In the end, Xiao Yungui did not explain to Zuo Zongtang and others the reason why he was worried that the war between Britain and France and the Manchu Qing would not continue. Xiao Yungui coughed lightly and continued: "This batch of equipment will be detained first, if the Americans have any protest note, just mention it, the Ministry of Rites and the Department of Commerce will deal with it first, even if we have to compensate for liquidated damages in the end, we will pay this money, anyway, this batch of equipment just can't fall into the hands of the Qing Demon!" Okay, let's move on to the next topic! ”

Li Kaifang took out a battle report and continued: "The battle report sent back from the front line in Huaishang, Lin Fengxiang's attack on Fengyang and Sizhou was very smooth, but the Qing Demon Ronglu Department that surrounded Yingzhou was not divided into troops to rescue. Four days ago, the Qing demon broke through Yingzhou, Lai Wenguang, Chen Decai, Zhang Zongyu and others led more than 2,000 remnants to break through, and Zhang Lexing died in battle. ”

Xiao Yungui's muscles twitched, and he couldn't help but slap the table and scolded: "Lu Sixuan, this bastard! He made it clear that he was going to cut off the roots of the twisted army! He didn't want Fengyang and Sizhou, he was so ruthless! This shameless bastard ......"

Zuo Zongtang, Li Kaifang and other civil and military officers didn't understand who Lu Sixuan was, and when the king of the West finally stopped scolding, Li Kaifang cautiously reminded: "Your Highness, it was Rong Lu who captured Yingzhou and killed Zhang Lexing." ”

Xiao Yungui swallowed a breath and said, "I know it's Rong Lu, did Lin Fengxiang send troops and horses to respond?" ”

Li Kaifang hurriedly said: "It has been received, fortunately, several of our generals are fine, and only Zhang Zongyu and others are left in the remnants of the Twist Army, which is quite embarrassing, they have retreated to Yingshang, Huozhou and other places, and the battle line is temporarily stable." The current situation is that the Qing demon occupies the first line of Yingzhou, Mengcheng, Suzhou, Suining, Suqian, Shuyang, and Haizhou, and our army occupies the first line of Funing, Huai'an, Sizhou, Fengyang, and Yingshang. It's just because most of our army's money, food, and materials are supported in the Liangguang battlefield. Therefore, Lin Fengxiang's troops did not have extra money, food, and materials to continue to launch the offensive, and the Qing Demon seemed to have consumed a lot, so neither side made any major moves. ”

Xiao Yungui hummed and said, "The ministry has drawn up a charter." Make a posthumous gift to the generals who died in the Twist Army, and arrange for the heirs and family members to stay in Tianjing to take care of them, and Zhang Zongyu, the surviving generals of the Twist Army, will also be rewarded, and then sent to the Shanghai Martial Arts School to study for a period of time, and the remnants of the Twist Army will be incorporated into Lin Fengxiang's troops on the spot, and there is no need to become another army. ”

Zuo Zongtang bowed slightly, and King Xi did not consider pursuing the responsibility for the failure. Instead, the first thing that came to mind was to settle the remnants of the Twist Army, which was a means to buy people's hearts, although Zhang Lexing died. However, the influence of the Twist Army in Henan, Shandong, Anhui and other places is still incomparable, and the remnants of the Twist Army are still of great use.

"Your Highness, now that the Ronglu Ministry has solved Yingzhou, it has freed up its hands. Lin Fengxiang's troops had to deal with the battlefield in northern Jiangsu. Luzhou, Yingshang and other places need to maintain the pressure on the Qing Demon, otherwise the Qing Demon will transfer the Ronglu Department south to the Liangguang battlefield, and the situation on the southern front will have very unfavorable changes. Zuo Zongtang said slowly: "The old man thought that Li Xiucheng could go out of Luzhou and launch a feint attack on Yingzhou and other places to contain the Ronglu Department and make him dare not go south. ”

