Master Yuan, start!

"It's Jiangxi!" the guard quickly relayed the latest news: "Zhang Zhidong's Hubei Army has occupied Pingxiang and set up checkpoints on the Yangtze River to prevent our troops from advancing eastward to Jiangning!"

"Zhang Nanpi is going too far!" Hearing that someone was bullying his fellow Hunanese, Zeng Guoquan angrily sat up from his half-lying position.

“Puff, wow!”

A mouthful of blood spurted out.

Chapter 166: The Situation in Southeast Asia

Zeng Guoquan died of anger on the same day. Within a short time, the news that the Governor-General of Liangjiang had died of anger spread like wildfire.

Some people say that he was worried about the holy way and was angered to death by Yuan Shikai.

Some people say that he died of wind-heat and became seriously ill.

Others say that after hearing that the Hubei army was attacking Jiangxi, Mr. Zeng died of grief and anger.

But no matter what, the great leader Zeng Guoquan passed away. After receiving the news, almost everyone inside and outside Jiangning Prefecture wore mourning clothes.

On the seventh day, the people who came to pay their respects stretched for more than ten miles from inside the city to outside the city.

On the 37th day of the lunar month, a large group of Hunan Army troops, with white cloth tied on their heads, escorted Zeng Guoquan's coffin and headed westward.

Liu Kunyi, the new leader of the Hunan clique, assembled 5 soldiers of the Jiangnan New Army at Yuhuatai and ordered the newly formed Hunan Army to march westward along the Yangtze River.

"Revenge for Marshal Jiu and fight back home!"

"How can the people of Sanxiang allow others to bully us?"

Slogans for revenge for Zeng Guoquan resounded across the south bank of the Yangtze River. Liu Kunyi wanted to use this opportunity to sweep across Hubei and unify Huguang.

Zhang Zhidong in Wuchang soon got the news. He sat in the main hall and looked at the northern visitors.

"5 Hunan Army" Zhang Zhidong held the telegram in his hands, his arms trembling slightly.

The Hubei Army he organized had only 5 soldiers at most, and he knew very well how many of them were brave enough to fight.

If the 5 newly formed Hunan Army were to attack, I'm afraid the Qizhou and Huangzhou defense lines wouldn't be able to hold out for long.

"How could Zeng Laojiu be so impatient that he could be pissed off to death?"

Zhang Zhidong, who had always been hostile to the Hunan Army, seemed very concerned about Zeng Guoquan's safety at this moment, as if they were close friends.

I originally thought it was just a minor friction, and I could ask the Empress Dowager to mediate, or at most pay some money. But now Zeng Guoquan is dead, and Liu Kunyi has a grudge against me again.

This is truly a situation where there is no end but one fight to the death.

"Sir Zhang, now that things have come to this, we must make a decision early." Tang Shaoyi, entrusted by Yuan Shikai, traveled all the way south and extended an olive branch to Zhang Zhidong.

"Your Lord Yuan has a really good plan." Zhang Zhidong groaned.

"Master Zhang, you're joking. It's just that we each get what we need and help each other." Tang Shaoyi replied with his head down.

Originally, Yuan Shikai just wanted to stir up conflict between Huguang and Liangjiang, but he didn't expect the effect to be so good. Zeng Guoquan was so angry that he died.

He simply took advantage of the enemy's strategy. On the one hand, he assembled his troops and asked Feng Guozhang to be on guard in Yanzhou, ready to march south to Xuzhou at any time.

On the other hand, he sent Tang Shaoyi to Wuchang to make contact, hoping to squeeze some more benefits out of Zhang Zhidong.

The Governor-General of Huguang was nominally in charge of Hunan and Hubei, but in reality, the only places where Zhang Zhidong had the final say were Hubei and several prefectures north of Hunan.

Zhang Zhidong had no control over Zeng Guofan's hometown, while the southern Hunan area was constantly infiltrated by Li Hongzhang from Guangdong and Guangxi.

Instead, Henan, which was leaderless, was brought under Zhang Zhidong's rule, so his title of Governor of Huguang should actually be called Governor of Henan and Hubei.

Although he was in charge of Henan, Zhang Zhidong did not continue to advance northward despite having built a railway to Xinyang before Cixi fled south. Instead, he suspended construction under the pretext of war.

Therefore, the deal Yuan Shikai proposed to Zhang Zhidong was that the National Defense Army would send troops to Xuzhou to force the Hunan Army to go north to provide support and relieve the pressure on Hubei.

After Zhang Zhidong mined the Pingxiang coal mine, he wanted to continue extending the railway northward, preferably to the south bank of the Yellow River.

In this way, the goal of weakening the Hunan faction can be achieved, and the railway construction in the Central Plains region can be completed as soon as possible.

