It is already the day of New Year's Day, the snow in Beijing has stopped, and the inside and outside are covered in snow, for the people of Beijing, it seems that the good weather on this New Year's Day in the second year of Tongzhi symbolizes the wind and rain of the year, and in the Fengsan Selfless Hall of the Old Summer Palace, the Manchu royal family is enjoying the New Year's Day banquet, but it is a gloomy cloud.

The qu banquet is a small banquet, similar to the "light banquet" that is usually said today, the dishes are relatively simple, and the actions are more casual. This banquet is set up on New Year's Day and the fifteenth day of the first lunar month every year, and is mostly handled in the Qianqing Palace in the Forbidden City and the Fengsan Selfless Hall in the Old Summer Palace. More than ten days ago, the Empress Dowager Ci'an moved out of the Forbidden City on the grounds of recuperation, and she was ready to live in the Old Summer Palace for a long time.

The participants in the banquet were all members of the clan, that is, the princes, grandsons, etc., who were "hand-picked" by the emperor, and the princes, dukes, and bailes of the close branches, and the "gong" here refers to the elders of the clan. The dishes are placed on high chairs, one table for every two people, and after the customary salute, poems and drinks are given to celebrate the festival. In addition to the Qu Banquet, there were also courtier banquets for major ministers and banquets for foreign vassals.

In addition to a series of activities such as banquets, sacrifices, ancestor worship, incense burning, stepping on the New Year, and keeping the New Year are also inevitable. But the Taiping army in the south didn't seem to care about New Year's Day, and still launched their so-called winter offensive fiercely, and the Qing army was defeated one after another, casting a shadow over the celebration of New Year's Day.

The whole province of Guangxi has been completely lost more than 20 days ago, and since the elite of the Qing army in Guangxi was completely wiped out in the battles of Guilin and Liuzhou, the remaining Qing troops in Guangxi have not made much resistance. Either surrender, or surrender to the Taiping army, and wait for Peng Yulin to ask for an order to bring the remnants of Guangxi under the control of Yunnan. He only received less than 10,000 Qing troops from Baise Hall, and the entire 110,000 Qing troops in Guangxi were almost completely wiped out.

The Qing army in Guangxi did not slow down Chen Yucheng's pace, but it was the Tiandihui rebel army under Zhu Hongying, who was entrenched in Yulin Prefecture, that caused some trouble to the Taiping army. The reason is very simple, Zhu Hongying did not agree to hand over the headquarters to accept the reorganization, and he proposed that the condition for defecting to the Taiping Army was very simple, that is, to maintain the independence and integrity of his army. This was naturally intolerable to the King of the West, so the Taiping army had to spend a week dealing with Zhu Hongying's troops.

Zhu Hongying, who had 30,000 soldiers and horses, also thought that he had some strength and could negotiate conditions with the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. Within a week of receiving the Taiping ultimatum, his 30,000 men were struck by the Taipings. The Taiping Army, with the cooperation of He Gou, another Guangxi rebel army, moved extremely quickly. He Goubei and Zhu Hongying divided and merged in Guangxi to fight against the Qing army together for several years. Naturally, he knows everything about him, and even many of Zhu Hongying's generals are old acquaintances of He Goubei, so he has a two-pronged approach of military strikes and co-optation and division. In the end, Zhu Hongying was also betrayed by his subordinates and killed him. The rest of the army took refuge in the Taiping army.

Peng Yulin inherited a tricky mess. Du Wenxiu, who raised troops against the Qing Dynasty in Dali, officially spread the word to the world, accepted the command of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, was appointed as the director of the Yunnan Military and Political Department, and was awarded the title of Marquis of Pingnan. Du Wenxiu launched 100,000 soldiers and horses from Dali to the east, and the target was Kunming, the capital of Yunnan Province. After Chen Yucheng conquered Guangxi, he received the support of the new Fifth Army, so he ordered the First Army to be stationed in Guangxi to rest and recuperate, and the Fifth Army quickly moved westward. In response to Du Wenxiu's offensive, he was ready to give Kunming something to attack.

