A.D. 1**4 August 31, Shanghai.

On Pushi Road in the French Concession, the newspaper sign of the Qing Dynasty was proudly hung in front of a large Shikumen house. The Qing Times is now the most famous Qingliu newspaper in China, with many subscribers, and the subscription fee and delivery fee that have been stored here for a long time every year are tens of thousands of taels, plus Xu Yifan's financial support, there was only one house at the beginning, and the newspaper office in the corner of the western area of the French Concession has long been moved here. Now the newspaper building is seven or eight feet in size, and there is a special typesetting room with German machines in the basement, and the iron gate is closed in front of the newspaper office, and Sikh Menfu wearing a bun head walks around with his hands behind his back. The iron gate was also furnished at this time, and since the beginning of the First Sino-Japanese War, it has not been closed from day to night, and all kinds of people are waiting for an endless stream.

Handymen running the streets, people inquiring about news, workers delivering white paper and ink, and special messengers carrying tin boxes containing a steady stream of telegrams from all over the country from the Water and Telegraph Bureau...... Sometimes there are even foreigners in dresses, and foreigners carrying Stitch also come leisurely, for no other reason, they all want to talk to Mr. Tan Si, the editor-in-chief and chief writer of the Qing Times, and Tan Si, who is in the field of Qingliu in the Qing Dynasty.

The start of a war between China and China is really a great change in the situation in the Far East that has a bearing on the future. The Russian Empire now has its eyes turned to the East, pursuing the warm water harbor of their dreams and striving to forge a new empire of Yellow Russia. In Central Asia, Russia's expansionist power had begun a big gamble with Britain, and in East Asia, they coveted the long coastline facing the Pacific Ocean to seize the rights and interests already acquired by the old Western powers. What makes the British Empire, the so-called world leader of Western civilization, even more depressed, is that Russia's expansion to the East was also supported by the powerful German Prussian Empire that arose in Central Europe!

Russia faced east, Germany dominated Europe, and the British Empire's traditional policy of balancing the European continent lost its focus. France has only been defeated for a few decades, and it is still trying to recover, and the current relationship with the British Empire is not very good, and it cannot be counted on at this stage, in order to maintain mutual containment and balance in the situation on the European continent, many Western diplomats are secretly counting on Russia, a huge "steam steamroller".

It is for this reason that the expansion of Russia in the Far East must be resisted! First, it can preserve the traditional territory of the British Empire in Asia, and in particular, prevent Russia from infiltrating through Central Asia to the doorstep of India, the jewel in the crown of the British Queen. The second is that Russia's expansion in the Far East is blocked, and this double-headed eagle across Europe and Asia will inevitably turn its attention to the West. As a huge land empire directly bordering Prussia and Germany, it will inevitably play the role of balancing the balance, and the short-lived honeymoon between Russia and Germany will inevitably be shattered - there will be too many opportunities to contain the balancing provocation...... Europe has become more and more like a powder keg......

And in the Far East, when the British Empire fought against the land powers, the tradition was never to go into battle shirtless and get involved on a large scale - how many thugs and servants did the British train and support for the short emperor of France? The Duke of Wellington's small British Army was never a land force that decided on the surname, they just happened to be on the battlefield of Waterloo......

With the British subsidized military spending, the anti-French alliance was defeated again and again, and again and again it was established. Now that this great gamble is to be waged in distant Asia and Russia, and then affect the situation in Europe, the British Empire will naturally not send its own army across two oceans to fight, and India is their fundamental ...... They have to raise an agent to come out!

Looking at the whole of Asia, the only ones with strength are China and the Plain. China also wore the Western self-improvement movement, fought to a draw with France, and had a false façade of a huge territory. Small, but stoic, he also carried out quite successful reforms in the so-called reform of the law, establishing a Western-style fleet and army...... Which country could be the object of the British Empire's support?

The diplomatic gentlemen in Europe who wear stiff-collared gowns are naturally inclined to be biased. There is no other reason, because Ben is small enough, no matter how strong he is, in their opinion, he can also be controlled, and he is a good Doberman Pinscher who can hold in his hand to the polar bear barking in the Pacific Ocean. And China...... Who can fully understand what kind of country this country is? What the hell do they think? God, they have a longer history than all the civilizations of the present combined! With such a big block, if it is raised, it will be very difficult to control......

Therefore, the war bonds issued by the company were sold so well in the London market, and a large amount of pounds and francs were sent into the treasury of the government axe through the bankers, and were replaced by warships and cannons, so that such a small country with only 100,000 standing troops in just over 20 years of founding the country could attack the Central Empire, which claimed to have a standing army of one million, across the sea!

