The Qing Dynasty is about to end

Chapter 467 Xianfeng, your Ye Mingchen is here! (Please subscribe, please vote)
"Your Highness, the Eastern King, look! That must be the Heavenly King's royal boat. It's so big, and it's being towed by a small steamer! There are hundreds of wooden boats behind it, which can hold at least 10,000 people? This is great, our military strength will increase significantly."

In the north of the Yangtze River, on the city wall of Baoying County in Yangzhou Prefecture, Yang Fuqing, the cheap brother of Eastern King Yang Xiuqing, pointed at one of the long string of wooden boats on the canal that were winding northward like a giant worm, and shouted excitedly at the top of his voice, as if he had discovered a new continent.

Baoying County is located at the northernmost part of Yangzhou Prefecture. Walking 20 miles north from the county town, you will reach Pingqiao Town in Huai'an County. The vanguard of the Qing army is currently stationed in Pingqiao Town and has already built a stronghold, making it very difficult to fight. Huai'an Prefecture City, further north of Pingqiao Town, is the gathering place for the main force of the Qing army. Emperor Xianfeng's residence is in Huai'an!

This time, Emperor Xianfeng’s personal expedition was for real!

Xianfeng's plan was very clear and his intention was obvious. He wanted to "push forward" all the way south along the Grand Canal, taking advantage of the fact that the main forces of the Taiping Army were scattered everywhere, to attack Yang Xiuqing at the gates of the city, and force Yang Xiuqing to fight a major battle with his inferior forces.

Yang Xiuqing tried his best to gather more troops, but his territory was so small and his population was only a few million. Although he managed to recruit some grassroots governments to help him gather more troops through land distribution, the combat effectiveness of those temporary militias was not very reliable. They could only guard the city and take care of the logistics. If they were to go out to fight in the field, it would be very difficult. Therefore, the troops that Yang Xiuqing could use to fight Xianfeng were only the three divisions of his central army, totaling about 40,000 people, which was obviously at a disadvantage.

There was another thing that was quite annoying. The "Capitol Hill Incident" deprived Yang Xiuqing of his ability to "descend from the gods". Now he wanted to perform shamanism to "speak for the gods" to boost the morale of the army, but it was a bit risky. If he forced it, would the people under him still believe it foolishly like before? Even he himself was probably unsure.

Looking at Xianfeng, he simply "learned from the strengths of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom to control the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom". He gathered a bunch of supernatural beings and all kinds of "gods" together. He also set up a fake Taiping Dao, and found a bunch of eloquent scholars to "talk about the great principles of protecting the Qing Dynasty and destroying the foreigners" in the team! Yes, it was to destroy the foreigners! The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom's God Worshipping Religion was a foreign religion in the eyes of the Confucian scholars of the famous religion!
After all this turmoil, the Qing army's low morale was actually boosted a little.

There was no other way, Yang Xiuqing could only defend Baoying first, block the Qing army's attack, wait for Hong Xiuquan to go north, and then find the right opportunity to attack the Qing army. If Hong Xiuquan could pull some troops from Tianjing, that would be great; even if there were no troops, the arrival of him, the second son of God, would at least encourage everyone.

As soon as Yang Xiuqing heard that Hong Xiuquan had brought hundreds of wooden boats, he was instantly excited, his eyes lit up and he looked around. But he had a serious eye disease, and his vision was not very good, so he could only see blurry things a little further away. Looking in the direction of Yang Fuqing's finger, he saw a shadow. Just as he was about to ask, the master beside him, Ye Zhifa, quickly handed him a Western telescope.

Yang Xiuqing took the telescope and zoomed in on the place Yang Fuqing pointed. Wow, he actually saw a large wooden boat with a three-story building on the deck, being towed forward by a small steamer that was emitting black smoke. On the second floor of the "three-story building" was a platform, on which stood a guy wearing a yellow hat and robe, holding a "golden hoop stick". However, Yang Xiuqing still couldn't see what his face looked like.

