The air of freedom is very beautiful. During the first three-year term as governor of Hubei, Wu Chaoyue has made a lot of development, established a certain prestige, and successfully won the hearts of many ignorant people, but he lives a very frustrated life. He was either extorted by Teacher Zeng or taken turns to monitor Guan Wen and Hua Shana. He did not dare to let go of anything he did, was trembling and cowardly, and had not enjoyed a good life as the Hubei emperor for three years.

Such a frustrating life finally said goodbye to Wu Chaoyue. With Hua Shana's personal command of the army south to quell the rebellion, no one in Hubei Province finally became higher and stronger than Wu Chaoyue. No matter what Wu Chaoyue did, he didn't have to worry about being constrained, and no matter what he did, he didn't have to worry about someone reporting to the Qing court. He could be free, do his own things, and let go of his hands and feet.

The air of freedom is indeed beautiful, and Wu Chaoyue is so free that he doesn't know what to do. He takes the opportunity to drive away the local Hubei officials who don't like to him and replace them with his own people? Sorry, the officials of Hubei prefectures and counties who dare to fight against Wu Chaoyue have long disappeared. They are either overthrown and driven away by Wu Chaoyue's playing with power, or killed by the old fox Hua Shana. The remaining local Hubei officials are just not in concert with Wu Chaoyue, but they are absolutely obedient in other aspects. They dare not kneel down when they ask them to lie down. They are so obedient that Wu Chaoyue is embarrassed to change people.

Taking the opportunity to replace the generals of each prefecture to control the military power of the Green Camp? I am still sorry, Wu Chaoyue not only looked down on the combat effectiveness of the Green Camp soldiers, but also increased the burden when caught. Moreover, all the Green Camp soldiers who can handle in Hubei have already divided the gangs. They are either controlled by Wu Chaoyue's lackey kingdom, or are under the jurisdiction of Duxing's general. The remaining shrimp soldiers and crab generals are neither worth taking action, and forcibly eating them may also arouse the alertness of the Qing court and Hua Shana, so Wu Chaoyue did not consider this at all.

Taking the opportunity to buy and incorporate the command of Hua Shana's Super Biao and E Yong directly? I'm sorry, Wu Chaoyue was really afraid of the old fox Hua Shana's tricks. He knew that his Super Biao and E Yong must have countless eyeliners staring at him. No matter what big moves he did, he would definitely not escape the eyes of Hua Shana's old fox. At the same time, it was difficult to take the opportunity to completely control the Super Biao and E Yong from Hubei. So without wanting to break up with Hua Shana immediately, Wu Chaoyue could only continue to use military training as an excuse to put his people into E Yong to gain military power. At the same time, he also took the opportunity to win over one or two generals of the Super Biao of the Super Biao and put a few eyeliners into Hua Shana's direct army.

Of course, if Wu Chaoyue made up his mind, he could do two major things. The first is to vigorously expand and directly obey his own plaques, and the second is to directly rebel. However, soon, Wu Chaoyue discovered a very embarrassing contradiction. The vigorous expansion of the army would definitely be discovered immediately by Hua Shana. Oppose and stop the direct rebellion, and the strength of the direct rebellion is insufficient, and at the same time, it is not prepared.

Before leaving, Hua Shana repeatedly reminded Wu Chaoyue not to repeat Zeng Guofan's mistakes. Although Wu Chaoyue could not listen to this, Wu Chaoyue dared to bet his little brother that as long as he dared to expand his army in Hubei, as soon as he received the news in Hunan, Hua Shana would definitely return to Hubei to stop him. If he dared not listen, Hua Shana would dare to turn against him and ask the Qing court to directly remove him.

Direct rebellion can get rid of the constraints of the Qing court and Hua Shana, and expand as much as possible. However, after doing this, Hua Shana will definitely bring the Hunan army to explode his chrysanthemums as soon as possible. Du Xing'a will immediately bring the army out of the province to fight with him. Senggelinqin will definitely immediately bring the Qing army in the Central Plains to settle old accounts with him after receiving the news. In addition, Shu Bao from Xiangyang and Mian Xun from Jingzhou will definitely not be brothers and drink and talk about him again. If he cannot take the heavy area of ​​Jingzhou as soon as possible, the Qing army in Sichuan will not have much time to come.

In addition, the time is definitely not ripe enough. The remaining power of the Qing court is still there. Wu Chaoyue raised the flag to fight against the Qing Dynasty. There may not be many local officials in Hubei responding. Hubei people who have been brainwashed by the Qing Dynasty for more than two hundred years may not support it. The old comprador of Wu in Shanghai and the Wu Xiaoping and his wife who still live in Xiangshan will definitely face the disaster of death.