Xiao Yungui touched his chin and said: "It is feasible for Li Xiucheng to go to Luzhou, and there is also Xiangyong in Hengyang, I heard that Zeng Guofan has newly practiced ten battalions of Xiangyong." These soldiers and horses may also go south to participate in the Liangguang battlefield. ”

Zuo Zongtang said: "Let Lin Qirong go out of Jiangxi and send troops from Nanchang to recover the remaining states and counties in Jiangxi." Jiang Zhongyuan went to Liangguang, these prefectures and counties should be easy to recover, once the hinterland of Xiangyong was threatened, Zeng Guofan would definitely not put Xinlian Xiangyong into Liangguang. ”

Li Kaifang echoed: "That's right, the Qing Demon has been quite orderly in the recent deployment of troops, and our army should also adjust its deployment in time, and the Yiwang of Wuchang can also continue to launch an offensive to put pressure on Zeng Guofan to ensure that Xiangyong has no spare strength to rescue Liangguang." ”

Xiao Yungui hummed and said, "Let's go and arrange it immediately, is there anything else to discuss?" Subsequently, Zuo Zongtang, Xu Naizhao and others discussed the construction of railways in Fujian and Jiangxi.

There were a lot of things to say, and finally Zuo Zongtang said another big thing: "King Xi, the West Palace has been in charge of Tianjing for almost a year, with the siege of the city, the territory of the Heavenly Kingdom is expanding day by day, and more and more officials are needed in various places, and we should consider opening the imperial examination to select talents." ”

Speaking of the imperial examinations, after Hong Xiuquan entered Tianjing, he held several imperial examinations and accepted some talents, most of whom were also appointed after Xiao Yungui entered Tianjing. However, with the increasing expansion of the territory of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, there is a large shortage of officials at all levels needed in various places, and the imperial examination has been stopped for a long time due to the Tianjing Incident last year. In the past, the West Hall recruited talents basically by recommending local celebrities, surrendering Qing court officials and the army to discover talents, this method has always been very informal, but this is also a helpless thing, at that time Xiao Yungui had not yet achieved great power, and it seemed inappropriate to open the imperial examination.

Now that Zuo Zongtang raised this matter, Xiao Yungui immediately woke up, now that the West Hall has presided over Tianjing, he must govern the world while fighting the world, what is needed to fight the world is a general, and it is still up to intellectuals to govern the world. Although the imperial examination is a feudal product left over from a thousand years, but the current scholars still regard the imperial examination as a shortcut to becoming an official, although Hong Xiuquan, a down-and-out talent, hates Confucianism, but when he was in Tianjing, he also had to use the imperial examination to recruit and select talents, which shows that the imperial examination is very deeply rooted in the hearts of the people, and it cannot be eliminated for a while.

After pondering for a while, Xiao Yungui said: "What Zuo Xiang said is very true, it is very necessary to open the imperial examination to select talents, but the Manchu imperial examination is not shallow to harm people, and we can no longer use the old method of opening the imperial examination." ”

Zuo Zongtang nodded and said: "Back then, His Royal Highness the King of the West established a night school training course for officials in Sufu Province, which was to familiarize those officials with the study of the world, and the eight-strand articles naturally could not be used anymore. ”

Xiao Yungui said: "The king understands that agronomy, industry and commerce, government affairs, teaching, and criminal names can all be used as subjects for the talent test, but how to consider this virtue?" ”

Zuo Zongtang smiled and said: "As the so-called virtue is in the heart, not exposed, it is indeed difficult to look at a person's morality, but the articles written by a person can also roughly see a person's morality." A practical policy should be added to the imperial examination, in which some questions can be put forward in the examination, and the candidates should answer them, so as to judge the person's moral character. ”

