Holding a book published by the Imperial University on the 'Application of the Steam Engine' and reading it, he occasionally looked up at the street outside the building, and such days are now Li Hongzhang's daily life in the past year.

After a year, he was naturally very unsuitable for this kind of life at first, but after a long time, he became accustomed to it.

Turning the page of the book, I heard the sound of someone climbing the stairs, and when I looked back slightly, I saw that it was a military police captain guarding me.

This gendarmerie captain specially led the team to guard many high-ranking prisoners, these prisoners are not only Li Hongzhang, but also have the title of a military adviser in the high command, but in fact they have always been under house arrest of the Taiping Loyal King Li Xiucheng, well, it also includes the British commander Earl Ergin, who was captured some time ago, and now there are more than 20 Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, Manchu Qing and all kinds of Taiping Heavenly Kingdom and Manchu Qing who are under house arrest in Nanjing, well, including more than 20 high-ranking prisoners of the British and French forces.

These people can't be killed, they can't be released, even if those high-ranking captives in the Manchu Qing Dynasty and the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom want to take the initiative to surrender to the Chinese Empire, but Lin Zhe doesn't dare to use it with confidence, so he simply keeps them under house arrest and leaves them for later treatment.

I saw him come over and say to Li Hongzhang: "Mr. Li, please prepare a little, someone wants to see you!" ”

"Want to see me? Who is it? Li Hongzhang looked puzzled, when he was first escorted to Nanjing, he was also seen twice in three days, mainly a few people from the military, and then several high-ranking officials of the Chinese Empire, the purpose of seeing him was to get more information about the Manchu Qing from him, and on the other hand, he also wanted to persuade him to submit to the Chinese Empire anyway.

At that time, Li Hongzhang was not a stubborn person. If you have to say that you are loyal to the Manchu Qing until death or something, if you say that Lin Zhe shows enough sincerity. For example, if he came to persuade him personally, maybe he agreed after a hesitation.

But on the part of the Chinese Empire. Or Lin Zhe himself is really not interested in these high-level captives, he is not playing the Three Kingdoms game, but he has no time and interest to play any loyalty games, if these high-level captives are willing to surrender, at most they can only get an idle title like Li Xiucheng, but they are still under surveillance and house arrest.

There is no need to reuse enemy prisoners!

If you are willing to submit, you will be obedient, and if you are unwilling, you will be pulled down, and the huge Chinese Empire will not be affected because of whether a few captives are anyway.

At the beginning, Lin Zhe was still excited about capturing Li Hongzhang, after all, Li Hongzhang was a historical celebrity. A certain curiosity about him is for sure.

However, this excitement was still there at the beginning, and after a few days, Li Hongzhang was left behind by Lin Zhe, why? Because Lin Zhe forgot!

After a series of events in the subsequent empire, especially after the war with the British and French forces, Lin Zhe had no time to think about other messy things.

Now that the situation is stable, this free time is naturally more, and when Lin Zhe thought about how to develop industry yesterday, he couldn't help but think of the Westernization movement in history, and since he remembered the Westernization movement. Naturally, I inevitably thought of Li Hongzhang and his Beiyang sailors.

After thinking of him, Lin Zhe suddenly remembered that this Li Hongzhang was captured by his own family last year, and he has been locked up.

Now that I remembered. In addition, there has been a lot of time recently, and in more cheesy terms, Lin Zhe has been idle in the past two days. So he casually said something and brought Li Hongzhang over to see him.

Seeing Li Hongzhang, the main reason is to satisfy curiosity. Or maybe it's to satisfy some bad taste that is not known to outsiders!

This is Li Hongzhang, and there are a few people in later generations who can phanturize Li Hongzhang as a prisoner. And then take his life and death into your hands?

Lin Zhe thought about whether to arrest Zeng Guofan, Shi Dakai, Hong Xiuquan, Xianfeng, and Xianfeng's younger brother Yixuan in the future, and then put them in a cell, he was very curious about how these people would get along with each other at that time, and whether anyone would whisper in the middle of the night: The carved jade should still be there, but the chrysanthemum is still there. Ask how much sorrow you can have, just like a river of spring water flowing eastward!

The deep meaning of this kind of thing is naturally incomprehensible to people in this era, this is a bad taste that belongs to Lin Zhe alone!

Lin Zhe remembered that Li Hongzhang wanted to see him on a whim, but for Li Hongzhang, the meaning was completely different, of course, Li Hongzhang at this moment didn't know that Lin Zhe wanted to see him, he only knew that there was a big official above who wanted to see him.

This can be seen from the fine woolen Chinese costume brought by the gendarme, and the captain of the gendarmerie told him very clearly that he must tidy up his personal appearance and not be rude in front of high-ranking officials.

Li Hongzhang didn't care, after taking the clothes, he went to the room by himself, and then fetched water by himself and began to freshen up, this kind of thing was categorically impossible to do before he was captured, he was born in a family of eunuchs, he was used to being served since he was a child, and even more so after he entered the official career.

