"puff……"

In the military tent of Jiangbei Camp in Yangzhou, Li Hongzhang sprayed a mouthful of tea with a shocked expression.⊙,

"Congratulations, the court has issued an order to grant the Lord the Minister of Commerce in Beiyang!"

Zhou Fu and other staff members congratulated Li Hongzhang one after another. They were naturally extremely happy to see their expressions, because the power of the Beiyang Trade Minister was shocking and had exceeded the restrictions of the governor, including foreign negotiations, trade, and coastal defense affairs. They were also responsible for the management of investment, telegraphs, coal mines, railways, training of the Beiyang Navy and Army, governing customs duties and other affairs, and integrating the major rights of the army, politics, business, and diplomacy.

After all, Li Hongzhang was young and his expression was a little dull. This was a great thing that a pie fell from the sky. He felt that his brain was not enough for a moment, and he was so excited that he was about to suffocate.

However, after being happy, Li Hongzhang gradually felt something was wrong. If Yi Xin wanted to win him over, he would not have given him the position of Minister of Beiyang.

Soon, the whole story was clear. When Li Weiguo recommended Li Hongzhang as the Minister of Beiyang, the two empress dowagers naturally had to give face.

"Will the King of Wu be so kind?"

Li Hongzhang immediately raised a question, but his tone changed significantly. In the past, he always called Li Weiguo's name directly, but now he is called the King of Wu, which shows his mentality.

Zhou Fu said: "This may be the King of Wu showing goodwill to the Lord!"

"Otherwise!" Wang Kaitai frowned and said, "The Beiyang Minister of Trade and Trade has great power, basically equivalent to the second small court, controlling the military, political, financial and diplomatic powers of the provinces north of the Yangtze River. The King of Wu has always refused to give up the Governor of Zhili, but now he has given up the position of Beiyang Minister, a higher position than the Governor of Zhili, which must have a purpose."

Zhou Fu smiled and said, "Didn't the King of Wu also get the ministers of the South and South? He can't have both ministers of the North and South, right?"

Qian Dingming suddenly said: "Did you all ignore the most critical issue? If Lord Li serves as the Minister of Beiyang, then how should Lord Zeng view it?"

This sentence immediately alerted everyone. Li Hongzhang was a student of Zeng Guofan, and he followed Zeng Guofan's lead. Besides, Li Hongzhang was young and his official business was far less powerful than Zeng Guofan's. Now that Li Hongzhang suddenly climbed onto Zeng Guofan's head, it is not difficult to imagine how ugly Zeng Guofan's expression was at this moment.

Zhou Fu smiled and said, "You are better than you than you. I think Mr. Zeng will not only not blame him, but will be happy."

Qian Dingming continued: "Even if Lord Zeng doesn't think too much, will the Hunan Army bureaucrats be willing? This is clearly Li Weiguo's plan to alienate him. Don't be fooled."

The Huai Army originally came from the Hunan Army system and has always been based on the heads of the Hunan Army. If one day the Huai Army generals cavalry over the Hunan Army generals, chaos will definitely occur.

In fact, this is true. In history, Li Hongzhang truly gained power to inherit the Hunan Army's Pangma. It was also after Zeng Guofan's death that many factions were divided into the Hunan Army system at that time. Zhang Zhidong, Liu Kunyi, Zuo Zongtang and others were not convinced by Li Hongzhang, otherwise Li Hongzhang would not have come to fight the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895.

At this time, Li Hongzhang established the Huai Army system too early because of the emergence of Li Weiguo. Once Zeng Guofan's support is gone, the Hunan Army system will never make Li Hongzhang feel better.

"This probably won't be the case?" Li Hongzhang felt scared as if he was thrown cold water, but he was unwilling to give up. Rights are right in front of him. Do you give up?

Not everyone has the courage to give up the temptation of power, especially the young Li Hongzhang. His blood has not cooled down yet.

Similarly, whoever Li Hongzhang, who doesn’t want to achieve higher success? If Li Hongzhang has been suppressed by Zeng Guofan, then they will not have the chance to make a comeback.

Everyone stopped talking, and Qian Dingming just smiled bitterly and shook his head. He also understood everyone's thoughts, but sighed that Li Weiguo's methods were too clever and he was full of fear of the future of the Huai Army.

On the other hand, Zeng Guofan naturally received news that he would inevitably feel sour about Li Hongzhang's promotion to Beiyang Minister. He didn't complain at first, but the Hunan generals under his tent could no longer sit still.

Recently, the Hunan Army and the Huai Army have been scrambling to launch a fierce attack on the Taiping Army, in order to make them kings, isn’t it the first person to attack Tianjing? For this reason, the Hunan Army and the Huai Army have become competitors, and even become hostile because of the competition for territory. Now Li Hongzhang has directly taken the position of Minister of Beiyang, which is much higher than the governor. How can the Hunan Army not be jealous? Li Hongzhang came from the Hunan Army, but now he is riding on the head of the Hunan Army. How can the Hunan Army generals feel?

