Xu Tong left, Cixi gently pressed her temples with her hands, and sighed heavily: "I thought that the emperor would finally be able to take charge of the government after a war, and we sisters should be companions to take care of each other. But these scholars still make people unhappy. As she spoke, Cixi glanced at Cihui inadvertently.

I saw Cihui say with an embarrassed face: "My sister thinks that what Xu Tong said is not completely unreasonable. The emperor is young, and it is inevitable that he will act in a hurry. But the government and the opposition, civil and military officials are all opposed, and at this time, the emperor still doesn't care about it. When Cihui said this, she looked at Cixi with a vague look: "My sister has been in state affairs for a long time, so this way of Zhang Chi is naturally not a problem." Or ask my sister to come forward and give the emperor a guide on state affairs. In the meantime, if there is a sister to guide from this, there will not be a minister who slanders the emperor like this. ”

Want to test me? Cixi smiled secretly in her heart, sister, you are still too tender. Cixi was still anxious on the surface: "I was still in power with the emperor at the beginning of the year, and the mourning family came out to speak again in less than a year, what is this called." What's more, this policy will always take some time to be effective, if it is beneficial to the country, why not? ”

"My sister's words are true, but now the courtiers are all opposed, if no one comes forward. First, the discord between the monarch and the minister is not a blessing for the society. If my sister is afraid of being gossiped, it is better for the queen mother of the two palaces to come forward together, so as to calm down the criticism of the government and the opposition. In fact, my sister also talked to the emperor, but my sister said that she couldn't win the emperor. When it comes to this state affair, I still have to ask my sister to come out. ”

It's right that the monarch and the minister don't get along, if you and the monarch and the minister are all reconciled, then where is there anything to do with my Cixi.

Cixi said that she had returned to Guangxu, but when did she really let go of her heart. Which of these civil and military officials was not arranged by her, and which of these major national affairs was not solved by her painstaking efforts. Cixi ruled a large country for decades, calming down internal and external troubles, large and small. It's coming, you really have to put it all down, whoever you want to do it, where can you really put it all down.

Guangxu also understood this truth, so he picked out some domestic affairs or matters related to the personnel of the courtiers, and often asked Cixi with excerpts. First, there are many major affairs in this country, and most of them have been arranged by Cixi for decades. If there is Cixi's opinion, this matter will be easy to do. Second, Guangxu just wants to calm Cixi's heart, so that she has something to think about and something to do, but it is not so important to Guangxu. It's like a worker who has worked all his life suddenly retires from his body at home, and he has to have some time to adapt. I have to say that Cixi has some opinions that are indeed very helpful to Guangxu.

No matter what Cixi thought in her heart, Cixi still had that anxious look on her face: "Li'er is this Li'er, but it's not like this." The emperor is the emperor, and he should be true to his word. If the emperor's side has just issued a will, our sisters will come forward to ask the emperor to withdraw the will. What kind of prestige does the emperor have, and maintaining the majesty of the emperor is the most important thing. ”

"Then the courtiers are talking a lot, how is this good?"

"Let them say it, there are some things that have to be experienced by the emperor!" After speaking, Cixi stood up: "Okay, don't talk about it." This Xu Tong's mourning family had a headache, and the mourning family went to rest first. ”

Since Cixi has said it, then Cihui has no choice but to leave. Just when Cihui just walked out of Cining Palace, Ci's head didn't hurt anymore, and people weren't tired anymore, just looked at the door with a gloomy face. The emperor has a good means to bring his own mother into the palace, isn't it just to contain me.

If others don't know, they really think how good the relationship between the two sisters is. A sister is called a kiss, and she also accompanies the play, walks around the garden, and eats together. In the past, it was just a trip every once in a while.,I don't know what I heard recently.,My sister comes every day.。 Don't you want to know what I say when I meet the ministers?

