After Li Lianying finished reading, she saw Cixi with her eyes closed, lying motionless on the bed, and thought that Cixi was asleep, so she called out in a low voice: "Lafayette, Lafayette." ”

I saw Cixi open her eyes again and said slowly: "What does the emperor look like?"

Li Lianying hesitated for a moment before saying: "The emperor seems to be a little depressed, and after returning to the bedroom, he will lie on the couch, but he has not asked anyone to serve, as if he has something on his mind." ”

"What's on your mind?" Cixi sneered and said, "I don't know his little thoughts? I don't understand anything and still think that I am really the Lord of the Holy Wisdom? This family is so easy to manage, if it is really handed over to him, I don't know how much it will fail." ”

Speaking of Guangxu, Li Lianying waited to stand with her hands on the side, not daring to squeak. Although Li Lianying won the trust of Cixi, she was quite self-aware, very cautious and cautious, and more obedient to powerful ministers, which also learned the lesson of her predecessor An Dehai.

After the Wuxu coup, Guangxu was imprisoned in Yingtai, and some powerful eunuchs did not respect Guangxu very much, but Li Lianying always remained deferential to Guangxu. This once made Cixi lower her trust in Li Lianying and trust another eunuch Cui Yugui more. But after the Gengzi State Change, Li Lianying fled with the Empress Dowager Cixi, and served Cixi in front of the saddle and behind the horse along the road, working hard and complaining, which also deeply moved Cixi and restored her trust in Li Lianying.

Seeing that Li Lianying didn't speak, Cixi didn't pay much attention to it. Although because of Wan Haicheng's matter, Cixi was disgraced in front of overseas Chinese, but this meeting made Cixi find that overseas Chinese did not have the intention of supporting Guangxu, and judging from Qin Zheng's response, he seemed to be very disapproving of the Wuxu change and Guangxu's behavior, and even severely criticized it. As Li Hongzhang said, the overseas Chinese only want to divide in Shandong, and have no intention of participating in the Qing court's politics, which seems to be true, although this does not make Cixi completely reassured the overseas Chinese, but at least there is no need to worry that they will support Guangxu.

This also made Cixi feel a lot more at ease, because since the Wuxu coup, Cixi has never had any hope for Guangxu, even if Guangxu cannot be abolished, but Guangxu must not be allowed to return to power, even if it is symbolic. And Guangxu's behavior of overseas Chinese has greatly increased Cixi's dissatisfaction with Guangxu, it seems that this kid is also unwilling to send it, and this time the overseas Chinese have no intention of supporting Guangxu, but if the overseas Chinese really support Guangxu, Cixi will face a very difficult situation, to be honest, Cixi does not have any good means to deal with it. It seems that keeping Guangxu will be a trouble, so Cixi has the idea of abolishing Guangxu in her heart.

In fact, the abolition of Guangxu was one of the main causes of the Gengzi Revolution, because the foreigners opposed the abolition of Guangxu, so that Cixi relied on the so-called magic of the Boxers to fight against the idea of foreigners, coupled with the forces of all parties, and finally prompted the countries to form an eight-nation alliance, Cixi declared war on all countries, resulting in the result that the Qing court almost lost the country. Therefore, if Cixi wants to abolish Guangxu again, she must act cautiously.

Before the Gengzi State Change, Cixi abolished Guangxu's obstacle concubine two, one is the local governor, after the Wuxu coup, Cixi imprisoned Guangxu, the abolition of the emperor rumors are rampant, Liu Kun, who was the governor of Liangjiang at the time, directly wrote to the imperial court, strongly opposed the abolition of Guangxu: if there is a matter of abolition, then the people of Liangjiang will have righteous indignation. And he also wrote to Shu Ronglu that the distinction between monarchs and ministers has been determined for a long time, and the mouths of China and foreign countries should be guarded against. Kun Yi reported that the country was here, so the report was also here, of course, through Rong Lu's oral message to Cixi; the second was the foreigners, just after Cixi set up the eldest brother, the ministers of various countries jointly issued a diplomatic note to the Qing court, hoping that the Qing court would clarify a certain rumor, and said that all countries would not recognize any emperor except the Guangxu Emperor. Of course, for Cixi, the latter is the main resistance, after all, the local governor is still a courtier of Dachun, do you dare to rebel.

In fact, Cixi has never been able to understand why foreigners oppose her abolishing Guangxu, which is obviously her own family affair, and what does it matter to foreigners. It wasn't until Xi'an that Cixi figured out the truth, the foreigners were not against their own abolition of Guangxu, but worried that the imperial court would change the foreign national policy after the change of emperor, causing damage to the interests of various countries, if the Chun court was able to communicate with the countries in a timely manner, indicating that after the change of emperor, the agreements signed by the Qing court and various countries were still valid, and the interests of various countries in China might be guaranteed, and if necessary, some concessions could be made to the foreigners. Moreover, now that the foreigners have been defeated by the overseas Chinese, it is estimated that there will be no major obstacles to the abolition of Guangxu, but it is difficult to say what attitude the overseas Chinese will have towards the abolition of Guangxu.

For example, Liu Kunyi, who opposed his abolition of Guangxu in front of Gengziguo, also strongly opposed Kang Youwei's reform during the Wushu reform, and was also appealed by Guangxu, so it is necessary to test the attitude of overseas Chinese again.

However, there is no need to rush these things, after all, as long as the overseas Chinese do not support Guangxu, it will be easy to do, and it is not too late to arrange it slowly after returning to Beijing.

