It was precisely on the basis of this idea of "enemy warfare" rather than "disaster relief" that the gentry's activities in Shandong were clearly focused on sheltering famine children. Pen, fun, pavilion www. biquge。 Someone suggested that they use the money they raised from Jiangnan to open a porridge factory to solve the urgent needs of the victims of the disaster in Qingzhou, but they refused. Although they also believe that the original porridge factory in Qingzhou has been shut down and the situation of the victims is very dangerous, in his eyes, children are different from adults: children are ignorant and do not understand the great righteousness of the Spring and Autumn Period and the summer when starvation is small and the loss of festival is big, so they cannot be asked to die generously for the sake of the festival like adults, so the limited funds should be used to give priority to the relief of children. Because of this consideration, they are "at ease" about their decisions and have no guilt.

Similar concepts have been repeatedly expounded by the Shandong gentry on many different occasions. When they went to visit the gentry in Shanghai, the gentry from Shandong tried to show the danger of the church to shelter the children of Qianguo, and it happened that one of the people in the audience who raised funds for the disaster relief for the church said a word for the church, saying that Jesus and Catholicism should not be confused and beaten to death with a stick. Immediately attracted a fierce refutation from Shandong Shishen: "The person who runs a certain thing has nothing to do with the good and bad of the sect, and what he is concerned about is the boundary between China and foreign countries." The victims of the disaster in Shandong received relief from foreigners, and for more than three months, they almost only knew that there were foreigners, but they did not know that there was a Middle Earth. If you can consolidate the hearts of the people who have gone and cultivate the vitality of the country's prosperity and strength, you will be great loyal ministers and righteous people. Wouldn't it be a traitor to raise funds for the church in turn? Those who received the church's alms were bound to convert to foreign religions and ceased to be the people of Middle-earth. The most pitiful thing is that those children have not yet been enlightened, how can they know this, and how can they bear to see them fall into the church? Zhu Zi said that although he was born without self-reliance, it was better to die than to be safe. So my view is that saving the children who have fallen into the church is far more important than giving to the victims. ”

The resistance of the Shandong gentry to the disaster relief activities of foreigners represented the mainstream opinion of the Chinese scholars at that time. This is evident in the wide range of support they receive. This attitude of resistance was also prevalent in the upper echelons of the imperial court. In April 9078, when Qu Hongji, a scholar and politician in Henan, heard the news of the foreigners' disaster relief, he immediately went to the stage, accusing the foreigners of "their intentions are unpredictable", and the purpose was to take advantage of our "people's sorrow and difficulty" and take the opportunity to "clean up the hearts of the people" in order to realize their ulterior conspiracy. After receiving the compliment, the imperial court immediately instructed the governors of Shanxi and Henan provinces (because these two provinces were inland, and the foreigners had not yet had time to enter the disaster relief, but the disaster was already very serious), telling them that whenever they encountered foreigners entering the disaster area, they must "be enlightened and try to dissuade them".

The resistance of the victims to the relief of foreigners is also strong. According to the newspapers at the time, in the third year of Guangxu (9077), the victims of the disaster in Changle County, Shandong Province "received foreign relief"; The victims of the disaster in Le'an County, Shandong Province, "are willing to starve to death and not receive relief from foreigners". The victims of the disaster in Henan were the most resolute, not only refusing to accept the relief, but also vigorously promoting the "ill-intentionedness" of Western missionaries. Westerners once wrote in an article in the "Declaration": "The hungry people in Henan are very puzzled, and they refuse to receive the silver allocated by the priests, which means that the Western priests intend to buy and convince people and lure people into the Church, so they give me the same amount of money, and be careful not to fall into their tricks." and no one of them will accept each other. And in the form of iron tears, he made all kinds of evil things, saying that the priest lured people into the church, and so abused. They also posted a number of posts in order to incite people's minds that the official constitution of the province was helpless. ”

To be able to make propaganda posters based on "Iron Tears" and publicize it widely, there must be intellectuals, that is, local gentlemen and doctors in Henan, behind this.

Despite this, Western missionaries made several attempts to send people into Henan for disaster relief, but as a result, neither the local people nor the government allowed them to stay, let alone get involved in any way, claiming that their lives would be in danger if they did not leave Henan. The anti-religious sentiment in Henan is far stronger than that of other provinces, and the residents of Kaifeng heard that the missionary Hua Guoxiang and others had arrived, so they posted confessions all over the place, with the sentence "I would rather eat Yi meat than Yi Su", and there was even a certain academy **** declaring that "we want to fight with the Westerners". Eventually, the missionaries had to give up their plan to help Henan. During the entire period of the Ding Wu Famine, Henan Province actually did not allow Westerners to distribute the slightest relief materials in its territory, and the full cooperation of the local gentry can be described as a great contribution.

Naturally, Western missionaries who participated in the relief efforts of the Ding Pentex famine also had their intention to promote the development of the church. In particular, when the relief activities in Shandong had a very good impact on the development of the church, when the missionaries decided to expand their disaster relief activities to Henan and Shanxi, it became the expected goal to promote the development of the church.

