The Qing Dynasty is about to end

Chapter 727 "Black Wall" Nicholas Zhao Si

November 1861, 11, Charleston Army Camp, Great Parade Ground.

The ground was shaking slightly as the thumping sound of four thousand pairs of cowhide boots stomped on the ground. Xianfeng stood on the viewing platform, leaning on a Japanese samurai sword, squinting at the black brigade lined up below the stage - the "steel forest" composed of the Tianli three-year rifled muskets, Minié rifles, and bayonets on Enfield rifles was shining coldly, more dazzling than the morning sun in South Carolina.

"Goose-step!"

Zenk O'Hara's roar rang out. The black soldiers of the First Packet Regiment stepped on the drums, kicked up the red mud, and the "Bronze Waist Plates of Carrying the Flag" on their belts jingled. Their morale was so high!

When the procession passed the viewing stand, rows of "black-coated soldiers" suddenly waved their bayonets in unison. The cold light made Governor Francis Wilkinson Pickens feel very uneasy - these "black-coated soldiers" trained by Zhao Si seemed to be a bit strong!
Although he had previously supported mobilizing black slaves in South Carolina to die for their white masters and deplete the Yankee's military strength, why did the formation of the black slave brigade in front of him, and the goose-stepping they did, seem a bit like the pillars of American military power?
If the blacks' force really becomes the pillar of the United States, then who is the master of this country? Can the whites always be the masters? This doesn't seem to conform to the truth that the master is the barrel of a gun, right?

"Francis, what do you think of my Black Baoyi?" Xianfeng's somewhat complacent question interrupted the South Carolina governor's thoughts - the infantry of his "Black Baoyi" army was trained according to the "Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Army Infantry Training Manual (Quick Edition)", and the militia of the "Three Chinese Feudatories" on the west coast (in Xianfeng's view, California, Oregon, and Washington State are about to become the Three Feudatories) were also trained according to this version of the manual.

Compared with the ancestral training manuals used by the regular armies of the Confederate States of America today, this set of manuals is more than one version ahead - the current Taiping Army is a powerful force that fought in the Ninth Russo-Turkish War and captured the Sevastopol Fortress!

"Bishop Zhao," Francis Wilkinson Pickens tried to look disdainful, "the drills of your black soldiers are more orderly than those of the Charleston militia. I wonder if their cotton picking skills have become rusty?"

Mr. O'Hara shook off a piece of ash from his cigar and said, "Humph, I'm afraid these niggers will never be able to pick cotton again. They've become wild!"

"No matter how wild your heart is, you still have to pick cotton!" Francis Wilkinson Pickens smiled slightly, and then said mysteriously, "Gerald, Nicholas, you don't know yet, right? Our General Lee is about to take Harrisburg!"

"Really?" O'Hara immediately became excited. "I heard that the Union Army has 100,000 troops stationed in Harrisburg. Can Robert Lee really take it down?"

"That's the Yankees' own stupidity," Francis Wilkinson Pickens laughed. "Sherman led his army from Yorktown to Baltimore three days ago, but was defeated by General Lee's Maryland Army north of Baltimore and is now fleeing in panic. The president has already issued an order requiring General Lee to capture Harrisburg and establish the Blue Mountain-Susquehanna River Line of Defense."

"Take Harrisburg?" Xianfeng shook his head. "How can it be that easy? In my opinion, it is very strange that Sherman retreated to Yorktown after just touching Baltimore. It might be a trap!"

"Trap?" Francis Wilkinson Pickens looked unhappy. "Do you think our General Robert Lee will fall into the trap of that fool Sherman?"

"It's hard to say." Before Xianfeng finished speaking, Scarlett's voice suddenly rang out: "Nicholas."

Xianfeng looked back and saw Scarlett rushing to the viewing platform holding up her skirt, her green eyes shining frighteningly, "Urgent telegram from Washington!"

Xianfeng unfolded the telegram, and O'Hara leaned in and read: "General Beauregard's urgent report: McDowell's troops of the Union Army broke through the Bull Creek defense line, and the Manassas hub is in danger. The War Department ordered your troops to immediately."

Francis Wilkinson Pickens gasped: "If Manassas is lost, the line of communication between Washington and Richmond will be destroyed."

"It's bad!" Lin Shu, the military judge of the black brigade, was also trembling. "It's three hundred miles from Charleston to Manassas. By the time we get there on a mule cart, the Yankees will have taken over General Lee!"

Father Tupolev suddenly made the sign of the cross and spoke in Slavic English: "Thank God, we still have the steam engine - quickly ask the Charleston Railway Bureau to allocate 20 carriages, and they will arrive in 12 hours!"

The white people on the viewing platform were immediately in an uproar. Francis Wilkinson Pickens said with a troubled look on his face: "Letting niggers ride on the train? What if they make the carriage dirty?"

Mr. O'Hara also shook his head: "I'm afraid this is not appropriate."

"Dirty?" Xianfeng's pockmarked face suddenly darkened, looking very scary. "Governor, if we lose Manassas, Washington will be hard to defend. If Washington is lost, Britain, France, China, and Russia will all cut ties with us! By then, it won't be a question of whether the carriage is dirty or not, but the destruction of the country! The destruction of the country is the most terrifying thing!"

