Liu Lichuan, Pan Qiliang, Chen Alin and He Bin left Shanghai on a British merchant ship. Xiao Yungui asked the British in the church for help. The British merchant Wilbur was very happy to have more people on the ship because Xiao Yungui purchased the goods on his merchant ship. These goods included cotton, sugar, pepper, coffee, grain, etc., and even a batch of arms and tobacco smuggled on the merchant ship. Everything Xiao Yungui thought was useful was bought. As for the large box of opium on the ship, Xiao Yungui only purchased one, two boxes for medicinal purposes. Wilbur didn't mind. These things would always be found in Shanghai, so there would be no worries that they could not be sold.

Wilbur's merchant ship is a fast sailing ship of the Bardymore model. In the early 19th century, after the East-West trade entered its heyday, Britain and the United States built many of these fast sailing ships to transport fresh tea. If your merchant ship can take the lead back to London with fresh tea, what awaits you will be a big profit. With the opening of several Chinese commercial ports, British fast sailing ships began to transport large quantities of Chinese tea and Australian wool. The use of fast sailing ships continued until the 1870s. They were gradually eliminated after the appearance of steamships. However, sometimes such ships can even easily run at a speed of 24 knots when wind speed, wind direction and ocean currents are favorable...

Wilbur was also the first foreign businessman to take the lead. Since the Taiping Army arrived in Shanghai, although the great powers adhered to their so-called neutral attitude, the lower-class merchants still circulated that the rebels were a group of robbers. It was actually only a short voyage from the Huangpu River controlled by the British Concession to the Huangpu River in Xujiahui, but many merchants still followed the advice of the consulate and did not go upstream to trade with the rebels.

When Xiao Yungui found the missionaries and Sergeant Liszt in the church and told them that they needed to trade, Liszt recommended his old friend Wilbur. Due to the war in Shanghai, land and Yangtze River waterways were cut off. Shanghai's trade was affected, and the buyers of trade were hiding in the concession and were in a panic. The goods transported by Wilbur through great difficulty could not be sold. After Liszt learned about Xiao Yungui's needs, he immediately sent two of his soldiers back to the British Concession to notify his friend Wilbur.

When Wilbur saw Liszt's handwritten letter, he decided to take a risk and give it a try. He brought almost all the goods and drove south at night. The slender body of the fast sailboat followed the Huangpu River to the outlet of Caohejing and Huangpu River. What Wilbur did not expect was that in the simple straw shed next to the river port fork, he saw the No. 3 big man from the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom.

Unlike the first time he traded with Lord Wenhan. Xiao Yungui was much more stingy this time. After he personally checked the types and quantity of goods, he discussed with Liu Lichuan, Chen Alin and others. Liu Lichuan, Chen Alin and others were at least those who had been in Shanghai for many years. They had seen many such trade transactions. Wilbur saw that several people were trade experts. He was embarrassed to shout prices randomly, and the quoted prices were fair.

Xiao Yungui used the silver he brought with the army to trade. Wilbur liked the full-textured silver brought by Xiao Yungui very much. So the two sides traded after a bargaining. Xiao Yungui received a batch of supplies, and cotton and grain were urgently needed. After thousands of mouths from Qingpu Rebels, Xiao Yungui purchased grain locally to solve the problem of food, which was better than transporting grain from Wuxi. Cotton can sew clothes, and Qingpu Rebels also needed to change the ragged clothes as soon as possible. Sugar is also urgently needed. Sometimes some hot sugar water can save the life of a wounded soldier who lost too much blood; pepper? Xiao Yungui only planned to improve the taste, and the amount of pepper was not large; coffee and tobacco were purely needed by Xiao Yungui himself.

In contrast, there are very few arms on merchant ships. After all, Wilbur's merchant ship is not like the Hamils, which is a warship, so there are not many gunpowder, artillery and muskets available. Seeing that the rebel leader had such a great demand for arms, Wilbur immediately said that after returning to the concession, he tried to buy arms and then traded.

Xiao Yungui immediately stated that as long as the quality of the arms was good, he would have all the lead no matter how many artillery, muskets or gunpowder were. So Wilbur decided to stay in Shanghai to engage in arms transactions, and his merchant ship returned to Xiamen, Guangzhou and other places to purchase more arms. So Xiao Yungui asked Wilbur to take Liu Lichuan and others to Xiamen. Wilbur was of course very caring for this great customer and immediately said that he would bring people safely, and the Qing army could not search British merchant ships casually.

In this way, Liu Lichuan and others boarded the ship that night and headed south. According to the speed of the fast sailing ship, it is estimated that they will arrive in Xiamen in a few days.

Then Xiao Yungui and Li Shanlan chatted. He hoped that Li Shanlan could recommend some people to help. Through this transaction, Xiao Yungui found that he needed to find some people familiar with trade to help as soon as possible. Then there would be more and more trade deals with foreigners, and the Taiping Army would need such talents.

Li Shanlan immediately recommended two people, who were brothers, and their ancestors were merchants who traveled to Nanyang shipping, one was Chen Huizu and the other was Chen Huizong. Both of them worked in the Jardines and foreign companies in the British Concession. When the two brothers first returned to China, they received more help from Li Shanlan. Therefore, the two brothers who had been overseas for many years had not been favored by the emperor, and it was not difficult to join the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom under the persuasion of Li Shanlan.

Xiao Yungui was overjoyed and immediately wrote a letter of appointment to invite Li Shanlan to recruit the two of them. At the same time, he ordered people to contact Zhu Changlin, the Guiyun business owner, and He Yuanlun, the Baoqing Chamber of Commerce, to come to Shanghai, intending to discuss with them, establish a foreign affairs store for the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom's foreign trade in Shanghai.

