It was still the same late autumn, the remnant wind swept the last bit of yellow on the branches and scattered down, the afterglow of the setting sun reflected the sky overhead, and the body was covered by red walls and yellow tiles, even if you look far away, you can't see through the thick palace wall. Under the same mountain-style roof, the carved and carved buildings are as colorful as new, the white marble railings are pure white and transparent, and the bluestone bricks paved on the side of the road, the gilded Taiping water tank in the past reflects the afterglow of the sunset, and it is still so solemn and cold.

Xingzhen leaned on the red pillar at the corner of the pavilion, sat on the railing of the white marble, and looked at the past things in Chuxiu Palace, and was full of emotion for a while. Matter is human and wrong seems to be the best interpretation, she is now above ten thousand people, she took revenge on the rotten court that persecuted her at the beginning, although she once thought that she had a greater historical responsibility, but the haunting fiancé in her heart has changed. The strong rise of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom is already unstoppable, even if she has more historical experience? She can no longer support the rotten regime of the Manchu Qing Dynasty for another fifty years like the Cixi in history.

As a superior, she has done what she has to do, but in the face of two powerful opponents, she still seems powerless, the Manchu Qing Dynasty's natural conservatism and rejection of the rise of the Han people is a hard injury, she can't do more and better in a short period of time, although she took power earlier than the historical Cixi, and controlled a qiē earlier, but the other party is changing a qiē more thoroughly than her.

At the beginning, she also carefully read Xiao Yungui's paper on the defeat of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, and at this moment she also knew that this once cynical gentleman was still very terrible when he did something seriously, Xiao Yungui thought that as long as the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom could avoid several deadly policies from the beginning, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom would be able to replace the Manchu Qing Dynasty.

Up to now. Xiao Yungui did a good job, he completely transformed the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom into a country with separation of church and state. Hong Yuner used Confucianism and Christianity to reform the doctrine of God worship, and implemented the industrial and commercial policy, the policy of rent reduction and interest reduction, and the policy of land redemption and land distribution. Coupled with the reduction of the population during the war, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom succeeded in stabilizing the political situation in the south, alleviating the land contradictions, and began to guide the budding development of the bourgeoisie, which greatly improved the proportion of the domestic population to industry, and as more and more peasants changed their careers to become urban workers, the people's living standards began to improve significantly.

The most terrifying thing is that Xiao Yungui used the known history and the flexible foreign policy of the foreigners, so that the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom was not strangled by the Westerners in history, but on the contrary, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom used foreign capital and technology to successfully carry out a large-scale Great Leap Forward-style industrial transformation in the south of the Yangtze River. Although Xiao Yungui's industrial transformation still has many problems. Industrial development also focused more on the military industry, but this qiē was already a catastrophe for the Manchu Qing Dynasty, which had no industrial base.

And what can she do? The shackles of the old forces in the imperial court, the rise of the Han warlord group and the contradictions between the Manchu and Mongolian aristocracy, the old-style bureaucracy and the corrupt bureaucracy of those corpses and vegetarian meals, all made her rack her brains and could only slowly implement her reform Westernization movement, but this qiē takes time, Xingzhen is confident that as long as she is given another ten years, she will definitely be able to do better, but unfortunately her original fiancé does not plan to give her and the Manchu Qing this time.

The final counterattack of the Qing army in the capital was not optimistic about her from the beginning. Defeat was the result she already knew, how could an old-style feudal army armed with broadswords and spears compete with a modern army that values both new weapons and tactics? Otherwise, there would not have been a fiasco of the Manchu Qing at Bali Bridge in history, not to mention that this was not a field battle, but the Qing army to attack the opponent's well-guarded camp. It can be said that the defeat was already doomed.

It is good to be defeated, at least let those Manchurian nobles who still hold unrealistic utopian ideas be more sober, but Xingzhen is not willing to follow the advice of Seng Lingqin, Li Hongzhang and others. took the little emperor to leave the capital and wander around. Xingzhen knew that if she left the capital with her son, then the ending of the Han Xian Emperor in history would be the best example. In the future, the fate of their mother and son will be controlled by those local warlords, and if they stay in the capital. She believed that even if the city was destroyed or surrendered in the end, Xiao Yungui would protect their mother and son.

After this defeat, she knew that Monk Greenqin and others would definitely come to give another bloody admonition, so that she agreed to the imperial court's evacuation of Jianyì from the capital, and she didn't plan to avoid it, so she asked Li Lianying to go to the noon gate early to wait for Monk Greenqin and others.

Sure enough, at dusk, Monk Greenqin and others came together, as if to highlight the tragedy of the battle, several people came to Chuxiu Palace covered in armor and blood, and they didn't care about the so-called court face and body at all.

After Monk Greenqin brought Li Hongzhang, Peng Yulin, Yuan Jiasan and others to come, everyone stepped forward to salute, Xingzhen did not mean to let a few people get up, but asked lightly: "Is the defeat miserable?" ”

Monk Lingqin raised his head and said with tears in his eyes: "Queen Mother, let the city not go, the capital is difficult to hold for a long time, the grain cannot be transported in, and it will be a big chaos in the next ten months." ”

Li Hongzhang also couldn't stop crying and kowtowed: "Queen Mother, things have come to such a point, the ministers are not guilty of death, but the long-haired camp is as solid as a rock, and it can't be shaken, if we don't abandon the capital, the last bit of our troops and financial resources in the north will be exhausted because of the food shortage in the capital, let the city not go, from Xuanda out of the pass, escape outside the pass can still ......"

