Because of the external ** of alternating current generator sets, with the start of the Qing Dynasty's own shipyards, with the help of technology and capital from the United States and Germany and other countries, there are more and more factories in Northeast China and Jiangnan. From mining to ore refining, from processing plants to assembly plants, from light industries such as textiles to heavy industries such as steelmaking, the Qing Dynasty began to make great strides towards a modern industrial country.

As the factories began to make money, more and more taxes were paid to the imperial court. In addition, power stations built in various countries around the world also began to generate electricity, and alternating current royalties began to be remitted from various countries to the accounts opened by the Guangxu-owned Global Power Company in Daqing Bank. Because Guangxu himself paid for the construction of warships, this also made the country's finances more comfortable.

At the same time, more ordinary people have entered the factory to work, so they have a relatively stable income. The undercurrent that was originally lurking in the people gradually calmed down. The Chinese people are so kind, and they are also the best governed citizens in the world. The Chinese people are like this, they don't want to eat how expensive, they don't want to dress luxuriously, and they don't need to live in a magnificent place. As long as they can be fed and clothed, have a shelter from the wind and rain, and give them a stable and visible future, the Chinese people can guard their homes with peace of mind and live with peace of mind in their wives and children.

And now the construction of factories and railways in the Qing Dynasty just gave them the life they wanted and a foreseeable future, and the uneasy ** that was originally lurking in the dark gradually calmed down. Compared to the farmers who work at night, the work in the factory is hard, but the rewards are much higher. As a result, the peasants who lost their land, the people who could not harvest food and clothing on the land, and the people who wanted to live a better life all marched to the cities, and together with the rich merchants who opened factories, they became a solid foundation for the industrial development of the Qing Dynasty. In order to make more profits, the factory owners, with the support of the imperial court, independently opened many schools to impart professional knowledge, which also made the farmers who were originally illiterate begin to think about the future.

It should be said that the current situation of the country is what Guangxu is most willing to see. The country began to settle down, and industrial construction was on the right track. Railways are being extended, highways are being expanded, factories are being set up, shipyards are being started, the army is being reorganized, the government is changing, and domestic and foreign affairs are all booming because of the First Sino-Japanese War...... All of this is the beginning of the country's journey to strength.

Perhaps, there is still a long way to go before we can truly become a strong country, but we have been working hard.

Just when Guangxu was thinking about the rivers and mountains and looking forward to the future, a cold current blew in his face. This cold current blew Guangxu like falling into an ice cave, and at the same time woke up the high-spirited Guangxu. Tell him that this country and this court are not all your Guangxu's.

"Enlighten the emperor, the Empress Dowager Cihui asked the servants to tell the emperor. The foreman of the military aircraft, Prince Li, Shiduo, Beile Zaiyi, Xu Tong, a scholar, and Rong Lu, the commander of Jiumen, recently said that they frequently went in and out of the harem to meet the Empress Dowager Cixi, and they didn't know what to discuss. The Empress Dowager Cihui asked the servants to remind the emperor that everything should be done carefully. Kou Liancai took the opportunity to hand the emperor an excerpt and whispered beside Guangxu.

This made Guangxu, who was writing a future military plan, suddenly stop the pen in his hand and look around vigilantly. There was a spy of the Queen Mother lurking beside Guangxu, which had been known as early as the year before last, and Guangxu even suspected that it was Kou Liancai. It's been almost three years, but I can't find it. However, judging from various circumstances and the feedback from Cixi, the level of this spy in Guangxu does not seem to be very high, and Cixi does not seem to know about many important national secrets. Even in the secret arsenal of the Ming Tombs, Cixi seems to only say that there is an arsenal in such a place, and it is not clear what it does.