The rejection of foreign religions inside and outside the government and the opposition is not unexpected, and there have been too many lesson plans that have made the Daqian Empire anxious. But this is precisely the tragedy of the matter: when a foreign civilization wishes to be accepted in a civilized way (disaster relief), it is met with more resolute resistance than it would have been under barbaric means (coercion by force).

But the biggest tragedy was the devastating death toll caused by the famine: the "Ding Wu Famine" affected about 160 million to 200 million people. The number of people who die directly from famine and disease is at least 10 million. According to the statistics of the Ministry of Households, the population of Shanxi was 16,433,000 in 9077, but only 10,744,000 in 9083, a net decrease of 5,689,000. Among them, the population of Taiyuan was 1 million before the disaster, and only 50,000 remained after the disaster. In 9078, an official from Shanxi Province said in a recital to the imperial court: "Today, there is a famine in Jin Province, or cannibalism between father and son, or flesh and bones are dissected. "The ancients described the hungry people, and they said that they were not able to force Xiao. From today's point of view, it is no different from the disguise of hell. ”

The scale of the famine shrouded the entire court in a state of pessimism, and in 9078, Li Shaoquan wrote to a friend: "The court prays every day, but the spirit is not lifted, and the clouds are not visible." If there is still no rain before and after the Qingming Festival, the living beings of several provinces will be left behind, and my generation will die together, and I will also die! ”

But paradoxically, the "common destruction" that Li Shaoquan feared did not happen, and in the end, there was no "peasant uprising" in such a terrible famine, and the missionaries could be said to have "made great contributions." The emergence of them and their relief activities completely diverted the attention of the gentry and doctors in the disaster area and in the non-disaster area. The peasant revolt, which lost the participation of the gentry, remained at the level of simple material demands, and was isolated from each other.

It can be said that around 9078, the Qianguo was shrouded in a very strange "nationalism", which even covered up the dead air of the Great * Famine, and in the end, it actually played the role of "escorting" the Daqian Empire, which was riddled with holes.

It is an irony that the squires tried to reject the alms of Western missionaries in order to uphold Confucian ethics; And the "great change in human ethics" of "cannibalism between father and son" that officials pleaded with to the imperial court was not the collapse of Confucian ethics?

The reason why Chen Tingxuan pointed out the example of the "Ding Wu Strange Famine" at this time was that he was worried that after the "Thirteen Elements" group and the Rotchild family officially entered the Qianguo, they would encounter a similar encounter to the resistance of foreign missionaries during the "Ding Wu Strange Famine" when they were providing disaster relief.

"My dear in-laws, after a long and careful consideration of this problem, I have come up with a solution." Nathan smiled and said to Chen Tingxuan, "In fact, on this issue, your situation is much better than ours, because you still have family members in Qianguo, and they already have foundations, but we have to be cautious about looking for 'agents'. ”

Hearing the word "agent", Chen Tingxuan's long eyebrows suddenly raised, and his eyes lit up.

Lin Yiqing certainly understood what they were talking about.

At present, in Qianguo, whether it is the official court or the scholars and ordinary people, xenophobia is still very serious, and if the "Thirteen Elements" and the Luo family directly enter Qianguo with great fanfare and set up banks and industrial and commercial enterprises along the coast and even in the interior of Qianguo, they will certainly encounter a situation similar to the "Ding Wuqi Famine" in which foreign missionaries are resisted for disaster relief.

As far as they are concerned, the most effective way is to find agents in the Qianguo and develop in the Qianguo in the name of agents, because everyone is a Qianguo person, so they can avoid being resisted.

As Nathan said, the situation of the "Thirteen Elements" group can be better, because although they evacuated Qianguo very early and became "overseas outcasts", there are still people in the family who remain in Qianguo, such as the Chen family and relatives who have become senior officials (such as Chen Wan's father, Chen Shi, the governor of Taiwan), so the problem of agents is not difficult to solve, but for the "Sixth Empire" Rothchild family, the problem of agents is more troublesome.

As a matter of fact, the choice of agents to carry out business in the Qianguo was the consensus reached by the various Jewish financial families at the "Cliff Castle Conference."

And Lin Yiqing already knew that the beautiful 16-year-old girl who represented her property in the UK was likely to be one of Luo's important agents in Qianguo in the future.

After the conversation, several people came out of the secret room, and at this time, Lin Yiqing found that Chen Wei seemed to have lost his usual composure and seemed a little uneasy.

Lin Yiqing walked towards Chen Wei curiously, he wanted to know who made him so gaffe.

He already knew what happened between Chen Wei and the Greek princess Alexandra.

In Lin Yiqing's opinion, this is a very normal thing - Chen Wei can be said to be a woman's poison, and he has seen it very clearly and made the most of this when he accompanied him on this visit.

"What's wrong with you? What happened to make you so upset? Lin Yiqing pulled Chen Wei aside under the pretext of an excuse, smiled and asked in a low voice.

"You can see it." Chen Wei looked a little embarrassed, "You know, only Anne ......"

"Does she know anything about Princess Alexandra?"

"Yes......"

