The Qing Dynasty is about to end

Chapter 745 Nicholas Zhao Si: I have a dream

"That pockmarked little guy's minute started like this," Belle Watling deliberately dragged out the last syllable in her Georgia accent. "Although it was quite powerful at the beginning, it was a pity that there was no stamina at all. He couldn't even finish half of "Dixie" on the bed. No, he couldn't even finish a quarter of it. It made me want to laugh."

This prostitute from Atlanta was quite good at telling stories. She described Emperor Xianfeng's "one minute" vividly for ten minutes, during which time everyone in Grant's headquarters burst into laughter three times.

After finally confirming that the prostitute in front of him had no affection for Zhao Si and Zhao Si had no ill will towards her, Grant coughed a few times to make the staff hold back their laughter, and then said to Bell with a serious face: "Mr. Lincoln offers 10,000 greenbacks for the head of 'One Minute'." He knocked on the gold-plated federal eagle emblem on the bounty order, "Do you want to make this money?"

Bell's green eyes narrowed into two slits. But then he shook his head firmly: "No, I can't kill him. Although he is an out-and-out devil, he is also my customer. There must be a bottom line in my line of work. No matter how bad a customer is, I can't cut off his head!"

Her words made Grant laugh again: "You don't have to kill him. You just need to inform the spy I arranged of his exact location. Okay?"

"It'll cost more." She licked the wine stains from her lips. "I'm going to open three brothels on Broadway and call them the Tricolore Clubs."

Grant tore off half of a green-backed dollar and stuffed it into her bra. The federal treasury seal on the edge of the note brushed against her plump chest. "Take this to Lawrence, and someone will bring the remaining half back to you." He suddenly lowered his voice, "When your brothel opens, I will definitely go to support you!"

Before Bell could answer, there was a dull thud of boots hitting the ground outside the door. Two military police wearing bronze helmets carried her away. When leaving Grant's headquarters meeting room, she heard the Union commander say to his adjutant: "Spread the news to the New York Tribune, saying that the leaders of the Southern Army condoned the black slave soldiers to rape white women."

On the limestone plateau outside Lawrence, Xianfeng rode on an Arabian horse. Twelve Armstrong 70mm breech-loading guns were lined up beside him, and the inscriptions on the gun barrels were all in English: Made by the British Armstrong Company!
"Yucheng, are these twelve Armstrong cannons really produced by the British factory?" Xianfeng's eyes swept across the twelve breech-loading cannons, feeling a little confused.

Although Britain needed cotton from the South, it was more "neutral" than France. The British had never sold things like ironclad ships, Amster breech-loading guns, and picric acid shells to the United States.

"Don't worry, Prince Consort Nanyi," Chen Yucheng said with a smile, "these twelve guns are exactly the same as those produced by the Amster factory. The picric acid shells they use are also the same as those produced by the British! Even if they were picked up by the Northern Army, they are smuggled goods!"

"Smuggling." Xianfeng rolled his eyes and thought to himself, "Smuggling 70mm breech-loading guns and picric acid shells. Do you think Lincoln is stupid? But it's not easy for the Jiangnan factory to make the same guns as the original Armstrong ones!"

Xianfeng and Chen Yucheng hadn't finished their conversation when a federal steamship on the Kansas River in the distance suddenly blew its whistle. The thirty-pound rifled cannon shells whistled towards the artillery positions of the "Black, Red and Yellow" Corps. Although they didn't reach them and landed several hundred meters away, they still made Xianfeng and Chen Yucheng frown.

"The Southern Yi Jinfu Ma," Chen Yucheng raised his hand and pointed at the steamboat, "How many ironclad ships does the South have in the Mississippi River basin?"

"Ironclad ships?" Xianfeng shook his head. "Not a single one."

"No?" Chen Yucheng frowned. "That's not going to work. The Yankee gunboats have already reached Lawrence. If we go down the Kansas River, there will probably be even more Yankee turtle boats. If we don't have that thing, how are we going to fight Kansas and St. Louis?"

Xianfeng smiled and said, "My goal is not Kansas and St. Louis."

"What?" Chen Yucheng was stunned. "Then your goal is..."

Xianfeng turned around and pointed to the black, red and yellow tricolor flag behind him: "Yucheng, my goal will be clear from the tricolor flag."

Chen Yucheng looked up and couldn't help but frown: What does this tricolor flag mean?
"Black compatriots! Red brothers! Yellow comrades!"

While Chen Yucheng was thinking, Xianfeng had already rushed down the hillside and started his pre-war speech. He rushed to the front of more than 10,000 "black army" soldiers lined up outside the city of Lawrence and shouted loudly in English. Everyone turned their heads in unison as if they were nails attracted by a magnet. "When our ancestors were chained on the slave ship, did they ever think that this day would come?" Xianfeng's words were full of emotion, as if his skin color was not white but black. He paused and said, "When the Indian scalps were priced at two dollars, did they ever give up their freedom?"

