Wu Jianzhang, who stopped his precious grandson from resigning, soon regretted that he wanted to hit the wall with his head, because a few days later, an urgent report came from the upper reaches of the Yangtze River. The Taiping Army, who had been using the past to use a strong city to make a famous city, did not know that he had learned a ill-gotten trick from there. He actually used the method of digging tunnels to bury gunpowder to blew down the Wenchang Gate in Wuchang, killed Hubei Governor Chang Dachun and Admiral Shuangfu, and then ran away Xiang Rong's pursuers in Hongshan, successfully conquering Wuchang City like Wu Chaoyue predicted.

After Wuchang was broken, the cities and cities in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River were naturally in a hurry. It was expected that the governor of Liangjiang, Lu Jianying, who was ordered to block the Taiping Army, would definitely make up for his precious grandson again. Wu Jianzhang did not dare to waste any time, so he immediately asked his master and aides to write a memorial to resign for his grandson. He called Wu Chaoyue in front of him and forced his precious grandson to sign and use a seal on the memorial.

Wu Chaoyue, who had long since wanted to be a slave to the Qing Dynasty, of course, signed the memorial immediately, but after Wu Jianzhang sent someone to send the memorial with a quick horse, Wu Chaoyue said to Wu Jianzhang: "Grandpa, it may not be that easy to resign from office now. If you really don't want me to go to Changmao, it's better to send someone to Jiangning to get some money to Lu Jianying and ask him to resign. Otherwise, he would not only not agree to let me resign, but might also threaten us in turn, saying that if I insist on resigning, he would submit a letter to the court to impeach us and let the court punish me for my crime."

Considering the critical situation on the Yangtze River battlefield, Wu Jianzhang, who was not short of money, adopted his grandson's suggestion without hesitation, and immediately called his confidant master who specialized in doing dirty things for him, and asked him to take the money to Jiangning to bribe and give gifts, and bribe Lu Jianying, agreeing to let Wu Chaoyue resign from his official position. But even so, Wu Chaoyue still had a bad premonition in his heart, always thinking that this matter would not go so smoothly. He was very lucky in this regard and might be forced to fight the Taiping Army.

Because of this bad premonition, and because he knew that the Taiping Army would break out in Shanghai after the capture of Nanjing, Wu Chaoyue still began to strengthen his war preparations. He first persuaded Wu Jianzhang to take out the silver and order a batch of weapons and ammunition from the Americans and the Prussians. Then he carried out water war training for Shanghai regiment training in a very targeted manner, rented five old gate ships commonly known as the Red Single Boat and several small boats, and hired sailors to pull the Shanghai regiment training to the Yangtze River Estuary for water war training in order to defend Shanghai in the future.

It was also at this time that Wu Chaoyue discovered that he had many innate advantages that ordinary people could not dream of. First of all, most of the Shanghai regiment training were local soldiers from Songjiang, and they were familiar with boats and were not afraid of going into the water. Secondly, the old Wu family had many Guangdong fellow villagers in Shanghai, and a considerable number of them were sailors who came to Shanghai to make a living with sea boats. Although the discipline was a little bad, it was a good idea to control the old gate ships suitable for coastal navigation. He was also more loyal and obedient to Wu Chaoyue, a fellow villager.

, is a very ideal sailor candidate; the third is that foreigners are enthusiastic about helping. In order to get Wu Chaoyue to buy ship artillery from them, consuls from various countries not only rush to provide technical guidance for Wu Chaoyue, but the British also helped Wu Chaoyue train gunners for free, and took the initiative to invite Wu Chaoyue's regiment to board their armed merchant ships, actually operate the advanced artillery on their ships, and persuade Wu Chaoyue to buy ships and guns from them, and promised to provide technical support and ensure the supply of weapons and ammunition.

In view of these, Wu Chaoyue, who had no ambitions, thought of becoming an overseas Chinese when he thought of Honolulu, and he would inevitably have such an idea. "If I became a warlord like Zeng Shawang or Yuan Datou that day, I would like to follow Sun Dapao and others to sign several traitorous treaties in exchange for foreigners' support, and there would be great hope to overthrow the Qing Dynasty and establish a new China."

After this idea, Wu Chaoyue, who is a little lazy, is still more willing to be a rich man who doesn't have to worry too much. Therefore, no matter how foreigners encourage Wu Chaoyue to expand the group training, Wu Chaoyue never let go. He was patient and just waited for the reply to his resignation letter. He also kept praying for God's blessing, so that the Taiping Army would slow down and give him more time to resign and become a deserter.

