"Gentlemen, you think this is so good, why are you starting a war? Enke is about to start, and the Chinese New Year will be in more than a month. It would be unlucky to use weapons!"
"That's right. If you look at what the People's Daily said, it's quite pitiful. For a foreign merchant in the maritime business, with a turnover of tens of millions of silver taels a year, it's not an exaggeration to support a couple of hundred bodyguards, isn't it? Why can’t the imperial court tolerate it?”
"Hey... I just don't understand. The imperial court sent people to assassinate Xiao Letian and poison his concubine... No, no, no, I made a mistake. I poisoned my daughter-in-law and gave her the concubine by mistake. Poisoned... Anyway, no matter what, the court's handling of this matter is really unreasonable."
"That's right, no matter how great the crime is, it can't be punished! You guys said that Sun Sanhu colluded with the Green Camp soldiers to loot the entire Tanggu merchants. Is this true?"
The copper hot pot in the tavern was almost drying up, and the young and old men gathered their heads together to discuss the imperial court's dispatch of troops. Here we can see the benefits of public opinion warfare. Newspapers are large in black and white, and the words in them are all emotionally expressive vernacular. They are naturally close to the people. This is much better than looking at some dry and docile notice boards in classical Chinese.
It can be said that newspapers, a new thing, have been close to the public's sentiments from the very beginning, giving them a natural advantage in the battle of public opinion.
The whispering among the Eight Banners idlers annoyed the scholars next to them. They dropped their chopsticks and became furious: "Confused, are you the only people of the Qing Dynasty? The imperial court is feeding you in vain! Do you believe Xiao Letian's fallacies?"
"It doesn't matter whether what he said is true or not, so what if it is true? If a king tells his ministers to die, they must die; if a father tells his son to die, his son must die. This is loyalty and filial piety, and this is the law of nature..."
Having said this, the scholar, whose face was red from drinking, rushed over and snatched the People's Knowledge Newspaper from the hands of the idle men, and tore it into pieces with a clatter. While tearing it apart, he also cursed, "I'll let you see it... I'll let you see it again, tear it into pieces... tear everything into pieces..."
"Oh, you are looking for death. You dare to snatch something from my hands. You are brave enough. I will give you two crispy ones..." The Eight Banners are not afraid of causing trouble, especially these drunken scholars. , raised his hand and opened his bow left and right, and was slapped twice.
"You brat, please remember better and stop trying to reason with me. I am a bannerman, and what we say as bannermen is the truth..."
"It's an insult to elegance, you're an insult to elegance!" The other soldiers gave up and rushed up to grab the bannermen by the hands and started a melee. After a while, the Kung Fu Mutton Restaurant was smashed to pieces.
The same scene was staged in different places in the Qing Dynasty. This was a conflict between two kinds of thinking. On the one hand, scholars were maintaining the traditional public opinion position that had existed for thousands of years, while on the other hand, the people began to have a sense of self-judgment.
These are two naturally antagonistic emotions. Scholars will never allow people to think. In their eyes, people can let it go but cannot understand it. That is to say, ordinary people, just do your work as we say and stop using your brain. If I say go left, just go left honestly. As for the reason why you go left, don’t worry about it. We Just think about it for you.
But the people are not stupid either. There is always a group of Illuminati who will try to analyze problems on their own, and these people are the pioneers that Xiao Letian wants to win over.
Of course, in the current Qing Dynasty, the power of the awakened ones is still very weak, less than one thousandth of the traditional power, but Xiao Letian is not impatient, because he knows that he has these rotten Confucians. The unimaginable power is the power of industry.
When the most advanced printing presses are shipped to the Qing Dynasty, Xiao Letian's propaganda ability will increase exponentially. Not to mention covering a small Zhili, he can even cover the entire Central Plains and even the entire Qing Dynasty.
It can be said that the situation in the capital changed three times a day. Xiao Letian's propaganda attacks continued to expand. In the end, the breaking news that Wang Mian, a beast, killed his own father and forced his aunt to death was even revealed.
Wang Shizheng's home was originally the focus of Chun Shisanniang's attention. There were as many as fifteen servants who were bribed. From the inner house to the outer house, they were all the eyes and ears of Chun Shisanniang. They all saw clearly that Wang Mian had suffocated his own father and attempted to insult his aunt. If this kind of breaking news is not useful now, then how else will it be used?
When the third issue of Minzhibao dropped this shocking news in front of the people of the capital early the next morning, Qingliu could no longer bear it, and another large-scale demonstration began.
Wang Mian, who was wearing heavy filial piety, actually walked at the front of the procession carrying the coffin, crying and refuting the slanders and insults from the Minzhibao. He was so emotional that he even led the procession in an attempt to attack the Qing Dynasty Gate.
The Great Qing Gate in the Qing Dynasty was probably located at the location of the Chairman's Memorial Hall in later generations. If you rush in from here, you will find a closed square. The soldiers guarding here had been severely warned before, but now that they saw this group of scholars coming again and carrying out the coffin, how could they dare to neglect and quickly stopped the team.
Wang Mian stood in front of the team with disheveled hair and roared at the top of his lungs: "Your Majesty, I have been wronged... Your Majesty, please give me justice. Please make the decision for me..."
