but it did not mean that Yiwu soldiers were necessarily elite soldiers. Without Qi Nantang, they were still a mob.

On the Dian Deng Mountain north of Suxi Town, Yiwu. The sound of the Fu Han Army's artillery sounded, and a stream of red and yellow smoke filled the defensive positions of the Qing army.

The 16th Brigade of the 4th Division of the 1st Garrison Division, which was ordered to attack Jinhua Prefecture, looked at the Qing army and civilians on Dian Deng Mountain with a mentality of watching a joke, from the regiment commander to the soldiers.

"I bet fifty numbers."

"I bet sixty numbers..."

In the vanguard troops preparing to launch an attack, several officers were very relaxed and actually made a bet before the battle. The stakes were not big, just a meal. The so-called "fifty numbers" and "sixty numbers" did not refer to silver, but to the time the Qing army would endure the poison gas.

The Fu Han Army did not take the resistance of central and southern Zhejiang seriously. Not only did they have few soldiers, but the morale of the Qing army in the south was shattered in the battle of Changzhou. Who among the troops below really thought they could resist?

"Retreat..., retreat." After Wu Xiongguang's cousin Li Fan smelled the pungent smell of chili, he couldn't help coughing violently. He finally held it back and let go of half of his anger. He looked up at the heart-wrenching coughs on the entire battlefield and gave the order dejectedly. All the militiamen on the battlefield retreated to Suxi Town, and he also sent someone to report the news to Wu Xiongguang as soon as possible.

Wu Xiongguang did not expect to stop the Fu Han Army at Diandeng Mountain. He retreated from Hangzhou to Shaoxing, and did not go to Ningbo, but led his troops to Jinhua Prefecture and became a guest of Jinhua prefect Zheng Yan.

The latter was a pure scholar, who knew nothing about military affairs, so he entrusted all the civilians and braves of the entire prefecture to Wu Xiongguang.

Wu Xiongguang's method was to take advantage of the small number of soldiers in the Fu Han Army's southward troops to block them. If they could delay for a day, it would be a day of preparation time for Guangdong, Guangxi and Fujian.

Of course, he defended Yiwu. He dragged part of his main force to the mountains west of Suxi Town, and only placed Li Fan's soldiers to guard the north of Suxi Town. He did not interfere with the Fu Han Army taking Suxi Town, but if the Fu Han Army continued to go to Yiwu County from Suxi Town, Wu Xiongguang would lead his troops to attack Suxi Town.

He had to force the Fu Han Army's regiment to fight him in the mountains!

However, what was the news sent by Li Fan at the moment?

"The evil spirit of red and yellow?" Wu Xiongguang said in surprise.

The Fu Han Army took down the four positions outside Changzhou City overnight. The Qing soldiers outside only knew that the positions carefully arranged by Feng Sheng'e did not work at all and were taken down by the Fu Han Army overnight. The specific details were unknown. They only knew that the Fu Han Army used hundreds of cannons to bombard Changzhou for a long time that day...

Therefore, the special bullet method is still confidential. It cannot be said that no information has been leaked, but Wu Xiongguang obviously did not know it. When the Fu Han Army attacked Hangzhou, they did not use special bullets. They only bombarded with cannons, and then rushed in, and the entire Hangzhou City was exposed.

The result was a blow from a club, which made Li Fan lose all his fighting spirit. "The red one smells like chili peppers, and the yellow one smells like mustard, it must be mustard." Li Fan hated the smell of mustard the most.

Li Fan, standing in front of Wu Xiongguang, was in a state of despair. If the thing could be used against trenches today, it could be used against camps tomorrow. What was the point of fighting this war?

Anhai was the magistrate of Qiantang, a Han army bannerman. When Hangzhou was broken, he fled to Shaoxing with his family and Wu Xiongguang, and then moved to Jinhua. Turning around and looking at Li Fan, who still had a dull face, he frowned and smiled bitterly: "Master Li, let's go. Go back and check and ask the soldiers how they feel." His smile was worse than crying. There was no way, his eldest son was still in the trench and hadn't climbed out.

Anhai regretted it so much, and wondered why he was so active. Then he felt that his son was not doing well. Everyone else had climbed out, but he was left behind in the battle.

An Hai's head was about to explode

"Then Brother Yixing..." An Hai was already over 40 years old, and his eldest son was the same age as Li Fan. Li Fan regarded An Hai as a person of the previous generation, and asked subconsciously, but before he finished speaking, his arm was pulled by someone, and he suddenly came back to his senses and immediately smiled at An Hai. "Yes, yes. I will go back and arrange it."

