The Qing Dynasty is about to end

Chapter 489: The Rebel Emperor Xianfeng, the Filial Son Zeng Guofan (Requesting Subscription, Requesting Tickets)
Outside Jining Prefecture, the strong wind was like a sharp blade, cutting people's faces painfully. The snow on the ground was carried by the strong wind and flew wildly, like countless white elves dancing wildly in this icy and snowy land.

At this time, tens of thousands of hungry people gathered here, all of them were pale and thin, and their clothes were ragged, like evil spirits crawling out of hell. Their shouts were particularly mournful in the ice and snow. At first, the sound was chaotic, like a group of frightened beasts roaring, but somehow, in the end, it miraculously gathered into a uniform slogan: "Protect Xianfeng, oppose the Qing Dynasty! Protect Xianfeng, oppose the Qing Dynasty" This slogan shook the heaven and earth as if it was trembling, and it kept echoing in the wilderness. The strange thing was that it was catchy and had a strange rhythm, as if telling an absurd story.

Emperor Xianfeng, who was standing high on the platform, was like being struck by a thunderbolt, and was completely stunned. His eyes were wide open, his mouth was slightly open, and his face was full of disbelief. How could "protect him" and "anti-Qing" be inexplicably linked together? He was full of doubts, and kept thinking in his mind, why couldn't it be "protect Xianfeng, protect Qing"? This logic doesn't make sense at all! He was frowning, racking his brains to think about whether to stand up and correct this outrageous slogan, when Zeng Jia Linshu suddenly turned his head, stretched his throat, and shouted at him with a broken gong-like voice: "Your Majesty, the porridge is ready, quickly distribute the porridge to everyone!"

As the voice fell, more than a dozen iron pots were opened with a bang, and white steam surged into the air, quickly condensing into strange clouds in the freezing air. The cooks who cooked the porridge were all borrowed from the Confucius Mansion in Qufu, and each of them had superb cooking skills. At this moment, they were swinging thick jujube wood spoons and stirring the thick porridge in the pot. In an instant, the rich rice fragrance exploded in the biting cold wind and went straight into people's noses.

The hungry people suddenly became quiet as if they were under a spell. Tens of thousands of eyes flashed with strange green light, just like a pack of extremely hungry wolves on the snowy plain, staring at the steaming iron pot.

"Share the porridge!" Xianfeng didn't bother to think about the strange slogan, and shouted in his hoarse voice: "Follow me, you will be full! White rice porridge is enough for you!"

"Yes!" Zeng Jia Linshu took a deep breath and let out another earth-shaking roar: "Share the porridge! Rice porridge is enough for everyone!" This shout seemed to contain endless power, which could melt the hard ice and snow.

The Kong family members, cooks and Emperor Xianfeng's personal guards who were present were not to be outdone. They shouted at the top of their lungs, "Emperor Xianfeng is giving you some porridge. There's delicious rice porridge! You'll be full!" For a moment, the shouts for porridge and the slogans of "Protect Emperor Xianfeng and oppose the Qing Dynasty" were intertwined, forming an extremely absurd and hilarious scene, like a chaotic and crazy farce.

The crowd was in an uproar. The old man in front knelt down in the snow with a plop, holding the broken porcelain bowl in his hands, his face twisted, crying and laughing, looking indescribably weird. The women with bound feet were squeezed by the crowd so hard that their cotton shoes fell off, and they could only struggle barefoot on the snow, leaving a string of shocking blood marks on the snow with every step. Several defeated soldiers carried pistols and rusty swords, shouting that they would maintain order for the "rebellious Emperor Xianfeng" while rushing through the crowd towards the place where the fragrance was.

Seeing that the order on the scene was about to be disrupted, Zeng Jia Linshu took out a copper trumpet from some corner and jumped onto an eight-person table swiftly. The eight-person table was wobbly under his step, as if it would fall apart at any time. He pulled the trumpet and shouted: "The Holy Son of Heaven is benevolent! Rebel! Protect Xianfeng, there will be enough porridge, and we can also distribute land and raise our status! Don't fight, don't push, there is everything, there is plenty of rice!" Before he finished speaking, more than a dozen sacks were cut open by the guards with sharp knives, and the white rice poured down on the snow like a waterfall. Seeing this, the hungry people let out an inhuman howl, and no one knew who started it, and they sang the absurd slogan into a lotus flower:

"Emperor Xianfeng's rice - every grain is as white as jade!"

"Tear down the throne room and cook it into rice porridge!"

When the scene was in full swing, suddenly, there was a dull noise from the northeast, like thunder rolling in the sky. Xianfeng stood on tiptoe curiously, stretched his neck to look, and hurriedly raised the telescope. At the end of the snowfield, yellow dust rose into the sky, and the dragon flag with yellow edges was looming in the wind and snow, like a group of ghosts floating. The Mongolian horse team running in the front could even see the facial features clearly. The leading lieutenant was screaming something in Mongolian at the top of his lungs, and the sharp saber in his hand was dancing wantonly in the wind and snow, flashing with cold light. The hungry people who were drinking porridge under the stage, as if they were injected with chicken blood, burst into a terrifying cheer: "Protect Xianfeng, oppose the Qing Dynasty, white porridge to satisfy hunger, divide the land and raise the flag"

The fragrant white rice porridge has already been put into their bowls!
It smells so good and tastes so good!
Snow particles were like dense bullets, hitting Shengbao's mink ear warmers. He squinted his eyes and looked coldly at the crowded place in the distance. Three hundred Mongolian horsemen lined up neatly behind him, the horses snorted nervously, and their iron hooves kept digging the snow, trampling dense and deep holes in the snow, as if writing the upcoming blood on the snow.

