The Qing Dynasty is about to end

Chapter 529: Beijing has been captured, the Qing Dynasty is doomed!
Deshengmen, early Si hour.

"Su, Lord Su, what did you say?" An elderly officer of the Bordered Blue Banner asked in a trembling voice, looking at the token in Su Shun's hand. He was holding a bird gun with exquisite patterns on the surface that he had found from somewhere, and a pipe was pinned to his cotton armor belt. His gray beard was messy because of the wind from the Deshengmen Tower.

Sushun looked at this old double-gun soldier, and he felt indescribable sadness in his heart. One look at this old man showed that he was a pure descendant of the Eight Banners. He had obtained a position as a military commander due to the merits of his ancestors, and perhaps he had been sent out to other places. In short, he had been living a life of eating, drinking and having fun without suffering the slightest bit of hardship. Who would have thought that when he was old, he would encounter such a disaster that would lead to the destruction of his country and his race! But wasn't Sushun himself the same?

"Old man, Emperor Xianfeng has been restored!" Sushun held up the token, "Nala has been deposed, and our Qing Dynasty is back in the hands of Emperor Xianfeng!"

The commander of the Bordered Blue Banner stamped his feet and said, "This is too much, isn't it? The Qing Dynasty has come to this point, why are they still fighting with each other?"

Sushun's face darkened: "Is this what a servant said? Go and open the city gates and let Lord Du and the monk king's soldiers enter the city! Beijing City has high walls and is solid. As long as Lord Du and the monk king's soldiers enter the city, we can hold on. The Taiping rebels are all southerners and cannot stand the bitter cold. When the weather gets cooler, they will retreat. Then we can reform and strengthen the country and restore the old country!"

He himself did not believe what he said, but at this point, he did not know how to save the Qing Dynasty. Now he only hoped that Li Hongzhang and Zeng Guofan could repel Hong Xiuquan and Yang Xiuqing, at least to the point where both sides would suffer losses, and then the Qing Dynasty might still be able to be cleaned up.

The commander of the Blue Banner sighed and asked several of his soldiers to go down and open the gate for Du Han and Senggelinqin outside the city. But what happened next was beyond the expectations of the pampered masters on the city wall, including Sushun himself, and even Du Han who led the Shandong beggars to come to the king.

At the moment the city gates were opened, the beggar soldiers under Du Han did not wait for his orders and rushed in like a flood. These ragged men, like the beggar soldiers who were driven to be cannon fodder on the other side of the Yongding River, had a bowl of thick porridge before dawn and left the camp. Now they were starving, and facing a city like Beijing where there were delicious food and drinks everywhere, their eyes were glowing green, and they clenched their spears, swords and muskets more and more tightly.

"Grab it!"

I don't know who started the shout, but the beggars who rushed into Deshengmen immediately rushed towards the luxurious mansions of the bannermen on the streets inside Deshengmen like hungry wolves seeing fat sheep - Deshengmen is the area where the Zhenghuang Banner nobles have lived for generations, and there are luxury houses everywhere! Shichahai, the famous "waterscape luxury residential area" in Beijing, is also located in the territory of the Zhenghuang Banner, and the area around Shichahai is even more crowded with the mansions of dignitaries.

Everyone knows that the Qing Dynasty is about to end. If we don’t seize it now, when will we?
Du Han saw the situation was out of control and wanted to stop it, shouting, "Don't rob, don't. They are all bannermen!"

Before he finished speaking, a warehouse storing rice was broken into by a group of hungry beggars in front of him! The two soldiers of the Eight Banners of the Zhenghuang Banner guarding the rice warehouse wanted to stop them, but before they could pull out their ancestral blunt knives, they were pierced through the body by the beggars with spears, and fell into a pool of blood with an unbelievable look on their faces! Dozens or even hundreds of beggars rushed into the granary, stepping on their bodies. After a while, someone rushed out with a rice bag, shouting: "White rice! White rice!" One of the rice bags leaked for some reason, and the white rice grains poured out from the breach and fell into a pool of blood, but it still attracted a frenzy of looting. The hungry beggars grabbed a handful of white rice stained with human blood and stuffed it into their mouths!
"Crazy, crazy!" Du Han, a scholar, never expected that these "orthodox soldiers" under his command, who had memorized the entire "Memorial on Revitalizing Confucianism and the Laws to Defend against the Rebellious Bandits in Guangdong" just to eat an extra two taels of thin porridge, would be so crazy. He was completely at a loss for a moment and could only watch.

Senggelinqin, who was born on the grassland and had a deep family background, rushed into Deshengmen with his Mongolian soldiers. He didn't care about the rice shop, butcher shop, or silk shop. He went straight to a bank with a sign of "Rising Sun Chang" and pointed his saber at it: "Just charge in here and move the silver! After moving the silver, set it on fire!"

Changxindian, it’s the hour of Si.

In the sky, Bian Sanniang saw columns of fire and smoke rising from the north of Beijing through her monocular telescope. She also saw large clouds of dust circling from the north of Beijing to the west of Beijing. Needless to say, it must be the Nian Army cavalry led by Zhang Lexing and Du Jinchan who took advantage of the emptiness of Beijing and launched a surprise attack!
Thinking of this, she quickly took out a red flag and waved it desperately. The Taiping Army "balloon soldiers" below saw her waving the red flag and pulled the rope together to pull her down. Soon she was pulled to a height of 20 to 30 feet above the ground. All they could hear was the Taiping Army female general shouting in mid-air: "Beijing has been broken. The Nian Army has broken through Beijing!"

