If Qin Lang was here, at this military parade site, he would definitely laugh secretly now, and he couldn't support it: the first piece of music played by the band was not the national anthem of the Qing Empire, nor the military music, but Richard. Introduction to Strauss's Thus Said Zarathustra, Sunrise [Note]. Pen, fun, and www.biquge.info

Here's his advice. There was no reason, just a bizarre idea that came out of nowhere, and it was actually approved.

Actually, there was no need for him to be surprised. His whims were an order for the employees of UMBRELLA, and the general manager of Greater China, Easter. Hartmann managed to meet with the head and conductor of an Austrian orchestra hired by the Qing government, and with a small amount of money persuaded them to agree to play this symphonic poem composed by Strauss in 1896.

As for what happened next, it was simple, the orchestra leader told the auxiliary minister and the officials of the Ministry of Rites, who were directly responsible for arranging the music for the parade, that they were going to play a piece called sunrise, which symbolized the enthronement of the new emperor - he was about to shine on the whole of China like a rising sun, so the officials, who knew nothing about Western music, immediately approved it.

Thus said Zarathustra, and it is certain that no one is satisfied with it except those who do not know it.

But anyway, it was used.

Accompanied by a loud symphony, Aixin Jueluo. Zaifeng, his personal entourage, ten auxiliary ministers, and foreign ministers participating in the parade walked up to the central viewing platform one after another, walking to their respective positions. And when the Emperor and Empress stopped in front of their thrones and turned to the officials and commoners across from the viewing platform, the introductory part of the music also stopped—neither fast nor slow, not a little worse.

For this moment, Zaifeng and the orchestra conducted repeated drills. As it turned out, those efforts were not in vain.

The Emperor smiled with satisfaction, first turned to the guests on either side who stood up to take off their hats and saluted him, then to the officials and people directly in front of him who knelt on the ground and bowed to him and shouted long live, waved to them, and then sat down on the throne and announced "Flat".

At such a grand gathering, there was no amplification, no one could hear him, and most people could not hear the eunuch who conveyed his will, but the problem did not cause trouble. Auxiliary Ministers, Foreign Ministers, and Special Guests sat down one after another, while officials and civilians who had fallen to their knees also stood up a little later.

The start went smoothly, nothing went wrong, no accidents happened - there could have been accidents, but they were all out of sight of the emperor. There was only a small, unnoticed accident that appeared close to the emperor, Yi Anping, at first, he habitually wanted to kneel down and kowtow to the emperor, but after noticing that no one around him knelt, and Wang Zhen and Zhang Binglin did not kneel, he immediately straightened his half-bent knee and turned the action into a hat salute.

As the only spectator in a robe and a riding coat standing in the middle of a crowd of guests in formal robes, as if standing out from the crowd, his movements should have received special attention, but no, no one looked at him. Zaifeng didn't know that such an incident had happened around him, and his interest was still very high, and when he saw that most of the people had stood up, he motioned for the eunuch who was presiding over the parade to enter the next procedure.

When the salute was fired, it caused a small commotion among the crowd: they did not understand what it meant, and the sound of the cannon frightened them. It has been less than two years since the invasion of Beijing by the Eight-Nation Alliance, and everyone remembers it vividly, and those loud voices have deepened it.

The panic made them ignore the small group of three people who walked to the flagpole in front of the viewing platform amid the sound of cannons: the flag bearer and two flag guards, holding a yellow dragon flag. They quickly walked under the flagpole, quickly hung up the dragon flag, and then stood there straight and waited for the parade to enter the next procedure.

A eunuch announced in a high-pitched voice: "Play music, raise the flag of my Qing Empire." ”

The band began to play the second piece. The ministers and many of the guests immediately realized that it was another piece of music that had been misused: the band was playing the "Battle Hymn of the Republic", or at least its tune. The discovery left them looking at each other and wondering what had gone wrong with the Chinese officials responsible for selecting the music.

The question itself, however, was very simple: a national anthem was needed for the parade, but the improvisations were not satisfactory and did not fit the strong Western style of the parade – to be precise, the tunes that several of the military advisers who had been called in to help organize the parade did not like. So in the end, in order to solve the problem, the officials of the Ministry of Rites had to use the military songs of the new army to make up the numbers.

