Chapter 231 Wearing Lord Luo’s clothes and eating Lord Luo’s food (Please subscribe and vote)
After reciting his newly composed “Poem of Aspirations”, Hong Xiuquan, who was very proud of his life, drew out his three-foot-long Longquan sword with a clang, pointed it in the direction of the Nanjing city wall, and shouted: “God, the Father of Heaven, bless the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom to kill the Qing monsters! Go to heaven!”

With a shout from Hong Xiuquan, a huge red flag fluttering in the wind suddenly rose beside him. The Taiping Army gunners who had been ready at the front line immediately ignited three or four hundred bronze cannons passed down by Wu Sangui, and suddenly there was a burst of “booming” sound of cannons.

Although these cannons are over 180 years old, their materials, craftsmanship and even shapes are much better than the “Qing cannons” since the Qianlong period, so they are still in good shape today!

Most of the gunners in the Taiping Army who used these “old cannons” were miners who had changed their careers from Daozhou and Chenzhou in Hunan. They were all experts in rubbing and playing with gunpowder by hand. The gunpowder they mixed was certainly not as good as the industrially produced gunpowder by foreigners, but it was much better than the gunpowder used by the Eight Banners and Green Camp soldiers of the Qing Dynasty.

Under the huge thrust generated by the explosion of gunpowder, stone shells were spewed out from the muzzles of old cannons that had waited one hundred and eighty years to demonstrate their power. They rolled in arcs in the sky and then slammed into the rock-solid walls of Nanjing.

“Boom boom boom”

The stone bullets hit the solid walls of Jinling City, making a series of loud and clear noises. The stone bullets and the bricks were destroyed together, turning into rubble flying everywhere. However, the walls of Jinling City, which was almost born with the Ming Dynasty, were too solid. Even the copper cannons weighing one or two thousand pounds hundreds of years later could not do anything to it.

Lu Jianying and Xianghou, who were watching the battle on Lion Rock, breathed a sigh of relief when they saw that the Nanjing city walls could withstand the fierce artillery bombardment of the Taiping Army.

Although they both knew that Nanjing was difficult to defend, every day they defended it was a day longer they lived!

Judging from this, Jinling City can hold out for at least three months! It seems they still have three months of adults left.
Outside the city of Jinling, Hong Xiuquan looked at the city wall in the distance that remained motionless amid the roar of cannons, but his face remained calm. His lips trembled slightly, and he uttered an inaudible sound: “One, two, three, four, five!”

When Hong Xiuquan counted to fifty, he suddenly put his sword back into the sheath, covered his ears with his hands, and his eyes flashed with anticipation.

Sudden.

“Rumble”

There was a loud bang and the earth shook!

Hong Xiuquan, who was standing in the sedan chair with three bedrooms and one living room, felt a shaking under his feet. He quickly picked up a telescope and looked towards the Jinling city wall in the distance. He saw that the sturdy city wall, which had only been slightly damaged by the bombardment of two or three hundred bronze cannons, was now covered by dust and smoke rising into the sky!

“God bless you! God bless you!”

Hong Xiuquan muttered something, holding the telescope tightly in his hand, staring at the smoke rising into the sky.

As a breeze from the river blew past, the dust and smoke were blown away, revealing a large section of collapsed city wall!
“It’s done! It’s done!” Hong Xiuquan’s voice was trembling a little, his eyes became a little blurry, and he waved his fist vigorously, “Guobing’s sweet gunpowder formula is really useful. It can blow up Nanjing City today, and it will definitely blow up Beijing City in two years. I am really the son of God, the holy lord of the world, and I will unify the world! Hahaha!”

It turned out that the Taiping Army had never expected to rely on artillery fire to knock down the thick walls of Nanjing. According to the plan formulated by Yang Xiuqing, Shi Dakai and others, the vanguard of the Upper First, Upper Second, Left First and Left Second Armies immediately occupied the Jinghai Temple near the Yifeng Gate after arriving outside the city of Nanjing. Then, using the Jinghai Temple as a stronghold, they sent “engineers” composed mainly of miners from Chenzhou and Daozhou to dig tunnels. At the same time, they also boiled powerful nitrate gunpowder on the spot in the Jinghai Temple.

When the main forces led by Hong Xiuquan and Yang Xiuqing arrived, the tunnel had already been dug under the city wall near Yifeng Gate. The bombardment just now was only to cover the engineers carrying the coffins filled with nitrate and gunpowder through the tunnel to the bottom of the Jinling city wall.

“The pride and blood are like a thousand waves, and the passion and blood are hotter than the red sun.”

Just as Hong Xiuquan was talking to himself and seemed to have fallen into some kind of semi-crazy state, thousands of Taiping soldiers, who were almost shouting out the lyrics of “A Man Should Be Self-reliant” with all their might, had already rushed out of the formation and swarmed towards the collapsed part of the city wall that had just been caused by the “sweet gunpowder”.

