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Volume 1: Fierce Battle in Changsha Chapter 608: Historical Responsibility

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    The impromptu military meeting was very dull, and the coalition intelligence department once again became the poor target of criticism. The coalition lacked reliable and necessary intelligence for the Taiping Army's military operations.  !

    "Gentlemen, what I want to know is the purpose of the Taiping Army going north!" Sir Elgin's tone was very unhappy.

    General Grant still maintained his demeanor. He said: "The Taiping Army sent troops to the Shanhaiguan and Jinzhou front lines with a very clear purpose, which is to capture the Shanhaiguan and Jinzhou front lines. After that, they have two possibilities for action. One is to go north to capture the northeastern provinces, and then fight against them.  The Russians are fighting a war in the Northeast. Secondly" At this point, Grant hesitated a little. Ronglu took over his words and said: "There is another possibility of entering directly from Shanhaiguan and attacking the capital! Seizing the fruits of the coalition's victory!  "

    Sir Elgin was very angry. He was completely irritated by Ronglu's words. General Montauban believed that this possibility was unlikely. This commander who had not had much contact with the Taiping Army questioned: "Did the Taiping Army just fight with the Taiping Army?"  Are the Russians declaring war? They should concentrate their efforts on dealing with the Russians instead of attacking Beijing at this time. This will cause immeasurable losses. They will lose our trust and even go to war with us."

    Ronglu laughed. General Montauban was a little angry at Ronglu's ridicule and glared at him. But Ronglu was not afraid and said: "I can't understand that long-haired King of the West. In this world,  There is nothing he dare not do. Back then, two thousand soldiers and horses raided Changsha, fought from Hunan to Jiangning in forty days, and then landed in Guangzhou. This man is a born adventurer."

    Wu Shili has studied this famous figure in the Far East.  Nodding in agreement: "It is very possible that if the Western Queen Mother of the Manchu Qing Dynasty invested all the last bit of Beijing's military power in our direction in order to stop us in Tongzhou. The Western King of the Taiping Army would most likely capture the capital first at this time.  . This King of the West sometimes does some very crazy things, he is a madman!"

    French Minister Grotto frowned and said: "Gentlemen, what should we do?" General Montauban said straightforwardly: "We can only compete with each other to see who can capture Beijing first!"

    British Consul Parkesy added: "We still need to warn the Taiping Army through diplomatic channels. Their actions are likely to cause war!"

    Ronglu did not comment on this. He just said word by word with a slight smile: "Have you forgotten, gentlemen? The Taiping Army and the imperial court were already at war. They were just attacking their enemies. Don't forget, Beijing is still at war.  Under the control of the Queen Mother, diplomatic notes will have no effect. They can just say that we are attacking the Manchu Qing Dynasty and are not targeting the coalition forces. I agree with General Montauban's opinion. We can only speed up our pace and take the lead.  Fight to Beijing. After all, even if the Taiping Army can successfully land at Shanhaiguan, Shanhaiguan is still five or six hundred miles away from the capital, and we are only the last eight miles away from Beijing"

    ¡­¡­

    At the same time, hundreds of miles away, on the tower of Jingbian Gate in Shanhaiguan, the flag of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom was rising slowly in the smoke, followed by bursts of cheers. More than 10,000 Taiping soldiers gathered in Shanhaiguan.  Huge cheers erupted from both inside and outside, resounding throughout the ancient city gate.

    "Soldiers! More than two hundred years ago. This is where the Manchus entered the Pass. Today, I, General Xiao Chaogui, will lead you to fight back from here!" The lunatic that the coalition general said, the Western King of the Taiping Army, is standing at Shanhaiguan.  On the tower of the city, he was wearing a straight new marshal's uniform, holding a marshal's sword in his hand, and loudly and majestically encouraged his soldiers. His words were simple and powerful, and a new round of cheers broke out from the Taiping Army officers and soldiers.

    "If the commanders of the coalition forces knew that the Western King of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom had appeared in Shanhaiguan, they would definitely know that the Taiping Army's goal was Beijing. Apart from this, there seemed to be nothing in the world worth the risk of the Western King personally leading his troops.

    The whereabouts of the Western King Xiao Yungui are very confidential. In fact, the declaration of war against Russia is a smoke screen. The war state between the Taiping Army and the Russians has not been lifted. Whether or not the war is declared has nothing to do with the overall situation. However, the Taiping Army has been on the defensive in the north before, and now the war is declared against Britain and France.  This created the illusion that the Taiping Army might take the initiative to attack, so it later became a matter of course to mobilize an army to go north to Dalian Bay.

    Since Xiao Yungui declared war on Russia, he took Tianjing's First Army from Shanghai to the sea and shipped it to the north. The people who stayed in Tianjing to attend some events from time to time were the substitutes he ordered the Intelligence Department and Bai Zetang to find.  That¡¯s all.  This stand-in looks somewhat similar to Xiao Yungui from a distance. As long as he doesn't speak, there won't be any flaws from a distance.  In this way, Xiao Yungui followed the brigade to Dalian Bay, and the affairs of Tianjing were handed over to Zuo Zongtang, Hong Yun'er and others.

    His purpose for going north this time is actually very simple, that isDuring the fierce battle between the British and French allied forces and the Qing army, they captured the Shanhaiguan and Jinzhou lines in one fell swoop, closing the throat of the Northeast and preventing the Manchu Qing government from escaping back to the Northeast after its defeat. At the same time, it laid a foundation for the Taiping Army's next attack on the Northeast, and his biggest  The ambition is still to seize Beijing before the coalition forces!