But Cixi's good mood only lasted for one day, and early the next morning, Cixi received a news that annoyed her, it turned out that just last night, Prince Duan Zaiyi went to the pavilion to visit overseas Chinese with generous gifts. However, he was refused to meet by overseas Chinese, and even the gifts were all returned by overseas Chinese.

There is no need to think about it, Cixi knows the purpose of Prince Duan's visit to overseas Chinese, of course, she hopes that overseas Chinese will support Big Brother, because Big Brother is the son of Prince Duan, once Big Brother inherits the throne, then Prince Duan will become the Emperor. The refusal of overseas Chinese to meet with Prince Duan also once again stated their position that they had no intention of participating in the internal affairs of the imperial court.

But this does not reassure Cixi, after all, the overseas Chinese have a strong military force, the brilliant achievements and huge influence since returning to China, which make the overseas Chinese a force to be reckoned with in China, and naturally become the object of all forces, Guangxu is so, Prince Duan is the same, maybe there are others.

At this time, Cixi also regretted a little in her heart, in order to abolish Guangxu, she hurriedly set up Prince Duan's son Pu Jun as the eldest brother, just because Prince Duan's Fujin was Cixi's niece, and she thought that her relatives were obedient, but what Cixi never thought about was that the father and son were not fuel-efficient lamps.

First of all, the eldest brother Yang Jun is a typical child of the Eight Banners, with frivolous manners, absurd temperament, and does not like to read, so he has to be lustful and lustful, and he has hooked up with the palace maid who served Cixi in the palace, and was scolded by Cixi; after fleeing to Xi'an, he was honest for a while, but when he stabilized, he began to show his true colors again, and often went in and out of the Song Lou Tavern, because he loved to watch plays, and if he heard that the drum board on the stage was wrong, he immediately left the table and scolded, and even took the stage to replace him. He also fought in a group because he fought with the officials and soldiers for seats in the theater garden, which was completely unified. Even Empress Longyu couldn't get used to his behavior, and once said something like this to her father: "If this person really succeeds to the throne, the country will lose his hands." ”

However, compared with the bad deeds of the eldest brother, then Prince Duan's behavior can be described as evil deeds, because the foreigners oppose the abolition of Guangxu, so Prince Duan, who wants his son to ascend the throne, hates the foreigners deeply, and strongly advocates declaring war on foreign countries, and praises Cixi strongly for the Boxers' ability to resist guns and cannons, and in order to encourage Cixi to go to war with other countries, Prince Duan instructed the military machine Zhang Jing Lian Wenchong to forge a diplomatic order from the foreign powers to the Qing government, and put forward four requirements: 1. Specify that a place is inhabited by Guangxu; Collect all kinds of money and grain on behalf of the Qing government; 3. Take charge of the whole army on behalf of the Qing government; 4. Return to the emperor. It was the last one that completely angered Cixi, so Cixi officially issued an edict and declared war on all countries.

As a result, the Qing court was defeated, and Prince Duan also fled to Xi'an with Cixi, and was removed from all official positions, and during the period in Xi'an, Prince Duan was also a lot more honest, but the arrival of overseas Chinese, and Prince Duan rekindled his ambitions, if he could win the support of overseas Chinese for the eldest brother, then it would not be a dream to be the emperor, so Prince Duan prepared a generous gift and went to visit overseas Chinese overnight, but Prince Duan did not expect that overseas Chinese would not dump him at all, and he would not even give faces.

So Cixi immediately ordered Prince Zhaoduan to come in, scolded him, and then ordered Prince Duan to go home and think about it behind closed doors, and ordered Ronglu to send troops to supervise him, and he was not allowed to go out without an order.

After sending Prince Duan away, Cixi was still not at ease, it seemed that if these overseas Chinese stayed in Xi'an for a day, they might not be at peace for a day, so it was better to send them out of Xi'an as soon as possible. So Cixi immediately ordered Prince Qing, Rong Lu, and Wang Wenshao to immediately issue an edict of appointment to Qin Zheng and others to complete the mission of the court, and let Qin Zheng immediately go to Shandong to take office, and Prince Qing went back with Qin Zheng to negotiate the delivery of Beijing.

Prince Qing secretly complained in his heart, he was only going back to Xi'an for a few days and was going to return again, Prince Qing is also an old man in his 60s, the long journey is not a light job, and he has not stopped this breath, but he does not dare to disobey Cixi's order, and it is indeed too dangerous for overseas Chinese to stay in Xi'an, maybe something will happen, so it is indeed better to send them away as soon as possible.

So in the afternoon of the same day, Prince Qing, Rong Lu, and Wang Wenshao came to visit Qin Zheng again, bringing the appointment edict of all those who served as official positions, and at the same time, the imperial court also gave a lot of rewards, but asked Qin Zheng and others to leave Xi'an tomorrow, and even the resignation of Jin was exempted.

In fact, Qin Zheng and the others didn't want to stay in Xi'an for a long time, and they didn't want to enter the palace again, because they had to kowtow when they entered the palace, not to mention that there was a big mess in Tianjin, so they were happy to obey their orders, so they immediately ordered others to start preparing, fortunately, there were more than 1,000 people, and it was not difficult to prepare, and Rong Lu responded to the requirements of the People's Army, and supplied a large number of food, horses, and vehicles. So early the next morning, the People's Army and his entourage, together with Prince Qing and Li Jingfang, left Xi'an and embarked on the return journey.

[Volume 1 Gengzi Country Transformation Volume] ends