Cixi looked at the door with a gloomy face, and all the eunuchs and palace maids also stood quietly aside, not daring to come out. After a long time, Cixi asked leisurely, "In which direction did the Empress Dowager Cihui go?" ”

"Back to Lafayette, the Empress Dowager went to the direction of the imperial study." Li Lianying on the side hurriedly replied. Because the place where the Empress Dowager Cihui lives now is the original Empress Dowager Ci'an's bedroom, to the east of the Empress Dowager Cixi's dormitory. In order to distinguish the queen mother of the two palaces, they are called the queen mother of the east and the queen mother of the west, and Cihui and Cixi are both titles given by the emperor, which is not something that their servants can talk about.

"My sister is still worried about her son—" Cixi really felt tired after saying this.

On the third day when Xu Tong met the Queen Mother, Guangxu only said three sentences and six words from beginning to end: "Exemption", "Decree", and "Retreat". But the announcement of the will really turned the sky upside down.

The first is that the imperial court has signed treaties with Britain, France, the United States, Germany, Italy, and other five countries, and on the basis of the more than 10 treaty ports that have been opened, the Yangtze River Delta region such as Shanghai, Suzhou, and Hangzhou, as well as the Pearl River Delta region such as Guangzhou, Hong Kong, and Macao are newly added commercial ports, and the five countries are allowed to freely import equipment and set up factories in all the treaty ports that have been opened. At the same time, Britain, France, the United States, Germany and other countries helped the Qing to carry out the reform of the financial system, and the Qing Dynasty exchanged the first batch of 300 tons of gold to various countries at a ratio of 1:16.5 as the basic gold reserve for the issuance of paper money. At the same time, the five countries will provide a total of 30 million pounds of equalization funds to maintain the stability of the Qing currency in the process of fiscal reform. At the same time, businessmen from the five countries are also allowed to invest in joint ventures with Chinese businessmen in industries such as mines, railways, and shipping, but the shares held by foreign businessmen are limited to no more than 49.

Why add Italy? This is to buy a gun barrel to find someone to help! If you don't give some benefits, how can people sell you the barrels instead of putting them on their own warships first?

In the past, the opening of the port was only limited to a few cities, but now the emperor has directly demarcated an area. The exchange of gold is to give money to foreigners, and foreigners are also allowed to join hands with Chinese. Could it be that there is a lot of silver in the Qing Dynasty and there is no way to make it? As soon as the above Yu was announced, it attracted strong opposition from the Manchu ministers. And Xu Tong is even more desperate, if it wasn't for the guards who stopped Xu Tong, then Xu Tong would definitely be splashed with blood in Dongnuan Pavilion today.

If this above metaphor just makes everyone angry and indignant, then the next above metaphor really makes everyone's mouth shut. It's not that everyone is convinced that they have nothing to say, but they are too scared to speak.

There is only one sentence in the second parable: cancel all fire consumption in various places, and the tax and silver in all places will no longer be smelted and deposited in the Daqing Bank, and the fire consumption will be uniformly formulated by the Daqing Bank, and the resulting fire consumption will be paid to the imperial court by the Daqing Bank.

"Fire consumption" originated in the Wanli period of the Ming Dynasty, and originally referred to the loss of broken silver when it was melted and recast into silver ingots. The Qing Dynasty inherited the Ming system, and the officials in the early Qing Dynasty followed this practice. It's just that the "fire consumption" continues to increase: the fire consumption of ordinary states and counties reaches two or three yuan, or even four or five yuan per two. Remote states and counties pay less taxes, and fire consumption is several times higher than that of regular taxes. Although a ban was also issued during the Shunzhi and Kangxi years, it did not work, and it was acquiesced in the future. Under normal circumstances, the fire consumption collected by the local government axe is usually more than the actual consumption, that is, in addition to the loss caused by the loss of silver, all local maintenance and public expenses are also spent under this name, and over time it becomes a surtax in accordance with the law. Although the surcharge tax called fire consumption is still specified, the standard and amount of the tax are usually determined by the local magistrate depending on the local tax and public sentiment. Some emperors, such as Yongzheng, also advocated that the fire consumption should be returned to the public, that is, this surcharge must be submitted to the household department for overall use. But it didn't work.