Rao is so, the leaders of these civilized countries who are secretly sowing the situation in Asia are still watching this war with great apprehension, for no other reason than because they are too young...... After the First Sino-Japanese War began, I don't know how many military observers from various countries entered Asia to learn about the war from various sources. What makes them crazy is that the bureaucratic system of the Qing Empire has played a natural role in secrecy, and it should be the military aircraft department that plays the role of the general headquarters, and it is really confused about how the war is going, how many troops are on the battlefield, how many warships are still fighting, and some key points are still not in their hands, all of them are confused, and they are just crazy and forwarding all kinds of brilliant telegrams from the Guangxu Emperor.

Although the progress of various war reports on the present side is very clear, it cannot be confirmed without the confirmation of the situation on the side of the Qing Dynasty. The Qing Dynasty also had a lot of other information to pay attention to, such as the public opinion of the intelligentsia, the will to resist the entire ruling system, and how much military resources they still had in reserve - but...... Fuck, I don't know anything about it from Yanjing! Especially the Korean war situation, both sides are vague!

Fortunately, in Shanghai, there is also a Qing Times, and now the entire Qing Times, including the host Tan Sitong, has become the focus of attention of people in East Asia who are eager to understand the situation in this regard!

As early as before the First Sino-Japanese War, the Qing Times published a series of observations and editorials on the book, asserting that there must be a war between them, and the situation in the Qing Dynasty was not optimistic, and at first it was regarded as a scholar's wild talk. Now it seems that every sentence is true.

After the First Sino-Japanese War began, the Qing Times provided accurate war reports almost every day. The Beiyang Naval Division suffered a fiasco, South Korea suffered a fiasco, and Liaoning was defeated, and the army attacked Lushun, and the water and land troops were still threatening the general base of the Beiyang Naval Division in Yantai, Shandong, and even the gateway to the Zhili Plain...... When Emperor Guangxu and his think tank team were still frantically sending edicts to guide the war "holistically" above the top of the ninefold, it spread to the intellectuals of the Qing Dynasty and to the foreigner observers who paid attention to the war.

The number of troops participating in the battle, the progress of the battle, and the movements of the two sides were all described in detail. What's even more rare and commendable is that the Korean war situation that everyone can't say clearly and can only guess is exclusively reported by the Daqing Times! Some time ago, the Fifth Division of the Japanese Army was defeated, and now the Third Division is approaching the Eastern Front and threatening the rear of the Korean Janissaries. With this near-monopoly of reporting power, how can the Qing Times not be the center of everyone's attention? Even the Imperial Consulate in Shanghai was entrusted with the task of reporting the Qing Times to the country as quickly as possible, and all kinds of foreigners naturally came to the door, and those who died begging for nothing wanted to have a relationship with Tan Si and Lala, so as to get first-hand information.

However, for the Chinese people, paying attention to the Qing Times, in addition to understanding the progress of the war, there is also a more different kind of expectation!

The Qing Dynasty, which has been holding the last bit of façade, as long as there are people who have a heart, are looking for a way out, self-improvement and foreign affairs movement, although now everyone feels that something is a little bit like that, but there is still a little bit of training elite soldiers, and the false fire of building military ships is in. Everyone thinks, we may owe a little bit to a foreigner's big nose, how can we beat the Oriental small nose?

However, as soon as the First Sino-Japanese War began, the empire, which had been decorating peace and welcoming the queen mother's longevity, received news of defeat again and again. The Beiyang Naval Division's fleet, which claims to dominate the Asian Ocean, failed miserably in one fell swoop, sinking five ships and causing countless injuries, and the devil didn't even sink a single warship!

Nearly 30,000 land divisions equipped with Western-style equipment from the Beiyang Elite were defeated again and again in Korea, and news of the martyrdom of the general of the army continued to come out. After spending half of the world's military salaries, establishing a Western-style military industrial enterprise, and being born in the Beiyang group, which is entrenched in the key parts of the Chinese and foreign bureaucratic systems, it is unexpectedly vulnerable after decades of hard work!

As Guangxu began to command the entire battle situation in a high-profile manner, everyone had expectations again. If you want to say it, it's also that the people below are not angry, and now that the emperor has really taken power, it should be cheered up, right? Don't you inspire the conscience and give the little devil a good look? The little Oriental devil was also cheered up by the emperor's pro-government power, and we also have the emperor, which is worse than the little devil?

The expectation is good, but the result is doubly unbearable!

Under the command of Guangxu, the armies began to assemble in southern Liaoning and Shandong, covering the land and sea passes from both flanks and choking the Bohai Bay. By the way, the Qing army in southern Liaoning also had the task of reinforcing Korea.

