Slaying the Qing: My Taiping Heavenly Kingdom

"Damn it! You damned barbarians, you rude bastards. This is the concession, a place your emperor has leased to us. The entire concession is our territory, and we manage it."

Your army dared to directly storm the concession and kill our citizens; this is simply an act of war!

You must pay the price for your barbaric behavior!

Henry Benson, the British Consul General in Songjiang Prefecture, roared angrily.

"Bang!"

The Taiping soldiers were not intimidated by the menacing foreign devils and reacted immediately.

With a powerful blow from the butt of his rifle, Consul Henry Benson's forehead was smashed open, and blood was gushing out.

"My God! I'm a diplomat, how dare you hit me? You're provoking the great British Empire! You're all dead!" Consul Henry Benson was even more furious.

However, when he saw the dark muzzle of a gun aimed at him, he knew that if he dared to speak again, the Taiping soldiers would certainly open fire without hesitation.

Consul Henry Benson had no choice but to swallow back the words that were already on the tip of his tongue.

But the look in his eyes as he gazed at the Taiping soldiers was filled with hatred.

He vowed in his heart that when the army of the British Empire defeated the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, he would kill all these crude and lowly Taiping soldiers. He would let them know that the diplomats of the great British Empire were absolutely not to be insulted.

The British Empire was the world's superpower, and no one could treat their diplomats like that.

After seeing that Henry Benson had already suffered a loss, Ai Tang, the Gallic consul in Songjiang Prefecture, became very cooperative.

The adage "a wise man doesn't fight a losing battle" applies equally to the Gallo-Baltic Empire.

"This is a concession of the Gallo Empire, which we leased after signing a peace treaty with the Qing Empire. Your troops are not allowed to trespass here!" Consul Ai Tang's tone was not as forceful and arrogant as Henry Benson's.

"You can go find the Tartars to deal with the contract you signed with them," a young officer, somewhat thin but with a murderous look on his face, said coldly.

He was Lieutenant Colonel Wei Changshun, the battalion commander of the cavalry battalion of the 2nd Infantry Division of the Eastern Expeditionary Army.

Consul Ai Tang was speechless.

Even though they signed a treaty with the Tartars and obtained the right to lease land and establish concessions.

But the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom didn't recognize them at all, and there was nothing they could do!

"You are denying the legitimacy and rationality of the treaty. The Empire will absolutely not let this go!" Consul Aitang had no choice but to utter such harsh words.

"Do as you please! If you have any problems, go find heaven!" Lieutenant Colonel Wei Changshun completely ignored them.

Under the surprise attack of the cavalry battalion of the 2nd Infantry Division of the Eastern Expeditionary Army, the entire Zhonghai County, including the concession area, was taken over by the Taiping Army.

Of the various consulates within the concessions, only those of the British Empire and the Gallo Empire were sealed off; the others remained unaffected.

Furthermore, merchants from different countries can conduct trade normally.

However, one thing is certain: it must be legitimate trade.

Goods explicitly prohibited by the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, such as opium, were naturally absolutely forbidden.

At the same time, all the opium dens in the concession were shut down.

All those involved in the industry were arrested. All the opium was confiscated.

These opiums, however, will not be destroyed.

In Hong Tian's view, since the foreign devils were able to sell opium to the Chinese people, why couldn't the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom use their own methods against them?

If necessary, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom could have used private channels to resell these items back to the foreigners' homeland.

The idea of ​​repaying evil with kindness does not exist.

The Taiping army's military operation to attack the entire Songjiang Prefecture was very swift and quickly achieved success.

But because of this, it has had a very profound impact.

In particular, the Taiping army's direct capture of the concessions was tantamount to denying the treaties signed between the various countries and the Qing government. This was absolutely unacceptable to the countries involved.

Other countries, especially smaller ones, were fine with it, even though they were very dissatisfied with the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. However, they couldn't do anything about it.

However, the British Empire, as the world's hegemon, and the Gallic Empire, as the world's leading power, naturally could not swallow this insult.

They will definitely react.

