Shanghai Xujiahui Catholic Church, the cathedral that took two years to build covers an area of more than 2,000 square meters, the building is a typical Gothic style, in 1856 under the auspices of the Jesuit Nan Gelu president, businessmen from all over the world raised funds to build, among which the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom King Xi invested 100,000 Taiping Heavenly Kingdom new silver coins in his personal name.

After its completion, the church became the largest Catholic church in the Far East and the seat of the Catholic diocese of China. The whole building is a five-storey brick and wood structure in the French medieval style, and the lobby is flanked by a spired Gothic bell tower at the top of the lobby, which is 50 meters high. In the lobby, the statue of the Virgin holding the baby Jesus stands on the top of the altar, overlooking the whole church, which is the center of the whole church. Western-style architecture represented by this church began to become popular in Shanghai, and for a time this church became a landmark building in Shanghai.

On the left side of the church is Xuhui Middle School, which was originally named St. Ignatius College, but later changed its name to Xuhui Middle School due to the investment of the Education Department of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Ministry of Rites. On the other side of the church, there was the first girls' school in Shanghai, the Morrison Memorial Girls' School, which was a traditional church school, and because of the status of women at this time, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Education Department did not directly inject funds or be recognized by the government. The name of the school is in honor of Morrison, one of the first foreigners to come to China to open a church school.

Most of the girls in the school are now rich girls, and of course some orphans who lost their families during the war, and most of them still don't have the opportunity to get out of the house and enter the school.

The school has only a few one-story houses, which is much more shabby than Xuhui Middle School on the left. In a brightly lit classroom, a Chinese woman is teaching the schoolgirls in the room to recite poems in English.

The woman was dressed in Western-style clothing. The beautiful face is the wife of Clifford, the youngest heir of the Rothschild family in the Far East - Li Xuanji. I saw her teeth open lightly, and elegant English came out of her mouth. But it's incredibly soft.

But at this moment, there was a commotion outside the house, and several British soldiers with loaded guns rushed in, and the non-commissioned officer led by Li Xuanji bowed slightly and said in an unquestionable tone: "Madam, please come with us immediately, our war with the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom has broken out!" It's going to be very unsafe here! ”

Li Xuanji was still unhappy that a few rude soldiers had broken into the class, but after listening to the sergeant's words, the English books in her hands floated down, and what she was worried about finally happened. The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom was still inevitably at war with the British, and she had been worried about it until then.

After her marriage to Clifford in England, she has been depressed and often defends the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom in public, which makes Clifford angry in the bottom of his heart. This time back in China, Clifford's behavior became more and more perverse, and he began to hate the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, a change that Li Xuanji did not expect. No matter how she persuaded her, Clifford ignored it, and the more Li Xuanji persuaded him, the more Clifford disgusted the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom became.

Judging by Clifford's words and deeds. He was stirring up something in the Far East to make trouble for the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, and he kept saying that it was to protect the interests of the Rothschild family in the Far East, but Li Xuanji knew. Her husband is out of jealousy, he has always been obsessed with Li Xuanji, and there is another person in his heart. The high Western King of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom!

The arrival of the British and French expeditionary forces made Li Xuanji even more uneasy, and Clifford took her to attend various occasions. Some of the British and French officers were talking about the war, and although they were ostensibly coming to fight the Manchu army, the Allied officers could not help but talk about their ultimate imaginary enemy, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, the largest military power in the Far East, and they even secretly clamored to let the Taiping army taste their strength, and Clifford played the role of a disgraceful provocateur.

Prior to this, Li Xuanji had fantasized that the war would not come so soon, at least not until the expeditionary force defeated the Manchus and returned to Shanghai, and she had even been lobbying some British and French missionaries to run for peace, perhaps after the expeditionary force and the Manchu war were over, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom and the British and French would be able to negotiate peace.

But he didn't expect the war to come so quickly and so suddenly, Li Xuanji felt deeply remorseful, to face the two powerful countries in the world, where should the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom go? At this time, Li Xuanji thought that every qiē was caused by herself, that she was an ominous person, and that she made Clifford so jealous that she lost her nature and led to the outbreak of this war, and every qiē was her sin.

Poor Li Xuanji didn't know that the war between countries never changed its original trajectory because of the individual, the Trojan War was because of a beautiful woman Helen, that is a beautiful Greek mythological story, Wu Sangui was angry for Chen Yuanyuan, that was a traitor looking for a bright coat for his surrender. And now the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom is at war with Britain and France, and it is not because of Li Xuanji, if the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom wants to rise strongly in the Far East, it must face the increasingly strong British and French hegemony in the Far East, so war is inevitable.

