It was also a crisp autumn weather, and unlike the sad father and son who were far away in the Winter Palace, King Xi's mood has been very good recently. After nearly two years of the Sufu New Deal, the interests of all strata were satisfied, and the enlightened gentry of Sufu Province, under the guidance of the King of the West, began to move from one exploitative relationship to another.

For those old-fashioned shili, the New Deal was like a razor, stripping them from the land on which they depended, and under the strength of the New Deal in the West Temple, some people lost their wealth, some lost their reputation, some lost their lives, and some lost all three. Social change cannot hide from violence, and the Taiping military government in Sufu province is the biggest institution of violence, and after the adoption of the Ming Zheng Code in the West Temple and the two-pronged action behind the scenes, most of the conservative shili in Sufu province was swept away. In these processes, the methods of the West Temple are endless, and they even use the so-called Jianghu evil shili to clear the obstacles. Although many people understand that it is not an accident that the old Shili was removed, at least in terms of official face and public opinion, the things that Xidian did were still cleaned up from beginning to end.

After the initial and conservative Shili game, the initiator of the new deal laughed to zuihou, it seems that God and God are possessed by the soul at this moment, or the two are one, in short, after the beginning of spring this year, the happy events of the West Temple will continue to come.

After experiencing the episode of Xiwang's ill health, the first thing was that Xiwangniang gave birth to Xiwang's second son, Xiao Youfu. There are not many people in the whole Sufu Province who know the truth about the Xiwang hugging incident, and the military and civilians only know that after the Xiwang recovers from his illness, the Xiwang is happy to have a noble son, which is exactly the same as the Dongwang's statement of atoning for his illness. It is rumored that King Xi's illness this time is to atone for everyone's sins, and after King Xi recovers from his illness. Everything will be smooth.

Then came the great victory of Fuzhou from the front, Li Kaifang's southern expedition of 70,000 troops after more than a month of time, conquered Fuzhou, the capital of Fujian Province, the Qing army Fujian and Zhejiang Governor Wang Yide was killed, Li Tingyu reluctantly led a small number of soldiers and horses to break through, retreat to Quanzhou, the Qing army in Fujian has shown signs of collapse.

A few days later, the Jiangsu-Shanghai Railway was completed, which was the first railway in China and the most important mileage symbol after the New Deal. Therefore, the king of the west and a number of officials of the west hall all attended the opening ceremony. At the opening ceremony, ministers and consuls of various countries in China were invited to attend the ceremony, and at the same time, reporters from Suzhou's own newspapers and many foreign reporters also attended the ceremony, and nearly tens of thousands of soldiers and civilians from Suzhou attended the ceremony.

At the ceremony, Xiao Yungui left his first black-and-white photo since the crossing. Foreign correspondents used black-and-white cameras to capture the heroic posture of the King of the West. As the mysterious Taiping Army gradually unveiled, coupled with the victory of the Taiping mercenary regiment in the Far East against Russia. The East has become a paradise for Western journalists to dig for news. Westerners are equally curious. They had a great interest in the mystical Oriental country, and unlike the Qing occupation zone, in Sufu province journalists and missionaries from all over the country had some privileges, the privileges of being protected.

The entry of Western journalists also led to the development of journalism in Sufu Province, and at the beginning of the year the first unofficial newspaper, Su Fu Minsheng Bao, was launched, although this newspaper was also reported to the Shanghai Military and Political Department. But its founder and operator are all out-and-out folk gentry, and this person is Yu Songnian, a famous scholar in Shanghai.

As for Yu Songnian's original intention of founding the newspaper, many officials in the West Hall still opposed it at first, because Yu Songnian had been an official of the Qing court in the past. This old guy obviously has bad intentions in running a newspaper at this time. However, this matter was specially approved by the King of the West to allow Yu Songnian to run this newspaper, the reason is also very simple, the King of the West is buying horse bones for his money, and he intends to let the gentry of Sufu Province know that the West Palace is uniting them, at least the Manchu Qing Dynasty is absolutely not so measured. At the same time, King Xi also warned his officials that the civil newspapers are also a mirror, and some problems in the West Hall can often be exposed through them, which can be regarded as setting up an additional mirror for many officials and government departments.

Sure enough, the "Sufu Minsheng Daily" began to criticize the scandal of Sufu and the people when they built the railway, and used the second field to offset the people's good land. On the day I saw the newspaper, the criminal department, the official department, and the household department of the west hall couldn't sit still, and the officials at all levels still thoroughly investigated the matter, and zuihou did find out that there was such a thing. In the Kunshan section of the Jiangsu-Shanghai Railway, there is a village where the people are indeed involved in Yitian because the farmland is occupied, at first the local county government did prepare the same good land and the people of the village were traded, but later the field was allocated to a folk textile factory by the Ministry of Households, and the land of Zuihou and the people of the village was indeed a second-class field, but the Kunshan County Ya at that time deliberately subsidized some more money per mu to the people, but did not expect to be reported by the newspaper. And that textile factory is now the largest source of income in Kunshan County, and no one seems to think it is inappropriate.

And Yu Songnian unceremoniously criticized the Sufu authorities in the newspaper, saying, "Yitian with the people, for the sake of the public interests of the government and the loss of trust in the people, although there are many silver two subsidies, but the existing output of the field is difficult to paste the people's mouth, although the gain and loss of credit, it is useless." ”

Xiao Yungui admired Yu Songnian's nitpicking, but Zuo Zongtang said that Yu Gong had good intentions, he was reminding the Taiping Army that no matter what, the Taiping Army was a rebel army, whether it was to implement a new policy or to establish a country, the first thing was to win the trust of the people.

