The Qing Dynasty is about to end

Chapter 692 Gentlemen, this is Bishop Zhao Si, the rebellion expert from the East!

The Eastern Palace in Pyongyang.

A farewell party for Maria and Kusumoto Inako is in progress.

The flickering flames from the eighty-eight dragon candlesticks made half of Yang Xiuqing's face look like the Heavenly King statue in the True Prophet Cathedral. His face was almost the same as the Heavenly King statue enshrined in the Korean Heaven. Kusumoto Inako knelt beside Yang Xiuqing, pouring wine for the living god of the Korean Heaven like a drinking maid.

"Please invite the two Heavenly Masters and Sister Maria to appreciate the ancient Japanese dance."

After Daozi finished pouring wine for Yang Xiuqing, he suddenly clapped his hands three times, and twelve dancers in white robes holding swords filed in. The crisp sound of their clogs on the blue bricks reminded Moore of the rhythm of hammers hitting the rails during the London dock workers' strike.

Amid the sound of blades breaking through the air, a female voice suddenly rang out: "The light of the sky shines ten thousand feet high, and the equal distribution of land breaks the iron siege!" This is the battle song of the Amakusa Party, which was transformed by the True Covenant Archbishop of Kyushu, Fu Xuexian. Listening to it in the night breeze of the Yellow Sea, there is an indescribable sense of sadness and desolation. Friedrich hoped that these girls who came from Japanese Shinto families, but now became the playthings of Yang Xiuqing, the Korean Heavenly Kingdom, would only think of colonization and oppression.
As the dancer sheathed her sword and bowed to retreat, Yang Xiuqing slammed his wine cup heavily on the table: "That mob in Nagasaki has fooled the Tokugawa samurai!"

When he said this, his face was full of pride and contempt that was difficult to conceal.

Moore held in his hand an exquisite pipe that looked like a work of art - a gift from Prince Albert. "A tiny spark could set the whole dry yellow grassland on fire," he whispered in German, and Daozi, who could speak German, hesitated for a moment and translated it as "a spark can start a prairie fire."

"So we're sending Daozi to put out the fire?" Yang Xiuqing pointed at the woman beside him. "After she and Sister Maria go to Tianjing to pay homage to King Luo Wu and Queen Feng Nan, she will go to Osaka to serve as the Japanese vice-archbishop of the Shinto sect. Then, she will mobilize the feudal lords and samurai of the Shinto sect in Japan to wipe out the Nagasaki Republic together!"

After saying this, Yang Xiuqing glanced at Maria again and said, "Sister Maria, His Royal Highness the Prince of Wu will definitely support Daozi in destroying the rebels in Nagasaki, right?"

Maria smiled faintly: "Of course!"

The reason why the Nagasaki Republic was able to hold out for a year was entirely because someone was providing it with weapons, ammunition and food. However, Maria knew very well that it was not only the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom's Prime Minister's Office Dark Hall that secretly supported the Nagasaki Republic, but also the Korean Heavenly Kingdom's Rakshasa Hall and the True Covenant Kyushu Cathedral.

The water behind this "country" is very deep!

Yang Xiuqing laughed loudly: "After destroying the Nagasaki Republic, Inako will also command the Shinto sect to overthrow the shogunate in Japan! Sister Maria, I believe that King Wu will not interfere, right?"

"No." Maria smiled, "Then after the fall of the curtain..."

"After the fall of the Qing dynasty, the union of Korea and Japan will be like Seoul and Pyongyang, forever as close as brothers." Yang Xiuqing turned to look at Moore and Friedrich, "Then I would like to ask the two Heavenly Masters to give some advice on Japan's industrial construction."

Moore and Friedrich looked at each other. They both knew very well what role Japan played in the industrialization of the Korean Heavenly Kingdom. And they also knew that after the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom embarked on the fast track of industrialization, the road to industrialization for Korea and Japan was destined to be difficult and the cost was destined to be huge!
"King Dong, I wonder if Japan will implement equal land distribution in the future?" Moore asked again.

"Equal distribution of land is necessary," Yang Xiuqing shook his head again, looking embarrassed, "but it is not possible to distribute land equally in Japan! Japan's national conditions are different from those of Korea. The yangban in Korea are a bunch of useless people, so just kill them. The Japanese samurai are not so easy to deal with. If hundreds of thousands of people fight for their lives, it will be difficult to deal with."

"If Japan does not implement equal distribution of land," Friedrich pointed to a map of Japan on a folding screen, "in the future, Japan will have a second, third, fourth, or even countless Nagasaki Republics."

Yang Xiuqing smiled coldly: "Just kill as many as come."

When the clock presented by the Queen of England struck nine, Moore finally pulled out the draft treaty he had prepared long ago from his briefcase: "King of East, this is the Anglo-Japanese Treaty. Please have a look. In addition to the agreed tariffs and consular jurisdiction, it also includes the expansion of the concessions in Nagasaki, Yokohama, and Osaka."

Just as Inako was about to speak, Yang Xiuqing ordered her to bring the draft treaty, and then without even looking at it, he grabbed his seal of the King of the East and stamped it heavily. When the bright red ink soaked into the words "permanent autonomy", Inako seemed to see the scene of war and red flags flying in Japan.

Charleston, South Carolina.

