On the day of Xinhai in the 56th year of Qianlong's reign, which was the afternoon of the eighth day of June, Qianlong, who had led an army of 30,000 people and had arrived at the summer resort for 12 days, finally received a letter jointly sent by Song Yun, the Minister of Affairs of Kulun, and Yunduan Dorji. Eight hundred miles away, urgent call.
It is said that the older people get, the more stubborn they become, not to mention an emperor like Qianlong who has been dictatorial for nearly sixty years. He has long been accustomed to doing everything by himself and is very confident in his physical condition. Regarding the advice of several Han academicians, hoping that they would stay in the Old Summer Palace and not conduct military campaigns in person, Qianlong directly denounced these people as "foolish and pedantic."
Is this an imperial conquest? Not at all! They just went to see Mulan in autumn as usual, but they just brought too many soldiers.
Although Qianlong has always followed Kangxi's example, he has never engaged in personal conquests. Planning strategies and winning thousands of miles are what he is best at. On the one hand, the emperor's personal expedition was to boost the morale of his soldiers and tell them that they must continue to persevere and victory is at hand; on the other hand, it was also to tell the enemy's soldiers that they should surrender quickly and negotiate for peace. Conditions.
However, for Beihai Town, which Qianlong regarded as a life and death enemy, it was obvious that neither of these two conditions met.
In fact, starting from a month ago, Qianlong, Agui, Heshen, Wang Jie and others had been convinced that the Northern Navy was going south to Outer Mongolia based on the intelligence at hand. After this, Fukangan sent two memorials one after another, explaining in detail his understanding of Zhao Xin. From this, the Manchu and Qing monarchs understood Zhao Xin's intention to use force from the north to the south in the past two years.
After careful consideration, Qianlong finally decided to go north to Jehol. Firstly, this move was to cheer up the Khalkha nobles and princes, showing that the Qing Dynasty would not give up on them; secondly, once the war situation was favorable to his own side, he would send troops north to support; thirdly, if the situation went bad, it could still be Take Jebtsundamba back to Beijing.
In addition to the green battalions from Shanxi and Zhili being moved to Zhangjiakou, the Manchu and Qing Dynasties are also massing troops from Gansu, Qinghai and other places to Shandan in order to enter Outer Mongolia from Alxa Erut Banner.
At present, all the Qing emperors and ministers knew that it would be impossible to fight a battle with the Northern Navy. So after several sand table deductions, Qianlong decided to use Hangai Mountain as the main battlefield, using the fast maneuverability and complex terrain of the Mongolian cavalry to offset the weapon advantages of the Northern Navy.
At this time, in a large courtyard with several floors in the southeast outside the main entrance of the Summer Resort, Heshen, known as "the first person under the emperor", was standing in front of the bookcase, splashing ink and writing in a hurry.
He wrote a seven-character quatrain, but did not write a title: "The sun is thick and the clouds are not clearing, and the clouds are gone and the rain is still there. The empty steps are cool and the pillow is cold, and only the sound of crickets comes into my dream."
The concubine Su Qinglian who was waiting for He Shen to put down the brush quickly handed the warm towel to the other person's hand, frowning slightly and said: "Master, you..."
"What's wrong?" He Shen, who was already 41 years old, put down the towel, raised his hand and touched Su Qinglian's agar-like cheek, and smiled slightly.
There is a saying that "poetry is the voice of the heart." Although Heshen smiles all day long, and even his family members feel that his city is unpredictable, the thoughts projected on the poems are difficult to conceal. Su Qinglian was born as a singer. She was good at singing and poetry since she was a child, and she was good at both sex and art. She could tell at a glance that He Shen had something on his mind.
What is the "thick cloud beyond the Great Wall" that can make my master depressed? Su Qinglian felt that the only thing left now was Beihai Town, which silenced the government and the public. So she looked worried and said: "Master, this poem is really good, but the meaning between the lines..."
The literary level of Hezhong Hall is actually quite high. He has served as the president of the Sikuquan Library, the Fanglue Hall, the National History Hall, and the Qingzi Classics Hall. He promoted cabinet affairs in the Wenyuan Pavilion, served as the imperial examiner three times, and taught Shu Ji. Scholar, concurrently serving as bachelor of the Hanlin Academy. This is definitely not something that a clown-like figure who can only do corruption and flattery can take on, even if he has Qianlong's favor. Even the literary master Yuan Mei once praised him: "When I was young, I heard poetry and etiquette, and Tonghou was the champion; I bent my bow like Zhu Luoyan, and my pen was like Li Moyun's."
