Chapter 248 The big thing can be decided

Li Hongzhang's meeting with Guangxu and Li Hongzao must not be hidden from Cixi - but Cixi is helpless now. Let's not say that it is normal for the emperor to summon a courtier, even if he says something that should not be said, what can the current Cixi do? Although Cixi held the authority of the Qing Dynasty, this authority was only useful with the support of powerful factions from all sides. If we compare the strength of the current situation, if we really do something excessive and force Li Hongzhang to transport his Beiyang Army by sea, that day will really change!

Isn't the current Beiyang Army already very tired? But no matter how tired you are, it's still no problem to draw out 10,000 troops, and now what's in Zhili? Rong Lu's northwest training army has already gone to the battlefield, and the Beijing Eight Banners and Green Battalion are also ready to go to the battlefield, and the problem in defending the northeast, the land of Manchu Longxing, is that Cixi and Guangxu have no other way, even if they fill in the northeast, they must hold the northeast.

And judging from the performance of Rong Lu and Yi Ke Tang, Cixi has no confidence in the Manchu army at all, although the battle situation in Beiyang is ugly, but it has been in Korea and the Japanese army for more than half a year, but what about Rong Lu and Yi Ke Tanga? With twice as many troops, it lasted less than two days before the Yalu River was breached. This is still the most capable of fighting in the Manchurian army! If you want to count on the remaining army, which is not even as good as the Northwest Army, to resist the Beiyang Land Division, isn't that looking for death?

There are two most basic means of politics, one is suppression, and the other is co-optation. When the blow no longer works, co-opting is the inevitable choice. But there is also a price to be paid for wooing, although I don't know what Li Hongzhang and Guangxu are talking about. But with the old fox of King Gong behind his back, in the face of Li Hongzhang's request, Guangxu will definitely give more. But how much to give, it is not up to Cixi to know the way, after all, there are only three people present: Guangxu, Li Hongzhang and Li Hongzao.

It's like two people going to buy something at the same time, but neither of them knows the price offered by the other party, this kind of unknown is the most terrifying, you drive low, you will lose this thing. And if you drive high, I don't know if you can bear it. Intuitively, Li Hongzhang's condition was indeed for the Qing Dynasty to win the war, and since the beginning of the war, Cixi has also become somewhat interested in which small country in the east, and she is also curious to know why the country known as the Wako can surpass the Qing Dynasty in just twenty years.

But as she got to know her better, Cixi felt more and more inexplicable fear. Whether it is the emperor of Japan or the emperor of Germany, their country is indeed strong, but the power of the supreme ruler is also weakened! Compared with his own words in the Qing Kingdom, the rights of those foreign monarchs are much smaller, and intuitively, the weakening of rights is directly related to those various restorations! And what is even more disturbing is that what Li Hongzhang did is the precursor of these reforms! Even if the Qing Dynasty, which doesn't count by talking by itself, is it strong, what is the use? Can't you let those courtiers point fingers at what they do all day long? If they don't agree, they can't do it themselves?

"Back to the Queen Mother, even if you don't agree, the emperor will agree. When the time comes, there will be the emperor and Qingliu in the center, and there will be the support of the governors and governors of the provinces outside, can you say no? Sun Yuwen said.

"Then you mean that the great rivers and mountains of the Qing Dynasty are going to let these outsiders gossip?" Cixi stared at Sun Yuwen and said dissatisfiedly.

"I'm not afraid of this, if the new law can really make Beiyang strong. Then Nanyang will also be stronger, and the Queen Mother can also use this method to make Lord Rong Lurong strong. When everyone gets stronger, the situation will be balanced again. It's better than Beiyang now, right? Sun Yuwen said cautiously. …,

"Is there no other way?" Cixi asked a little unwillingly.

"If it drags on any longer, Lord Ronglu's northwest training army will probably suffer even greater losses. In this northeast, Li Hongzhang can not go, but Lord Ronglu must go. If you wait until the emperor and the governors of various provinces make trouble together, the queen mother, you will be passive. Sun Yuwen couldn't help but sigh and said.

"Actually, this is also an opportunity, Queen Mother, haven't you been looking at Weng Tongyi for a long time? This Weng Tongyi and Li Hongzhang are not dealing with each other in the first place, and we can completely blame him for the lack of funds in Beiyang. In this way, the imperial party lost an arm, and Li Hongzhang owed the Queen Mother a favor again. A wicked smile appeared on Sun Yuwen's face.

"Sun Zhongtang is really talented." Cixi nodded with satisfaction. "The rest of the matter will be handled by Sun Zhongtang and King Qing."

In the next few days, the political situation in Beijing can definitely be described as an earthquake. First of all, King Qing and Sun Yuwen jointly signed a book, and they ruthlessly participated in Weng Tongyi's book. The excerpt accused Weng Tonggong of being in charge of the household department and wantonly deducting the funds of the Second Beiyang Naval and Land Division. Faced with accusations from a prince and a minister of military aircraft. Weng Tongyong couldn't argue, even if he could cover up all the holes, but there was a huge difference between the amount of money allocated to Beiyang every year and the amount stipulated in the regulations. A crime of dereliction of duty will never run away! Under the reproaches and blows from all sides, Weng Tongyi had no choice but to resign from the post of secretary of the household department.

