After returning, Yung Wing did not write a letter to Zuo Zongtang or Zeng Guofan in hope of loyalty. Although the Hunan Army's hospitality can be said to be attentive, it was completely out of admiration. Although both the host and the guest had no idea what the other party was saying, Yung Wing was still a little proud and vain. After all, it would be like this, but the impression left by the Hunan Army and Shanghai officials was really hard to say.

What impressed me most was that these people could really eat it. No matter whether it was a big smoker or a thin tuberculosis man, a dozen people faced the 50 dishes that were like running water, as if beanworms were eating mulberry leaves. They ate all the bars, and they drank 4 jars of rice wine and three bottles of red wine. If it weren't for the trouble with that person, they would probably be able to eat it for two hours.

In addition, there is the custom of bringing dogs to attend and sharing saliva. Yung Wing was a Qing Dynasty native. He was familiar with the traditions of his hometown, but as a senior citizen who was deeply influenced by the West, no one could accommodate the Western dietary tradition and the Qing dietary tradition indiscriminately.

Moreover, the main business is discussed at the dinner table. Among the yellow jokes and gang names on the table, who can tell which sentence is true, which sentence is bragging, and which sentence is a scene. Yung Wing can tell if he doesn't have the ability to tell. He still doesn't know very well what Chen Yuan means. Can Chen Yuan say something drunk and hugged his shoulders seriously?

So although Chen Yuan must have felt that the amount of money he asked Yung Wing was very authentic, very interesting, very compatriots, and had already shown his sincerity---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

But Yung Wing was inexplicably told him that he did not say anything about the Westernization business in the whole night, so he naturally would not write a letter to the border officials in the mainland of the Qing Dynasty as the words of a drunkard official. His whole heart was still going to the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom.

Because he has received one of the highest educations in the world in this era, Yung Wing, as an elite among the Chinese and Westerners, is easily related to some upper class people, which has brought him a lot of information that others cannot obtain.

After meeting with Midile's translator in the morning, Yung Wing already knew who he should look for to arrive in Nanjing.

Midile is one of the few British people who have a good impression of and eager expectations for the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. Despite facing various negative news from the mainland and the shameless words of the Haisong newspaper industry towards Nanjing, Midile still feels that the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom is good. For this reason, he has gone deep into the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom territory several times, and his outfit is a Jacques single-tube rifle, two single-tube shoulder-back hunting guns, two double-tube short guns, and finally a pair of pistol holsters and two Adams-style revolver belts produced by the London Weapons Company.

"As long as you find the right person, be agile and bring enough weapons, cross the war zone and reach the upper reaches of the Yangtze River, it is not difficult." Midile showed off to Yung Wing with pride, and the latter couldn't help but turn pale.

It is not difficult for Shanghai to go to Nanjing. Although the Taiping Army and the Qing Army were fighting fiercely around Nanjing, no matter how dangerous the places were, there would be people who would dare to go. These people were not brave spies of the Qing soldiers or devout missionaries, but greedy merchants. For money, they dared to go back and forth.

In the afternoon, Yung Wing and his two foreign missionary friends went out to Pudong to find someone. Yung Wing gave Song Deling to him and carefully inserted the revolver into the gun holster. The three of them got on the carriage. Yung Wing specifically instructed the coachman to walk only east and west to the big streets and not to enter east and west to the small alleys.

Of course, you need weapons to go to Nanjing across the war zone. But you also need weapons to defend yourself when walking in Shanghai.

In this era of global maritime navigation, there were not only merchants and warships flocking into Shanghai. A large number of foreign fugitives, second-rate men and wanderers were also brought in on foreign ships in Shanghai. Before foreigners used warships, Shanghai was just a small county town. Where could they have the strength to manage so many people? Moreover, outside Shanghai, there were foreigners semi-official and semi-autonomous countries.

Therefore, Shanghai's public security is extremely chaotic. In the Far East, second only to Hong Kong and Macau. The victims are often lower-class Chinese, Western women, and pets. Rape, kill, steal Western dogs, and sell Chinese children everywhere in the slums of Shanghai. Chinese vendors call the police the most. These foreigners can rob for a piece of cake. They have no money.

Apart from foreigners, the city was filled with rich and poor Chinese refugees. They were all driven by the Taiping Army rebellion. Beggars, tobacco shops and brothels were everywhere.

Therefore, almost all foreigners carry guns on their bodies. This is not only fashionable in Shanghai, but also forced by public security.

The Empire of Sun never set has always disliked disorder. The British consul tried to manage crimes and violence on its territory, and issued "entertainment venues" licenses in Hongqiao District every year to control tobacco and casinos and brothels, and violent crimes brought by them, but this move was useless at all because the policemen were all in a nest of snakes and rats.

