"The pig's head is ripe and the double fish is fresh, and the bean paste and sweet pine rice bait are round. The man sacrificed his daughter to avoid, and drank and burned the money stove Junxi. The servant fights against the king, and the cat and dog touch the filthy king. Send the king drunk to the gate of heaven, spoon long spoon short do not return to the clouds, begging for the return of the city. ”

Forbidden City, Kunning Palace.

Ritual music, the sound of firecrackers, cigarette smoke, Emperor Guangxu according to the Kangxi Ye cultivated customs, sacrificing to the king of the stove, praying for the Qing Dynasty to be smooth in the coming year, the five grains are abundant.

At this time, listening to the explosion of Yanjing City in the sky outside, the corners of Emperor Guangxu's mouth showed a rare smile.

This vast mountains and rivers are desert.

This is his country.

He is the supreme ruler of the 400 million Li people of the Qing Dynasty, the unique existence of the supreme will!

Now, in the Shanhaiguan defense line, as well as Yongping Mansion and Luanzhou City, nearly 37,000 troops have been gathered.

The 'Dingwu Army' and 'Jinsheng Battalion' in Jinmen have recruited more than 10,000 recruits, plus Luo Rongguang's Dagu garrison, Jinmen City Defense Battalion, and the two battalions of Jintuan Shuiyong trained by Jinmen Dao, the military strength of Jinmen has reached 17,800 people.

Not counting the tens of thousands of Eight Banners forbidden army of Gongwei Jingshi, plus the nearly 30,000 troops of Dong Fuxiang, Cheng Wenbing, and Zhirui.

At this time, in the area of Jinjing, mountains and seas, the Qing Dynasty had gathered more than 85,000 troops, and it was completely possible to teach these Japanese soldiers a hard lesson.

And yet—

Guangxu couldn't help but quietly tilt his head and glanced in the direction of the Summer Palace.

That dead old man entered the garden this morning, and he hasn't come out yet, what this old thing and that old witch want to do, everyone in the Manchu Qing Dynasty knows.

They are going to take my face and let the little Oriental stomp on it to death in front of the whole world!

Especially that old witch, she keeps saying that she is for the 'emperor' and the 'thousand-year-old society of the Qing Dynasty', I really think I don't know what 'kindness' she gets?

Isn't it just that I'm afraid that I will win the battle against Xiao Weiyi and take advantage of the situation to wipe out her group of puppet ministers in the court in one fell swoop, and get rid of her control from now on?

And that old thing, isn't it because I broke up his old bottom because of my skillful skills, so now I want to seek revenge?

Two old things who died early and were born early!

Summer palace.

On today's rare sunny day, Cixi didn't want to stay in a shady room, so she summoned Li Hongzhang in an open mountain col pavilion.

It's quiet inside the col.

The sky was high and cloudless, and there were no clouds, only the faint sound of continuous firecrackers in the distance, and the light smoke of gunpowder slowly blowing in the wind.

Cixi sniffed snuff for a while, sneezed comfortably twice, and the maid on the side served to wipe off the snot, looked at Li Hongzhang and said, "I know you have grievances." ”

"The old minister doesn't dare."

Li Hongzhang looked sincerely frightened.

"It's not that you don't dare to ——, it's not that you don't; I'm not wrong about that, am I? ”

"The old minister doesn't dare to have it, everything the old minister is a gift from the Qing Dynasty and the emperor, and the thunder and rain are all the grace of the king."

"If only you could think so; We're all about to go to the earth to see our ancestors, what are we going to do with this? If you want to earn it, it is just to earn a good future for your children. ”

Li Hongzhang was silent for a while, and his lowered face was trembling and twisting uncontrollably.

His nephew Zhang Shiheng is still in custody in the Liangjiang Yamen, and it was not He Changying who was particular about it before, and his eldest son was still idle in the house.

This time I didn't want to give myself a 'sweet date', and the eldest son would not receive the second rank Jiangsu Cunjidao, and be the assistant of the three cities in the Shanhaiguan Defense Zone.

