Master Yuan, start!

When the gunshots rang out in Hanyang City (Seoul was formerly known as Hanyang), King Gojong of Joseon and Queen Min were as anxious as ants on a hot pan in the Joseon palace.

Although the sky was gradually clearing up, the constant explosions and shouting outside still pierced their hearts, and they dared not look outside.

Li Xi felt helpless. He loved his country and his people, but reality did not give him the opportunity to show his determination.

He was originally a distant branch of the Joseon royal family, and the throne would never have been his, but due to internal strife among the four powerful ministers.

In addition, his father, the later Daewongun Yi Gyeong-eung, pretended to be crazy and stupid, deceived the powerful ministers and the queen at the time, and made them agree to make Yi Gyeong's son Yi Xi the king.

Only then was Lee Hee able to ascend the throne, but he was only 12 years old when he came to the throne. His adoptive mother was in charge of the government, and his biological father was given the title of Seondaewongun.

Throughout his life, his adoptive mother and biological father successively ruled the country from behind the scenes, and they controlled the government for more than ten years.

At the age of 24, Li Xi was forced to marry Min, who was arranged by his biological father. She later became Queen Min.

After Queen Min was favored by Lee Hee, she gradually entered the political arena.

First, he used the Qingliu to criticize Daewongun's isolationist measures, and instigated Lee Hee to declare "personal rule" and launch a palace coup, forcing Daewongun to retreat and drive him out of the capital.

Lee Hee always stood on the side of Queen Min, and he himself was cowardly by nature and obeyed Queen Min's orders, so the real power was in the hands of Queen Min.

From then on, the Joseon Dynasty entered an era in which King Gojong was in charge of the government in name only, but in reality it was ruled by Queen Min's relatives.

It can be said that Li Xi truly deserves the posthumous title of Emperor Gaozong given to him by later generations.

In the past, Emperor Gaozong of Tang favored Wu Meiniang, causing chaos in the court.

Later, King Gojong of the Joseon Dynasty favored Queen Min, expelled her father, and took control of the court.

All I can say is that Emperor Gaozong was like this.

But right now, Li Xi is not thinking about the power struggle, all he wants is to survive.

The Enlightenment Party had entered the palace many times before, using the opportunity of giving lectures to tell Lee Hee about the benefits of Joseon's reforms, and even inadvertently revealed information that they were planning to launch an uprising in Seoul.

When chaos broke out in the city, even hooligans attacked the palace several times. Although they were beaten out by the palace guards, it was always just a matter of power.

If you stay in the palace, something bad will happen sooner or later. You have to run out of the city quickly, otherwise you will become a bargaining chip in the hands of others.

On the other side, Queen Min kept walking back and forth in the palace. Although she and Daewongun were fighting for power and enjoying it very much, they even did not hesitate to bring in the Qing army to break the deadlock.

But he was not proficient in fighting, so he was at a loss when faced with the current chaos. He could only walk around the palace, hoping that God would bless the Qing army with victory.

Because she knew very well that no matter which faction caused the chaos, afterward, a prominent figure would be needed to control the overall situation.

Compared to himself who has always held power without justification, the cowardly Li Xi is undoubtedly a more suitable choice.

As for her, being placed under house arrest was the best outcome. She might be chopped into pieces by angry soldiers.

After all, she first joined forces with Lee Hee to form the Enlightenment Faction to overthrow Daewon-gun, abolished the policy of closing the country to the outside world and refusing trade that Daewon-gun had set, and offended the conservatives.

After expelling Daewongun, he even signed the Ganghwa Treaty with Japan, which was the Japan-Korea Amity Treaty and actually opened the door to Korea.

Although Queen Min was good at wielding power, she did not achieve many commendable achievements in state affairs. After she came to power, officials in the court who supported Queen Min were rampantly corrupt, selling official positions and titles, and local officials also seized land by trickery.

Years of corruption led to continuous local rebellions in Korea, which eventually triggered the "1882 Immo Incident". Queen Min took advantage of the chaos to escape from Seoul.

Daewongun also took this opportunity to regain power and even held a funeral for Queen Min, trying to create a fait accompli of her death.

