Wu Hongxun, the prefect of Huzhou, when the city of Huzhou was broken, hid in the fourth concubine's house in the city, and was also arrested by the guerrilla Liu Renlu who surrendered. Pen & Fun & Pavilion www.biquge.info

He knows that the gold of Huzhou's raw silk is expensive.

In fact, the reason why he attacked Huzhou first was because he came to Huzhou's raw silk. The three prefectures of Suchang Lake are all around the Taihu Lake area, and the silkworm mulberry leaves are very developed, and the silk in the Huzhou area, although the reputation is not the most obvious at this time, but it is the highest output, therefore, after the occupation of Changzhou and Suzhou, compared with Jiaxing Mansion, Huzhou Mansion is much more important.

Shi Dakai is actually not clear, the price of raw silk, the original Taiping Heavenly Kingdom from Jiangning to Shanghai to sell, a large amount of price difference was earned, he did not know that each load of raw silk can be sold as high as three hundred taels of silver, can be sold for more than one hundred taels, has made him feel that the value of raw silk.

So, he searched the entire city of Huzhou inside and out, and found more than 1,000 taels of raw silk in several official offices and military offices, and if the Holy King stipulated that the property of the rich and legitimate squires could not be tampered with, maybe thousands of taels could be seized. In Huzhou City alone, there is so much raw silk, and in the entire Huzhou Mansion, I don't know how much raw silk there is, which is hundreds of thousands of taels of silver.

Only then did Shi Dakai feel how rich the so-called Jiangnan area and the Suzhou and Hangzhou regions were, and it turned out to be so.

After occupying the city of Huzhou, coupled with the cooperation of the prefect of Huzhou, he wrote a crusade against the Manchu court, announcing that Huzhou would break away from the Manchu rule and join the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, although it was only in name, it also added some blockage to the Manchu Qing. On the other hand, the captives immediately divided their forces and captured the counties of Huzhou separately, of course, the focus was on Wukang and Deqing, which were close to Hangzhou, and advanced to Hangzhou.

At the same time, the city of Ningbo in the south was also besieged by the land and water forces of the captive army.

More than ten days ago, the Ninth Division led by Tan Shaoguang finally arrived on the bank of the Fenghua River outside Ningbo after successively capturing Dongyang, Xinchang, Shengxian, and Fenghua like a bamboo.

At this time, Lu Shunde personally led the seventh and eighth main regiments of the 10th Division, drove a combined fleet composed of 6 Western warships captured in Shanghai and more than 10 ordinary warships, and broke through the standard battalion of the general army of Zhoushan Town in one fell swoop.

The coastal area of Zhoushan Island, originally since the Qianlong Dynasty, there were five forts, such as Qinglei Mountain, Cen Gang, Shenjiamen, Nandaotou and Wukui Mountain, equipped with 10 Hongyi cannons, with 100 soldiers, guarded by a thousand generals. However, after the Opium War more than ten years ago, these five forts were blown up by foreigners. Later, the Manchu Qing Dynasty ceded land compensation, and Shanghi and Ningbo were forcibly opened as treaty ports, and the fort here was not set up again at the request of foreigners.

The Manchu court actually wanted to rebuild the fort, but after the indemnity, the treasury was empty, and the Taiping army began to do something, but it was not over, and it has been delayed until now, but Lu Shunde picked up a cheap, easily rushed to Dinghai City, and occupied the entire Zhoushan.

Similarly, at the mouth of the Fenghua River in Zhenhai County, there is a small hill called Zhaobao Mountain. On the top of Zhaobao Mountain, as early as the Jiajing period of the Ming Dynasty, Weiyuan City was built for coastal defense, and 4 iron tribute cannons were placed. During the Kangxi period of the Manchu Qing Dynasty, one fort was built on the east and west sides of Weiyuan City, and each one was equipped with two iron tribute guns.

On the eve of the outbreak of the Opium War, the Manchu Qing Dynasty hurriedly built a north barrage fort in the east of Zhenhai County on the mountainside of Zhaobao Mountain, and set up 7 breech iron cannons; A southern barrage was built in Niwan, Jiangnan, and 6 breech iron cannons were set up. Unfortunately, these batteries were all blown up by British warships during the Opium War.

Soon after the war, the Manchu court ordered the rebuilding of the fort in Weiyuan City on Zhaobao Mountain, but did not allocate silver taels, so the magistrate who was short of money had to fool the above, and randomly set up four iron cannons on the originally destroyed fort, and had not yet set up a barrage chain at the mouth of the Fenghua River.

Of course, it is also because Ningbo was opened up as a treaty port, and foreigners' steamers kept coming and going, so it was naturally difficult to set up iron chains to block the river.

As a result, the 10th Division, which had long been aware of Zhaobaoshan's so-called Weiyuan City fort, broke into the Fenghua River at night, did not capture Zhenhai City, and rushed directly to Ningbo Fucheng upstream, first occupied Meixu Town and rested overnight, and the next day, arrived at the Sanjiangkou in Ningbo.

And the next day, stationed at the foot of Zhaobao Mountain, the Zhenhai Division Battalion, only to find that a huge fleet broke into the inland river, hurriedly drove more than 20 small sentinel ships to investigate, after passing through the Meixu, it was left behind by two Western warships and five ordinary warships bombarded by a burst of shelling, blowing up two, the rest, hugging their heads and running away, fled back to Weiyuan City to defend to the death.