Then, at the suggestion of the Empress Dowager Cixi, the Military Aircraft Department passed the move of borrowing money from the private sector and allowing the private sector to open mines and set up factories, but on the use of this money, the Military Aircraft Department and Li Hongzhang had a conflict. According to Li Hongzhang's opinion, this money should be used for the army that can fight, and it can't be cheaper than the Eight Banners and the Green Battalion. However, the Military Aircraft Department believes that Beiyang's equipment is already elite enough, and now that Beiyang is being reorganized in Liaodong, this money should be used for the Eight Banners and the Green Battalion and the military training to renovate the armament in case of emergency.

Just when the two sides were at a standpoint, Li Hanzhang, the governor of Liangguang, and Liu Kun of Nanyang jointly wrote a letter, making the following suggestions on the use of this money. The money is divided into two parts, one part is used as war expenses, and each participating unit can receive it according to certain regulations according to its own unit size, equipment and consumption. The other part is as a reward, as the saying goes, there must be a brave man under the heavy reward. If there is a fight and a non-fight, and if there is a difference between winning and losing, then will anyone still go to war?

As soon as this fold was put on, Cixi was baffled. This method is obviously beneficial to Beiyang, the Beiyang army is large in scale, well-equipped, and consumes a lot. Naturally, it will account for a considerable proportion of the war spending. As for the second point, it is Li Hongzhang's Beiyang who has taken the lion's lead, and the difference between Rong Lu's training army and the Eight Banners Army and the Beiyang Army is too big! Aren't Liu Kunyi and Zhang Zhidong at odds with Li Hongzhang? Why did you start to help Li Hongzhang speak?

As a result, in the secret recital of the military aircraft department, Cixi found the answer. The consumption of the Beiyang Army is huge, and it is precisely because of the huge consumption that the Tianjin Machinery Bureau under Beiyang cannot guarantee the supply at all, even if it adds half of the Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau controlled by Li Hongzhang, it cannot guarantee the supply. In this case, a number of ordnance factories such as Liu Kunyi and Zhang Zhidong's Jinling Manufacturing Bureau have a large business. And this is just an arms business, and steel is needed to produce munitions, which is easy to do, and the Hanyang Iron Works in Jangzhidong can provide a large amount of steel. Moreover, the shares of this Hanyang Iron Works also have silver provided by Beiyang, and the purchase of some equipment is also carried out with the help of Beiyang. Zhang Zhidong should return the favor of Beiyang in both sense and reason.

And that's not all, you have to transport these munitions, right? Do you need a ship for transportation? Not enough ships in the North Sea? It doesn't matter, we have it in Nanyang. And no matter what, I still have an 8,500-ton ironclad ship in Nanyang to fight with Beiyang and help Beiyang through the most difficult moment. You Beiyang must always show something, right? Now that the naval battle is over, it is necessary to blockade the Japanese mainland, and we still have some ships in the South Seas, can we go together? Liu Kunyi will never give up on the matter of making a fortune together. Moreover, Li Hongzhang's conditions are high. Even if Liu Kun wanted to refuse, his subordinates would not agree. …,

And seeing that Liu Kunyi's old Hunan army was also ready to go to the battlefield, Liu Kunyi knew that his old Hunan army might not be comparable to Ronglu's northwest training army in terms of combat power, but they were the queen mother's pro-army. In terms of equipment, it is said that it is the best except for the Beiyang New Army, and in terms of personnel, it was with Zuo Zongtang in Xinjiang back then, and then suppressed rebellions and horse bandits in the northwest. Although the target of the battle is not the regular army, they can be regarded as having been on the battlefield.

On the other hand, his old Hunan army, those who fought against the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom are long gone, and those who participated in the Qing-French War have all been eliminated, and the rest are mainly newcomers. In addition, Jiangnan is relatively stable, and there are many places where the Hunan army company trains troops! It is estimated that the performance on the battlefield will be better than that of the Eight Banners Green Battalion, which has long been decayed. Although the troops are not good, but they are the old Hunan army, can Liu Kunyi ignore the soldiers under his own command?

Originally, Liu Kunyi planned to strengthen his combat power, but this combat power can be improved for a while? Not to mention those veterans and experienced commanders, where can you find them, even if you don't have time to equip them. It is indeed possible to transfer a part of the money from the Jinling Machinery Bureau, but this contract was signed before the Beiyang War. Aren't you breaking the covenant? And now the public opinion is originally towards Beiyang, if you misappropriate the weapons sold to Beiyang in the original agreement. Don't let people scold to death? Liu Kunyi was unwilling to bear this charge.

After thinking about it, Liu Kun came up with a way, that is, to fight and follow Beiyang, fight and help, and the Hunan army can still do it, although it is a bit ugly. But thinking that the current Beiyang troops are also four units united, it is not impossible to add them yourself. The Hunan army is not the only one who looks forward to the Beiyang horse.

In the face of the joint letter of the four governors, (Li Hongzhang also agreed to this method) Can Cixi and the Military Aircraft Department say no? Once the north and south oceans join forces, the center will not have the ability to resist at all, even if Cixi and Guangxu join forces at this time. This time the alliance really scared Cixi enough, so he could only agree. As for the new version of the new school and the transportation problem, the school can be carried out first because it costs less money, and the railway transportation? Then drag it out slowly. Anyway, one is that there is no money, and the other is that it takes too long. But no matter what, Li Hongzhang's purpose of entering Beijing this time has basically been achieved!

Thank you for the support of the monthly ticket of the book friend Kongchen and Niu Er flying to the sky, and the naval battle will be opened next Monday~~~