The Qing Dynasty is about to end

Chapter 250: Wen Xian: Aliguo Wei Tuoma, where is our concession? (Seeking tickets and subscription)
"Be bold!"

Before Zhu Ba answered Zhou Xiuying's question, Zhang Bao started shouting loudly.

Zhou Xiuying had just received an order to evacuate Shanghai, so she had the courage to come to Dianchun Hall to meet with the Holy Angel King Wu to ask for an explanation. The situation was obviously very good. Not only had Shanghai County been captured, but even half of the concessions had been captured. Although the remaining half was defended by the foreigners at the risk of their lives, it was not easy to capture. However, the part of the concession that had been captured had barricades built, and there were thousands of elite members of the Xiaodao Society guarding there, so it was not easy for the foreigners to fight back.

In addition, many brothers from the Tiandihui, Xiaodaohui, and Luohandang have joined the group in the past few days! Yesterday, she heard from her father Zhou Lichun that the number of Taiping troops in Shanghai has exceeded 20,000!
Although the situation was so good, the order to evacuate Shanghai was issued to the women's battalion she led this morning.

The sisters in the female camp didn't understand, and they all wanted to go to Dianchun Hall to ask for an explanation from the Holy Angel Wu Wang Wu Qiansui. Zhou Xiuying herself was unwilling to accept this, and after being encouraged by these sisters, she ran to Dianchun Hall in Yu Garden alone to ask for an explanation from Zhu Ba, the "fake angel".

But she also knew that it was inappropriate for her to do so. In the army, subordinates must obey the orders of their superiors. How could a subordinate ask for an explanation from his superiors? If a subordinate dared to do so, he would be punished even if he was right.

But she was such an impulsive person who loved to show off. Even though she knew she would be punished, she still had to come to Chuntang to seek an explanation.

Zhou Xiuying kowtowed to Zhu Ba again, but her attitude to seek justice was still firm: "Holy Angel Prince, I know my crime and I am willing to be punished, but I still want to ask, why do you want to give up Shanghai?"

After hearing what Zhou Xiuying said, Zhu Ba was a little embarrassed. It was really hard to beat Zhou Xiuying, a delicate little heroine. If he was a "real angel", he could certainly beat her, but he was just a fool. Zhou Xiuying's father, Zhou Lichun, was the leader of the Qingpu peasants' anti-grain uprising and had a great influence in Shanghai County, Huating County, and Nanhui County.

In the future, when Luo Tianshi carries out land reform around Shanghai, he will probably need the help of Zhou Lichun, the local peasant leader. If Zhu Ba strips someone's daughter of her pants and beats her up now, it will be difficult to explain.

Thinking of this, Zhu Ba snorted coldly and said, "Xiuying, the military law of the Taiping Army is as strong as a mountain. If you retreat now, I will pretend that you have never been here. Otherwise, I will whip you a hundred times!"

Zhou Xiuying gritted her teeth and said unwillingly, "I am willing to receive a hundred more whips, just for an explanation!"

He is given a way out but still refuses to back down. Zhu Ba frowned. He originally had a good impression of Zhou Xiuying, but now it seems that she is a troublemaker and a bit ignorant of death. Our sister Li Cuihua is still better!

"Abao, keep accounts for her!" Zhu Ba had no choice but to tell Zhang Bao.

Accounting? How can this be accounted for?

Zhang Bao was stunned, but he reacted immediately. He took out a small notebook, took out a brush, licked it with his tongue, and then wrote down: "Female camp pioneer Zhou Xiuying bumped into the holy angel and was punished with 200 whips. I'll just record it for the time being."

After finishing the account, he walked up to Zhou Xiuying, put the small notebook on the ground, and took out a ink box, opened it, and placed it in front of Zhou Xiuying: "Sister Xiuying, if you have no objection, just make your handprint. After the battle is over, the military judges of the female camp will take you to be punished!"

Zhou Xiuying didn't waste any words. She immediately dipped her right thumb into the ink and pressed her own handprint. Then she bowed to Zhu Bayi and said, "Please let the Holy Angel know."

Zhu Ba frowned and whispered, "Then I will talk to you. The 20,000 troops led by Queen Su were repelled by Luo Xueyan's new army in Kunshan and cannot come to Shanghai for the time being. I have no choice but to withdraw from Shanghai County first, turn along the Suzhou River to Suzhou City and join forces with Queen Su, and besiege Suzhou City together. After capturing Suzhou, we will try to advance to Shanghai."

Of course, what Zhu Ba and Zhou Xiuying said was "true"!

The army led by Su Sanniang did pass through the vast lands of Zhenjiang Prefecture, Changzhou Prefecture, and Suzhou Prefecture, and rushed all the way to Kunshan County, and then fought a night of artillery battles with the Shanghai New Army across the Lou River to the north of Kunshan County. The next morning, they turned west and headed towards Suzhou Prefecture. After "repelling" Su Sanniang, Luo Xueyan would lead his Shanghai New Army to the south to "counterattack" Shanghai County and the concession.