Wang Mian was really scared. Although he could deny all the reports of Minzhibao, he knew very well how keen the people of the Qing Dynasty were on these gossipy news. Regardless of whether it was true or false, he couldn't clean up his arrogance. The only way is to ask the court to correct his name. Maybe relying on the royal prestige can restore some of the family's reputation. It wasn't just Wang Mian's family who was afraid, everyone in the capital was frightened by Xiao Letian's shameless and lifeless style of play.
Aren’t there a lot of you scholars? Xiao Letian's newspaper leaflets are more. Aren’t you disciples and former officials of the Qing Dynasty? Xiao Letian's newspaper could not only cover the Qing Dynasty, but even the territory of foreigners.
Not to mention anything else, there are a lot of newspapers and posters posted in Dongjiao Minxiang during this period. Who among the gentlemen in Shuntian Mansion dares to come and collect them? The foreigners took all the orders.
A scoundrel, Xiao Letian is simply a scoundrel. If all the literati in the world behave like this, how can there be any order? Just find someone to throw dirty water on. Anyway, the people like to hear such frivolous news. Isn’t that what it means when three people become a tiger? .
No one expected that Xiao Letian's counterattack would be so shameless and ruthless. It didn't give him any chance of survival. This punch really struck the scholar's lifeline.
At this time, the Forbidden City was also dumbfounded. They did not expect that Xiao Letian did not care about the threat of war at all, and his counterattack methods became more and more fierce. Not only did he expose all the plans of the imperial court to mobilize troops, he even used disgusting methods such as slandering people's names. tricks.
The political arena in the late Qing Dynasty was actually a stinky pond. No one wanted to be clean, let alone the eldest brother, the second brother. There would still be a lot of stinking things within the royal family if they were carefully picked. Didn't Prince Gong be exposed in the first issue? Thousands of dollars were spent on a meal, so he just waited for the people to scold him.
Yi? Now his face was as gray as a mourning examination. He suddenly jumped up from his chair and said hysterically, "No! It can't go on like this... Since Xiao Letian can expose Hanchen Qingliu's background, he can also expose our Manchus." What if he made a desperate move to make all the agreements signed between the imperial court and foreigners over the years public?"
"Ah!" Everyone in the palace exclaimed. This kind of thing cannot happen. Once it happens, it will be a major event that shakes the country.
In the First Opium War, China paid Britain 21 million taels of silver as compensation, and in the Second Opium War, it paid Britain and France another 6 million taels of silver. Even more than one million square kilometers of land north of Heilongjiang was ceded to Russia in the Sino-Russian Aihun Treaty.
These things are not secrets, they are still spread among officials and scholars, but 99% of the people in the world don't know about them. They couldn't figure out the difference between Britain and France, nor what the various treaties were about.
Even what is the place outside Guan Guan like? I don’t even have a clear idea of whether it was the land of the Qing Dynasty. A big help in maintaining the power of the late Qing Dynasty was to bully the common people. As long as the country was still controlled by the imperial court on the surface, they believed that the country's righteousness still lay with the Manchus.
Now that the evil spirit Xiao Letian actually uses such a vicious trick and uses such vernacular language that ordinary people can understand, he instills such dangerous ideas into all the people of the world. This will make it impossible for the imperial court to control people's hearts in the future.
After all, Prince Gong is the Prime Minister. He is a prince among the Eight Banners who has a deep understanding of foreigners. He felt something was wrong after the first issue of the People's Knowledge News was posted in Beijing, but at first he only thought it was Xiao Xiao. Lotte had no choice but to seek self-protection, but when Wang Mian's background was revealed in the third issue, he suddenly woke up.
"Your Majesty, Queen Mother! What Xiao Letian did is not to threaten these Han ministers. He is threatening the imperial court naked. If he continues like this, the people of the world will alienate us!"
There was no need for a heavy hammer to sound the drum. Ci'an and Cixi came to their senses. They shouted almost at the same time, "Release Ermao from the Ministry of Internal Affairs... Let him send a message to Xiao Letian. The court wants to negotiate with him. This battle Absolutely no fighting..."
Ever since the imperial court made up its mind to suppress Xiao Letian's rebellion, Er Mao had been imprisoned in the dungeon of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. If the young emperor had not begged for mercy, his head would have been beheaded that night. Now everyone is glad that they didn't do anything poisonous, otherwise they would really not be able to negotiate with Xiao Letian.
At this moment, suddenly there was a rush of urgent footsteps outside the palace. The great eunuch Zhou Daoying rushed in from outside. As soon as he entered the palace, he knelt on the ground with a thud: "Your Majesty! My Majesty, the Queen Mother, something bad has happened. Zeng Guofan has come in." It's Beijing..." After saying that, he took out the 800-mile urgent document that had just been delivered from his arms.
"Why are you panicking? Didn't the commander-in-chief already say that he would go to Beijing this year? Look at you, you are so lost, so shameful..." Emperor Tongzhi opened his mouth and cursed angrily.
Zhou Daoying's forehead hit the ground, tears streaming down his face, "No, Your Majesty, Zeng Guofan brought a total of 20,000 cavalry to the north. He brought 20,000 cavalry directly from Shandong to the capital. He brought 20,000 cavalry directly to the capital. The troops have entered the capital...Zeng Guofan has led the troops to the capital!"
There was a crisp sound, and the tea bowl in Ci'an's hand was smashed into pieces.
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