He sent his most elite troops to experience a bloody battle in Tianjing, and let his cousin Li Shixian personally lead Li Hongzhang to a decisive battle across the river. For the time being, Zeng Guofan didn’t need to move to defeat Li Hongzhang, which broke the wings of the Qing court and stabilized Li Xiucheng’s position.
Is it possible for Li Xiucheng to terminate the Northern Expedition under such circumstances?
certainly not
I didn’t know that the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom would have such a reaction, but I had to show my attitude first, and then I had a reason to stop cooperating with the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, such as not selling arms to the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, and I could intervene forcibly when I was not selling them food.
Now, after greeting Li Xiucheng, don’t blame the big heart for the same attitude. Let the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom have to look back and worry about Li Xiucheng. It is easier for Zeng Guofan and Li Hongzhang to block the Taiping rebels from the Yangtze River to prevent them from entering chaotic Shandong, thus overwhelming the last straw of Manchu ruling the northern social order.
Because the Taiping rebels in the north were in a rainbow, these veterans who had experienced the siege of Tianjing and Hongxiu came back from the dead and died on the brink of starvation and illness, many of them became fanatics of idolatry, and they all believed that the famine in the Qing Dynasty was the death of the Qing Dynasty. With such a belief in fate, they were also equipped with well-made Mao Se rifles and Krupp-like cannons. He captured Tongzhou in World War I and advanced on Yangzhou in World War II
Li Hongzhang painstakingly managed for many years, and the Huai army was defeated in a row, just as history was equally well equipped. In the face of a sudden attack on Japan, the generals were the first to escape, and the soldiers followed closely, but they were killed, captured and humiliated.
At the critical moment, an army saved the fate of Li Hongzhang’s heavy troops deployed on the Yangtze River defense line. This number of troops with 10,000 people firmly blocked the pursuit of this Taiping Army from Nantong all the way in Dongxianxian Town, Yangzhou. Huang Wenjin’s department won the fleeing soldiers to escape into Yangzhou, and destroyed the Taiping Army’s grand strategy of detouring from Nantong to Zhenjiang, giving Li Hongzhang enough time to defend and reorganize the army in Yangzhou.
The fairy town war lasted for 20 days, and both sides were defeated. Finally, this army successfully broke through and fled back to Yangzhou.
This unit is the foreign gun team led by Gordon. The equipment for the debate is not better than that of Liu Ming and Pan Dingxin of Li Hongzhang’s department. Similarly, the west is eliminating rifles and cannons with front loading chambers, and there are also a few Amherst infantry cannons. They are better prepared during the war. Every rifle and cannon is well maintained and can be used at any time.
On being well-trained, compared with other soldiers of Huai Army, the foreign gun team is not much special, because they all train together, so they have the same training code. Even when other troops are idle, they still train rigidly according to the code.
On military discipline, they made the same Li Hongzhang and officers at all levels refer to the Chinese and Western military regulations, but Gordon finally insisted on business when other troops relaxed their officers to cover their weaknesses.
The biggest difference is that Gordon, the general of this army, did not escape, but insisted on sticking to the front line from beginning to end so that all war officers and soldiers could see him.
This made Li Hongzhang very ashamed. Unexpectedly, it was not his cronies but the foreigner Gordon, who didn’t listen to him very much.
But in any case, the danger is to spend the past. The beaten army who has fled from Guazhou and Nantong has stepped up discipline and strengthened the defense line, waiting for the Taiping rebels to attack, and at the same time sent people to actively ask his teacher Zeng Guofan for help. But when Bao Chao asked for help, Zeng Guofan delayed for two years. Li Hongzhang is now screaming for help. I don’t know if Zeng Guofan will continue to be steady as usual.
After the Fairy Town War, Li Xiucheng thought that his soldiers’ heavy firepower was still not enough. If he could send Krupp cannons to Fairy Town at that time, the battle would never be delayed for twenty days, and it would be a matter of time before Yangzhou would continue to be closed, and then the Qing army would effectively defend Yangzhou from falling.
However, the large imitation fortress Krupp cannon is very expensive. Li Xiucheng sold 100 guns, and most of them were installed in the fortifications of Jiangfang. The infantry were equipped with more than a dozen guns, all of which were in Li Shixian. This kind of military weapon could not be made by non-direct troops.
I didn’t expect that because there was no heavy firepower, Huang Jinwen fought hard in Fairy Town on the 20th, which directly disrupted the plan of converging attack on Yangzhou. What a pity.
After the success of the Northern Expedition, Li Xiucheng spared no expense. Anyway, some money has been saved in recent years. It is not a pity to win the Northern Expedition even if it is spent.
So Li Xiucheng decided to order 30 Krupp fortress guns from Da Da at no expense, but Da Da refused Li Xiucheng’s request.
