The Qing Dynasty is about to end

Chapter 269 As long as Luo Xueyan is captured, everything will be fine (please vote, please subscribe)
Beijing, Prince Gong's Mansion.

Prince Gong Yixin has not been in a good mood recently. He was originally the "second male lead" of the Qing Dynasty.

His brother Xianfeng had always been "incompetent". With so many "beauties" in the harem, he just couldn't get them pregnant. Xianfeng himself also looked sick and would not last long.

If the “male lead” isn’t enough, then Yi Xin, the “male number two”, is much more valuable and may be able to take over at any time.

But ten months ago, Yuan Bao presented a box of "Heavenly Cakes" seized from the battlefield, and opened the "magic-sealed" box to a "Qing Dynasty man of destiny".

As soon as Emperor Xianfeng ate the "cake from heaven", he "fell right up". Not long after, news spread that the "god-given woman" Nara was pregnant!

Last month, Nara successfully gave birth to a son for Xianfeng!

Since Xianfeng had a son, Yi Xin's status naturally dropped from the "second male leader" to the "third male leader" in the Qing Dynasty!
Of course, this is not the worst. The worst thing is that Xianfeng is "good enough" and can produce sons in batches. Every time Xianfeng has a son, Yi Xin's status will be downgraded. As he is further away from the throne of the Qing Dynasty, fewer and fewer followers are willing to follow him!

In addition to having a son, Xianfeng seemed to have also done well on the battlefield in the war against the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom.

Although there were frequent reports of victory before, the Qing Dynasty was winning one victory after another while it lost county towns, then state towns, then prefectural towns, then provincial capitals, and finally Nanjing, which is the "capital"!

If we lose it again, we will lose Beijing. What will we lose after losing Beijing?
The Qing Dynasty is about to fall!

Therefore, people in Beijing were actually in a panic at that time. Many descendants of the Eight Banners felt that the Qing Dynasty had become what it was today because of the incompetence of Emperor Xianfeng. If Prince Gong had been the emperor, the Qing Dynasty would surely still be in a peaceful and prosperous era now!
Unexpectedly, the Qing Dynasty produced Luo Xueyan, who defeated the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom's first fierce general, the Holy Angel Wu King Luo Yaoguo, in Shanghai and Kunshan. He not only ensured the safety of the Shanghai port, but also curbed the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom's invincible trend.

After Luo Xueyan reported the victory, the four Hunan Army commanders Zeng Guofan, Jiang Zhongyuan, Zuo Zongtang and Huang Shijie also reported their victories one after another.

Among them, Zeng Guofan made great achievements in his hometown of Xiangxiang County and the neighboring Ningxiang and Xiangtan. He first gathered a group of militia composed of landlords and gentry who had escaped from Xiangxiang, Ningxiang and Xiangtan, and joined forces with Jiang Zhongyuan's ten battalions of Chu troops to defeat the Taiping rebels who attempted to besiege the county seat near Xiangxiang County. Then he took advantage of the situation to kill into the Taiping rebels' Heyetang base, killing tens of thousands of people in total.

Then he led his troops to Ningxiang County and razed the Taiping rebels' base there. Finally, he attacked Xiangtan County which was occupied by Taiping rebels. Although he failed to capture the county, he fought his way to the city and forced Taiping rebels to stay indoors.

After Zeng Guofan won great victories in Xiangxiang, Ningxiang and Xiangtan, Jiang Zhongyuan went south to his own hometown of Baoqing, and carried out a bloody suppression of the successive uprisings of the Tiandihui and the God Worshipping Society in the local area. Like Zeng Guofan, he targeted his own fellow villagers and massacred tens of thousands of people in less than a month.

After their "big shave", the situation in the "clearance areas" in the western part of Changsha Prefecture and Baoqing Prefecture, which were located on the front line of resistance against the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, was somewhat stabilized.

However, their behavior of using the heads of their fellow villagers to report their achievements was far inferior to Zuo Zongtang. During this period, Xiao Chaogui launched two attacks on Xiangyang Prefecture, which frightened the Governor of Huguang, Zhang Liangji, and he repeatedly asked for help. Although Zeng Guofan and Jiang Zhongyuan both sent some troops to deal with the task, it was only Zuo Zongtang who actually led the army to help!

Now Xiangyang Prefecture is still in the hands of the Qing Dynasty. Xiao Chaogui is said to have withdrawn his troops back to Wuchang. There is no doubt that the Qing army won a great victory.

There is also Huang Shijie, the "English Marshal", who recently followed the imperial commissioner Qishan from the Jiangbei camp to report victory and "defended" Yangzhou, an important town in Jiangbei.

There was also an 80-year-old man named Zhou Tianjue who made great contributions while serving as the governor of Anhui. He repelled the Taiping Army that attempted to advance northward in Hezhou on the north bank of the Yangtze River and also reported a great victory.

Although this series of victories were somewhat exaggerated, the battle line could not be faked. The Taiping Rebellion seemed to have gone downhill since Luo Yaoguo's defeat in Shanghai, and it had not expanded its territory for some time. So it seemed that Xianfeng was "doing well" on the battlefield.

Emperor Xianfeng was "okay", but Prince Gong Yixin was a little "not so good". The officials who usually came to him rarely came recently, and the Eight Banners descendants of the former Soviet Union did not think that he, the "number three male", was wise. Even the ministers and secretaries of the Grand Council ignored him when he was on duty.