It is an exaggeration to say that he was fetched and washed by himself before he was captured in his life, and he never wore clothes by himself!

After being captured, his life was greatly changed, although the gendarmes would provide hot water, soap, towels and other daily necessities, and he could not say that he would eat big fish and meat every day, but he could still ensure the upper and middle level, but he would definitely not do the work of serving people, and it was absolutely impossible to send you a maid to come over, so this person had to do his own life.

After a simple freshening up, Li Hongzhang looked at himself in the mirror, and was a little unrecognizable for a while.

In the mirror, he was the same as those military police, carrying a hair that was only more than an inch long, this hair was forcibly cut off by the military police not long after he arrived in Nanjing, when Li Hongzhang was forced to cut off his braids, he was once like ashes, and he almost wanted to die, but he didn't have the courage in the end.

After his hair had been cut off, and the horse coat and robe he was wearing had been collected, he still had a dislike for the Chinese clothes cut from cotton, but it was better than no clothes at all.

After wearing a small head and Chinese clothes for a long time, I naturally got used to it, and I even forgot what it was like to drag a braid behind my head.

Now when he saw himself in this mirror, and remembered that he was a little excited to see him this time for the upper echelons of the Chinese Empire, he took a deep breath, and at this moment he was full of contradictions in his heart.

In his heart, he is still unwilling to do it anyway, he has his own beliefs and ethics, and being a traitor is definitely not what he wants to do.

But on the other hand, this more than a year of house arrest also made him feel a lot, after being locked up for a long time, he was eager for someone to remember him, and even value him, for a former figure, the most terrible thing is not death, but being forgotten.

At the same time, he also has a great curiosity about the current Chinese Empire, and he wants to go outside, take a look, and see what is different about this Chinese Empire!

These thoughts are full of these thoughts, which makes Li Hongzhang full of inner struggle at this moment!

With a deep sigh, Li Hongzhang buttoned the last slit of his neckline, then bent down and put on the pair of leather shoes sent by the military police, and gently wiped the trace of dust on the black leather shoes.

Then straightened up and walked out, and after pushing the door open, the gendarme waiting at the door saw Li Hongzhang, who was dressed in new clothes, his face changed slightly, and he muttered in his heart, if he didn't know that he was a prisoner, he probably thought he was the cabinet minister.

Even if he has been imprisoned for a year, although his living habits have changed, although his clothes have changed, he is still Li Hongzhang, Li Hongzhang who is different from others.

After leaving the gate of this small courtyard for the first time in the past half a year, Li Hongzhang was still a high-ranking official of the previous imperial court, and he was led into the four-wheeled carriage when he went out.

What he didn't know was that there was also a young official who was also wearing a Chinese costume with the gendarmes, and although the style of this young official's Chinese costume looked the same as other Chinese clothes, and his neckline also wore a badge like many officials, the badge at the neckline was not the peony badge commonly used by high-ranking officials, but a dragon badge.

This is a neckline badge peculiar to royal employees, and no one else dares to use the royal dragon's insignia in public except for royal employees.

Last year, the empire had officially formulated the national emblem, and its national emblem was not the commonly used dragon pattern, but was based on the peony, and the royal coat of arms was naturally the traditional golden dragon.

Starting this year, perhaps in order to distinguish yourself from the generals in the military, you can use the family badges unique to the nobility, as well as the war merit medal and the like, but our civil officials can also use the badge, and they don't use any noble badges, and they directly hang up the national emblem.

This has also caused a trend in the group of middle and high-ranking officials to pin a peony national emblem on the left neckline of the Chinese uniform.

In order to keep pace with the times, Lin Zhe also specially allowed the employees of the palace department to hang the royal coat of arms at the neckline as decoration.

Li Hongzhang has been under house arrest for a long time, so naturally he doesn't know the doorway here!

So he didn't know that the person who came to pick him up was not an ordinary official, but an official from the palace affairs department!

Staying in the carriage, Li Hongzhang did not close his eyes to recuperate, but jumped open the curtain on the carriage window, and then looked sideways at the street outside.

The streets of Nanjing have changed a little bit compared to when he first arrived in Nanjing last year, when he first arrived last year, he could still see the traces of war damage, and often saw the ruins after being burned by the fire, but now it is no longer visible, and in the corner of the street, he saw a brick and stone building with an obvious Western-style architectural style rising from the ground, this three-story building may be a very ordinary building in Shanghai's business district, but in a city like Nanjing, which can be regarded as an inland city, It is very conspicuous among many traditional brick houses.

Looking all the way, when the carriage stopped, Li Hongzhang found that the place they came to was a little special, this was not a certain official yamen, they were in a huge square, and the north of the square was a huge palace gate.

They're here at the China Palace! (To be continued......)