Yi Army, Wu Yi Ming Army, Gong Wei Army, all kinds of training ...... Dozens of old battalions, more than 100 newly recruited battalions are piled up in southern Liaoning, and there are many more battalions in the process of being recruited. Tens of thousands of people staged a scene of collapse again, and they retreated everywhere. It is said that the army is directly forcing Lushun, and the Qing army in the Haikou area of Shandong Province is also worried, for fear that the devil will come over. If Lushun Yantai is lost, first, the Bohai Sea Haikou is completely open, and the army can land anywhere, even the army in southern Liaoning, it can also be very convenient to continue south, through the western Liaoning corridor, through the Yuguan to directly threaten Yanjing!

The dignified Central Empire has no army to fight! And Emperor Guangxu, in addition to continuing to send edicts, repeatedly asked for more troops and salaries in various places, and even fought the idea of recruiting the old Hunan army that had been scattered for decades, and was helpless against the current situation!

In this overwhelming darkness, the only hope for the people of the country who are anxious about this war is Xu Yifan, the Minister of Janissary Training in North Korea, and his tiger army!

Before the great rout in southern Liaoning, he had already broken the fifth division of the Japanese army.

Now that all the armies in southern Liaoning have collapsed, Lushun has been shocked three times overnight, it is a few battalions of soldiers divided by Lord Xu at the beginning, still guarding the position south of Jinzhou, and holding Lushun to the death......

Now the third division of the little devils is going to copy Lord Xu's back road from the east......

Since 26 August, there has been no news from the DPRK, and everyone is looking forward to it. Together, how can the Qing Times, the only one with exclusive information in this regard, not become the center of attention in the world! As the mouthpiece of the Qing Dynasty, how can Tan Sitong not be the most anticipated figure for everyone, I hope to hear the news of North Korea's victory from his mouth!

As for Xu Yifan, word of mouth has become a mythical figure.

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Tan Sitong's current office is already a small building with reading power, and there is a small Western-style lawn in front of the building. The door on the first floor was open, and two subordinates were guarding there, except for the workers with exclusive messages in the iron boxes, no one was allowed to enter without Tan Sitong's permission.

On the lawn, I saw people standing everywhere. Entering the concession in a private capacity, they are not allowed to sit in a sedan chair, nor can they take officials of the Shanghai Province with their subordinates -- this is to inquire first-hand about the bigwigs in the center and even Beiyang. Dressed politely, but impatiently dealing with those subordinates who do not understand foreign language - these are all sorts of observers, as well as foreigners' newspapers, and even a consulate attaché. If you can't enter the small building, everyone can only stand there regardless of their identity, looking up at the open window of the small building.

Inside the window, those clerks and secretaries in long robes were writing at their desks, and the workers were serving cups of strong tea and hot hand towels, and the foreman who was responsible for delivering the typesetting proofs was also waiting in a corner. Everyone is busy. Now the Qing Dynasty has long been opened, and it will be out of the number, every battle will be reported in detail, and it will be commented on, and even comment on the policies published by the center of the newspaper.

But everyone's eyes were more focused on a window on the west side of the second floor, where the shutters were tightly closed, and they couldn't see any movement inside, everyone knew that it was Tan Si and Tan Fusheng's office. No one thought that this Hunan scholar who was embarrassed to deport Beijing at the beginning would now have such a pivotal position! It is said that the center of the imperial court seems to have forgotten Tan Fusheng's punishment that he could never use forever, and is ready to give him another fame, and wants to recruit him to the imperial court, and is personally called a great talent by Guangxu ......

Everyone wanted to see him, but no one could see him these days. Mr. Tan was very anxious, and it was not once or twice that he was scolding people in the Hunan dialect, and every morning he used to play a set of swords and two sets of punches, so he sat at his desk and waited for the telegram to come -- the Daqing Times had a special news account in the Hydropower and Telegraph Bureau in the French Concession, and his own receiver and translator were waiting there, and he couldn't get any news from the Hydro and Electricity Bureau!

An official of Shanghai Dao was waiting anxiously, maybe he was a little addicted to smoking, swallowed a few mouthfuls of saliva, and couldn't stop wiping his sweat: "Fuck, the world has changed, and anyone can show their teeth and claws now...... Waiting for the ancestors didn't have this way to wait! ”

Suddenly, I heard the sound of the iron door, and a Toyo car flew in. Immediately jumped down a clerk wearing a melon skin hat, and two strong men next to him helped the car and ran all the way, seemingly protecting the clerk. I saw this man carrying a foreign iron box in his hand, fastening it to his hand with a chain, and he was also sweating when he sat on the foreign cart. Without anyone looking, they jumped out of the car and went straight to the small building, and everyone waiting on the lawn, regardless of Huayang, buzzed and wanted to squeeze through. Everyone knows that the news has come down in front! God knows how this Tan Sitong is so well-informed! They don't know that in addition to Pyongyang, which will provide first-hand information to the Qing Times, those consortia in Nanyang and the business networks throughout Asia are also responsible for providing intelligence to the Qing Times! All this information was summarized to Li Daxiong as soon as possible, and then forwarded to Shanghai, coupled with the collection of Xu Yifan's military intelligence system, it was difficult for Tan Sitong not to grasp the first-hand information!

