Time passed day by day, the deadline was getting closer and closer, the atmosphere in the palace was getting more and more tense, Cixi's temper was getting worse and worse, the ministers who entered and left the palace had to be careful, every word they said, they had to think about it three times in their minds to see if there was any wording that could cause Cixi to be misrepresented, not to mention that the eunuchs and palace maids, when serving in front of Cixi, they didn't even dare to come out, for fear that they would accidentally anger Lafayette. Some old people who have experienced the changes in Gengzi have a vague feeling that the history of 10 years ago seems to be repeating itself.

In the southeastern region, various newspapers and media are still arguing happily about what is right and which is wrong, and in some places they have even opened a handicap for whether the two sides will fight or not, which has really attracted no one to bet. However, after all, Beijing is at the foot of the Son of Heaven, and the newspaper does not dare to discuss such a major and sensitive event so unscrupulously, but the residents of Beijing are naturally much more interested and sensitive to politics than other places, so although the newspaper does not discuss, it is discussed in the people, and in this era, the audience of the newspaper is still a small niche, only a few gentry class, students will read the newspaper, but the discussion of the people, whether it is depth or breadth, is far from the newspapers of this era may be compared, of course, there is also East China politics* The credit of the intelligence officers of the government in the covert promotion.

Of course, an important consequence of the people's discussion is that the gossip is flying all over the sky, almost every day, and there are people talking about it everywhere in the streets and alleys, even if there are some teahouses and restaurants with a note of "don't talk about state affairs", but it can't stop the enthusiasm of the people at all, and sometimes the shopkeeper of the teahouse and restaurant comes to stop it, and it will cause a burst of ridicule, saying that "the Qing Dynasty is going to be finished, what are you afraid of", "Lafayette, the emperor is now himself is difficult to protect, so there is spare time to take care of us ordinary people" , "Let's just talk about ours, the Qing Dynasty has not been bouncing for a few days" and something like that.

In short, the relaxed mentality of the people who eat melons and wait to watch the play is in stark contrast to the tense atmosphere in the palace.

In the past ten years, what "books on the bus", "Wuxu coup", "boxers and bandits entering Beijing", "Gengzi national change", "overseas Chinese entering Beijing", "the emperor and queen returning to the dynasty" and so on, have not seen any major events, and they all know that no matter how the times change, it is the emperor's relatives and relatives who are impacted. Dignitaries and nobles, and it has little to do with the common people, as long as they prepare more food and drink in advance, stay at home honestly in the days when the old and new forces alternate in Beijing, and wait for the order in Beijing to be restored before coming out, basically it will be fine, anyway, the foreigners come to listen to the foreigners, the overseas Chinese come to listen to the overseas Chinese, Lafayette, the emperor is back, just listen to Lafayette, the emperor.

On the other hand, during the 10-year Gengzi National Revolution, the People's Army regained Beijing, when the military discipline was strict, and there was no offense against the residents, and many roads and houses were repaired, wells were dug, and a lot of good deeds were done for the benefit of the people. The intelligence personnel of the government are also secretly and constantly propagating that the People's Army will abide by discipline and not disturb the people, so that the residents of Beijing can be completely reassured, so that the people of Beijing are not nervous at all, and they still talk about the major events of changing the dynasty with a relaxed and optimistic attitude every day.

Of course, now the Qing court is basically in a state of disorder, the upper echelons of the elite officials are busy packing their luggage, preparing to flee, the lower levels of officials and officials have also seen through the situation, the Qing Dynasty does not have a few days to live, the East China government is about to enter Beijing, change the dynasty, so at this time, who cares about what the people are discussing.

So in this staggered environment of tension and relaxation, busyness and slackness, time finally came to the 7th day.

At noon on the same day, Qu Hongzhen, Xu Shichang, and Tang Shaoyi, who remained in Tianjin, came to the Li Shunde Hotel to meet with Li Sanjie, and proposed that the Qing court refuse to accept the negotiation conditions proposed by the East China Government, and asked the East China Government to revise them.

However, this request was unsurprisingly rejected by Li Sanjie, who declared that since the Qing court refused to accept the negotiation conditions proposed by the East China government, it meant that the negotiations broke down and could only be resolved by war. He also demanded that Qu Hongzhen, Xu Shichang, and Tang Shaoyi leave Tianjin, and that in two hours, the People's Army would launch an attack on Tianjin.

At this point, Qu Hongzhen, Xu Shichang, and Tang Shaoyi had nothing to say, so they immediately left and returned to Tianjin New Town.

Li Sanjie immediately sent a telegram to the Qingdao and Beijing offices informing them of the breakdown of the negotiations. Because it took about 1 hour for Qu Hongzhen, Xu Shichang, and Tang Shaoyi to return to Tianjin New Town, no matter how fast the Qing court was, they could only receive the news after 1 hour.