Dreams are full, reality is skinny. By the 18th day of the twelfth lunar month of the second year of Xianfeng, Yang Wending, the governor of Jiangsu who had moved to Jiangning, first sent the official documents. Not only did he flatly reject the resignation memorial submitted by Wu Chaoyue for the second time, but he also directly condemned Wu Chaoyue for resigning at this time and fled at the moment, letting the people of the country and threatening that if Wu Chaoyue dared to resign, he would impeach him and asked the Qing court to punish Wu Chaoyue's deserter.

Seeing this document, Wu Jianzhang and Wu Chaoyue, the unscrupulous grandparents and grandsons, of course, had to be longer than a donkey. Although he knew that Yang Wending was taking revenge on his own, he had no choice but to hope that a miracle would happen in Lu Jianying. However, what made the unscrupulous grandson cry and cry, only one day later, the master who went to Jiangning to work also sent a message saying that Lu Jianying had already gone to the front line of Jiujiang and could not find a partner if he wanted to give bribes and give gifts. Wu Jianzhang was so anxious that he stomped his feet, but he had no courage to send his master to the front line to give bribes and give gifts to let his precious grandson be a deserter. He could only pray for God's blessing and let the Taiping Army not come to the lower reaches of the Yangtze River and go elsewhere to harm other places.

The cruel facts quickly completely shattered Wu Jianchang's last fantasy. In view of the fall of Wuchang and the defeat of the Qing army, Emperor Xianfeng, who was extremely angry, repeatedly killed him, issued an order to dismiss Xu Guangjin, the imperial envoy and governor of the Two Lakes, who were afraid of war, handed over to the Ministry of Justice to discuss the crimes seriously, chopped off the charges of Akdonga, a Yuezhou gangster who pretended to be dead, and cut off the civil and military officials such as Bole Gongwu, Lian Chang and Hu Fanggu, who were guarding Akdonga, also chopped off his heads, and arrested more than a dozen civil and military officials who were afraid of war and fleeing, and wrote these punishments into a mansion report. The whole world made it clear that officials across the country knew what the fate of running away from fear of war! At the same time, they explicitly ordered that the regiment training in Jiangsu and Anhui and other places should not refuse Lu Jianying's recruitment, and those who violated the order would be punished accordingly!

When things came to this point, it was useless for Wu Jianzhang to regret and force his grandson to become an official. He only complained and admitted that he had harmed his precious grandson. While comforting Wu Jianzhang, Wu Chaoyue was mentally prepared to follow the order and began to arrange the Western Expedition with his fate. He began to think about how to fight a battle or two perfunctory Lu Jianying and Xianfeng, and then find a way to get rid of the fate of being cannon fodder for the Qing Dynasty.

The laws of nature are clear, and retribution is unhappy. Those who should come will come, and those who should die will never escape. On February 9, 1853, on the second day of the first lunar month of the third year of Xianfeng in the Qing Dynasty, after the New Year in Wuchang, the Taiping Army resolutely gave up the lonely city of Wuchang and launched an eastward expedition with all its might. They advanced along the river, and there were thousands of floating ships on the river, sails and flags like clouds, and the military strength was as high as hundreds of thousands. The blade pointed directly at the Jiangnan area of ​​the Qing Dynasty!

The rebellion was rampant. Although the soldiers of the Eight Banners and Green Camp of the Qing Dynasty fought bravely and rose up to resist, the imperial envoy Xiang Rong also personally led the army to chase the rebellion and refused to let go. The rebels were in great force, and the rebels were in great force. The Wang army had few soldiers and was unable to resist. In just fourteen days, military important places such as Huangshi, Laoshi, Jiujiang, Pengze and Xiaogushan were successively lost. General Liu'an camp met General Shou and died heroically. The imperial envoy, Governor of Liangjiang, and Emperor Xianfeng, Lu Jianying was unfortunately injured by the rebel soldiers, with two teeth falling off. He was seriously injured! As a last resort, Lu Jianying had to plan ahead and could only return to Wuhu first and reorganize Jiangning City, the most important town in Jiangnan!

In addition, regarding the injury of Lu Jianying and Lu Duxian, the so-called Lu Duxian was afraid that the enemy would run away overnight and was mistakenly thought by the soldiers of the Wangshi Night Tourist, because of the beating of the spy, and the rumors were slandered! Lu Duxian was injured because of hard work and hard work, and patrolling the camp late at night. Unfortunately, he was injured by the bandit who pretended to be the soldiers of the Wangshi! The world is bright and fair and free. No matter how the bandits slandered and slandered, they would never hurt Lu Duxian's reputation. The sluts who spread rumors would only be futile!