"Prince Dong, have you seen His Majesty the Heavenly King?" Yang Fuqing beside him asked impatiently.

"I didn't see anything." Yang Xiuqing shook his head, "I just saw a man holding a golden hoop stick, and he was dressed in yellow."

"That must be the Heavenly King!" Yang Yiqing, who had served as the "Eastern King's Representative" in Tianjing for a while, said quickly, "The golden hoop stick is actually a divine stick. After the Heavenly King sent it to the Temple of Worship for worship, the people in the Temple thought that the stick looked too ordinary, so they asked someone to put hoops on both ends of it, which made it look much more majestic."

"The one holding the golden hoop stick must be the Heavenly King!" Yang Xiuqing smiled and put away the telescope. "Although I didn't get the Spear of Langnusky, with the golden hoop stick, I will definitely have no problem dealing with the monsters and ghosts that Xian Yaotou brought!" He paused, and then ordered his subordinates: "Send a message to the three armies, saying that the Heavenly King has brought a lot of reinforcements and is coming to the Baoying front with the magic weapon golden hoop stick. We will definitely win this battle!"

"Yes!"

Immediately, a row of heralds responded loudly at the top of their voices, then turned around and walked down the city wall like a gust of wind, running to various camps in Baoying City to convey the order of Eastern King Yang Xiuqing.

Yang Xiuqing turned around and said to the people around him, "Follow me down the city and go to the dock to welcome the Heavenly King!"

"Yes!"

Baoying Wharf.

Yang Xiuqing, Yang Fuqing, Yang Yiqing and others had already boarded Hong Xiuquan's "three-story imperial boat". In a very luxuriously decorated hall on the second floor of the imperial boat, they saluted Hong Xiuquan, who was holding a golden hoop to beat the charlatan.

"Qingbo, please sit down!" Hong Xiuquan raised his lips and pointed to an embroidered cushion next to him, motioning Yang Xiuqing to sit next to him. However, Yang Fuqing and Yang Yiqing could only kneel by their side. Hong Xiuquan handed the stick in his hand to Daozi, who was serving beside him, then picked up the teacup, sipped the tea slowly, and asked, "How is the situation?"

Yang Xiuqing grinned bitterly, "Heavenly King, the situation is just like that, it's OK. Everything else is fine, but the force of that demon Xian is too much! There are no less than 100,000 troops in Huai'an alone! I have searched everywhere and barely managed to gather less than 30,000 elite troops, plus more than 10,000 militiamen, and we are here in Baoying. As for defending the city, we can still cope with it, but if we want to attack, we are really willing but unable to do so."

Hong Xiuquan listened and nodded slightly, as if everything was under his control. "I brought three thousand female soldiers, and three thousand strong believers who are willing to follow me, and also some silver and food. Oh, and I also have a treasure that can defeat the enemy, which is this golden hoop stick! With it, all the magic of Xian Yaotou will fail." As he said this, Hong Xiuquan deliberately kept it a secret, and smiled mysteriously, "In addition, I also brought two key figures, who will definitely scare Xian Yaotou!"

"Key figures?" Yang Xiuqing began to wonder, "Who are these sacred figures? Could it be that the Virgin Mary has sent down heavenly soldiers and generals to earth again?" He quickly asked, "Heavenly King, who are those two people you are talking about?"

"Haha, I won't keep you in suspense." Hong Xiuquan laughed and said, "One of them is Ye Mingchen and the other is Chongling!"

"What? Ye Mingchen? The Governor-General of Guangdong and Guangxi?" Yang Xiuqing was so shocked that his jaw almost dropped to the ground. "Could it be that Luo Yaoguo has already taken Guangzhou?"