But when Japan heard about the chaos in Korea, it wanted to station troops in Korea for protection. The reason was naturally to protect the enlightenment faction.

This move was of course rejected by the conservative Daewongun, and the relationship between North Korea and Japan became tense for a time, and war was imminent.

At that time, Jin Yunzhi, one of the leaders of the Min clan and an official of Queen Min's faction who was sent to the Qing Dynasty, took the opportunity to ask for help from the Qing Dynasty.

At that time, the Qing Dynasty was in the process of suppressing the Taiping Rebellion, recovering Xinjiang, and launching the Westernization Movement. It was punishing rebellions in the south, resisting Russian invasion in the west, and promoting Westernization at home.

The central government only felt that the Qing Dynasty was in the midst of the "Tongguang Restoration" and for a time believed that the suzerain was responsible for the unrest in Korea.

This led to Wu Changqing, Yuan Shikai and others leading an army of more than 3000 people into Korea to help Korea quell the rebellion.

Yuan Shikai also became the third-ranking figure of the Qing army stationed in Korea because of his heroic fighting.

After this battle, Queen Min returned to the ruling position, and her attitude changed from pro-Japanese to pro-Qing. After offending the conservatives before, she offended the generally pro-Japanese enlightenment faction this time.

Now Queen Min has no one to rely on and can only cling to the Qing Dynasty.

"King, Queen, retreat, retreat!"

While they were worrying, the palace guards came in with murderous intent. Seeing Li Xi and Queen Min, they hurriedly announced the good news: "Your Majesty, Queen, we have repelled the bandits' attack. This place is temporarily safe."

"Great, great!"

Li Xi jumped up excitedly like a child. He could not trust the reformists such as Jin Yujun who had been instilling in him the words of pro-Japanese, anti-Qing, reform and opening up.

How could a Korean like him not know what kind of people the Japanese are?

At that time, he had to get close to the Kaihua faction because, after all, if he didn't rely on the Kaihua faction to seize power, who could he rely on?

His own father is the biggest conservative leader in the country. Is he going to go over and tell the conservatives:

"Don't hang out with my dad, hang out with me. I can be conservative too."

I'm afraid they will report it to Daewongun immediately, and then his father might depose him as king, after all, he has more than one son.

Just when Queen Min and Lee Hee were both feeling uneasy and restless, a burst of dense gunfire suddenly came from outside the palace. Lee Hee was so scared that he hid behind a chair in the hall.

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Seeing this, Queen Min could only shake her head helplessly and hurriedly sent the palace maid beside her to go outside the palace to see what was happening.

But before the palace maid could leave, the man who had come into the palace to announce the good news that the enemy troops had been repelled was dragged into the palace with his body.

The people who came were none other than Kim Ok-gyun and Park Yong-hyo.

"Your Majesty, we are here to escort you to a safe place. Please don't be alarmed." Kim Ok-gyun shouted to Li Xi behind the throne.

"That's right, Your Majesty. There is chaos in the capital now, and the palace is indeed a dangerous place. I hope Your Majesty will go to a safe place with us. We will definitely ensure Your Majesty's safety." Park Yong-hyo wiped the blood off the gun and shouted to Li Xi.

Li Xi saw that the guard who had just reported the good news to him was now lying motionless in the hall. He was so frightened that he was stunned and didn't know what to do.

Queen Min could only force herself to remain calm and ask, "Is this change caused by the Qing? Or by Japan? Where should we go? I hope you can tell me."

"Your Majesty, you don't know that the external unrest is caused by the Korean people who can no longer bear the oppression of the Qing Dynasty, so they rose up in resistance. It is not caused by the Qing Dynasty or Japan." Jin Yujun replied.

"Now that many Japanese people are helping us Korean patriots, the Qing army will be eliminated today." Seeing that Li Xi was unmoved, Park Yongxiao was a little anxious. After all, they had to take advantage of the chaos to kidnap the king so that they could use the emperor to control the princes.

If the king delayed in escaping from the palace with them, and the Qing soldiers entered the city and found the king, they would lose their righteous status.

"If Your Majesty does not believe that the Japanese will help us, could you please give us a royal decree? We will take it to the Japanese embassy and ask for Japan's assistance."

