Just when the traversers were preparing for the second Shanghai negotiation in many ways, in Xi'an, an ancient city thousands of miles away from Shanghai, it was also quite uncalm. Bayi Chinese ≈.

At this time, the Qing court had settled in Xi'an for nearly four months, and because of the emergence of overseas Chinese, defeated the Eight-Nation Alliance, so the Qing court basically stabilized in Xi'an, and Xi'an also became the temporary capital of the Qing Dynasty at this time, many officials who fled Beijing, the Manchu and Han clans, also rushed to Xi'an to join the imperial court, so at this time in Xi'an has gathered thousands of officials and their families, plus rushed to Xi'an to come to the Qin Wang escort army, almost this small scale of the ancient city of Xitui is crowded.

Xi'an is the residence of the governor of Ganshan, one of the nine governors of the Qing court, so the palace of the Qing court in Xi'an is located in Shaanxi Province of the governor's yamen, the original north courtyard in the yamen is the governor's residence, and the south courtyard is the governor's residence. However, there were more rooms in the governor's courtyard, so the Empress Dowager Cixi, Emperor Guangxu and the empress, as well as the eunuchs and palace maids who were close to him, lived in the north courtyard together. The Southern Courtyard became a place for officials to deliberate, and the governor of Ganshan, Shengyun, had to find another place to work.

However, the courtyard of the official yamen is dilapidated, overgrown with weeds, and many rooms leak rain. This was originally a common phenomenon in the Ming and Qing dynasties, no matter how local officials looted wealth, but as long as it could still be used, they would never repair the official yamen, so in the Ming and Qing dynasties, the official yamen was in tatters, and those who didn't know thought it was the headquarters of the beggars.

Of course, the old empress dowager and the emperor naturally couldn't live in a dilapidated house, so although the local officials did their best to repair the official yamen, although it still seemed too simple, it could finally shelter from the wind and rain, and the accompanying eunuchs and other palace people, the emperor's relatives and relatives could only requisition the houses in the small alley in front of the yamen to live. On the outer periphery were the troops stationed to defend the palace.

Before the New Year, officials from all over the country also sent various offerings to Xi'an: delicacies from the mountains and seas, chickens, ducks and fish, local products, exotic flowers and fruits, silk and satin, fox and mink skins, gems and jade, handicrafts and antiques, etc., as well as a large amount of silver. On the several avenues leading to Xi'an, almost all of them are wooden wheeled carriages full of goods, which are full of dust, day and night.

This was originally the tax and silver that the provinces and localities paid to the imperial court every year, and it had always been a matter of annoyance to the imperial court before, because in the words of the queen mother, these "unconscionable things" always used various excuses to pay less or late. Now it is not quite the same, the first thing the Qing court did after stabilizing in Xi'an was to send messengers to the provinces to urge silver, and these messengers arrived at the provincial governors' offices, depicting the displacement of the imperial royal family, and few ministers were not distressed, so the matter of handing over the silver this year seemed quite conscious.

With the silver grain, whether it is the emperor, the queen mother, or the princes and ministers, their hearts have also settled down a lot, and the next thing is naturally to discuss how to end the war and return to Beijing. However, just after the New Year, the overseas Chinese defeated the Eight-Nation Coalition and regained Beijing, and after the news reached Xi'an, it was very encouraging, and some officials suggested to the imperial court that they should be celebrated, but the Empress Dowager Cixi refused on the grounds that everything should be simple when the state was in danger.

At this time, Li Hongzhang's return schedule for overseas Chinese, along with a copy of Li Hongzhang's secret recital, was also sent to Xi'an.

There is nothing wrong with the content of the attached list, but it only introduces the origin of overseas Chinese, and expresses their desire to return to China, and asks the Chunting court to take them in, etc., and the words are very respectful. However, Li Hongzhang's secret performance was different, not only once again asked the imperial court to immediately appease the overseas Chinese, but also conveyed the request of the overseas Chinese to the imperial court, they hoped to make the whole of Shandong Province their fiefdom, follow the old affairs of the three feudatories in the early Qing Dynasty, respect the imperial court as Zhengshuo, and the internal affairs of the feudal territory were autonomous.