For example, the unlucky British policeman Mason was arrested and imprisoned because he was found to be a hotel partner in a gang of underworld in Hongqiao District.

It is easy to deal with criminals. Police officers from all countries, whether Chinese or foreigners, are not criminals in Shanghai, but they are sheltering criminals. The only kind type of police officers is incompetent police officers. Many police officers have been arrested more than a dozen times. They are police officers.

The reliable police officers under his command could not control the territory at all. The British Police Office Director complained to the British Industrial Bureau that the reliable police officers under his command could only effectively patrol the streets that were moving north and south. The local thugs and criminals knew this very well, so they specifically robbed the east and west streets. This also caused all the Chinese and foreigners in Shanghai to go north and south. The streets that went east and west were sparse, and no one dared to leave except for unknown people inside and outsiders.

And the place Yung Wing is going to be even more terrifying---Pudong, Shanghai!

A place where rich people in Shanghai, whether Chinese or foreigners, are afraid of being talked about.

This is a place where both the Qing Dynasty and Western laws cannot be controlled!

A crazy crime jungle.

After crossing the Huangpu River, walking on the bumpy dirt road in Pudong, there were countless waiters in the black hotel, the opium opium shop and prostitutes to promote or solicit customers to the three of them. The Chinese and Western races were squatting on the street, all with flesh on their faces and people looked at them with malicious intentions.

"Luckily it's day now." Yung Wing looked at the beast-like eyes, swallowed, and his hands repeatedly touched the hard pistol in his arms.

Soon, Yung Wing and the other two arrived at their destination. A company in the town had a big sign hanging on the gate: China Pickling Co., Ltd.

But this pickle company has no friend to sell pickle to the passing aunt and sister-in-law. Its second-story building is located within the wall, which is three people tall. When you look inside, three fierce bulldogs roar frantically, making the iron chains thick on your neck sound like a roar. At the door were three foreigners wearing small vests exposed tattoos, all of whom were covered in fleshy faces, and one was standing a long spear, and the other was hanging a hard pigskin holster on the waist. The revolver, which was touched, stood out.

"What the hell are you doing?" Yung Wing and the other three approached the pickle company of the gun and the dog in fear. The three foreigners guarding the door immediately shouted fiercely in English.

Two kind missionaries were scared to hide behind Yung Wing. Yung Wing was also trembling. He endured his fear and took out a business card from his arms and handed it over, saying, "I'll look for Mr. Stukis. This is his business card. He said he works in the China pickle company in Pudong, Shanghai. Do you know him?"

"Stukis?" The foreigner with a huge sea rudder tattooed on his shoulder in front of him first glared fiercely at the three people, then grabbed the business card, looked at it, and then looked at it again.

"Wolf, you are illiterate, what are you looking at?" The foreigner with a straw hat behind him raised his gun and shouted in an Italian accent.

"Stukis? Is there this person in our company?" the man named Wolf turned his head and shouted.

"That's the name of Mad Dog Beach." The foreigner in the middle put the wide crocodile knife that had been gesturing on his tongue back into the scabbard, stood up and took the business card, looked at it and said.

"Mad Dog Beach? What's the fucking thing about finding Mad Dog Beach?" The illiterate leader shouted at Yung Wing. His swear words made Yung Wing, the elite Yung Wing seemed to feel like he was returning to Haijing to listen to Zhao Kuo's words.

But the fierce man on the opposite side who was full of yellow teeth seemed to be able to eat people at any time, but Yung Wing had no time to fantasize. He stuttered to the three foreigners in front of him who were gangsters and explained why he knew Stukis: "I used to do tea business at Shanghai Baoshun Foreign Company. I once did business with you Mr. Stukis. He could get tea back from the rebels. Today I want to visit him."

"Hey, they smuggled tea leaves. Do you want to tell the back?" the illiterate turned around and shouted to his companion.

"I'm not a smuggler." Yung Wing shouted in his stomach, but he didn't dare to say a word on his lips.

A quarter of an hour later, Stukis, a sales manager of China Pepper Co., Ltd., greeted him and personally brought Yung Wing and the other two into their office building.

"Dear Rong. What wind blows you, senior manager of Baoshun, to me?" Mad Dog Beach was very enthusiastic, and the scar on her face twisted upwards to form a lightning terrain.

Walking through the yard, the bulldog who grinned his teeth and the strange-shaped hired worker who grinned his teeth, Yung Wing no longer thought that this person was a serious sales manager. Whose sales manager who sells pickles would be nicknamed "Mad Dog Beach"!

The interior of the office building of the China Pepper Co., Ltd. is luxuriously decorated, but it is filled with the smell of cigars and gunpowder. In addition to the fierce foreigners who are guarding the door, there are also young and beautiful Chinese and Western women, all holding documents or holding tea. They speak English with frivolous expressions.