Not to mention cannons, even food will not be sold to the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom.
Li Xiucheng was very dissatisfied with this, and his horse sent a serious warning to the grand consul that they would not want to do business in the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom unless they sold weapons to it.
Without showing weakness, the Minister told Li Xiucheng that there was a trade treaty with the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. If the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom did not abide by the treaty, it infringed on the legitimate interests of the big government and took strong actions to safeguard its own strength.
Li Xiucheng didn’t reply, but acted directly to send his cronies from tengxian, Guangxi, to the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. Wang Liu Shunde and Li Xiucheng led the army to approach the former French Concession. Now the big concession told the army that the soldiers would enter the Concession and be stationed, but they were sternly refused by the stationed troops.
At the same time, the rear army blocked the Bohai fleet from entering Lujiazui in the south and transferred 10 thousand troops from Fuzhou to the north to expand the naval garrison to 20 thousand
The Taiping rebels are obviously expressing their dissatisfaction with the military threat, but they really dare not turn against them at this time. On the contrary, they may be more nervous. Their elite troops have been transferred to Jiangbei Jiangnan, either some second-line troops or political enemy troops like Wang Haiyang and Yang Fuqing. In this case, if the Taiping rebels invade from Jiangxi or Fujian, they will stop the troops from marching into the hinterland of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom.
The Taiping rebels put on such a posture and sent a few elites who stayed in the south of the Yangtze River to the sea, or did they go hand in hand with Liu Shunde, the navy commander of the Taiping rebels, on both sides of the land and water? In fact, it was a defensive strategy to tell the army that they had grasped the key point of the sea. If the army started in other ways, the Taiping rebels could attack the sea at any time
This is always a bow without a deterrent arrow, or a pistol with a big chest. At least Li Xiucheng thinks so. He thinks he has great interests and definitely dares to take risks with the sea.
There is nothing to be afraid of when you pull the bow and let go of the arrow. So Li Xiucheng didn’t do it, and the two sides have been so deadlocked. It seems dangerous but calm, and there is no substantial loss except that it has once again triggered a panic in the sea.
But even without the forces of the warring parties, we can see a problem. The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom and the honeymoon period between the two countries are finally over.
Section six hundred and three Life Road
Ministers from all over the world formed a joint diplomatic mission to talk endlessly with the Manchu Prime Minister’s yamen about disaster relief.
Manchu proved that he really had the ability and determination to provide disaster relief, and even transferred Li Hongzhang back from the front line to let Li Hongzhang deal with negotiations with foreigners and disaster relief.
In the view of the Manchu court, it may be that the joint action of the envoys of Britain, France, the United States and Russia in Beijing at this time is more threatening than the offensive of the Taiping Army in northern Jiangsu
While negotiating with foreigners, Li Hongzhang pulled out a group of new people, saying that they are new people, not that they have new identities, but that they have new ideas. These people are all people who have followed Li Hongzhang in promoting the foreign movement in Beijing and Tianjin in recent years.
Shen Baojing, who presided over the Tianjin Machinery Bureau, helped Li Hongzhang to set up a ship investment promotion bureau in Yantai. Sheng Xuanhuai, who presided over the enterprise, was an official with a different background and recommended the Shen Baozhen disaster relief ambassador to go to the disaster area to supervise the disaster relief.
In history, Li Hongzhang was responsible for disaster relief, and he also boldly inspired these foreign newcomers to benefit. These people learned scientific management methods in the process of running enterprises, strictly supervised disaster relief, and the efficiency was higher than that of procrastinating local officials. At the same time, he also took drastic measures to kill a number of officials against those who took bribes and perverted the law
However, Li Hongzhang can’t go to the disaster area by himself. Shen Baozhen is more ruthless than Li Hongzhang, because Li Hongzhang is more or less a normal official in this era. Li Hongzhang does things and earns money, but Shen Baozhen is a greedy person who knows how to do things.
Shen Baozhen, like Li Hongzhang, was recommended by Zeng Guofan before he made his fortune. However, after he was recommended by Zeng Guofan to the governor of Jiangxi Province, he was cut off from Jiangxi Province. He was scolded for being ungrateful, but he didn’t covet any of the money and recovered Jiangxi.
So this is one of the few honest officials in the late Qing Dynasty.
Shen Baozhen couldn’t rub the sand in his eyes, so killing people was more everywhere. A piece of chicken flying and a dog jumping appeared. Before he got to the place, local officials hanged themselves.
In Shen Baozhen, such uncompromising officials and foreign officials have sent officials to manage disaster relief scientifically, and the effect is indeed great and high-energy. More materials are sent to the victims than in the past, and naturally more people are saved.