"If you want to hide, you still can't hide-" Guangxu stared at Kou Liancai for a while before he sighed: "Do you have any news here?" ”

"Back to the emperor, because the Empress Dowager Cixi asked the palace attendants to withdraw every time she saw the ministers, it is impossible to know what the specific minions talked about." Kou Liancai said in a low voice: "But the minions inquired about a person they talked about - Dong Fuxiang, the commander of the Gan army. ”

"Dong Fuxiang? That Dong Fuxiang, who led 70,000 soldiers in Cangzhou and couldn't win against 20,000 soldiers? ”

"That's him. The servant inquired about Lord Ouyang. After the Battle of Cangzhou, Dong Fuxiang still returned to Gansu. But after May, he was suddenly transferred to the capital by Lord Ronglu to serve as the infantry commander Yamen. Because Dong Fuxiang only brought a few people over, Lord Ouyang didn't care. ”

"Still calling the infantry commander yamen? Isn't the reorganization of the police department not yet complete? ”

"The minion asked. The people in the infantry commander yamen were somewhat branchy, and Lord Ouyang was worried that the forced adaptation would cause a knot. Therefore, after the completion of the reorganization of other regions such as Ouyang and Liangjiang, the infantry commander Yamen was reorganized. Now that the reorganization of other regions has basically been completed, the reorganization of the infantry commander yamen has begun in October. Lord Ouyang, please rest assured that the adaptation will definitely be completed within the year. ”

If Guangxu wants to launch a coup d'état, it is not just a matter of saying that it can succeed, and military force is always the first element of a coup.

It's just that once the infantry commander Yamen is reorganized into a police station, all police officers will no longer be equipped with long guns. According to the reorganization plan, the number of people in the reorganized Yenching Police Station is 3,000. Even so, no matter how many police officers have not undergone rigorous training, the policemen with only pistols cannot be the opponent of the Royal Praetorian Guard Company led by Yang Dongzi. After the reorganization, it is impossible for Rong Lu to command all the movements, as long as there are three or five hundred people that he can't move, then he must keep people to guard against these people. In the Forbidden City, the adjusted Imperial Forest Army is only 600 people, of which the real defense force is the Royal Guard Company led by Yang Dongzi, who accounts for half of the number, and Qi Yide also leads more than 100 internal guards. Even if the remaining 200 people in the Royal Forest Army were transferred by him, these 200 people had not been trained in modern warfare, and they were more used as honor guards.

There were less than 400 people who could really command Guangxu, but these people were not only well-trained, but also either veterans carefully selected from the First Sino-Japanese War, or martial arts masters in hand-to-hand combat, equipped with standard spears and Makqin machine guns. Moreover, there is also a first division stationed in the Fengtai camp, which is a unit attached to an artillery regiment, and a single order can enter the Forbidden City in two hours at most.

Rong Lu was one of the few people in the Manchu who knew about military affairs, and after the First Sino-Japanese War, he could not be so stupid as to think that a large number of people would work. Then he must rely on it if he still wants to do this.

So what is his reliance? Guangxu carefully analyzed the current military strength in and around the capital, and even counted the possible private soldiers of various large families, but still did not see that Rong Lu had a chance to win. In two hours, he must not only capture the Forbidden City, which was guarded by the Praetorian Guard Company, but also capture him, the Guangxu Emperor, alive. Otherwise, once the First Division stormed the Forbidden City, it would be useless for them to shout. Guangxu, who couldn't figure it out, asked Kou Liancai to find the map of Yanjing City and began to calculate it carefully.

With a "snap", Guangxu slapped his hand heavily on the map. Then he shook his head helplessly, no matter how Rong Lu was counted, he had no chance. Is it that they overestimate themselves and underestimate their enemies? But he must be a veteran of a hundred battles, all of whom were soldiers who had fought side by side with the emperor. And the people who can really listen to Rong Lu or the Empress Dowager Cixi are all conservatives. It is impossible for them to have a force in their hands that can compete with the Praetorian Guard Company, and there is no question of overestimating or underestimating here. The only possibility is that they bought the Praetorian Company. However, it was impossible for them to use their official positions to bribe the Praetorian Company, and they could not get anything but wealth. But I gave the Praetorian Guard Company not only wealth, but also honor. So the Praetorian Company doesn't have to worry.