More than 10,000 soldiers of the Ninth Division led by Tan Shaoguang contacted Lu Shunde, and it happened that the two sides were in one place.

The Ningbo Xieqing army, which was stationed outside the city of Ningbo, had already been alerted, and when they saw the huge momentum of the captive army, they did not dare to return to the city, and fled directly to the Siming Mountains to hide. The city guards in Ningbo City guarded the Qing soldiers and hurriedly closed the door.

More than 100 foreigners on three British and French warships anchored on the Bund of the Fenghua River were even more alarmed. They couldn't imagine that the captives would come so quickly, thinking about what happened to Shanghi, and then looking at the warships that showed off their might, all of which were captured from their own hands, so they hurriedly put up a white flag and said that they would not participate in the war.

The British consul in Ningbo, Charlefort, and the French consul in Ningbo, Obra, personally ran to Lu Shunde's flagship, looked at the fourth-class warship captured from the Americans, and couldn't help but smile bitterly, and at the same time felt extremely aggrieved in their hearts: If it weren't for the Crimean War, their side would have sent troops to teach this arrogant rebel army a lesson.

They made their attitude clear to Lu Shunde and demanded that they not be violated.

Lu Shunde did not object to this request of foreigners.

He just announced that Ningbo has also officially become the territory of the Holy Country, and will set up the Ningbo Customs of the Holy Country, and reiterated the policy of the Holy Country, that the trade engaged in by Britain, France, the United States and other countries must be approved by the Customs of the Holy Country and pay full tariffs before they are allowed, otherwise, they will be confiscated!

Britain and France hurriedly hoisted white flags and sailed merchant ships and warships to Meixu Town, designated by Lu Shunde, to avoid the war, and then returned to Ningbo when the war in Ningbo was over.

Ningbo Mansion City has been repaired completely since the Ming Dynasty, and the city wall is far stronger than half of the Mansion City due to the need to prevent Japanese invasion. The wall is 2.5 zhang high, the base width is 2.2 zhang, the upper width is 1.5 zhang, the circumference is 2215 zhang, the extension is 18 li; there are 6 city gates, there are Lingqiao gate in the east, Dongdu gate, Changchun gate in the south, Wang Jingmen in the west, Yongfeng gate in the north, Heyi gate in the northeast, set up suspension bridge in the west and south 2 gates. There are 46 buildings in the city, nearly 4,000 pheasant stacks, more than 60 police shops, and a single round of city defense, which is really extremely tight.

It is a pity that the Manchu officials and Qing army generals in the city saw that the foreigners were in a hurry to run away, and most of the entire Zhejiang except Hangzhou and Shaoxing had been captured by the captive army.

Zhang Jingqu, a Taoist of Ningshaotai and the prefect of Ningbo, Chen Shizhang, the commander of the soldiers and horses, and Liu Guoguan, the county commander of Yinxian County, coincidentally fled from the western city wall and fled into Siming Mountain late that night.

The next day, the Qing army in the city found that the chief general and the prefect were gone, and they were immediately shocked, and they had no intention of confrontation.

Ningbo City, which was originally a city with high walls and thick walls, was like child's play, and it was almost not fired a single shot before it was captured by the Holy Kingdom.

Tan Shaoguang also commanded 6,000 soldiers of the Ninth Division, sent troops to Jishigang, Gulin and Yinjiang Bailiang Bridge, and attacked the Simingshan Township Yong stationed there, respectively, defeated Wu Fanglin, Wang Xiaohao of Da Lei, Li Yi and Ying Tingzhang of Zhangcun, who did not know whether they were alive or dead, and who were still entrenched in Dalan.

In Ningbo, there are countless squires and wealthy families, who have fled into the British and French concession areas in Jiangbei, which have long been empty, and the two churches on the shore of the Sanjiang estuary are even more overcrowded.

After Lu Shunde learned about it, he ordered the staff officers of the 10th Division to come forward to preach the policy of the Holy Country, and posted relevant proclamations such as the "Holy Country Tianmu System" to punish the gangsters in the city and strictly enforce military discipline.

After capturing the city of Ningbo, Lu Shunde and Tan Shaoguang led the captive army to conquer everywhere, and conquered Cixi and Zhenhai counties by land.

The fort of Weiyuan City, Zhaobaoshan, on the outskirts of poor Zhenhai, is known as the first fort in Zhejiang, with a far-reaching reputation, and the muzzle of the cannon is aimed at the mouth of the Fenghua River, but this time it did not fire a single cannon and fell into the hands of the captive army.

After Tan Shaoguang occupied Zhenhai City, he came to Weiyuan City on the top of Zhaobao Mountain, and saw that the largest cannon was rusty, Tan Shaoguang stroked the muzzle of this cannon that could almost plug his head, and sighed in his heart, such a majestic artillery has fallen to this point, there is no useless place, and there is no one in the Manchu Dynasty, otherwise, it would not have been captured so easily.

It's just that he would never have thought that the rusty cannon he was touching would suddenly fire a cannon on a May Day holiday one hundred and sixty years later, sending the Holy King he admired the most to this era.