Chapter 230: “Li Zhongtang” goes to Shanghai, Hong Xiuquan goes to Nanjing (seeking subscription, ticket request)

The dark night has enveloped the entire city of Beijing. In Jing’er Hutong in the northern part of Beijing’s inner city, the east wing of a three-story courtyard house is still dimly lit. Three scholars are sitting in the room, all with bald heads and no hats. Two of them are particularly tall. They are Li Wenxuan and Li Hongzhang, father and son. The other is Huang Shijie, who escorted Zeng Linshu to the north.

The courtyard house where these three are now located is not something that anyone can own. This courtyard house is located on the territory of the Yellow Banner in the inner city of Beijing. When the Qing Dynasty established its capital in Beijing, it did not follow Li Zicheng’s example of extorting money from soldiers. Dorgon Duo Ama could not do such an indecent thing. Duo Ama simply used a combination of enclosing land and occupying houses.

The enclosure was to enclose the land outside the city of Beijing and distribute it to the descendants of the Eight Banners. About all the good and fertile land within two or three hundred miles around Beijing was enclosed!

The houses that were occupied were the entire inner city of Beijing, which was roughly the area within the Second Ring Road in later generations. All of them were occupied and the original owners were evicted. They were also given a deadline to leave and could only take limited luggage with them. The remaining houses, household items and silver buried underground all belonged to the descendants of the Eight Banners.

For more than 200 years after that, Beijing’s inner city was a “banner city”. Only the descendants of the Eight Banners, including bondservants, could settle down in Beijing. They could not live anywhere but in the banner to which they belonged. The entire inner city of Beijing was divided into nine areas, one for each of the Eight Banners, and the Forbidden City in the middle.

The courtyard where Li Wenxuan, Li Hongzhang and Huang Shijie live now is on the territory of the Bordered Yellow Banner, which was allocated to Zeng Linshu and Zeng Guofan, father and son, by Emperor Xianfeng.

The three of them had been busy these past few days, helping Zeng Linshu to go to the government office to handle paperwork, running to the outer city to buy furniture, hiring servants, and purchasing all kinds of miscellaneous items. Only now had they settled down.

At noon today, he ordered more than a dozen tables of banquets from Dejuquan outside the city and invited the bannermen and neighbors in Jinger Hutong. Zeng Linshu was a country boy who was a bit of a drinker. Huang Shijie was afraid that he would tell the truth after drinking, so he had to ask Li Wenxuan and Li Hongzhang to help Zeng Linshu deal with these bannermen and neighbors, and they were busy until the evening.

So Li Wenxuan and Li Hongzhang did not go back to the “rented house” in the outer city, but simply stayed in the three-story house of “Zeng Linshu”. This was the first time for them to spend the night in a courtyard house in the inner city!

Huang Shijie did not rent a house in the outer city of Beijing. After arriving in Beijing, he and Zeng Linshu first stayed for two nights in Senggelinqin’s palace, and then moved into this house only a quarter of an hour’s walk from the Forbidden City with Zeng Linshu.

“It’s a three-story courtyard so close to the Forbidden City. Although Brother Disheng has been promoted to the position of Vice Minister in eight years, his career is very prosperous, but if he hadn’t raised the banner, even if he had become a Grand Secretary and Minister of Military Affairs, and became Zeng Zhongtang, he wouldn’t be able to live in a house like this!”

Li Wenxuan’s words were full of envy.

Huang Shijie shook his head and said with a smile: “That’s not necessarily true! That was the rule in the past. It’s hard to say what will happen in the future! Maybe the teacher will move his residence a few miles further south in Beijing in the future!”

Li Wenxuan laughed out loud: “Ziying, what you said is true. Do you know where Jing’er Hutong is a few miles south? The Forbidden City! How could Zeng Disheng live in the Forbidden City? Could he come to Beijing to be a guard?”

Li Hongzhang’s face flashed with a trace of surprise. He looked at his junior fellow apprentice and asked in a low voice: “Ziying, what does the teacher think of the situation? Is there still hope for the Qing Dynasty?”

