What is shameful is that Li Hongzhang is also one of the people who scolded Zuo Zongtang, and he scolded very fiercely. Pen & Fun & Pavilion www.biquge.info

The reason why the Westernization Movement did not succeed like the Meiji Restoration was absolutely inseparable from the infighting in the Chinese court, and the Westernists were always just a group of people who converged in ideas, and never really formed a faction.

For example, when Zeng Guofan's family was dominant, Cixi supported Li Hongzhang to fight, and after Zeng Guofan's death, Cixi pushed Zuo Zongtang and supported Zuo Zongtang's siege defense instead of Li Hongzhang's coastal defense policy.

These important ministers are like dolls, just let an old lady play with the applause, don't they know?

They know it, and even enjoy it, because only in this way can they be safe, in short, this is a group of literati who do not intend to fight for the world, but just want to live by the power in their hands.

And the infighting between them, on the one hand, is done for the above, the so-called self-defilement technique. But Cixi can't see it, she can see it too. Zuo Zongtang looked arrogant, and derogatory Zeng Guofan from time to time, but everyone knew how powerful Zeng Guofan was, and scolding Zeng Guofan was just expressing his position. But the problem is that Zuo Zongtang really can't be his own faction with Zeng Guofan, because when he became independent of Zeng Guofan, he Zuo Zongtang already had a group of forces that relied on him.

Therefore, no matter how much Zeng Zuoli and the three of them are divided and united, as long as they each have a group of subordinates, it is impossible for them to twist into a rope, because no one has different interests. This is Cixi's cleverness, she is playing Yangmou. Compared with her husband Xianfeng's period, every time Zeng Guofan won a battle, the emperor was worried, so he began to deduct military salaries, and then let the Taiping army become bigger again, many times, in terms of means, Xianfeng is really inferior to his daughter-in-law.

Li Hongzhang and Zuo Zongtang have been at odds for a long time, and there are many rumors, but the real reason is the conflict of interests. Everyone is engaged in foreign affairs, and the funds are just like that, and if you take more, he will take less. This is the real reason, neither out of personal grudges nor out of differences in philosophy, but the most direct interests. Just as the conflicts between Japan's navy and army are greater than those of other countries in the world, it is because Japan has few resources, and now the infighting between the Westernists may be more fierce than the struggle between the Westernists and the diehards, because of the lack of funds, the wolves will only be extremely vicious and even dare to hunt tigers when they really can't eat enough.

Today's Manchu Qing Dynasty, more difficult than in history, a catastrophe has just passed, the disaster area has to be exempted from money and grain, the current two major sources of wealth, one relies on opium, one relies on customs, but it is still not enough, can only borrow money to survive, in this case, Li Hongzhang and Zuo Zongtang naturally compete more fiercely.

Li Hongzhang said in his book that there are many tribes in the northwest, which does not belong to the Central Plains, and it was only attached to it during the Qianlong period of this dynasty, and it has not been subject to the king for a long time. Now that the United States has just been appeased, the country is scarce, and Xinjiang is abandoned, and there is no injury to the body in the Qing Dynasty, thinking that the current strength of the Qing Dynasty is not as good as focusing on the Western Regions.

Li Hongzhang completely ignored the Han and Tang dynasties, which once controlled the Western Regions, and insisted that Xinjiang was included in the territory after the Qianlong period was leveled and quantified.

Therefore, Li Hongzhang opposed the invasion of Xinjiang, and also suggested that the imperial court stop withdrawing the northwest troops, and order them to "strictly guard the existing borders, and cultivate the land, without rushing to forge ahead."

Li Hongzhang hated to exile his old opponent to the northwest to farm.

As for Xinjiang, he did not say that he would give up completely, but he still wanted to play diplomatic tricks and suggested, "Recruit the Hui chieftains such as Ili, Urumqi, and Kashgar, and allow them to become tribes themselves, such as Miao Yao Tusi of Yunnan and Guizhou, and Feng Zhengshuo of Vietnam and Korea." Li Hongzhang believes that this will not only thwart the desire of Britain and Russia to annex, but also that China will not have to go on an expedition, which is really "the way to endure."

Li Hongzhang intends to allow the various tribes in Xinjiang to be independent and support them to contain each other, as long as these tribes cannot be twisted into a rope, they will not pose a threat to the Qing Dynasty.

With the help of public opinion in the DPRK and China, the idea of cracking down on political opponents is on the one hand, and on the other hand, Li Hongzhang still has to do things and is still willing to build railways.

Tang Tingshu proposed to connect Jiujiang and Hankou, so that Zuo Zongtang could be benefited, and it was impossible not to give Li Hongzhang benefits.

Therefore, after refuting Zuo Zongtang's move to enter Xinjiang as a greedy move, Li Hongzhang began to refute the railway company supported by Zuo Zongtang.

He said in his book that the railway was passed, connecting Haijiang in the east and Qin and Jin in the west, and passing through the customs all the way without stopping fireworks and not paying a penny of gold, resulting in the abolition of the tax system for thousands of miles in the Central Plains, and only now there is an embarrassing place.

Li Hongzhang believes that the Ming Dynasty used disaster relief as an excuse to overhaul the railway, and now that the famine has been resolved, the railroad tracks should be removed and the customs should be restored.

Li Hongzhang's suggestion catered to the ideas of a group of diehards, but unfortunately no one dared to make this decision, dismantling the Ming Dynasty's railway, wouldn't that be a war with the Ming Dynasty.

There was a faction of people who quarreled with Li Hongzhang, and I don't know if these people were arranged by Li Hongzhang, but in the end, the result of the dispute was that Cixi asked Li Hongzhang to negotiate with the Daming Railway Company on behalf of the Prime Minister Yamen, and the railway company would collect the gold on behalf of the railway company.

