The city of Beijing has a clear sky and a sunny day, but the hearts of the Manchu rulers in the Forbidden City, such as the Empress Dowager of the Two Palaces and the Sixth Devil, are full of haze, a haze that is so thick and heavy that they feel suffocated. Pen @ fun @ pavilion wWw. ｂｉｑUｇE。 ｉｎｆｏ

When it was decided to launch the Qixiang coup, the heads of the coup group such as Ci'an, Cixi and Devil Six were also worried that Su Shun's sworn friend Wu Chaoyue would make waves, and they also made certain arrangements and psychological preparations for this, but Ci'an, Cixi and Devil Six and others never expected that Wu Chaoyue's reaction would be so violent, that he would act so quickly, and that he would be so ruthless!

In less than a month, Hubei and Hunan raised the banner of the Qing monarch almost at the same time, and then Shanghai followed closely behind and shouted the shameless slogan of the Qing monarch's side of the Jingzhou Dynasty, Jingzhou Mancheng was actually slaughtered, the Jiangxi provincial city of Nanchang was surrounded by the Wu army, the first Qing army that went south to quell the rebellion was pumped all over the ground by the scum of the Eight Banners Shu Bao to find teeth, not to mention, the Wu army also took advantage of the situation to counterattack the hinterland of Nanyang, seize Xinye and Nanyang Fucheng, and force the four counties of Tang County, Neixiang, Dengzhou and Yuzhou.

After receiving the bad news that Youfeng led the Chengdu Mancheng Banner people to surrender to the Wu army in Sichuan, Ci'an, Cixi and Guizi Liu and others were about to collapse, because this not only meant that Wu Chaoyue, a traitor, had obtained a large rear with rich money and food, but also basically cut off the connection between Yunnan and Guizhou provinces and the Central Plains, and it was only a matter of time before Yunnan and Guizhou provinces fell into the clutches of Wu Chaoyue. So in the blink of an eye, Wu Chaoyue had actually chopped the southwestern part of the Manchu court off the map.

The heads of the coup clique, such as Ci'an, Cixi, Guiziliu and Seng Greenqin, were all frantically cursing the incompetence of Chong'en, the governor of Hunan, and ruined the best opportunity to eliminate Wu's hidden danger in advance; even more viciously cursed Wu Chaoyue's shameless viciousness, insidious and despicable, obviously he wanted to rebel, but he also wanted to play some shameless banner on the side of the Qing monarch to blame others - Wu Jun moved so quickly, and the action of grabbing land and choking his throat was so steady and ruthless, even a blind man could see that Wu Chaoyue had actually held back this bad a long time ago, and he had already made many preparations for this day.

Scolding and scolding, Ci'an, Cixi and Devil Six and others are all rational people, knowing that no matter how much they curse, they will not let Wu Chaoyue lose a single hair, so after forcing themselves to calm down, Ci'an and Cixi immediately issued an order to summon everyone from the Military Aircraft Department and hold a meeting in Cining Palace to discuss how to deal with Wu Chao, the biggest traitor and white-eyed wolf since the founding of the Qing Dynasty.

"Don't worry, the two queen mothers, Wu surpasses the dog barbarian clown jumping off the beam, and he can be destroyed with a snap of his fingers! Weichen monk Greenqin asked to lead an army south, and he would inevitably smash the thief city of Wuchang, annihilate the Wu rebel thief army, and capture Wu Chaoyue rebel thief in front of the emperor! ”

The meeting began as usual in the monk prince's words, and this time the monk and the prince blew more fiercely and fiercely - because the monk knew very well that the Manchu court was now unable to draw the army to hand over the army to him to go south to quell the rebellion, and it was difficult to get the military salary and grain and grass for him to lead the army to travel thousands of miles, so the monk believed that no matter how much he blew it, the beauty of leading the army to pacify Wu Chaoyue's rebellion would definitely not fall on him.