    As Rong Lu said, although the Taiping Army refused to join the British and French coalition forces and jointly took military actions against the Qing Dynasty, the Taiping Army was always at war with the Qing army. He led the Taiping Army across the sea to seize Shanhaiguan, and then entered the pass to attack  There is nothing legally wrong with the city of Beijing, but doing so will definitely touch the bottom line of Britain and France, and may even cause a conflict between the Taiping Army and the British and French forces.

    Now Britain and France have escaped from the Crimean War. Although the wounds of the war will take some time to heal, Britain and France can still cope with local wars. If the Taiping Army really seizes Beijing, it will directly touch the power of Britain and France.  Benefit.  Britain and France have begun to adjust their policies in the Far East. They have begun to realize that the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom is not so easy to control and manipulate. At the same time, the growing strength of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom has also made Britain and France feel threatened by the interests of the Far East. Some British politicians have believed that controlling a weak government in China is more in line with Britain.  interests, this ready-made weak government is the Manchu Qing Dynasty.

    But the current attitude shown by the Manchus is not weak at all. Their active resistance policy has stopped the British and French forces from moving forward. However, if the British and French forces can capture Beijing and overthrow the regime of the Queen Mother of the West, the old Manchus represented by Ronglu and Mianyu will  If the aristocratic forces regain power, a weak government will appear in northern China. At some point, Britain and France will inevitably turn to support this government to suppress the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, and even use force to hinder the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom's efforts to unify the country.

    Therefore, Xiao Yungui must take the risk and lead his troops north to seize Beijing. It was Xingzhen's reply that prompted Xiao Yungui to make this decision.

    After Xingzhen received the secret letter from the King of the West brought by Peng Yulin and Li Mengqun that day, although she told Prince Gong, Yi? and others not to pay attention to it, she still gave the reply to the King of the West through Cheng Lingxiu in private.  Since Li Ding's death, Cheng Lingxiu had not contacted Bai Zetang of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. It was not until Xingzhen came forward that Cheng Lingxiu cheered up and contacted Bai Zetang of the Capital.

    Xingzhen wrote a long letter to Xiao Yungui. The letter was very long, analyzing various situations if the British and French allied forces captured Beijing. Finally, Xingzhen said in the letter: "Now that we stand in this position, we have decided  The matter is no longer a personal matter, it will affect the rise and fall of the country for hundreds of years. In other words, you and I both bear a heavier burden on our shoulders, that is, historical responsibility! All I can do is do my best.  Resist to the end, if you don¡¯t go north to participate in this foreign war, you will become a sinner in history!¡±

    After Xiao Yungui read the letter at that time, his first reaction was that this little girl was trying to provoke the generals. She wanted to drag herself into the water and make the Taiping Army and the British and French forces turn against each other, so that the Manchu Qing Dynasty could survive in the muddy water.  But after calming down and thinking about it, her words are not unreasonable. The various possibilities she analyzed after the British and French allied forces captured Beijing are very logical, which shows that Song Qingyun's political vision is very unique.  If the capital is occupied by the British and French forces, then Britain and France will have the upper hand in this game. They can support a puppet regime, suppress the Taiping Army, and even intervene in China's unification process with arms. No matter which situation is faced by the Taiping Army,  is very passive.

    Xiao Yungui stayed up all night after that. After thinking about it all night, he finally made up his mind to take this risk. Once the Taiping Army turns against Britain and France, the Taiping Army may receive sanctions and attacks from Britain and France in various ports and trade in the south. The Taiping Army's navy still cannot  Against the British and French fleets, it is possible that the good situation will be lost in one fell swoop, but the King of the West has to take this gamble. As Xingzhen said, there is historical responsibility in it, and Xiao Yungui is determined to shoulder his own historical responsibility.  Come.

    In the end, Xiao Yungui comforted himself. At worst, it would be just like the Anti-Japanese War in later generations. If we fight a people's war, we would destroy it and start developing from scratch. The same was true for the diplomatic dilemma faced by later generations when New China was first established, but it was too  Zu still resisted U.S. aggression and aided Korea despite pressure. As a result, China paid a price, but stood firm.

    Strategically, Xiao Yungui had already made the worst plan, which was the possibility of starting a war with Britain, France and Russia at the same time. But tactically, he still took measures. Declaring war with Russia before heading north to Dalian Bay was a strategy, and capturing Shanhaiguan and Jinzhou,  Then there is nothing wrong with the Taiping Army in taking the lead in capturing Beijing, at least legally speaking, and Britain and France would have scruples in dealing with it.

    So Xiao Yungui secretly followed the army northward. The Qing army's defense force in Shanhaiguan and Jinzhou was extremely weak. Most of the soldiers and horses here were deployed south to fight against the British and French forces. The Tianjing First Army was the earliest unit of the Taiping Army.  The three divisions were all the best of the best. They captured Jinzhou, Qinhuangdao and Shanhaiguan on the first day after landing. At this time, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom's Xiwang was already standing on Shanhaiguan and took over.??What he has to do is how to lead the Taiping Army soldiers to Beijing in the shortest possible time, and their difficulty is the road. Shanhaiguan is more than 500 miles away from Beijing (To be continued, please search Gone with the Wind.  Astronomy and novels are better and updated faster!
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