Nanjing Suqian Marquis Mansion, this Marquis Mansion used to be a royal palace of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, and after the Chinese Empire established the capital of Nanjing, it was naturally confiscated as a national asset.

When Shi Qingxuan was awarded the title of Suqian Bo, Lin Zhe gave Shi Qingxuan this mansion, and two years later, the owner of this mansion has changed from Suqian Bofu to Suqian Marquis.

The two big words 'Shifu' on its gate are dazzling in gold, so that anyone who has not passed in front of the gate can feel the huge power of the main force of this mansion.

The Marquis of Suqian, at this time, is one of the only four marquis in the empire, and Shi Qingxuan is also the first person to obtain the marquis, in addition to Shi Qingxuan, the Marquis of Suqian, there are also Zhenjiang Marquis Xu Yanqing, Dali Marquis Shi Langyi, Yizhou Marquis Lin Chengfei.

Perhaps intentionally or unintentionally, when Lin Zhe rewarded them with mansions, they were all concentrated in this area, so that on both sides of this street, there were the four major marquis mansions of the empire, and there were three other earl's mansions and four viscount mansions.

Over time, this street was called Houfu Lane by the local people, and it was a day when the nobles and dignitaries came and went.

At this moment, Shi Qing, Lin Chengfei, Shi Langyi, and Xu Yanqing are sitting together in the Shi Mansion, these people are usually outside, and they have not had the opportunity to get together again since 1856.

After several years, it was only at this ceremony that everyone was able to reunite.

Between a pot of warm wine and a few plates of peanuts, there was a loud laugh of these people, even after all these years, they have grown into military bosses, and there are a group of people following them, and it can even be said that they have formed some kind of faction.

In the past, there were naturally some conflicts of political interests. But on an occasion like today, all the intrigues in the past have been put down. Everyone began to recall many deeds of that year.

"At that time, when I first entered the Suiying Academy, this guy picked me up at the door. As soon as I entered the door of the dormitory, I put a shelf for my predecessors, and if it wasn't for the rice and grain boiling at home, I would have turned around and left! Shi Qingxuan said hehehe.

And Shi Langyi on the side said hehe: "Who let you be the last at that time, the first is the longest, you can only be the little brother when you come last!" ”

When the school first opened, there were only a dozen or twenty students in total, and these students lived in the dormitory collectively. Even if you don't get the titles of marquis, earl, etc., you can still get a baron.

So strictly speaking, many nobles in the empire today were not just classmates, but people who slept in the same dormitory.

In this spare time, I will restore the nature of the scholars back then, and go shopping in the Qinglou or something collectively.

The relationship between these people is that they have gone to school together. slept in the same dormitory, fought side by side on the same battlefield, and occasionally went to prostitution together, and almost went to prison together.

So even if they have conflicting political interests on weekdays. But when it comes to old things, everyone is full of smiles.

"Among these classmates back then, this time they should be able to get at least one viscount!" Xu Yanqing said: "It's a pity for those few." If it weren't for his untimely death, I'm afraid my achievements would be even higher than a few of us! ”

Xu Yanqing said that it was naturally the first batch of classmates who unfortunately died on the battlefield. After so many years, more than 20 classmates slept in the same dormitory. Five people have already died on the battlefield, and another seven or eight people have retired one after another due to injuries.

It's only a little more than half of what I've been able to do with them.

"Yes, there are not many old brothers left now, they fought miserably in Si'an back then, Brother Zibin and Brother An were martyred in Si'an!" When Lin Chengfei said this, he seemed to remember the scene when their group of people went from Yuyao to northern Zhejiang.

At that time, they didn't think that many years later, there would be a Chinese empire today, they only remembered the several fierce battles in Huzhou that year, and they were only killed and wounded in the Yongying camp in Yuyao County, and they remembered that there were hundreds of dead and wounded that year, and Yuyao County was almost full of white flags.

Since 1853, as the starting place of Lin Zhe, the total population of Yuyao County, especially the number of adult men, has not increased, but has declined slightly.

Why is the population still decreasing?

Because a large number of Yuyao's children died on the battlefield after joining the Chinese army!

Over the years, only in Yuyao County, more than 4,000 soldiers have died in battle, and the names of the fallen soldiers are engraved in the martyr's shrine built by the royal family in Yuyao County.

Of course, Yuyao's children suffered heavy casualties, but in the new imperial leadership, there were also a lot of military and political dignitaries from Yuyao, and there were at least thirty Yuyao people above the rank of major general in the military. In the civil service, there are at least 20 officials above the rank of director.

These people were talking about the past, and they didn't know who sighed, and then the atmosphere suddenly became dull!

When the courtiers gathered in Nanjing, Lin Zhe also looked at the final list of honors submitted by the secretariat, which was actually not long, only less than 100 people.

And these 100 people are the candidates for tomorrow's award ceremony, but most of these 100 people are already people who have knighthoods, but the titles are not high, and one-third of them are newly knighted people.

At the same time, the proportion of military generals in this list is quite large, fully 8 out of 10, and only two tiers of people are civil officials.

And in this list, there are not only Chinese, but also a very special person, he is Major General Khante? William, the actual trainer of Yu Shengjun's early days, served as the chief of the military training department in the middle of the period and was responsible for the training affairs of the Chinese army, and later served as the chief of staff of the First Army.

He's also on the list of decorated people!

Early the next morning, many of the invited military and political dignitaries were already wearing their official dresses and entering the palace one after another, and the military generals were all wearing the latest high-ranking generals' dresses. The main color of the army's general's dress is dark blue, with a double-breasted long top. Big-brimmed hat, same dark blue pants. Paired with long leather boots, a ceremonial command knife hung from his waist, and medals on his chest, as well as their respective noble family insignia.