In and around Prince Gong's Mansion, which has become a tourist attraction in another time and space, thousands of tourists denounce "corrupt official Heshen" every day. However, few of these people have read Heshen's poetry collection; many people are attracted by the popular The drama misled this historical figure who dominated both the government and the public during the late Qianlong reign as a clown. However, if you read his posthumous works carefully and understand his intentions, you will understand that He Shen's complexity cannot be vilified and denied in one word.
Hearing Su Qinglian hesitate to speak, He Shen understood what she wanted to say. For Beihai Town, Heshen can only be described in four words, and the situation is difficult to control. It is precisely because of this idea in my heart that my emotions inevitably show up when I write poems.
At this time, a servant came to report that the second master was here. He Shen first asked his servants to invite He Lin to come to the study to talk, and then whispered a few words into Su Qinglian's ear, which made the other person's face turn red, and then he rolled his eyes at He Shen and retreated.
When He Lin came in, she was wearing a golden pheasant patch and an official uniform with brilliant feathers. He is thirty-seven years old, four years younger than He Shen. The two brothers are about the same size and build, and have similar faces and eyebrows. Just because he has been traveling around for the past two years, he looks older than He Shen.
Since last year, He Lin has been transferred from the censor of Huguang Road to the right minister of the Ministry of War, responsible for planning food and fodder for Fukang'an's army in Jilin. The official promotion is very fast, but the hardship is not something that ordinary people can bear.
"Have you met the emperor?"
"Shen Shi handed me the sign. I waited for an hour. But the palace door was locked and I didn't ask to come in. I just wanted to play house and have a look."
He Shen nodded and said: "Go and change your clothes first. They are loose and loose. You haven't eaten yet, right?"
"I ate a fire outside Lizhengmen. Brother, why are you so anxious to ask me to come to Rehe?"
He Shen smiled and waved his hand, asking He Lin to change clothes first, and then personally arranged the meals and told Liu Quan's son Liu Yin that he would tell He Lin later that no one was allowed to enter the yard.
Two-quarters of an hour later, He Lin finished changing and washing up and sat down to eat, while He Shen was half-lying in an easy chair with a book to pass the time. He Lin knew that his brother was busy and it was rare to find time to talk to him today, so he soaked the japonica rice in the pheasant cub soup, took a few bites and then stopped eating.
"Brother, I know you are busy. If you have anything to do, you should tell me first."
"I specially asked you to come back this time," He Shen threw the book aside and said with a smile: "I want you to contact the person named Zhao to leave a way out for our family."
"Ah!" He Lin's expression suddenly changed. Without caring about anything else, he hurriedly got up and came to the door of the study and looked outside.
Seeing his brother's appearance, He Shen shook his head and smiled bitterly, then waved and said, "Sit down, there are people watching from outside the yard, and no one can come in."
"Brother, the situation has reached this point?!"
He Shen nodded slightly. After the Northern Navy defeated Tsarist Russia last year, he had already seen clearly that Zhao Xin was erratic and unpredictable, and did not play according to common sense. However, once he took action, he would be thunderous and sweep away thousands of troops. Unless the imperial court mobilizes hundreds of thousands of soldiers and horses from all over the world to suppress him, tens of thousands of people alone will not be able to do anything to him. However, mobilizing hundreds of thousands of troops means that it can be done on paper, but it has no practicality at all. War is actually about logistics, and no one can handle the allocation of military supplies and food for hundreds of thousands of people.
"Yes, but the emperor is very kind to our family. This matter..."
He Shen looked up at the white paper on the roof, his eyes dark, and said softly: "It is precisely because the emperor is so kind to me that I do this. I have been thinking about this for more than a year."
"how do I say this?"
"I'll say this once today, and I won't mention it again in the future." He Shen stood up, leaned into He Lin's ear, and said in an inaudible voice: "Do you know how much our family's property is? To be honest, neither do I. It’s very clear, but 100 million is at the bottom, and 200 million is not much.”
Oh my God! Two hundred million is not too much! He Lin almost dislocated her jaw after hearing this. She felt cold sweat break out on her back, and her inner clothes were soon soaked through.
"I have been thinking about this since the one who fell ill the year before last," He Shen stared into his younger brother's eyes and said in a deep voice: "Without that person named Zhao, our family would be as stable as a mountain, no matter who became emperor, and no one would be able to move. Fell me. But you have to know, this war has been going on for five years, and the court has not asked for a single advantage, and the money has been spent! No matter who sits in that position, the first difficulty is lack of money. .”
"The emperor is already eighty this year. No matter how ambitious he is, he can't run out of money with the surname Zhao. If his successor wants to deal with him, he will have to exhaust all the soldiers in the world, but how can there be so much money! Government administration and military training Not to mention, there have been constant floods, droughts and natural disasters over the years, and river management is a huge expense. To tell you the truth, this court is rotten to the core, and it won’t work if it doesn’t do anything serious!”