Sure enough, Devil Six opened his mouth a little impatiently, and said: "Although the monk's heart to quell the rebellion and serve the country is commendable, but now the army in Shandong must first guard against Changmao, and can no longer be easily mobilized. ”

"The sixth prince is right, this king was indignant for a while, but he didn't expect so much." The monk nodded his head, and said very regretfully: "It's a pity that the soldiers and horses under the command of this king must give priority to preventing long hair, otherwise, this king will personally raise troops to the south, and in less than three months, he will definitely cut off the head of Wu Chaoyue dog thief!" ”

No one paid attention to the brazen boasting of the monk and the prince, and Cixi directly put aside the monk and asked the devil six: "Sixth, what has happened to the long hair in Shandong recently?" ”

"Shi Dakai, the long-haired pseudo-winged king, first arrived in Jining, joined forces with the long-haired Jiwen Yuan department, and is currently besieging Yanzhou." Devil Six replied: "It seems that Changmao has learned the lesson of the failure of the last northern expedition, and is ready to seize the important towns along the way first, slowly advance north, and not repeat the mistake of the previous lone army." ”

"The rivers and mountains of the Qing Dynasty." Cixi wailed, and then turned to Ci'an, and said: "Sister, the sixth child recommended Luo Bingzhang, the prefect of Tai'an, to be the governor of Shandong, I think it's very good, Luo Qimen is good at governing the army and caring for the people, familiar with the battlefield, not only did he try to protect the provincial capital of Changsha when he was in Hunan, but also successively built two regimental training teams of the Hunan Army and Chu Yong, and once beat Changmao to the point of not breathing. If my sister also thinks it is appropriate, why don't you let Luo Bingzhang be the governor of Shandong and preside over the war in Shandong? ”

"Of course, there are not many problems with Luo Aiqing's ability and ability, is it ...... change of command on the spot?"

Ci'an hesitated a little, but Cixi, who was very accurate, immediately said: "Although changing commanders in battle is a taboo for soldiers, but changing commanders is also like changing knives, Qingsheng is incompetent, and the governor of Shandong has not been able to pacify the long-haired bandits in Shandong for several years, so it is better to replace Luo Bingzhang, who has experience and lessons, so that the battle situation in Shandong may take a turn." ”

After thinking about it for a long time, considering that the current governor of Shandong, Qingsheng, was indeed mediocre in talent and could not stop Shi Dakai's Northern Expeditionary army, Ci'an finally nodded and agreed to this decision that could not be more correct. At the end, Ci'an sighed and said: "It's a pity that Luo Bingzhang was dragged down and demoted by foreigners, if he was still in the post of governor of Hunan, why did the southwestern provinces of the Qing Dynasty fall quickly?" Wu surpassed the traitor, and how could he be so rampant? ”

The topic returned to Wu Chaoyue, and the atmosphere in Cining Palace was suddenly depressed again, but fortunately, Cixi was also prepared for this, first sighed and echoed Ci'an's opinion, and then said: "The mourning family thinks that it is not possible to pacify Wu's rebels and blindly rely on force, not to mention that the traitor is brave and good at fighting, no one in my Qing court can control ...... for the time being, monk and prince, don't interrupt me, let the mourning family finish." ”

After suppressing the monk and prince who opened his mouth to express his dissatisfaction, Cixi continued: "Wu Shun is not only brave, but also has long colluded with foreigners, and may ask foreigners for help at any time. Therefore, the mourning family felt that if they wanted to exterminate this rebel thief, they could only succeed if they had a plan. ”

"What does my sister think should be used for tricks?" Ci'an asked.