Zuihou Xidian spent a sum of money to buy the good land of a nearby gentry and exchanged the fields of the people of the village, and did not recover the subsidy silver, in the words of the government, the state compensated them. At the same time, officials at all levels in Kunshan involved in this matter have been punished to varying degrees, and this incident has caused an uproar in Sufu Province. After this incident, the people became more supportive of the new policy, and their views on the government also changed, and the prestige of the Taiping Army increased instead of falling.

It was the non-governmental newspapers of Sufu Province that began to play a role, and after the first person to eat crabs, various non-governmental classes and groups also began to try to run their own newspapers, so the first batch of non-governmental journalists were born in Sufu Province.

At the opening ceremony, the image of the king of the west and the ministers of various countries cutting the ribbon was photographed by Western reporters with black and white cameras, more than two months later. The Times reported the incident on the front page, and the newspaper called the King of West the Prince of Wales in the East, which obviously failed to understand the relationship between the King of the West and the princes of Tianjing.

However, the Chinese reporters in Shanghai and Suzhou were very envious of the equipment in the hands of their Western counterparts, and the camera could record the picture, which was a very intuitive and magical machine, so the newspapers began to introduce the camera, which further promoted the development of journalism.

When the steam engine train roared slowly out of Suzhou Station, the whole ceremony scene was thunderous. Even Chen Chengying, the Dingtianhou who was sent by Tianjing to watch the ceremony, was also very shocked, this iron ox ate black charcoal and spit out thick smoke, and his strength was thousands. You can travel thousands of miles every day. Similarly, the soldiers and civilians were also very frightened by this thing, and some people even burned incense and worshiped the places where the train passed along the way, calling this thing a sacred beast. Since then, various newspapers have published columns about the train. The superstitious and ignorant ideas of the people were corrected, but with little effect. It seems that after the people are familiar with this thing. can slowly let them understand that this is a product of science, and at present, it does not hurt to let the people treat the train as a divine beast, at least no one dares to destroy the train.

Xiwang and the ministers and VIPs of various countries naturally became the first batch of passengers, and Xiwang invited the ministers of various countries to Suzhou as guests in advance, and after the ceremony, they took the train directly to Shanghai. Russian Minister Tuzhkov and his entourage came to Shanghai. Preparing for negotiations in the Far Eastern theater of operations, as a defeated country, he was waiting for negotiations in the Far East. The two old foxes, Bao Ling and Blombul, also learned a hand, and they left Tuzhkov in Shanghai. When he went to Suzhou to attend the inauguration ceremony of the Suzhou-Shanghai Railway, he naturally wanted Tuzhkov to suffer for a few more days.

At the same time as the railway was completed there is also the telegraph line from Suzhou to Shanghai, the flying line of the telegraph line is along the side of the Jiangsu-Shanghai railway, although the telegraph line erection is relatively simple, it is reasonable to say that it should be completed earlier than the railway, but according to experience, the telegraph flying line is still laid along the railway line better, easy to repair and maintain, and can reduce some costs. Inspectors along the railway line can work part-time as telegraph line inspectors, Xiao Yungui is still more worried that the telegraph flying line will be cut by someone at two ends in three days, after all, this kind of weird thing is still very attractive to the curiosity of the Chinese people. There are several wires hanging from the wooden poles, and both adults and children may be curious to study them, and it is difficult to ensure that the telegraph wires will not be damaged. So laying telegraph lines along the railway has become the only choice, so far, no one has noticed these flying lines, people have gone to worship the mythical beasts, the timid even dare to worship from afar, do not dare to approach the railway line.

Xiao Yungui went to Shanghai to participate in the post-war negotiations between Britain, France and Russia, and the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom was not a participating war, but the Taiping army's reluctance to withdraw troops from Temple Street and Sakhalin Island became the biggest obstacle to the negotiations. Bao Ling and Blombull's previous conditions for returning home were only the remuneration of the Taiping mercenary group, and the ships ordered by Britain and France were paid by the Taiping Army, and in this military operation to the north, the Taiping Army undertook most of the supplies, ammunition, materials and casualties of soldiers, and even the Taiping Army also provided medical logistics services for the British and French fleets, so it was reasonable for the Taiping Army to propose to use three British sail battleships and two French cruisers as remuneration. You must know that in the Crimean War, the troops of Prussia, Sweden and other countries hired by Britain to fight were several times more expensive than the Taiping army.

The Taiping army now occupied several important Russian forts and military ports, and when the former bread commander and Blombur negotiated with Zuo Zongtang, the number two in Sufu Province, it became clear that the other side seemed to be intent on delaying, or that the Taiping army wanted to withdraw from Temple Street and Sakhalin at all. Several military ports on the Kamchatka Peninsula were fine, and the Taiping army may not be interested, but Temple Street was different from Sakhalin, and both the Manchus and the Taiping army considered it Chinese territory. At this point, Bao Ling and Blombur felt a headache, and if the Taiping army did not withdraw, Russia would not agree to the harsh conditions proposed by Britain and France. The bold Taiping front-line commander Tan Shaoguang had already begun to command his army to coerce the local Russian prisoners and residents to build fortifications and buildings on Temple Street and Sakhalin Island, and it seemed that the Taiping army wanted to rely on it. (To be continued......)