Holding on to the corner of the table, Li Xuanji tried to calm himself down, and then raised his head and said lightly: "This is a church school, the church and the school are protected, you go back, I won't go anywhere." ”

The British sergeant was very embarrassed and said, "But Mr. Clifford asked us to take you back to the concession." ”

Li Xuanji shook her head and smiled bitterly: "I won't go back, you help me bring a letter back." After saying that, Li Xuanji returned to the desk and wrote a letter, and then handed it to the sergeant.

The British sergeant saw that Li Xuanji was unwilling to leave, and Clifford did not order that she could be forcibly taken away, so he had to take the letter and turn away to call on the other British who were still here to leave.

Few people left with the British army, and most of the British missionaries, teachers, translators, and servants chose to stay, including the British and French in the church hospital not far from the church, who chose to stay and did not return to the concession, including Nightingale, the goddess of lanterns in the eyes of the British.

The British army was not strong, the Taiping army in their eyes was still an army that abided by some rules of war, they were different from the Manchu army, most of them were Christians, they would put their lives first, and the churches, schools, hospitals and other targets outside the military believed that they would not persecute this place by force.

Sure enough, the day after the British withdrew to the concession, the Taiping troops began to appear outside the church, and they passed by here towards the concession without entering the church. Churches, schools, and hospitals were open all day, and no soldiers came to visit.

But after the third day, due to the war propaganda of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom newspapers, some radical Chinese began spontaneous demonstrations and rallies, they came to churches and girls' schools, and aggressively wanted the foreigners inside to get out of Chinese soil, and the scene was extremely terrible and chaotic.

Fortunately, the men in the church and the girls' school blocked the gates, and the Taiping soldiers and local police, who had supported the maintenance of order, arrived and stopped the demonstrators, but the actions of the radical crowd frightened some people, and some British and French missionaries, doctors, and nurses returned to the concession that night.

In the next few days, the crowd came to demonstrate, Li Xuanji seemed to see something through the window lattice on the wall of the courtyard, this is the inevitable result of the conflict between Chinese and Western cultures, people's dissatisfaction has been imprinted in their hearts for too long, Western culture is changing them, making them confused and painful, this time is just an opportunity to vent.

Every day, the army and police come to maintain order, but they do not mean to disperse the crowd, as long as the crowd does not act in the form of harm to others or damage public property, they do not move. Li Xuanji also understood that they were trying to get public opinion to work in the direction of defeating the enemy, and the radicals had always been the catalyst for war, and without them, it would be difficult for the Taiping Army to have the confidence to fight the enemy.

A few days later, one morning, the astonishing news came that the Allied naval fleet had been defeated by the Taiping on the Huangpu River outside the concession, and the people in the church gathered to pray that their compatriots would survive and that their relatives and friends would survive the war.

After the prayer of the day, Li Xuanji saw Nightingale, and the two walked together, and Nightingale told Li Xuanji that today she saw many of the wounded caused by the shelling of the Allied Navy yesterday, as well as the civilians in the concession, many of whom lacked medical care and medicine, and decided to set up a public welfare organization to help these people who were injured in the war.

Li Xuanji immediately expressed her interest, she will give her full support, and the two discussed a lot of the principles of the organization, first of all, the target of its rescue is regardless of nationality, as long as it is a victim of war, they are the target of their rescue, and secondly, independence, this organization does not belong to any country or government, and finally the ultimate goal of this organization is humanity.

So two women, all volunteers, started campaigning for the group, and they designed the group's flag, a white flag with a red cross surrounded by olive leaves.

Their actions were supported by the Church, but they did not know that the organization they founded would later evolve into an international organization, the International Red Cross organization, which was later officially established in Geneva, Switzerland.

The outbreak of war changed the fate of many people, but also promoted the development of some things, the defeat of Wusongkou taught the British and French navies a lesson, to conquer a huge country, more than 20 years ago at the gate of this country to drive a few warships, put a few cannons to make it surrender The days are over, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom mobilized the ability of civil forces to be hundreds of times that of the Manchu Qing Dynasty, at this time Erjin and others understood that they were really fighting against a country now, not with a separate court in the past.

After the defeated French warships returned to the anchorage of the Allied fleet at the mouth of the Yangtze River with General Napier and others, a heated debate ensued...... (To be continued......)