In the early summer of the third year of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, Jinling City, which had just become the capital of the Kingdom of Heaven and a small paradise, was a time when everything was flourishing and full of vitality.
Different from the original situation where the Qing army's Jiangnan Camp settled in the Ming Xiaoling Mausoleum outside Jinling City, the Qing troops that now make up the Jiangnan Camp have long been destroyed in Hunan. Therefore, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom's actual control area in the Jinling area is comparable to that in history.
Much more.
First of all, the entire territory of Jiangning and Shangyuan counties, including Xiaolingwei, Dashengguan, Yanziji, Longtan Town, Jiangning Town, Moling Town, Yuhuatai, Fangshan, Mufu Mountain, etc., are all under the control of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom.
, Taiping Heavenly Kingdom troops were stationed in every dangerous place.
Secondly, the more peripheral counties of Jiangpu County, Jurong County, Dantu County, Dangtu County, and Lishui County are also under the control of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. These five counties are forming a ring around Tianjing, connecting Jinling City
Tightly defend them. Although there are still many territories in these five counties in the hands of local regiments loyal to the Qing Dynasty, these regiments have been hastily organized and their combat effectiveness is not strong. Self-protection is insufficient, so don't expect them to threaten the Qing Dynasty.
It’s Beijing.
Furthermore, the first and second armies of Wu King Luo Yaoguo have already secured a lot of territory in Suzhou Prefecture, Changzhou Prefecture, Taicang Prefecture, and Songjiang Prefecture, and have posed a serious threat to Suzhou Prefecture, the center of Qing rule in the south of the Yangtze River.
Threat. Yiliang is now struggling to protect himself. It is simply a daydream to threaten Jiangning.
Finally, Xiao Chaogui from Huguang has been developing relatively well recently. He has already conquered the entire Wuchang Prefecture and most of Hanyang Prefecture, and is threatening to launch a northern expedition to Xiangyang Prefecture!
North of Xiangyang is Nanyang Prefecture in Henan Province!
Faced with Xiao Chaogui's threat, the Qing court's military focus could only be placed on Huguang and Henan. In the east, it could only rely on Governor Luo Xueyan and Luo, and on the other hand set up the Jiangbei camp in Yangzhou.
But neither Luo Xueyan nor Qi Shan, the imperial minister of Jiangbei Camp, had the ambition to attack Tianjing. Therefore, Wenxian, the capital of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom that Weituma saw now, was still a very prosperous and lively city, even more prosperous than the
In the future, Shanghai, the Far East city, will be much more prosperous.
The streets are filled with steaming fried stinky tofu, fried sugar-oiled cakes, fragrant rice noodles and various ducks that are all shiny... There are charming shouts one after another, and the trucks carrying goods are grinding.
Across the streets, the goods transported by large and small sand boats from the villages outside Jinling City or from Huguang upstream and Shanghai downstream were distributed to various shops in Jinling City.
Obviously, the commercial activities in Jinling City were not frozen due to the arrival of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom.
This is very different from the original Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. The original Taiping Heavenly Kingdom practiced "all things return to the Lord" based on the old version of the "Celestial Land Acquisition System". It was also because Hong Xiuquan and Yang Xiuqing still wanted to coerce the people of Jinling into the northern expedition to Beijing, so they entered
The Queen of the City promoted separate camps for men and women in Jinling City, making commercial activities in Jinling City almost impossible.
Nowadays, the "Luo version" of the "Celestial Land Acquisition System" focuses on allocating farmland in the countryside to attack local tycoons. Although it will also hit business and finance incidentally, for urban cities like Jinling, that kind of blow is completely acceptable.
Even because of Hong Xiuquan and Yang Xiuqing, they brought hundreds of thousands of Hunanese and tens of thousands of Guangxi and Guangdong people, making Jinling City more prosperous than before.
A group of carriages and horses meandered into the Yifeng Gate in the northwest corner of Tianjing. This group of carriages and horses attracted the attention of many people. Because among the entourage there were many foreigners who looked and dressed very differently from the Chinese. The front of the group Someone else was holding a Union Jack flag!
Inside the car, a rough foreigner's head poked out from time to time, looking at everything around him with a pair of blue-gray eyes.
This foreigner is none other than Bonham, the British Minister to China. He is taking advantage of this rare opportunity to evaluate how much benefit the new regime of the Taiping Rebellion may bring to the British Empire.
The carriage headed south and soon entered the most prosperous Qinhuai River area. After Wen Xian saw the rows of shops and the crowds of pedestrians, he retracted his head back to the carriage and sighed in a low voice. "What's wrong? "Mr. Minister, what did you see?" Witoma, who was sitting in the carriage, was slightly curious.
"You should ask me what I didn't see?" Wen Xian looked solemn. "Oh, what didn't you see?"
"Opium den!" Wen Xian frowned, "I didn't see any opium den.
.. I haven’t seen any opium den since I entered this huge city!”
"Oh," Witoma said, "the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom banned smoking..." He made a beheading gesture, "Whoever dares to sell or smoke opium will be beheaded!"
Wen Xian said coldly: "This is obviously a violation of the Treaty of Nanjing!" Witoma was stunned. He did not remember that there was such a provision in the Treaty of Nanjing.