Luo Yaoguo, who occupied Shanghai County and invaded Shanghai Concession, would immediately lead the main force of the Small Knife Society to abandon Shanghai County and Concession after learning that Su Sanniang's attack on Kunshan had failed, and move to Qingpu first. After reorganizing the troops in Qingpu, he would leave Zhou Lichun and Zhang Sanxiang to guard Qingpu, and lead the main force to Suzhou to meet Su Sanniang and begin to besiege Suzhou.

In this way, Luo Xueyan could naturally recover Shanghai County and Shanghai Concession - defeating the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom and regaining sovereignty from the foreign devils. For these two great achievements, after Yiliang was killed by Luo Yaoguo and Su Sanniang, Luo Xueyan might be appointed as the governor of Jiangsu!
However, Zhu Ba cannot tell Zhou Xiuying about Luo Yaoguo's entire plan now, so Zhou Xiuying now only knows that the good situation in Shanghai was ruined because of Luo Xueyan, the Qing demon.

Thinking of this, the "little heroine" became angry and hateful. She gritted her teeth and spoke to Zhu Ba in the dialect of Qingpu and Shanghai: "Holy Angel Prince, Luo Xueyan is really too bad. You have to find a way to get rid of me!"

The dialect in southern Jiangsu is spoken very fast. If she spoke slowly, Zhu Ba might be able to appreciate it, but if she spoke it all at once, it would sound like a foreign language to Zhu Bay, a Hunanese.

However, he did not ask in detail. In his opinion, this "little heroine" must be scolding the "big leader". When a young and beautiful female subordinate scolds the "big leader", Zhu Ba, as a middle-level manager, had better pretend to be confused.

Anyway, the charges for punishing "Miss Zhou" have already been made. When the time comes, she will be sent to Luo Tianshi and given the amount of 200 lashes. It will be none of Zhu Ba's business whether to beat her, how to beat her, and how to deal with the aftermath.

So Zhu Ba nodded, and asked Zhang Bao to send Zhou Xiuying out of Dianchuntang.

And "Miss Zhou" made up her mind in her heart that she would get rid of the big demon Luo Xueyan even if it meant risking her life!
Three days later, the Bund, Shanghai.

As the long whistle sounded and the clatter of anchors were sounded, a tall, blond, blue-eyed, and roughly-featured man in his fifties, wearing a neat Royal Navy admiral's dress uniform and holding the rank of lieutenant general, on the paddle-wheel gunboat HMS Hermes, the flagship of the Royal Navy's Hong Kong Fleet, looked gloomily at the more than a thousand Chinese troops on the Bund Street, wearing gray-blue coarse cloth uniforms, carrying foreign rifles with bayonets, and holding the banner of "The Great Wall Will Never Fall".

This person is the third Governor of Hong Kong, British Minister Plenipotentiary to China, British Commercial Director in China and Vice Admiral of the Hong Kong Island Navy, Salomon George Bonham.

As a senior colonial official, Bonham had worked for the East India Company for a long time and later served as the fourth Governor of the Straits Settlements. The so-called "Straits Settlements" in the mid-19th century were a colony consisting of three port cities on the Malay Peninsula where Chinese people lived: Singapore, Malacca and Penang. Because of his good performance during the Straits Settlements, he was considered good at governing the Chinese, so in 1848, he was recommended by Foreign Secretary Viscount Palmerston to become the third Governor of Hong Kong and Minister to China, a heavy responsibility.

When he left Britain for Hong Kong, Lord Palmerston, who had pushed for the outbreak of the Opium War, repeatedly warned him: You must use tough measures to force China to make concessions, revise the treaty, further open up the market, and allow the free import of opium! To achieve your goal, you can even push for a new war!
But Wenxian never imagined that he, the British Empire's envoy who had been pushing for the "treaty revision" for four years without any success, had not yet made up his mind to go to war, but the Chinese would recklessly start a war first, and seemed to have won the war. A completely European-style Chinese army has now entered the British Concession in Shanghai!
No, the British Concession in Shanghai seems to no longer exist!

Because Wenxian saw that in addition to the Union Jack hanging on several buildings on the Bund, there were also many Chinese-style red flags - these red flags seemed to have a lot of Chinese characters embroidered on them, and many small strips of cloth were sewn on one side of the flag.

According to Article 24 of the Shanghai Land Regulations, only the British flag can be flown in the British Concession!
The large number of Chinese troops and the large number of Chinese flags seem to indicate one fact - the British Concession in Shanghai may have been taken back by the Chinese!

What Wenxian didn't expect was that the Chinese troops that "invaded" the British Concession in Shanghai and the British troops in the concession did not seem to be hostile!

Because next to the horizontal column of one thousand Chinese soldiers, there were dozens of British soldiers in red uniforms. Both sides were at peace and seemed to be waiting for Wenxian's inspection.

Seeing the British Consul and Vice-Consul in Shanghai walking dejectedly onto the Hermes, Minister Bonham finally shouted angrily, "What is going on? Rutherford, Thomas, where is our concession?"

(End of this chapter)