Huang Shijie smiled coldly: “Teacher thinks that the world today is similar to the end of the Yuan Dynasty!”

“The end of the Yuan Dynasty?” Li Hongzhang’s face was uncertain.

Li Wenxuan was stunned: “The end of the Yuan Dynasty? Doesn’t that mean the Qing Dynasty is going to end?”

Li Hongzhang stared at Huang Shijie, seemingly unable to believe it: “Did the teacher really say that?”

Huang Shijie smiled and said, “Shaoquan, do you think the teacher is still as cautious as he was in Beijing? Now the teacher has more than 30 battalions of trained warriors under his command. These battalions are controlled by the teacher’s clans, fellow villagers, fellow students, and students! And these people who are attached to the teacher also pull their clans, friends, and classmates, and the upper and lower are all one, rising together and falling together. All of us, the teacher’s followers, hope that the teacher can rise step by step and reach the sky! And the people under Zuo Jigao and Jiang Minqiao are all like this!

Li Shibo, Shaoquan, the world has changed! We are men of our generation, born in troubled times, holding a three-foot sword in our hands. It is a blessing and a good time, so how can we not do something?”

“Good!” Li Hongzhang applauded and said, “Listening to my junior brother’s words today is better than reading ten years of books!” Then his expression darkened again, and he smiled bitterly, “But the monk king recommended me a job abroad. I had already agreed with Minister Lu of the Ministry of Works to go back to Anhui with him to organize militia, but this foreign mission has been delayed. I really don’t know when I can start my family’s militia. It would be great if I could find a reason to turn down this foreign mission.”

“No, don’t push it!” Huang Shijie waved his hands and said, “This is a rare opportunity! Shaoquan, do you know why Luo Xueyan was able to rise to the top overnight, from a seventh-rank candidate to the position of Jiangnan Salt Administration and Jiangning prefect?”

“He can train troops and manage foreign affairs,” said Li Hongzhang.

Huang Shijie said: “This is only part of the reason, but not the most important reason.”

“Then what is the most important reason?” “It’s foreign guns and cannons!” Huang Shijie said with envy, “He really got thousands of foreign guns and more than a dozen foreign cannons, they are ready-made goods!

Actually, the easiest part of organizing militia training is recruiting soldiers. Shaoquan, you are from Huai River, and there have been many warriors in Huai River since ancient times. Moreover, the Huai River has been flooding year after year in recent years, and there are many poor people in Huai River who can’t make a living, so recruiting soldiers couldn’t be easier. The real difficulty is to get enough foreign guns and cannons. Without foreign guns and cannons, we can’t beat the Taiping rebels. You don’t know how fierce the Taiping rebels are in war. If we can’t beat them, we will be finished sooner or later!
With foreign guns and cannons, it would be best if we could hire some foreign generals and soldiers, so that our army can truly fight against the Taiping rebels. So, Shao Quan, you must not refuse this mission!

As for the militia training in Anhui, your father and your brothers can start it first. Shaoquan, if you are worried, you can write a letter to the teacher and borrow one or two battalions of Hunan braves to Anhui. With them, your Li family’s militia training will definitely be better than others. As long as you are careful, it will not go wrong. When Shaoquan returns from overseas, he will buy foreign guns and cannons, and hire foreign generals and soldiers, and then he can expand his business.

By then, even the teacher will have to rely on your connections to buy guns, cannons and ammunition from foreigners. With this connection, are you still worried that you won’t be able to organize the militia? If you have organized the militia, are you still worried that you won’t have the future of being a marquis or even a king? “

Li Hongzhang was really taught a lesson this time. He was not yet Li Zhongtang, but Li Hanlin who had been “sitting in an office” in Beijing. He only saw the glory of those military leaders, but did not see how cowardly these militia leaders were when facing the large groups of Taiping Army.

“I appreciate your advice, Li Hongzhang,” Li Hongzhang, who already understood what path he was going to take, bowed to Huang Shijie with gratitude, “Then I will concentrate on preparing to go abroad!”

