The Qing Dynasty is about to end

Chapter 615 Moore: I smell the gunpowder of revolution! (Please vote and subscribe)

"Mr. Di, what does Huang Ziying want to do? Don't you really know?" Guo Songtao took the memorial submitted by Huang Shijie from his personal soldier, looked at it and asked Zeng Guofan in return.

"Whose revenge is Li Shaoquan going to take?" He stared at the memorial in Guo Songtao's hand and asked word by word, "Is it the revenge for Li Zicheng being killed in a rock, or the revenge for Li Dingguo being trapped and killed in a remote place?"

Guo Songtao had finished reading Huang Shijie's memorial and handed it to Zeng Guofan: "Master Di, how come you still don't understand at this point? This nine generations of hatred is not the hatred of Li Zicheng or Li Dingguo, but the hatred of the orthodox religion! It is the hatred of the orthodox religion being forced to shave their heads and change clothes for 200 years to be slaves of the Manchus! It is the hatred of either keeping the hair or losing the head, or keeping the head or losing the hair!"

"Nonsense!" Zeng Guofan glared at Guo Songtao fiercely, "All scholars in the world are grateful for the kindness and support of the Qing Dynasty for two hundred years. How can there be any hatred?"

"Nine generations of hatred can still be avenged!"

Outside the window came the shouts of the soldiers of the Ji Battalion during drill.

Guo Songtao said: "Since the rise of the Mingjiao, fewer and fewer scholars are grateful to the Qing Dynasty. The Mingjiao recites Gongyang Sutra, not the sutras of benevolence, righteousness and morality. What's more fatal is that the Mingjiao also gave these powerful gentry who recite Gongyang Sutra the knife to kill! Now there are thirty counties and seven hundred forts in Guanzhong. Gongyang Sutra is recited everywhere and everyone shouts for revenge. Moreover, these thirty counties and seven hundred forts are all under the jurisdiction of the Mingjiao Shaanxi General Office, the three prefectures and two states, and more than thirty states and counties. This is a force that can compete for the world! What do you think the fort owners of the seven hundred forts in Guanzhong are thinking now?"

It is obvious that the famous religion created by Zeng Guofan and others to fight against the God Worshipping Religion, after several rounds of evolution, finally evolved into a monster in the Guanlong land.

In fact, before Zeng Guofan, Li Hongzhang, Du Han, and Kong Fanhao led their troops into Guanlong, there had already been a confrontation between the Thirteen Monasteries of the Muslim Church and hundreds of Han gentry forts in Guanzhong. However, because the Thirteen Monasteries formed an alliance, when one monastery was in trouble, the others would support it. The hundreds of forts of the Han gentry fought on their own and lacked organization, so they did not have the upper hand. However, the landlords' armed forces had already formed in large numbers, and there were a lot of them!

The Mingjiao organization brought by Zeng Guofan and others just met the needs of the "Seven Hundred Forts" - it would have been difficult for them to acquire the same organizational capabilities as the "Thirteen Fang Temples", but as long as they joined the Mingjiao, they could be organized immediately.

In addition to the organization, Mingjiao also dug out the Gongyang Sutra, which advocated great revenge. If they wanted to fight the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, they would definitely have to recite a more ruthless sutra, and the great revenge in Gongyang Sutra was just right. So the seven hundred forts in Guanzhong, Gansu, Henan Shanzhou, and some forts in the west of Nanyang Prefecture all began to believe in Mingjiao and recite Gongyang Sutra.

In addition to the "Organization" and "Ram", Zeng Guofan, Li Hongzhang and others also brought "advanced productivity" to the masters of the forts in Guanlong - advanced productivity that could imitate brown bass flintlock rifles and bronze smoothbore cannons, and of course advanced Western military drills.

As a result, the seven hundred forts in the thirty counties of Guanzhong recited the Gongyang scriptures, carried foreign guns, practiced foreign exercises, and were organized into a whole by the orthodox religion. Seven hundred forts!
If one fort sends out one sentry (company), that can mobilize 70,000 combat soldiers!

