The news of the fall of Suzhou soon spread to Shanghai, and it immediately caused an uproar on all sides like a stone falling from stagnant water.Li Hongzhang held the military newspaper with trembling hands, stared at the herald in disbelief, and confirmed again and again, until the herald answered three or five times, and then accepted this big news."
Qiao Zhiqing is really the old man's Changshan Zhao Zilong, fortunately, fortunately."
Li Hongzhang laughed loudly, and his beard was high.Zhou Fu took the military newspaper and laughed out loud on the side, the nervous expression on his face finally relaxed, they continued to resist the Taiping army in Shanghai has lost troops, seeing that Shanghai is about to be taken by long-haired thieves, at this time the news of Qiao Zhiqing's capture of Suzhou came, how could it not be exciting."
Dashuai, we finally survived, Shanghai's victory has been decided, but Suzhou City is flat on all sides, the waterways are developed, and there is no natural danger to defend, my subordinates thought that we should make plans as soon as possible and send troops to support Qiao Zhiqing.""
This" Li Hongzhang frowned and pondered for a while, "What you said is true, but the 100,000-strong army of the long-haired thieves is still besieged on all sides of Shanghai, and we are also lacking in skills, and there are no more soldiers and horses to mobilize."
Qiao Zhiqing's kid is very ghostly, the old man guesses that what he lacks most now should be ammunition and guns, you go to negotiate with the foreigners to handle this matter, and immediately play this battle exploit to the court, this is the first big victory since the old man served as the governor of Jiangsu, there are people in the court who look at us laughing, this time they should have nothing to say. ”"The handsome man is wise, his subordinates will do it, although the foreign devils are declaring neutrality, they will still provide us with transportation support in secret."
Zhou Fu rushed to receive the order, turned around and asked the foreigner to negotiate the matter of guns and ammunition."
Heaven help me, eradicate the long hair, just around the corner."
Li Hongzhang lay on the rocking chair and laughed, and finally fell asleep comfortably.The battle report of Suzhou City reached Li Xiucheng's hands at the same time, Li Xiucheng trembled and was speechless for a long time on the handsome position, and the generals under the seat looked at each other, all with a look of panic."
King Mu, isn't the Qingzi group besieged by you in Jiading City, how could such a big incident happen in Suzhou, why don't you report it to me" Li Xiucheng threw the battle report in front of Tan Shaoguang's eyes with an angry face.Tan Shaoguang's face turned red, he didn't know how to answer, he had to give up attacking Jiading City at the beginning, and now he didn't want Qiao Zhiqing to take advantage of the loophole.Gao Yongkuan couldn't help but stand up and said, "King Zhong, the top priority is not to be held responsible, Suzhou City has fallen into the hands of thieves, and the silver taels we have accumulated over the years in the city can be as many as millions. ”Li Xiucheng's hand slapped heavily on the dragon seat, and sighed helplessly, "That's it, the coming day is long, and Shanghai doesn't take it."
The generals obeyed the order and gave orders: Tan Shaoguang, the king of Mu, led 20,000 troops to garrison Jiading and Nanxiang; Order: Listen to Wang Chen Bingwen lead 20,000 troops to garrison Qingpu, Sijing, and Qibao; Herald: Nawang Gao Yongkuan, Kangwang Wang Anjun, Ning Wang Zhou Wenjia, Biwang Wu Guiwen, Wang Youwei, Fan Qifa, Zhang Dazhou, and Wang Huaiwu led 50,000 troops to follow the king to relieve the siege of Suzhou and Nanjing."
The last general commands" all the generals shouted in unison, hugged their fists and saluted before exiting the tent.After Tan Shaoguang received the order, the whole army retreated from the front line, withdrew to the north, divided the troops to garrison in Nanxiang Town, and entered the city of Jiading when it was dark, as soon as he settled down, Gu Yunfei ran over in a panic and reported, "King Mu, the big thing is not good, we found a suspicious ironclad ship in the Wusong River in Nanxiang, which came from Shanghai, if we don't let it go." ”"Ironclad ship" Tan Shaoguang pondered for a moment and shouted, "Take it, Qiao Zhiqing just took Suzhou, this ship must be to supply Suzhou with military supplies." ”"But this ship is a foreigner, and King Zhong has explained, don't just clash with foreigners."
Gu Yunfei was a little hesitant."
When will you be able to manage so much, let's take the boat down first, and tell the brothers not to hurt the people on the ship."
Tan Shaoguang was a little excited, thinking of the current situation, his face was a little tired."
Yes, my subordinates will do it."