It was sad enough that his own son was gone. If he asked again, it would be like rubbing salt into the wound.

The people of the Fourth Division captured the prisoners and interrogated them a little. They knew that Wu Xiongguang had quietly pulled the team closer to the mountains in the west. Tuan Zheng smiled and said, "You are still learning Shandong's tricks. Don't you think about how many small cannons I have here."

The same tactics fell on different targets, and there were two results.

How many small cannons did the Qing army have? How many mortars did the Fu Han army have? What's more, the 4th Division still has the Flying Thunder Cannon.

The number of Flying Thunder Cannons in the Fu Han Army has been greatly reduced, but even if it is reduced further, there are still some at the regiment level.

The more obvious the advantage of the Fu Han army, the more the number of flying thunder cannons was reduced. There was no way, for the sake of confidentiality, this weapon was too easy to copy, and it was super simple to make, and the power was very huge.

The mortars opened fire at three o'clock in the afternoon of the same day. There were not many, only twenty, and they were all light mortars weighing about 100 pounds. Two people could lift them and run around, but even so, the sound of the cannons made Wu Xiongguang's army tremble. There were four flying thunder cannons behind the twenty mortars.

One by one, gunpowder packs and shrapnel exploded on the stone ramparts on the hillside, and one by one, special shells fell on the front and back of the rampart breastworks. The breastworks of the fortresses built with stones and loess were shattered and blown up little by little under the impact of the shells. There were also unbearable poison gas bombs.

It was also at this time that the Jiangnan region encountered many plum rains, and the occasional rain brought a lot of trouble to the Fu Han army's offensive.

"We must destroy their cannons, sir. You saw the bombardment for an hour this afternoon. Chen Ni's cannons are so fierce. Most of them are shrapnel shells, and there are also flying thunders. Even if the brothers work hard to reinforce the stockade we set up on the mountain, they can't withstand a few bombardments from them..." If it hadn't rained in the evening, the Fu Han Army might have taken over Qilu Mountain at dusk.

Gao Doujin, who lost Niutou Mountain after two lines of defense were broken by the Fu Han Army in two hours, shouted loudly. After an hour of bombardment, he was about to have a shadow in his heart. Moreover, this mountain is not a real high mountain. Without eliminating the opponent's artillery group, Gao Doujin doesn't think that his own troops will be the opponent of the Fu Han Army in front of him.

Wu Xiongguang is also a hero with a short breath. The gap between the two sides is real. How can you let him eliminate it in an instant?

He thought that he was hiding in the mountains, and the Fu Han Army's artillery advantage was weakened, so there would be a lot of fighting between the two sides. Who knew that the morale of his troops had been so weak that they would all turn around and run away as soon as the infantry of the Fu Han Army charged with swords, spears and bayonets. The swords, spears and bayonets were more powerful than guns and cannons.

Li Fan shook his head and smiled bitterly, "Brother, how many times have we fought with Chen Ni's troops? Everyone knows that their cannons are powerful, but how easy is it to destroy their artillery? Think about it, since Chen Ni started his army, has the artillery of the rebels ever been destroyed, regardless of victory or defeat?"

"Don't think about whether we can win or not. We can delay for one day, and we still have to endure tonight." The rain outside stopped after two quarters of an hour. There was a rainbow in the sky at dusk.

Li Fan was right. The Fu Han Army really didn't have a moment of rest at night. They used a feint attack from the front to attract the attention of the Qing army, and then sent out scouts to sneak up from the flank. By the time the Qing army noticed, they were close enough to throw grenades, and they took Mount Qilu in one attack.

…

In May, two shuttle boats that sailed from Guangdong to Ningbo and then turned north finally saw the mouth of the Yangtze River.

Robert Peel and Louis Paulo Ribeiro, as well as the Dutch representative Michel Crulls, were on the same shuttle boat, while the other shuttle boat was carrying François Philippe Perrier, a representative of the French East India Company, and Robin Lustig, a representative of the Swedish East India Company. The conflict between Britain and France in Europe also smoothly extended to China. The competition between the two most powerful countries in Europe has always been all-round.

John Bull lacked Prussia, and the Gallic Rooster lacked Spain and Austria. Two of these three countries were dispensable in China's trade, and the other was almost an inland country.

The Seven Years' War was over, but its influence was far from balancing the entire Europe.

