Lilac Garden, Shanghai.

Although it is autumn, the climate in Shanghai is mild, so the lilac garden is still full of greenery at this time. Surrounded by lilac and camphor trees, there are two two-story American-style villas. And the insiders know that these two villas were designed by the famous American architect, known as one of the pioneers of modern architecture, Isaiah Rogers.

In a concave villa building in front, in the middle of the living room, there is a set of luxurious American leather sofas, and in the position of the main seat, there is an old man who is over the age of sixties, although the old man's age seems to be past Gu Xi, most of his hair is gray, and his face is wrinkled, but he is still energetic, his eyes are shining, although he is wearing regular clothes, but he has his own majesty.

In front of the old man, two officials dressed in embroidered robes and horse coats, wearing flower feathers, hanging pearls on their chests, full sets of Qing Dynasty official uniforms, and no longer in age, bowed down and saluted, saying: "I have seen Lord Zhongtang." ”

"Zhongtang" is the honorific title of the Qing Dynasty Minister of Military Aircraft, since the establishment of such an institution as the Military Aircraft Department in the Yongzheng period, the Military Aircraft Department gradually replaced the cabinet, became the power center of the Qing Dynasty, and the Minister of Military Aircraft has become the highest position of the Qing Dynasty officials, which can be equated with the Prime Minister. However, the prime minister of the Chun Dynasty should have been on the road of escape with the Empress Dowager Cixi and Emperor Guangxu at this time, and would not appear in Shanghai.

However, throughout the Qing Dynasty, there was a special case, a person has not entered the military aircraft, but can be given the honorific title of "Zhongtang", without the name of the prime minister, but there is the fact of the prime minister, and this person is the former Qing Dynasty Wenyuan Pavilion scholar, Zhili Governor and Beiyang Minister Li Hongzhang. That is, the old man sitting on the sofa, of course, his current official position is not the governor of Zhili and the minister of Beiyang, but the governor of Liangguang. This lilac garden is Li Hongzhang's residence in Shanghai.

At the request of Chunting, Li Hongzhang traveled north from Guangdong to Beijing on 17 July to preside over the situation and handle the contradictions between China and foreign countries. On 21 July, Li Hongzhang arrived in Shanghai, and at the same time received an urgent telegram from his son, Li Jingshu: Tianjin has been lost, Beijing will not be guaranteed, and it is important not to risk going north.

As a matter of fact, when Li Hongzhang set off from Guangdong to the north, he was very exempt, because as early as May and June, Li Hongzhang resolutely opposed the imperial court's reliance on the power of the Boxers to fight foreigners, and repeatedly appealed to the imperial court, warning the imperial court that it must restrain the development of the Boxers and not allow the Boxers to wantonly intensify the contradictions between China and foreign countries.

However, the Qing rulers led by Cixi did not heed Li Hongzhang's advice, and not only allowed the Boxer Rebellion to develop, but also officially called for war on June 21, declared war on the Eight Kingdoms, and ordered the whole country to supervise the generals and lead the army north to King Qin.

At this time, the governors of the southeast were planning to form a [southeast mutual protection] to ensure that the south did not fall into chaos, Li Hongzhang was one of the first important ministers to advocate the southeast mutual protection, and the imperial court ordered all parts of the country to lead the army to the north to Qin Wang's holy decree, and Li Hongzhang took the lead in showing his attitude: this chaos is also fate, and Guangdong will not obey the edict. It also greatly increased the confidence of the governors in the southeast, and finally ignored the holy decree of the imperial court and contributed to the [Southeast Mutual Insurance].

However, after the Qing court declared war on the Eight Kingdoms, the situation deteriorated, and on July 9, Nie Shicheng, the commander of the Zhili Admiral and the former president of the Wuwei Army, was killed in Balitai, and on the same day, Chunting sent a telegram to Li Hongzhang to enter Beijing; on July 14, Tianjin was lost, and Chunting sent another telegram urging Li Hongzhang to go north. Therefore, Li Hongzhang had to leave Guangdong and go north by boat. But at this time, Li Hongzhang also understood that the current situation in Beijing was not something he could preside over. Therefore, he lived in his apartment in Shanghai Lilac Garden and watched the situation change. Although the Qing court later issued repeated edicts, asking Li Hongzhang to go north as soon as possible, Li Hongzhang was still unmoved, pushing left and right, that is, Lai was not leaving, and it dragged on for nearly two months.

The two Qing court officials in front of Li Hongzhang are not ordinary people, one is the current Sichuan political envoy Zhou Fu, who failed to take many exams in his early years, so he joined Rong and became a clerk in the Huai army. He became Li Hongzhang's secretary, assisted Li Hongzhang in setting up foreign affairs for more than 30 years, and made achievements in the establishment of modern enterprises such as the Beiyang Navy, the Military Academy, the Tianjin Telegraph Bureau and the Kaiping Coal Mine, and was the actual operator of the Westernization Movement in the later period.

In the seventh year of Guangxu (1881), Zhou Fu was sponsored by Li Hongzhang and served as the Tianjin Customs Road, and in the ninth year of Guangxu, he also served as the Tianjin Military Preparation Road, and in the fourteenth year of Guangxu (1888), he was promoted to the position of Zhili according to the inspection envoy. After the outbreak of the First Sino-Japanese War, he was appointed by Li Hongzhang as the prime minister of the former enemy battalion office. After the peace was negotiated in Maguan, Zhou Fu asked for dismissal due to his physical illness. In the twenty-fourth year of Guangxu (1898), he was reinstated as the political envoy of Sichuan.

After the Chun court sent an edict to Li Hongzhang to go north, Li Hongzhang immediately thought of his old subordinate, and immediately asked the court to transfer Zhou Fu to the Zhili Domain, and handle Chinese and foreign affairs with him, so the two gathered in Shanghai, and because the situation was unclear, they stayed in Shanghai to wait for the development of the current situation.