Because it is a secret performance, there are not many people who have seen it, except for the Empress Dowager Cixi and Emperor Guangxu, there are several ministers of military aircraft and important princely ministers, a total of only 1o people, even the Empress Dowager Cixi's more close trusts Cen Chunxuan, Wu Huai and others are not qualified to know about this matter because their official positions are too low. But despite this, Li Hongzhang's secret edict still shocked those who knew it, and the appetite of overseas Chinese was too great, and if they wanted to make the entire Shandong Province their domain and internal autonomy, wouldn't that be a disguised country within a country?

Since the rebellion of the three feudatories was quelled, the Qing court has never set up vassal autonomy in the main territory, even if each dynasty will have a lot of princes and county kings, but these princes are only fictitious titles, let alone establish themselves as a country like the three feudatories, and they have not even had a fiefdom symbolically. Even in Mongolia, Xinjiang, and Tibet, which were only partially autonomous, the Qing court either set up troops to garrison at important passes, or used marriage to support agents in the local area.

And once the feudal domain is established, then even if you don't have a prince, you have to be a duke, and the Qing court since the three feudatories, the foreign surname minister, from the Han minister, not to mention the feudal domain, even the marquis is not much, even Zeng Guofan, who made immortal contributions to the Qing court, and in the end was just a first-class brave waiter. Although the overseas Chinese are much larger than Zeng Guofan, if they are just a duke, it is not too much, but to set up a vassal autonomy, even if it is not unprecedented, it is also an unthinkable move.

However, after the Empress Dowager Cixi was shocked, she did not express any opinion, but handed it over to the Military Aircraft Department for discussion, and at the same time repeatedly warned the ministers and princes who knew about this matter not to leak it out.

Before the Gengzi Revolution, there were six military ministers in the Qing court, the foreman was Prince Shiduo of Li, the rest were the governor of Zhili, the scholar of Wenyuange, and the secretary of the Ministry of Officials Ronglu, the co-organizer of the university scholar Wang Wenshao, the secretary of the military department and the co-organizer of the university scholar Gangyi, the secretary of the Ministry of Rites Qixiu, and the secretary of the criminal department Zhao Shuqiao. And now the foreman Prince Shiduo is sick and unable to serve the council, and he died resolutely on the way to escape, Qixiu stayed in Beijing and was caught and executed by the Eight-Nation Alliance, and three of the six military ministers were lost at once, and the Prince of Foreman Li was absent.

The prince served as the foreman of the military aircraft department, starting from Prince Gong Yi, Yi is the sixth son of Daoguang, the younger brother of Xianfeng, known as the sixth devil, is a rare capable material in the royal family in the late Qing Dynasty, Daoguang once wanted to establish Yi  as the crown prince. Later, after Xianfeng succeeded to the throne, he used Yi as the Minister of Military Aircraft, one is that Yi Yi is indeed talented, and the other is to use the prince to be in charge of the Military Aircraft Department, which is also reassuring, and since then such a system has been established by the prince as the foreman of the Military Aircraft Department. However, after Yi, most of the princes of the royal family are mediocre people, and Prince Li Shiduo is such a do-nothing person, who can serve as the foreman of the military aircraft, firstly, because of his high qualifications, and secondly, to reassure the Empress Dowager Cixi.

After the Qing court stabilized in Xi'an, because Prince Li said that he was sick and could not serve as a director, Cixi appointed Prince Qing Yixuan as the acting foreman of the military aircraft, and still maintained the rule that the prince would lead the military aircraft, but did not add personnel to the military aircraft department. After all, after escaping to Xi'an, the affairs of the imperial court were reduced by half, and the military aircraft of four people was enough to sustain it.