Only then did Zhang Zhidong realize that he had been led into a trap by Yuan Shikai. Yuan Shikai could have sat on the mountain and watched the fight between Hunan and Hubei, but he still chose to help him.

Although this pit was dug by Yuan Shikai, Zhang Zhidong jumped into it willingly. It was impossible for the Hanyang Iron Works to produce steel without a suitable coal mine.

However, at this point, Zhang Zhidong actually had no choice. Even if Yuan Shikai sent him a cup of poisoned wine, he had to drink it.

"Okay, tell your Lord Yuan for me. I, Zhang Zhidong, will remember this favor and repay it someday!"

Zhang Zhidong suffered a loss silently and could only accept the cooperation with a wry smile.

...

The situation along the Yangtze River changed dramatically, and everyone in the world was watching. However, Li Hongzhang, who was far away in Lingnan, had no time to react, simply because his focus was now overseas.

In today's southern country, the Hunan Army is recognized as the strongest land force, and the South China Sea Fleet under Li Hongzhang is recognized as the strongest navy in the country. Although it failed to successfully stop Yuan Shikai at Shanhaiguan, it can still be called the most powerful army in the world.

Why do people all over the world still think this way?

It was only because in the ten days after Zeng Guoquan's death, another shocking piece of good news came from Guangdong and swept the world.

The South China Sea Fleet defeated the Spanish fleet in the Philippines, avenged the Chinese and captured a Spanish warship!

Since the Ming Dynasty, the Philippines has been a transit point for Chinese businessmen going to Southeast Asia, and most of the population is from Fujian and Guangdong. It can be said that the Chinese have been multiplying here for hundreds of years and have become de facto indigenous people.

However, the Spanish colonists did not regard the Chinese as locals. They usually made the Chinese serve as middle-level officials in the colonial government and oppress the Filipino natives together. The benefits gained were divided 30%, 70% or even 28%, with Spain taking the majority.

When the Filipino natives could no longer bear the oppression and rebelled, they dragged out the Chinese, who had "cooperated closely" with them in the past, to take the blame and killed a group of them to appease their anger.

This has been the case for hundreds of years, not only in Spain, but also in Britain and the Netherlands.

Even Germany, which had just established a foothold in Southeast Asia, governed in this way. It bought a small piece of land from the Netherlands, which happened to be the former site of Lan Fang.

In order to reduce the cost of colonization, the Germans appointed descendants of the Lan Fang Republic to manage local plantations.

After the Beijing court lost its control over Guangdong and Guangxi, the Chinese in Southeast Asia contacted the Governor-General of Guangdong and Guangxi, and with the help of Liu Buxian and Lin Taizeng, who were also from southern Fujian, proposed to Li Hongzhang to tour Southeast Asia to spread the country's prestige.

Of course, the most important thing is that Nanyang is willing to provide a sum of sailing fees to cover the fleet's consumption during the voyage.

Since someone was paying for it, Li Hongzhang naturally agreed.

The South China Sea Fleet's plan was to start from Guangzhou and head south, first to Saigon, then to Singapore, then turn east back to Pontianak Lanfang, then stop in Manila, and finally return to Guangzhou.

When the ship stopped in Manila, it encountered a conflict between local Chinese and natives. Due to the issue of tax collection, the natives massacred the Chinese with weapons.

The Spanish colonial government in the Philippines divided taxes into three categories: indigenous people, Chinese people, and Chinese-indigenous mixed-race people.

Indigenous people were taxed the lightest, at only 3 pesos; mixed-race people were taxed the second least, at 10 pesos; and pure-blooded Chinese were taxed the highest, at 15 pesos.

In order to reduce the influence of the Chinese, the Spanish colonial government stipulated that if a mixed-race person married an indigenous person, the child born would be considered an indigenous person.

Therefore, many people who looked Chinese paid taxes as indigenous people, which resulted in the colonial government collecting less and less tax revenue and was forced to further exploit the pure-blooded Chinese.

The indigenous people also feel dissatisfied when they see many Chinese people speaking Hokkien and Hakka but paying the same taxes as themselves.

Therefore, under multiple conflicts, the indigenous people once again took up the butcher knife against the Chinese, and this time not only the pure-blooded Chinese, but also the mixed-race Chinese and the "Chinese" listed as indigenous people were not spared.

Logically speaking, this is not the first time that Chinese people have encountered such a thing. The wealthy businessmen at the top have long learned to protect themselves, spend money to avoid disasters, and use the blood of the lower-class Chinese to calm the anger of the indigenous people.

But this was not 100 years ago. The trend of nationalism had already reached Southeast Asia, and the news that Yuan Shikai fought against the French army in China and captured Courbet alive had already reached Manila.

