Mortars, and two!

Liangbi's series of actions seemed to be understandable, not for the sake of the emperor - he was in the Forbidden City, very safe, unless the allies would be able to grasp his exact location, and it was exactly within the range of the mortar - Liangbi was worried about himself, if the palace was shelled, even if there was only one shell, his position would become precarious. Pen ~ fun ~ pavilion www.biquge.info

He had many enemies, most of them simply jealous that he had become the most powerful bureaucrat in China at such a young age, simply because he had Aixin Jueluo blood and had attended the right school at the right time; Others are his political opponents, both agents of other countries and haunted conservative bureaucrats. Finally, the Emperor and his cronies were also wary of him, for no deeper reason, except that on the surface, he formed a small circle with three generals who also had American backgrounds, which meant that he could control more than half of the fighting power of the new army.

To be more precise, sixty percent.

Zhang Shaozeng and his comrades once seriously considered this problem: although the emperor wanted to form a new army of 600,000 people, but this goal was only one-sixth, 100,000 soldiers, forming eight infantry divisions, but the scale was not the same: the Guards Division had 18,000 men, the three divisions of Lan Tianwei, Wu Luzhen and Zhang Shaozeng were 14,000 men, and Yuan Shikai's four divisions were only 10,000 men.

Sixty thousand and forty thousand, for the emperor, this meant that the balance of power between the two military blocs, supported by the Americans and the British, respectively, was upset, and it was a dangerous signal that represented only one foreseeable result: if Liangbi wanted to do something, such as a military coup d'état to put himself on the throne of the emperor, then no one could stop him.

Yuan Shikai is not a general who can be trusted, he only cares about his own interests, he will not throw his army into an armed conflict with no hope of victory for the emperor's safety, if Liangbi launches a coup d'état, then he will remain neutral as he did a few years ago, and even simply sell the emperor for a good price.

And this is the end that the emperor and his cronies do not want to see.

Although Liangbi was loyal, anyone who had some knowledge of Chinese history knew that every usurper who appeared in the past was loyal, or seemed to be loyal, and that momentary performance was meaningless, only the result was the most important.

And Liangbi has many advantages, he has studied in an American school, has accepted more American ideas, and has more American friends, sooner or later, Washington will think that he can better protect the interests of the United States, and even bring more, and then will support him to become the new emperor; At the same time, he is a member of the imperial family, and if he replaces the current emperor, the West will acquiesce to this fact, and there will not be too many opponents at home, and it only takes a team of heavily armed soldiers to make them change their minds.

At the very least, it can silence them, temporarily or forever.

At that time, it will become irrelevant whether Liangbi is still loyal to the emperor or not.

An envoy from the U.S. government would visit him and announce to him that Washington had decided to make him emperor of China, and perhaps he would resign, indicating that he was only a general and could not be emperor, and suggesting that Washington look for a better candidate, but the envoy would tell him that the decision of the federal government could not be changed, so he would still become the new emperor, and perhaps when he ascended the throne, he would recite two lines of poetry, "If the country lives and dies for the benefit of the country, it is not for the sake of good and bad that it is avoided"......

Of course, perhaps this speculation will never become true. Liangbi would remain loyal, and the Americans would not have the idea of replacing an emperor, so that the emperor could sit on his throne until his death, or his government was overthrown by revolutionaries.

No one can predict the future accurately, and the important thing is that Zhang Shao knew that since he and his comrades could guess the worst outcome for the emperor based on the little information they had so far, the emperor and his cronies could do the same. As an agent of the U.S. government who has fostered it to power, he must be convinced of this.

Americans can support him, and they can also support Liangbi, and as long as there is a first time in everything, there must be a second time.

He couldn't put up with it, he was going to want to change it, and the best thing to do was to keep the army in the hands of him or a minister he could trust for the time being.

This was not easy to do, and the emperor could not easily remove any of his generals, which would provoke strong opposition from the Americans or the British, and ultimately lead to his defeat. He needed an opportunity, a reasonable excuse, so that he could remove a certain general, or even every general, without any regard for the attitude of Washington and London.

Or, even if he still can't remove anyone, he can still curtail their power and improve his situation a little.

The Alliance's plan was the opportunity he had been waiting for for a long time. Regardless of the final outcome, as long as a single cannonball falls into the Forbidden City, Liangbi must take full responsibility, and he can logically remove the command of his Guards Division.