"Where are they going to find troops that can fight the Praetorian Guard, and they have to be transported to the capital without anyone knowing?" Guangxu, who really couldn't figure it out, could only ask Kou Liancai: "What do you think about this matter?" ”

"There shouldn't be any such troops in the capital, but there are outside the capital! The slave heard that the people from the Beijing Police Station recruited a lot of people from outside. ”

"What do you mean? Ran Dao said......" Guangxu suddenly reacted, and hurriedly said: "You immediately go to Ouyang Zhenhua and ask him to carefully check who the new people who have joined the Beijing Police Department." Then let Yang Dongzi and Qi Yide come to see me. ”

Yang Dongzi and Qi Yide both came soon, and Guangxu talked about the recent security in the capital, and mentioned this matter very vaguely, asking them to guard everywhere carefully. Afterwards, Yang Dongzi and Qi Yide went to Kou Liancai, and after coming out, Qi Yide quickly asked his guards to take over the gates of the Forbidden City, and scattered the honor guards. Yang Dongzi also stationed the Praetorian Guard Company in various key places in the Forbidden City, and confiscated all the guns in the name of maintenance.

When the night was dark, Kou Liancai finally came back from the military headquarters and told Guangxu a result that he had guessed. When Rong Lu reorganized the infantry to lead the yamen, he recruited many new people from other places, and the vast majority of these newly recruited people were from the Gan army. And this has been going on since June. Today's infantry commands the Yamen, and the future Beijing Police Department is actually already in the hands of Rong Lu. Although I don't know where they put all the spears, but with the meaning of the Empress Dowager Cixi, such a large capital, let alone hiding three or two thousand guns, it is very easy to hide a few cannons.

It seems that the old lady will not give up, and the Empress Dowager Cihui did not play a role in restraining Cixi. This can't be blamed on the Empress Dowager Cihui, after all, a woman who has never participated in the competition for favor and profit at home, and it is not her surname to let her go to Cixi in the palace to fight openly and secretly.

After Guangxu confessed, he came to Yingtai to see the house he had built for himself. Yingtai, the place where Guangxu was imprisoned for ten years after the defeat of the struggle between Guangxu and Cixi in the previous life, is also the Zhongnanhai of the political center of China in later generations. The entrance to Yingtai is in the northernmost part, which was originally only connected by a small bridge, such as Ling, which has been replaced by a reinforced concrete bridge with a width of up to 10 meters that imitates wood, and the road has been widened accordingly. Straight south after entering, there is also a small three-story building that imitates a wooden reinforced concrete building towering at the southernmost end of the garden. In this small building, not only electric lights and telephones are installed, but also heating. There is no way, Yanjing is too cold, it is not enough to rely on those small carbon basins to heat the big room, if you want to warm up, you have to light a fire dragon.

Anyway, the generator set in Beijing has already started running, and the heat generated cannot find a place to reuse. Guangxu had an idea, so he built such a small building in Yingtai, and the steam generated during power generation was brought over to heat the room. It is just waste recycling.

Now the construction and decoration have basically ended, and the final circuit gas circuit debugging is still being carried out. You can move in for a month at most. Think about it like in Yanjing in the later generations, there is heating everywhere in winter, and it is warm to think about.

Just when Guangxu was going to the court to approve the fold as usual, the progress of the establishment of the Beijing Police Department suddenly accelerated at the request of Ouyang Zhenhua. And the changes in the Forbidden City still did not escape the keen eye of the Empress Dowager Cixi.

On this day, when Guangxu was cutting his hair, the queen mother of the two palaces suddenly arrived. Seeing Guangxu's head, the queen mother of the two palaces naturally scolded. Since Guangxu cut his braids in Niuzhuang, he doesn't seem to want to let the braids grow up at all. Half a year ago, Guangxu was like a soldier in the New Army, and he had always been a board inch. Except for the previous dynasty, he was wearing a new army uniform, dangling around. Although the ministers of the Manchu Dynasty behind him talked a lot and handed a lot of folds, the emperor didn't take it seriously at all, whether the braids were cut or not, the emperor always had an indifferent attitude, anyway, he didn't mention it or didn't ask.

