Chapter 21 In the 21st quarter, the foreign gun team suffered a disastrous defeat

Less than a month after the papers were issued, Zeng Bingzhong, the admiral of Jiangsu, and Kuang Wenbang, the commander-in-chief, were dismissed again.Li Hongzhang recommended Huang Yisheng, commander of the Huaiyang Navy Battalion of the Hunan Army, to serve as the admiral of Jiangsu temporarily, Liu Mingchuan, the commander of the Mingzi Battalion of the Huai Army, to serve as the temporary commander, and Zhang Shusheng to be the deputy general.Except for the two divisions of Fan and Gui, Shanghai has all been replaced with new faces. Li Hongzhang kicked Xue Huan's vital parts calmly in the officialdom in Shanghai.But Xue Huan was a senior official after all, he carefully maintained the superficial peace with Li Hongzhang, and quietly looked for Li Hongzhang's flaws.Xue Huan firmly believed that as long as Li Hongzhang gave him a little chance to fight back, Jiangsu would still be his territory.

In the first ten days of the eighth month of the lunar calendar in the same year, the Taiping Army captured Ningbo, Zhejiang Province. Zuo Zongtang, governor of Zhejiang Province, asked the governor of Liangjiang to send reinforcements nearby.Zeng Guofan hurriedly wrote to Li Hongzhang to discuss the matter. Li Hongzhang had no soldiers to draw at this time, so Tiao Huaer led a foreign gun team to rush into Zhejiang, and together with Chu Yong, recovered Ningbo. Attached is an urgent document from the history of Ningshaotai Road to Hubei and the prefect of Ningbo Prefecture. After learning from many sources, Hua Er learned that there were not many Taiping troops stationed in Ningbo, and that the guns were incomplete and vulnerable, so he gladly went to his death.Before leaving, Hua Er followed the usual practice in the past, stripped his concubine Yangfang's daughter and tied her to a stool, and whipped her with a horsewhip until the concubine was covered with blood.

Hua Er called it a good luck to go out. It is said that it is a magic weapon handed down from the ancestors and is extremely effective. But this time, I don't know whether Yang Nu's cortex was thickened or Hua Er was not strong enough to whip her. Hua Er beat her for half an hour.Hua'er had no choice but to cut it with a waist knife, and Shi Fang's blood flowed profusely. Huaer breathed a sigh of relief, and said in blunt Chinese: "Happy! Happy!" Hua Er, together with Wu Xu and Yang Fang, led the water and land battalions to leave Shanghai on the same day, and headed for Ningbo with great fanfare.Wall is an American. He graduated from Norwich University in the United States. He received basic military training and later engaged in adventure activities at sea and in Central and South America.He once served in the French army as a lieutenant, and after participating in the Crimean War①, he returned to China to help his father in business.In the ninth year of Xianfeng (1859 A.D.), Hua Er was instigated to come to China and served as the chief mate of the gunboat "Confucius" of the Qing Army Navy.Later, under the sponsorship of Su Song Tai Dao Wu Xu and Candidate Dao Yang Fang, foreigners were recruited to form a foreign gun team and served as the team leader, and soon became a naturalized Chinese.Ward was arrested by Admiral Ho Bo of the British Navy for recruiting foreigners to lure away British sailors. He tried to escape and began to recruit Chinese soldiers in Songjiang, who were still trained by foreign officers.

At that time, the foreign gun team consisted of more than 5,000 people, most of whom were foreigners, and a small part were recruited from the local area.The foreign gun team is coached by British officers and equipped with foreign guns, foreign cannons and foreign boats, which is quite powerful.The foreign gun team started with Su Song Tai Dao Wu Xu as the supervisor, and Ji Ming Dao Yang Fang and Hua Er as the supervisor.Yang Fang soon changed to a local post, but he still fought with the foreign gun team, so the foreign gun team appointed Americans Faseld and Bai Qiwen as assistant leaders.In addition to the horse and infantry armies, the foreign gun team also has a fleet and an artillery team, which are completely organized according to the organizational system of foreign armies and consume a lot of money.Li Hongzhang has been looking for opportunities to cut the foreign gun team, hoping to transfer the saved salary to Huai Yong.As everyone knows, Yang Fang, Hua Er, and Weng son-in-law are colluding, and any movement of Li Hongzhang is under Hua Er's control.