On Li Shanlan, Xiao Yungui generously gave him a large amount of funds to be used for scientific research. He asked him to recruit more knowledgeable and interested in Western science to join and prepare for the establishment of a scientific research institute in the future. At the same time, Xiao Yungui also asked Li Shanlan to use this funds to acquire Western scientific books and find someone to translate Western scientific works, which is the most prepared for the establishment of a library. Xiao Yungui even planned to acquire the church school first as the first Western-style school in the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. In the end, the church missionaries said that the church school was the property of the church and he had no right to sell it. Xiao Yungui gave up temporarily. But Xiao Yungui made up his mind that when the war in Shanghai was over, the establishment of the school and the dispatch of overseas students must be implemented as soon as possible.

In the following days, Wilbur introduced several merchants to trade with a wealth of goods. In addition to a large amount of arms, grain, cloth, and medicinal materials were the most purchased by the Taiping Army. After Hong Yuner, Li Xuanji, Yao Yuan and others came to meet, the entire church became the base camp of the rebels. A dirt road from Cao Yangjing to the church area became the most prosperous trade route in Shanghai during the war.

Women are really a natural shopping expert. Hong Yuner even bought a useless piano. In contrast, Xiao Yungui thought that the pendulum clocks, knife and forks, wax, etc. she bought were of some use. What is the piano used for?

Hong Yun'er did not explain to Xiao Yungui, but just glared. Xiao Yungui still paid the bill obediently. Time seemed to go back to the past, and he was still the eldest young master who spent money like water, with his girlfriend next to him.

Later, Xiao Yungui even found that Hong Yun'er secretly collected a white Western wedding dress. You should know that white Western was a taboo of the Taiping Army. She actually hid it secretly. Following Hong Yun'er returned it to herself, Li Xuanji and Zhou Xiuying both chose several other Western women's clothing. Xiao Yungui sighed, "Women, women, it's the same era."

The Taiping Army, which was supplemented by a large number of arms, was not in a hurry to attack Shanghai, Baoshan, Wusong and Gaoqiao, and the battles were also very smooth. More than a thousand green camp soldiers and local regiment training did not last long. Lin Qirong, Zhou Lichun and others would successfully occupy the estuary of the Huangpu River.

Xiao Yungui waited for a few days, and he asked the troops to distribute the newly purchased artillery and muskets. He began to train Taiping soldiers on a large scale to use firearms. Sergeant Liszt and Corporal Barrit were hired by Xiao Yungui and became temporary military advisers to help the Taiping Army train.

There was no news of the Qing army's reinforcement in Shanghai for several days. Xiao Yungui once thought that the Qing army had given up on Shanghai and his plan to stay in the city to lure the enemy failed, but only one day later. Shocking news came one after another.

The first news came from Li Kaifang and Lin Fengxiang who were attacking Hangzhou. Jiang Zhongyuan's Qing army, Jiang Zhongyuan's army captured Yuhang two days ago. Li Kaifang personally led his troops and Jiang Zhongyuan to fight a battle in Wuchang. Both sides did not take any advantage. They each withdrew their troops. Jiang Zhongyuan's army 5,000 Chu Yong and thousands of local regiments trained troops to occupy Yuhang, Xianlin, Cangqian and other important places. They successively set off teams to attack Taiping Army camps and sent troops to threaten Deqing County to raid the supply line of the Taiping Army in Hangzhou. Li Kaifang led his troops to fight Jiang Zhongyuan for three times, but failed to defeat the Qing army. The two sides confronted each other. Lin Fengxiang and Li Kaifang were worried that Xiang Rong's army and Jiang Zhongyuan in Hangzhou would break through the siege inside and outside, so they immediately asked for help from Suzhou and Shanghai.

It was not until this time that Xiao Yungui realized that Hu Yihuang was defeated by Shanggao. In anger, he cursed: "I am not afraid of the enemy being strong, but I am afraid of my teammates being stupid as a pig! Hong Xiuquan, Yang Xiuqing, you two villains! You two villains! Hu Yihuang's defeat is so big that you both hide it from me! I also provided a large amount of food to go over! Bai Zetang! What are these people doing?! You must wait until the Qing army is held on their necks, do you know?"

Hong Yun'er was there in the house. Seeing Xiao Yungui sending such a big fire after reading Lin Fengxiang's letter, she hurriedly took the letter and looked at it for a few hurriedly, and then stepped forward and persuaded softly: "When Bai Zetang was established, it was still short, and a large number of people were sent to southern Jiangsu, Shanghai and other places. It is not possible to establish an intelligence network in a short time, and you can't be too impatient. As for Hong Xiuquan, Yang Xiuqing did not reveal to us that Shanggao's defeat. I think they might be due to face or that they might have wanted us to lose. From this matter, it seems that the suspicion of Tianjing for us has not been eliminated, but it is suspected of expanding. Fortunately, this incident happened, which is a reminder that Tianjing is unlikely to give us reinforcements. Unless one day the West Palace is defeated or you and I personally go to Tianjing to ask for help, Tianjing will not give us reinforcements."

Xiao Yungui said hatefully: "I would rather die than beg those two birds! It is better to beg for those two birds than beg for others. I have figured out that I will rely on ourselves in the future! What is Jiang Zhongyuan? It would be fine if he doesn't come, but I will deal with him together!" (To be continued. Mobile phone users please read it.)

ps: Chapter 202: Hong Xuanjiao is clearly in Shanghai, but she actually went to see the East King with Shi Dakai?

"In comparison, Shi Dakai and Hong Xuanjiao seem to be very shabby"

There are more names here. Because it is difficult to modify the VIP chapter, please block it automatically. I'm sorry.
Chapter completed!