The snow cleared at first, but the clear sky was fleeting, and soon a thick haze was piling up in the sky, and an even bigger snowstorm was about to come.

This is the city of Beijing, the capital of the Qing Dynasty, if you count from the Ming Dynasty, the city has experienced nearly five hundred years of wind and snow, the city is immovable, but the dynasty has changed two stubbles, the Ming Dynasty has long been submerged in the long river of history, and now the Manchu Dynasty is also trembling in the wind and snow, the ruling foundation on which it depends has long been hollowed out by internal and external troubles, and the trend of collapse is inevitable.

The snow on the street was not thick, but it was very cold, and there were hardly any pedestrians in sight on the street, except for a few Liba who had no business to do sitting on the wonton stall on the street.

An official sedan chair wrapped in white silk turned around from the corner of the street, and the sedan chair bearer was also plain white, with steady steps, ignoring the group of grass people who were shrinking on the side of the street, swaggering onto the royal street, and walking towards the Forbidden City.

"That's the official's sedan chair, right?" A new Liba who came to the capital to beg for a living sucked the snot that hung into his mouth and asked the wonton stall owner about it.

"Official? Joke! Don't you see goose feathers on the guards on the side of the palanquin? It used to be a peacock feather, and the emperor died, so he pulled out the feather. The wonton stall owner snorted quietly. In that sedan chair, he sat the prince of our Great Qing Kingdom! ”

"Which prince? I heard that there are more princes in the capital than in the Yongding River. ”

"That's not clear. It's strange, why didn't this prince bring a guard of honor when he went out on patrol? …… Hey, boy, 'Wang Ba in the Yongding River' is talking about the official master, but you can't say the prince, besides, there are not many princes in the capital, that is, Baylor, Beizi, and the auxiliary generals have a lot of hardcore crops, and they can hit a few bricks. ”

……

The grass people guessed well, the sedan chair sat a prince of the Qing Dynasty, Xiaogong Wang Puwei, inherited the title of the famous "devil six" Lao Gong Wang Yi during the Tongzhi and Guangxu years, according to the generation, he is the nephew of the Daxing Emperor Guangxu, the cousin of the new emperor Xuantong, and has a prominent position in today's court, and is ambitious or ambitious.

"Quick! Fast! What's wrong with not eating? Walk slower than even women with small feet! Xiao Gong Wang sat in the sedan chair, stomping his feet to urge the sedan chair drivers to speed up, and the hand holding the telegram manuscript was shaking, and his face was also cloudy.

The transcription of that telegram is a telegram, the so-called "telegram", is a word invented by foreigners, is the most convenient means of using the telegram to make their ideas public, usually in clear code, but does not indicate the place of receipt, so that every telegram branch that received the telegram can make the content of the telegram public, and the whole world knows what it means. Of course, this kind of novelty is not something that everyone can afford to play, because there is no indication of the newspaper receiving office, so there are several sub-bureaus on the cable telegraph network that receive the telegram, and they have to pay the money for several telegrams, and send a telegram, as little as a few hundred oceans, and as many as tens of thousands of oceans, not that the rich cannot afford to play, and even foreigners rarely use this means of communication, because the foreigners' newspapers are very developed, and it is much more convenient to publish an advertisement than to send a telegram.

The telegram in Pu Wei's hand was not sent by foreigners, but by the Chinese, the location of the telegram was Jiujiang City, the name of the person who sent the telegram was "Zhao Bei", it was an unknown chaotic party, the content of the telegram was not too complicated, but the information in it made people's hearts hairy, because it was an uprising telegram, just last night, Jiujiang City was no longer under the rule of the Great Qing State, moreover, what was even more shocking in the telegram was that the gang of chaotic parties actually elected Yuan Shikai, a member of the imperial court, as their head, to replace the Great Qing Dynasty to rule China"The Great Commander of the Republic of China".

What is called "eventful"? That's it! Some time ago, the Anqing New Army mutinied and captured the provincial wall, and the imperial court hurriedly transferred troops and ships, but it has not yet extinguished this small flame of revolution, and does not want the Jiujiang Rebellion Party to pull the flag and rebel, and judging from all kinds of signs, the rebels who captured Jiujiang City are the new army troops who held autumn exercises in Taihu Lake! At first glance, not to mention the imperial court, even the foreigners were surprised.

In the past, people were at ease, but now they are confused. As long as you are not an idiot, you know that the Great Qing Kingdom is going to end, but no one thought that it would end so soon.

It is said that Pu Wei should not be on duty today, he doesn't need to go out on such a cold day, but just now, a secretary and eunuch of the internal affairs office hurriedly came to pass the message of the queen mother, Prince Xuangong entered the pilgrimage, and only after inquiring did he know that it turned out that Jiujiang fell into the hands of the revolutionary party, and the telegram of the rebels had spread all over the country and even the world. Pu Wei didn't dare to slack off, hurriedly took a sedan chair, didn't even bother to bring the honor guard, hurried to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, copied a telegram, and hurried to the Forbidden City to meet him.