During this period, Emperor Xianfeng went to the garden and was not in Beijing. Yi Xin did not go with him either. He took a leave and stayed in his own palace. He spent the whole day studying foreign affairs in the palace with his father-in-law Gui Liang and Gui Liang's relative Guaerjia Wenxiang. In fact, he just took a batch of foreign rifles and percussion bullets that Wu Jianzhang had shipped from Shanghai to Beijing and played with them in Jingcui Garden.

It's no wonder that Prince Gong's marksmanship has improved a lot. When he was shooting today, he was able to hit five out of ten shots within fifty steps!
When Prince Gong was holding a French Minié rifle and sighing, a guard from the palace came running over.

"Your Majesty, Lord Sheng Baosheng requests to see you."

Prince Gong was stunned: "Shengbao? Isn't he helping with military affairs in Jiangsu? Why did he come all the way to Beijing?"

"Your Majesty, could it be that the situation in Suzhou has changed?"

Wenxiang, who was helping Prince Gong load bullets into his French rifle, suddenly gave a reminder.

Gui Liang, who was drinking tea nearby, immediately became nervous when he heard this: "Your Majesty, Suzhou City has been surrounded on three sides for some time. Could it be..."

After hearing Guiliang's words, Prince Gong immediately said to the guard, "Quick, call Shengbao in!"

"twitter!"

"Your Highness, Your Highness, we have all been deceived by that demon!"

As soon as Shengbao entered the Western-style gate of Jingcui Garden, he couldn't help crying and shouting, which frightened Prince Gong Yixin, Guiliang and Wenxiang. The three turned their heads and saw Shengbao's face covered in dirt, thinner and darker, and their hearts were shocked.

That’s right, he must have escaped from Suzhou City!

Prince Gong: "Shengbao, is Suzhou lost?"

Gui Liang: "Ke Zhai, you are the assistant minister of military affairs. Even if Suzhou is lost, you should go to the Jiangbei camp!"

Wen Xiang: "Yes, if you run back to Beijing like this, it will be difficult for the prince to protect you!"

Shengbao fell to the ground in front of Prince Gong Yixin, crying and shaking his head, "Your Highness, it's not Suzhou that's lost, it's Luo Xueyan from Shanghai. He, he's a demon in disguise!"

Prince Gong was stunned. He picked up Shengbao, who was seasick and almost fainted, and asked with wide eyes, "What? What did you say?"

"Your Highness, the Jiangnan Salt Administration and Jiangning Prefecture Luo Xueyan in Shanghai is the demon that fell from the sky!"

"You, say it again?" Prince Gong still couldn't believe it.

"Luo Xueyan is the Bull Demon King. We were all deceived by him! Your Majesty, please report to the Emperor and remove his position as Jiangnan Salt Administration and Jiangning Prefecture!"

Prince Gong was stunned, shook his head, and said woodenly: "He is no longer the Jiangnan Salt Administration and the Governor of Jiangning Prefecture. He is now the Shanghai Military Governor and the Minister of Commerce of the Five Ports!"

"Promoted again?" Shengbao was a little jealous of this demon!
He was a rebel and the King of Wu for five thousand years. He was already the Minister of Commerce of the Five Ports by just hanging around in the Qing Dynasty. How can such an official career be called a demon? How can a mortal be promoted so quickly?

Thinking of this, he suggested again: "Your Majesty, we must report to the Emperor and ask him to get rid of this monster!"

Prince Gong nodded and was about to agree to Shengbao's request when Guiliang on the side suddenly shouted, "No!"

Prince Gong turned around and looked at his old father-in-law.

Gui Liang shook his head: "No! Absolutely not!"

"Why?" Prince Gong asked puzzled.

Lao Guiliang said: "Your Majesty, Luo Xueyan was promoted by the Emperor after all, and that is a fig leaf for the Emperor!

You are now saying that he is a demon in disguise. What evidence do you have? If you don’t have evidence, then you are slapping the emperor in the face!”

Shengbao said: "My brother Yuanbao is the witness!"

"Where is Yuan Bao?" Gui Liang asked back.

"He, he went abroad with Sushun."

"That means no!" Gui Liang shook his head.

"And Jin Aduo," Shengbao said, "Jin Aduo has also seen the demon transform into a human form."

"It's useless!" Gui Liang still shook his head. "First, Jin Aduo is unreliable. Second, Jin Aduo has only seen demons but not Luo Xueyan. How can you ask him to testify? Third, even if we have evidence to prove that Luo Xueyan is a demon, can we catch him?"

Shengbao was stunned and shook his head.

Gui Liang smiled bitterly and said, "Not only will we fail to take Shanghai, but we will also lose it! Once Shanghai is lost, Suzhou will also be lost, and Changzhou will probably be in vain. The situation that was originally OK will immediately become very bad! At that time, whether we can see through the evil monsters, or frame the loyal and good people and force them to rebel, it all depends on the emperor's mind!"

Wen Xiang at the side interrupted and said, "But we can't just ignore him knowing that he is a demon and let him use the title of Shanghai Governor and Minister of Trade of the Five Ports to become more powerful!"

Prince Gong thought about it and nodded.

He is still "Qing Dynasty No. 3"!
Gui Liang frowned and said, "Your Majesty, the key to this matter is actually to capture the demon! Only after we capture it can we talk about other things!"

(End of this chapter)