Robert had never thought of coming to Shanghai in person, but the news that kept coming from the north made him curious. Especially in the Battle of Changzhou, the news that the Fu Han Army used more than 500 cannons to continuously bombard the Qing army positions made Robert unbelievable.

So he chose to go to Shanghai in person. He wanted to see the Fu Han Army with his own eyes, and he wanted to see the Fu Han Army soldiers with his own eyes. Five hundred cannons, magical artillery making skills, are they true or false?

When staying in Ningbo, Robert asked the sailors on the ship to go ashore and buy as many newspapers as possible for him. From Ningbo to Shanghai, he kept reading newspapers, reading newspapers.

"The Chinese are going to build a brand new trading city in Shanghai!"

Robert couldn't help shouting when he read the newspaper, and Ribeiro and Crulls also knew about it.

The Chinese believe that Shanghai is located at the mouth of the Yangtze River and at the north-south dividing point of the east coast of China. There is a rich Yangtze River waterway as its economic extension area. As long as the policy is implemented, the prospects there will be unlimited. Shanghai will become the central port of China's foreign trade!

Although the article only briefly mentioned overseas trade, it made Robert and Crulls very excited and Ribeiro tremble with fear.

If China opened up Shanghai, a city located in the most prosperous area of ​​China and the center of China's east coast, it would inevitably attract countless overseas merchant ships to flock in, and it would inevitably affect Guangzhou's core position in China's foreign trade system. Naturally, Macau, where the Portuguese were located, would also be greatly affected.

Robert didn't know if the people on the other ship also knew the news, but they probably should have known. Now there are not only them on the two shuttles, but also people from the rebel government, each of whom can speak a Western language. Although they are not very fluent or very correct, daily communication with each other is not a problem.

"The Tatar government has always been very conservative in foreign trade. If the rebel government can change the Tatar government's policy, it will mean endless wealth to us. This time our official meeting with the rebel government may be in The beginning of a great golden age!"

The closer we got to Shanghai, the more excited Robert became. As long as he thinks of the 'best outcome', he can hardly control himself.

Ribeiro was in great pain. He suddenly discovered that the parliament had made serious mistakes in its assessment of the matter. If the Chinese are willing to open and expand trade ports, or even open their doors to more places, the British will abandon Portugal without hesitation. Both are Easterners, but the two sides seem to have completely different attitudes toward foreign trade.

No Western country understands Western countries better. For the greater good, every Western country can abandon its closest allies without hesitation.

At this point, the Western world is completely different from the Eastern world.

Taking advantage of the noon sunshine, the two shuttle boats sailing into Wusong Port attracted no attention at all. There is no trace of the war at all here. In addition to the forts being built in the port, there are also looming artillery positions. Then there is the Wusong Wharf that is being expanded. Those workers who work hard on the construction site like ants wear gray clothes with a big word "prisoner" on the front and back. They are obviously Qing soldiers captured in the war.

"Gentlemen, welcome to Shanghai. I hope that both of us can achieve a satisfactory result in the talks in the next few days. Now please take your gifts, take the carriage outside, and go to a safe place. "The people who came to entertain these foreigners were people from the Industrial and Commercial Administration. Han Peng looked at Robert and others in front of him with very peaceful eyes, and did not show any contempt. Because this was Chen Ming's personal decision. We must maintain a certain amount of respect for Westerners!

"You all know about our secret camp, so you must have heard about the Sticky Stick Department in Manqing."

"These people have always tried their best to attack us. In order to ensure your safety, we have completely canceled the welcome ceremony we had prepared. I hope you will understand!"

Han Teng always had an amiable smile on his face when he spoke. He said that the interpreter who had been prepared by Fuhan Military in advance translated it word for word. Robert and Perrier looked at each other. On the surface, they didn't show anything, but they felt cold in their hearts.

Yes, the Tatar government also has a very powerful espionage organization. It's just that this intelligence organization has always been suppressed by the secret camp!

"Mr. Ribeiro." Han Teng's eyes turned to his old friend from the Fuhan Army. He was familiar with him once and twice, and Ribeiro was an old friend. "We already know your purpose of coming here this time. Here are our conditions for returning the Portuguese prisoners of war.”

There was no room for bargaining. Portugal could either obediently deliver the goods and pick up Blanco and the others; or they could watch helplessly as the Fuhan Army sent Blanco and the others into hard labor.

No matter what the Portuguese think, Chen Ming must take back Macau.