The sedan chair stopped outside the gate of the Qing Dynasty, and a two-person shoulder guard was already waiting in front of the door, and a four-grade eunuch who was the leader saw the sedan chair coming, and hurriedly led the little eunuch to carry the shoulder and lean forward.

"Slave to King Gong!" The eunuchs knelt down and prostrate.

"Excuse me! Let's go to the palace. Xiao Gong Wang didn't talk nonsense, he went directly to his shoulders, carried by the group of eunuchs, entered from the Daqing Gate, passed through several heavy palace gates, and went straight to the Great Inner Line.

Like the outside of the palace, the palace is also plain white, full of snow, the palace is full of white silk, the two palaces are in a big line, not yet Fengzi Da'an, two coffins in the spirit palace, those palaces are more and more eerie and terrifying, the eunuch and the palace maid are full of filial piety, and their heads hang lower when walking, and the atmosphere in the palace is so depressing that people can't breathe.

The shoulder man stopped in front of the Heart Nourishing Palace, and the eunuch who led the way shouted outside with a sharp voice: "Prince Gong is ordered to meet you!" ”

King Xiao Gong knelt on the steps in front of the hall, cleared his throat, and shouted: "Slave Pu Wei, please Saint An!" ”

"It's all my own family, I'm verbose, come in." A woman's voice came from the Heart Cultivation Temple.

Pu Wei stood up, and a eunuch guarding the door lifted the curtain and shouted: "The Queen Mother Yizhi, Prince Xuangong is in the meeting!" ”

The East Warm Pavilion of the Yangxin Palace has been full of kneeling people, all of whom are important ministers of the court wearing court clothes and wearing crowns, and the flower feathers on the top have also been pulled out and wrapped in white cloth, and everyone is also a heavy filial piety. There is a person sitting on the kang head by the window, a middle-aged flag lady, a cotton cheongsam, and the "two heads" on the head have also gone to Luozi, and a three-year-old child is sitting in his arms, the child is also wearing heavy filial piety, and a pair of eyes are curiously looking at these kneeling old men and uncles in the room.

That child is none other than the current emperor of the Great Qing Kingdom, His Majesty Xuantong, and as for the noble lady who holds him, she is the empress of His Majesty Guangxu, the Empress Dowager of Daxing, the niece of the Empress Dowager Cixi, and the current Empress Dowager of the Great Qing Kingdom.

Pu Wei walked to the kang, pulled down the horseshoe sleeves, knelt down behind the regent Zaifeng, kowtowed and said, "Slave ......"

"Excuse me!" Empress Dowager Longyu sighed. "The state is sluggish, and these false gifts are of little use. Now that everyone is here, let's discuss it. Just now, the British minister sent a telegram, saying that the British consul in Jiujiang had confirmed the news, the Taihu Qiucao New Army had rebelled, and Duanfang and Yinchang had also been cut off by the rebels, and now the rebels had occupied Jiujiang City, shouting that they were going to fight Jiangning and Guangdong, and the governor of Jiangxi sent an urgent report, saying that the province was empty, there were only a few thousand tired soldiers, and the rebels would go south to plunder at any time, Nanchang could not be defended, and once Nanchang was lost, the rebels could go to Guangdong. A few days ago, the chaos in Anqing was gone, and now Jiangxi is about to be in chaos again, what should the court do? Tie Liang, you are the Minister of the War Department, and you are in charge of the world's soldiers and horses, you speak first! Where can the patrol battalion be transferred out, and which province can the new army be relied on? ”

"Minions...... Slaves are incompetent, and they are indebted! Tie Liang stood for a long time, so he had to bow to the ground and kowtow. This can't be blamed on him, before he was called, he was busy dispatching the army and marching to Anhui to suppress Xiong Chengji, but the front foot of the Yi army horse team had just been pulled, and the back foot came from the power of Jiujiang Yizhi, coupled with the popular uprisings and the party in various places, now this Qing Dynasty is on fire everywhere, not to mention that he is a mere Tieliang, that is, those Manchu and Han ministers who were "Tongguang Zhongxing" went out together, and they may not be able to maintain their composure at this time, no one knows better than Tie Liang what the current army is, if those patrols are really reliable, Then how could the imperial court spend state funds to train a new army? Which new army is reliable? That's a really hard question to answer. According to secret reports, there are people from the League in the new armies in the provinces, but it is only because of lax discipline and the close attention of the imperial court that they do not dare to make a foolish move; now that the new armies in Anhui, Hubei, and Jiangsu have all turned against them, won't the rebellious parties in the new armies in other provinces take advantage of the fire to rob them? Besides, as soon as the new army rebelled, wouldn't the elders in the patrol camp have other thoughts?

I am afraid that the current situation is not something that the imperial court can afford to deal with alone.