Under the contradictions and concerns, Wu Chaoyue finally understood why the brutal rule of the Qing court could last for more than two hundred years. In more than two hundred years, there was basically no local governor dared to rebel. He finally understood that Yuan Shikai still had the hearts and courage without the courage to hold the Beiyang military power. He had to wait until Sun Dapao torture the south into chaos and the Wuchang Uprising was successful before he dared to pick peaches.

Then, Wu Chaoyue naturally hated his teacher Zeng Guofan even more. What a good opportunity to raise troops to rebel when the Wild Boar Skin escaped from Rehe in history? Why didn’t his teacher know how to seize it?

However, it was okay for Wu Chaoyue. The foreigners sent news in time, saying that the negotiations with the Qing court failed, and the British and French coalition forces had decided to go north to attack Dagukou again. Logically speaking, Emperor Xianfeng went to Rehe to harm the little white rabbit for a long time. This conclusion was of course related to Wu Chaoyue's history teacher graduating from the sports school.

In addition, history has entered the era when industrialized countries beat agricultural countries. There is no need to desperately recruit soldiers to buy horses and pile up people's lives. With the industrial foundation, it can produce large and rapid advanced weapons. It is by no means a dream to expand the army in a large number of times.

Therefore, taking advantage of the opportunity of Huashana leaving Hubei temporarily, Wu Chaoyue only did one big thing, which was to take the opportunity to expand the scale of the Metallurgical Industrial Base and expand the three Pudlin furnaces into five. At the same time, the production scale of the Guns and Cannon Bureau was doubled, and the production equipment that had been deliberately sealed was put into production. He took out a lot of money and grain to hire and train production workers, and worked hard to produce weapons and ammunition and store them for spare use.

Then, another major event for Wu Chaoyue was to wait for the foreigners to enter Beijing, wait for Emperor Xianfeng to escape to Rehe to harm the rabbit, give local governors full power, and wait for a better opportunity to rise up. However, what Wu Chaoyue never expected was that a series of unexpected accidents that caught him off guard came one after another...

The first surprise that caught Wu Chaoyue off guard was the sudden anti-foreign and anti-foreign sentiment that suddenly appeared among the people of Hubei! After the British and French troops captured Guangzhou City, they captured Ye Mingchen, the governor of Guangdong and Guangxi, and took him to India. As a result, Ye Mingchen came to a hunger strike that would rather die than eat British grains.

Unfortunately for Wu Chaoyue, Ye Mingchen happened to be from Hanyang, Hubei. His family was very large, rich and powerful. After receiving the news of Ye Mingchen's death, the people of the old Ye family held a big funeral, shouted slogans of foreign plagiarism, encouraged the people of Hubei to refuse to buy foreign goods and trade with foreigners. The members of the Ye family, who were too sad and angry, shouted the Boxer Rebellion slogans to kill all foreigners. Wu Chaoyue was forced to helplessly strengthen the protection of the foreigners in Hankou, and went to Hanyang to pay tribute to Ye Mingchen, trying to persuade the Ye family not to blindly exclusion. As a result, he was not only flatly rejected by the Ye family, but also became accused of a traitor, making Wu Chaoyue very embarrassed.

Then, another trouble came to the door. Zeng Guoquan, who was studying in the military academy in Hankou, suddenly visited the door with his uncle's reputation. He carefully asked Wu Chaoyue whether there had been any accidents during his stay in the Wu Mansion? When Wu Chaoyue asked the reason in surprise, Zeng Guoquan answered truthfully: "That's right. After Ji Jing returned to Hunan, she was always depressed and often hid alone and cried alone. Her sister-in-law asked her the reason, but she didn't say it. Later, her sister-in-law accidentally asked her if something had happened in Hubei, and she cried even harder. Her sister-in-law suspected that she had become like this and was related to her visit to Hubei this time, so she wrote to me to inquire."

Wu Chaoyue, who accidentally caused big trouble, was speechless and wanted to continue hiding it, but she felt too sorry for Zeng Jijing. After thinking about it, Wu Chaoyue chose to tell the truth to Zeng Guoquan and honestly confessed to his attempted sexual assault. As expected, Zeng Guoquan jumped up like a crazy lion, clenched his fists with both hands, which scared Wu Dasai and other personal soldiers quickly pulled out their guns.

"Uncle Jiu, I really didn't intend to do that." Wu Chaoyue said frowningly: "I can swear to the sky, I really didn't mean to harm my junior sister. It was because I was too drunk by the flower-making platform that day, and my junior sister happened to live in Wanzhen's room again, and this accident happened."

"Accident?" Zeng Guoquan roared with red eyes, "You have killed my niece for the rest of your life if you have an accident?"