Rushing in the front were dozens of death-defying warriors holding torches and carrying nitrate grenades!
Under the gaze of Hong Xiuquan’s bloodshot eyes, the gap in the city wall, which was dozens of feet wide, poured in like a tide.

Taicang Prefecture, Baoshan County, inside the Jade Emperor Palace.

“Whose food are you eating?”

“Eat Lord Luo’s food!” “Whose clothes are you wearing?”

“Wear Lord Luo’s clothes!”

“Whose wages?”

“Take Lord Luo’s salary!”

The sounds of questions and answers echoed one after another on the two open flat areas inside and outside the mountain gate of a Taoist temple that had just been renovated.

Strong men wearing white short coats and black trousers, the style of Shanghai dock workers, stood in rows on the two flat grounds. There seemed to be at least four or five thousand of them in total.

The officers in black jackets, along with their personal soldiers holding trays of silver dollars, were distributing salaries to the new recruits who had just entered the camp and had not had time to change into proper military uniforms.

Four silver dollars per person!
They were distributed by the most reliable officers from the Teaching Brigade and the Dark Hall under the supervision of Luo Yaoguo himself. Every time a person was distributed, someone would ask, “Whose food do you eat? Whose clothes do you wear?” And the answer, of course, was “Eat Lord Luo’s food”, “Wear Lord Luo’s clothes”, and “Get Lord Luo’s salary”!
Luo Yaoguo’s Shanghai New Army was different from the Taiping Army. He couldn’t set up a new Taiping Army in Shanghai, so he could only pretend to be a comprador warlord, first buy the arms, recruit soldiers, and then raise the troops in the shortest time possible.

As long as he had several thousand men and horses, wouldn’t Shanghai be in Luo Yaoguo’s pocket?

As long as Shanghai is captured, it would only take Luo Yaoguo a word to transform this “fake Qing army” into the Taiping Army, right?
Therefore, the ideological education method of this new army is simple and crude. It just needs to let the soldiers know who provides their military pay and food!

They are not Xianfeng’s soldiers, nor are they Hong Xiuquan’s soldiers, but Lord Luo’s soldiers!
Luo Yaoguo, who was standing at the gatehouse of the mountain gate, watched the new recruits take the four silver dollars issued to them by their battalion commanders and company commanders with both hands and shout slogans from the bottom of their hearts. Xiang Xun, wearing a blue business jacket and a gold-topped cap, walked towards Luo Yaoguo quickly, followed by a short man who looked like a merchant, Chen Chengrong.

Xiang Xun was so happy that he clasped his fists to Luo Yaoguo and said, “Sir, Jinling…”

Xiang Xun only said the word “Jinling” and stopped talking. Then he stood solemnly in front of Luo Yaoguo. Chen Chengrong, who looked like a merchant, stood behind Xiang Xun with a smile on his face without saying a word.

“Da Long, just wait and see, I’ll be back soon!”

Luo Yaoguo already understood what had happened, so he gave an order to Wang Dalong beside him, and then took Xiang Xun and Chen Chengrong to the hall where a plaque with the words “Jade Emperor Temple” was hung.

This Taoist temple named “Jade Emperor Palace” is located in Luodian Town, Baoshan County, Taicang Prefecture, Jiangsu Province. It is the ancestral temple of the Luodian Tang family, a prominent family in Baoshan. It covers an area of ​​more than 30 acres. It was rebuilt a few years ago and many halls and pavilions were added. It is the largest temple in the vicinity of Shanghai County and can accommodate Luo Yaoguo’s new army.

Moreover, Luodian Town was the northern gate of Shanghai County and Shanghai Concession, and its location was very important, so Wu Jianzhang borrowed this Taoist temple from the Luodian Tang family and gave it to Luo Yaoguo who wanted to find a spacious place to station troops.

Luo Yaoguo’s central army was stationed in the original main hall of the Taoist temple, the Jade Emperor Hall. The statue of the Jade Emperor had long been moved away, and the huge hall was divided into several areas, with signs of “Operations Department”, “Intelligence Department”, “Supply Department”, “Communications Department”, “Mobilization Department”, and “Command Room” erected respectively.

Dozens of young men dressed as eighth- and ninth-rank military officers of the Qing army were busy in the central army. When the guards on duty outside the Jade Emperor Temple shouted, “Lord Luo is here!”, everyone put down their work, stood solemnly, bowed towards the gate, and said, “Greetings, Lord.”

Luo Yaoguo clasped his fists in a friendly manner and said with a smile, “Go get busy!”

Afterwards, Luo Yaoguo pointed to a room in the main hall that was temporarily separated by wooden boards and had a sign that read “Commander’s Room” on it, made a “keep guests away” gesture, and said to Chen Chengrong, “Guard Chen, please come in.”

Chen Chengrong smiled and bowed: “Your Highness, Prince Wu, you are too polite. Chengrong cannot bear it!”

(End of this chapter)