This one-hour time had little impact on the war, but it was crucial for the Beijing office of the East China Government. Because once the war broke out, the Beijing office of the East China government was the most dangerous, and it was difficult to guarantee that the Qing court would not use the staff of the Beijing office to vent its anger, or at least they would be arrested as hostages. Since the two sides began to contact, the Qing court has also strengthened its monitoring of the Beijing office, but before the two sides have completely torn their faces, the Qing court does not dare to easily touch the Beijing office of the East China government.

Of course, the Beijing office of the East China Government has already set aside a way back for itself, and there are only a dozen staff members in the office on the bright side, and more than 10 hidden strongholds have been arranged in the city of Beijing, and each staff member has also been arranged with other identities, and two tunnels have been dug in the office, which can be used for personnel to flee urgently, so it can be said that the preparation is quite sufficient.

However, since the negotiations between the two sides have not officially ended, the Beijing office cannot be closed on the surface, and must continue to operate normally, and can only be evacuated after the negotiations are formally broken, so it is naturally very important to get the news of the breakdown of the negotiations one hour in advance.

Since early this morning, the staff members of the Beijing office have been around the radio, anxiously waiting for news, and they are all a little restless, because the outside of the Beijing office is already full of Qing troops, and it seems that the Qing army will break down and arrest people just after receiving the news that the negotiations have broken down.

Fortunately, it started at 10 o'clock, and at about 20 minutes, the Beijing office continued to receive news about the progress of the negotiations, and by 10:20 a.m., the radio station finally received the signal to retreat. Everyone also breathed a sigh of relief and immediately began to evacuate from the Beijing office.

The evacuation operation has been rehearsed 5 or 6 times, and everyone is already familiar with it, first removing the uniformed dummies from the cabinet and placing them in their respective positions, creating the illusion that there are still people in the house, and then taking off their uniforms, revealing other ordinary clothes that have been changed inside, and escaping from the two tunnels according to the order that has been assigned. Although the Qing army was surrounded by the Beijing office, it was outside the house after all, and only vaguely saw that there were still people faintly in the house, so they were not suspicious.

In fact, these two tunnels are not long, only more than 100 meters, and the exit is another house near the Beijing office, of course, in these two houses, there are also people to answer. After leaving the tunnel, everyone received their own props in the house, including baskets, burdens, carts, etc., and then left through the front and back doors of the house one after another, and finally locked the door and gave up completely. And according to the route that has been set, they will be thrown to other strongholds. As a result, in less than 1 hour, all the personnel of the Beijing office were smoothly transferred to other bases and hidden.

After the Qing army received the order, they broke down the door, only to find a dozen dummies and uniforms and shoes scattered on the ground, but there were no people. Although after a careful search by the Qing army, the tunnel in the house was finally discovered, but the Qing army sent people to search along the tunnel, and only found two vacant houses, and the front and rear doors were all locked, after all, the Qing army was not a professional case-handling personnel, so it could only be traced to this step, all the clues were broken, and finally the Beijing office, the tunnel exit house around the house to arrest back a few families.

However, at this time, it was already dusk, and the person in charge of arresting the personnel of the Beijing office was the younger brother of Prince Zaifeng, Baylor Zaitao, who was also stunned after learning the result, but in his heart he couldn't help but admire these good methods of hypocrisy that could all slip away under his nose. Zaitao arrived not bad, knowing that it was useless to go through the hypocrisy and arrest these families, so he ordered everyone to be released, and then went into the palace to ask Cixi for his guilt.

And after listening to Zaitao's proclamation, Cixi kept a calm face and didn't speak for a long time, and Zaitao's heart was also a little hairy, he knew that Cixi's mood was very bad these days, and he heard that several eunuchs and maids had been killed in the palace, and he didn't know what to do with himself.

After a long while, Cixi said: "Zaitao, you don't have to worry about the hypocrisy, go to the Summer Palace overnight and wait." ”

Hearing that Cixi didn't hold herself accountable and didn't catch anyone, Zaitao couldn't help but be happy in his heart, but when he heard that he was ordered to go to the Summer Palace to wait, Zaitao's heart sank again, as the most important clan of Cixi now, Zaitao of course knew that there was a team of people in the Summer Palace, which was Cixi's escort army preparing to escape from Beijing, and now ordered himself to rush to the Summer Palace, Cixi was obviously going to escape from Beijing.

However, Zaitao didn't dare to say more, answered, and then kowtowed and withdrew. And out of the palace, Zaitao happened to meet Zaifeng who left from the military plane, and the brothers met to talk, Zaitao knew that in the afternoon, the Qing army was unfavorable, and the east and south lines were completely defeated.