When Yang Xiuqing learned that "Beijing had fallen", he was standing on a platform made of a dozen empty ammunition boxes, scanning the Xiang-Jiang Army formation opposite with a gilded telescope. The lens was filled with gunpowder smoke. The foreign rifle teams of the Xiang and Huai armies had already approached the winding snake-shaped trench formation of the Taiping Army, and were firing rounds of shots at the Taiping Army guarding the trench with their foreign rifles.

I don’t know how many rounds were fought, but the battlefield was filled with smoke!

"Good!" Yang Xiuqing laughed and ordered: "God bless you. Beat the drums and fight back!"

The big cowhide drum was struck again, and the soldiers in the trenches on both wings of the Taiping Army bravely came out and formed horizontal lines in front of the battlefield where corpses were strewn all over the ground. Then, they marched towards the Hunan Army and Beiyang Army on the opposite side, marching to the sound of drums. After a while, the Taiping Army's bullets hit the horizontal lines of the Hunan Army and Beiyang Army like hail, and the two or three hundred people in the front row instantly became blood gourds.

Beiyang Army cavalry position, 3:30 pm.

The Beiyang Army's fifth formation had been forced to retreat step by step by the Taiping Army's foreign rifle corps that had rushed out. The three battalions in the front were defeated one after another. The smoke on the battlefield was as thick as a fairyland with misty clouds.

Mathilde, who had taken off her long skirt and changed into a pair of breeches, was riding on horseback like a man. She drew out Marshal Ney's sword and pointed it forward: "Lancers, forward!" An entire regiment of Huai Army Lancers immediately formed three square formations, one after another, waded across the Yongding River and rushed towards the direction where the smoke was the thickest. Due to the obstruction of the smoke, it was difficult for the enemy's infantry to detect the approaching Lancers from a long distance, and by the time they discovered them, it was already too late.

However, these lancers are not Mathilde's biggest trump card. She also hired a battalion of cuirassiers for Li Hongzhang. They are all veterans who fought in the Algerian War and are the most ferocious!
Just as she was about to give orders to a few gray-haired cavalry officers from the French Foreign Legion, Li Hongzhang's Goshha suddenly sent her a letter in French.
Outside Wanping City, at the center of the Hunan-Huaihe Allied Forces, at the beginning of noon.

On the observation deck, Zeng Guofan was already a little confused as bad news kept coming to him.

The Nian Army cavalry was making a detour from the west of Beijing and would soon attack the rear of the Hunan-Huaihe coalition army! A large number of Taiping troops were also coming from the east, and the vanguard had already passed Matoudian and would soon reach Tongzhou! The most terrifying thing was the fire in Beijing!

Is there any change in the capital?

When he heard footsteps, Zeng Guofan looked back and saw that his good student Li Hongzhang had quickly walked up to the watchtower.

"Shaoquan, how is it?" Zeng Guofan asked.

Li Hongzhang was relatively calm. He smiled and said, "It's okay. The Taiping troops coming from the east are not numerous and are still far away. It's not a big problem. Zhang Shusheng and Huang Ziying have already been assigned to resist the Nian cavalry that came in a roundabout way. As for the students in Beijing, let Mathilde deal with them!"

"What? You let her go?" Zeng Guofan was stunned and vaguely felt that something was wrong.

"Teacher," Li Hongzhang put away his smile, "We don't have much time. We must drive the two rebels Hong and Yang back before dark! I am ready to lead the first regiment of the Beiyang New Army to attack Changxindian!"

Zeng Guofan's expression became stern, and he shouted, "Someone, call Zeng Laojiu up to me!"

Yangxin Palace, east warm room, noon.

Na Lalaner listened to the approaching gunshots and shouts of killing, and just hugged little Zaichun tightly in her arms. Feng Guifen led dozens of Beiyang Army and Hunan Army soldiers to guard outside the palace. An Dehai rushed in with a head-butted door: "Empress Dowager, Empress Dowager, it's bad, the emperor has rebelled! Zeng Jia. Linshu brought dozens of guards to Yingtai Island."

Na Lalan grabbed the enamel tobacco box on the table and smashed it hard. The tobacco box broke into pieces and a small book of the Prophet fell to the ground. The eunuchs and palace maids around him, as well as the officials sent by the Hunan-Jiangsu Army, all looked at each other in bewilderment.

On Yingtai Island, Emperor Xianfeng, who had regained his freedom, laughed wildly: "Well, well, well, well done! Well done! The loyal officials of the Eight Banners have long been extinct! The Eight Banners should have been replaced long ago! Come, draft an edict to sentence Nara to death!"

Zeng Jia, Linshu and Sushun, who were standing aside, couldn't help but frown.

Matoudian, 3:15 p.m.

Luo Yaoguo, who had just finished lunch, was standing on the top of the carriage, holding a telescope and looking at the smoke rising from the direction of Beijing in the distance. His brows were getting tighter and tighter. What was going on in Beijing? Was it Yang Xiuqing who broke in, or did they kill each other?
"Your Highness, the cavalry is ready!" Su Sanniang's voice came from under the carriage. Luo Yaoguo looked down and saw that his wife, the general, was already dressed in uniform and leading a horse imported from India. The five hundred Taiping cavalry were also ready.

Luo Yaoguo nodded and waved his hand: "Sanniang, go ahead and be careful!"

"Order!"

(End of this chapter)