The navy officers were dressed similarly to those of the army generals, but their dress was white and they also wore ceremonial swords, medals, badges, etc.

In addition to many high-ranking generals, there are also many civil officials, and the clothes of these civil officials are much more unified and simple, and they are all high-end Chinese clothes. Wearing shiny leather shoes, they wore nothing on their heads, some were smooth bald heads, some were inch heads, and they basically hung a peony badge on their chests, and a very small number of people would hang unique aristocratic family badges, such as Bi Yutong, Song Guanqian, etc.

However, outside of this group, there are a few people who wear extremely special dragon badges. This is a badge that can only be worn by employees of the royal family, and these people are basically high-ranking officials of the palace affairs department, such as Pan Lixuan, director of the finance department, Zhou Cheng, director of the secretariat, several deputy directors who also serve as accompanying secretaries, and Lin Lan, the head of the internal office of the sect.

After these high-ranking military and political dignitaries entered the palace one after another. It was waiting in the Xinhua Palace.

Naturally, you can't walk around while waiting, but a few people who are close will still talk to each other to pass the time of waiting.

They didn't have to wait long, though. Half an hour after the ministers arrived at the Xinhua Palace, they saw several secretaries of the palace secretariat who maintained order walking in.

See them come in. Everyone immediately closed their mouths in unison, and then stood on the high ground according to their respective identities.

Sure enough, it was two minutes later. I saw a ceremonial officer of the Ministry of Education in front of me and said loudly: "The emperor has arrived!" ”

Immediately, everyone bowed their heads and bent down thirty degrees in unison, and no one dared to look up at Lin Zhe at this time!

At this time, Lin Zhe also walked into the hall slowly, and then sat on the dragon chair in front of him!

As soon as Lin Zhe sat down, the ministers below sang in unison: "Long live my emperor, long live, long live!" ”

Lin Zhe looked at the group of people below who were pressed by the black, his expression was still flat, he just raised his hand lightly, and the ceremonial officer next to him said aloud: "Flat!" ”

This ceremony can be regarded as one of the few large-scale ceremonies in the history of the empire, and this kind of large-scale ceremony has only been held in the past when the emperor was proclaimed and the capital was established.

Normally, Lin Zhe is not interested in playing this kind of large-scale worship, and when he deals with official affairs on a daily basis, he directly receives a few ministers, and he does not have to go to court every day or every three or five days like the traditional emperor.

He works in his own office, and the ministers also work in their respective departments, so if there is nothing to do, everyone doesn't have to do anything.

After the worship, there are some other ceremonies, such as the imperial gift, the military presents the captured enemy flags, tables, trophies, etc., there are more than a dozen flags of all kinds, and many tables of surrender written by important prisoners, including the surrender and self-guilt signed by many Manchu magnates such as Prince Gong of the former Qing Dynasty, and the self-guilt written by the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom for the magnates.

There are also captured trophies of the enemy, such as the sabers and sabers of the enemy's high-ranking generals, as well as swords, spears, bows and arrows, muskets as representatives, and even the military directly pulled a cannon of a former Qing general to walk too long.

After the military presents, the cabinet presents a map of the empire's territory, a map of the empire's territory, a list of acres of land and population of each province, a list of acres of land and a population account of vassal countries such as Korea, the Ryukyus, and Vietnam, and then various friendship treaties signed with various countries.

All of these were used to show that the empire had completely unified the land of Kyushu, thus creating a prosperous situation in which all nations came to the dynasty.

After the dedication, it is to sacrifice to the temple, and it is tossed for most of the day according to the ancient rites.

Due to the very long duration of the continuous ceremony, the Ministry of Education is not expected to finish until about two o'clock in the afternoon, but the emperor and a group of ministers must not be left hungry.

You must know that these courtiers have to get up to prepare before dawn, and then they have to arrive at the Xinhua Hall at dawn, although they have eaten some things before they come, but by noon, they are all hungry and panicked.

So at noon, taking advantage of the ceremonial interval, there are personnel to send the meal that has already been prepared, of course, this lunch can not be a banquet, the time left for everyone is limited, just a quarter of an hour, and the ceremony must continue after eating, so everyone doesn't even have a place to sit, just stand on the square and start eating, of course, you can sit on the ground regardless of your face, anyway, no one says about you.

Fortunately, the people in the palace hall also thought of this, and the meal sent was not a meal, but steamed buns, steamed buns, well, at most a glass of water, which can cushion the stomach a little, don't expect any delicacies from the mountains and seas.

This scene has a very similar feeling of migrant workers eating boxed lunches in later generations of construction sites, well, not as good as migrant workers, and the boxed lunches eaten by migrant workers are good or fish, they only have steamed buns or steamed buns.

Before a quarter of an hour arrived, people came over one after another to take away the cups and the remaining steamed buns in their hands, and after a while, Lin Zhe's figure appeared in everyone's sight, and then Lin Zhe led the ministers to continue the boring and boring ritual.

The ministers were in a hurry to eat before, and Lin Zhe couldn't get any better, of course, he had to eat a little more, but the time was only ten minutes, even if it was a mountain delicacies, he couldn't eat much!

After being busy for more than two hours under the August sun, everyone returned to the Xinhua Palace, but at this time, although everyone was tired and panicked, their faces showed joy and expectation.

Because what is going on later is the focus of today, which is a large-scale knighthood! (To be continued.) )