I can't die

Although Li Xiucheng did not have a lot of international knowledge due to his birth, he would not be a fool if he could reach the status of a loyal king from a small soldier.At that moment, he immediately realized the power of the British and French warships, so he decided to switch from offensive to defensive, leading the army to retreat to Suzhou, using Taicang as a buffer zone, and planned to use the advantage of the Taiping Army in numbers to fight a war of attrition.

This military decision obviously played a very big role.

For one thing, no matter how powerful the British and French warships and foreign guns are, their strength is limited after all, and the warships are affected by the water system. The Taiping Army now chooses to camp far away from the river. The support for land battles is not as good as before after the first surprise attack. It's too high.Second, as I said before, at this time, the North-South civil war was breaking out in the United States, and the center of gravity of the Western powers was actually far away in North America and not in the Qing Dynasty. This also limited the support of Britain and France in terms of arms.

Britain and France originally planned to launch a blitzkrieg like they did against the Qing Dynasty in the Opium War, using extremely strong artillery to defeat the Taiping Army, but they never thought that the Taiping Army's manpower was far beyond imagination, and its determination to fight against Western powers far surpassed that of the Qing court. , fell into a stalemate for a while.

After Zai Chun learned the news from the eight-hundred-mile rush of the Ministry of War, he couldn't help sighing: From the perspective of the righteousness of the clan, Li Xiucheng is indeed a hero of the clan, fighting against the big powers, and intending to drive out the captives.It’s just a coincidence that my identity from time travel happened, but I became the captive in their mouths. After all, Zai Chun was selfish, or maybe it was the subtle influence of the Manchu education in the past few years, and finally made it difficult to maintain the rule of the Qing court. in the first place.

After all, you have to survive before you can do more things.

Then, Zaichun made another decree that both the Military Aircraft Office and the queen dowagers of the two palaces quite agreed with: to grant the foreign spear team the title of "ever-victorious army", and to award Charles the title of honorary viscount of Qing Dynasty as a token of goodwill.

Of course, along with this decree, there was another imperial decree that shocked the government and the public, and this imperial decree included Zai Chun's "Tongdao Hall", the "Imperial Reward" of the Queen Mothers of the Two Palaces, and the approval of the five ministers of the Military Aircraft Department: After the first month (after the Spring Festival), the Department of Western Affairs was established, and the Ministry of Households allocated funds to recruit craftsmen, and cooperated with the Ministry of War to learn Western skills in the ordnance institute.

As soon as this edict came out, our old rotten Confucian Wo Ren immediately opposed it, but this time the opposition was unanimously suppressed by the five ministers of the Military Aircraft Department.In particular, Prince Gong expressed an unprecedentedly firm attitude at this moment after speculating on the holy will. Presumably, he also made a gesture to show Britain and France in order to win more international support to suppress the Taiping Army. He set aside one million taels of tax revenue for the establishment of the Western Affairs Department, and said that the Western Affairs Department was independent of the six ministries and was under the jurisdiction of the Zongli Yamen. Since then, the possibility of interference by the Ministry of Industry has been avoided.

At the moment, the British envoy to Beijing, Pacharley, saw the unprecedented pro-foreign attitude shown by the Qing court at this moment. Compared with the cold reception he received in the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom before, he was very upset.He considered the current internal situation of the Qing Dynasty, and he knew that only by continuing to maintain the rule of the Qing Dynasty could the interests gained by the British through the two Opium Wars continue, so he contacted an admiral of the British Army stationed in Shanghai - Sergeant De Foley, asked him to ask Congress to participate in the rebellion movement of the Qing Dynasty, with the intention of expulsing the Taiping Army from the surrounding areas of Shanghai quickly.

Since then, the Qing army, assisted by the British Army, has become even more powerful, making the situation on the battlefield change rapidly.

After thinking about it for a long time, Li Xiucheng could see the current problem, and he was very anxious. This Shanghai could not be attacked for a long time, and the Taiping Army was fighting on multiple fronts. Although the number of troops in Shanghai is large, it can afford to fight war, but it is greatly unfavorable to the war situation in the north.

At this point, Li Xiucheng thought of one person: Hong Rengan.

Hong Rengan thinks that many people know this person. Based on his understanding of the general trend of the world and Western civilization, he wrote a "New Chapter of Senior Citizens" and presented it to the heavenly king Hong Xiuquan. Gan divides his political views into two aspects: "making ideas" and "employing people". In terms of "employing people", he proposed "employing people to check for mistakes" and "prohibiting the disadvantages of cliques", mainly aimed at strengthening the leadership of the central government in view of the separation, collapse of beliefs, and loss of confidence after the internal strife in the Taitianping Kingdom at that time. In terms of "measures", he put forward three methods of "using wind, law, and punishment", advocating "self-improvement", abolishing corruption, and emphasizing legislation, citing Britain, the United States, France and other countries For example, the requirement to learn the political system and science and technology of Western countries, and take the road of enriching the country and strengthening the army, can be regarded as the extremely pro-foreign faction in the leadership of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom.

After seeing Li Xiucheng's secret security letter, Hong Rengan immediately went to see Hong Xiuquan, the supreme leader of the Taiping Army. It is the aftermath of Ting's strong support from Britain and France.

But Hong Xiuquan, after listening to Hong Rengan's exposition, went beyond Hong Rengan's expectations and shook his head firmly: "Western foreigners once threatened that our 'religion of worshiping God' is a cult in our country, and they denied our teachings and falsely Talking about the teachings of our religion is a false statement. Such measures are intended to shake the foundation of the country and are absolutely unacceptable."

The religion of worshiping God is the founding doctrine of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. It was inspired by Hong Xiuquan from the "Bible" of the Western Holy See. It is unique, and it is precisely because of worshiping God that Hong Xiuquan has absorbed so many believers today.

It is precisely because of this that all countries in the West that believe in Christianity are quite disgusted with this God-worshiping religion.Because, the most important point in Christian teachings is that there is only one and only true God in the world-God.However, Hong Xiuquan's worship of God actually enshrined other gods with God, which is even more abominable than pagans.

After hearing Hong Xiuquan's words, Hong Rengan also knew that this was a great calamity planted by the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom when it was founded. Foreigners, if our army has to enter Shanghai, we must protect the safety of foreigners and not infringe on their interests, so we can gain a little chance.”

"That's fine too."

Hong Xiuquan couldn't deny this, but he didn't refute it: "It's just that if it doesn't work, let someone go to assassinate. I worship God and the White Lotus Sect are brothers. They are very good at this way, so they killed those leaders. If you want to come to the Qing Dynasty and foreigners, there will be no leader.”

Assassination? !

Hong Rengan knew that the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom had always been secretly supporting the White Lotus Sect to carry out assassination operations, and had repeatedly made extraordinary achievements, but. . .

"But this will definitely irritate foreigners even more! Your Majesty, think twice!"

Unexpectedly, Hong Xiuquan didn't want to listen anymore: "I have made up my mind, so there is no need to say any more. Let's go on."