The Qing Dynasty is about to end

Chapter 564 Natalia, you can be the savior of the Romanov dynasty!
The scorched earth on the western foot of Purple Mountain had not yet dissipated the poisonous smell of bitter acid explosion, but Grand Duchess Natalia's lace gloves were already stained with the aroma of coffee. She leaned on the railing of the cast iron carved balcony and looked at the smoke rising on the mountain road - Luo Yaoguo's black carriage was galloping over, escorted by twelve cavalrymen carrying Tianli Type 3 flintlock rifles.

"How many sugar cubes would you like in your coffee?" As she turned around, her skirt brushed past the copy of The Contemporary on the coffee table. The front page of this Russian newspaper founded by Pushkin published Leo Tolstoy's "Sevastopol in June 1856". "Would you like a piece of palm sugar from Java? I heard that the palm plantations there are controlled by overseas Chinese, and most of them worship God?"

The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom has developed rapidly on the west coast of North America in the past two years and has attracted a lot of attention. However, Chinese immigrants who have migrated to North America actually only account for a small part of the total outward population. Even if there is gold in North America, the cost of crossing the Pacific Ocean is too expensive. In comparison, going to Southeast Asia is the first choice for the working people along the coast of Guangdong, Guangxi, and Fujian (Fujian was occupied by Hu Yihuang in 1855).

The working people who went to Southeast Asia, of course, had to band together for protection. Compared with traditional gangs, the True Protestant Church was much more powerful - if they wanted to kill people, they had veterans of the Kingdom of Heaven as coaches, and they had foreign guns produced by the Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau in Shanghai. If they wanted to fight a lawsuit, they had foreign lawyers who had converted to the True Protestant Church. If they wanted to find an imperialist backer, Queen Victoria had relatives with Yang Xiuqing, Feng Yunshan, and Hong Xuanjiao in her previous life!

So out of pragmatism, the golden statue of Hong Xiuquan in Nanyang has replaced Guan Erye and has become the object of worship in every hall.

As for the semi-feudal and semi-colonial countries in the south, they are even more unable to withstand it.

Under the joint attack of Xiao Chaogui and Qin Rigang, the remnant of the Qing Dynasty, which had been lingering in Guangxi for more than a year, also crossed the Sino-Vietnamese border in early 1856 and entered Vietnam in large numbers. There were hundreds of thousands of soldiers and their families! Although they were remnants of a defeated army, they had fought in the Taiping Rebellion for four or five years, and there were many foreign advisers from the British Army in Hong Kong. Moreover, their equipment was surprisingly good, including brown bass smoothbore rifles with bayonets and 6-jin bronze cannon barrels.

It is said that the Nguyen Dynasty of Vietnam initially sent troops to disarm the Qing army that had "illegally entered the country". However, the troops they sent saw that the "remnants of the defeated troops" on the opposite side were too powerful, so they knelt down to welcome the royal army.

The Nguyen Dynasty Emperor Nguyen Phuc Sy had to very hospitably "lease" the secondary capital Hanoi to the Celestial Empire's soldiers for "temporary residence". The Governor-General of Guangdong and Guangxi, Lao Chongguang, appointed by the Qing Dynasty, and Mukden and Bai Gui, who came all the way from Guangdong, ordered in Hanoi to shave the heads and change clothes in all eleven towns in Tonkin, as if they were going to turn Tonkin into a province of the Qing Dynasty.

Afterwards, the Vietnamese court in Hue was severely questioned by the envoys sent by Xiao Chaogui, the "Three-Guang Governor" (Guangdong, Guangxi, and Guangnan) of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, and the "Three Far-reaching Ships" of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Navy appeared in the waters off Hue. However, Nguyen Phuc Thi had to send envoys to Tianjing to apologize and surrender. In the past two days, the Vietnamese delegation was left alone in the guesthouse by Luo Yaoguo!

Vietnam was the little bully of the Indochina Peninsula, but it could not withstand the defeated generals of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom and knelt down without even daring to fight. How could other countries dare to offend the Heavenly Kingdom?

Luo Yaoguo took off his silk round hat, revealing his short hair. "Add three pieces, preferably Hawaiian cane sugar." He tapped the map of Crimea under the glass of the coffee table with his fingertips. "After all, we will soon become the protector of Hawaii - replacing the Russian Empire's share there."

The Grand Duchess's silver spoon made a crisp sound on the rim of the Jingdezhen Doucai cup: "Very fast? How fast can it be?"

"Natasha, didn't you see the fireball rising from the Gewu Experimental Field?"

"Your new explosive?" she said in a deliberately nonchalant tone, pushing the coffee in front of him. "It can make the bastion walls as soft as cake?"

"More thorough than soft." Luo Yaoguo took out a small piece of beeswax wrapped sample from his briefcase. The sunlight shone through the wax layer, revealing the pale yellow crystals inside. "This is called picric acid. It burns when it comes into contact with iron and explodes when it comes into contact with copper." He suddenly crushed the wax shell with force, scaring the Grand Duchess's sapphire earrings into pieces. "But after being wrapped in silk and diatomaceous earth -" he grabbed the broken pieces and rubbed them in his palms, "it is more docile than the pearls you wear."