This is Li Hongzhang's means of doing things, how can he do it, how can he do it straight, he will come straight if he can do things, and if he can't do things straight, he will come around.

After arguing, the court thought that if the Daming Railway Company could agree to help draw the money, it would be a good way to take back the right to the goods, just like letting foreigners supervise the customs, and the Qing Dynasty would not cost an official or a grain, but it could get tens of millions of taels of treasury.

After that, it was only necessary to perform a double reed, and the railway company proposed that it was okay to collect centijin on behalf of it, but it was required to connect Jiujiang with Hankou, otherwise it would greatly affect the collection of centigold.

Li Hongzhang played, and the Empress Dowager Cixi allowed it, isn't it just a railway of three or four hundred miles, and thousands of miles of land in the Central Plains have been repaired, so I don't care about this.

The final result was that Zuo Zongtang was scolded, Li Hongzhang cracked down on political enemies, did things well, achieved benefits, and the railway company got what he wanted.

Tang Tingshu did not stop and immediately started construction, striving to open to traffic within the year and make a profit as soon as possible.

At the same time, a group of Hunan gentry and businessmen, through various channels, met Zeng Guofan, lobbied for the interests of Hunan to build a railway, hoping that Zeng Guofan could write to the imperial court and allow Hunan people to run their own railways.

Zeng Guofan didn't learn the lesson of Zuo Zongtang's scolding at all, and really wrote a letter to ask for the life of the Hunan gentry.

Unexpectedly, Zeng Guofan was not scolded at all this time, because since Li Hongzhang won the right to prepare for the three railways of Jinghan, Beijing-Shanghai, and Chengkun a few years ago, and the Beijing-Shanghai railway had already started construction under the active promotion of the British, then Zeng Guofan's proposal to build a railway in his hometown also had a precedent to follow, Li Hongzhang said at the time that instead of letting the foreigners fight for it, it was better for the Qing Dynasty to build it themselves, and now the Hunan people want to build the railway by themselves, what reason is there to stop it.

Of course, there must be discordant voices, and the old diehards have nothing to do but shake their heads and sigh that the country will not be a country.

Hunan people want to build the railway, this is of course Tang Tingshu promoted, he doesn't care who built the railway in Hunan, the key is that the railway will be connected into the railway network of Daming, then Hunan's rich products will continue to enter Daming, and Daming Railway Company will greatly benefit.

At the same time that Tang Tingshu continued to promote the railway network of railway companies through his influence, Daming's economy continued to grow rapidly, and industrial enterprises were the biggest driving force.

The business opportunities brought by the construction of the railway, so that the heavy industry took the lead in profiting, Hao Kejiu completed the privatization of the arsenal, and now no one can restrain him, and then the business opportunities of the railway, continue to expand production capacity, the pig iron production expanded to a million tons, has been on a par with Schneider, since then the arsenal is no longer just a machinery manufacturing-based industrial enterprise, but also an iron smelting giant, the purpose is to ensure that it continues to maintain a share in the field of railway construction.

It was the desire to continue to profit in the railway industry that gave Tang Tingshu the opportunity.

Tang Tingshu personally visited the door and promised that the railway company would give priority to the purchase of rails and equipment for the arsenal, but the construction of the railway had to continue to ask the arsenal.

The two had a long talk and hit it off, the railway company gave priority to the purchase of railway equipment for the arsenal, and the arsenal continued to fully support the railway construction of the railway company, of course, they were contracting the railway company's project, which was another good business.

The cooperation between Hao Kejiu and Tang Tingshu allowed the railway company's railway construction to proceed smoothly, and soon the Jiujiang to Hankou railway, Guangzhou to Guilin railway construction, Guangzhou to Nanning railway construction, Guangzhou to Shanghai railway construction, four railway lines started construction at the same time, the momentum was immense, Tang Tingshu planned to issue 100 million taels of new shares, but also driven by this good news smoothly sold out.

In addition to the direct railway construction related to the industry profits, the cotton textile industry has also been driven by the development of railway transportation, Dongguan has now become a cotton textile center, which is located in the middle of the Guangzhou-Kowloon railway, one end is connected to Guangzhou, one end is connected to Kowloon, Kowloon is the largest cotton trading center, Guangzhou is the largest cotton textile market, and Dongguan's land price and labor, but much lower than the two places, as a result, the cotton textile industry took root here, and soon swelled.

Although it has not been able to change the consumption ideas of the majority of consumers in the Ming Dynasty, homespun cloth is still everyone's favorite, but the spinning industry has developed by providing raw materials to homespun cloth workshops. In addition, the American coarse cloth production machine introduced by the Ministry of Industry of the Ming Dynasty has also been successfully promoted, squeezing out a considerable part of the homespun cloth market.

Last year, this year, Dongguan's cotton textile industry, from only one or two, instantly appeared more than 10 more, every family made a lot of profits, and attracted dozens of factories under construction, even Tang Tingshu himself, but also because of the operation of the cotton line, Chunjiang plumbing duck prophet, the first to feel the prospect of the cotton spinning industry, invested 500,000 taels in Dongguan, built Xiuhua Yarn Factory, the number of spindles as high as 30,000, instantly became the largest spinning mill in Dongguan, accounting for one-tenth of the number of spindles in the entire industry.

With the prosperity of the cotton yarn industry, a new pillar industry began to be born, but the scale of the new industry in general, and the old pillar enterprise silk reeling industry and tea industry is still far away, Nanfanshun three silk reeling factories are lined up, not counting the handicraft workshop, just the use of power machine production of more than 2,000 factories, but the silk reeling industry began this spring, suddenly encountered trouble, the output was greatly reduced, because the raw material source silkworm cocoon failed one after another.

The plague that originated in Europe finally spread to the Ming Dynasty!