Yi Shui was frustrated, and although he tried a lot but still failed to get the individual meeting he hoped for, Yuan Shikai politely but resolutely rejected his proposal. Pen % fun % Pavilion www.biquge.info

This was a result he didn't expect. He was very strange and did not understand what had gone wrong; He couldn't see what the problem was, and Yuan Shikai didn't reveal any clues—however, he was just afraid to meet Yi Shui alone; It is not strictly forbidden for any Chinese official to meet him alone at this time, but it is also profoundly inappropriate.

It may seem ridiculous, but every country will have some people it doesn't like, mostly politicians and diplomats, but it could also be some other character - Yi Shui is the ruler of the Qing Empire and the entire bureaucracy that is now the least favorite, and there is absolutely no "one"; Although it won't be long before he steps down from this position, and people will soon forget what he did, now, there is no one to replace him.

Because no one has yet made a mistake as serious as his.

It was his grave mistake – of course, the bigger mistake that lay with Rachel, and Mahan was partly to blame – not that the Manchu government was going mad. There is no justification for any hostility or hatred, and it is clear that the incidents they have created in Suixi and Canton have made Yishui's situation in China awkward.

The events they created, regardless of the time, place or manner, were incorrect. Although the officials of the Manchu government encountered similar problems almost every day, and were finally forced to agree to some unreasonable demands, or issue a few insulting decrees, or simply sign an unequal agreement, they were all small things, small troubles, and usually county-level officials could solve them very well, without bothering the lords in the central court, and certainly not reaching the ears of the emperor...... But what Yishui, Rachel and Mahan are doing is a major political incident.

So Guangxu knew the "good deeds" they did. Unfortunately, His Majesty the Emperor, who was young and enterprising, felt humiliated: just when he was determined to work hard and revitalize the country, three little men gave him a not-so-heavy, but very loud slap in the face, just after the Japanese gave him an even bigger and louder slap...... Yes, the emperor felt hurt, his fragile pride was stinged.

Of course, Guangxu was angry, and in China, no one except an old woman had the guts to slap him - of course, although he was angry, there were no serious consequences, His Majesty the Emperor of the Great Qing Dynasty could neither and could not behead two American officers and an American woman for public display, and even if they were right in front of him, all he could do was give them a bad face.

So he did it.

Yi Shui, Rachel. McBride, Alfred. Thayer. Mahan, Emperor Guangxu did not hide his dislike for them at all, he hated them. The problem was that he was by no means merely himself, and his opinion was not merely his own: he was the emperor, the supreme will of the empire - although at least one more was above him - and the bureaucrats had to conform to his preferences, and as a sign of loyalty to the emperor, either as a comfort, or simply as a deliberate pleaser, the Manchu officials had to hate these three guys.

At the very least, the ministers who were in front of the emperor all day long had to show their disgust.

And the vast majority of disgust is focused on Yi Shui. Although he was an American officer, in the eyes of the Manchu ministers, who did not know what "nationality" was, he was just a fake foreign devil and not a real foreign devil, and denouncing him in front of the emperor would not cause them to have a psychological block.

"The traitor who aided the abuse", they called him so. Of course, Yi Shui never expected that he would have such a title, of course, he didn't know it at all now, and he didn't get any news at all; However, this is only part of the whole problem, and it is not the most serious part.

The more serious problem lies in the fact that Yang Shenxiu, a member of the "Imperial Party" and the imperial envoy of the Supervision Department, has made a statement that many ministers consider to be nonsense, "The current affairs are difficult and dangerous, and we must pay tribute to the discussion of the folds" -- "The situation is urgent, and there is no way to make new efforts without reforming the old, and there is no way to survive without changing the law." If a senior bureaucrat of the central government cannot see what this means, they will not be qualified to continue to stay in their current enviable position.

The Imperial Envoy asks His Majesty the Emperor to change the law and renew it!

But this is just the beginning. If you comment in a Western tone, Yang Shenxiu's recitals open Pandora's box. After "The Current Affairs is Difficult, I Respect the Tribute and the Discussion", more and more similar pieces were sent to the Guangxu Emperor's table, as if the officials had figured it out at this moment and found that the country had reached the last moment when it had to change the law; Then, Kang Youwei, who had initiated the "Letters on the Bus" and established the Qiang Society, established a new organization, the "Baohui Association", and began to write to the emperor and the imperial court continuously, supporting Yang Shenxiu and other adults who advocated changing the law, and asking the emperor to immediately issue an order to reform......