In the sales manager's office, Stukis hurriedly stuffed a bundle of rifles from the sofa into the cabinet in front of the customer, then pointed to the empty sofa and laughed: "The office is very messy. Please sit down with everyone."

"Okay, Mr. Rong has something to come to me?" Stukis asked with a smile while sitting behind his desk.

"You and I have done business. Recently, Mr. Midile also recommended you, saying that you can send me and these two devout missionaries to Tianjing." Yung Wing said that he did not feel like greetings in this pickle company.

"Oh, you two are priests, God bless you." The Scotsman drew a cross on his chest, then looked puzzled, and said, "I just said that the pickle business has been very good recently and the ships cannot be arranged, so it is difficult to do if you add guests to the cargo ship. Besides, why are you going to Tianjing? It seems that you are not the idiots who want to go to gold hunting!"

Yung Wing said that he and his two friends wanted to visit Tianjing and spread the gospel. Finally, he said, "I heard that your company has a Taiping Army pass. I hope you can help us for the sake of our friendship. After all, we have a happy cooperation on tea and raw silk."

"Indeed, we sometimes transport some raw tea leaves and come back." Mad Dog Beach scratched her head and said, "But business has been so good recently. We are really in a dilemma."

"We can pay." Yung Wing reached into his arms, pushed away the hard pistol, and took out a stack of US dollars from his close-fitting pocket.

"Let me ask my boss, he is an American. Maybe your religious enthusiasm can impress him. We don't care about money, but you are willing to pay. I'm better talking." Mad Dog Beach smiled with the big gem ring on his hand.

Two days later, Yung Wing and two friends boarded the Yangtze River cargo ship of the pickle company. In addition to them, there were British people, Americans, Scots, Italians, and four sailors on the boat. Yung Wing and the others could only curl up in the cargo hold for the night, with "umbrellas" piled on their heads and "small barrels of salt sauce" under their feet. On the left is the "sauce jar", and on the right are "screws" and "Chinese snuff powder", but Yung Wing and the others not only couldn't sleep well, but they couldn't even smoke pipes and cigars.

This pickle boat is strictly prohibited from any Mars, otherwise the entire boat may have flew.

"Umbrella" refers to the British Enfield rifle;

"Sauce jar" is a cannon;

"Keep Salt Sauce" is a shell;

"Chinese snuff powder" is gunpowder;

"Screws" are detonators;

Chinese pickles?

That was through the guise of inspection, and the Western arms smuggling ship was its true body!

The smuggling of arms to the Taiping Army and the local areas in Shanghai is a big business, and no one can curb it.

Qing Dynasty officials had the power and obligation to curb, but Qing Dynasty people were afraid of foreigners, but in fact, not only foreigners. Even Annan, Siamese, and Koreans were afraid of them, because under the Qing civilization, if officials killed an ordinary person, it would be unrelated. What could you do? But the face of the Celestial Kingdom depends on friendly countries and vassal states. The so-called country of etiquette involves Gentiles, which is the matter of the court.

This is etiquette, the etiquette of the emperor.

What's more, foreigners are much more cruel than those of Annan. Not only are they like ghosts, but they are also invincible at sea. Otherwise, how could Daoguang and Xianfeng ignore Hong Kong and become enclaves? Especially the Qing officials in Shanghai, Jiangsu, Zhejiang and other places are frustrated. They are familiar with the power and characteristics of foreigners and turn a blind eye to foreigners.

Perhaps mainland officials dared to behead foreigners as monsters. For example, the county magistrate of Niu Bixi, Hunan, cut off a French missionary infiltrated, but Shanghai and Jiangsu and Zhejiang absolutely did not dare. They had seen the military power of foreigners. Shanghai was originally taken back by the French team from the Xiaodao Uprisingers. They also relied on them to protect the city in front of the approaching Taiping Army.

Of course, the Taiping Army did not care about arms smuggling. They warmly welcomed arms smuggling because of the foreign religion. After Hong Xiuquan occupied Nanjing, countless foreigners flocked in. Although Hong Xiuquan and others were as ignorant as the Qing Dynasty, foreigners always believed in God. This was an innate favor (of course, later, people also disgusted them). Only with exchanges can we have opinions. Foreigners and local things and their well-armed views were still deeply rooted in people's hearts. In their rebellious career, they needed Western arms.

The only one who is serious about arms smuggling is the British. Their views must be followed by law - we are all neutral, and of course we cannot let the arms flow to the hands of the rebels.

They sometimes conduct surprise inspections, but obviously their manpower cannot control the arms business.

