"Huh?" Zeng Guofan sighed in a questioning tone, but a strange smile appeared on his face.
"Prince Qing...are you talking about me?"
Yi Kuang dared to play tricks with Li Hongzao without hesitation, but when he really stood up to Zeng Guofan, the hairs on his back suddenly exploded. Don't think that the prince's status is so noble. The number of people killed by Marshal Zeng during the Ping Changmao Rebellion was counted in the millions. of.
It's really not good for people to refuse to accept this fate. Even though the commander-in-chief himself did not kill anyone himself, more than 500,000 Hunan troops completely obeyed his orders and started fighting and killing people!
This kind of tough life can save the lives of so many people. You, a little Yikuang, a wealthy prince in Sijiu City, has whipped more than a dozen slaves to death in your lifetime. How can you compete with such a real god of murder?
"Ah...hehe...hehehe...is this..." Yi Kuang laughed and was speechless.
When Yixuan saw that this brother was not good enough, he had no confidence and hurriedly tried to smooth things over, "The commander is too preoccupied. You still know Yixuan's temperament. Sometimes when big things happen, you can't calm down, and you don't have enough time to cultivate your character!"
"He was shocked by what happened at Juyongguan, so he spoke indiscriminately..."
Yi Kuang scratched his scalp and sat back, but this matter still had to be discussed. Yi Xuan smiled and said, "Anyway, the beacon fire on the Great Wall has been ignited strangely. It is a big event that shocked the world!"
"We must come up with a countermeasure! We must also give an explanation to the people in the world!"
Yi Kuan muttered, "Explain? Arrest the person first, and then bring out the mastermind behind it... I don't believe it. Thousands of miles of land has been burned like this?"
When Yizhen saw the commander's unkind expression, he quickly took over the words, "Let's calm the public opinion first, and everyone in the world must stop talking... and then we can talk about the issue of the person responsible!"
Zeng Guofan smiled coldly, "Is there any responsibility or irresponsibility in this? I guess you can guess that a major change occurred in the war situation in the Western Region, which ignited the beacon fire!"
"The situation of the war in the Western Region?" Ci'an asked nervously, "Did Zuo Jigao's army be defeated?"
"Haha...impossible!" Zeng Guofan waved his hands and said resolutely, "If war is ignited in the northwest now, it will only be a conflict between small-scale troops. The combined strength of both sides will not exceed 20,000!"
"Can Zuo Jigao be defeated in a battle of this scale? There are so many famous American Spencer guns, and even Mauser bolt-action rifles brought by the Chinese... A batch of 88-caliber cannons from the Northern Special Zone were also sent , how could it be possible to lose?”
"Commander? How are you sure it's a small-scale conflict?" Li Hongzao asked.
"How can you be sure? Scholar... do you think the weather in the northwest is the same as that in the capital? The winter in the Forty-Nine Cities can chill the tip of your nose, and the winter in the Western Regions is several times colder than here!"
"If a war breaks out in this kind of weather, who has the ability to mobilize a hundred thousand troops? Are they waiting to freeze to death? There is no other possibility except mobilizing elites to test each other!"
Zeng Guofan started talking about military affairs, but no one present dared to refute. They just listened to the commander continue, "Who is on the front line now? It's Xu Zhanbiao's Shu army!"
"Those Sichuan troops fought beautifully before, just when they were at full strength... If they take action, they might launch a surprise attack on Xingxing Gorge!"
"What do you rely on to convey military information in the northwest? It's just homing pigeons, fast horses and beacons... fast horses are useless, they are the slowest!"
"Homing pigeons are also dangerous. The weather is too cold and they may freeze to death on the way... So what will Xu Zhanbiao and Zuo Jigao use to contact the military?"
Zeng Guofan looked around at the people in the hall, "Apart from thousands of years of war, there is really no other choice!"