Moreover, this 'Shanhaiguan Defense Zone' is still the 'Three Cities Outside the Guan', so why not force yourself in disguise, pulling the old face to ask foreigners for peace?

This is the emperor who took advantage of Dongyang to dismantle his Beiyang, put on his official hat, slandered the reputation of himself and his family, and then forced himself to carry the black pot for the emperor and be a traitor.

An Neng is not painful, not angry, not discouraged like death!

"Now—"

Li Hongzhang's voice was very hoarse: "The Japanese have the advantage, I'm afraid they won't agree to negotiate peace." ”

Hearing Li Hongzhang's relent, Cixi's face that had been holding it suddenly brightened, and she said with a smile: "The little Japanese fight this battle, and all they want is silver and the land of Korea; North Korea is just a vassal state of our Qing Dynasty, and it lost Vietnam ten years ago, and now it is not a matter of going to North Korea. ”

The corners of Cixi's eyes moved slightly, and the female official who was standing next to her with her head bowed immediately served a cup of warm ginseng tea and waited for Cixi to take a sip.

"Besides, Tsarist Russia, Britain and the United States, haven't they been spying on North Korea all the time? took this opportunity to throw this hot potato to the Japanese fool, and the foreigners made trouble with it; As for the silver, are we short of silver? In previous years, these small countries always came to face the saint every once in a while, fighting the autumn wind, and now they can be called Huazi. ”

Cixi said lightly, it seemed that at her age, anything that came into the hands of her Lafayette was as easy as relieving the cow.

"You just have to talk, as the so-called sky-high price is repaid on the spot, as long as you can negotiate, nothing matters; Besides, in this world, where are there things that cannot be discussed! ”

Cixi's wrinkled face served tea to the guests.

Dongjiaomin Lane.

British Consulate General in Qingguo.

British Minister Ogg, Consul General of Jinmen Bowsted, Commander of the British Far East Fleet, Vice Admiral Philmantle, Captain of the Cardinal, Colonel Miller Lagres.

U.S. Minister Tian Bei, Consul General of Tianjin Li De, French Minister Shi Allan, Consul General of Tianjin Du Shilan, Russian Minister Casini, and Consul General of Tianjin Wang Hou.

German Minister Schenko, Consul General of Zimmen Sgende, Italian Minister Martina,——

A group of ambassadors from the six Western countries took advantage of the Qing Festival as an excuse to invite the British Minister Ogg, and the ambassadors and wives of the Western countries gathered at the British Embassy in the palace of Prince Yuanchun to talk freely.

The ambassadors and their wives went out to the garden to admire the flowers of the Far Eastern country on a sunny winter day, leaving the hall to the men who were full of words.

"Ladies and gentlemen, it is undeniable that the final victory of the Japanese army is only a matter of time, but any war has a beginning and of course an end; Gentlemen, for the sake of human peace, I believe that the time has come to consider preliminary contacts between the Qing and Japanese sides for this purpose. ”

The British Minister to China, Oggar, said these words with a smile and watched the reactions of the envoys of the other countries.

"For peace in the Far East, this is what our country would like to see even more, but now is the time for the Japanese army to win a great victory, and it is time to go straight to Yanjing, capture the capital of the Qing Dynasty, and capture their emperor; I don't think the Japanese army will easily accept your country's mediation. ”

Russian Minister Cassini, in one sentence, expressed his attitude.

For Tsarist Russia, which has a border of more than 20,000 miles between Qing and Russia, only the fragmented Qing Dynasty is in the best interests of the Tsarist Empire.

This kind of Daqing is the best delicacy under the huge mouth of the empire.

From Xinjiang, Mongolia, and the northeast, the entire border line moved south for an inconspicuous ten kilometers, and the empire could gain 100,000 square kilometers of territory.

Move a hundred kilometers south and you'll get a million square kilometers of territory, which is bigger than the three British Isles!