The soldiers of the Black Wall Brigade began to pound the ground with their rifle butts, causing the scorched earth to fly. Yuan Bao's Second Brigade drew their bayonets in unison, and the blades reflected a terrifying light. Tom's Black Knight Brigade suddenly sang in unison: "No one knows the suffering I have experienced."

"Quiet!" Xianfeng whipped his whip in the air with a bang, "Today I want to tell you four truths!" He stretched out four fingers, and broke off one finger each time he spoke:
"The first truth: Freedom is not a gift, it is earned by bullets!" "The second truth: Land was not demarcated by treaties, it was poured out with blood!" "The third truth: If white people can establish a country, we can establish a state!"

"The fourth truth." He suddenly rode his horse towards the artillery position, snatched Chen Yucheng's flag and waved it fiercely: "Fire!"

Twelve original British Armstrong breech-loading cannons produced in Shanghai roared at the same time, and the wooden walls of Lawrence City exploded like a matchbox.

Before the smoke from the picric acid shells had dispersed, "Black Wall" Zeng Ke drew his saber and pointed forward: "Black Wall Brigade, forward!"

The picric acid shells fired by the Armstrong breech-loading guns were amazingly powerful—made in Britain! How could they not be amazing? The first round of shelling tore off the spire of the Methodist Church and blew up the wooden walls of Lawrence. When the black soldiers rushed into the city on the fragments of the wall, the defense line of the Lawrence garrison of the Kansas militia had collapsed—they never figured out until their death how the shells fired by those "Mongolian artillery" could fly so far and have such a great explosive power?

What kind of gunpowder did they use?
Zenk's Blackwall Brigade was still as sharp as ever. After rushing into Lawrence, it immediately split into three "black streams": the left wing used picric acid bombs to blow up the bank vault, and then set fire to the city council; the right wing rushed into the telegraph office, dragged the telegraph operator who was sending a message to St. Louis for help onto the street and shot him; the center army rushed straight to the dock, blocking the Northern Army and Lawrence citizens who did not have time to escape by boarding the ship.

Belle Watling stood behind a second-floor window of the only hotel in Lawrence, smoking a cigarette while watching her "Minute" easily tear through the Union defense of the city again, until two black soldiers rushed into her room and shouted at her: "There's a Northern bitch here."

"Wait!" she suddenly shouted in Georgia-accented English, "I'm not a Northern bitch, I'm Belle Watling, a bitch from Atlanta. Take me to see your pockmarked general!"

The stained glass windows of Lawrence's church had long been shattered. When Belle was tied up in front of the crucifixion, she found that the Jesus on the cross had been replaced by a statue of a black man wearing a wide-brimmed hat. Zenk was counting the spoils, and divided the white women into three piles according to the skin color: the blondes were locked in front of the altar with gold chains, the brown-haired and freckled women were tied to the benches with hemp ropes, and the fat red-haired women were thrown directly into the basement. Belle was "plump to the point of being obese", the type most favored by black masters, so she was tied in the most conspicuous position waiting to be selected by the big shots.

"Hey, how did you, the bitch from Atlanta, get caught again?" Xianfeng, accompanied by Linshu, Zeng Ke and Chen Yucheng, appeared in front of Bell again, with a pockmarked face smiling, seeming quite happy - he didn't know that this woman had reported his "one-minute record" to Grant. Lincoln probably knew about it by now, otherwise he wouldn't have laughed.

Bell, who was tied up with her hands behind her back, shrugged helplessly: "Isn't it because your army is advancing too fast? I just arrived in Lawrence yesterday, and I finally bought a ticket to St. Louis. Before I could get on the ship, your blacks broke in and captured me again." She threw a coquettish eye at Xianfeng, "General, why don't you choose me? I will serve you well this time!"

Xianfeng laughed, and actually raised his hand to point at Bell, and said to Heidehai beside him: "Little Blackie, she's the one!"

When Bell was taken to Emperor Xianfeng's headquarters again, she heard black soldiers singing a newly composed war song: "The tricolor flag flies over Missouri, and the black brothers carry rifles. The Cheyenne put on Mongolian clothes, and the yellow brothers send cannons."

In St. Louis, in General Grant's headquarters, General Grant was looking at the map with a cigar in his mouth. On the map, there was a long red line from Omaha, Nebraska, which was loyal to the Union, all the way to Denver Castle. In addition, a red pen was drawn around the periphery of Kansas City, where the Kansas River and the Missouri River meet, and several small boat models were placed on the nearby river - now everything was ready, just waiting for Nicholas Zhao Si to crash into Kansas City.

Unlike Lawrence and Topeka, Kansas City is a big city in Missouri and extremely rich. Nicholas Zhao Si and his slaves would surely not be able to resist the temptation!

"General, a telegram from Lenissa!" One of Grant's adjutants came to his side at this time, holding a telegram in his hand, "In Lawrence in one minute, he has 8000 black slaves with him."

(End of this chapter)