"The new emperor will definitely attack me when he takes the throne, because only our family has the most money!"
"Your brother, I am in charge of Shang Yu's reserve. There are many things in Beihai Town that only the emperor and I know. He is not a murderer, and he also provides a way out for the Manchus. The Beihai Navy has a cavalry of two thousand people, and there are a large number of them. Some of them are surrendered troops from our Manchu people..."
He Shen broke down the things in Beihai Town one by one and told He Lin. Many of them were secrets, and He Lin didn't know about them at all.
"You are now responsible for preparing food and fodder for Fuyaolin. Don't you know what is going on in Jilin?"
"You know, I know, it's not easy for Fu Yaolin. He manages the army immediately and governs the people immediately. A while ago, he chopped off the heads of more than 20 Shaanxi officers to establish his authority. Military discipline has improved a lot."
"Alas~~ He did it for some people to see." He Shen sighed and continued: "I have understood what happened at Dagukou the year before last. If Beihai Town wants to enter the customs, they can do so at any time. . The tens of thousands of people in Fu Yaolin can't stop it. But I never understood why the man named Zhao left Fu Yaolin alone."
He Lin's eyes widened and she said in disbelief: "Brother, you are talking about Fu Yaolin and the person named Zhao..."
"No! If anyone else in the world wants to go to Beihai Town...haha~~ But Fu Yaolin will definitely not do it. He was raised by the emperor, and he has the same affection as father and son."
He Shen hesitated for a moment, touched his shaved forehead and said: "To be honest, the only thing I can't understand now is why the guy named Zhao didn't fight Jilin Wula, but insisted on leaving tens of thousands of people in Fu Yaolin. With his eyes wandering, doesn't he know the principle of 'How can one allow others to sleep peacefully on the side of the bed'?"
He Lin said hesitantly: "I heard that Beihai Town over Ningguta released 5,000 people, and Hunchun only had less than 3,000 people. I want to use 8,000 people to fight..."
He Lin suddenly stopped when she said this. He remembered that a few years ago, the Beihai Navy defeated tens of thousands of people from Mingliang with 7,000 men. Yes, why don't you fight if you put it in front of you? After capturing Wula in Jilin, it will be smooth sailing to Shengjing.
He Lin changed the topic and changed the question: "Brother, the emperor treats our family well. He even married the tenth princess into our family last year..."
"The Emperor naturally has nothing to say to me. Shen and I are also willing to mess with each other. Even if the people who come up later want my head, I won't give a shit! But what about your sister-in-law? What about you? What about your son Yi Mian? Our two families Are all these 100 people buried with me? Why?!"
The "Yimian" mentioned by He Shen is He Lin's only son. Historically, after the fall of Heshen, although his son Fengshen Yinde survived because he was Fufu, he was denounced by Jiaqing several times and thought about his mistakes behind closed doors. He died in depression in his thirties. As for He Lin's son, Fengshen Yimian, he was not spared either. First he was promoted from the Duke to the third-class captain of light vehicles, and then he was dismissed from the official position of guard of the Qianqing Gate. Finally, he became a fortune teller on the street.
Historically, Fengshen Yi Mian took advantage of the occasion to hold a funeral for his cousin, compiled the poems of his uncle, father and cousin and printed them into a book, named "Jia Le Tang Poetry Collection". Only then did later generations see He Shen's helplessness and depression from the bottom of his heart in an era when "the king told the minister to die, but the minister had to die".
He Shen himself saw it very clearly. Even though he had all the power in the government and was known as being under one person, he had never been out of Qianlong's control. He was just a high-ranking servant of the emperor.
In fact, thanks to the emergence of Zhao Xin, the Qing Dynasty was repeatedly punished, leaving the Qing government's treasury empty. In order to obtain sufficient military expenditures, local officials became corrupt. In such a chaotic situation, He Shen just thought about it bit by bit.
In addition, Qianlong's physical condition was also one of the important reasons that alerted Heshen.
It is said that Qianlong has been in good health since he was a child and has rarely had any serious illnesses. Except for the fact that he was unable to go to the altar of earth to worship the earth due to an attack of "qi stagnation" at the age of 73, he also fell ill when the Northern Navy troops came to Dagokou the year before last. a few days.
Due to proper maintenance, the eighty-year-old Qianlong does not appear to be aging except for his sometimes slow thinking. If someone who doesn't know looks at him, they would think that he is only in his early sixties.
Others don't know it, but He Shen knows it best. The illness nearly killed Qianlong the year before last. And when he finished the negotiations with Beihai Town at Chaoyin Temple and rushed back to the capital to resume his duties, and went to Qianlong's bedside to listen to the holy teachings, Prince Jia on the side looked at him with an indescribable emotion. Heshen was frightened.
That emotion was nothing but murderous intent!