The other person is the current Dali Temple Zhengqing Sheng Xuanhuai, this name can be said to be very famous in modern Chinese history, one of the representatives of the Western-style school, a total of 11 "China's modern industry first". Moreover, Sheng Xuanhuai and Li Hongzhang have a closer relationship, his father and Li Hongzhang have Jinlan friends, and it is even rumored that Sheng Xuanhuai recognizes Li Hongzhang as his father-in-law. Most of the industries founded by Sheng Xuanhuai are also related to Li Hongzhang, and it can be said that without Li Hongzhang's support, there would be no Sheng Xuanhuai's achievements.

Under the care of Li Hongzhang, Sheng Xuanhuai's official and commercial roads were all unimpeded, and now he is the official of Dali Temple Zhengqing and the minister of Beiyang Telegraph, and the main industries he handles include the Shanghai Telegraph Bureau and the China Merchants Steamship Company, all of which are rare enterprises that can ensure profits during the Westernization Movement. It is said that at this time his personal assets have reached more than 25 million taels of silver, and the assets of his father-in-law Li Hongzhang are only more than 15 million, of which a considerable part is Sheng Xuanhuai's filial piety.

Not long ago, it was Sheng Xuanhuai who came forward and actively ran around to promote the [Southeast Mutual Insurance], and then Sheng Xuanhuai stayed in Shanghai to wait and see how the situation changed.

Today, the two were invited by Li Hongzhang to come to the Lilac Garden.

Li Hongzhang waved his hand and said, "Yushan (Zhou Fu), Xingsun (Sheng Xuanhuai), you don't have to be polite, sit down." ”

After the two thanked them, they took a seat on the sofa on the left and right, and when the tea was served, Zhou Fu said: "Zhongtang, call me to wait here, I don't know what to see." ”

Li Hongzhang took out two pieces of paper from a stack of books on the coffee table, handed them to the two of them respectively, and said, "You guys take a look at this first." ”

The two of them took the paper in their hands and found that it was two telegrams, the content of the first of which was actually clear to both of them, and it can be said that the whole of Shanghai, and even the whole of China's big cities, already knew it. The contents of this telegram were also published in full in Shanghai. This was the telegram issued by the Crossing Group to the whole country three days ago, the content of which was that the Crossing Group officially appeared in the name of overseas Chinese and returning to China, and demanded that the Eight-Nation Coalition immediately stop fighting and withdraw from China unconditionally, otherwise the Crossing Army would drive them out by force, and so on.

The other telegram was a private message to Li Hongzhang, signed by Zhao Weizhong. Of course, the telegram sent to Li Hongzhang by Zhao Weizhong, who was instructed by the crossing group, first introduced the experience of Zhao Weizhong's acquaintance with the crossing group, as well as the previous battles experienced with the crossing group, and then in the name of Zhao Weizhong, he said that this group of overseas Chinese originally intended to return to China and help the Qing Dynasty resist foreign aggression, and asked Li Hongzhang to send someone to Tianjin to contact the overseas Chinese, and he could be an intermediary, and so on.

After reading these two telegrams, Zhou Fu and Sheng Xuanhuai were also silent for a long time, the first telegram was nothing, but the content of the second telegram was indeed a little amazing, and Li Hongzhang did not urge them, waiting for them to digest.

After a long while, Zhou Fu said: "Zhongtang, who is this Zhao Weizhong, who is this Zhao Weizhong, and he is so humble that he is a little familiar?"

Li Hongzhang said: "After he was in the old department of my Huai Army, he worked as a clerk in the Tianjin Machinery Bureau, and he also worked under you for a few years. ”

Hearing Li Hongzhang's reminder, Zhou Fu immediately remembered, nodded, and said, "It turned out to be him, I didn't expect him to actually meet this group of overseas Chinese." ”

Li Hongzhang said again: "What do you think of these two telegrams?"

Shanghai was the most developed city in China in this era, and it was well informed, and more than ten days ago, some rumors spread to Shanghai, and a group of troops claiming to be overseas Chinese raided Dagukou, wiped out the fleet of the Eight-Nation Alliance, and landed at Dagukou.

At the beginning, Zhou Fu and Sheng Xuanhuai were only half-convinced of these rumors, and most of them did not believe them, because both of them were people who had been engaged in foreign affairs for decades, and they were the most knowledgeable Chinese in this era about the foreign world, but they had never heard that there was a country established by Chinese overseas, and this group of overseas Chinese was going to return to China. Therefore, both of them thought that this might be the remnants of the Boxers again, and as long as the Eight-Nation Coalition in Beijing reacted, the remnants of the Boxers could be wiped out immediately.

However, with the passage of time, a large amount of news spread to Shanghai, and this group of overseas Chinese even captured Tianjin City and Tianjin Concession, and the consuls of various countries in Tianjin also continued to send electricity to Shanghai to inform them of the situation in Tianjin, and the consuls of various countries in Shanghai also kept coming to Li Hongzhang, Zhou Fu, Sheng Xuanhuai and other Qing court officials asked whether this group of overseas Chinese had anything to do with the Qing court, and the two learned that this group of overseas Chinese Jingran was real, and according to the information they received from the consuls of various countries, this group of overseas Chinese Jingran was also a ship-shaped gun, and the weapons they used were definitely not under the Eight-Nation Alliance.

And just three days ago, this group of overseas Chinese officially telegraphed the whole country to announce their arrival, and the two believed that the rumors turned out to be true, of course, it doesn't matter whether they are overseas Chinese or not, but there is indeed a new force involved in this war, which has also added a lot of variables to this war.

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