"Uncle Jiu, Uncle Jiu, my nephew is guilty, my nephew is guilty." Wu Chaoyue bowed and bowed to apologize, and then said: "Uncle Jiu, if the master's wife doesn't mind with you, I can marry my junior sister and ensure that I will be good to her for the rest of my life!"

"Can my descendants of Zeng Sheng let their daughter be a concubine?" Zeng Guoquan yelled wildly.

"Then I really have no choice." Wu Chaoyue replied with a wry smile: "I promised Ji Jing would marry her, but it was because I took into account the situation in your family that I have never dared to speak up until now."

If Wu Dasai and other personal soldiers had not drawn their revolver and pointed them at Zeng Guoquan, Zeng Guoquan would have been able to pounce on them and tear Wu Chaoyue. However, even so, when Zeng Guoquan left angrily, the personal soldiers following the surveillance quickly sent news, saying that Zeng Guoquan had already returned to Hunan with luggage. Wu Chaoyue sighed when he heard the news, and could only hope that the miracle would appear and that the people of the Zeng family could understand things, otherwise, the Zeng family would follow the footsteps of the old Ye family and be irreconcilable with Wu Chaoyue.

What caught Wu Chaoyue the most off guard was on the battlefield. In early March, the Hubei spies under Zhang Dejian suddenly sent an urgent report from Anqing, saying that they had found accurate news that the Anqing Taiping Army was about to launch a large-scale reinforcement of Jiujiang and the Hukou battlefield. Not only would they send a large number of newly built small and medium-sized warships to the Hukou Taiping Army to help the main force of the Taiping Army upgrade the equipment, but there were also rumors that three steam gunships were transferred to Hukou to participate in the war.

"Is the news that the long-haired steamship sent to Hukou to participate in the war is reliable? Can it be confirmed?" Wu Chaoyue asked quickly.

"It is not yet confirmed, but it may be very important from the analysis of the signs." Zhang Dejian replied: "Our detailed investigation report has only fought with Wu Quanmei's navy in the Xupu area since the Longmao equipped the steamship. With the advantages of wind direction and ship speed, he sank Wu Quanmei's two red ships with less and injured many."

"Since then, Wu Quanmei has not dared to go west to fight Changmao. She only dared to hide at Wusongkou and use the fort to cover herself. Changmao's steamship has been idle. Then the sound of letting the steamship ship go west gradually sounded in Jiangning City. There are rumors that Hong Xiuquan was very dissatisfied with the steamship ship spending too much money but not much effect. So the officials suspected that the rumors that the long-haired steamship was about to drive west and us were very likely true."

Wu Chaoyue remained silent. After a long time, he waved Zhang Dejian to continue inquiring. Then he asked Zhao Liewen to write a letter to Yang Wending, asking Yang Wen to inform Du Xinga and Wang Fu of the bad news, and asked Du Xinga and others to prepare for precautions. Finally, Wu Chaoyue called Wu Dasai aside and asked him to send someone to send a letter written in a password to Daye to hand it over to Yung Wing, and asked Yung Wing to contact the Taiping Army's secret envoy and question why the Taiping Army launched a massive increase in troops on the Western Front?

By the way, in order to facilitate secret contact and leak secrets, Wu Chaoyue adopted Yung Wing's suggestion and had secretly developed two sets of passwords, one set of Chinese passwords specifically for military purposes, and the other set of English passwords was specially used for Wu Chaoyue to contact Yung Wing, who was born with rebellious bones. The confidentiality was so high that even Zhao Liewen didn't know the existence of this set of passwords, but it also facilitated Wu Chaoyue to obtain secret contact with the Taiping Army through Yung Wing.

This time it was obviously a waste of hard work. What surprised Wu Chaoyue again was that after just one day, Yung Wing took the excuse of returning to the provincial capital to report his work and personally brought Wu Chaoyue a letter signed by Yang Xiuqing. The letter was written in English, and the content abandoned the gods and ghosts. The general idea is as follows:

"Wu Chaoyue, why are you a little Qing demon untrustworthy? I tried hard to restrain the army and did not attack you. Why did your navy attack Hukou several times? Also, this time you simply sent your demon soldiers directly to Hunan to attack my army and kill so many soldiers from my heavenly kingdom. If you don't withdraw your troops, you really want to fight with me. I will accompany you to the end!

I understand and tell you something. I decided to increase troops on the western front and send the steamship to Hukou to participate in the war! I will give you a choice. Now you are starting a war to rebel Qing Yao. I will join forces with you to kill the Qing Yao navy in Jiujiang, and draw Poyang Lake as the boundary with you. It is not the opposite of each other. Then discuss the division of land on land!

However, if you don’t raise an army, don’t rebel, and don’t openly sign an alliance with me. Sorry, my patience has reached its limit. The navy of Jiujiang Qing Yao’s navy is too threatening to me, so I can only kill them! If your navy participates in the war, I will fight without error!

