The Qing Dynasty is about to end

Chapter 537: America has a Heavenly King City! (Please vote and subscribe)

On the morning of October 1855, 10, the Gold Diggers Coffee House in San Francisco.

A coffee-stained headline on the California Star, "War! The Tsar's Army is Approaching America!", was particularly eye-catching. Wu Chongyao tapped his jade ring on the table, causing another copy of the Californian to tremble slightly. Under the bold headline "The City of the Kings of North America", a woodcut print showed a dragon hitting a polar bear on the head with a cross.

"What does Mr. Lincoln think? Will the federal government intervene in the problems caused by the influx of Chinese into California?" Natalia's blue eyes swept across the newspaper, and then cast to the tall and thin American lawyer who arrived in San Francisco with her on the same ship - this man's name is Abraham Lincoln! Lincoln is destined to be president, but he is not president yet, not even a congressman. He resigned from his position as a state legislator in order to run for the federal senator in Illinois, but failed to be elected as he wished, so he had to pick up his old job as a lawyer again.

Not long after his law firm reopened, "God" sent him a big client, Wu Chongyao, a diplomat of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. Wu's family's Jardine Matheson had already established businesses in the United States. In the past two years, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom has been "spending a lot of money" in Europe and the United States, buying machinery and equipment and hiring technicians and engineers, so it naturally needs someone to provide legal services.

So Wu Chongyao hired lawyer Lincoln in the name of Jardine Matheson, who first helped him complete several large purchases on the East Coast of the United States, and then took Lincoln to California, saying that he wanted to buy some real estate in California and wanted Lincoln to help draft the contract - this was a big deal! Of course, Lincoln had no reason not to come along.

Russian Grand Duchess Natalia also followed Wu Chongyao all the way from the East Coast to the West Coast. Of course, Lincoln did not know that this Polish woman with good temperament and appearance was a little unapproachable, but she was a Grand Duchess. Natalia did not reveal her identity everywhere, otherwise Wu Chongyao would not dare to take her to China. Now the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom was holding high the banner of "anti-Russia"!

What Natalia and Wu Chongyao did not expect was that they would encounter the "Crimean War" on the west coast of the United States - a war that originated in Eastern Europe, Southern Europe and the Near East and actually reached the doorstep of the United States.

What is even more surprising is that the army used by the British to defend their Hudson's Bay Company colony was actually the Taiping Army! In order to allow the Taiping Army and the True Covenant believers on the west coast of North America to fight for the British Empire wholeheartedly, the Hudson's Bay Company even donated a piece of land on the south shore of Burrard Inlet to the True Covenant North American Bishopric!
The True Covenant believers built a settlement on this not-so-large piece of land and named it "Heavenly King City"!
When the news reached California, the local American white men were furious!

In the eyes of the non-True Testament whites in California, neither the Russians approaching nor the True Testament believers from North America establishing settlements in Burrard Inlet are good things. After all, they don’t want to learn Russian, and they hate the constant influx of Chinese people - now tens of thousands of Chinese (including some Japanese and Koreans) enter North America every month, and before this round of immigration, the total population of California was only 320,000. If the Chinese continue to flow in at the current rate, in a few years, the Chinese will become the majority in California.

What makes the white American men in California more alert is that almost all the Chinese who come here have joined the True Covenant sect! Regardless of whether they join the True Covenant sect for the purpose of collecting eggs or marrying a wife, they all go to the True Covenant church where the statue of Hong Tianwang is enshrined once a week. There are also many poor Irish people who come from the East Coast to seek gold and join the True Covenant sect for eggs, Japanese girls and relatively cheap rice, flour and vegetables.

However, in Wu Chongyao's view, the old white men in California were no longer able to expel the True Contractists, and could not even stop the influx of Chinese immigrants - because the True Contractists already owned the port of Tianwang City.

Even if the port of San Francisco was closed to Chinese immigrants, the Chinese could still go ashore in Tianwang City. The border between the British Hudson's Bay Company and the Oregon region of the United States was not defended at all - not against Chinese and Russians!

Therefore, the problem of Chinese or true Protestant people in California can no longer be solved by the state; the federal government must intervene.

As for whether the federal government would intervene, that would be a question for Lincoln.

Therefore, while Wu Chongyao was meeting Hong Renzheng at the True Covenant Cathedral in San Francisco today, Natalia asked Lincoln out for coffee and asked him about the possible reaction of the Federation.