However, the overseas Chinese asked for the closure of Shandong, such a major matter could not be decided by the Military Aircraft Department, and Lafayette did not give an explicit statement, even Rong Lu, who was most trusted by the Empress Dowager Cixi, could not figure out what Lafayette thought this time, and the Military Aircraft Department naturally had no way to negotiate a result. But it is not a way to drag it out like this, because the return form of overseas Chinese has already been sent to Xi'an, and we have to give an answer anyway. And now the overseas Chinese still occupy Beijing, if the imperial court wants to return to Beijing, it must look at the faces of the overseas Chinese, and the imperial court still has the qualifications to bargain with them, but accept the request of the overseas Chinese, who dares to be this family, so for three days, the military aircraft department did not come up with a result, and in the end, the four military ministers could only request the queen mother and the emperor to make a royal decision.

However, to the surprise of the four ministers of military aircraft, the Empress Dowager Cixi and Emperor Guangxu immediately announced the proceedings, not only recruiting the four ministers of military aircraft, but also Prince Zhuang Zaixun, Duanjun Wang Zaiyi, Shanxi Governor Yuxian, and Shaanxi Governor Duanfang, that is, ministers who knew the requirements of overseas Chinese.

In fact, the current situation Empress Dowager Cixi is clearer than the ministers, after the overseas Chinese have achieved a great victory in Shanhaiguan, if the imperial court wants to preserve, it can only follow the overseas Chinese, although the overseas Chinese have made excessive demands, but over the years, the Qing Dynasty has ceded out how much land, how much silver has been lost, and still care about this, although the overseas Chinese say that they want to secede Shandong, but they still serve the imperial court as the right Shuo, that is, the king and build a domain, which is much better than the land compensation payment, so the request of the overseas Chinese is not that it cannot be agreed.

As for the ancestral system, it is just a tablet that you can take out and use when you need it, and put it up when you don't need it. In fact, if you want to say that it violates the ancestral system, the Empress Dowager Cixi is the first one, and the ancestral system of the Qing Dynasty has never allowed the Empress Dowager to listen to the government, and even the Empress Dowager Xiaozhuang, who is regarded as the queen and the empress dowager of the past dynasties, has never done such a thing. Therefore, the Empress Dowager Cixi never took the ancestral system seriously.

What made the Empress Dowager Cixi hesitate was the attitude of the overseas Chinese towards the imperial court, to be precise, that the overseas Chinese would support the side between the Empress Dowager and the Emperor. It is said that overseas Chinese are foreign forces, and they have nothing to do with the various forces within the Qing court, and they have never expressed that they will support that side between the empress dowager and the emperor, and the Empress Dowager Cixi's worries mainly come from the emperor's attitude.

After the overseas Chinese recovered Tianjin, the Guangxu Emperor actively advocated the immediate pacification of the overseas Chinese, relying on them to compete with the foreigners, before the first Shanghai negotiations, the Guangxu Emperor urged the Chun court to issue a decree to reward the overseas Chinese, and let the imperial court also participate in the negotiations.

This time, the Empress Dowager Cixi couldn't help but have an extra mind, and the emperor's careful thinking certainly couldn't escape the eyes of the Empress Dowager, which was nothing more than wanting to use the power of overseas Chinese to get rid of her own control, and even take power personally. And the Empress Dowager Cixi also knew that the emperor did not want to get rid of his control all the time, and during the period of his escape, he repeatedly asked himself to return to Beijing to negotiate with foreigners, but with his own presence, he didn't want to think about it.

Although the Empress Dowager Cixi despised the emperor's careful thinking very much, the overseas Chinese were not fuel-efficient lamps, and they must have no good intentions when they returned from overseas this time, so the emperor's desire to use the power of overseas Chinese was tantamount to seeking skin with the tiger. When the time comes, don't lose all the wealth of your ancestors, but after all, overseas Chinese are a stone that cannot be bypassed, and the Empress Dowager Cixi has to bother to deal with it.