The war situation in northern Jiangsu and Huainan is also in a hurry. Here, the Taiping army does not seem to care about the gains and losses of one city or one place, they care more about the living force of annihilating the Qing army. After Lin Fengxiang hibernated for many years, he made a big fight in Suzhou.

At the beginning of the Battle of Suzhou, Lin Fengxiang surrounded Suzhou with a division of the First Army, and there were only more than 10,000 soldiers and horses of the Qing army in the city, so he naturally did not dare to go out of the city to fight with the Taiping army. After asking for help, a large number of Qing troops from Xuzhou, Yingzhou, Haozhou, Henan, and Hebei came to help, plus regiments from all over the country trained soldiers and horses, and there were almost 80,000 Qing troops gathered in Suzhou, including 10,000 elite new Qing troops of the Chengen Department.

The battle lasted more than two months, from the end of September to the end of the year, Lin Fengxiang used his troops to come out of nowhere, always looking at the weak part of the Qing army, and first concentrated superior forces to encircle and annihilate. The Second Army continued to move to battle in Suzhou, Mengcheng, Huaibei and other places, annihilating several batches of Qing troops who came to aid the Qing army in the movement, and finally caused the Qing troops from all walks of life to gather and dare not advance again. In the end, the Qing army turned around and rushed to Suzhou 10,000 Chengen Qing army elite decisive battle, under the first battle, the Qing army still used the old platoon gun array, the result was naturally more flexible tactics, weapon range, higher accuracy of the Taiping army defeated, and finally the Taiping army three cavalry regiments attacked, in one fell swoop in Suzhou to destroy the Qing army.

In the first battle of Suzhou, the Qing army in Huaishang, northern Jiangsu, and Henan was greatly injured, and it was Seng Lingqin who sent 30,000 Mongolian cavalry south to stabilize the battle line, and after Suzhou was conquered, Lin Fengxiang laid a wedge in the Xuzhou defense line of the Qing army, which made the Qing army extremely uncomfortable.

If the defeat of the front-line war was only a blow to morale, then the opening of the ban outside the border and the negotiation of peace with the foreigners were the pain of the Manchu clan. Outside the Guan, the fertile field is thousands of miles, at this time near the end of the Xiaoice River period, although sometimes the climate will be a little repeated, but it is no longer the harsh appearance of the late Ming and early Qing Dynasties, and the climate outside the Guanxi has also stabilized and begun to be suitable for farming.

The elders of the Manchu clan and other nobles more or less had land outside the customs, although the instructions of the imperial court were to let their own family gather domestic slaves or displaced people to go out of the customs to reclaim, after the results, these people could carry their nationality into the flag, and the imperial court also borrowed a lot of silver from the eight families of the Jin merchants for the cost of reclamation, only to repay the loan in installments with grain after the harvest, and the eight families of the Jin merchants could directly send people to collect grain outside the customs.

Xingzhen's method is indeed very beneficial, but she ignores the stubbornness of the conservative thinking of the Manchu era. Since the decree was issued, there have been clan elders on Ci'an's side to cry every day, after all, the reclamation fee is to be returned to the imperial court, once the reclamation is not smooth or the harvest is lost, or because the customs are too far away, the clan elders can't take care of it, and the house slaves are greedy for food, saying that they are afraid of taking responsibility, and they are even more afraid that once the house slaves stand on the land outside the gate, after the population multiplies, if they return to the gate, they don't know who has the final say on those lands. As for the excuses of feng shui, dragon veins, alarming the ancestors' mausoleums, etc., there are countless excuses, and Ci'an's move to the Old Summer Palace actually has the meaning of evading.