Over time, fire consumption has become an important source for the governors in various places to blatantly intercept for their own use. With their own financial resources, the local governors also have the confidence to confront the central government. Guangxu once privately asked Lin Qizhao to secretly estimate the total amount of fire consumption. In the month and a half before the New Year this year, the imperial court's tax revenue has already exceeded 90 million taels, and the total local fire consumption is conservatively estimated to be as high as more than 20 million taels.

In addition to fire consumption, the original centigold was also an important source of finance for the local governors. Li Jin was founded in the third year of Xianfeng (1853 AD). In fact, it is a kind of commercial tax worth one hundred, and one percent is one centimeter, so it is called centigold. At the beginning of the income generation, it was originally for the Jiangbei battalion to raise military salaries for the suppression of the Taiping Army, and set up a bureau in Yangzhou to "persuade donations". Subsequently, the number of industries involved gradually increased, covering department stores. As of the 11th year of Guangxu, the gold system has spread all over the country.

With the development of the commodity economy in the Qing Dynasty, the collection of commercial taxes has provided sufficient prerequisites. In fact, before the Taiping Rebellion, there were people who asked for a commercial tax to enrich the finances. In the 23rd year of Daoguang, some people thought that the levy on merchants was too light, and that there was only a levy on the market but no levy, and that the ordinary wealthy businessmen and tycoons had capital and profits but did not pay taxes, and compared with the peasants, the burden was too uneven. So, the business tax was levied. Because at this time, ten years had passed since the trade between the five ports, and the commodity economy of the Qing Dynasty had developed greatly, which provided the material conditions for the generation of commercial tax.

At the beginning of the implementation of the donation, it was agreed that the provinces that used the troops could be controlled by the local governors themselves, and the provincial tax system was "independent". The Qing government has never been able to fully integrate the centigold into the financial system, and "the amount of centigold collected by the provinces is several times that of the newspaper department." As a result, later generations said that the centigold was an unenforceable tax system, and became the economic basis for the local governors to be arbitrary. Zeng Guofan founded the Hunan Army, without the assistance of the imperial court, and everything had to be self-funded. Li Jin is the financial source of Zeng Guofan, so it can be imagined that Li Jin is an important surname for the local political axe. Therefore, in the same area, not only is the donation bureau system complex, but also the donation list is diverse. makes the "corner of the projectile", "here and there, businessmen are almost at a loss". Even the military camps in Jiangnan and Jiangbei each competed for salaries, and there were disputes over crossing the border to set up cards and draw points. After the Taiping army was destroyed, there was a proposal to abolish the lijin, but because the change was too huge, it was opposed by the local Xinjiang officials, and it was difficult for the political axe to give up. On the contrary, the number of checkpoints and the names of goods levied is constantly increasing.

However, since the Chinese merchant tax comes entirely from Chinese merchants and not from foreign merchants, this system hinders the circulation of domestic goods in the market, but is conducive to the dumping of foreign goods, thus strengthening the competitiveness of foreign goods against local goods. In order to suppress the needs of the Taiping army, the Qing court set up a penny of gold, but weakened the competitiveness of domestic goods, so that local separatist forces rose.

However, since the establishment and operation of Shunfeng Logistics, which was founded by Guangxu in the name of the emperor, especially with the merger of Shunfeng Logistics, Shunfeng Logistics has done its business all over the Qing Dynasty. Because no one dares to collect the emperor's tariffs and road donations, Shunfeng Logistics Company operates at a very low cost. Because of the low price of Shunfeng Logistics, the safety surname and the timeliness surname are good, the business outlets of Shunfeng Logistics are all over the country, and even the larger towns have business outlets set up by Shunfeng Logistics. The goods it handles are no longer limited to the materials of the imperial court, and the delivery of foreigners and small private items is also included in the business scope of Shunfeng. In the past three years of Shunfeng Logistics' operation, it can be said that the goods of the entire Qing Dynasty 90 have been turned over through Shunfeng Logistics. It is also because Shunfeng Logistics no longer pays road donations and tariffs, which also makes the gold system exist in name only.