If we take into account the forts in Gansu and the "famous religious army" brought by Zeng, Li, Du and Kong, the number of soldiers that the famous religious people in Guanlong can mobilize is at least 200,000.

In addition, in the past two years, Li Hongzhang's Huai Army and Zeng Guofan's Xiang Army had frequently fought with the armed forces of Muslim temples in Shaanxi, Gansu and Shaanxi, the Western Regions, and Muslim sects. They had accumulated a lot of practical experience, gained confidence, and felt that they were very powerful.

"The knife that killed people." Zeng Guofan clenched his fist, his face full of regret, "I gave it to them."

Suddenly, there was a sound of horse neighing and Luo Zenan rushed into the signing room with a gust of wind and snow: "Disheng! The Queen Mother has rebelled!"

Zeng Guofan's pupils suddenly contracted as he looked at the Hunan Army's second-in-command, now the Grand Councilor of the Qing Dynasty, the Grand Secretary of the Wuying Palace, and the Chief Master of the Shangshufang.

"The Queen Mother is becoming more and more restless," Luo Zenan panted. "She has secretly summoned Yuan Bao, Rong Lu, and Wo Ren in the past few days. Wo Ren disappeared after the summons! I guess he went to the grassland!"

"Go to the grassland?" Guo Songtao sneered, "At this point, she still hopes that the Mongolian and Heilongjiang cavalry under Senggelinqin can save her life?"

He suddenly turned around and looked at Zeng Guofan: "Master, it's getting cold, put on more clothes!"

Zeng Guofan's fingertips pinched into his palm. Although he had sidelined Cixi and Zaichun, and forced Cixi to throw away the title of Empress Dowager of the Later Jin Dynasty given by Luo Yaoguo, and became Empress Dowager of the Qing Dynasty. However, he was still loyal to the Qing Dynasty, and never thought of adding another yellow dress to himself.

Of course, he was different from those ignorant local tycoons in Guanlong. He knew that times had changed, and now the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom's Western-style factories in Xuzhou and Shanghai produced more and better foreign guns and cannons!
The best standard foreign rifles in the hands of the Hunan Army and the Huai Army were all made of steel smelted in the reactor of the Daye Mining Bureau.
Zeng Guofan gritted his teeth and stood up suddenly: "Prepare the sedan chair, I want to go to the palace to meet the Queen Mother!"

"Now?" Luo Zenan was stunned. "It's almost dark. The Queen Mother must have gone to bed."

Guo Songtao said: "Let's wait for Li Shaoquan and Huang Ziying's troops to arrive."

Zeng Guofan glared at Guo Songtao fiercely and said, "Don't talk about this again!"

At this time, shouts of "Nine generations of revenge can still be avenged" were heard outside the window again.

Weinan, Shaanxi, December 1857, 12.

The city wall of Weinan had just been expanded not long ago, and it was tall and solid. When Huang Shijie's Yingzi Five Battalions of 6 Hunan troops filed into the city, the -jin bronze cannon trained by the famous religious group on the wall was facing north - that was the territory of the Weibei Tianfang Sect Thirteen Monasteries Alliance!

Moore lifted the curtain and saw two bodies hanging at the gate, their frozen intestines hanging on the snow. On the wooden sign was a crooked inscription: "Those who teach the Way of Heaven will be beheaded." "These are spies from the Thirteen Fang Temple in Weibei," Huang Shijie's general Zhang Dingxiang rode his horse to the side of the carriage and pointed at the bodies with his whip, "They are enemies of the Yao family!"

Moore whispered: "I seem to have come to Germany during the Thirty Years' War"

Friedrich on the side suddenly said: "Moore, I think I saw a chimney!"

Moore stuck his head out of the car window and saw the black smoke above Weinan County. "What is this smoke?"

"It's the Weinan Iron Works!" Zhang Dingxiang said, "It's a joint venture between the Yao family and Lord Li. They use Western methods to smelt iron and steel to make guns and cannons!"