Xingzhen coldly interrupted them and said, "You can still survive, right?!" Li Hongzhang was startled, so he had to hang his head, Xingzhen stood up and shed tears and said, "Guanwai? Is it safe outside the border? Not to mention that Ronglu's traitors have already left the customs, even there are long-haired military horses outside the customs, as well as Rakshasa people, and outside the customs is a bitter cold place, with a sparse population, how to deal with it? And the tombs of the first emperor and the ancestors are all in the capital, are you making our orphans and widows unable to enter the tombs of our ancestors when they die in the future? ! ”

Hearing Xingzhen crying, Monk Greenqin and others panicked, and kowtowed one after another, Monk Greenqin was very depressed, and a large part of the rhetoric that he had originally thought of was disturbed by the Queen Mother's crying.

Xingzhen Xiupa hid her face and cried softly: "The first emperor left early, and handed over this burden to our orphans and widows, I originally thought that you, the important ministers of the sky, would be able to turn the tide, but I didn't expect things to come to this point." You will only persuade the city to be abandoned. It's okay to abandon other cities, but now you want to abandon the capital. Once the capital is abandoned, is this world still the world handed down by the ancestors? This palace is willing to take the risk to reuse your Hanchen, and I don't know how many rumors I have carried inside and outside. Now that even the capital has been abandoned, what face do you let the palace have to meet the first emperor underground? ”

Women's tears are often fatal to men, not to mention that this is the tears of the Queen Mother of the West? Peng Yulin's injuries have not healed, and he still stubbornly persuaded him with most of his hands hanging: "Queen Mother, let the city not go, there is still room to turn around, and defending the capital is a dead end." ”

Xingzhen cried even louder when she heard this: "You are vain in your grace, don't you have any other way?" What do you want?! ”

Seeing that Xingzhen's words were serious, Yuan Jiasan coughed and said, "The Queen Mother must not be sad, be careful of the phoenix body." It's okay not to let the city ......" heard Yuan Jiasan's words. Li Hongzhang, Seng Lingqin and others were all taken aback, and looked down at Yuan Jiasan, but Yuan Jiasan didn't seem to see it, and then said: "We can try to negotiate with the Taiping Army, propose to build a Yellow River and rule it, and then recognize the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, and stop fighting with the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom first." Taiping Changmao and Britain and France are still at war, if we temporarily compromise and seek relief from this breath, it will not be half a year. Britain and France will definitely gather a large army to come east, and when the time comes, it will be difficult for the long hair to take care of it, and the general trend of the world may have a turnaround. ”

Yuan Jiasan's Jian yì is just a fool's words, and everyone knows that the Taiping Army is now at war with Britain and France. They are preparing to take advantage of the difficulties of Britain and France in mobilizing troops and horses, and in the remaining half a year to a year, they will first eradicate the Manchu Qing Dynasty and unify the whole country, and then integrate the strength of the whole country to fight with the foreigners. At this time, the Taiping army would not engage in any peace talks with the Manchus in any case. Even if you go to negotiate, you will only bring shame on yourself.

After hearing this, Monk Greenqin was going to refute immediately, but he didn't expect Xingzhen, who had always been shrewd, to immediately open her mouth in favor and say: "Yuan Aiqing's words are exactly what this palace intended. As long as we can survive this year and a half, the day when foreigners come back. The long hair must be in chaos, and we will have a turnaround. Up to now, Shanxi, Guanwai and other places still have to step up the transportation of grain into Beijing, and the soldiers and horses in the capital have been transferred to guard and protect the grain road, as long as the capital is still there, we can still command the world......"

Xingzhen didn't give Seng Gelinqin, Li Hongzhang and the others a chance to speak at all, and then said: "Yuan Aiqing, you will preside over the peace talks with Changmao, and you can select capable people from the Ministry of Rites as deputies, and you must let Changmao rest for a while......"

Xingzhen explained some details, Li Hongzhang wanted to speak several times, but when he saw Yuan Jiasan kneeling down to listen, the palm of his right hand shook gently towards him, Li Hongzhang suddenly understood something, and saw that Peng Yulin suddenly wanted to speak, and quietly pulled the corner of Peng Yulin's robe, Peng Yulin is also a smart person, and he stopped making a sound at the moment.

After Xingzhen finished speaking, Monk Lingqin sighed and said: "Queen Mother, this king has been working hard in the military recently, and he wants to take leave and go home to recuperate. Xingzhen agreed without even blinking her eyes, and after Monk Lingqin shook her head slightly, she turned around and retreated in despair.

Next, Li Hongzhang, Yuan Jiasan, Peng Yulin and other three people also retired one after another, and only then did they leave Chuxiu Palace, Peng Yulin couldn't wait to pull Yuan Jiasan and said: "Yuan Gong, how can Changmao be willing to negotiate peace with me?" You are so relieved and deceived the Queen Mother, and it is not allowed to grow hair in this matter in the future, and your idea is to bring humiliation on yourself. ”

Yuan Jiasan smiled and said, "Do you think the Queen Mother doesn't know in her heart? Our master knows better than anyone else in his heart, let the city not go, hehe, go outside This royal family is the emperor that everyone is fighting for, this world is already a big change, our master is making up his mind, even if there are many variables, she can't let herself be accused by others, so she would rather stay in the capital, even if the city is broken, presumably Changmao will not be too embarrassed for their mother and son to buy people's hearts for the new imperial court. Speaking of this, Yuan Jiasan smiled bitterly: "Now, the two of you should also plan for yourself, this errand to make Long Hair is also a good opportunity to contact Long Hair, do you want to participate in it?" ”

After Li Hongzhang and Peng Yulin glanced at each other, they both sighed and bowed their heads slightly silently...... (To be continued......)