Equally, it is an opportunity that Liangbi's other enemies need - perhaps they are all ready to impeach him.

These people, the emperor and his ministers, were like a group of sharks circling around Liangbi, and if there was a wound on his body, they would rush up and tear him to pieces.

Zhang Shaozeng suddenly felt that his head didn't hurt so much.

He looked up at Liangbi. A few minutes had passed, and the young Auxiliary Chancellor sat calmly behind his desk, not saying a word, not knowing what he was thinking - or whether he was thinking nothing but waiting.

Waiting for him to say something.

Zhang Shao thought for a while and asked, "What are you going to do?" ”

"It's not me, it's us." Liangbi corrected his question a little, and then announced, "We will solve this problem together, which is why I have summoned your entire division to Beijing. ”

Zhang Shaozeng, of course, knew this, and had already guessed from the moment he heard about the League's plan that he was just unwilling to accept Liangbi's assignment - although there were many differences and contradictions with the people of the League, he was after all a revolutionary intent on overthrowing the Manchu regime, and would not lead the troops to arrest comrades.

He decides to use all means to refuse the task that Ryobi may give him. "Isn't your eighteen thousand soldiers enough?"

"You should know what the soldiers of the Guards Division are like." Liangbi showed a look of disgust on his face, not against Zhang Shaozeng, but at his own soldiers: the soldiers of the Guards Division were all banner men, although they were also trained by American advisers, but the effect was not comparable to the soldiers of other troops at all, and it was better to expect them to catch the attackers of the Alliance than to expect those guys to surrender on their own initiative.

But he also knew that Zhang Shaozeng would certainly not be so receptive to his arrangement, not because he knew his political leanings, but because he did not want to get involved in an obvious problem - if Zhang Shaozeng's troops were involved in the search and the Confederacy's attackers still shelled the Forbidden City, then he would end up with the same fate as him, or worse, after all, he was a Han Chinese general and could easily be overwhelmed - if he wanted to be involved, he would have to come up with more than he was doing now.

For example, a hole card that has not yet been played.

"I should tell you," Liangbi said word by word, making sure that Zhang Shaozeng didn't hear anything wrong, "in addition to the two mortars, it is possible that the people of the League have gotten some gas shells. ”

"What?" Zhang Shaozeng jumped up, half of his face was shocked, and the other half was panic, "Why didn't you say it earlier!" ”

In just an instant, his mood that had just improved was gone, and his head hurt as if he had been hit with a hammer.

The gas shells would completely change the nature of the attack, turning it into a true terrorist attack: the slightest mistake could be a sudden change in the direction of the wind, or someone would not have followed the correct procedures for using the shells - the Confederacy would obviously not have been trained, so the possibility of a mistake was very high - and thousands of innocent civilians would have fallen victim to the attack, and the Emperor would still be unharmed.

What's more, even if you succeed in killing an emperor whose symbolism is greater than its actual significance, what role can it play in the end?

Zhang Shao didn't understand why the people of the League would make such a plan, and they planned to really carry it out. At the same time, there is another question that he wants to figure out, why does Liangbi know about the Alliance's plan?

It should be a strictly guarded secret, which only a very few people are qualified to know, and not reach the ears of the enemy in the first place.

"Where did you get the news?" He asked.

"A friend we all know." After a pause for a few seconds, Liangbi said the name that Zhang Shaozeng had already guessed. "Wang Zhen."

He immediately had a very bad association. "He sold mortars and gas shells to the Confederacy?"

If it was really Wang Zhen's doing, he would definitely not be surprised.

He began to regret covering up Wang Zhen's crimes.

Fortunately, Liangbi denied his speculation - partially denied. "It was not he who sold it, according to the observations of his people, the mortars were the equipment of the Russians captured by the Japanese."

"What about gas shells?"

"The Confederacy asked him through an intermediary if he could get gas shells, and he told me the news." Liangbi explained.

Zhang Shaozeng breathed a sigh of relief. "So, he didn't really sell gas shells to the Confederacy?"

"He assured me that he had absolutely no gas shells sold to the Confederates." Liangbi paused for a while, not to arouse Zhang Shaozeng's curiosity, but because he himself didn't know how to continue.

But in the end, he was able to piece together a complete sentence. "It's just that I can't believe his assurances. We all know this person very well, there is nothing he doesn't sell, and if there is, it must be that the buyer is not asking high enough. ”

Zhang Shaozeng's mood suddenly became bad again. (To be continued.) )