Once, Li Hongzhang and Yang Fang talked about the team training in various provinces, and the topic naturally led to the foreign gun team.Li Hongzhang said: "The foreign gun team is invincible because of the guns and artillery, not the crowd. Since ancient times, the training of soldiers has been based on precision rather than abuse." Li Hongzhang did not say a word about cutting the foreign gun team, but his words actually contained the word "cutting".Yang Fang didn't refute at that time, and even made high-level remarks. Unexpectedly, the next day, Wall handed in a report to expand the number of foreign gun teams and increase the salary of the foreign gun team.When Li Hongzhang saw the report, he suddenly realized that Westernization was not caused by foreigners, but by his own people.He received Hua Er's report in the box without a single word; although Hua Er urged him repeatedly, Li Hongzhang only used other words to prevaricate and ignored him.

Things were urgent in Ningbo, Li Hongzhang knew Zuo Zongtang's temperament, and he was less than a hundred thousand urgent, Zuo Jigao would never open his mouth to ask for help.Li Hongzhang immediately decided to send Wu Xu and Yang Fang together to lead the foreign gun team to go through fire and water; if Hua Er was afraid to go forward, the governor's office just played to ask the court to cut down the foreign gun team. Hua Er didn't know how deep he was, and he obeyed his orders happily. In fact, he wanted to give the new governor Li Hongzhang an impression of being able to fight, and hoped that the expansion of the army would be successful.Wu Xu and Yang Fang moved with the fleet as usual.However, the invincible foreign gun team army suffered a lot from the Taiping Army this time.

The Taiping army first laid down heavy troops in Cixi, and then released a small group of troops to fight with the foreign spear team, luring them into the ambush circle.The foreign gun team didn't know what to do, they chased and fought all the way, and fell into the ambush circle of Cixi, and then there were loud shouts of killing around.The two sides fought fiercely for three days and nights, and the foreign spear team suffered more than half of the casualties, and the number of corpses increased; the Taiping army also lost more than 10,000 soldiers, and the blood had already stained the land red.

Zuo Zongtang hurriedly led some Chu Yong to rescue, and the Taiping Army had to withdraw from the siege.The foreign gun team began to clean up the battlefield and bury the corpses.Holding his command saber, Hua Er cursed while patrolling: "This bastard Li Shaoquan, the affairs of the Qing Dynasty were ruined by these people! If he agreed to expand the team earlier, will the team have this catastrophe?" Hua Er kept cursing miscellaneously, and kicked the corpse of the Taiping army from time to time.Looking at that posture, I can't wait to tear Li Hongzhang's body into thousands of pieces.The deputy team leader Bai Qiwen said in English at this time: "Marshal Hua, let's get out of here. There is blood everywhere, and it makes people uncomfortable!"

As soon as Bai Qiwen finished speaking, a stray bullet suddenly flew from a distance, hitting Zhong Er's head.Hua Er fell down and fell silent.Bai Qiwen's face changed drastically with fright, and he couldn't wake up for a long time. Bai Qiwen patted himself on the head and said: "My God, this place is full of horror, it's too scary! It's too scary!" He took Huaer's body and led the rest of his troops back to Shanghai by boat. Fasil had to command more than two hundred victorious troops to garrison Cixi.Wu Xu and Yang Fang went back to Shanghai to see Li Hongzhang, they forgot about the siege of Cixi and did not mention it. Leave a message and let Bai Qiwen take over the Changsheng Army. Bai Qiwen fought bravely, used soldiers like a god, and won Huaer's true biography."

In order to win over foreigners, Li Hongzhang paid for Huaer's shirt.It's just talking about how brave Hua Er was in fighting in the past, and how tragic his death was.As usual, they are all bureaucratic articles, which are used to fool foreigners, and few Chinese people really believe them.After Zhezi talked about Hua Er's bravery, Li Hongzhang proposed to the court that because Hua Er left his last words, after his death, the Changsheng Army could be handed over to the deputy leader, his fellow American Bai Qiwen, to take over, so he decided to let Bai Qiwen be the team leader temporarily, thinking it was expedient .

At the end of the excerpt, Li Hongzhang said: "The minister has ordered Wu Xu and others to change into the Chinese crown clothes, change the coffin and collect it, and bury it in Songjiang, so as to fulfill the ambition of China and North Korea." This is naturally done for all the people in Shanghai. watch. On the day when the excerpts were distributed, the political and business circles in Shanghai, led by Li Hongzhang and Xue Huan, held a public sacrifice for Hua Er in front of the gate of the commercial yamen to comfort the foreigners stationed in Shanghai. Consulates of various countries in Shanghai sent staff to participate in the memorial ceremony.In front of Hua Er's funeral, Yang Fang cried bitterly, and even called him a good son-in-law, he was so numb to the point of losing his shame.