Wen Xian frowned and said, "According to the Treaty of Nanjing, opium is a commodity that can be bought and sold legally and freely... That's why the Qing government must compensate for all the losses caused by burning the British merchants' opium!" He then said worriedly: "Look The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom’s anti-smoking policy was more stringent and effective than that of the Qing Dynasty! If the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom further occupied China’s richest territory, the opium sales market in China would shrink significantly!
Once opium cannot be sold well in China, then we in the UK will become the party that bears losses in Sino-British trade... The gains achieved in the last war will be completely lost!"
When Weituma heard this question, he couldn't help but frowned: "Mr. Minister, in fact, the amount of goods we import into China has dropped in recent years.
... Moreover, the population of this country far exceeds that of India, but the market for British goods in China is far smaller than that of India."
"This is caused by unfair trade policies!" Wenxian complained, "The Chinese have never seriously implemented the Treaty of Nanjing... They have not really opened their markets to us!
Shanghai is a little better, but Guangzhou...our merchants can't even enter Guangzhou City. They are really a bunch of barbarians with no spirit of contract!"
Guangzhou is a treaty port, and the merchants of Guangzhou boycotted the British merchants. Not allowing them to enter would definitely violate the Treaty of Nanjing! For Westerners who value the spirit of contract, this is of course unacceptable! Two British people are discussing what should be done How did the Taiping Rebellion and the Qing Empire realize the importance of abiding by the contract? The carriage they were riding in had already stopped in front of a unique and elegant Jiangnan garden.
"Mr. Wenxian, Prince Wu's Mansion has arrived, please get out of the car."
Chen Chengrong's voice came from outside the carriage, and then the curtain of the carriage was opened. Wen Xian and Weitoma got out of the carriage one after another, and found that they were standing in a building that was not very impressive, and even Outside the slightly shabby gate.
There were several guards carrying brown bass rifles standing at the door. A bright-eyed young Taiping official was standing inside the door. When he saw Wen Xian, Witoma smiled and stepped forward with a fist in his arms: "Welcome to you two distinguished guests. , I am Wang Yan, the Minister of Etiquette of Prince Wu’s Mansion. Please come with me!”
Wang Yan, who was originally in charge of the God Worshiping Association in Hunan and Jiangxi, was transferred to the army when Su Sanniang went out from Wuchang. He first served as a lecturer in the previous army. After the siege of Jinling City, he became the future "General Manager" of Prince Wu's Mansion. He stayed in Xiaoling Guard with the "Meituan Holy Object" and "Speed ​​Car". After being officially named Queen of Wu in Luo Yao Kingdom, he entered Jinling City and was responsible for opening up Prince Wu's Mansion.
Prince Wu's Mansion was located in the "Wu Family Garden" in Jinling City, which was later known as the "Fool's Garden". This garden was already very dilapidated when the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom entered the city. Wang Yan knew that Luo Yaoguo did not intend to stay in Prince Wu's Mansion. Since he lived here for a long time, he did not spend much effort on renovations. He just opened an "Angel Miracle Hall" in the palace, which is an exhibition hall, where some of the objects brought by Luo Yaoguo from "heaven" are displayed for people to admire.
These sacred objects are "Flying Car", "Meituan Storage Box", "Tianyin Tube", "Meituan Uniform", "Binaural Meituan Hat", "Sneakers", "Mooncake Box", "Empty Medicine bottles", "plastic films", "plastic storage bags", "packaging bags", etc.
Of course, the treasure "Tongtian Mirror" that can connect heaven and earth is not displayed in the "Angel Miracle Hall", but a booth has been reserved, and a "famous painting" has been hung in the reserved booth - —Su Sanniang is on the phone. There is a bilingual explanation in Chinese and English in the blank space on the painting. At the end of the explanation, there is also the words "Welcome, Your Honor, Minister George Wenham" written in English.
At a glance, you can tell that this painting was not just painted and framed. It has been painted for at least ten days and a half! In other words, Luo Yaoguo had indeed calculated in advance that they were coming to Nanjing.
Standing in front of this meticulous painting, both Wen Xian and Wetoma felt that their world view was about to be overturned.
Although they were all surprised when they saw the "Flying Car", "Storage Box" and other "Angel Treasures" before, they were not so shocked that their world view was unstable.
After all, although those "babies" have strange shapes, and I don't know what materials they are made of except the "mooncake box", they are all dead objects without any magic power after all. Although mysterious, they have no power to awe them. .
But when they saw this meticulous painting that predicted that they would arrive in Nanjing, the same thought came to both of their minds: prophecy... a big prophecy book!
"Lord Wang," Witoma asked, "do you know that there is a "Great Book of Prophecy"?"
"The "Great Prophecy"?" Wang Yan thought for a moment, then showed a stunned expression, "Oh, you are talking about the "Prophecy", right?"
"Prophet?" Witoma said in shock, "Is there really a Prophet?"
"Not one, but thirty-six!"
"Thirty-six books?" Witoma's eyes widened, "There are actually so many?"
"One book predicts major events for one year, and thirty-six books can predict major events for thirty-six years...from 1853 to 1888 in the Western calendar!" Wang Yan said with a smile, "Come on, I will take you to see the storage
The Library of the Prophets."
Chapter completed!