The matter of foreigners negotiating peace is done by the devil six, since Yi? Since serving as the foreman of the Minister of Military Aircraft, he seems to be the first prince and minister of the DPRK, and he has wantonly set up foreign affairs, and the clans have scolded him for being a fake foreign devil, referred to as Devil Six. It was just a matter of setting up foreign affairs, negotiating peace with foreigners, and preparing to agree to open the northern port as a treaty port, but it touched the sore spot of the conservative forces in the north, so accusations, insults, traitors, and other scolding words were in the dust for a while, and they were endless.

It can be said that it is also strange that the impeachment of Prince Gong has not a thousand but eight hundred, but in the end it is as silent as a stone sinking into the sea, and after listening to the news, the ministers learned that they were all left in the west. Everyone slowly woke up, and the one from the west was behind the prince who dared to love Gong, so everyone began to slowly target the one in the west. It's a pity that the military generals in the west who hold military power such as Zeng Greenqin are supported, and there are Gongwang Dang, Xihou Dang Guiliang, Weng Tongyi, Shen Zhaolin and others inside, and even the soldiers and horses such as the new army firearms battalion in Beijing, the infantry commander Yamen, Gyeonggi Fengtai, and Ruijian are also in this hand.

But people have a mouth, and they also have five thoughts, but they can't be said to be enjoyable, so what uncle and sister-in-law control the government, what chicken Sichen is a common rumor, and even what uncle slept with his sister-in-law and other vicious words are heard from time to time.

For these ghost tricks, Xingzhen is naturally impossible to be indifferent, the guards in Shang Yu's reserve place are everywhere to investigate, once they find the person who spreads and spreads rumors, they will be put in prison, and they will not be merciful at all. But the result was not very good, the rumors were not banned, but the one in the west was charged with one more crime, that is, he was convicted of words.

Xingzhen couldn't help but sneer when she learned about it, when did the Qing Dynasty not be convicted for words? Is there still a lack of this text prison? It's just that she went one step further this time, and she can't talk about it! But she also understands that these rumors have been banned repeatedly, and behind them are the masterpieces of those old-fashioned people among the clan elders, although the guards in Shangyu's reserve place can arrest people, but they dare not touch those nobles, the so-called pulling a hair and moving the whole body, now is not the time to move them. So Xingzhen put up with this breath for the time being, and the clans did not have any more outrageous actions for the time being, except for the use of lip service to smear them, and both sides were waiting for their opponents to make mistakes.

It was under these circumstances that the banquet was held, and although the banquet maintained the joy on the surface, there was an undercurrent behind the scenes. With the merit of Dagu's peace negotiation and the retreat of the foreigner fleet to the south, Prince Gong? can be said to be the most proud figure at the banquet, he raised his glass and toasted frequently, which was very limelight.

Zai Ling, Yi Xiang and others are naturally not angry, and Zai Ling is sitting next to the general of the clan, Prince Hui Mianyu, seeing Yi? With a smug look, Zai Ling couldn't help but say: "Uncle, you look at the pride of Devil Six, if it weren't for the one in the west who supported him and left the first emperor Daoguang Ye for a while, this kid would have been surrounded by the Xia Sect Mansion." ”

Mianyu was old and deep, and said lightly noncommittally: "But how can the current situation be in danger compared to the previous one?" ”

Zai Ling was choked, and said unrelentingly: "Look at the one in the west who is also full of spring breeze, and there are still six eyebrows with the devil at this table, and the people have spread their ugly things." ”

Mianyu's eyes were cold, and she said lightly: "You and I are courtiers like King Gong, pay attention to your words!" How can all the rumors be believed? ”

Zai Ling laughed dryly, Yixiang was at the next table, leaned over and said: "You don't know, the folk are rumored to have a nose and a face, you still don't know." If this continues, I see, the court will have the final say on the man and woman. ”

Mianyu is a person who Xianfengqin is exempted from kneeling outside the court ceremony, and he is extremely loyal to the royal family, and said coldly: "This king feels that the person entrusted by the first emperor will not be mistaken, are you two drunk?" Let's go back and rest earlier! The two of them were bored, and they didn't dare to say anything more. (To be continued......)