Xiao Letian is a person who refuses to suffer, especially in the face of all forces in the court, he will not give an inch. Because Xiao Letian knows that it is enough to summarize the political situation in the late Qing Dynasty in four words, that is, 'bullying the soft and fearing the hard'.

Yes, this is a dynasty that is strong from the outside and capable in the middle, and its own dynasty has already seen the sunset, and the domestic land annexation has been strict to the point of forcing out a peasant uprising, coupled with the strong infiltration of Western forces, which made the crisis of the entire Manchu Qing even worse.

This is a major change unseen in 3,000 years, which is more complicated than the previous periods of the late Ming Dynasty, the Yuan Dynasty, the Song Dynasty and even the Tang Dynasty. At that time, the world was in turmoil, at least some readers could still understand the general trend of the revolution, and the Chinese could at least launch a new dynasty and end the war by playing on their own behind closed doors.

But now it can't be done, the sea routes have closely linked human beings together, and China's national fortunes are disturbed by the outside world all the time, not to mention that the Manchus can't understand this kind of chaos, and even the Han Confucians are dizzy.

At this time, the imperial court was a bit like a mad dog that was driven to a dead end, and it looked at the countless people with shovels and bricks on the opposite side who wanted to shoot it, and it was afraid and furious.

It had to grin at everyone, but the fear inside it was too great for anyone to imagine. The most direct example is Cixi's Declaration of War on All Nations.

A country declares war on the whole world, on all countries on the whole earth, you can imagine how desperate this mad dog is driven to a dead end, and this declaration of war is the cause of the Eight-Nation Alliance's entry into Beijing in the year of Gengzi.

Why madness?

Xiao Letian just grasped the pulse of the Manchu Qing Dynasty, he knew what these high-ranking nobles were thinking, it was nothing more than messing around, trying not to catch up with the sky and the earth in his lifetime, so that he could sleep in the chosen blessed land at the end of his life, as for what happened to his children and grandchildren, they didn't have time to care.

Do you want to eat a bowl of Ansheng rice? I, Xiao Letian, are still going to lift the table, and I'm going to jump on my feet and be tough, and I won't give you face today.

Yes, Lao Tzu, I admit that the 200 new army is in Tanggu, so you can kill it...

That's right, Lao Tzu, I also admit that Sun Sanhu was about to be hung into bacon in the dungeon, and the Manchu spies on the ground in Tanggu were crammed into cells.

Now I will admit whatever you say in the court, it's a big deal that I, Xiao Letian, shouted in front of the whole world that I want to rebel, I am a rebel, and if there is a kind of you, you will transfer troops to suppress me.

If there are fewer soldiers, it is not enough, if there are more soldiers, you will wait for the world to shake, and the brothers of Zeng Guofan are still waiting for this opportunity.

The six-hundred-mile expedited fast horse sent the secret letter of Qing Sanye and Fu Hui, as well as Xiao Letian's chain of evidence, to the Forbidden City in just one day, and when the queen mother and princes saw such an old pile of secret documents, they were all dumbfounded.

"Pigs and dogs, are these all pigs and dogs? How did the royal family raise this kind of waste? Even if they mobilized troops to suppress it without permission, why couldn't they even escape for their lives in the end? Shengsheng asked Xiao Letian to seize the secret decree and waist card, and even the confession was tried......

At this time, Cixi still had the demeanor of a mother, and her face turned white. Ci'an, who was sitting next to her, was also stunned, she didn't expect Xiao Letian to deal with the court like this, and he was so tough, was he really not afraid of the Qing army?

Prince Gong rubbed his temples and said to the little emperor, "Forget it, there is no other way, only to suppress it, his soldiers are not many, only more than 200 people, let the Maile of Tianjin send out the Eight Banners, I don't believe that 3,000 cavalry will be brought out, and even 200 can't be eaten......"

Ci'an trembled and put down the tea bowl with his hands: "Three thousand... Isn't it a bit too much, our court still has to be face-saving, all parties are looking at it, and the foreigners are also staring at it, if there are too many troops, it won't look good if things make a big fuss..."

Ci'an talks about face, but what everyone thinks about is the foundation of the Qing Dynasty and the foundation of governance. Last year, the long hair was just pacified, and this year, the twist army is about to be pacified, and it is the time for all the people to celebrate. If you force a great master of Western studies against you at this time......

Forget it, everyone really doesn't dare to think about it, now even where there is a riot in Xinjiang, the imperial court is pressing it coldly, for fear of giving Zeng Guofan a little excuse. The 500,000 Hunan troops are terrible, they are a knife in the heart of the imperial court.

"If you want to suppress it, then you must make small movements, don't send too many troops, and don't make a fuss that the whole country knows, and do it secretly...... In fact, it is best to let the Protector Ancestor take action and destroy Xiao Letian...... "Cixi is finally a little calm now.

But at this time, the little emperor spoke, "No, I think you missed a very important point...... That Xiao Letian's real reliance should be the sea..."

Everyone in the palace couldn't believe their ears, the nine-year-old Emperor Tongzhi actually began to discuss politics, and he opened his mouth to accuse the queen mother and Uncle Wang. But no one dared to refute him, because the truth he said was the key point that you had overlooked.

