Time was running out. Liu Dadao knew that if he stayed here for a long time, the outside world would be suspicious. He pushed the wontons in front of Xiao Sixi and said, "Eat! Don't make outsiders suspicious..."
"Master! You have to think clearly about the priorities of things. The emergency before your eyes is a matter of life and death for our Qing Dynasty. As for whether the people have meat to eat every day and whether it is a prosperous age, you shouldn't think about it now! "
"Before leaving, the Queen Mother secretly summoned her servants and told them everything about the crisis at hand..."
"Your Majesty! Now the Queen Mother and you are helpless. There is Xiao Letian in the East China Sea, and the 400,000 to 500,000 Hunan troops left by Zeng Guofan in the south are even more of a big trouble..."
"Prince Gong has trained 30,000 to 40,000 new troops in Xishan. They are nominally the imperial army, but anyone with a discerning eye will know at a glance that these are all the private army of Guiziliu!"
"Besieged internally and externally! We are beleaguered internally and externally! Not only do we have no soldiers, we also have no money at this moment..."
"The imperial court's small amount of taxes is simply not enough to cover expenses. The interest on repaying the foreigners' indemnity can only be paid by mortgaging the customs. Zuo Zongtang's soldiers in the northwest are marching westward, and the Yangxin Hall is almost filled with military telegrams asking for money every day. …”
"If you don't have money, don't gather troops! If you don't have troops, you have no power! If you don't have power, you will die!"
Liu Dadao gritted his teeth and said these three words of Cixi with the smell of blood. It seemed that this mother-in-law was really anxious. She could no longer control the chaotic situation in the court. At this moment, she was putting her hopes overseas. It happened to my son, Zai Chun, who had always felt that he was young and ignorant.
Zai Chunwan never expected E Niang to say such words. In his impression, his mother was an extremely strong woman. No matter how difficult and complicated the government affairs were, she never showed a trace of weakness or retreat. .
I never expected that E Niang would have so much pain and helplessness hidden in her heart.
"Don't we still have a source of income from Beipiao? Why are we so poor?"
"Oh, my dear! Beipiao is indeed a gold mine, but there are too many people to hold it back! Do you know how much Guizi Liu alone took away? A full half..."
"The other six parts must also be divided equally. When it finally falls into your hands, your Majesty, there will only be some silver dregs left..."
Liu Dadao was really the Queen Mother's natal family, and he didn't pay much attention to the way he spoke. Finally, he gritted his teeth and said cruelly, "Long live my lord, I just want to say something disrespectful. If you have money and soldiers, you are the emperor. If you don't have money and soldiers, you are the emperor." It’s just yellow soup!”
"Bold!" Da Sixi growled and was about to slap him, but Zai Chun raised his hand to stop him.
The young emperor was also flushed with anger, but the anger was not directed at Liu Dadao, but at the harsh situation at hand.
"What are you doing? What Liu Dadao said is right... I am no longer the prisoner trapped in the Forbidden City. Only when I step out of the square sky do I really know what the outside world is like..."
"How stupid was I before? I thought that when others kowtowed to me and shouted Long Live Long Live, I would really be Long Live? Everyone said that the Emperor was the Son of Heaven, but weren't there still rebels in the Qing Dynasty? Aren't there still people overseas who were stronger than us? A foreign country?"
"Master once said that power cannot be inherited at all. Even if you are a biological son and can take over the righteousness, if you are incapable of grasping the power that I passed on to you, you will still be a puppet! "
"That's the way my ministers are. If I, Ama, can move things, I may not be able to move them. Those who are loyal to me may not be loyal to my son!"
"You have to be tough to strike iron!"
"That's right! That's what the Queen Mother said..." Liu Dadao rubbed his hands excitedly and said, "The Queen Mother asked me to tell Your Majesty... In the past, the Queen Mother showed her dissatisfaction and reprimand towards Your Majesty in front of everyone. In fact, it was to numb both internal and external feelings. enemy!"
"The court is too complicated. Most people can't tell who are the enemies and friends at all. Many people are even swingers. They show their loyalty to you in the morning, but if the situation changes in the afternoon, they will bite you immediately..."
"Long live my lord, don't blame the Queen Mother..." At this point, Cixi's family member wiped away tears. "The Queen Mother's dissatisfaction with you many times is all acting! If others don't say it, it's just the devil." The Queen Mother is extremely afraid of sixty-one people! There are 30,000 to 40,000 new troops marching to the west, what do you want the Queen Mother to do?"
"Your Majesty, you trained the new imperial army in Fujian, and supported General Hunchun in Heilongjiang and Jilin. With these two moves, the Queen Mother openly scolded you for being disobedient and unfilial, scolding you for losing power and humiliating the country, but in reality..."
"Haha... The Queen Mother has already figured it out. Long Live Your Majesty, the idea of seizing power and soldiers is a good idea. No matter whether the method is correct or not, but you are going in the right direction, so this is what you should do!"
"It doesn't matter whether the land in the Far East is lost to Rakshasa ghosts or Xiao Letian. The bitter cold land is a place where prisoners are distributed. As long as it can bring benefits to us!"
"On the contrary, it can be exchanged for Hunchun's loyalty to us. This is real stuff! Your Majesty has firmly controlled the two provinces. Do you know how happy the Queen Mother is secretly?"
"Your Majesty, you must be more awake. Military and financial power must be in your own hands, not in the hands of the court... The emperor is the emperor, and the court is the court. These are not the same thing!"
If it were the former Zai Chun, the little emperor who had never left the palace and had been educated by Confucian scholars, he would never understand the meaning of this sentence.
In Confucian education, the emperor and the court are completely integrated. The emperor should be a saint and a moral gentleman, while the court rules the nine states around the emperor.
It's a beautiful picture when you think about it, but unfortunately there is a gap between imagination and reality in many cases. The emperor represents the supreme imperial power, while the court is the main battlefield of the bureaucratic class, and he represents the world's Confucian scholars and officials. their interests.
The two powers cooperated but also conflicted. A simple example is the Ming Dynasty. The ministers in the imperial court were good at crying about poverty. They often focused on the emperor's inner treasury and made small articles. From time to time, they said that the Ministry of Revenue had no money and asked the emperor to dig into his own pockets. Subsidize the court.
A very classic case is the Wanli Three Campaigns. Many bureaucrats were opposed to those three battles. The main reason was that there was no money.
However, the imperial court had no money and could not resist Wanli's wealth. His teacher Zhang Juzheng did a lot to save his family fortune. In addition, the eunuchs helped the emperor collect taxes across the country, so Emperor Wanli was still very wealthy.
In anger, Emperor Wanli opened up his inner treasury and used the royal savings to fight these three battles. This was basically the last military glory of the Ming Dynasty.
After the return to glory, the Ming Dynasty was in decline. The emperor had less and less money in his hands. Without money, he could not do big things, until finally Chongzhen was forced to ask his ministers to open their mouths to borrow money.
Of course, the Manchus also knew how to learn from history. Cixi was not a bad person. Of course she understood the truth behind this, so she took the risk and tried her best to add sand to Xiao Letian's mission. What she was afraid of was that Zai Chun was confused by Xiao Letian for a while. Lotte's bet.
