"Stop, you actually despise me so much..." Li Hongzhang slammed the table and became furious. He really couldn't understand. Even if Xiao Letian had a strong army, even if he didn't get any advantage today, he How could you insult yourself so much.
"You think you will win today. What you face is just a part of the 100,000 Huai army. Even my 100,000 Huai army is just a wave among the millions of Qing troops. Do you really think that you will win today?" I am an invincible commander."
"The imperial court really wants to deal with you, and there are many ways. Five hundred thousand Hunan troops and one million green battalions can drown you alive... What's so great about you? It's just that your hair is just flat, and the Nian army is undecided. The imperial court will give you a chance to reform." opportunity, don’t mistake the court’s kindness for weakness.”
Xiao Letian turned to look at him, "You'd better be an official. People like you don't have a dream of a great country. You are just a guard dog..."
"Unbridled." Li Hongzhang's roar almost caused the two armies to clash with each other. "Dream of a great country, I know what you want to say. Isn't it my argument about Xinjiang? What's wrong with me? Xinjiang is full of Gobi deserts and snow. The territory is high in the mountains, the people are few and the land is poor, so what can we defend?”
"As long as we Han people hold the front line of Jiayuguan, we will naturally be like Mount Tai. What's the use of wasting money and food? Why don't we concentrate our limited money and food on the coast? We must know that the foreign warships are our close enemies. ah."
"We pool our money to build forts along the coast and buy large coastal defense guns. As long as we hold on to the coastal defenses, foreigners can still attack us. Won't our Qing Dynasty's tax base be saved?"
Li Hongzhang roared, "What's wrong with me? What's wrong with me?"
"Hahaha..." Xiao Letian laughed wildly and said, "Coastal defense, just because you know coastal defense, what else can you do except pile up some forts with stones, and then buy some outdated and outdated artillery. By the way, you can also commit corruption." , you have to embezzle at least half of it to build a fort. Isn’t this how the Qing tax you mentioned goes into your pockets?”
"Of course, you will also buy a few foreign warships to show off. They look very powerful and scary, but they can't do anything except add some face to the court... You won't buy the latest You will not add new cannonballs to your cannon, you will even hang clothes on the cannon..."
"In your eyes, national defense funds can be embezzled and misappropriated at will. You will even stuff sand into the shells just to make a little money..."
Xiao Letian almost shouted, "In the end, you will bring such a fleet and be sunk to the bottom of the sea by the weakest enemy, and then those forts will be demolished by the enemy's army one by one... There will even be two fucking ones. Foreign armies went to war on the land of the Qing Dynasty, but you did not dare to interfere at all, and instead remained neutral."
"This is your strategy, I despise you..."
Li Hongzhang was dumbfounded by being scolded. His hands started to shake. He pointed at Xiao Letian as if to show off, "You, you, you... what are you talking nonsense? Are you out of your mind and crazy..."
Don't blame Li Hongzhang for swearing. No one could understand what Xiao Letian said except himself, because he was talking about things that had not happened in the future.
Although it is something that will not happen in the future, given Li Hongzhang's attitude towards the Xinjiang rebellion and the Manchu Qing's habitual thinking, I am afraid that the tragedy in history will still happen again.
Xiao Letian scolded him to relieve his hatred, but Li Hongzhang was wronged. He would always regard himself as a loyal minister and a capable and famous minister, and he would not admit to the unfounded charges.
"Xiao Letian, stop here. Why did you smear my innocence out of thin air? Tell me clearly..." Li Hongzhang banged the table. If he had a knife in his hand, he would definitely stab him with a transparent hole.
Xiao Letian pointed at the refugees and civilians who were picking up the wounded soldiers and said coldly, "You have already driven the civilians to use them as human shields. Is there anything else you can't do? If you want to be innocent, tell me where your innocence lies." Where."
Li Hongzhang's face turned pale as he was speechless. He gritted his teeth and said, "That means obeying authority in urgent matters. Compassion does not control soldiers, justice does not control wealth. I don't believe that you, Xiao Letian, would not do this when encountering a strong enemy. Don't put yourself at risk." That’s too high…”
"Bah..." Xiao Letian spat on the ground with thick phlegm. "I don't know if you will have the nerve to meet the saints of all ages after your death, and I don't know what kind of comment Confucius will give you."
"Okay, stop talking nonsense. There are only two ways in front of you Huai Army. Either get out of the way or fight. Don't think that I can't deal with you if you hide in the ditch. You'd better not force me."
The negotiation reached a deadlock. Li Hongzhang found that Xiao Letian was as smelly and hard as the stones in the pit. He had already put down his body, but he didn't even bother to open the door to the negotiation.
"Xiao Letian, even if you want to rebel, you are not so domineering. Before Wang Mang usurped humility... you are asking for your own destruction."
Xiao Letian strode toward his own formation, not even bothering to look back. He just waved his hand and said, "If you want to fight, then fight. If you want to leave, then leave. There is so much nonsense. If you want to rely on Su Qin and Zhang Yi's sharp words to convince me, you'd better save the money." Save your energy.”