Young overseas Chinese did not think that foreigners were invincible, not to mention that there were friendly forces on their side, so they contacted the South China Sea Fleet as soon as possible.

Liu Buchan tried to dissuade the local colonial government, but the Spanish Governor of the Philippines did not buy it and instead threatened them.

Private channels don’t work, and official channels are too late.

Because they were far away in Southeast Asia, Liu and Lin could not contact Li Hongzhang in a short time. In addition, most of the victims were Fujian natives, so they gritted their teeth and made up their minds to bombard the natives and rescue the Chinese.

They also sent sailors carrying guns and ammunition to disembark to support the local Chinese.

The Manila Governor's Office was certainly not a pushover. Allowing the natives to massacre the Chinese was a pressure-relieving measure. How could they allow the Chinese to fight back? So after gathering all the ships, they bombarded the South China Sea Fleet.

However, Spain was already old, and the Governor of the Philippines thought that Spain only needed to keep a low profile in Europe and still be the superior power in Southeast Asia.

But he didn't expect that Spain was no longer the empire on which the sun never set, and the naval fleet of the Governor-General of the Philippines even had outdated things like sailing battleships.

Spain only started its shipbuilding program in 1887. Although it built or purchased three unarmored cruisers and one armored cruiser in 1888, they were deployed in Europe and the Caribbean and were not sent to the Far East.

Therefore, most of the ships of the Governor-General of the Philippines were iron-hulled and wooden-sided warships, which were no match for armored ships such as the Zhiyuan and Laiyuan, not to mention the giant iron-clad ships such as the Dingyuan.

At least at this point in 1891, few countries could rival the South China Sea Fleet east of the Strait of Malacca, except for the British and French Far East Fleets.

So, the result was not surprising. The Spanish Philippine fleet was defeated, and after losing most of its main ships, it fled and had one of its flagships captured by the South China Sea Fleet.

As for the South China Sea Fleet, only the Laiyuan and Zhiyuan suffered serious damage to their hulls, while the damage to the remaining warships was almost negligible.

It was not until the fleet returned and arrived in Guangzhou that the people of Cantonese discovered an extra ship in the hazy morning fog. After understanding the whole story, they were naturally overjoyed and decorated the place with lights and decorations.

Even Yuan Shikai sent a telegram of congratulations to Li Hongzhang after hearing the news. After all, his mind was now on the north and he couldn't take care of Southeast Asia.

If Li Hongzhang could open up a new situation for the Chinese in Southeast Asia, Yuan Shikai would have to spend less effort when planning in Southeast Asia in the future.

Therefore, in his telegram, he not only praised Li Hongzhang for his service to the country and the people, but also provided him with many follow-up strategies.

...

In the Governor-General's Office of Guangdong and Guangxi, many generals from the Huai faction gathered.

The South China Sea Fleet's great victory was good news that should have been celebrated, but they didn't know whether they should congratulate or not. Their eyes were fixed on the thin piece of paper in Li Hongzhang's hand.

After all, no one knows what Li Hongzhang is thinking.

Old man communication 975.87425[

"Marshal Tsuen, how should we respond to the questioning of the Spanish consul?" Ding Ruchang looked at the letter of protest handed over by the Spanish consul in Guangzhou, not knowing what to do.

Since he became the governor of Guangdong and Guangxi, people's way of addressing Li Hongzhang changed from "Zhongtang" to "Quanshuai", and he was also known as Shaoquan.

This title was spread by gossipers and was called one of the Three Marshals of the South, along with Zhang Zhidong's "Xiang Marshal" and Zeng Guoquan's "Jiu Marshal".

Of course, this handsome guy is not that handsome guy. The three of them are all old men with white hair. They are no longer in the age of being competitive. Therefore, after hearing such rumors, they just smiled and did not react much.

However, this type of name has gradually been accepted and used by everyone.

"If you ask me, they shouldn't have let these killers from the South China Sea Fleet go out to sea. Now they've caused trouble," Guangdong Governor Liu Ruifen criticized.

Hearing this, Li Hongzhang, who was still thinking, was a little surprised. Without even looking up, he asked, "Oh, why is Zhitian speaking for the foreigners this time?"

Liu Ruifen came from Li Hongzhang's court, but unlike Li Hongzhang, he always advocated a tough attitude towards foreigners, so his words blaming the South China Sea Fleet made Li Hongzhang quite curious.

Although he was curious, Li Hongzhang still kept his head down and carefully looked at the protest letter from the Spanish consul, without noticing that Liu Ruifen kept winking at Zhang Peilun beside him.

Zhang Peilun, the Minister of the Guangdong Shipbuilding Bureau, also said hurriedly: "Four, three, six,