"Who told him? Eustace? ”

"No, it was she who packed my clothes and found a letter from Princess Alexandra to me and a sapphire ring, I didn't know she sewed these into my clothes......"

"So Anne settled accounts with you?"

"Yes, she wants to break off her engagement with me, but you also know me, I love her very much, and I don't want to lose her......"

"What are you going to do?"

"I'd like to ask my mom to help me talk to Anne......"

Seeing that Chen Wei was a little messy for the first time, Lin Yiqing couldn't help but feel a little funny.

"You don't need your mother to come forward, I'll teach you how to deal with her, come with your ears."

"Great!"

Not far away, Sara didn't notice her son's abnormality, but found that her daughter Chen Huan was talking speculatively with an officer of the Royal Navy, and couldn't help but smile slightly.

The bitter cold wind of October blew the leaves from the linden trees of the long boulevard, stacked them into withered piles and swept them away along the dry gravel road, making an eerie squeaky sound. The dead leaves fluttered around the old well, turning around and falling into the black and broken well fence, which must have filled most of the old well. On the calm surface of the fish pond, the same dead leaves were slowly decaying, mingling with the disorderly aquatic weeds that discolored the water. Randolph. All the gardeners that Lord Churchill could employ could not stop the hand that had destroyed everything in autumn from leaving scars on the ground around the estate.

"How I hate this bleak October!" Lord Lady Jenny. Jerome. Churchill said she was walking up and down the garden, her mink coat over her, but she was still shivering. "All things come to an end of destruction and decay, and the cold light of the sun illuminates the ugly scenes of the earth, just as the gas lamp illuminates the wrinkles of an old woman. Eve, will I get old? Will my hair fall out like the fallen leaves of those trees, will I be as bare and sick as the trees? What will become of me when I am old? ”

She shuddered at the thought of this, even more so than in the cold winter winds; She wrapped herself tightly in her leather garment and walked so fast that her maid Eve had some difficulty keeping up with her.

"Do you remember, Eve," said her after a moment, slowing her pace, "do you remember the French novel we read—the story of a beautiful woman who committed a sin—I forgot the title—that she committed a crime at the height of her power and her charm, and that the whole of Paris toasted her night after night, and the people slipped away from the king's carriage and gathered around her carriage to see her beautiful face. Do you remember how she kept her criminal deeds secret for almost half a century, spent her old age in her family castle, and was loved and respected by the whole province as a saint and benefactor of relief to the poor that was not included in the canon of the Bible? Later, when her hair was gray and her eyes were almost blind from old age, how her secret was revealed by a strange accident, so she was interrogated, found guilty of a serious crime, and sentenced to be burned alive, do you remember? The king who had supported her was dead and gone; The court where she was once a star is gone; The powerful administrators and justices who might have helped her were rotting in their graves; The brave young knights, who might have died for her, fell on a distant battlefield; She had lived to see the century to which she belonged eclipsed like a dream; She walked towards the stake, followed only by a few foolish townspeople who had forgotten all her philanthropy, and rebuked her like an evil witch. ”

"Madame, I don't care about such bleak stories," said Eve, with some shuddering, "and living in this dreary place, one does not need to read the horrible books. ”

Mrs. Churchill shrugged her shoulders and laughed at the frankness of her maid.

"It's a dreary place, Eve," she said, "though I can't say that to my dear husband Leonard. Though I was the wife of one of the most powerful men in town, I did not know that I was almost as poor as I was when I was in my mother's house; However, wearing a mink coat worth sixty pounds and spending thousands of pounds to decorate the room is still a little interesting. ”

They sat together in the Lordess's dressing room, and the windows were darkened by the black lattice of ivy in the grey sky of October.

"Eve, I shouldn't stay here, I should go back to London, do you say?" The Duchess asked eagerly.

The maid was sitting on a small stool at the hostess's feet. She did not answer the Lord's question at once, but sat there and stared blankly for a few moments into the depths of the red flames in the hearth.

She knew, of course, what bothered the Lordess.

In 9085, the Conservatives won the parliamentary elections. According to the election results, Salisbury will form a government; Lord Randolph becomes Minister of State for India. Randolph was quick to show the public that he was able to take up the post of minister with ease and pleasure. He is able to make big decisions, manage complex relationships, and be conscientious and hard-working. He arranged for a reinforcement of Indian troops to prevent a Russian invasion; He approved the annexation of Upper Burma to remove the danger of instability; He even managed to get an appointment that was vehemently opposed by Queen Victoria approved, so that a very capable military man, Frederick? General Roberts was given permission to serve as Chief of the General Staff of India.

But Randolph's political career soon came to an end.

The Liberals were brought back to power because the Conservatives failed to gain an overwhelming majority in the House of Commons in the November 9085 general election. In July 9086, another general election was held, which resulted in a resounding victory for the Conservatives, with a clear majority in the House of Commons for the first time since 9080. Salisbury is once again Prime Minister. Randolph. Churchill won the most important ministerial position after the Prime Minister - Chancellor of the Exchequer - and also served as the leader of the Conservative Party in the House of Commons. At the age of 35, Randolph is proud to reach the pinnacle of his political career, but he still aspires to a higher position. (To be continued.) )