The Qing Dynasty is about to end

Chapter 348 The Prophet Devil Predicts Victory and Napoleon III (Please vote, please subscribe)

When Sushun heard that Li Hongzhang was going to take on the task of organizing the army to participate in the war, he realized that Li Hongzhang was colluding with foreign countries!

Moreover, the French Emperor Napoleon III had probably decided to support Li Hongzhang, and the so-called war army was most likely established to support Li Hongzhang!

Before Li Hongzhang went abroad, he must have read the Anti-Scripture thoroughly. Now he slept with a French princess, and he was about to become a relative of the French royal family. If he had any rebellious intentions, he would be a traitor who colluded with foreign countries!

But the problem is that what the Qing Dynasty lacks the least now seems to be traitors!

Those Han scholars who raised their arms and drew thousands of followers were all rebels according to the ancestral system established by Emperor Kangxi after he pacified the Three Feudatories. But if the court did not rely on them, Hong Xiuquan would have entered Beijing long ago.

The current Qing Dynasty seems to be even worse than the chaotic times at the end of the Yuan Dynasty.

After all, at the end of the Yuan Dynasty, France and England were not worth mentioning, and Russia had not yet been born!

"Shaoquan, do you want to take over the troops? Will the French agree?" Sushun asked Li Hongzhang, who did not seem like a loyal minister.

"Of course I can!" Li Hongzhang said with a smile, "Only I can take on this job. No one else can do it!"

Sushun looked at Li Hongzhang thoughtfully: "It's already been agreed upon, the court has no money!"

"Don't worry, I can raise the food and wages for the participating troops myself!" Li Hongzhang continued to take on the responsibility, "But, as a Hanlin, I don't have that ability. I need to be a higher-ranking official!"

"What kind of official do you want to be?" Sushun asked with a frown.

"Tianjin Customs Commissioner and Tianjin Prefecture Governor!" Li Hongzhang offered his price. "Luo Xueyan is training the Nanyang Army in Shanghai, and I will be training the Beiyang Army in Tianjin. From now on, my Qing Dynasty will have Luo Xueyan in the south and Li Hongzhang in the north. Why should we be afraid of unrest in the world?"

Li Hongzhang's mind was of course to train the Beiyang Army first and then become the Beiyang Minister. With the title of Beiyang Minister and the territory of Tianjin, located on the edge of Beijing, the great cause of overthrowing the Qing Dynasty and restoring the Tang Dynasty might be accomplished.

Su Shun thought to himself, "Luo Xueyan is not a good guy! You, Li Hongzhang, might be even worse. One of you is Luo Luo Timur, and the other is Li Baobao! But for now, we can only let you, traitors with ulterior motives, hold out for a while. When the new army directly under the court is trained, everything will be fine."

"Okay!" Sushun said, "But right now the country is in desperate need of reinforcements. We can't wait for the negotiations and signing of the contract in an orderly manner! Can your man help you get a sum of military pay and foreign guns, foreign cannons, and foreign generals to go back to the country with you right away?"

"Yes!" Li Hongzhang said with a smile, "Tomorrow I will go to the Louvre to meet the French Emperor Napoleon III!"

"Okay!" Sushun nodded. "As long as you can negotiate with the French emperor, I will recommend you to the emperor as the Tianjin Customs Commissioner and the Tianjin Prefecture Governor after you return home!"

"Then you will see!"

Louvre.

At 9:30 in the morning, Napoleon III, who had just finished breakfast, was meeting guests in a not-too-large reception room outside his office, which was decorated with many Chinese porcelains.

There were two visiting guests. One was a cardinal who was about the same age as the French emperor, with sunken blue-gray eyes and blond hair. His name was Paul de Doria and he was the minister of heresy in the Roman Curia.

The other person was a hot blonde beauty wearing a white silk dress - she was Maria de Clementina Doria.

Napoleon III had an ordinary appearance, an ugly beard, and looked rather gloomy and haggard. His sunken eyes were bloodshot, and he was smoking a thick black cigar. On a small table beside him was a glass of pale aged cognac. Next to the glass were two books, the first and second volumes of the Great Prophecy. "Maria, thank you for the second volume of the Great Prophecy," the French emperor exhaled a puff of smoke, and his voice was quite loud and full of energy.