"Defend the outside, attack the inside." Cixi said calmly: "Although the mourning family does not understand military affairs, they also know that in a hurry, it will be difficult for Wu Chaoyue to invade the Beijing division in the north, so he can only give priority to the interior and stabilize the rear. Therefore, for a while, we should not need to worry that this traitor will go north in a big way, as long as we strictly defend in the Henan area and deploy heavy troops along the Yellow River, it is enough to prevent just in case and block the only lone army of Wu thieves going north. ”

"The Queen Mother of the West is clever." The devil six praised: "Although Wu Chaoyue is a traitor with evil intentions, he has long had the intention of rebellion, but after all, he is rebellious and unkind, and he is guilty of rebellion, and the local governments of Huguang, Sichuan and Jiangxi provinces cannot all follow him, and his internal hidden dangers are everywhere, unless he ventures north to make a desperate bet, he can only give priority to eliminating internal hidden dangers and completely controlling the southwestern provinces." So within a year and a half, he would never be able to go north in a big way. ”

Gui Liang, Peng Yunzhang, Bao Jun and others nodded one after another, and they all thought that unless Wu Chaoyue followed Zhu Di's desperate and direct Northern Expedition, he could only give priority to thoroughly digesting the southwest territory internally, so although the current situation of the Manchu court seemed critical, in fact, for a considerable period of time, Wu Chaoyue was able to pose a great threat to the northern rule of the Manchu court, and the Manchu court still had plenty of time to actively prepare for war and attack Wu Chaoyue's internal attack.

After pointing out the current threat to the Manchu court, Cixi continued: "Since Wu Chao cannot go north for a while, then we will have time to divide his henchmen and accomplices, so that the internal strife will be destroyed. The mourning family proposed that the imperial court might as well issue an edict to publicly canonize Xu Youcheng as the governor of Hunan, Hu Zhonghe as the governor of Sichuan, Li Qinggu as the governor of Huguang, Lu Shenhui as the governor of Hubei, and Liu Xunzhi as the envoy of Jiangsu, declaring that they were forced to be thieves, and that all crimes would not be investigated, and calling on them to cut off Wu Chaoyue, Zhou Tenghu, Feng Sanbao, Yang Wending, Zhou Tenghu and other traitors to return anyway and get a higher reward. ”

Before Cixi's words were finished, there was already a big uproar in Cining Palace, and Ci'an asked directly: "Sister, what nonsense are you talking about?" How could these rebels accept our canonization? How can it be possible to cut off the thieves of Wu for us? ”

"Sister, I don't want them to kill Wu Chaoyue, I want Wu Chaoyue to kill them."

Cixi sneered and said: "These traitors are not Wu Chaoyue's cronies, but they are forced to rebel because of the huge power of the thieves. Seeing our edict, Wu rebel dog thieves will inevitably worry that they will covet our reward and suddenly attack, at least to strengthen surveillance, or to go to official positions and take office, forcing them to hand over their power, and even kill them to prevent future troubles. ”

Speaking of this, Cixi smiled slightly, and said: "But no matter what choice Wu rebels and thieves make, he will inevitably be suspicious of each other and give birth to rifts, and it will definitely be much easier for the imperial court to privately instigate Wu rebels' henchmen and lackeys to surrender anyway!" ”

Ci'an was thoughtful, and then asked, "In that case, why don't you secretly canonize Xu Youren and the others?" Let them find an opportunity to cut off the traitors of Wu Rebellion? ”

"Private canonization doesn't have such a good effect." Cixi shook her head and said with a smile: "First, those rebels don't have the ability to get rid of Wu Rebel Dog Thief and Wu Chaoyue's several important accomplices and thieves, and it will be useless to promise them more benefits in private. Second, canonized in private, those rebels can choose to hide and not report, or they can choose to dedicate the court envoy to Wu rebel dog thieves to prove their hearts, so that our discord is counterproductive. ”

"The younger brother agrees with the Queen Mother's clever plan." Devil Six first came to his senses and said loudly: "The public canonization of those few local officials who were forced to rebel can not only tell them the attitude of the imperial court towards them and the bitterness of understanding, but also let the Wu rebel dog thieves know that the imperial court is doing its best to save them, forcing the Wu rebel dog thieves to strengthen their prevention and monitoring, and at the same time show the magnanimity of the Qing court, so that other rebel officials can see that there is hope anyway, killing three birds with one stone!" It doesn't take a single soldier to make the Wu thief centrifuge up and down, this plan is wonderful! ”