Coal dust from the steam locomotive fell on Scarlett O'Hara's yellow silk umbrella. As she stood on tiptoe to look, her skirt brushed past the black slave Zenk at the edge of the platform. This African man, whose palms had just been burned by a branding iron, was now holding a silver wine jug to serve Master O'Hara. "Look! That Oriental man is dressed like a cardinal!" Scarlett pulled her father's sleeve. On the platform in the distance, Xianfeng's red silk robe shone brightly in the humid air of Charleston, making the black woolen coats of the surrounding white gentlemen look like a flock of crows.

O'Connor took off his hat to greet the crowd, revealing a horizontal scar on his forehead - it was left when he and his good friend O'Hara crossed the ocean to America and fought with an Italian gang in New York more than ten years ago. At this moment, he was supported by a Japanese wife and walked down the carriage clumsily. It was hard to imagine how agile he was back then.

"Is that Uncle O'Connor? He's gained weight again!" Scarlett pointed at O'Connor and shouted to her father, Mr. O'Hara.

O'Hara, the lucky man who made his fortune on the streets of New York and then went to Georgia and South Carolina to run a cotton business, later married a wealthy French woman and squeezed into the circle of upper-class farmers in the South, quickly ran to his good friend Jamie O'Connor, who had fought with him to conquer the world and now became a senator.

While O'Hara and O'Connor were hugging each other at the train station in Charleston, Xianfeng, who had come to Charleston, the base of southern slave owners, with Senators Davis and O'Connor, was looking at the girl that O'Hara brought - a girl with green eyes and a pointed chin, wearing a fluffy skirt, with a sweet but somewhat cunning smile.

When the carriage passed the dock area, the bales of cotton were piled higher than the spire of the Methodist Church. Davis pointed to the "Lady of Charleston" being loaded: "This ship of cotton bales shipped to Liverpool can be exchanged for half a ship of Scotch whisky." Xianfeng squinted and saw the sweat on the backs of the black slaves shining in the scorching sun, just like the Tongzhou canal workers carrying imperial grain for his family.

In front of the O'Hara mansion, a girl in a whalebone skirt stood in the shadow cast by six Corinthian columns. Scarlett turned her yellow parasol and deliberately let the tassels brush against the face of Leland Stanford Jr. - the heir of the Stanford family, one of the four major families in California, was still unmarried!
"Gentlemen, this is Bishop Zhao Si, an expert in rebellion from the East. He is one of the cardinals of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom and has the power of foresight. He helped me and Senator O'Connor find the oil field in Pennsylvania!" When Davis introduced them to everyone, Emperor Xianfeng was staring at the slave shackles hanging on the porch. The shackles were polished to a shine, and the iron rings were tied with red ribbons, as if they were some medals worth showing off.

The furnishings in the banquet hall were extremely luxurious and seemed to be all French. When the slave Zengke was holding a silver wine pot to pour wine for Emperor Xianfeng, Scarlett noticed that this Oriental man's behavior seemed noble and extraordinary. He didn't look like a charlatan who started out as a rebel, but rather like a nobleman who was high above everyone else.

"There are 100,000 militiamen in the seven southern states, all of them are good at fighting!" A Georgia senator waved his ivory-handled cane and said something that sounded extremely unprofessional to the great rebel Zhao. "There are only sick workers and child laborers in the New England factories! If they dare to invade our territory, I guarantee that they will never return!"

Xianfeng poked the fried oysters on the plate with a silver fork and suddenly said to Chiyoko in Chinese: "These people are just like the Eight Banners children back then." He thought of the Eight Banners uncles in Beijing who only knew how to carry bird cages and "got fat by stealing Indian land and sucking the blood of black people."

When the butler led twelve black servants to serve the roasted whole pig, O'Connor suddenly told the story of his search for gold in the mountains of California. "I followed the gold map given to me by Bishop Hong and went into the mountains. It only took me half a month to find the gold mine. It is a rich mine and is still being mined. It can earn me 500 ounces of gold every month."

Scarlett approached Xianfeng, blinking her green eyes and asking curiously, "I heard that you can predict the future?" She stretched out her lace-gloved hand, "See when I can go to Paris to attend the ball?"

Xianfeng smiled and said, "There are dances every day in Paris. If you don't have any requirements on who you dance with, you can go anytime."

Scarlett chuckled and said, "Then show me again, can I dance with an emperor?"

"Yes," Xianfeng nodded again, "if you don't choose the emperor."

These true words caused laughter from the whole room.

Scarlett's father O'Hara came up and asked with a smile: "Mr. Bishop, will you really rebel?"

Xianfeng smiled and said: "It's not rebellion, it's revolution."

O'Hara laughed. "Revolution? In the South, we only believe in two things—cotton and the Bible!"

Xianfeng did not refute, but simply said: "May God bless you."

Davis raised his glass and said loudly: "Ladies and gentlemen! Let us welcome Bishop Zhao Si from the East! May his wisdom point the way for the future of the South!"

Everyone raised their glasses and cheered, but Xianfeng just took a sip of wine and thought:
"It seems that I guessed wrong about the follow-up content of the American Civil War in the Book of the Minor Prophets. Without me, this group of people would never be able to defeat the Yankees!"

(End of this chapter)