In Huai'an, in the imperial residence of the Qing emperor, Emperor Xianfeng got up from the dragon bed and stretched his body, feeling very comfortable. He glanced at the side and saw a fair and tender Shandong girl lying next to him, with disheveled hair and wrapped in a quilt, like a sleeping beauty. This girl was sent by Zeng Guofan yesterday. When Xianfeng saw her, he was very happy: "She is much better than Concubine Yi! She has good looks and a good figure." After all the trouble last night, Xianfeng was reluctant to let anyone carry her away, and he just hugged her and slept all night. If this happened in the palace, it would be against the rules. But at this moment, Xianfeng was leading the army in person, and he had thrown the rules of the palace to the wind. If he really followed the rules, he couldn't even touch the Han woman.

Xianfeng personally led the army to fight this time. Apart from getting a beautiful woman, everything else went smoothly. However, when he first arrived in Liaodong, he was frightened by Luo Yaoguo's feint. At that time, the English sent news that the Nanyang Navy was heading north with 10,000 troops to attack Tianjin. Xianfeng was so scared that he almost jumped off the throne.

Fortunately, it was just a false alarm. Luo Yaoguo led his troops to attack Guangdong. Otherwise, Xianfeng would have returned home and run back to Beijing in disgrace.

When the news of Luo Yaoguo's march to Guangdong reached Emperor Xianfeng, he made a prompt decision and led his army across the sea to Shandong, then marched day and night all the way south. In less than a month, he led 80,000 new troops of the Eight Banners from Liaodong to Huai'an. This speed was probably the same even when our ancestors first entered the Pass.

Before Xianfeng arrived in Huai'an, Zeng Guofan, Yuan Jiasan, Li Wenxuan, Ma Xinyi, and Du Han, the son of Xianfeng's teacher Du Shutian, had assembled the Hunan Army, Huai Army, and Shandong Army in Huai'an, totaling more than 50,000 people. In addition, more than 50,000 Qing troops were deployed in Xuzhou, Fengyang, Luzhou, Anqing and other places.

By this calculation, Xianfeng had a total of 200,000 Eight Banners, Green Camp, and Training Army on the battlefields on both sides of the Huai River. Looking at Yang Xiuqing on the opposite side, his troops were simply dwarfed by his own. Xianfeng had an overwhelming advantage.

As soon as Xianfeng got up, there was a lot of noise. Several eunuchs and palace maids who were brought to Huai'an by him rushed in as if they had heard an order. Some of them brought mouthwash, some handed over opium guns, and some were busy helping the emperor get dressed and put on shoes. Several people surrounded Xianfeng, turning around like a revolving lantern.

Xianfeng took a few puffs of the opium, and his heart was so relaxed that he felt like he was floating in the air. While rinsing his mouth, he asked casually, "Have Senggelinqin, Du Han, Guofan, Shengbao, and Yuan Jiasan sent any memorials? Also, has Ye Mingchen's memorial been sent to Huai'an?"

An Dehai led several eunuchs and palace maids in. When he heard Xianfeng's question, he quickly handed over a memorial with a smile on his face: "Your Majesty, Ye Mingchen's memorial has not arrived yet. But Guofan sent someone to deliver a memorial to the imperial court this morning, saying that there is confidential information."

"Oh?" Xianfeng's eyes lit up when he heard it. He knew in his heart that this "confidential information" must be very important. It was confidential information from Yang Xiuqing's Eastern Palace - Zeng Guofan's spies had successfully infiltrated Yang Xiuqing's side.

Xianfeng could not wait to take the memorial, opened it and took a look. After reading it for a while, he gritted his teeth and laughed: "Haha, good, Hong Ni also led the army in person, and brought a magic stick and thousands of reinforcements! Humph, it seems that the Guangdong bandits have no more tricks to rebel, and they are at their wits' end! Xiao Anzi, go and tell the ministers in the palace that I will convene a military meeting after breakfast... I will lead the army to Baoying in person to meet Hong Ni, the leader of the Guangdong bandits' rebellion! I want to see if his magic stick is really that powerful!"

"Yes!" An Dehai responded loudly, turned around and went to pass the order.

(End of this chapter)