"That Xiao Letian was born as a foreign devil, and now he is doing business at sea, and this kind of person must have a lot of sea vessels. What if we send troops to clear the situation, and he knows the rumors, what if he goes to sea by boat? He has 200 new troops, and if he kills indiscriminately along the coastline of the Qing Dynasty...... Quick, hurry up the globe..."

Tongzhi walked around the dragon chair and walked around the hall with a nervous face, and after a while, the globe was carried over.

"Eniang, Uncle Wang...... You see, Xiao Letian's new army is a pure Western army with one enemy and ten enemies, if he goes around like this along the coastline......"

The small fingers turned into an arc along the edge of the land on the map, "Yingkou, Huludao, Shanhaiguan, Tanggu, Dengzhou, Yantai, Qingdao...... "Emperor Tongzhi's little face was full of small beads of sweat, and the names of the coastal cities on the map were said again.

"Further south, Ningbo, Shanghai, Fuzhou, Quanzhou, Qiongzhou...... If Xiao Letian was determined to confront the imperial court, he would only need to take his army around the coastline in such a big circle, killing people everywhere and setting fire to them, just like the Japanese in the past and the current Xiyi...... That's a big event that shocked the world..."

Hiss...... The leaders of the Manchu Qing Dynasty gasped one by one, the little emperor's prophecy may not come true, and this foreign devil's familiarity with the sea is unmatched by anyone in the court.

Yi stammered when he spoke, "Ru...... If this is the case, let's not talk about disarmament, Zeng Guofan's Hunan army will have to rush to the first line of the coast, he ...... He will definitely expand the army, he will expand the army to one million, and he will say that he will defend the country for the Qing Dynasty, but he just wants to confine us all......"

"What a poisonous desperate plan... Huang'er, who is suing you? Is it Ermao ......?" Cixi asked nervously.

Tongzhi shook his head, "No, Ermao didn't say anything, I realized these things from Western studies." You haven't heard Ermao talk about it, Xiao Letian has too deep an understanding of the ocean, and no one in our court can compare to him, so I just learned a little casually......"

The little emperor said that there was nothing wrong, Cixi and they couldn't think of this because they had received a mainland education since they were children, and there was a blind spot in their thinking, that is, the blind spot of the ocean. So they couldn't figure out Xiao Letian's methods. And Tongzhi is a nine-year-old child, and he is interested in Western studies, so he really guessed Xiao Letian's plan in a flash of inspiration.

Cixi looked at her son with satisfaction, the more she looked at it, the more she loved it, and finally even gently stroked her son's shoulder, it was the first time she found that her son was already a little manly. It seems that I should be a little more relaxed with my son in the future, and my past as a mother is really a little too strict.

Thinking of this, Cixi nodded and pandered, "The emperor's analysis is good, so we should assassinate him?"

Emperor Tongzhi felt his mother's encouragement, his little face turned red, and then he said, "The assassination is actually not very clever, first of all, whether the assassination can be successful or not, first put it aside, even if it is really successful, how can Xiao Letian's mind not prepare for the future? I am afraid that if he dies, his brother will be even crazier, and then things will be even more troublesome......"

"Yes, yes, the emperor is really big..."Ci'an also smiled with satisfaction, "In the end, none of us here really understand Xiao Letian, if you want to deal with this kind of person, you still have to be careful and careful......"

At this time, Yi frowned and said, "Will it ...... Could it be that this second devil is a person from Zeng Guofan? Everything he did was to pave the way for the Zeng family? This would also explain why in the summer, the Ninth Marshal Zeng Guoquan would use his own guards and cavalry to support Xiao Letian......"

If this speculation is true, it proves that Zeng Guofan will never be disarmed, and his 500,000 troops will gradually evolve into his private army.

"Zhao Kuangyin and Chen Qiao's mutiny is really not far away......"

"Probably not, this incident, the cause is still because of Sun Sanhu's unauthorized actions, otherwise with Xiao Letian's private soldiers of hundreds of people, he would not dare to take the initiative to scare him to death. Besides, the imperial court didn't treat him badly before, Fu Hui may have given it to him, the special industrial zone also let him be Mr. Zhang, and he also accepted the woman of the Teaching Workshop Division, what else do you want?"

"I just hate, these idiots and stupid people who messed things up, and forced him back all their lives......" Ci Anxin was not so pessimistic, although she couldn't say anything, but she always felt that Xiao Letian and Zeng Guofan were not the same kind of people.

It took more than two full hours for the Manchu high-level to unify their opinions, and the result was so funny, it turned out to be a cold treatment. When Ermao secretly sent the information to Xiao Letian, Xiao Letian was angry.

"What kind of thing is this? Cold treatment, that is, the head is in the sand pile, pretending that it didn't happen? The green battalion soldiers are all dead in vain? Sun Sanhu also threw it to me and let me play casually? I don't want to kill these 200 soldiers?"

"Damn, what kind of court is this, what kind of government, when something happens, it will stay in the middle and not make a fuss, just know how to hide. I'm afraid that your wishful thinking is not good......" R405