"So, there are many workers in Weinan City?" Moore asked again.

"That's a lot!" Zhang Dingxiang said, "At least 20,000!"

"So many?" Moore asked, "Are they all blacksmiths making guns and cannons?"

"Half of them are employed by the iron trade," Zhang Dingxiang said, "and the rest are weavers, that is, weavers who spin yarn and weave cloth. The land around Weinan is suitable for growing cotton. Master Yao asked his tenants to grow 80,000 mu of cotton, all of which was used for weaving cloth. The French craftsmen introduced by Madam Ma also helped to build new cotton gins and spinning machines, what are they called."

"I know the spinning jenny very well!" Friedrich said with a smile, "My family owns a textile factory in England!"

"Yes, yes," Zhang Dingxiang nodded repeatedly, "That's the name. This spinning machine is very useful! Now Weinan cloth has been sold in Guanlong."

"Marketing in Guanlong? Eighty thousand acres of cotton fields are not enough!" Friedrich shook his head, "Even eight hundred thousand acres may not be enough."

"I'm telling you again!" Zhang Dingxiang said with a smile, "So Master Yao has always been thinking about the land of the Thirteenth Monastery in Weibei. For this reason, he even swore brotherhood with our Master Huang!"

Moore's eyes lit up and he said in German: "Oh, I finally smelled a familiar smell in China!"

Friedrich looked at the peasants kneeling on both sides of the official road and whispered, "The smell of gunpowder of revolution."

At this moment, Wanzhen was clutching the heater in another car, the acid of morning sickness rising to her throat. She suddenly caught a glimpse of a man kneeling by the roadside, holding a starving baby in his arms.
Yao Chongjing's residence was built on the ruins of the old county government office. Sixteen golden nanmu pillars supported the hip roof, and a Western chiming clock hung on the eaves.

The richest man in Shaanxi was wearing a fox fur coat to welcome guests, and the ten gold rings on his fingers were dazzling. A blond and blue-eyed foreigner wearing the official uniform of the Qing Dynasty stood beside him in a dignified manner.

Yao Chongjing pointed at him and said to Moore and Friedrich, "My two foreign gentlemen, this is Mr. Henry, a French technician. He was sent by the French Queen Ma and Li Zhongtang of the Qing Dynasty to help me build a churning furnace and a reverberatory furnace."

"Mr. Henry," Moore said, speaking fluent French, "could you take us to visit the iron and textile factories that you manage for Mr. Yao?"

"Of course!" The French engineer shrugged. "Although the factories here are not worth mentioning in Europe, I guarantee that there are no better steel mills and textile mills in China."

"In fact, your information is outdated." Wen Xian sighed, "Maybe it was three years ago, but now the Chinese already have the Beisemei converter that can produce 500 tons of steel per day."

"What? How much is the daily output?" The foreign expert's pipe fell to the ground with a thud.

Inside the workshop, thousands of blacksmiths were sweating profusely, hammering gun barrels with clanking sounds, and in the distance, five churning furnaces and three reverberatory furnaces were spewing thick smoke day and night. The foremen's shouts were heard one after another.

"Hurry! The Hunan Army has ordered 5,000 gun barrels, and they must be delivered by the end of the month! Everyone, work harder."

"Master Yao said that if we can produce 5,000 gun barrels this month, we will be given a bonus of one French silver dollar per person!"

Sir Bonham picked up a finished brown bass with the "Yao Kee" badge branded on the butt: "My God, this workmanship is as good as the original brown bass from the Napoleonic Wars!"

Friedrich held a piece of cotton cloth in his hand and rubbed it repeatedly: "The quality of the cotton cloth is also good. Although it is not as good as the products of Shanghai Textile Factory, under the protection of tariff and non-tariff barriers, Weinan's cotton cloth will definitely have a broad market in the northwest."

Moore nodded slightly and said in German with great anticipation: "I think we are witnessing a revolution. Capitalist, industrial, national, and perhaps religious!"

(End of this chapter)