A Hunan general came to complain to Zeng Guofan. Zeng Guofan could still calmly appease the other party, but a group of Hunan generals complained together, so it was difficult for Zeng Guofan to appease them. The three of them even became tigers. After hearing too many bad words from Li Hongzhang, even Zeng Guofan himself inevitably became suspicious.

So, when Li Hongzhang came to explain to Zeng Guofan, Zeng Guofan used the excuse that Li Weiguo would never be allowed to get the Minister of the South Ocean and asked Li Hongzhang to resign from the Minister of the North Ocean. This reason was far-fetched. Li Hongzhang was reluctant to leave the position of Minister of the North Ocean, so he politely declined Zeng Guofan's kind reminder, which made Zeng Guofan very unhappy.

At this critical moment, the Hunan Army and the Huai Army, who were attacking Dasheng Pass, had a conflict inexplicably. Both sides accused each other of killing their people and demanding to hand over the murderer. Both sides did not compromise and fought. Soon the situation was out of control, and eventually caused thousands of casualties.

In the end, Zeng Guofan and Li Hongzhang met urgently, but the generals of both sides were full of gunpowder as soon as they met, resulting in endless disputes and almost started fighting. In the end, Zeng Guofan and Li Hongzhang both claimed that they were the Taiping Army's careful work, and retained their face for each other.

After this incident, a crack had already appeared between the Hunan Army and the Huai Army. The Hunan Army generals were unwilling to let the Huai Army climb onto their heads, so the Hunan Army's offensive against the Taiping Army became even more fierce, and they were preparing to be the first to conquer Tianjing and help Zeng Guofan get the reward for being named king, because only Zeng Guofan can defeat Li Hongzhang.

The relationship between Zeng Guofan and Li Hongzhang broke down, and this news made Li Weiguo very happy. It was nothing else. The Great Victory Pass incident was created by Li Weiguo's order to make SHIELD secretly, with the purpose of adding fuel to the fire and provoking their relationship. The result showed that Li Weiguo was successful.

However, Li Weiguo didn't have time to pay attention to this. His southern expedition army was ready. Taking advantage of the crazy attack on the Taiping Army of the Hunan Army and the Huai Army, General Li Weiguo led the army of eight towns to fight, advancing along the sea and land, sweeping across the south.

Fake Daofa No. This is a combat plan that Li Weiguo has long been decided.

Originally, it was an excuse to regain Hong Kong and send a large army to fight. The final plan changed. Regaining Hong Kong did not require the use of force, but Li Weiguo still found an excuse and submitted a memorial to the court for an expedition to Macau.

The two empress dowagers and the regent were deceived by Li Weiguo's righteous words, and they agreed to Li Weiguo's sending troops to recover Macau and ordered them. Their position was very simple, hoping that Li Weiguo would offend more powerful peoples, and the court could win over more powerful peoples to restrain Li Weiguo in the future.

This is called using the army to help suppress. Not only did the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom be wiped out, but Li Wei Kingdom was also included.

However, the court was stunned. A small Macau never thought that Li Weiguo had dispatched the army of eight towns, a large army of 100,000, and advanced by sea and land.

Is it necessary to make such a big noise?

When Li Weiguo's army entered Fujian, the Tiandihui rebelled in Fujian. Qi Ling, the nominal governor of Fujian and Zhejiang, was inexplicably assassinated by Tiandihui.

Subsequently, Li Weiguo encircled and suppressed the Tiandihui in Fujian. Wherever the Wu army passed, he incorporated the Eight Banners Army, Green Camp Army and Han landlord armed forces under the governor of Fujian and Zhejiang, and then implemented military controls in various parts of Fujian, just like when Li Weiguo led the Shanghai army to control Zhejiang.

However, this time Li Weiguo came prepared. When the military commanded Zhejiang, Li Weiguo had too few talents. He did not rectify Zhejiang's government affairs for a long time. But this time it was different. Li Weiguo quickly drew a large number of people from Shanghai to clean up the Fujian officialdom. Those who should be dismissed were dismissed and those who should be executed were executed.

All old cases were retold by Li Weiguo. He rehabilitated the people and avenged the wrongs. While cleaning up the cancer and opposition forces in the Fujian officialdom, he also won the support of the Fujian people, laying a solid foundation for seizing Fujian in the future.

Li Weiguo used his old tricks again, but the court had no way to deal with him, so he could only pretend to be confused with his understanding.