Seeing that the six devils said this, Ci'an also nodded and agreed to Cixi's proposal. Although Peng Yunzhang, Wen Xiang and others felt that Cixi's hand was a little too small and humble, and it hurt the dignity of the edict of the Manchu Qing court, but considering that this kind of yin trick was indeed the right symptom, they did not object, and agreed with the intention that it would be a shame for the queen mother of your two palaces anyway.

Before the matter was over, Cixi said: "In addition to doing our best to divide the Wu rebel army, there are two other major things that we must do our best to do. The first thing is the foreigners, and strive to let the foreigners help us deal with the Wu Reverse Dog Thief, of course, it is best to invite the Foreigner to send troops directly, and if it is not good, the foreigner will cut off the foreign guns and foreign artillery ...... of the Wu Reverse Dog Thief. Monk and prince, don't you stop mourning? Let the mourners finish talking! ”

After drinking back the monk and prince who jumped out to oppose it again, Cixi said: "The mourning family knows that Wu Reverse dog thief hooks up with foreigners very tightly, and it is not so easy to win over foreigners. But it doesn't matter, foreigners are greedy for money, Wu rebels and dog thieves give them 10,000 taels of silver, and we can give foreigners 20,000 taels of silver! As long as the foreigners help us and don't help the Wu reverse dog thief, we can negotiate the price with them! If this thing is done, we will be equivalent to cutting off one of Wu Rebel's dog thief's arms, and we will also have one more hand to help exterminate Wu Rebel's dog thief! ”

When everyone nodded, Devil Six also said excitedly: "The emperor's sister-in-law is extremely true!" The foreigners of Britain, the United States and France may not be very sure, but we will definitely be able to pull Russia over! The Russian Minister Mr. Ignatiev has always been very dissatisfied with this, as long as we take advantage of the benefits, we will definitely be able to pull the Russians over! ”

"We can't just win over one Russia, but also Britain, France, and the United States, and we must do our best to pull them over!" Cixi said in a deep voice: "Especially Britain! The mourning family heard that the most powerful foreigners in this country are not only strong, but also beat Russia down in Keheya, if the British foreigners stand on the side of Wu Reverse dog thief, maybe it will be useless for us to pull the Russian foreigners over! ”

Devil Ziliu nodded, knelt down again and said: "The two queen mothers, the minister has a bold request, although this matter has lost some dignity of the court, but in order to quell the rebellion, the minister still asked the two queen mothers to give permission, and took the initiative to send an envoy to Hong Kong to discuss with the British Far East Governor Bao Ling, and discuss with him the important matter of borrowing troops to crusade against Wu Chaoyue's rebels. If this matter is successful, it will be easy for the imperial court to suppress the rebellion of Wu Rebellion! ”

After discussing a few words with Cixi in a low voice, Ci'an said: "This is not a shame, although our Qing Dynasty is the upper kingdom of the Celestial Empire, there are also precedents of sending officials to envoy foreign vassals, and taking the initiative to send envoys to contact Yingyi is not much different from sending envoys to foreign vassals." Sixth, this matter will be left to you, draw up a charter as soon as possible, and arrange for a member of the imperial court to go to Hong Kong to contact Yingyi to borrow troops. ”

The devil kowtowed happily and got up, and then asked Cixi: "Empress Dowager Xi, you just said that there are two major things, the first is to borrow troops from foreigners, and the second is what?" ”

"The second piece, of course, is long hair." Cixi said slowly: "Ladies and gentlemen, if you can come up with a way to make Wu Rebellion and the long-haired rebel turn their faces and start a war as soon as possible, and fight an endless fight, it will not only be easier to exterminate the Wu Rebel dog thief, but it will also be easier to take the sheep to exterminate the long-haired one." ”