They chose "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" - just its tune. The soldiers of the New Army had never sung or heard its original song, and all they heard was the black flavor of "Blood.on.the.risers" adapted by American paratroopers during World War II, and sang the Chinese version of the song with some of its lyrics modified but unchanged - Qin Lang taught it to mercenaries, who in turn taught it to soldiers of the New Army.

It must be said that the officials of the Ministry of Rites did not like the lyrics of the adapted song, they liked its tune, and unfortunately they knew too little about the song.

China is a non-Christian country, and it is a feudal empire, and at the enthronement parade of its emperor, a song called "The Battle Song of the Republic" is played, and the lyrics are almost a song in praise of the Lord, and it is used as the national anthem of the empire.

Soon, they began to speculate whether the hapless Chinese bureaucrats were themselves too stupid or had been framed by military advisers who helped prepare for the parade.

They thought and talked in a low voice, and the flag bearer and the two flag guards raised the yellow dragon flag at this time, and then left at a faster speed than when they came, so that the parade entered the third stage.

The Emperor stepped down from the central viewing platform and rode in a luxurious, gilded carriage to inspect the soldiers of the three nations participating in the parade. The orchestra played a third piece of music - the officials of the Ministry of Rites had made the right choice, but it was possible that it was the orchestra's own decision, it was the Radetzky March - which was repeated three times until the Emperor's carriage passed the last line of soldiers.

Then there was a period of silence, no music, and only the sounds of people talking in the air. The carriage slowly circled back to where it started. After a few more minutes, when Zaifeng sat back on his throne, the most important division began.

A military band of the Royal Navy, which had been silent on the left side of the Austrian band, began to play.

The infantry squad came over. At the forefront were eight successive flag teams, each consisting of two hundred men, all of the strongest soldiers, all of whom carried a single banner aloft. Behind them were five companies of the British army, first a company of marines in red uniforms, then a company of sailors, a company of cavalry, a company of Gurkhas, and finally the company of the Anglo-Indian infantry.

The Indian soldiers with their heads wrapped made a great impression: in front of their standard-bearers were three seemingly juggling soldiers, all thin, shirtless, with occasional flames spewing out of their mouths; And at the end of this company, there are two bicycles, each of which is piled up like a stack of arhats with six soldiers, making it feel like it is going to fall down at any moment.

But the two stacks of arhats did not fall, and they staggered past from the front of the viewing platform.

Then three American companies followed.

At this moment, the band of UMBRELLA to the right of the Austrian band took over from their British counterparts and began to play a piece that no one had ever heard. "Imperial.March", Qin Lang spent four years - in fact, not that long, the work was carried out intermittently - through the way he hummed the tune and the professional author composed the music, which came in handy in this military parade.

This was a compromise plan: the three teams only needed a military music accompaniment, but the Army refused to use the military song of the Marine Corps, and the Marine Corps also objected to the use of the music found by the Army, so in the end, Qin Lang was given another chance to satisfy his little hobby.

Even if he wasn't there.

That's not a big question. Qin Lang was not on the scene, but he was able to guess most of the changes on the scene, because many of the details of the parade were in fact his ideas: in addition to "Thus Said Zarathustra" and "Imperial.March", he also designed some actions for the troops under review.

Of course, it was not for the two companies of the Army and the Marine Corps to be programmed for action, nor for the mercenaries, who walked in plain and unremarkable way from the front of the viewing platform, like the companies of the British. Then the four squares of the Guards walked over, and then Zhang Shaozeng's troops followed, and after deducting the original flag team, it also had fourteen squares, each of which did the same thing.

As soon as they came into contact with the invisible horizontal line extending from the edge of the viewing platform, the flag-bearers of these squares immediately lowered their flags, and the officers leading the teams shouted: "Salute to His Majesty the Emperor!" ”

When all the soldiers heard this order, they immediately turned their heads to Zaifeng in unison, saluted him with their guns, and shouted at the highest volume: "Long live Your Majesty the Emperor!" ”

"Hooray!" This is the second time.

As well as the third time. "Hooray!"

The team sent by Zhang Shao had all done this, and then Lan Tianwei's troops, and when Wu Luzhen's troops also began to do the same, Yuan Shikai's face had already turned pale.

This was something he didn't expect.

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Note: "Thus Said Zarathustra" was completed in 1896 (to be continued, if you want to know what happened next, please log in to the www.qidian.com, more chapters, support the author, support genuine reading!) (To be continued.) )