Xiao Yungui sighed, this guy touched his chin and thought to himself, this is a bit like the moral psychological test done by enterprises when hiring employees in later generations? He still remembered some of those tricky and strange questions, and Xiao Yungui said with a wicked smile at the moment: "Zuo Xiang's construction is very good, the moral policy test is also counted as a subject, and there are two subjects of current politics and policy theory, the current politics test is the candidate's consideration of the current political situation, and the policy theory is to test the candidate's ability to solve problems when they encounter them, and the two subjects of current politics and policy theory and the three subjects of morality are compulsory subjects, and then we don't have to stick to which discipline, candidates can apply for any one of the disciplines such as agronomy, industry and commerce, criminal name, teaching, astronomy, etcas a benchmark for the selection of professionals. The Imperial Examination of the Kingdom of Heaven began to be reformed from this time, and the Ministry of Rites and the Ministry of Officials had to do a good job of this errand this time, draw up a detailed charter, and then distribute it to all localities in an effort to hold this year's examination before the end of the year. ”

All the civil and military forces received the order together, and naturally there was a voice of praise. Look at the sun at noon, finally the morning court meeting is over, the officials of the various ministries disperse and go back to the official office to continue their work, Xiao Yungui went back to the Xiwang Mansion, Hong Yuner is pregnant again, these days Xiao Yungui will go back to accompany Hong Yuner to eat as soon as he is free.

Returning to the inner hall of the backyard of the West Palace, I pushed the door in, and saw Hong Yuner and a few women chattering and laughing and eating, several women all knew each other, including Fu Shanxiang, Han Baoying, Su Sanniang, Zhou Xiuying, Mu Yinghong, Zeng Wanmei, Hu Jiumei and others, almost the high-level beauties of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom have arrived.

Xiao Yungui's mind was not well prepared, at first glance, he thought he was dazzled when so many beautiful women of all kinds gathered together, and he stood there for a while. The women were very happy to eat and chat, Zhou Xiuying, Mu Yinghong and several female generals also drank wine, but they didn't expect that suddenly the king of the west broke in, and all the women exclaimed, they all stood up, and also looked at the king of the west.

After a while, Su Sanniang was older after all, and she first came back to her senses to break the embarrassing situation, she gave a military salute to King Xi and said, "My subordinates have seen King Xi!" The rest of the women also woke up and saluted Xiao Yungui together.

Xiao Yungui nodded stunnedly as a return gift, looked at Hong Yun'er with a smile on her face and asked, "Xuanjiao, which drama is this singing?" ”

Hong Xuanjiao stood up and ordered the maids in the house to arrange a place for Xiao Yungui, and then beckoned all the women to sit down before saying: "Sister Su went back to the capital to rest, Baoying has just returned from the martial arts academy, and returned to the capital to wait for the military department, Xiuying and Yinghong have just been transferred to the staff department of the capital, and Sister Shanxiang is here to report to me...... Anyway, it's a coincidence that everyone has gathered in Tianjing, so let's get together today. It's you, didn't you just let Tang Erniu come back and say that he might not come back for lunch, let me eat first and don't have to wait for you? How did you come back again? ”

Xiao Yungui sighed, looking at the presence of all kinds of beauties, he also smiled: "This king is worried that you will wait for me to be hungry, so I let you eat first, and I will come back early after the government affairs are dealt with." ”

Hong Yun'er laughed evilly, and then glanced at Zhou Xiuying, Zhou Xiuying hurriedly poured Xiao Yungui a glass of wine, Hong Yun'er smiled: "You came back just in time, just now our sisters discussed something, King Xi, you can also help you take a look." ”

Xiao Yungui was busy admiring the spring color in the room, and he didn't notice Hong Yun'er's strange smile, and said, "What's the matter?" But it doesn't hurt to say that. After speaking, he drank a glass of wine happily.

"Our sisters have discussed and plan to set up the first women's rights protection association in our Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, what do you think?" Hong Yun'er said with a smile.

With a poof, Xiao Yungui squirted out all the wine, followed by a violent cough, Zhou Xiuying hurriedly handed over the towel, Xiao Yungui finally coughed, looked at Hong Yun'er with wide eyes and said, "What Women's Rights Protection Association?" What are you going to do? (To be continued......)