When Xiao Letian returned to the main formation, he sneered and said, "Obviously, they don't know what we did in Europe at all. They all still think they are uncles. I saw contempt in his eyes. Li Hongzhang looks down on me at all..."
"These idiots, if they knew that we had defeated the French and Austria twice in a row, they would have rushed over like a dog wagging its tail."
Molière said from the side, "That's fine. It's this time difference that allows the Prime Minister's military power to be displayed. A wild victory is more useful than your exhaustion of words. Alas... this is the efficiency of information transmission." What a bad consequence."
That’s right, the failure of the Manchu and Qing court was due to the low efficiency of intelligence transmission. If the Manchu and Qing Dynasties listened to the opinions of Zeng Guofan and Fu Qing and invested in building a telegraph line running from north to south, it would take more than a year to get from Beijing to Shanghai. .
The structure of the earliest telegraph lines was very simple. Just spend some money to build a wooden pole along the post road, and the light telegraph line would be passed. As long as there was no corruption, two hundred thousand taels of silver for such a telegraph line was enough.
Is this money still valuable to the Manchus? The royal family can save a mouthful on food expenses. As long as there is this telegraph line, news from Nanyang will be sent from the south to the capital in an instant. As long as Cixi does not have water in her head, she will It was impossible to launch a battle against Tanggu knowing that Xiao Letian was victorious in Europe.
As the old saying goes, the soldiers and horses should go first before food and grass are used, but this is not the case in real wars. In real wars, intelligence always comes first. The Manchu Qing Dynasty, which was in decline, did not understand this truth. In other words, they did not believe in Western technology at all. Thousand Miles of Sound is a myth to them.
Both Li Hongzhang and Xiao Letian retreated, and the battlefield temporarily reached a stalemate. Although Xiao Letian used words to provoke Li Hongzhang and asked him to fight quickly, Li Hongzhang was not stupid. Xiao Letian's four rapid-fire guns have not yet come up with a countermeasure. .
The Huai army that attacked was announced to have 3,000 men, but in fact it numbered 4,500, of which 1,500 were suspected soldiers. Li Hongzhang thought that a sneak attack of 1,300 troops with a small force of 5,000 would be a sure victory, but he did not expect that the fight would be successful. Such a tragedy.
Li Hongzhang didn't know how much ammunition supplies Xiao Letian's army still had, but he knew that the more than 3,000 lives he had left might not be enough. The only way now was to wait for reinforcements from the capital.
Since the Huai army did not move, the new army moved. Wang Huaiyuan organized a total of three charges in an attempt to break through the enemy's defense line. However, the Huai army took full advantage of the terrain and used ditches and woods to engage in hand-to-hand combat with the charging new army. All three charges failed. The expected goal was not achieved, and the battlefield situation suddenly came to a standstill.
The main battlefield was at a stalemate, but on the official road near Langfang in the northwest of the battlefield, the torrent was staring at the wind and rain and rushing forward. It was the three thousand war horses and the ten thousand scattered capital garrison.
Cixi had spent a lot of money this time. Each of these soldiers had a salary of ten taels per head. Thanks to the Queen Mother's small treasury, it was quite sufficient. If ordinary people were poorer, they would not be able to fight this battle.
Not only that, there were also rewards of silver present, fifty taels for each person, which could be cashed out immediately as long as they won. Mailer, who was imprisoned in the Ministry of Internal Affairs, was also released to plead guilty and meritorious service. Even several managers of the Ministry of Internal Affairs also Sent out.
What is even more surprising is that Andehai was sent out by Cixi as a supervisor. These ten thousand people were the last hope, and Cixi had to ensure that nothing went wrong.
The distance from Beijing to Langfang was only over a hundred miles. In later generations, it only took one hour to drive there if there was no traffic jam. If it were the forced march of the New Army, it would only take six or seven hours.
But for these pampered Eight Banners soldiers, the team had been complaining for a whole night and only reached half of the distance. When the Huai Army and the New Army started to exchange fire this morning, the group of soldiers had not seen the shadow of Langfang.
"Oh, my ancestors, we really can't run away... It lasted all night. I have never suffered such a big sin..."
"That's it, don't run away, don't run away anymore... let Langfang open fire for us, we need to eat, we can't fight this battle if we are hungry."
"Okay, okay, that man has a bubble in his hand... I'll buy it with ten fucking taels of silver. This stupid money is just a bastard..."
When the New Army and the Huai Army were in a stalemate, the court's reinforcements finally arrived. At this time, they were less than five kilometers away from the battlefield.
Mailer wanted to perform a crime today. He galloped back and forth on his war horse, shouting loudly in the snake-like team, "Get up, damn, get up, we are not even ten miles away now, we can rush over in half an hour..." ... Raising soldiers for a lifetime is only for a short time. The imperial court is raising you just for the present, so get out of here."
If Mailer had said nice things, maybe people would still listen to him, but this big guy wouldn't do it anymore. "Fuck your grandma, Mailer, get the hell out of here... I'm also an old man who went to Sanqi, and you kid is playing tricks on me." , even my uncle can drown you if he pees."
"Brothers, beat him up. This bastard has been defeated in a row and he still dares to yell at us. Beat him up." This book was first published from. Be the first to read the authentic content!