"What? Lord Xu won? Is it news from North Korea? An official rushed to the front, shouting at the clerk regardless of it, and no one else looked at him, so he ran into the small building. The two subordinates were blocked at the door, and no one could enter. The concession authorities can look up to Tan Sitong and call him a number of opposition politicians and critics in China, and even the International Sports Association, which has never given membership to Chinese, Tan Sitong is now a member, and he has also performed Chinese swordsmanship there -- who knows what foreigner An's mind is. Now the people on duty at the gate of the Qing Dynasty are the Sikhs and Annam patrols sent by the concession authorities!

When everyone arrived at the door, they retreated one after another, only looking at each other. But in a hurry, many bigwigs in the court and local places are waiting for this first-hand news, everyone knows that this war will affect the great changes in the future of the court, and the people behind them must stand on the right team, and the sooner they understand, the sooner they prepare, but this Tan Si and this wild scholar are dragged like something!

Besides, no matter what else is, they are all officials of the Qing Dynasty, and they are looking forward to winning the battle! Now they are all looking at this Xu Yifan!

After waiting for a while, I heard a burst of chickens and dogs jumping in the small building, and the people waiting at the door were like ants on a hot pot. I saw a scribe who was off work walking out with a small leather bag and a black face, and a worker followed, wanting to send him to the foreign car at the door. The war is urgent, the volume of coverage is large, and the people who write these scribes are all working in shifts, and the rest is only to take a nap and change clothes in the dormitory next door. All of this was Xu Yifan's order, and Tan Sitong did it, so he had to do it, and people with the shelf looked up to him more highly. It is to establish the mouthpiece status of the Qing Times and serve as a powerful public opinion position for Xu Yifan in the future...... Fuck it doesn't matter how anxious the people waiting for news outside are to live or die.

The people around him gathered around again, but the scribe just ignored him. An errand boy in Shanghai Dao, an alternate official of the prefect's team looked at it as an acquaintance, and this scribe was also a celebrity in Shanghai Tangyangchang, and he was called a wanderer, but he wrote well and recruited Tan Sitong. At the beginning, everyone was also a friend of the Scoop Hall, and this alternate prefect was very far from all over the world, and he would pass a few times for him. At the moment, relying on this friendship, he shouted regardless of it: "Chen Weng! Where's the news, let's talk about it! It's all Chinese, what do you really want us to do? Did Lord Xu win? ”

That Chen Weng's face was pale, he was tired enough, he glanced at the official who shouted at him, waved his hand and lowered his head. Looking at his face, the hearts of the Chinese people present sank. He had to squeeze forward again, but the big-waisted and round worker just escorted him away. Chen Weng raised his head again, glanced at the alternate prefect who had a friendship with the scoop, compared it with his hand behind his head, made a gesture of touching his hair bun, twisted his waist again, and then strode away.

"What are you doing in my posture like a? Wait for Lao Tzu to ask him to call the hall a strip before he can say? This is easy to do, the third or the second is easy to discuss, you kid can't take a step out of the newspaper, how can I pull you? ...... Suffocate you shit...... ...... Woman, woman...... Woman...... Could it be Lushun? ”

The official's heart sank, and he unconsciously looked north, there was news in Lushun, and it was not good to know if he didn't ask. In addition to the Praetorian Guards, the Qing Dynasty and the opposition are now aspiring to be optimistic about the combat effectiveness of those training troops.

If Lushun is finished, the Bohai Sea Haikou will lose a wing, and the western Liaoning corridor will also be opened...... Lushun, what's going on? Who can save it? It's just that fucking Xu Yifan hasn't had any news yet!

The official swallowed and foamed, only to feel that his eyes were on fire, and he didn't know how to do it, but he felt that his heart was precipitated. Speaking of which, everyone didn't get any benefit from this Qing Dynasty, the son of a salt merchant was born, and he was on the bench for seven or eight years, all with the family's money, and he didn't feel that there was anything wrong with this black miasma. But when the little devil bullied the door, when he heard these bad news, his heart was still duffing! After all, it's all your own country! went to the battlefield, the alternate prefect believed that he didn't hesitate to save his life, the old man couldn't bear that hardship, but now, he just hoped that someone could turn the tide!

He simply found a place to sit down, beckoned and shouted to the servant: "Go, bring the blanket and the old man's hookah, and the Soviet-style dim sum made by the fourth wife, the old man is not leaving here, he has to wait for the news of North Korea!" ”

As soon as he sat down, many people sat down, all planning to wait for news. The official exchanged a few words with the people around him, and always felt that he couldn't go to his heart, so he unconsciously looked north: "Lushun, what's wrong with Lushun?" ”

(To be continued)