After moving back to Wuhu with a serious injury strategy, the first thing we, Lu Duxian, was of course to try our best to mobilize troops and generals to strengthen their troops. Unfortunately, the Eight Banners and Green Camp of the Qing Dynasty, which were both in the two lakes, or were restrained by foreigners on the southeast coast. The troops in the hinterland of the south of the Yangtze River were very pitiful. No matter how Lu Duxian pieced together, he only gathered more than 6,000 water and land troops in Wuhu (historical data). He was forced to draw troops from farther away. Then he was doomed. The first thing Lu Duxian remembered was of course that the Wu family army, which had once practiced more than 200 bravery, had defeated more than 4,000 rioters. After giving another order, he asked Wu Chaoyue to lead his troops to Wuhu to assist in the suppression within a time limit. He was quickly sent to Shanghai and to the unscrupulous grandparents and grandchildren, Wu Jianzhang and Wu Chaoyue.

There are only two ways to put it in front of the grandparents and grandsons of the Wu family. One is to let Wu Chaoyue execute the order obediently and venture to Wuhu to participate in the war. The other is that the old Wu family and his family fled overseas. Wu Jianzhang was hesitant and wavered for a while. Wu Chaoyue, who had been mentally prepared, accepted his fate calmly and decided to take the risk. Wu Jianzhang cried for a long time and had to agree with tears, but asked Wu Chaoyue to come back alive, even if he lost all his weapons and equipment.

In Lu Jianying's order, Wu Chaoyue asked Wu Chaoyue to arrive in Wuhu before the 30th day of the first lunar month. Time was a little tight. Fortunately, Wu Chaoyue had already made sufficient preparations in advance and would not be in a hurry. However, because the instructor Brown was not a missionary, the American arms salesman Brown could not go to Wuhu to participate in the war, which made Wu Chaoyue lose one arm. At the same time, the morale of the Shanghai regiment training was quite good. Everyone believed that with the advanced weapons in his hands, fighting Changmao would definitely be as easy as fighting Qingpu and Jiading uprising troops. Wu Chaoyue not only did not have to worry about how to boost morale, but also had to warn his subordinates not to underestimate the enemy.

On the morning of the 22nd day of the first lunar month, five hundred Shanghai troupes, led by Wu Chaoyue, boarded ten rented civilian boats, set sail to Wuhu, Wu Jianzhang and many foreigners went to the dock to see Wu Chaoyue off. Seeing his precious grandson's boat sailing to the lower reaches of the Huangpu River, Wu Jianzhang fainted on the dock. Wu Chaoyue felt very uncomfortable when he saw his grandfather fainting from afar, and shouted loudly: "Grandpa, don't worry, I will definitely come back, I will definitely come back!"

…………

With only nine days left, he went up against the current again. Wu Chaoyue of course asked the ships he hired to drive at full speed. Fortunately, the weather was gradually getting warmer and the southeast wind was gradually rising, which was more favorable to go west. So after walking day and night, it took only three days for Shanghai to cross Zhenjiang and enter Jiangning Prefecture.

After Yizheng bought vegetables and meat for a while, Wu Chaoyue's fleet continued to go upstream. When he crossed Yanziji in the evening, when he passed Jiangning City, Wu Chaoyue did not let the fleet dock and landed. He ordered to cross the city directly and continue moving forward - Wu Chaoyue knew that Lu Jianying was in Wuhu, and he also knew that the person in Jiangning City was Jiangsu Governor Yang Wending. Wu Chaoyue, who had a grudge against Yang Wending, certainly did not want to enter the city to get angry with Yang Wending.

Wu Chaoyue took this for granted and almost killed him. The next day, on the morning of the 27th day of the first lunar month, when Wu Chaoyue's fleet entered the river surface of Taiping Prefecture, Anhui, soldiers on the deck suddenly came to report that they had seen the legendary Taiping Army team wrapped in red turbans on the south bank of the Yangtze River, and the number was quite large!

"What? Long-haired troops were found on the South Bank? There are quite a lot of them? Did they fly in?"

After being stunned, the history was scattered. Wu Chaoyue, who was running faster than the navy when the Taiping Army attacked Nanjing, of course, rushed to the deck immediately, raised his telescope and looked at the south bank. As a result, Wu Chaoyue was even more speechless. On the official road on the south bank, there was indeed a considerable number of troops heading east, and the soldiers were covered with red cloth, and they were also fighting the legendary Taiping Army yellow silk flag. Then, Wu Chaoyue screamed like a pig killing, "How is this possible? Lu Jianying asked me to rush to Wuhu to participate in the war before the 30th day of the first lunar month. Today is the 27th day of the first lunar month. Why are the infantry with hairy hair coming into Jiangning Mansion soon?"

"Master Sun, can it be that Wuhu has already lost?" Wu Dasai next to him said quickly: "After we passed Jiangning City, there have been constant ships running from the upstream, but no ship has rushed upstream."

"Did there be any official ships carrying flags escape?"

