The Qing Dynasty is about to end

Chapter 539 Chinese Devil and the Golden Map (Please vote, please subscribe)

The gilded chandelier of the Grand San Francisco Hotel cast mottled light and shadows on Natalia's face. She pulled her hand away from Sam Brannan's palm and tapped the table lightly with her fingertips. "Sam, I heard from Abraham that there are some misunderstandings between you and Bishop Hong of the True Covenant Sect? I happen to know a diplomat from the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, and maybe I can help you resolve it."

"Misunderstanding?" Sam Brannan slammed his fist on the oak table, causing the liquid in the coffee cup to splash out. "Those True Testament people are not Christians at all. They are disciples of the devil!"

"Disciples of the devil? I thought you were just causing trouble for some Irish believers." Natalia narrowed her blue eyes slightly as she stared at Sam Brannan.

"Irish?" Sam sneered, and took out a gold-plated cover of the Book of Mormon from his inner pocket. There was a yellowed map between the pages. "Hong Renzheng knows where the gold is buried! He has a gold distribution map of the west coast!" He pointed at the yellowed map. "This was obtained by one of my loyal believers who disguised himself as an Irish woman and sneaked into Hong Renzheng's bedroom. This is only a part of the gold distribution map! And the price is..." The senator's yellow teeth creaked, "When she was found, she was already a body covered with wounds, and her body was stabbed three times by a long knife!"

Lincoln stood up suddenly. "This is murder! Sam, the sheriff of San Francisco doesn't do anything about it?"

Sam Brannan snorted and shrugged. "This is the West, my friend."

Natalia snorted. "Sam, your believer did not die in vain. Her death proves two things. One is that there really is a devil-like existence, and it was he who gave Hong Renzheng the golden map. The other is that Hong Renzheng himself is not a devil. He is just a human who sold his soul to the devil. Because the devil should not be tempted by a beautiful woman."

Lincoln turned his head and stared at Natalia: "Madam, do you believe this?"

“Abraham,” Natalia took out a copy of the telegram from her purse and handed it to Lincoln, “This is the last telegram received by His Majesty the Tsar before his death—a curse from the East. It has the seal of the Tsar’s Office!”

Lincoln took the telegram copy and glanced at it, frowning, "Did Tsar Nicholas really die of a curse?" He suddenly felt something was wrong and looked up at Natalia, "Natalia, are you from the Tsar's Secret Service?"

"I'm just a magic investigator," Natalia said calmly, "Britain and France have already established special institutions to study Eastern magic and science. We in Russia certainly can't fall behind in this regard!"

Her words were equivalent to admitting that she was a magic investigator of the Tsar's Secret Service!
Sam Brannan's breathing has become a little rapid: "Madam, are you saying that the person behind Hong Renzheng has mastered some kind of supernatural power?"

Natalia nodded, "That's right. Hong Renzheng is just a puppet. The real devil is in the East. He not only knows where the gold is buried, but can also predict the future." She suddenly looked at Lincoln again, "Wu Chongyao is actually the devil's spokesperson. Why did he find you?"

Lincoln's face changed drastically when he heard this. He was indeed found by Wu Chongyao. He had just "failed in the election" and had to go home to open a law firm. Then, the big business of Jardine Matheson came to him. He originally thought that his prayers to God were effective, but he didn't expect that he was being targeted by the devil!

"So what should we do?" Sam Brannan asked in a trembling voice.

"Go grab it!" Natalia's voice was cold. "Take the golden map away before they completely control the West Coast."

Sam Brannan's Adam's apple rolled. "It's not easy to rob it! The True Covenant Cathedral is in the center of San Francisco's Chinatown. It's as solid as a fortress. The walls around it are so high and thick that even light artillery can hardly shake it. In addition, Hong Renzheng has a True Covenant Crusaders' army of several hundred people. Some of them have participated in the Chinese Civil War. I'm afraid my believers can't deal with them."

"Sam, I can help you invite the Russian expeditionary force to Vancouver Island. They are enemies of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom!" Natalia suggested.

"Ask the Russians?" Lincoln was speechless. "I'm afraid this is not a good idea, right?"

As a Western politician, Sam Brannan didn't care about that. "We can have these people disguised as gold diggers and enter California. They can lead my Mormon militia to attack Chinatown." He gritted his yellow teeth again. "Natalia, tell me. How much money do the Russians want to help?"

Natalia smiled and said, "Sam, I can arrange for you to meet with Major General Zavoyko, the Consul of the Russian Empire. I think the Major General must be eager to make a deal with you, a big shot in the US Senate."

Sam Brannan nodded heavily and smiled, "I think so too!" He looked at Lincoln again, "Abraham, what do you think?"

This time Lincoln nodded: "Now, we Americans and Russians have common interests in the territory of the British Hudson's Bay Company!"

Tianwang City Port, Tianwang Fort. Luo Dagang, accompanied by Chen Ji, the translator of the Central Army of the Expeditionary Force, Han Yulin, the Chief of Staff of the Expeditionary Force, and Yu Dabao, the commander of the First Division of the Expeditionary Force, walked into the extremely simply decorated conference room, and sat down separately with James Douglas, Richard Douglas, and a translator from the British Hudson Bay Company.