Maria smiled charmingly and bowed slightly to Napoleon III: "It is my greatest honor to serve you."

Bishop Doria next to him said: "Your Majesty, I think the Russian Tsar will soon see the second volume of the Great Prophecy Book."

Napoleon III glanced at him: "Do you think he will back down?"

Bishop Doria shrugged his shoulders and said, "Prince Metternich is willing to convene a Vienna Conference."

"His era is over," Napoleon III said with disgust when he heard the name, "and the Second French Empire needs war!"

Bishop Doria was obviously here to persuade them to make peace. He frowned and said, "But war with the Russians is meaningless!"

Napoleon III suddenly burst into laughter: "Victory itself is the greatest significance! Both I and the French Empire need a victory over the Russian Empire. Only victory can boost the spirit of this country and give me the authority to eliminate the accumulated evils!"

His tone suddenly became heavy: "Similarly, Nicholas I also needs a victory that can make him the Great Emperor. His empire seems powerful, but it is corrupt inside and urgently needs a drastic reform.

But for a huge and corrupt empire, reform and progress often mean turmoil and disaster! Only by becoming an emperor can he suppress all unstable factors to ensure the smooth progress of reform. "

Napoleon III and Nicholas I were in very similar situations. Napoleon III came to France "too easily" and actually usurped the throne, which made many people dissatisfied. If he could not win the war against Russia, he would not be able to prove that he was awesome, and he would not be able to concentrate power to promote the industrialization of France. As a "Napoleon", he could not even win the war, so why should others listen to him?
In fact, this "Crimean War" was the founding war of the Second French Empire!
Although Nicholas I won many battles before, the Russian Empire had too many accumulated problems. Although it was still the world's number one land power, Russia's industrialization process lagged behind Britain, France, Prussia, and even Austria.

In order to accelerate Russia's industrialization, serfdom must be abolished!
If Nicholas I had not been a great emperor, it would have been very difficult to abolish serfdom smoothly.

According to Russian practice, once Nicholas I came to Constantinople, whatever he said was right!
Besides, Nicholas I was already in the chariot and couldn't get off.

Could the emperor of Russia, the world's number one military power, withdraw his troops and return home in disgrace, and return the territory he had occupied to the Turks, just because of the intimidation of Napoleon III and Queen Victoria?
If this is the case, he might as well lose the battle!

Napoleon III picked up two copies of the Great Prophecy and said, "Now, I must win a victory over the Russian Empire. Only this victory can win me the greatest support at home and destroy the Vienna system that restricts France internationally!
Nicholas I had no way out. The consequences of defeat without a fight were more terrible than defeat in a war! A defeat in a war would allow the knowledgeable people in Russia to see that their empire was only strong in appearance, and perhaps many people would support reform. If they were defeated without a fight, people would only think that the Romanov dynasty was incompetent and cowardly! "

Napoleon III had said so much, and Archbishop Doria no longer acted as a lobbyist for the Pope in Rome - the Pope was of course against Türkiye and supported the liberation of Constantinople.

Otherwise he would be colluding with Allah!

Seeing that Archbishop Doria had nothing to say, Napoleon III put down the two copies of the Great Prophecy and took another sip of brandy: "Although the Great Prophecy cannot change the decision of Nicholas I and me, it may still change many things! In fact, its appearance has already changed many things. What I need to figure out now is what it is and what it is."

Archbishop Doria glanced at his distant niece, and then said to the French emperor: "Your Majesty, this is also the mission of Maria and me. His Holiness the Pope also hopes that we can find the devil or prophet."

After hearing this, Napoleon III smiled and nodded: "Actually, I feel the same way. Perhaps, he really was sent by God! Whether it is the devil or the prophet, they are very important to Catholics of this era.

Mathilde is also very interested in these things. She will go to China in person. Maybe you can go with her. By the way, in a while, she will come to the Louvre with a very capable Chinese lord with royal blood. The lord also knows some news about the devil or the prophet. He brought the second volume of the "Great Prophecy" to Europe. You can meet him together."

(End of this chapter)