At that time, Shanghai was not the so-called serious concession, but the foreigners were too cruel and they rushed over. Then a group of merchants and warships were forced to stay in Shanghai. Xianfeng and his father covered their eyes: I can't beat you? Well, if I don't talk to you, I won't beat you, I'm still a country in the heavens, I can't pretend to be unsightly.

As a result, the Shanghai people and the Qing Dynasty became a special combination of the Qing Dynasty civilization: they were not upset when they saw each other. If you slapped me in the face, I was silent, silence was golden.

Just like the opium business, the Qing Dynasty lost the Opium War, but regardless of whether it was about opium, they felt that it was a humiliation. As a result, opium was still smuggling. In fact, the Qing Dynasty never hindered opium. It only fattened the anti-smuggling officials, and the royal family was still smoking. The "Heaven and Earth One Spring" in the Old Summer Palace was a smoker. Of course, they did not smoke big smoke, but also smoked the longevity cream.

In this way, Shanghai only had a community of interests between all parties under the cover of one party's eyes and blocked his ears. Only the British were in charge of arms smuggling, but it was certain that it was impossible to ban arms smuggling under such an autonomous state without legal basis and force.

There is no doubt that this is also a competition of morality and interests.

Even if the sun does not set in the empire, interests will surpass morality.

They colluded with Hai Song's interests, not to mention arms, even military factories could be given. Just talking about the rampant arms smuggling in Shanghai is also indispensable to the contribution of the British Empire.

The First British Empire itself was the number one supplier of arms in the Far East. At least 3,000 cannons entered the Far East arms market from Hong Kong and Singapore every year, and Hai Song would eat some, but recently they purchased their own land artillery and left a large number of them entered the Shanghai market;

The arms can be said to have filled the entire city of Shanghai. The ordnance shops unscrupulously sold all kinds of arms from artillery to revolvers, which was more liberal than Haijing. It was just that they did not have the control of the security officer system like Haijing, and the Chinese poor in Shanghai had no power and financial resources to carry guns at all;

The second point is that military technology is progressing too fast in this era. As the world's largest power, a large amount of arms in the UK are eliminated every year.

The British authority in Shanghai pretended to complain that the arms trade was too hot, but it promoted the spread of arms itself. When a batch of new long-distance rifles were distributed to volunteer troops guarding Shanghai, it immediately sold the old smoothbore guns and detonators to raise funds; the British team also shamelessly promoted the fire. For example, General Steve sold the arms and equipment of the 22nd Punjab Infantry Regiment of India and the 2nd Bangladesh Infantry Regiment to reduce the defense adjustment funds needed for the two infantry regiments to return to India;

In this way, as long as you have money, you can form your own foreign gun army along the Far East. Wall's foreign gun team has no difficulty in weapons, it is just funding.

Of course, the big buyers can only be the various forces in the fierce battle between the Qing Dynasty.

For Shanghai arms smugglers, the Qing Dynasty buyers do not consider it because they are not free trade sites. The Green Camp Eight Banners weapons are customized. How can you reimburse them if you run halfway to buy foreign guns? And they don’t need to buy foreign guns. They need telescopes the most and run away when they see the enemy. Like the Hunan Army, they are all purchased by officials from offices like Chen Yuan, and they need kickbacks and bribes at this time. Otherwise, if you have an atomic bomb, people ignore you, so this is naturally not something that small arms dealers can do.

Entering the upper reaches along the Yangtze River, there were two buyers, one was the Sun and Moon Army of Haisong. They were very hungry for Western weapons, just as they envied the foreign warfare of their fellow comrades. However, it was obvious that as non-elites, their military expenditure was not included in Zhao Kuo's budget. They could only buy training by themselves. However, the journey to smuggling to Jiangxi was long, and the cost was the same as the price from inland transportation from Haijing to Jiangxi. The arms dealers did not like the unsafe waterway from Shanghai to Nanchang very much;

The other is the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. They are much better than the Sun and Moon Army. They are close to each other and have money, so they can almost eat up all the smuggled arms.

American companies famous for smuggling to rebels: "China Pickled Vegetable Company" has sold 2,783 smoothbore guns, 66 bead carbines, 4 rifles, 895 cannons, 484 barrels of gunpowder, 10,947 pounds of cannons, 18,000 bullets and 3113,500 detonators to the Taiping Army.

And recently they opened an arsenal in Pudong and built their own guns and cannons to sell them to the rebels! The quality of their artillery is much stronger than that of the Qing artillery!

"Mr. Rong, we should have reached the boundary of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom." In the dazzling golden light of the sun, the mad dog Beech rushed down the cargo hold and shouted at the three guests who were curled up.

"What? Where is this? How did you know it? " Yung Wing and the missionary rushed to the bow of the boat and looked around, but except for the devastated coastal areas, they could not see the difference between this place and the war zone they passed yesterday.
To be continued...