When Xianfeng said "the country will be destroyed", all the white masters on the viewing platform felt a chill down their spines. They didn't know how he said it? Why did it sound so scary?
Xianfeng suddenly roared at the slave soldiers who had lined up under the viewing platform: "The president has ordered the troops to go out, kill the Yankees, raise the black flag!" Four thousand throats suddenly roared: "Kill the Yankees! Raise the black flag!" The sound startled the crows, and the black mass swept over the governor's velvet hat. Francis Wilkinson Pickens' lips trembled slightly, and his face looked extremely ugly.
The Charleston station was in chaos. Thousands of fully armed "black slaves" suddenly rushed in like ferocious monsters, holding documents said to be the governor's warrant, stopped two trains, and drove all the white passengers off. The platform was in chaos, with curses, crying, and shouting. If you didn't know, you would think it was a black slave uprising in South Carolina!

"Report to the brigade commander!" Zeng Ke strode into a luxury carriage, "The First Regiment has stopped two trains bound for Richmond!"

Xianfeng was looking at a map with his head down. Hearing this, he said without raising his head: "Okay! Get in the car immediately." He suddenly said to Lin Shu beside him in Chinese, "Tell Sushun and Yuanbao to get their people in the car! Don't take anything except weapons and three days of rations!"

"Order!"

With a long whistle, in the black smoke of the train, the four thousand black soldiers who had already boarded the train began to sing in unison: "Raise the white flag, you can marry a white wife - twelve heads in exchange for a piece of paper, black skin can also wear white clothes, and your descendants will be white people!"

When the train rushed into Manassas Station at three o'clock in the morning, Union shells were exploding. Broken glass from the platform roof rained down, and when Zenk kicked open the door of the carriage and stepped off the platform, he saw General Beauregard's adjutant running around in the smoke with a torch in his hand.

"Where's Colonel Zhao Si?" the Louisiana man shouted. "McDowell's Yankees have already crossed the bridge!"

"What are you panicking about!" Xianfeng's samurai sword scabbard hit the iron sheet of the carriage, sparks flew everywhere, "Where should I put my Black Wall Brigade?"

The adjutant of General Beauregard immediately handed a warrant to Emperor Xianfeng. The latter took the warrant and looked at it. Then he turned around and shouted to his three regiment commanders, "Zheng Liu, you take the third regiment to block the southern slope of Henry House Mountain! Yuan Bao, you take the second regiment to go around the pine forest and attack their artillery! Zeng Ke--"

"Here!" The bronze badge on the black leader's waist jingled.

"Take your Baoyi regiment to fill the gap in the stone bridge!" Xianfeng's pockmarked face was ferocious in the firelight, "Tell the brothers, if you kill one Yankee, you'll get 100 points. If you kill 12, I'll personally put a white flag on him!"

According to the "Provisional Regulations on the Eight Banners of the United States", blacks did not have to kill the Yankees to raise the flag. In theory, it was possible to do so by diligently picking cotton - as long as they picked enough cotton to earn 300 points, they could raise a black flag!

Of course, if the cotton is not picked properly or if you make other mistakes, you may lose points.
In the morning mist on the north bank of the stone bridge, McDowell's blue-uniformed cavalry were charging. These Irish soldiers sang "Long Live Columbia" and cut through the mist with their sabers, but they ran into a black wall head-on.

"Fire!" Zengke's Minié butt slammed on the edge of the trench.

Five hundred rifled muskets fired at the same time, and the lead bullets tore through the fog. The Union cavalry at the forefront seemed to be harvested by an invisible sickle, and the horses neighed and fell into Bull Creek, dyeing the shallows red in early winter.

"Raise the black flag! Raise the black flag!" The black soldiers frantically loaded bullets, and Zeng Jia Linshu personally led a dozen "Yellow Flags" from the West Coast to supervise the battle in the back with the merit book in hand. A sturdy black slave soldier suddenly jumped out of the trench, raised the butt of his rifle and smashed the skull of the wounded Northern Army soldier: "First, I killed a Northerner!"

"Come back!" Zeng Ke was about to call the man back in the trench, but he saw the old soldier knocked over by a stray bullet. His name in the merit book was forever fixed as a "candidate for the black flag".

"Damn it!" Zengke spat, and suddenly caught a glimpse of the American flag flashing in the fog. The main force of the Union Army is coming!

The Pennsylvania infantry square led by McDowell approached with drum beats, their blue uniforms forming a moving wall. These men, who had been hammering in Philadelphia blacksmith shops and working in New York textile factories three months ago, were now irritated by Lincoln's "white people devaluing black people" with red eyes.

"Freedom belongs to white people! America belongs to white people!" Tens of thousands of people roared, shaking the earth.

A black wall suddenly rose up in the trench! Several black slave soldiers trembled and retreated, but the "Pure Yellow Banner" supervising the battle pointed a revolver at their backs: "Anyone who deserts the battlefield will be shot on the spot and reincarnated as a black slave, for life and eternity!"

(End of this chapter)