In the Forbidden City, there is a palace gate south of the Hall of Supreme Harmony called the Gate of Supreme Harmony. This is the first portal behind the Meridian Gate and is very important to the entire layout of the Forbidden City!
Don’t think that this is just a gate. In fact, this is a smaller palace. In the Ming and Qing dynasties, the Taihe Gate actually had the tradition of listening to government affairs!
People in later generations thought that the emperor's offices were all in the Hall of Supreme Harmony, which was the largest palace. However, this was a misunderstanding among ordinary people. The Hall of Supreme Harmony was too big and too high-standard. It would only be used during real ceremonies and celebrations!
The emperor's office generally adopts the traditional system of imperial gates to listen to government affairs. The palaces in Yangxin Gate and Taihe Gate receive memorials from officials and also handle some government affairs!
But this system is quite hard, and the weathered ministers can't stand it at first, because many times the ministers have to queue up in the courtyard!
Gradually, the emperors of the Qing Dynasty developed the Yangxin Hall, an office space that combined living and handling government affairs, and the system of imperial gates to listen to government affairs became rare!
Today, Emperor Tongzhi rushed to the Gate of Taihe at four o'clock in the morning. Angrily, he issued an order to summon all officials. All officials of the third rank and above in the capital must gather in the square in front of the Gate of Taihe!
The bloody battle that night shocked the capital. As an emperor, if you don't have any attitude, you are really not qualified!
It was dark, and the little emperor was sitting in front of the steps, with the cold night breeze blowing slightly. He refused to allow Zai Chun to rest in the palace several times during the Fourth Birthday.
"Your Majesty... go into the palace to take shelter from the wind. You just issued the imperial edict. These ministers scattered in the city will not be together for an hour and a half..."
"I'll wait!" Zai Chun said sternly, "I'll wait for three hours too! Tell the soldiers at the Meridian Gate that the ministers don't have to gather together to come in together, just let them in as they come. I want to see who comes first today. Who comes late..."
Bao Jun had been waiting at the emperor's side since he was on duty last night. When he saw that Zai Chun's dragon power was really impressive, he didn't dare to refute anything, so he moved his mouth and whispered, "I will greet you outside the Meridian Gate..."
"Wait! There's no need for you to go out and collude with each other, just wait here..."
Baojun's face turned red and he hurriedly stepped back down the steps and stood in the square north of Jinshui River. He looked so awkward all alone!
In the darkness, there was deathly silence in front of Taihe's door. The new army of the imperial forest replaced the guards and stood in the corner with guns. No one else knew that these new army guns were loaded with live ammunition. God knows what Zai Chun has planned today!
In contrast to the silence here, there is the noise outside. Everywhere on the street, there are the shouts and gongs of the nine-door admiral soldiers and government officials cleaning the streets, and the faint sound of horse hooves!
The fire dragon team's carriage crashed through the streets, and the gradually red light in the southeast dimmed. It seemed that the fire was under control!
What a magical night. The silence in front of the Gate of Supreme Harmony made the chaos outside the Forbidden City seem so unreal. If the people around him weren't so frightened that they were trembling all over, he would really think that everything tonight was a dream!
There were faint figures moving in the darkness in the direction of the Meridian Gate. The first person to come after Bao Jun was Vice Prime Minister Fu Qing. Mr. Qing was so sweaty from running that he knelt three times and kowtowed nine times in front of the steps. Zai Chun He raised his hand and said, "Get up..."
"Fuqing! Let me ask you... you are a reformist among us Manchus. You have done a lot of research on Western technology. I want to ask you how is this airship?"
Upon hearing this, Fu Qing quickly knelt down and said, "Your Majesty! This airship has shown great power in France. Many ministers in the DPRK have criticized it, saying that it is just Xiao Letian's bragging and mysteries!"
"But that's not what I think! This airship is indeed powerful, but if you carefully consider its principles, it is not complicated!"
"This is just an enlarged version of a hot air balloon. As long as you have studied Western geophysics, that is, physics, you can understand the principles behind it..."
"I want to ask for a decree today..."
"You tell me!" Zai Chun trusts Fu Qing quite a lot. Although Zai Chun already knows the rumors that he and Ci'an are not clean, after all, this is a rare reformer and a talent that he must rely on for his reforms!
If it’s not clean, then it’s not clean. Out of sight is out of mind!
"Your Majesty! Today's airship attack on the capital has caused panic among the people in the city. I am afraid that this panic will turn into all kinds of bizarre legends in a few days!"
"The Chinese have too many myths at the moment, and we cannot allow the people to continue to be afraid... I would like to ask you to print leaflets inside the capital and print a batch of newspapers to clear up the confusion for the people!"
"Explain the principles of airships and hot air balloons to the people...the so-called mystery actually means not understanding it. As long as the people understand it and the sense of mystery disappears, naturally there will be no fear, let alone mythical opponents!"
"Oh! It's interesting. You are indeed a reformer. You can see and influence people's hearts from this point of view... I'm sure, you can do it!"
"If you can quell the fear that this airship has brought to the people, then I will allow you to take on another job... Once you have done that, I will allow you to publish a Qing Dynasty newspaper. We have to do it ourselves. It’s the official newspaper!”
Fu Qing's eyes lit up and he quickly kowtowed and thanked him, "Long live the Holy Ming! Holy Ming! This is the fundamental weapon to solve the problem of people's hearts. It should have been done long ago. It should have been done long ago!"
Bao Jun sighed, "So, Master Fu Qing also supports the purchase of airships?"
Fu Qing turned to Master Baojun and cupped his hands, "Sir Baojun, you are an old man and have experienced many more things than me... How many times have you seen this? How big of a loss does our Qing Dynasty suffer from this weapon?" "
"When the British and French allied forces attacked the capital! If we had one or two hundred foreign cannons and bombarded us across the Bali Bridge... do you think we could lose like this?"
"At the worst, we can make a draw and negotiate slowly!"
"If you can't suffer the loss of poor equipment, do you want to buy this airship?"
Bao Jun trembled with distress, "I know! But this money... is too much. There are too many places where the court wants to use the money..."
Zai Chun gritted his molar teeth and said fiercely, "You have to borrow money to build a new army and equip it with equipment! I have already seen clearly in Europe that the weapons will be what we fight in the future!"
"The French army is not elite. Those soldiers have a very strong love for the motherland. They really dare to risk their lives on the battlefield!"
"However, the artillery is not as good as Prussia, the railway dispatch is not as good as Prussia, and the information transmission is not as good as that of the enemy... It just suffers from backward equipment, allowing people to be passively beaten, and directly destroying the country!"
"You, Baojun, don't want me, the Qing Dynasty, to destroy our country, right? Do you want me, the emperor, to be exiled to an isolated island in the sea?"
"I don't dare, I didn't mean that..." Baojun also knelt down.
At this time, another person came up and it was Zai Chun's fifth uncle Yi Pei. King Xiao Wu Ye Yi Pei, the hero of the capital, also heard this and hurriedly expressed his loyalty!
