After half a month of bargaining, the representatives of the warlords in various places finally reached a preliminary agreement with the prime minister of the State Council of the Chinese Empire, and they all agreed to accept the terms of the Chinese Empire, and from then on changed their banners and joined the Chinese Empire in the name of an autonomous province and accepted the leadership of the Emperor.

Although these people are just deputies, not those local powerful factions themselves, these deputies often have confidants of those local leaders, and they have a certain degree of arbitrary power, and usually they nod their heads, and the basic matter is decided.

After the matter is decided, according to the rules, before these people leave, they have to go to see His Majesty, firstly, it is finalized, and secondly, they also bid farewell to His Majesty.

The place to meet His Majesty is the Yonghua Palace in Suzhou City as usual, and it is the Great Light Hall that accepts worship to show the formal meaning.

After receiving the bows and greetings from the representatives of all places on the dragon chair in the center of the Great Light Hall, Li Yongji waved his hand again, signaling that he would be exempted from courtesy, and when everyone thanked him again, the ceremony would be considered over.

Originally, the matter was over here, and the next thing should be that the emperor announced his withdrawal from the dynasty, and everyone dispersed, and then the representatives of them packed up their things and prepared to leave, but who knew that just when Li Yongji was about to say that he would retire from the dynasty, Zuo Zongtang suddenly jumped out.

I saw Zuo Zongtang suddenly knelt down in the middle and shouted loudly: "Your Majesty is slow, the minister still has something to say, and please listen to the words of the minister, and then it is not too late to retreat." ”

"Oh?" was stunned by the other party's statement, after all, strictly speaking, Zuo Zongtang is not his subject, but there is no need to care too much about this kind of thing, and everyone knelt down to him in public, so Li Yongji nodded, "Okay, if you have anything to say, just say it, I listen." ”

"Thank you." Zuo Zongtang kowtowed, and then raised his head and arched his hand. "Your Majesty, your open-mindedness can be said to be rare in ancient and modern times, this minister is very admired, and in the future to become a subject of His Majesty, Weichen is also very happy. However, when the minister saw that there was still a special envoy of the bandits, could it be that his Majesty wanted to pardon even those bandits under the banner of the cult? Your Majesty, with all due respect, this matter must not be allowed. Never! ”

"Hey, what do you say?" Hearing what the other party said, Li Mingcheng, the special envoy sent by the Taiping Army, was not happy, because this was obviously scolding himself, so he didn't care about anything else, and came out directly and pointed at Zuo Zongtang and scolded, "The surname Zuo, what do you want to do?" Hmph, if it weren't for His Majesty's face. Lao Tzu ......"

"Silence!" The guard on duty in the main hall suddenly shouted, "This is the imperial court, don't be rude!" ”

After speaking, the guard pointed at Li Mingcheng and said, "You." Retire! If you have any words, wait for your majesty to finish asking, and then start playing according to the rules, and you can only speak after your majesty approves it. If you are so unruly, you will be expelled from the court immediately! ”

Hearing the guard say this, Li Mingcheng opened his mouth. In the end, he still didn't speak, and retreated, but after all, he was in full view of everyone, so his face was already flushed, and he stared at Zuo Zongtang's eyes as if he was about to burst into flames.

Li Mingcheng was Li Xiucheng's representative, and originally came to negotiate on behalf of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, but because the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom's asking price was too high, he actually wanted to continue to maintain the national name and continue to become a vassal state of the Chinese Empire in the name of the Taiping Kingdom.

This is definitely not possible, so this condition is just the sky-high asking price of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, and in the end, Li Mingcheng finally showed his true face, that is, to bypass the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom and only talk about Li Xiucheng's problem.

Li Xiucheng is now the most powerful warlord in the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, with 200,000 soldiers and horses under his command, and controls the two cities of Jiujiang and Nanchang, which can be said to be the strongest strength in the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom at present, and even Chen Yucheng's soldiers and horses are not as good as him.

But now, Li Xiucheng also knows that his belongings can't stop the attack of the Chinese Empire, so when he heard Li Yongji's call, he was already moved, but unfortunately Chen Yucheng was eyeing him on the side, and he couldn't act without permission, so he had to use the radio given by Li Yongji at the beginning to show favor to Li Yongji and explain his difficulties.

Li Yongji was generous, and he also said on the phone that he understood the other party's difficulties, but at most he would give him half a month, and if he didn't send someone over for half a month to show his intention of surrendering and surrendering, then he would be embarrassed and could only continue to send troops to attack.

Li Xiucheng was ruthless enough, and after some ideological struggle, he finally made up his mind to attack Chen Yucheng, who was protecting Hongtian and wealth.

It's a pity that Chen Yucheng has been guarding against Li Xiucheng, and although Chen Yucheng's soldiers and horses are not as many as Li Xiucheng's, they are all elite, and most of Chen Yucheng's troops are in Nanchang, and Hong Tianfugui is also in Nanchang, which means that Chen Yucheng is defending and Li Xiucheng is attacking, so in the face of Li Xiucheng's attack, it is still very easy to hold Nanchang.

However, Li Xiucheng actually didn't mean to take down Nanchang at all, he just wanted to make a gesture and show that he had turned his face with the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, so as to show favor to Li Yongji, so this is a vote.