"Your Majesty, please look, this gun is the Japanese aid." Seeing that Li Xi still did not react, Jin Yujun pretended to take the gun in his hand for Li Xi to check.

In fact, he was getting closer to Li Xi step by step.

Queen Min, who was standing by, was afraid that something might happen, so she ran over and pulled Lee Hee out from behind the throne. Then, with a "rip!" sound, Queen Min pulled off a piece of cloth from Lee Hee's body.

While Li Xi was still not reacting, he bit Li Xi's finger.

"Oh, Queen, why are you doing this?"

"Your Majesty, the situation is critical now. I hope you can give the imperial edict to the righteous men in the palace and let them seek help from the Japanese." Queen Min also thought of a solution in a hurry, fearing that Li Xi would not agree and anger the two of them, and eventually take his anger out on herself.

He quickly asked Li Xi to write the four big words "Japanese Envoy Comes to Wei" on the torn yellow cloth while the blood was still wet.

Park Yong-hyo took the imperial edict and hurried to the Japanese embassy outside the palace.

Queen Min also supported Lee Hee and moved from Changdeok Palace to the narrow Gyeonggi Palace under the leadership of Kim Ok-gyun.

However, no one noticed that the little palace maid next to Queen Min slipped out of the team while no one was paying attention and ran towards the Qing Embassy.

Chapter 13 Yuan Xiangcheng's Plan

Thank you for the reward from the book friends of "How Long is the Class Time"; thank you for your support.

In addition, I supplemented the content of Chapter 2023 on October 10, 23. If old book friends have not read the supplementary content before, you can go and take a look.

Yuan Xiangcheng sent spies to search for the King of Korea and his family, while he himself continued to run towards the embassy.

Any soldiers and ruffians who dared to block the way were shot to death.

Before they encountered the Qing army, these ruffians and rebels showed off their power to ordinary Korean people and went door to door asking for money.

They would kill the civilians if they were unhappy. Although their equipment was not very good and some of them even had big swords, they were very brutal.

However, when they encountered the regular army, this group of people fled in all directions like ants whose nest had been dug out, and were no match for the Qing army at all.

Many Korean soldiers were knocked down without even having time to fire their guns.

"Kill them! Anyone can kill these rebels." Yuan Xiangcheng had no sympathy for these supporters of the Kaihua faction.

Since it can't be used by me, I'll just destroy it.

"Oh my god, where did these Qing troops come from?"

"Hasn't the Qing army in the city been attacked at night by Lord Xu and fled the city?"

However, no one answered their question, and Yuan Xiangcheng would not say that he had already trained a private army and hidden it in the suburbs of Incheon.

"Withdraw, withdraw!"

Some clever ones, seeing that the situation was not good, threw away the gold and silver jewelry and banknotes they had snatched and ran away, hoping to stop the advance of the Incheon New Army.

However, none of the Qing troops under Yuan Shikai stopped, only a few of them looked at the gold, silver and jewelry on the ground with greedy eyes.

But they soon followed the main force to sweep forward, leaving behind a small number of quartermasters to clean up the battlefield.

"Weiting, you are not confused by the wealth and you can still follow orders. Now the army is strong." Ma Xiangbo bowed and congratulated Yuan Xiangcheng.

"Brother Mingqian's name is Ma Xiangbo, thanks to your painstaking teaching these days." Yuan Xiangcheng was only slightly relieved to see this situation, and was not too excited.

Because what he wanted to build was the iron-blooded army of the future generations that had been forged through tens of thousands of miles of blood and tears. The current level was far from enough.

The new army in Incheon continued to eliminate the rebels and clear the obstacles in the city, and soon arrived at a street in front of the embassy and consulate.

However, Yuan Xiangcheng was quite surprised to see two groups of people fighting in front of him. One group was defending a stronghold with their backs against civilian houses, and most of them still had braids.

The other wave is undoubtedly the North Korean rebellion.

Does the Qing army have helpers in this city now?

Yuan Xiangcheng was a little confused. Logically speaking, apart from the new army he had secretly trained, there should be no other Qing forces in Seoul.

Let’s not worry about that for now, let’s deal with this chaotic North Korean army first.

Give an order.