Everyone present opened their mouths, but Cixi sneered and said, "What's so surprising about this? The mourning family knows that Changmao and Wu Rebel Dog Thief have been in open contact and are negotiating an alliance, but what does it matter? Wu Reverse Dog Thief is located in the upper reaches of the Yangtze River, always threatening the safety of Jiangning City, the pseudo-capital of Long Hair, and Long Hair is also tightly choking the lower reaches of the Yangtze River, and can cut off the connection between Wu Reverse Dog Thief and Shanghai Thief at any time, and they will not really rest assured of each other, and there is a lot of killing hatred between each other, try to make them turn against each other, and fight each other to the death, is there no hope? ”

After a while, the devil said in a hesitant manner: "Although the Queen Mother's words are reasonable, but Wu Chaoyue and Yang Xiuqing, the two traitors, are treacherous and extraordinary, and they must understand the truth that the snipe and the clam compete and the fisherman profits, and if they want to provoke them to turn against each other again and turn their faces to war, I am afraid it will not be so easy." ”

"These two dog thieves are treacherous, it doesn't mean that their subordinates understand this truth." Cixi snorted coldly, and after only a little thought, Cixi said: "By the way, the mourning family remembers, didn't Wu Chaoyue kill Wei Changhui, the long-haired puppet king of the north, in Jiangning before?" The mourning family still remembered that Wu Chaoyue's previous report said that Wei Changhui's own brother Wei Jun is currently stationed in Hukou, and immediately arranged for the mourning family to carefully investigate this Wei Jun, and try to get in touch with him. ”

The devil six and the others agreed to the promise, and discussed it with Ci'an, Cixi and others, and soon finalized three plans to deal with Wu Chaoyue. The first is to strategically defend the Yellow River, build a defense line on the Yellow River to prevent Wu Chaoyue from going north, and also order the three provinces of Yunnan, Guizhou and Guangxi to resist Wu Chaoyue's attack with all their might, and do their best to hold Wu Chaoyue's hind legs. The second is to divide and divide the Wu army, praise and promote local officials in Huguang and Sichuan who have not yet officially surrendered to Wu Chaoyue, and encourage them to resist Wu Chaoyue to the end.

The third plan is to provoke the Taiping army and the Wu army to go to war again, because the Manchu court blindly shouted and killed the Taiping army and had no contact, the implementation of this plan is of course extraordinarily difficult, so the devil six and others can only pin their hopes on buying the general of the Taiping army, and also list Wei Jun, who has a grudge against Wu Chaoyue, as the target of priority.

During the discussion, Cixi once again inadvertently mentioned that Wei Jun's troops were currently stationed at Hukou and could clash with Wu's army at any time. As a result, the speaker was unintentional, the listener was intentional, Peng Yunzhang, who had read history books, suddenly moved in his heart, and couldn't help but say, "If ......." ”

"Peng Aiqing, what if?" Cixi, who was very thoughtful, noticed Peng Yunzhang's abnormality.

"The minister didn't dare to say it." Peng Yunzhang replied with some fear.

"It's okay, let's hear it, I won't blame you for making a mistake." Cixi urged.

Peng Yunzhang still didn't dare to say it bluntly, so he could only say in a roundabout way: "I don't know if the Empress Dowager of the West still remembers the cause of the Battle of Changping?" King Han ceded Shangdang to Qin, Shangdang was too protective of Feng Ting and was unwilling to surrender to Qin, and dedicated the seventeen cities of Shangdang to Zhao, after Zhao accepted it, Qin was furious, and there was the later Battle of Changping. ”

Although Peng Yunzhang's words were very vague, none of the Manchu court leaders present were not human spirits, and all of them immediately lit up their eyes, and immediately remembered the name of a place - Nanchang, which was being besieged by the Wu army.