Li Weiguo's army did not stop, but only left the 29th Town of Wu's army in Fujian. Although the 29th Town was established less than three months ago, there were veterans and new recruits. Although the combat effectiveness was not as good as the traditional eight towns of the Shanghai Army, it was enough to deal with the Taiping Army. In particular, most of the troops in the 29th Town were recruited from Fujian Province. Now, Fujian people are used to manage Fujian, which saves a lot of trouble. The reorganized army strategy formulated by Li Weiguo was immediately reflected, and the effect was very good, helping Li Weiguo successfully control the entire province of Fujian.

After entering Guangdong's territory, Li Weiguo became even more bold, because Liu Changyou, the Governor of Guangdong and Guangxi, had never taken office, and the officials of Guangdong and Guangxi were all leaderless. Faced with Li Weiguo's strength, only Guangdong General Bai Gui challenged Li Weiguo in awesome way, but soon Bai Gui was killed.

Then Li Weiguo launched an investigation into Bai Gui's death and took the opportunity to enclose all the Eight Banners Army of Guangdong and Guangxi. When the Wu army successfully took over the military power in all parts of Guangdong and Guangxi, Li Weiguo announced that Qi Ling was assassinated by a Portuguese and poured dirty water on the Portuguese in Macau.

Anyone with a little brain in Guangdong and Guangxi understands that this is Li Weiguo's method. Anyone who opposes him is either killed for corruption and bribery or disappears for no reason. Then someone announced that he fled with money and confirmed his crime. Or that he was resigning. He was not the one who retired and returned home. Such people resigned voluntarily because Li Weiguo promised that as long as they resigned, they would not pursue their previous crimes.

Therefore, in the face of Li Weiguo's strength, officials from Guangdong and Guangxi chose to surrender.

It’s not okay to not surrender. If you don’t have any soldiers or guns, do you have to wait for the shot?

Of course, there were also officials who were dissatisfied and secretly wrote memorials to sue Li Weiguo. As a result, Li Weiguo quickly took their secret music and slapped them in the face and went to prison. Those who found the problem were sentenced, and those who did not find the problem were given the charges of collusion or surrendering to the enemy during the British and French coalition forces invading China, and they were unable to escape the sentence and execution.

On December 3, 1862, Li Weiguo boarded Hong Kong Island and held a handover ceremony with the British Hong Kong Governor Bourne, successfully taking over Hong Kong Island and regaining sovereignty, marking the complete abolition of the unequal treaty imposed on the Chinese people by Britain since 1840.

On this day, the whole country celebrated and finally washed away the shame. It seemed that the feeling of the heavenly kingdom was back.

However, for Li Weiguo, it is between gain and loss.

Now he has recovered Hong Kong Island, a hundred and fifty years ahead of history. Although it has washed away the shame in advance, it also means that the development of Hong Kong Island cannot be as brilliant as that of later generations. There are many factors in the prosperity of Hong Kong in history. It is impossible for him to have so many people. It is because modern China has been invaded, and the Chinese people moved to Hong Kong Island in order to take refuge, thus creating Hong Kong's prosperity.

Nowadays, except for the UK, a country with serious island countries, no ruler of any country is willing to build a large-scale construction in a useless place in Hong Kong and spend money to build a super city. At most, it is to use Victoria Harbour to build a medium-sized harbor city.

However, Li Weiguo did not regret it. He just couldn't stand the Hong Kong people of that era and thought they were superior, but in fact they were nothing after leaving the mainland. They were thinking of being dogs for Britain all day long, and it was shameful for a group of people who forgot their ancestors. Li Weiguo looked down on them. He wanted to use his own strength to build one hundred and ten thousand super metropolis that were hundreds and thousands of times stronger than Hong Kong.

Standing on the top of the mountain, Li Weiguo called a photographer and took a photo with Hong Kong as a souvenir of history.

The military attack on Macau did not begin until the end of the year. Li Weiguo deliberately delayed his mind in order to give the army more time to station in Guangdong, Guangxi and Fujian and strengthen the rule of these three provinces.

During the past six months, the imperial court sent six ministers to Fujian and Guangdong and Guangxi. As a result, these people either had an accident halfway and were killed by themselves and took the initiative to claim that they were sick and took the leave. No one dared to go, for fear of provoking Li Weiguo and their lives would be lost.

Yixin was defeated. He knew that Li Weiguo had the will to annex Fujian and Guangdong and Guangxi, and if he wanted to come back, he had to start a war.

However, Yi Xin did not have the courage to go to war with Li Weiguo because his Eight Banners Army was not ready yet. Li Hongzhang and Zeng Guofan were in deeper conflicts and were fighting for the Taiping Army again, and they had no energy to help.

So Yi Xin endured it and finally asked Li Weiguo to nominate the list of officials in Fujian and Guangdong and Guangxi provinces, and the court approved it.

In this way, all the five southeastern provinces fell into the hands of Li Weiguo.
Chapter completed!