And the local governors who lost this important source of gold dared to be angry but did not dare to speak. Now that the emperor has clearly decreed to cancel the fire consumption, this is the same as cutting off the financial resources of the local governors, and the local governors who have lost their finances can only obey the arrangements and dispatches of the imperial court. And it is conceivable that the local governors who have lost their financial resources will no longer be able to support their own private soldiers, and if they ask the imperial court for military salaries, then the emperor will definitely reorganize the troops in various places in the name of reducing the number of elite soldiers, just like the reorganization of the two rivers, and then the military power will also be returned to the imperial court. In this way, the local governors who have lost their financial and military power can really only be at the mercy of the imperial court.

Once the decree to abolish the fire consumption is promulgated, the local governors will not rest on their laurels, and they will certainly rise up in opposition to it. Then the confrontation between the local government and the imperial court will no longer be the previous one, but will be put on the table openly and white-hot. Therefore, this will to cancel the fire consumption is tantamount to a signal for the imperial court to declare war on the localities. If the emperor can win this battle, then the emperor will take over the power, and the future Qing Dynasty will be the only one who will obey the emperor. But if the emperor loses this battle, then the entire Qing Dynasty will really be on the verge of falling apart.

Even the empress dowager only dared to support Beiyang to restrain the localities, and the emperor, who had only been personally conquered for less than a year, had to take action against the entrenched local governors, how could this not make the Manchu civil and military frightened. There are a few ministers who can stand on top of this court who do not understand the current situation in the Qing Dynasty. The frightened ministers thought about it carefully, the emperor was not without the confidence to declare war, first of all, the Northeast, Zhili, and Liangjiang must obey the emperor's will, which has an exemplary role. In fact, the existence of the Daqing Bank has had an impact on the finances of the local governors, and it can be said that the emperor has collected the world's wealth through the Daqing Bank, and it is also convenient to cancel the fire consumption at this time. And the most important thing is the elite troops of the ten divisions in the hands of the emperor, in the battle of Cangzhou in the First Sino-Japanese War, 70,000 Qing troops were defeated by 20,000 Yue troops, but the emperor only used 10,000 people to annihilate the newly victorious Yue army. Once the emperor's ten divisions came out, what did the local governors do to block it.

However, if you think about it further, it is naturally the emperor who benefits from the power of the world and the imperial court, but the emperor really dares to challenge the governor of the world with these ten divisions, does the emperor really dare to fight a civil war in the Qing Dynasty under the eyes of the foreigners and wolves? Although the emperor is young and impulsive, and he may act recklessly, but the Empress Dowager Cixi in the back doesn't understand this truth, so why has she never heard the Empress Dowager and her old man mention it? Could it be that the queen mother and her old man deliberately made this first with the emperor's hand, and when the governors of the world rose up and reversed, the queen mother came out to speak and clean up the mess, while regaining the power of the court, and on the other hand, she could do this in the name of the emperor. In this way, the power was returned to the imperial court, and it was not the Queen Mother who benefited in the end. This world must be the world of Aixinjueluo's family, who dares to guarantee that the Queen Mother and her old man have not thought so.

Thinking of the ministers here in this cold day, they couldn't help but break out in a cold sweat. Even Xu Tong, who was about to die, didn't say a word. Li Hongzhang in the court became the focus of everyone's attention, but he just lowered his head and didn't say a word.

Seeing that all the courtiers stopped talking, Guangxu ended today's court meeting with a sentence of retreat. Normally, the ministers who finished the court meeting would always talk about the affairs of the court while walking, but today they all walked with their heads bowed, and no one spoke.

The emperor was about to go to war against the ministers, and everyone was terrified.