Gu Yunfei didn't say anything more, went out and rode a fast horse straight to the front-line outpost.Because the foreigners in Shanghai had declared neutrality, Zhou Fu discussed with the foreign devils for a long time, and finally spent 5,000 taels of silver to hire a British merchant ship to transport arms to Suzhou.When Gu Yunfei arrived at Nanxiang Town, because the cargo ship forcibly broke through and shot at the Taiping army on the shore, the soldiers of the Taiping army transferred 100 small boats to surround it on all sides, killed 17 Indian soldiers, captured 3 British soldiers, robbed the cargo ship, and found 5,000 foreign guns, 500,000 bullets, 30 artillery pieces, and 200 shells on the ship.Gu Yunfei carefully inspected the weapons on the ship, and his whole body trembled with excitement.He hurriedly ordered his cronies to transport weapons from Nanxiang to Jiading, and released the British soldiers, ordering them to sail back immediately.The British soldiers returned to Shanghai by boat and reported the news to Li Hongzhang, Li Hongzhang almost fainted in anger, called Zhou Fu to his side and scolded him, he really lifted a stone and hit himself in the foot, not only did not support Qiao Zhiqing, but also gave so many foreign guns and cannons to the Taiping Army in vain.The news was sent to Suzhou overnight, and Qiao Zhiqing scolded angrily when he learned about it, but he was no longer worried about the problem of arms, because the ordnance institute founded by Li Xiucheng in Suzhou City had been found by him.In addition to purchasing a large number of guns from various sources, the Taiping army also established its own firearms manufacturing institutes in various places to maintain and repair guns, as well as to manufacture bullets and a small number of artillery.Li Xiucheng set up three large ordnance institutes in Suzhou, Kunshan, and Taicang, which are the largest in Suzhou, but the power is all dependent on water conservancy and handmade, and there is no machine production like foreigners.The Suzhou Ordnance Institute hired the Englishman Margery as the factory director, and for this reason, Nawang Gao Yongkuan also married his niece to him.On the day of the destruction of Suzhou, Qiao Zhiqing sent troops to pacify the people in the city, and searched the treasury of the Taiping army everywhere, and then searched the marger and the ordnance station in the alley.Qiao Zhiqing's current lack of time is the most, and he secretly prayed in his heart that Li Hongzhang could delay the Taiping Army for a few more days.Margery had agreed to cooperate, directing the workers to work day and night, with 2,000 rounds of ammunition and 10 shells produced every day.The more than 10,000 soldiers of the Taiping Army also really took Qiao Zhiqing's mind for a while, most of these people are Liu Xiucheng's newly recruited soldiers in the local area, Jiangsu has been rich since ancient times, and the folk customs are naturally not as strong as other places, and the soldiers also have a small citizen mentality, and they can run when they start a war, so Wang Shijie easily took down Suzhou City.Qiao Zhiqing didn't have the heart to recruit these young master soldiers, leaving only more than 3,000 Huaixiang disciples, and the rest were all dismissed from their hometowns.The regiment suddenly tripled in size, reaching more than 1,000 people per outpost, and the total number of people in the pro-military battalion reached more than 5,500 people.Qiao Zhiqing finished rectifying military affairs and returned to Zhongwang's Mansion, the sky had already darkened, and as soon as he entered the palace, Ma Xun sneakily greeted him, and whispered in Qiao Zhiqing's ear, "Young master, I found a treasure in this palace." ”"What are you doing in a daze, what a baby" Qiao Zhiqing stopped and looked at Ma Xun curiously.With a grim smile on his face, Ma Xun took Qiao Zhiqing to the backyard of Zhongwang's Mansion.Crossing several halls and bridges, a beautiful garden appeared in front of Qiao Zhiqing's eyes, the backyard is the family area of King Zhong, after Qiao Zhiqing sent troops to take over King Zhong's mansion, he dismissed the concubines and concubines, sealed the backyard, and did not allow any soldiers to approach.There is an entrance to a cellar in the garden, Ma Xun lit a torch on the cellar entrance, and took Qiao Zhiqing down inside, although Qiao Zhiqing was also used to seeing big scenes, but he was still speechless at the scene in front of him.I saw that the cellar was the size of a basketball court, and there were rows of wooden shelves neatly stacked, and the shelves were full of silver ingots of one hundred taels in size, and at a cursory glance, the entire cellar had at least two million taels of silver."
Young master, I didn't lie to you, this place is much bigger than our Qiao family's treasury."
Ma Xun grinned.Qiao Zhiqing walked over and touched the white silver, and said with emotion, "It is said that there is heaven above, and there is Suzhou and Hangzhou below, the Taiping Army has only been in business for a few years, and there is so much silver deposit, I don't know how much is the blood and sweat of many people" "Young master, why do you want to do so much, now our military expenses are completely worrying, and we can recruit as many soldiers and horses as we want." ”Ma Xun looked at Qiao Zhiqing's face full of pride."
This silver is not easy to spend, it seems that Suzhou City is still facing a fierce battle, and Li Xiucheng will not let go of Suzhou easily."
Qiao Zhiqing frowned and walked out of the cellar with a torch.Ma Xun asked people to close the cellar door and followed closely behind Qiao Zhiqing."
How did you find this silver vault," Qiao Zhiqing asked curiously.Ma Xun smiled proudly, "This is thanks to King Zhong, he hid so many young and beautiful girls in the mansion, when you ordered the dismissal, a girl named Pan Qiaoyu took the initiative to stand up and expose it."
She was originally the eldest lady of the Pan family, a wealthy merchant in Suzhou, and after King Zhong seized Suzhou, he seized his family's mansion and merged it with the Humble Administrator's Garden and the Wu family mansion in the west to build the current Zhongwang Mansion.This little girl's life is very miserable, and now she is homeless, so I have to leave her in the house for the time being, and she was clamoring to see you just now. ”"That's the case, then you can bring her over, the girl has helped so much, and we can't lose her.""
Okay, I'll go and call her to you."
Ma Xun answered and turned to go down.Qiao Zhiqing returned to the conference hall alone, looked at the picture of Daqingkun hanging on the wall, and pondered quietly
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