The hunt on the lake lasts from morning to afternoon.

There is no way, the Taihu Navy has too many warships.

They were like panicked fish, fleeing in all directions.

The Taihu Navy had no power to fight back.

They thought they could become invincible by copying the rocket boats of the Red Flag Army.

In the end, it was discovered that these rocket boats were unable to fight back against the armored gunboats.

When the Qing army retreated from Suzhou, there was no place to put a large number of infantry, so they had to be scattered on various rocket boats.

This overloaded the rocket boats of the Taihu Navy.

After the war started, Wu Guangjin discovered that his rocket boat could not increase its speed at all.

The improved artillery on the escort gunboats can take away a rocket boat with one shot.

Later, Zeng Tai discovered that the rockets imitated by the Qing army were weak in power, poor in accuracy, and had short range. They were simply castrated versions.

He simply let the gunboats approach and fire.

That's really a cannon and a ship. It's like whack-a-mole.

Very cool!

Steel battleships, steam power, and propeller propulsion are simply a dimensionality reduction attack against wooden Qing warships.

What's more, most of these wooden warships still cut corners.

Lu Jianfeng mistreats the craftsmen, can he still expect these craftsmen to work hard?

In the end, Zhong Zilu could only take some of the warships to escape westward to the nearest lake shore, and forcefully landed and left.

Wu Guangjin was not so lucky. He led his troops to resist in front, and eventually sank to the bottom of the lake together with his boat.

After Zhong Zilu escaped to the shore, he fled westward.

When we arrived at the Jiangnan camp, we counted the number of people and found that there were only two thousand soldiers and horses left.

As for those warships, apart from the ones that were sunk, naturally none of them could be taken away.

Even Lu Jianfeng's hundreds of wives and dozens of newborn children were thrown into the lake and eventually became prisoners of the escort.

When Zhong Zilu retreated to the Jiangnan camp, he ordered the sharp troops in Huzhou to withdraw immediately.

This left Huzhou suddenly empty of troops.

Huang Zonghan was so angry that his beard stood on end.

When the Fengrui Army occupied Huzhou, they were so arrogant and domineering, but because the Fengrui Army could block the Taiping Army, Huang Zonghan still endured it.

Now they left without even saying hello. Where could he find soldiers and horses to garrison Huzhou?

To the south of Zhejiang is Fujian, the base camp of the Guards. Zhoushan to the east is also occupied by the Guards. The main troops in Zhejiang are stationed in Hangzhou, Ningbo and Wenzhou in the south.

He, Huang Zonghan, had already racked his brains to get money, and he only managed to gather these troops.

Sure enough, the Jiangbei column decisively moved south from Liyang along the lake. With the cooperation of the gunboat formation, it easily captured Huzhou. From then on, Zhejiang was completely surrounded.

Huizhou and Ningguo, which bordered Yanzhou and Hangzhou, were also under the control of the Taiping Army.

Inside Suzhou City.

Dong Liang finally appeared in public.

Just now, after receiving the news that Huzhou was under control, Dong Liang publicly announced that the Chinese had completely controlled Yangzhou, Changzhou, Suzhou, Songjiang, and Huzhou.

At the same time, a public letter of surrender was sent to Huang Zonghan, the governor of Zhejiang.

The general meaning of the letter is that we are all Chinese and should not kill each other, and you should stop working for the Manchus.

Zhejiang has been surrounded. Surrendering now would be a good thing for the people of Zhejiang.

You, Huang Zonghan, cannot let the people be buried with you just for your own ambition or so-called loyalty.

As soon as this news came out, the outside world was shocked.

Everyone was sighing, how well the Chinese people hide themselves.

Even Yang Xiuqing lamented that the Dongliang City Palace was too deep.

He only saw that the Red Flag Army belonged to the Guards, but he did not expect that Shanghai Road had unknowingly fallen into the hands of the Guards.

Those businessmen in Shanghai and Suzhou were even more shocked.

It turns out that the people who have been ruling them are actually the Chinese.

No wonder the Shanghai Road can open up external trade routes.

However, Dong Liang's next words reassured them a lot.