"We can guess the scene at that time. If Xu Zhanbiao succeeded at the front line of Xingxing Gorge, and the excited army lit beacons to report the news to the rear, the beacon towers on the ancient post road would have burned from Xingxing Gorge to Guazhou to Yumen Pass and then To Jiayuguan!"
"If Zuo Jigao knows the good news, why don't you go to Lanzhou City to report it? You know, the telegraph line has not been built to Lanzhou yet... Haha, who told you not to allocate funds to Mr. Qing!"
Zeng Guofan did not forget to poke fun at these Manchu nobles who were short-sighted and completely ignorant of the important strategic significance of new technologies!
"I really don't know how many beacon towers it will take to pass the beacon fire to Lanzhou... But what I know very well is that the Great Wall has branches along this route..."
"One goes directly to Zhongwei and Ningxia and then to the capital, while the other goes through Wushaoling to Lanzhou to deliver the message..."
"If you are on a business trip, there is only one possibility, and that is that the soldiers at the fork of the Great Wall mistakenly lit the beacon line leading to the capital..."
"What other reasons could there be? What happens next is not difficult to guess... Has our country ever had a decree to abolish the ancient beacon system on the Great Wall?"
"Really? Isn't it the same as the abolition of soldiers at the founding of the country? But has the system been abolished?"
"The defenders at those passes subconsciously followed the rules handed down from their ancestors. Many of the descendants of the old soldiers in the guard posts and fortresses can only act according to the word of mouth passed down by their ancestors..."
"No one has educated them, no one has given them new rules... So how can you blame them for lighting a beacon fire?"
After all, it was still a problem with the Qing Dynasty's own system. Yi Xin was so angry that his nose was crooked, but Zeng Guofan's truth was really irrefutable!
Are you causing trouble for the people along the Great Wall? Many of them are people who do not know a word of Chinese characters, and are just subconscious behaviors caused by listening to the stories told by their ancestors and mothers for a lifetime. How should this be punished?
Looking for trouble with those pass defenders? You don’t have an express provision for abolishing the beacon fire. How is this punishment?
Or should we just find some trouble with Fenghuo’s Xu Zhanbiao and Zuo Zongtang? In this era of Qing Dynasty, can they still afford to offend Han warlords?
Yi Xin gritted her silver teeth and made loud noises, and finally squeezed out a sound from her lips, "Then what do you want to do, Marshal? The capital is shaken, and then the world is shaken... Do you still want the people's hearts?"
"I don't even need to send people to inquire. I know that restaurants, teahouses, and brothels all over the city will be talking about this tonight. Soon the news will spread throughout Jiangnan, Guangdong, Huguang, and even Yunnan, Guizhou, and Sichuan..."
"What should I do? You are also a sage's disciple who reads the sages' books. You must know better than us the principle of guarding against the people's words!"
Zeng Guofan's eyes widened, "What to do? I know what to do? Who told you to hinder Mr. Qing? Who told you not to allocate money to the Qing Telegraph Bureau?"
"If we have enough money, we can let our telegraph line advance with the Western Expedition Army. Why is this?"
"Yixin, tell yourself, how much money did your Prime Minister's Office allocate to Mr. Qing? Ask yourself, Yixin, how much money did the Ministry of Revenue allocate?"
"If the telegraph line goes directly to Jiayuguan, or even to Guazhou...how can this happen? What kind of war is going on over there? The news will arrive in an instant!"
"It was you who withheld all the money and forced Mr. Qing to borrow money and save money to repair the telegraph line... What do you want me to do?"
"Chopsticks! Cold!"
"You!" Yi Xin stood up and pointed at Zeng Guofan, "I respect you as a hero of Ping Changmao! A great commander of the Hunan Army! But don't forget that this is the Qing Dynasty, and this is the world of the Manchus!"
"Haha... Then what do you want? Draw a path and I will follow it! Put the blame on my head and chop my head off!"
"In the worst case, I, Zeng Guofan, can use this head to put an end to this war incident, do you think so?"