If they want to give someone a stroke, apparently, they pretty much do that.

Reform! Restoration! It's just crazy! The ultra-conservative ministers, of course, were overwhelmed by this absurd and unjustified suggestion, and a handful of officials who foresaw that their interests would be seriously harmed also expressed their disapproval—but there were also those who supported the ideas of Yang Shenxiu and Kang Youwei, for after all, there were not a few ministers who were inclined to change the law, and, more importantly, the emperor, who was determined to revive the country and had just been a little stimulated, liked it—in fact, if there were no conservative ministers to stop it with all their might, After the incident in Guangzhou, the emperor had already summoned Kang Youwei and Liang Qichao.

But now, the conservative ministers knew that they could no longer prevent it, and even some of them had to support it: now that the emperor had made his stance, those ministers who were both conservative but belonged to the "imperial party" had to make a painful choice: to continue to support the emperor unswervingly, or to stand against their political will and become traitors to the "imperial party".

Of course, although painful, they know what to choose.

The ultimate choice of the vast majority of ministers was to support the emperor; The ministers who cherished their reputations certainly did not want to be given the title of "traitor", and it did not seem too dangerous to support the emperor now. However, their choice severely weakened the opposition to the reform - only the ultra-conservative ministers who belonged to the "back party" opposed it in strong terms, but their voices were too weak and easily ignored compared to the voices in favor of the reform and those in favor of the emperor, so that nothing could be changed.

The situation in Beijing was becoming more and more chaotic, and once it became clear that opposition to the reform was so weak, it gradually became a trend and a means of seeking promotion, in addition to officials and members of the National Protectorate. Under the clamor of so many voices, the attitude of the young emperor of the Qing Empire became more and more resolute, and he was about to take practical action.

Unless things take a sudden turn for the better, such as the return of Her Majesty the Empress Dowager, who had been secretly monitoring the political situation in the Summer Palace, to strip the Emperor of all powers and put him under house arrest, and to replace a new Emperor – and indeed there were those who were eager to do so – it would not be long, a week or two, for the Emperor to issue a decree announcing the beginning of a large-scale reform movement.

The signs have become very obvious.

The ministers had a premonition that a violent storm was coming. The hearts of the conservatives became extremely heavy, and their hearts were filled with pain and hatred. Of course, they could not and did not have the courage to accuse the emperor, so they had to turn their hatred on other people: the madmen of the Baoguo who spread false reasoning and heresies all day long, the shameless villains who bewitched the emperor to accept false reasoning and heresy, and their colleagues who did not take a firm position, and of course, more importantly, the root cause of all this, Yi Shui.

If he hadn't deliberately provoked the incident, Tan Zhonglin would not have been dismissed, Yang Shenxiu would not have written a letter to propose a change in the law, the lunatics of the National Protectorate would not have taken this opportunity to spread their own absurd remarks unscrupulously, and the emperor would not have been bewitched by all kinds of fallacies and heresies and intended to put them into practice......

It was all easy to make a mistake - and Rachel was completely ignored, after all, no minister had any intention of dealing with a woman, although she had more responsibility in the matter.

Their goal is only to be easy to water, hating him, disliking him, and not wanting to see him.

Yi Shui still did not know about the situation, and the American minister in Beijing apparently did not regard it as a matter of concern, neither reporting to Washington nor informing Mahan, but Yuan Shikai was well aware that although he did not hate or hate the lieutenant colonel as much as the others...... or the director of the Umbrella company, and wishing to make some agreement with him, but at such a moment he would never dare to accept his request to meet with him alone; It may offend him to do so, but it is better than offending the Queen Mother, the Emperor, and the lords in the court.

Yuan Shikai didn't want to worry about his political future.

Of course, he still politely expressed his apologies to Yi Shui, and implicitly advised him to "pay attention to the situation in the capital".

"What about Beijing?" Yi Shui still didn't understand anything, and finally felt that he should investigate carefully, "What's the situation in Beijing?" ”

Then he was scared. (To be continued, if you want to know what will happen next, please log in to the www.qidian.com, more chapters, support the author, support genuine reading!) (To be continued.) )