Sure enough, after fighting for half a month, Li Xiucheng saw that his posture was almost done, so he sent his younger brother Li Mingcheng over and officially surrendered to Li Yongji.

It's just that Li Mingcheng came relatively late, and when he came to Suzhou, the consultative meeting on the peaceful reunification of the government had already ended, and the empire had already negotiated with other local governors, but it didn't matter if it came late, the conditions were the same anyway, and Li Mingcheng, after being hypocritical, agreed to the conditions of the Chinese empire like other governors, and asked Li Xiucheng for the position of mayor of Jiujiang City.

Li Mingcheng's arrival is not a secret, everyone actually knows it, and because the Taiping Army had grievances with everyone in the past, Li Mingcheng kept Li Xiucheng's words in mind, and usually stayed in his room without leaving the door, trying to avoid meeting with other representatives, but also saved some trouble.

But today is the Great Pilgrimage Meeting, and there is no way to avoid meeting. Originally, Li Mingcheng continued to play low-key, and the other representatives knew who he was, but they didn't deliberately show hostility, and it was very common to show Xiàn, but I didn't expect this Zuo Zongtang to come to such a show when he came.

Seeing that the situation was in control, Li Yongji smiled and continued to say to Zuo Zongtang who was kneeling on the ground: "You are Zuo Zongtang, right?" It's been a long time since I've heard of the big name, well, you get up first, get up and speak. ”

"Thank you." Zuo Zongtang kowtowed again, and then stood up again.

"You said you can't pardon the Taiping Army? Why? Li Yongji asked again, "Give me a reason." But if it's your personal vendetta, then don't talk about it. ”

"Your Majesty, although the minister hates bandits, this time it's not for personal grudges." Zuo Zongtang said, "Weichen is completely for the sake of His Majesty, for the sake of the people who are ruled by bandits. ”

"What do you mean by that?"

"It's simple, because the nature of the bandits is different from ours." Zuo Zongtang said, "Your Majesty, the bandits are all bandits who believe in what kind of worship of God, and they have always been cruel and ruthless. Regardless of morality, or the outline, they are just a group of ignorant bandits. Under the rule of the bandits, the common people lived a life worse than death. How can these cultists, who are so cruel to the people, allow them to be in the same temple as us? To put it mildly, these bandits are all wolf cubs who can't be raised, and if you let them go today, you will be raising tigers. He will be woe one day! ”

"That's all in the past." Li Yongji said, "As I said, the country has been in turmoil for so long, and what the people want is stability. If there is peace one day earlier, the people will be able to live a peaceful life one day earlier, and for this purpose, what if I give up some power for the time being. As for the past events of the Taiping Army. It was all done by Hong Xiuquan, and now Hong Xiuquan is dead and dead, as long as his subordinates are willing to listen to me. By my rules, then I can treat them equally, even if they were enemies in the past, and I can forgive them. ”

"His Majesty's fist loves the people, of course Weichen understands." Zuo Zongtang said, "But the bandits are different from us. Let's be honest, in the past, I didn't have a deep grudge with you, and there was no dead knot that couldn't be untied, so the bandits were different.

Hong Xiuquan, the leader of the bandits, is like a god in their minds, and such a person died in the hands of His Majesty, in this case, do you think they will willingly obey your orders? Even if most of the common people can still repent, those bandit generals are categorically unwilling to forget this great revenge, and they will come to you to take revenge sooner or later. Therefore, we must not be merciful to these ill-intentioned people, and we must cut down the grass and eradicate the roots.

Of course, not only bandits, but also other things like twisters and the like must also be cut down to the roots, tough to the end, not the slightest expectation for them, nor can there be a little bit of peace. Otherwise, everyone will learn from them, kill officials and rebel at every turn, and then make a big fuss and then be recruited, so who will be willing to be obedient to the people? ”

"Well, I see what you mean." Li Yongji nodded, "You want to say that the Taiping Army has too much enmity with me, and it is impossible for them to be sincerely attached, and other bandits can't recruit peace, and they can't be a bad example so that everyone can learn, isn't that so?" ”

"That's right, that's what the minister's words meant." Zuo Zongtang said.

"Sounds good." Li Yongji said, "But some things are not as simple as you think, such as this one." ”

Li Yongji pointed at Li Mingcheng and continued to say to Zuo Zongtang: "This one is actually only talking on behalf of Li Xiu, not on behalf of the Taiping Army. In other words, Li Xiucheng has parted ways with the Taiping Army, and he is incompatible, and he took the initiative to take refuge with me this time, representing Li Xiucheng himself, not the Taiping Army.

As for the other reasons you mentioned, I don't think it's anything, just have bad intentions, as long as you don't actually rebel, but you have counter-intentions in your heart, and even curse me, it doesn't matter.

Anyway, if they want to surrender, they must accept my peace conditions, and if they can still succeed in rebellion under the conditions I have set, then I will admit it. ”

After a pause, Li Yongji looked at the representatives of the parties below again, and smiled again: "To put it simply, I don't expect you to support me and love me from the bottom of your heart, I only ask you to obey me, completely obey me!" If you listen to me, you will live a peaceful life, but if you don't listen to me......"

Speaking of this, Li Yongji squinted his eyes, raised his right hand again, and made a head-cutting motion towards his neck: "You want to kill the head!" (To be continued......)