You only have two steamships, and I have three. Don’t regret it when my steamship kills your steamship and drives to the city of Wuchang!”

After reading the letter from Yang Xiuqing, who was written by Hong Renyi, Wu Chaoyue first read the letter to Yung Wing, and then put it on the candle to burn it. He asked Yung Wing, who had known his thoughts in English, casually, "What do you think?"

"The time for the revolution is not yet ripe." Yung Wing replied in English: "The production of Daye's arsenal has just begun to expand, and it is difficult to supply you with large-scale combat. The Qing Dynasty's rule was still very stable, and the people's thoughts were still too stubborn. You should raise the banner of revolution now, and there will not be too many people to respond. The Qing Dynasty's rulers will definitely suppress this revolution with all their might."

"Also, don't expect the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom's charlatans to provide you with much help." Yung Wing added in English: "Their front line is too long, and the main force of the army is far away from Hubei. Now that you launch a revolution, they will not only not be able to help you, but on the contrary, you can only restrain a large number of Qing troops for them. They will not find opportunities for development, but are also very dangerous."

"Of course." Wu Chaoyue sneered: "Yang Xiuqing clearly has made two preparations this time. Of course, it is best to force me to rebel directly. If I can't force me to rebel, I will start fighting to fight for the control of the middle reaches of the Yangtze River. Beware that I suddenly turned against me and exert force, killing them, Hukou Navy, who threatened Nanjing."

"The same goes for foreigners." Yung Wing added in a low voice: "Accurate news, Britain and France have dispatched only more than 5,600 troops this time, with too few troops. Not to mention whether we can get their support and help in the revolution, even if we can get their support and help, they will not be able to help much. On the contrary, we will definitely have to pay a significant price."

Wu Chaoyue nodded again and said in English: "I am also so worried. Before that, Xiao Baoling had tested my attitude, but he was not a formal representative of the UK, nor did he submit formal diplomatic documents to me, but only verbal support. If I acted hastily, even if I could win their support, I would definitely be forced to sign more and more dangerous traitorous treaties by them."

"What are you going to deal with the Taiping Army?" Yung Wing asked.

"Don't reply, keep silent and keep patient!" Wu Chaoyue said gritting his teeth: "If the Taiping Army really wants to fight, I can give up the power of the river control in Jiujiang. It's amazing that I'm just spending some money to transport grain from Ruichang to Jiujiang. Anyway, I'm not afraid of them on land. But if the Taiping Army Navy dares to continue to advance, I will never let them go over Tianjia Town! Let the Taiping Army know that I am not something they want to use, and then find a way to re-discuss it later."

After making this decision, Wu Chaoyue reminded Yung Wing to cut off secret contact with the Taiping Army during the war, avoid being threatened by the Taiping Army, and not contact with the Taiping Army's secret envoy before receiving his order. After Yung Wing promised, Wu Chaoyue said secretly with great regret: "It's a pity. If I have enough strength in my hands and are not bound so tightly, I can prepare more in advance, this is definitely a great opportunity to raise an army."

Regrettable, but after thinking about it, Wu Chaoyue found that being forced to fight another battle with the Taiping Army was also of great benefit. First, he gave the Qing court an explanation and got an excuse for further expanding his army and preparing for war. Secondly, sooner or later he would compete with the Taiping Army for control of the Yangtze River route. If he fought with the Taiping Army with roughly the same strength, he would not easily make any mistakes, and he could also take the opportunity to train steam warship sailors to gain practical training opportunities.

So while sending Yung Wing away, Wu Chaoyue immediately ordered his last two naval battalions to prepare for the war, and ordered Liu Kun and his army to withdraw to Tianjia Town, renovate and protect the permanent fort he built there, and prepare for the opportunity to fight the decisive battle with the Taiping Navy in Tianjia Town. In addition, Wu Chaoyue, who had sufficient food in his hands, also sent a large amount of food to Jiujiang in advance, so as not to successfully capture the river surface in Jiujiang, causing the Jiujiang battlefield to face a food-free crisis.

After a while, Jiujiang indeed sent a report, saying that the Taiping Army's Anqing Navy was dispatched to escort a large number of newly built warships to the west and enter the Hukou for reinforcements. The three steam gunships purchased by the Taiping Army from the UK last year were indeed listed!

After receiving this news, Wu Chaoyue's first reaction was to go to Wenjiujiang and ordered Wang Fu and Du Xinga to lead the navy to retreat to Tianjia Town to set up defenses. At the same time, he was immediately prepared to lead his army to fight Tianjia Town again. However, what caught Wu Chaoyue off guard was that his retreat order was flatly rejected by Du Xinga!
Chapter completed!