Finally, Weng Tong, the head of the clear stream, scolded the emperor, saying that the emperor's clothing and behavior were no different from ordinary soldiers. This move would damage the majesty of the emperor, and if you don't know the emperor, you can't tell the difference between the emperor and the ordinary soldiers of the new army. For a long time, the majesty of the emperor will be gone, and when negotiating with foreigners, it will also greatly damage the prestige of our Qing Dynasty......

Weng Tongyi's idea is very simple, today's purge of the new army is braids. He thought that as long as the emperor's hairstyle was different from the style of the new army, it would inevitably be changed to braids. Therefore, his excerpt only mentions that the emperor's hairstyle cannot be the same as that of ordinary soldiers, and does not say that it must be braided. Weng Tong's study was a fold in the early dynasties, and he also put on a picture of the emperor's shelf, citing scriptures. As soon as his words came out, they immediately attracted the seconding of everyone.

Last year, when the emperor cut his ambition against Honda Zhuangtai, the world applauded. Now that he has returned to Beijing victoriously, the braid left by his ancestors is missing from the back of his head, but he feels that something is missing. For the emperor's braids, people in the world have long been talking about it.

Guangxu had no choice but to agree, and a month later, Guangxu changed his hairstyle, which is different from ordinary soldiers. When everyone looked at it, they were all speechless, and Guangxu combed four or six points. In fact, Guangxu wanted to cut his hair short, but he couldn't find anyone who could cut it.

Seeing Guangxu's hairstyle, the Queen Mother of the Two Palaces was angry, and kept scolding.

"It's too much trouble to discern, isn't it refreshing!" Regarding the reproach from the Queen Mother of the Two Palaces, Guangxu looked indifferent.

"Emperor, Emperor, have you still taken the ancestral system in your eyes since you were in power?" Cixi looked angry: "First changed the military system to a foreigner's division or something, and then changed the prime minister's national affairs yamen to the foreigner's foreign ministry, so these mourners will not talk about it." Last year, the emperor cut the son to stimulate the momentum of the three armies, and now he has not grown his hair, and the braids left by his ancestors are no longer needed. Don't forget, you are the emperor of the Great Qing Kingdom, and the emperor of our Manchurians. ”

"Sticking to the ancestral system, can there be this foreign gun warship? If you stick to the ancestral system, you can prosper the Qing Dynasty? Times are different, and some things should also change. ”

"Change and change, you know that you have to change, and one day you will lose the inheritance of your ancestors, I will see how you explain to your ancestors and ancestors." Cixi put down a sentence fiercely: "Without this discernment, are you still the emperor?" ”

After Cixi finished speaking, she left, and the kindness she left behind was so bitter that she persuaded Guangxu. But Guangxu said to himself as if he hadn't heard it: "Some problems can't be solved by accumulating a discernment." ”

In the middle of the night, Guangxu resolutely walked out of the General Staff Headquarters despite the opposition of the strong columns, and the ** important ministers of the General Staff who came out afterwards all looked solemn. After looking left and right, Tang Shaoyi walked behind the emperor and said in a low voice: "Your Majesty, the future is still long, and you can still figure it slowly." The emperor is concerned about the safety of the world, how can he be in danger? Please think twice. ”

"I don't think about it." Guangxu let out a sigh: "Since ancient times, the way of the court has been to check and balance, but I really don't have time to play any balancing techniques. If I miss this era, I will regret it for the rest of my life. Therefore, I must firmly grasp all the power, because I must concentrate all the manpower, material and financial resources, because I want to twist all the people in the world into a rope, only in this way can I have the confidence to gamble on the world. Losing may not be a catastrophe, but winning is the real foundation of eternity. But people's hearts are separated from their stomachs, don't look at the usual courtesy to me, who knows what he thinks in his heart. Don't you think this time is the best litmus test for people's hearts? ”

The emperor's distant figure looks so thin, but the burden of revitalizing the world falls on his shoulders. Everyone who looked at each other could only reluctantly return to the staff room to arrange the follow-up matters.

A cold wind blew, and it was already blowing deep into Guangxu's bones. (To be continued.) )