Lincoln gently put down his coffee, and stared at the beautiful "Polish woman" with his brown eyes for a while: "At present, the politicians on the East Coast only care about slavery and abolition. California has been a free state since 1850. In the eyes of pro-slavery politicians, if expelling the Chinese is equivalent to slavery in California, then they will support it. Otherwise, they will just wait and see, and even be happy to see California fall into internal friction because of the Chinese issue.

In the eyes of abolitionist politicians, the presence of Chinese and true contract members in California could consolidate its status as a free state. Before resolving the issue of slavery, they would not take the initiative to exacerbate the conflict in California.

But the Russian invasion of the British Hudson's Bay Company might interest some people."

"Oh?" Natalia's blue eyes lit up. "Why?"

Lincoln's slender, dry fingers gently tapped the words "Russian troops invaded the Fraser River Basin" in the newspaper: "Some Americans also have a strong interest in that land. In the eyes of many American politicians and soldiers, Canada and the United States were both born in the War of Independence decades ago. The United States and Canada should be one country, and the territory of the Hudson's Bay Company should be part of Canada! If the war between Russia, Britain and the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom affects the United States, then these people will be happy to let the United States intervene in the war in some form, so as to seize some land that should have belonged to the United States."

"So." Natalia's fingers gently touched Lincoln's slender and dry fingers, "If the United States joins the war, whose side do you think it will stand on?" "Britain!" Lincoln said firmly, then he changed the subject and lowered his voice, "But if the United States does not join the war, then the United States will definitely be pro-Russian!" He paused, and suddenly asked again: "Natalia, who do you and your fiancé (referring to the son of General Orlov) support? Britain? Russia? Or the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom?"

Natalia shrugged and said with a smile: "Of course we support the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. My fiancé is paid by the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom."

Peter, the son of General Orlov, caught up with Natalia in New York, and then brought Natalia to the West Coast with Wu Chongyao in the name of Polish mercenaries. Early this morning, he protected Wu Chongyao and went to the True Covenant Cathedral in San Francisco.

Hong Renzheng, Archbishop of the True Testament Diocese of North America, stood between two rows of exquisitely carved dragon columns, looked at the plaque "Preaching in America" ​​written by the Heavenly King himself, sighed softly, and added three incense sticks to the bronze incense burner on the altar in front of the gilded statue of Hong Xiuquan.

Suddenly, muffled footsteps sounded behind him. The archbishop, who was wearing a yellow robe, a yellow scarf on his head, and a seven-star sword hanging from his waist, turned around and saw Wu Chongyao, who was wearing a Western suit and a top hat, smoking a pipe and playing with an enamel tobacco box, walking towards him. He was slightly stunned and said, "You are..."

Wu Chongyao clasped his fists and said, "I am Wu Chongyao from Yihexing. May I ask which incense stick you are burning and which deity you are worshipping?"

"It's Manager Wu!" Hong Renzheng turned around and knocked on the cast iron pulpit with his fingers. Several lecturers and preachers in the church bowed to Archbishop Hong, then left one after another, closing the two vermilion lacquered doors.

"I am Hong Renzheng!" Hong Renzheng also took out an enamel tobacco box and placed it on the podium. "I am burning the Hong family's incense and worshipping the Hong family's gods!"

Wu Chongyao took a few steps forward, took off his hat, and bowed three times to the statue of the Heavenly King: "I wonder if the Heavenly King is okay? Has the Qing demon been destroyed?"

Hong Renzheng said calmly: "The Qing demon is dead."

"Oh? Really?" Wu Chongyao was delighted, but he saw Hong Renzheng's eyes filled with tears, "This is..."

"The Heavenly King, he took Emperor Xianfeng to heaven with him!" Hong Renzheng said word by word.

"Ascension?" Wu Chongyao was surprised. "Ascension means..."

"It's like riding in a hot air balloon and rising up until you reach heaven!" Hong Renzheng said softly.

"This..." Wu Chongyao was puzzled, but he didn't dare to ask any more questions, so he had to change the subject, "Archbishop, Wu brought an important person from Europe this time, who may be helpful to the great cause of the Heavenly King's preaching in North America."

"You want someone?" Hong Renzheng asked, "Who is it?"

"It's Grand Duchess Natalia of Tsarist Russia. She is the special envoy of Tsar Alexander and she accompanied me to China to meet the King of Wu."

Before Wu Chongyao finished speaking, Hong Renzheng asked with wide eyes, "Where is she? Did she come to the cathedral?"

(End of this chapter)