Especially given that the British Empire and the Gallic Empire were joining forces to prepare for war against the Qing Dynasty, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom offended them at this time. Naturally, the British Empire and the Gallic Empire, who were originally bandits, would not let the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom off the hook.

War between the two sides is undoubtedly imminent.

When the Taiping army attacked Zhonghai County, Wu Xu, the prefect of Songjiang Prefecture, fled again and took a boat to Zhejiang Province.

On his way to Zhejiang Province, he submitted a memorial to the Qing court, outlining his plan to use the British and the Gauls to deal with the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom.

In his view, the entire plan had succeeded.

Next, the imperial court only needs to sit back and watch the tigers fight.

We can just sit back and watch the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom fight the British Empire and the Gallic Empire to the death, resulting in mutual destruction.

When the time comes, the imperial court can then dispatch a large army to completely suppress the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom.

Yanjing, the Forbidden City, the Hall of Mental Cultivation.

Peng Yunzhang, a Grand Councilor of the Qing Dynasty, is reporting to Emperor Xianfeng on the situation regarding the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom's war against foreigners.

"Your Majesty, the Taiping rebels have captured Songjiang Prefecture. The entire territory of Songjiang Prefecture, including Zhonghai County, has been completely occupied by the Taiping rebels. Furthermore, the Taiping rebels have also seized the foreign concessions in Zhonghai County by force, causing numerous casualties among the foreigners."

This is undoubtedly very advantageous for our Great Qing Dynasty!

The Taiping rebels were traitors, while the foreigners were robbers.

Let the Taiping Rebellion and the foreigners fight to the death. Then our Great Qing can rest easy.

Peng Yunzhang said.

The memorial submitted by Wu Xu, the prefect of Songjiang Prefecture, was sent to Yanjing as quickly as possible and delivered to Peng Yunzhang.

Peng Yunzhang immediately reported this good news to Emperor Xianfeng.

Because the Qing army suffered a crushing defeat at the front, the Taiping army is launching continuous attacks.

The news the Tartars received almost daily consisted of bad news such as how many prefectures and counties had fallen.

This enraged Emperor Xianfeng, who then indulged in excessive drinking. When drunk, he would beat and verbally abuse palace servants. Quite a few palace servants had already been beaten to death simply for offending Emperor Xianfeng.

The other court officials dared not offend Emperor Xianfeng at this time, for fear of being caught in the crossfire.

In Emperor Xianfeng's eyes, these officials were nothing more than servants. He could beat them or kill them as he pleased; it was that simple.

When Emperor Xianfeng heard this news, he was indeed overjoyed.

Her originally pale face gained a touch of rosiness.

"Haha! Good, excellent! Heaven blesses our Great Qing!" Emperor Xianfeng laughed heartily.

It was as if the crisis of the Qing Dynasty had been completely resolved at that moment.

"This is all thanks to His Majesty's boundless blessings and the Heaven's protection of our Great Qing!" Peng Yunzhang said.

The other high-ranking Tartars also echoed this sentiment.

"My esteemed ministers, foreigners have never been good people. And the Taiping rebels have become a major threat to our Great Qing. This time, the prefect of Songjiang Prefecture's plan to use someone else to do his dirty work is excellent."

Let the Taiping Rebellion and the foreigners fight to the death. That way, our Great Qing can reap the benefits.

Emperor Xianfeng said.

The other Tartar ministers also expressed that this was a good idea and would be very beneficial to the Qing Dynasty.

"Reward Wu Xu handsomely. Everyone should think about how to commend Minister Wu for his meritorious service. In addition, order the southern provinces to seize this opportunity and vigorously train their armies."

When the Taiping rebels and the foreigners have fought to the point of mutual exhaustion, the imperial army will launch an attack on the Taiping rebels, suppressing them in one fell swoop and completely eliminating this major threat to our Great Qing!

Emperor Xianfeng issued an order.

"Your humble servants obey the imperial decree!" all the Qing court officials replied in unison.

In an instant, it was as if the threat posed by the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom had been completely removed. The pressure weighing on them had also vanished.