Wu Chaoyue also asked quickly. After Wu Dasai and others shook their heads and said that they didn't see it, Wu Chaoyue was hesitant and didn't know whether they should continue to rush to Wuhu. At the same time, the Taiping soldiers who were marching on the south bank also discovered Wu Chaoyue's fleet holding the regiment training flags. They divided some scouts to check the situation. Wu Chaoyue also ordered the fleet to approach the south bank to reconnaise the enemy situation. As a result, they soon heard the Taiping scouts yelling in a Guangxi accent, "Qing Yao on the ship, get off the ship quickly and surrender, and you will not die! Otherwise, when our Heavenly King's army arrives, you will be all over the powder!"

He raised his telescope and observed the situation of the enemy. Seeing that the enemy did not have a weapon that could threaten the safety of his ship, Wu Chaoyue felt a little relieved and ordered Wu Dasai and others: "The sniper team aimed at the shooting, and tried to get one or two injured, and catch the alive and come and ask for confessions!"

After saying that, Wu Chaoyue personally picked up a Minni gun, loaded the bullet and aimed at the enemy on the shore more than 200 meters away to pull the trigger, and fired the first shot to brutally suppress the Taiping uprising. As a result, Wu Chaoyue's shooting skills in the past few months were not in vain. The first evil bullet he shot accurately hit a Taiping soldier, and also hit the unlucky soldier's neck. The bullet passed by, brought out a blood arrow, and killed an anti-imperialist and anti-feudal Taiping warrior on the spot.

At this time, Wu Dasai and other Wu army snipers equipped with Minni guns also fired one after another. Although the brave Taiping soldiers had rich combat experience, they thought that the distance of more than 200 meters was safe enough and did not hide behind the shelter in advance. After suffering a great loss, they were immediately killed and injured three or four people, and then they screamed and hid behind the reefs and trees.

Wu Chaoyue originally planned to catch a living and ask for confessions, but after firing the gunshot, Wu Chaoyue realized that he was thinking too naive. When he heard the gunshots, the Taiping Army soldiers who were marching immediately stopped moving forward as a warning posture. He immediately divided an army and rushed over to check the situation. There was a big flag behind the general who led the lead, and the flag was vaguely like the word "Lin".

There was no way to catch prisoners on the dock, so Wu Chaoyue had to let the snipers continue shooting. The Taiping Army on the shore was not to be outdone and also fired back. Unfortunately, even if the combs they used could barely shoot more than 200 meters, the bullets had already deviated from 108,000 miles after flying out of this distance, which was no threat to Wu Chaoyue's fleet. The Minni gun of the Wu army sniper still maintained some shooting accuracy more than 200 meters away, and took advantage of long-distance shooting battles. It also knocked down several Taiping Army on the shore one after another, and also beat the Taiping Army soldiers roared and cursed.

While ping-pong, several boats suddenly rushed upstream. The dhow ship in the front was still emitting thick smoke, as if it had caught fire. Behind were three strange boats raised high from both ends. When Wu Chaoyue quickly used a telescope to look at the coming ships, he suddenly saw that the smoked dhow ship was under the banner of the Qing army, while the people on the three strange boats behind were all Taiping soldiers wearing red turbans. Then Wu Chaoyue did not hesitate anymore and immediately ordered: "Come on and save the smoked boat!"

With a loud bang, when Wu Chaoyue's fleet continued to move forward, the smoke-protected dhow suddenly broke its mast, the sails smashed into the river with flames, and the speed of the ship suddenly stopped. Screams rang out on the ship. The three strange boats behind the bows and sterns were as high as the boat tents, cheering up the oars and quickly approaching the unlucky Qing military advisor ship.

Depending on the situation, the Qing soldiers on the division ship dived and swam to the Wu army fleet, which was far away, for help, but there were still crying sounds on the division ship, "Save me! Save me! Take me to run together! I don't know how to water, and Wanzhen and I don't know how to water, help me!"

"Wanzhen?Wanzhen!"

Wu Chaoyue's ears, which were already effective, immediately raised his telescope and looked closely, but he saw that there was a man and a woman on the train that had lost control. The woman was also short and seemed to be a little Luoli. Then Wu Chaoyue didn't have time to think about why Feng Wanzhen had run here, and immediately shouted: "Snap forward and prepare for battle! Sniper, shoot! Knock the three ships behind!"

Wu Dasai and other snipers sang No, regardless of the distance to be too far, and were already shooting at the three strange ships behind. As a result, they really achieved some effect. After discovering that Wu's musket could hit their hull sails, the three strange ships really slowed down a little. Wu Chaoyue's fleet took the opportunity to shake forward and quickly narrowed the distance with the Qing military advisor ship.
Chapter completed!