"Governor Douglas, how much sincerity do you bring this time?" Han Yulin saw that the guests were seated, so he smiled and went straight to the point.

"Two thousand brown bass, all rifled! Fifty thousand rounds of ammunition." James Douglas said coldly, "Another hundred thousand pounds if you can recapture Fort Victoria and Fort Vancouver!"

"Add another fifty 12-pound cannons." Of course Luo Dagang had to raise the price.

Now the news of the defeat of the British and French forces on the Kerch Peninsula has reached the Tianwang Fortress. Compared with the attack and defense of the Petropavlovsk Fortress in May, the Taiping Army is really awesome. It's worth the price!

"Fifty 12-pound cannons?" James was shocked. "Isn't that too much? Your expeditionary force has less than regular troops. How can you use fifty cannons? And you already have a lot of cannons in your Fortress of the Heavenly King!"

"Not many, not many." Luo Dagang said, "The True Covenant militia has about 30,000 to 40,000 soldiers. In the American West, guns are plentiful, but artillery is hard to come by!"

"Thirty," James gritted his teeth, "no more."

"Forty guns, delivered within ten days!" Luo Dagang held up two fingers. "In two months, I will hand over both Fort Victoria and Fort Vancouver to you!"

"At most twenty guns within ten days." James shook his head, "Not one more! The rest will be given when my people take over Fort Vancouver and Fort Victoria."

"Deal!" This time Luo Dagang did not insist, because he knew that the British really did not have much stock, and he had already smelled the anti-Chinese sentiment wafting over from the west coast of the United States - his nose was very sensitive in this regard, and he often smelled the same smell when he was in Southeast Asia.

Beijing, Prince Yu's Palace.

Zuo Zongtang's sedan stopped outside the magnificent gate of the palace. When he lifted the curtain and got out of the sedan, he found that Chaoyangmen Street was empty. Only Luo Yaoguo and a few guards were standing under the eaves of the palace, waiting for him with a smile.

"Your Highness, Prince Wu, you have a good plan," Zuo Zongtang stared at Luo Yaoguo, who was dressed in plain cloth. "The huge city of Beijing was cleared out with just one order from you!"

Luo Yaoguo laughed: "Jigao, just clear it out. A blank sheet of paper is good for painting. With you, Zuo Jigao, as the governor of Northern Zhili, are you still worried that there will be no one in Beijing? The last thing the four provinces lack now is people!"

Zuo Zongtang smiled bitterly, shook his head and walked towards Prince Yu's Mansion with Luo Yaoguo: "I was a good governor of Northeast China, but before I officially took office, you replaced me as the governor of Northern Zhili. It's a mess. How can I clean it up?"

"Take your time," Luo Yaoguo said with a smile, "First, we need to clean up Northern Zhili. With a foundation, the other three provinces will be easy to deal with. Moreover, the four provinces of Shanhe are called four provinces, but in fact Shanxi is still in the hands of the Qing demons, and Henan also has a lot of territory controlled by the Qing demons. Don't touch these for now, and let Li Hongzhang and Zeng Guofan worry about it. We will focus on Shandong, Zhili and most of Henan. The main problem of these territories is actually one, too many people and too little land. If it doesn't work, send more people to the Northeast and North America. Yang Xiuqing, Hong Renzheng, and Luo Dagang are all short of people. If you send more people out, and then repair the Yellow River, won't you have everything?"

Zuo Zongtang smiled bitterly: "Your Highness, you are talking without any pain. We need to repair the Yellow River and provide disaster relief. This year's autumn harvest was not good. What will we do next spring? Shandong and Henan will definitely suffer from famine! How many people can we send away? There is a lot of land in the Northeast, but not much has been reclaimed! It's about the same in North America, right? This war is going on."

"Okay, there is no obstacle that cannot be overcome!" Luo Yaoguo pulled Zuo Zongtang towards the palace, and said with a smile, "Ji Gao, you fought well in Kamchatka this time, and you are famous. The whole world knows how powerful we are! Let me tell you, in our world, it all comes down to who has the harder fist. As long as the fist is strong, there is no reason that you can't overcome. Send someone to go back and find out how much food is lacking in northern Zhili, Shandong, and Henan. I will find a way to buy some from Vietnam, Siam, Burma, and North Korea. "Okay, let's not talk about these disappointments. I'm happy today. I asked the chef to prepare a table of Hunan dishes. Let's get drunk!"

Tianjin, Dagukou.

When Luo Yaoguo and Zuo Zongtang were drunk, Xianfeng and De Ling were supporting each other as they boarded the steamboat that sailed across the ocean to America. The lecture course they attended in the Qianwang Palace was a short training course, a very short one! When Yang Xiuqing's army brought treasures collected from the inner city of Beijing and the Old Summer Palace to Tianjin and shipped them to Liaodong by sea in batches, they also graduated with honors and were assigned to the North American diocese headed by Hong Renzheng along with 15 classmates and a senior brother Lei Laohu.

Standing on the deck of the steamer, Xianfeng, who had quit smoking opium, put on a red robe, cut off his braids, wrapped himself in a red scarf, and hung a Taiping sword on his belt, looked at the motherland that was gradually going away. Suddenly, he heard Lei Laohu's somewhat sad singing: "The mountains and rivers are only in my dreams. I haven't been close to my motherland for many days."

(End of this chapter)