Gordon's good mood for the day was completely ruined by Zai Cheng, but this was not what he expected. The bloody scenes many years ago began to turmoil again. There were too many things that Zai Cheng didn't know. The battle that pacified the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. There are so many secrets in war!
The night was getting darker and darker, a faint fragrance of flowers filled the air, and the stars in the sky were getting denser and denser. Looking at the twinkling stars, Gordon always felt that they were countless souls who died in battle looking at him in the sky.
"Bai Qiwen... I'm really sorry. Don't blame me. If you want to blame, blame yourself... Everything you do is seeking your own death!"
In the dead of night, Gordon couldn't even think of resting. Just when he was blaming himself for Bai Qiwen's death, the door was knocked again. This time the visitor was polite and did not smash the door but slapped the brass door knocker!
"God! Can't you just let me take a break? No guests will be seen behind closed doors...Butler? Concierge? Go ahead and blast them away..."
The housekeeper and his disciples walked towards the gate angrily. These were all carefully selected parishioners from Forty-Nine City, and they were among the first batch of people in the country to submit to the foreigners!
The master was angry, and the slave naturally didn't have a good face. After opening the door, he found an old sedan with a small black velvet at the door, and two sedan bearers were waiting outside the door.
A middle-aged man and four guards stood in the doorway and looked at them with smiles.
"My lordship has said that he will not see any guests... Your distinguished guests should leave their invitations. If your lordship sees you tomorrow, we will naturally give you the news!"
In other words, the butler and the doorman didn't curse because the guests were so impressive, but were a little polite!
The middle-aged man smiled, "Hahaha... I'm here to see Lord Gordon, do I still need to pay you a visit? Gordon, I'm an outsider, I'm really an outsider..."
Gordon jumped up in the yard. The voice was so familiar, "Li Hongzhang! Why are you here?"
In any case, Li Hongzhang was once his direct superior to Gordon. Even if his old boss came and there were conflicts, he would not be denied entry.
Gordon quickly walked to the door and took a breath of air, "You... have entered the capital? You are just joining in the fun. Don't you think the capital is not chaotic enough?"
No matter how popular his subordinates were, they didn't dare to ask their former bosses to hand over greeting cards, so he had no choice but to welcome in the second batch of bad guests. This time, they were given face, and Gordon ordered the cook to prepare some side dishes and opened a bottle of red wine.
The weather in May was very warm and comfortable. The two of them sat in the small courtyard, facing each other at the Eight Immortals table. The guards and servants around them stayed away and no one dared to disturb them!
"When did Li Shuai enter Beijing?"
"This morning! I first met with the Queen Mother and the Emperor, and then in the afternoon I met with Zeng Shuai. You are the third person I want to meet!"
"Haha... why didn't you go to the Prime Minister's Yamen to pay a visit? Prince Gong is very popular, why don't you hug his thick legs?"
"Haha...Gordon, why are you so full of resentment? This is not good. We are all old friends. Why bother to ridicule me? Although Prince Gong is powerful, he is not the emperor. Although I, Li Hongzhang, am not as good as the teacher, I am still in great power. He was also alongside Zuo Jigao in the Qing Dynasty!"
"I'm not that shameless yet!"
"Tsk, tsk... I can't take back what Li Shuai said so beautifully! Cheng Beile just left and gave me Bai Qiwen's gun. Didn't this gun flow out of your hand?"
"In order to get close to Prince Gong, you even went through his son's family. Is this your backbone? It seems that my choice to fall out with you was not wrong at all. You are too insidious. You are an official fan!"
After a few sentences, there was a tit-for-tat conflict. It seemed that the rift between the two people was really big back then!
Li Hongzhang took a bite of the duck slices and frowned as if he disliked the chef's skills!
"Gordon! It's been eight years since you left the Qing Dynasty, right? It seems like nine years... You've been away for too long, and you seem to have forgotten what officialdom is like!"
"If I gave Zaicheng that pistol, does it mean that I am going to join Prince Gong? Haha, what a joke. You really look down on the backbone of us Han ministers!"
"To tell you the truth, I am still the emperor's minister. I gave Zaicheng the pistol for the benefit of the Qing Dynasty!"
"Have you forgotten how Bai Qiwen died? You seem to have forgotten that your hands are stained with his blood!"
"Although you didn't take action, what did you do when Bai Qiwen lost power? On the surface, you patted your chest on Bai Qiwen and said that you would use the influence of the British government to help him regain power!"
"You used your hypocrisy to gain Bai Qiwen's trust, so he could safely hand over the army to you... Of course, Bai Qiwen also entrusted you with the money he collected and deposited it in the British Bank!"
"But what did you do? You secretly contacted the British embassy later and asked them to abandon Bai Qiwen!"
"After Bai Qiwen was dismissed by me, why didn't he get reinstated when he went to Beijing? Because he never got support from the UK from the beginning to the end, and the British embassy lied to him from the beginning to the end!"
"And you are the direct planner! You robbed Bai Qiwen's army, and you also embezzled his money... Hahaha, it wasn't him who embezzled it, but Hua Er and Bai Qiwen!"
"In addition to the three hundred and ninety thousand taels of silver I gave you, Gordon, please tell me with your own conscience... How much silver did you get away with in the Qing Dynasty?"
"There's always a million!"
Gordon's face turned pale after what he said. Li Hongzhang was really a natural expert in officialdom. He knew all the details of his subordinates!
Li Hongzhang looked at Gordon coldly, "My admiral general! Do you know that you almost followed Bai Qiwen's path back then!"
"Do you know... I have already made three plans to assassinate you! If you had not followed the path in the end, you would have lost your life in Jiangnan!"
Hiss... Gordon took a breath of air, "You! You have indeed had this idea. I guessed it right. My hunch was not wrong..."
"How vicious! You used me to fight, you used me to deceive the trust of the Eight Kings, and in the end you wanted to kill me? Your heart is black!"
"Fart!" Li Hongzhang slapped his chopsticks on the table, "Don't fart!"
"What do you know? Do I want to kill you? The entire officialdom of the Qing Dynasty wants to kill you! If Bai Qiwen wants to die, you must die too!"
"Don't you understand what the imperial court is afraid of? Have you forgotten what I told you back then?"
"Compared with the rise of Han warlords like us, the imperial court is more afraid that you foreign devils will also become warlords within the Qing Dynasty!"
"So the Ever-Victorious Army must not stay, and all foreign forces in the army must be eliminated!"
"Bai Qiwen died because he was too ambitious!"
"It was the same then, and it is the same now! If any of you foreign devils want to join the Qing army, just wait to die!"
Note: Today is Monday, book friends, please vote for Hidden Dragon, thank you!
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