Dong Liang promised that the Chinese pro-business policy would not change.

At the same time, he also set up Shanghai County to the Huangpu River as a special economic zone.

Economic and land policies are different here from other Chinese places.

At the same time, the original concession area was changed into a free trade zone. Foreigners were allowed to invest, build factories and purchase real estate here.

In the end, he also exempted and exempted all agricultural taxes for this year in all prefectures. This was to appease the people.

Those who are most worried are the landlords and gentry because the Chinese land policy will harm their interests.

But these people have been tortured enough by Lu Jianfeng.

I really don't have the ability to stir up any trouble.

In the capital, Emperor Xianfeng was also angry. Sushun was scolded this time.

The cover-up done by the Chinese in Jiangbei and Shanghai Road was not very clever. Even so, the court was still kept in the dark. Sushun was in charge of intelligence work, so this was his dereliction of duty.

Sushun actually had no choice. The Ministry of Internal Affairs made money, but in the imperial city, how many pairs of eyes were staring at the money. How could he have the money to support so many undercover men?

Besides, if Anzi is asked to go out to perform tasks, there will always be travel expenses.

Last time he received Xianfeng's order and had no choice but to squeeze out some money and sent two capable secret agents to Shanghai.

In the lobby of Dongwu Yaju, the largest restaurant in Suzhou City, Dong Liang was delivering a speech to the businessmen.

The businessmen in Suzhou originally just wanted to invite the Shanghai merchant corps escort team to drive away the Fengrui Army and take over Suzhou, just like paying for a security team.

But they didn't expect that they would invite a great god.

What else can we do? It’s easy to ask God but hard to send him away.

Many of them have seen the strength displayed by the guards outside the city.

Dong Liang said in front of everyone: "Everyone, our Chinese people have always implemented a business-oriented policy. We have laws that specifically protect business activities and merchants' property, we have fleets to protect maritime trade routes, and we have a friendly business environment.

Abolish all Liqa in our Chinese-controlled areas, and trade routes will be unimpeded."

…

"Having said all this, I just want to tell everyone that you can do business with peace of mind. By this time next year, you will definitely not regret joining the Chinese people."

Finally, Dong Liang announced a big news, preparing to build a commodity exchange in Shanghai's free trade zone.

These merchants all knew that there was a commodity exchange in Naha.

In order to speed up the pace of controlling the south, Dong Liang finally decided to move the center of commodity trading to Shanghai.

Of course, Naha’s Commodity Trading Center will still remain, but much of its trading share will be diverted to Shanghai.

Naha is still the center of the Western Pacific. In the future, when Chinese trade to the west coast of America becomes more frequent, Naha will develop again.

Another reason why the true ownership of Shanghai was disclosed in advance was that the British's plenipotentiary negotiator, Parkes, had arrived in Guangzhou.

At the same time, the news that Britain and France declared war on Tsarist Russia also reached Dong Liang's ears.

Dong Liang originally planned to place the strategic center in Nanyang and postpone the expansion of territory in the mainland.

Now it seems that this plan is somewhat conservative.

The Chinese's actions in Nanyang can continue, and their expansion south of the Yangtze River can also proceed simultaneously.

Because the Chinese have lost a major enemy.

Dong Liang knew that as long as he did not touch Xingjiapo, the British would definitely not start a war against the Chinese at this time.

He was not in a hurry to go back to see Parkes, and asked the Englishman, who had stayed in Guangzhou for more than ten years, to revisit his old place.

The territory in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River has expanded so much at once, so it is natural to expand the army.

Dong Liang ordered Liu Lichuan to form the Taihu Column, which was responsible for garrisoning Suzhou, Huzhou, Changzhou, and Songjiang.

After the army was formed, the Jiangbei column retreated to its own jurisdiction.

At the same time, Dong Liang also fulfilled his promise to Zhuo Yiqing, established the Yangtze River Fleet, and made Zeng Tai the fleet commander, responsible for guarding various places along the Yangtze River.

The main battleships were these four gunboats, as well as a large number of rocket boats and captured Taihu Navy warships.

The second fleet will be led by Zhuo Yiqing and head north.
To be continued...