"Sir, the man in the blue robe on the high platform..." Zhao Sanduo dragged his foreign rifle and rushed back from the front like a gust of wind. His feet stepped on the soft snow, splashing snow mud. When he came to Shengbao, he even forgot to bow. He just gasped and raised his hand, pointing with a trembling hand at Emperor Xianfeng on the high platform in the distance, stammering: "He, he is really Xianfeng. I used the telescope you gave me to see, and it is exactly the same as what I saw in Baoying Camp."

"Bullshit!" Shengbao suddenly shouted like an angry lion, interrupting Zhao Sanduo who was telling the "truth". He suddenly drew out his sword, and with a flash of the sword, he pointed it directly at the high platform and said viciously: "The real dragon emperor is sitting firmly in the Forbidden City! This is clearly a traitor pretending to be one!" Then, he shouted loudly in Mongolian: "Brothers, charge!" With this order, his Mongolian cavalry rushed towards the crowd like an arrow from a bow. In the blink of an eye, the Mongolian cavalry was like an empty space, galloping through the crowd. They waved their whips wantonly, knocking over and kicking the fleeing hungry people from time to time. Dozens of scimitars flashed cold light in the sun, ruthlessly splitting the thin cotton clothes, and the broken limbs and arms mixed with bright red blood plasma splashed everywhere, dyeing the white snow like an overturned rouge box, a shocking blood red.

"clap clap"

Suddenly, a crisp gunshot broke through the whistling of the wind and snow. Several Mongolian cavalrymen seemed to be struck by an invisible lightning bolt, their bodies trembling violently, and they fell heavily from their horses. A hundred men in yellow jackets suddenly jumped out of the hungry people, holding brown bass foreign rifles with bayonets in their hands, flashing coldly. A Mongolian cavalryman had just chopped down an old woman and was about to continue the murder. Now that he saw that the situation was not good, he quickly reined in his horse and wanted to turn around and flee. But before he could run far, he was grabbed by a tall old man in a yellow jacket like an eagle grabbing a chick, and the two rolled off the horse together. Then, the old man knocked the cavalryman to the ground with one punch, and the action was done in one go, clean and neat.

Seeing this old man so brave and fierce, all the Mongolian cavalry were frightened and their faces turned pale, and the word "Baturu" flashed in their minds at the same time.

The old man stood there, looking majestic and awe-inspiring, and shouted to the sky: "Zeng Jia. Guofan's father, the Minister of the Imperial Guard Zeng Jia. Linshu is here!" He pointed at Emperor Xianfeng on the high platform and shouted: "That's Emperor Xianfeng, the Emperor of the Qing Dynasty, the Khan of Mongolia. Are you blind? How dare you rebel?"

After hearing his roar and seeing the power of the foreign rifles in the hands of the imperial guards, the Mongolian cavalry under Shengbao were so frightened that they dared not charge forward and retreated one after another. Coincidentally, they met the infantry of the Eight Banners New Army led by Shengbao.

A leader of the Mongolian cavalry shouted to Shengbao in Mongolian: "Sir, the man on the high platform is really Tugmol Erbert Khan!"

Shengbao's face instantly turned ashen, like a piece of iron struck by frost. He knew exactly what the Mongolian meant!
Tugmor Erbert Khan was the Mongolian Khan title of Emperor Xianfeng. Although the Qing Dynasty now has a new Emperor Tongde, Emperor Tongde has not had time to accept the title of Khan offered by the Outer Mongolian kings. Therefore, on the grassland, the Khan is still Tugmor Erbert Khan!

Theoretically, for the hundreds of Mongolian cavalry given to him by Senggelinqin, the legitimate Khan was still Xianfeng!
A bannerman of the Eight Banners New Army who was following Shengbao also put down his telescope, turned his head, and shouted at Shengbao: "Shengshang, that is really Emperor Xianfeng, the person on the high platform is really..."

"What a bullshit Xianfeng!" Shengbao said nothing, a ruthless look flashed in his eyes, and he chopped the officer down with a knife. Blood splattered everywhere, and blood spots splashed on Shengbao's face, making him look even more hideous and terrifying. "Kill them all!" He roared viciously.

Before he finished speaking, he heard a series of harsh gong sounds coming from the south gate of Jining Prefecture, followed by shouts of "Get out of the way! Keep quiet!" Shengbao and his men were shocked, as they knew that Zeng Jia Guofan, the acting governor of Shandong Province and the governor-general of the Grand Canal, had arrived.

Now no one dared to take action. Killing Zeng Jia Guofan's father in front of him was simply courting death!
Zeng Jia Guofan was kneeling in his eight-man sedan chair at this time, with his head lowered almost touching the floor of the sedan chair. He kept apologizing and begging for mercy to an old man sitting in the sedan chair, who looked like him, with bruises all over his face.

"Father, I am an unfilial child and have caused you to suffer. It is all my fault. Please forgive me."

(End of this chapter)