Chapter 424: Selling Land?
When Qin Erwa was taken again to the Qing army fortifications near the mouth of the Lao Liao River in Yingkou, he had an urge to kowtow to his fellow Shandong countryman. When the giant ship as big as a mountain arrived this morning, if it weren't for his fellow Shandong villager who dragged him to the Great Song Dynasty, I am afraid that he Qin Erwa would have become a handful of dust in that huge pit.
After the shaking of the mountains just now, Qin Erwa and his Qing brothers who had defected to the Great Song Dynasty were driven to the estuary to clean up the wreckage. The commander of the Great Song Dynasty said that they were now sappers, and they did not need to fight with guns, and their task was to clear the ruins and expand the original docks.
Qin Erwa looked at the estuary in front of her, which was both familiar and unfamiliar to her, and sighed with emotion, when she was fighting with the Japanese last year, she was slipped to this place by Guan Neiti. During the entire Sino-Japanese War, he was stationed in this Qing army stronghold at the mouth of the Lao Liao River in Yingkou, and he was already familiar with every grass and tree here.
This morning, Qin Erwa's fellow from Shandong dragged him out of the military camp he was familiar with on the grounds that he didn't want to accompany the mean Manchurian sentry commander to be loyal. Now when he returned, there was nothing else he knew with him except for the three terrible pits in the ground, and the barracks, the forts, and the horses were all reduced to ashes with the loud noise. Qin Erwa thought earlier that she could still collect the corpses of those former robes who were loyal to the Qing Dynasty, but now looking at the corpses of this formation, I am afraid that they will not be able to find them, and these people will end up with no corpses.
"Big brother, the ironclad ship of the Great Song Commander is too fierce, this is really all turned into ashes under the muzzle!" Qin Erwa said to a thin man.
"That's not it, I've heard from my old brother stationed in Dalian Bay a long time ago, that there is a city called Maguan in the Japanese that is about to be razed to the ground by this ironclad ship, do you really think that our forts piled up with a few handfuls of sand and soil can withstand this magic cannon?" The thin man said.
"That unlucky sentry chief is full of people, and it makes sense that he wants to accompany his master to the underworld. Have you ever eaten half a bun and half a bowl of porridge from them on weekdays, and you can afford to give them a funeral? Yue Wumu, who is loyal to the country, is a Song person! You, a Han and Manchurian, are you loyal to the country? I'm afraid you've read all the two years of private school in the belly of a dog!? The thin man continued.
In the early years in his hometown in Shandong, Qin Erwa's family had not yet caused a disaster, and his father spent a lot of food to send him to a private school for two years. Of course, Father Qin didn't expect him Qin Erwa to be able to test his fame, but only hoped that his son would not be blind and bullied for a lifetime like him.
Who has missed the private school for the past two years, Qin Erwa didn't even take a serious name, but she was infected with the stinky problems of the sourmen, and she actually wanted to be loyal to the Qing Dynasty, if it weren't for the thin man pulling Daddy Qin, I am afraid that he would be the last to die.
The most difficult part of this military operation was how to fill the huge hole left by the BB63 live firing with the backward labor tools such as hoes and shovels.
The indigenous troops who crossed the crowd here were busy filling the pit at the entrance of the camp with the Qing soldiers who surrendered, but Guangxu in the Forbidden City was panicked because he lost the entrance to the camp.
"The 'Pseudo-Song' is going to take Shanhaiguan in the west and go south to attack the capital, so where are the Russian reinforcements?" Guangxu asked Kang Youwei.
Although he has always resisted cooperating with Tsarist Russia, once he crossed the south to threaten the rule of the Manchus, Guangxu didn't care about any backbone and decency, and only hoped that the intervention army of Tsarist Russia in the south would arrive soon.
"Your Majesty, according to the legend of the foreigners, the soldiers and horses of Russia going south were blocked by the 'Pseudo-Song Dynasty' near Lake Baihaier (Lake Belga), and I am afraid that they will not be able to arrive for a while and a half." Kang Youwei said.
Although Western newspapers basically used the word "total annihilation" to describe the crushing defeat of Tsarist Russia in the eastern shore of Lake Belga, Kang Youwei still insisted that it was an exaggeration by foreigners, and that the "pseudo-Song Dynasty" had spent a lot of money and grain trapped in the Liaodong Peninsula, where would there be military strength to go to Baihaier Lake, thousands of miles away, to annihilate Russian soldiers and horses? Most of them just sent a detachment of troops to harass them.
"I heard that the Russian reinforcements have been annihilated by the 'Pseudo-Song' in Baihaier Lake, does Aiqing know about this?" Guangxu himself did not seem to believe that the Crossing Masses had the ability to cross the troops and horses he had placed in the northeast and Mongolia to annihilate the southward army of Tsarist Russia.
"I'm afraid this is just a pretext for foreigners, Fengtian has the soldiers and horses of Lord Yiketanga, and further northwest, there are cavalry of Mongolian kings, so the 'pseudo-Song' rebel party can still grow wings and fly over, how can they completely annihilate Russian reinforcements in Baihaier Lake?" Kang Youwei said.
"Oh, what is Russia's intention in making this pretext?" Guangxu asked again.
"Your Majesty, I'm afraid this foreigner is going to sit on the ground and raise the price!" Kang Youwei said.
"Sitting on the ground? Isn't it already promised that it will be profitable? Guangxu asked.
In order to allow Tsarist Russia to send troops south to intervene in the return of the "Pseudo-Song Dynasty" to Liao, the Manchu Qing Dynasty supplemented a series of treaties that humiliated the country on the basis of the original "Sino-Russian Secret Treaty" signed with Tsarist Russia, which is also the reason for Guangxu's statement of promising heavy benefits.
"I'm afraid that this Russia will not forget Xinjiang!" Kang Youwei said.
"This, this, Xinjiang must not be ceded to Russia!" Guangxu gritted his teeth and said.
Kang Youwei and other reformers proposed a series of reform measures to Guangxu, and also put forward proposals to sell their territory to raise funds for the New Deal, including a proposal to sell Tibet to Britain and Xinjiang to Tsarist Russia. Of course, this is the wishful thinking of those reformist sourers, and Guangxu, who has not been in power for a long time, has no courage to sell land to raise funds.
Due to the strong intervention of the time-traveling people, many historical events have been postponed for as long as a few months or even a year. But the historical Wuxu Reform Law still came. Due to the previous attack on Xihe Garden, which led Cixi to flee north to Chengde Summer Resort, the resistance encountered by Guangxu and the Restorationists in the reform was far less than in the history of the original time and space. Without the restraint of the conservatives, the reformers' remarks on selling territory and changing the law in the history of the original time and space were popular for a while.
At the beginning of this year, Tan Sitong, a cadre of the reform faction, wrote a letter to his mentor Ouyang Zhonghu about the path of reform and talked about the financing of reform. It is beneficial to sell Xinjiang to Russia and Tibet to England to pay off the arrears of 20,000 yuan. With tens of thousands of miles in the two realms, my strength will not be able to defend it, and it will be a burden to me, and it will be worth more than 20,000 yuan, but it can still be used to change the law, and ask Britain and Russia to protect China for ten years. From Tan Sitong's words in the letter, it can be seen that he believes that Mongolia, Xinjiang, Tibet, and Qinghai are "not beneficial to China at all" and that it is better to sell them "for the purpose of changing the law."
After a large number of Western newspapers had already reported on the incident of Tsarist Russia's collapse of Lake Belga, Kang Youwei still believed that this was a trick played by Tsarist Russia for the sake of its territorial claims, delaying the pace of interfering with the "puppet Song" to return Liao.