Natalia's breathing suddenly quickened. She remembered the frequent explosions in the experimental field during this period - its power was much greater than that of black powder!
"I'm starting to believe that you're a devil!" She took a sip of black coffee, the bitterness spreading on her tongue. "The war could have ended this year."

"Because Russia's defeat in 1856 is not in my interest. Of course, it is not in your interest either!" Luo Yaoguo suddenly took out a map of North America from his briefcase and circled Alaska in pencil. "We need a Romanov Grand Duchess here - do you remember what I said before? The Russian Empire is hopeless, and the Romanov family's rule in Russia is bound to collapse. But you can now become the savior of the Romanov dynasty."

The porcelain cup fell over on the Persian carpet. Natalia dug her nails into her palms. "You want Russia to cede territory?"

"It's splitting off a part!" Luo Yaoguo picked up the coffee cup and gently shook the black liquid with a silver spoon. "Once Russia is defeated, this isolated enclave in the New World will become the target of Britain, France, and the United States. The Russian Empire cannot keep Alaska, but the Romanov Dynasty can. This is also the only way to save the Romanov Dynasty in the future! Although the entire empire cannot be saved, a part of it can be saved after all."

The "part" that Luo Yaoguo mentioned is not just the Alaska part, but that is a matter for the future.
"You need me to be your puppet?" She unbuttoned the pearl buttons on her collar, revealing the white and delicate skin on her neck. "And I'm a Grand Duchess."

Luo Yaoguo put down his coffee cup, stood up and walked behind Natalia, gently stroked her neck, and said softly: "Yes, you are still such a beautiful Grand Duchess. Consider my plan, you can become the Ice Queen of the North in the future!"

Natalia remained silent, letting Luo Yaoguo's hands wander over her body. "Tell me," Luo Yaoguo whispered again as the "devil's hand" climbed up the towering mountain, "how can we contact the Tsar? A secret contact!"

Natalia felt that her most plump part had been firmly grasped by the devil's hand. She could not escape at all. She could only whimper in protest: "There is a French perfume store in Shanghai called Romance of Provence. It is a contact point of the Secret Service. The code is to ask for lavender essential oil from 1847."

"Oh," Luo Yaoguo nodded, twisting his fingers somewhere, "You still have a lot of secrets!"

Natalia turned her head and looked at the "devil" provocatively, "You devil, do you still want to torture me, a beautiful Russian Grand Duchess?"

"Why not?" Luo Yaoguo added some strength to his hands, "Tell me, what else do you know? What secrets are there between Yang Xiuqing and you Russians?"

Natalia tilted her neck and looked at the "devil" with thick eyebrows and big eyes. She suddenly sneered: "Dear devil, can't you figure out the secret between us and King Yang Dong?" She deliberately straightened her chest and said, "Come on, use whatever means you have!"

Luo Yaoguo smiled and helped the stubborn Grand Duchess up, "Then come with me, let's go somewhere else and have a good chat."

"Let's go!" The Grand Duchess laughed, "I think you, a devil, have long been stripped of your powers by God, and you can only use mortal means to deal with me!"

The churning furnace at the Seoul Iron Works spewed out a stream of scarlet iron, and the smell of sulfur and heat waves swept across the entire factory.

The hem of Yang Xiuqing's dragon robe was burned by sparks, but he didn't care. His one eye was fixed on the molten iron slowly pouring into the sand mold.

"The sulfur content is 15 parts per thousand, which is 30% lower than last month." Daozi, wearing a moon-white Wufu, held the report in his hand with a happy face. "Tupolev and his engineers said that if we add more limestone..."

Yang Xiuqing waved his hand and said, "You don't have to tell me this. I just want results. I just want steel that can make guns, cannons, and warships! I also want to open gun factories, cannon factories, shipyards, and gunpowder factories. If you need machines, go buy them. If you need talents, go find them!"

The account book in the hands of Chen Chengrong, the Minister of Finance of the East Palace, rustled in the hot wind: "Last month, the New Heavenly Kingdom Bank exchanged 800,000 taels of silver, half of which was used for foreign affairs."

"Worth it!" Yang Xiuqing suddenly laughed, and the sleeves of his python robe swept across the newly solidified pig iron ingots. "When the reverberatory furnace produces molten steel, I will build a steam warship in Busan! I will spend more money then!"

Chen Chengrong's abacus beads clattered loudly. "But we don't have much money left. In the past few months, we have spent nearly 10 million yuan to hire foreign engineers and Japanese technicians, purchase foreign machinery, buy coal from coal mines in Tianjin and Xuzhou, and pay salaries to our hundreds of thousands of troops. If this continues, we will have to spend 10 million yuan."

"How come he ran out of money so quickly?" Yang Xiuqing was shocked. "Luo Yaoguo is much richer than me, how come I haven't heard that he has no money? And doesn't the West Coast have gold shipped in every month?"

Hong Rengan on the side quickly explained: "Eastern King, the gold shipped from the West Coast must be split with Tianjing in a 30:70 ratio."

Yang Xiuqing was stunned: "Why is it only 70%?"

"No, no, 70% belongs to others." Hong Rengan smiled bitterly, "We can only take 30%."

"What? Only 30%?" Yang Xiuqing was furious. "Why do we only have 30%? Half of the Japanese women shipped to the New World came from the territory of the Tokugawa Shogunate! No. I must have 70% of the interests of the West Coast!"

(End of this chapter)