In a courier letter sent to Premier Yamen on the same day, Li Hongzhang wrote: "In the past, when dealing with foreign affairs, all of them were mistaken by the indecision of the two sides of peace and war. The pen %fun %Pavilion www.biquge.info disdainful view is clearly a tie, and the yin is a war readiness, and the peace bureau can be quick and long-lasting. The foreigner's argument is unreasonable, he presses each other with troops, and I want to win with my pen and tongue, this must not be counted. ”

To put it bluntly, Li Hongzhang just didn't want to fight this war, and he sent troops to Taiwan just so that he could "make a quick peace."

After dinner that day, when drinking tea, Li Hongzhang said to Xue Fucheng and Li Shuchang's staff: "The old man really underestimated the island country of Japan before. He invaded Taiwan this time and will definitely want to swallow our entire territory in the future. China and the island country are separated by a strip of water, and they can be reached by board, and the harm is really greater than that of Western countries. In order to keep things safe, we must strengthen our coastal defenses and set up a fleet of sailors comparable to those of the Western countries. Otherwise, how can you suppress Xuan Yuemeng's Chinese army? ”

All the staff members nodded yes.

However, Li Hongzhang's suggestion to transfer the 22nd Battalion of the Shaanxi Defense Wu Yiming Army to Jining and Xuzhou was resolutely opposed by Zuo Zongtang, the governor of Shaanxi and Gansu.

Zuo Zongtang scolded Li Hongzhang for not understanding military affairs, and on the other hand, he urgently went to the imperial court, imploring that this proposal be dismissed and that troops be transferred from other provinces to deploy defenses.

When Zuo Zongtang's excerpt entered the Beijing Division, President Meng had already withdrawn his troops to Taipei.

The Japanese actually had the face to ask the Qing army for money, and proposed that they could withdraw their troops from Taiwan, on the condition that the Qing State should pay 500,000 taels of bereavement money to Japan.

When Prince Gong saw that the Japanese lion opened his mouth, he did not dare to make his own assertions, so he had to make the Japanese request clear to the Empress Dowager Cixi.

The Empress Dowager Cixi immediately asked Prince Gong to send a quick letter to Li Hongzhang to ask for Li Hongzhang's opinion.

Li Hongzhang is inexplicable, the Qing army in Taiwan at this time has reached 50,000 people!

This is most of the Jiangnan mobile troops that the Qing army can mobilize, and there are tens of thousands of them are new-style firearms troops, not to mention that it is not a problem to defeat the Japanese, even to fight against Xuan Yuemeng, but Li Hongzhang's reply to Cixi's excerpt is very tactful, on the one hand, emphasizing that the military strength of the Qing Dynasty in Taiwan is sufficient, and on the other hand, he does not dare to discuss the government and politics.

Cixi understood what Li Hongzhang meant, and frowned, "The most cunning thing is this Li Hongzhang, if he doesn't see the ending, he won't say the countermeasures, if the ending comes out, what do you want him to do?" Forget it, tell the Japanese that if they don't withdraw their troops from Taiwan unconditionally, they will be exterminated! ”

Jie Gege couldn't help but say: "Huang Eniang, the Japanese are so shameless, they have been besieged by us in Checheng, and they dare to ask for compensation of 500,000 taels of silver?" Let's just kill them. ”

The Empress Dowager Cixi sighed, "Forget it, if the Japanese are willing to withdraw, this time, we will definitely not be able to compensate the silver, but the Japanese can't be offended too ruthlessly, otherwise, there will be no end to Taiwan's affairs." ”

Jiegege began to dislike the foreign policy of the Qing Dynasty from the heart, and he was already in control, so he still had to keep his voice down like this?

In the past, Jie Gege didn't live by Xuan Yuemeng's side for a while, and she didn't think that now that she came back, she couldn't get used to the policies of the Qing court everywhere, not only was she corrupt and backward internally, but she was also too weak and powerless externally.

But Jie Gege was not used to contradicting the Empress Dowager, and when he saw the Empress Dowager Cixi say this, he bit his lower lip lightly and retracted what he wanted to say.

The Empress Dowager Cixi looked at Jiegege, naturally knew what she wanted to say, and sighed secretly, feeling that Jiegege was also damaged by Xuan Yuemeng.

As soon as the news of the peace talks between the Qing court and the Japanese came out, the whole country was shaken.

Of course, this is all due to the credit of the Huaguo Bureau of Statistics, and the Huacui Evening News took the lead in revealing that the Qing court and the Japanese were in peace talks, and also disclosed the deployment of troops in Taiwan by the Japanese and the Qing countries.

At the same time, it was also disclosed that the Chinese army had annihilated the Japanese fleet.

This time, it was not the whole country that condemned President Meng, but the whole country expressed strong disgust at this cowardly style of the Qing court, and the rebellion of the whole society suddenly rose.

Everyone began to think about the question, why did the Chinese army rise up so quickly? Why did the Chinese army not have an advantage in strength and also dared to fight the British, French, and Japanese, while the Qing army had more than 30 times the superior strength, but it wanted to let go of the Japanese army that invaded Taiwan?

Although there was no large-scale movement like that of later generations, public opinion among the people was still very violent, and the Qing court was powerless to suppress it, because it was not one or two ordinary people who said so.

The role played by Huacui Evening News in this is not comparable to Prince Gong, Yixun, Zhilin, Jingduo, those people who don't deal with Xuan Yuemeng, how can you send a house slave to walk and be dissatisfied with the newspaper?

Huacui Evening News can not only publish news, but also welcome readers to write articles in the newspaper, which can be used under a pen name and also have a manuscript fee.

In addition to the wide distribution area of the Huacui Evening News, the circulation is so large that it is many times more than all other newspapers combined, accounting for more than 90 percent of the sales.

Okubo and Yanagihara Maekomitsu saw that Xuan Yuemeng's Huacui Evening News had already disclosed the situation in Taiwan as it was, and seeing that the opposition from top to bottom of the entire Qing Dynasty was getting louder and louder, they knew that it would definitely not be possible to blackmail the money again, and promised to withdraw the troops unconditionally.

At the same time, President Meng asked Huacui Evening News to expand public opinion in the Qing Dynasty, taking the opportunity to publicize Huaguo, on the other hand, to publicize the founding history of Huaguo, and on the other hand, to vigorously publicize President Meng.

President Meng is only four years old, and he can already autobiography.

President Moe's first autobiography came out at the same time.

China can't lose! China wants to be self-reliant! 》

This book stung Cixi deeply.

It was much more powerful than the pamphlets of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, because the citizens of the Qing Kingdom who had not been in contact with the Guangdong and Danzhou regions began to try to understand what was going on in China, and this fundamentally began to shake the rule of the Qing court.

The rich areas of the entire Qing Dynasty, because of the high literacy rate and the large number of people waiting for enlightenment, this patriotic sentiment broke out again, this time, President Meng is not a demon boy, an idol, a god, and a god of China, everyone seems to see a road to the rise of China!

The entire Qing Dynasty was boiling, and Taiwan was even more so.

Because President Meng himself is in Taiwan, although the transportation in this era is almost zero, however, the whole of Taipei has set off a vigorous movement to exterminate the Japanese.

This time, President Meng is not only a hero of the Qing Dynasty, but also a hero of Taiwan.

Liu Yuqing secretly glanced at President Meng, originally she was very repulsive to President Meng.

President Meng also glanced at Liu Yuqing and said with a smile: "You don't have to be here, you are not my secretary, if you feel uncomfortable here, you can go back to Liu Chaozong, right?" (To be continued.) )