Huang Shijie saw that Li Hongzhang had made up his mind to go abroad, so he knew that his line of “collaborating with foreign countries” should be able to be established, and he felt a little relieved – he had not heard much about Luo Xueyan in Shanghai, but he was sure that he was from the line of Luo Bingzhang and Zuo Zongtang. If the left faction of Hunan braves had an endless supply of foreign guns and cannons in the future, Zeng’s faction would be swallowed up by the left faction sooner or later, and as a person who defected from Zuo Zongtang to Zeng Guofan, he was afraid that the days of going back to Zeng Guofan would not be easy.

However, the purchase of foreign guns and cannons was urgent, and Huang Shijie could not wait for Li Hongzhang to return from his overseas trip, so he asked him again: “Shaoquan, where are you going to go overseas this time?”

“Shanghai!” Li Hongzhang said with a smile, “Lord Su said that he wanted to go abroad through Shanghai, meet Luo Xueyan and the foreign consuls in Shanghai, and order a batch of foreign guns and cannons from the foreigners. I also want to take this opportunity to get close to Luo Xueyan and learn from him how to run foreign affairs.”

Huang Shijie sighed: “It’s a pity that I can’t go to Shanghai with you, otherwise I would also like to meet this genius of Westernization.”

“Ziying, do you have any urgent matter?” Li Hongzhang asked.

Huang Shijie nodded and said with a smile: “The monk king sent someone to give me a message today, saying that the emperor will summon me in a few days!”

Li Hongzhang said happily: “The Emperor summoned me? That means I’m going to be of great use, right?”

Huang Shijie laughed and said, “The world is in chaos today. The Qing dynasty is declining and the Taiping Rebellion is rising. We are scholars who have read books of sages and commanded fierce and wolf-like troops. We have lofty ambitions. If the emperor doesn’t use us, who else can he use?”

“Kill the Qing monsters and go to heaven!”

“God bless us!”

Outside the Yifeng Gate of Jinling City, cheers as loud as thunder and sea suddenly rang out!
Standing on the Lion Mountain inside Yifeng Gate and looking outside the city, you can see that outside Yifeng Gate, between the densely packed buildings around Jinghai Temple that had not been demolished in time, there are densely packed “red-headed people” cheering loudly!
The surface of the Yangtze River north of Yifeng Gate was filled with thousands of wooden boats coming from upstream. The decks of all the wooden boats were also filled with “red-headed men” who were also cheering.

Even on the north bank of the Yangtze River, on the beach belonging to Jiangpu County, there was a scene of fluttering red flags and gathering soldiers, and faint cheers could be heard.

In a wilderness west of Jinghai Temple, a large sedan chair carried by sixty-four people, surrounded by tens of thousands of Taiping Army male and female soldiers, slowly appeared in the sight of the desperate Liangjiang Governor Lu Jianying and Jiangning General Xianghou on Lion Rock.

“Yes, it’s Hong Xiuquan! He’s outside the city of Jiangning. We’re finished!” General Jiangning, who was already old, with flabby skin, gray hair and beard, and completely out of energy, stared at the sedan chair with a dull look and said in a trembling voice.

Next to him, Lu Jianying, who looked sick and had a sallow complexion, looked like he wanted to cry but had no tears: “Alas, the Qing Dynasty is going to end. We are just looking for a piece of Aisin-Gioro land to die!”

After saying this, he closed his eyes and no longer looked at the despairing scene outside the city.

On the platform outside the three-bedroom, one-living-room sedan chair, Hong Xiuquan was wearing a dragon robe with forty dragons on it. He held his sword with one hand and stroked his beard with the other, looking at the city that was about to be breached by the Taiping Army, his face full of pride: “I hold the power of killing and conquering, I kill the evil and retain the righteous to resolve the people’s worries. My eyes can see beyond the northwest mountains and rivers, and my voice can reach the southeast sun and moon.”

(End of this chapter)