The Qing Dynasty

Chapter 349: Victory and Secret Message

As it was October, the weather in the north had begun to turn cooler in the mornings and evenings. Cixi wore a red fox shawl on her shoulders and sat upright on the couch, still stroking her bronze pestle in her hand.

When Cixi heard that Zai Yi and Ronglu not only came together but also asked for a meeting early in the morning, she knew that something big must have happened again. Although she felt a little uneasy in her heart, her face remained calm.

Seeing the two of them looking solemn, Cixi took a deep breath secretly, smiled slightly and said to the eunuchs, "Why don't you quickly show Prince Duan and Lord Rong a seat."

After the two men saluted Cixi, neither of them sat down. Zai Yi glanced at Ronglu and seeing that Ronglu had no intention of speaking first, he took out two memorials from his sleeve and held them in his hands.

"Empress Dowager, Teng Xingfu sent a letter reporting victory. The vanguard army has once again achieved a rare victory in the capital. There is also a secret letter to the Empress Dowager."

Zai Yi's words did not make Cixi feel relieved at all. If it was just another great victory, the expressions of these two people would never be so solemn.

Li Lianying quickly stepped forward to take the memorial, then carefully stepped back to Cixi and handed the memorial to her.

Cixi put down the demon-subduing pestle in her hand and took the two memorials in her hand.

Cixi was not in a hurry to open the memorials. She just held the two memorials in her hands and flipped through them, as if she was hesitating which one to read first, or perhaps she was guessing at the contents.

After a sigh of relief, Cixi handed the victory letter to Li Lianying and said, "Lianying, please read this victory letter so that everyone can be happy."

Teng Yuzhao's victory report basically recounted the battle of Dongcheng on the night of the breakout, but with some minor discrepancies, and the specific process was also somewhat vague.

The memorial said that after investigation, they learned that about 70,000 allied troops were on their way to the capital, carrying a large number of large-caliber Western cannons. In order to prevent the capital from being destroyed in the war, they launched a breakout that night.

The battle of Dongcheng was just a feint to the east but the German troops outside Qihua Gate underestimated the enemy and were caught off guard by Liu Shijiu's assault column which broke into the village occupied by the Germans in one fell swoop. Then, with the assistance of Wu Peifu's guards, they defeated more than 10,000 German troops and annihilated most of them.

Afterwards, the assault column and the guards brigade, with the assistance of the artillery brigade, set up an ambush on the road in the dark and annihilated nearly 20,000 Russian reinforcements.

At the same time, they used a feint to scare away more than 10,000 troops from the United States, Britain and France.

The battle of Dongcheng frightened the enemy so much that when they broke out of Xicheng, they did not dare to stop the four-pronged attacks of Liu Yuzhi, Li Xiange, Hu Dianjia and Cao Futian. Now the vanguard army has successfully broken out of the capital.

In the breakout battle, a large number of enemies were killed, including nearly 30,000 Allied troops, and a lot of spoils of war were seized.

Of course, the casualties of the vanguard army cannot be ignored, and they are exaggerated. Teng Yuzhao said in his memorial that the vanguard army suffered a total of 15,000 casualties in the battle that night, and was no longer able to fight and urgently needed to be reorganized.

The next step was to commend the generals and rank Liu Shijiu and Liu Changfa first and second respectively.

After listening to Li Lianying reading the report of victory, Cixi felt a lot more relieved.

Cixi felt relieved, not because the vanguard army had won another great victory, but because she understood why Zai Yi and Ronglu looked so serious. They were angry because Teng Yuzhao led his troops to withdraw from the capital, allowing the capital to fall into the hands of the enemy.

However, since they had achieved a rare victory and killed more than 30,000 enemies, why did Teng Yuzhao still submit a secret memorial? This made Cixi feel very strange.

At Cixi's signal, a eunuch quickly brought a small silver knife, and Cixi personally used the silver knife to pick open the wax seal on the secret letter and unfolded Teng Yuzhao's secret letter.

This was the first time that Teng Yuzhao submitted a secret memorial to Cixi. In the memorial, he first apologized for abandoning the capital.

However, Cixi could see that Teng Yuzhao did not really care about not giving up his apology in the capital, it was just a gesture.

Then, it is Teng Yuzao's analysis of the current situation.

In his secret memorial, Teng Yuzhao said that the Allied Forces had occupied Beijing and Tianjin, and that the great powers had suffered heavy losses in three months of fighting with the vanguard army.

According to his preliminary statistics, the vanguard army has so far eliminated about 100,000 troops of the great powers. Now, except for the Germans who have been killed because of their envoys, and Russia and Japan who have territorial ambitions towards the Qing Dynasty and are unwilling to give up, the other five countries have already been overwhelmed.

Germany was far away from the Qing Dynasty and was also tied up with European affairs, so they were no longer able to continue to send troops.

Due to the economic constraints of Japan and Russia, the military expenses for the war with the Qing Dynasty are all borrowed from Britain, France and other countries, and they are unable to continue the war for a long time.

The reason why the Japanese insisted on fighting was that they tasted the sweetness during the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895 and thought that they would eventually bite off a piece of fat meat from the Qing Dynasty and quickly make up for the military expenses they owed because of this war by paying indemnities and ceding land.

The Russians, like the Japanese, also wanted compensation and ceded territory, but their appetite was bigger, and they would demand to seize large tracts of land in the three provinces of Kanto, Xinjiang, and Inner Mongolia. Although Britain, France, Italy, Austria, and Germany also wanted to take advantage of the opportunity to cede land from the Qing Dynasty.

However, all the great powers are greedy and each of them wants to monopolize the benefits. They will be seriously divided due to the competition for interests and may even end up undermining each other, thus leading to a situation that is favorable to the Qing Dynasty.

Even the Americans were very likely to worry that his interests in the Qing Dynasty would be seriously damaged in the future, and they would do their best to prevent the great powers from dividing up the Qing Dynasty.

For example, the British have great ambitions for the most prosperous Jiangnan and Yangtze River basins, and even for the lands including Guangdong and Tibet. The French have long coveted Guangdong, Guangxi, Yunnan and Guizhou. The Germans' ambitions will not be limited to Shandong alone. The Japanese will not stop at Taiwan either. They even covet the entire Qing Dynasty.

Therefore, the great powers would never reach an agreement on the issue of dividing the Qing Dynasty, and the European and American powers were absolutely unwilling to see Russia and Japan take away land from the Qing Dynasty again.

In the end, no one could forcibly seize the land of the Qing Dynasty, and the final outcome of the war could only be peace talks with the court. In other words, peace talks had become an inevitable development trend.

If the great powers want to negotiate peace, they now have a way out. As long as their edge can be blunted again, the foreigners will surely feel that they are powerless and will then propose peace talks.

But this requires a certain amount of time and opportunity. He will work hard to defeat the enemy, inflict pain and frighten the coalition forces, and make this day come sooner.

However, at this moment, since the imperial court has already banned the Boxer Rebellion, it should never show weakness again. It can even spread the word that it wants to move the capital to show its determination to fight to the end.

Moreover, Teng Yuzao suggested in his memorial that it would be best to communicate and discuss with the Governor-General of Huguang, Zhang Zhidong, now to make it clear that the capital should be moved to Hubei.

This move would not only make the great powers worried, but also win over Zhang Zhidong and use it to divide and disintegrate the Southeast Mutual Protection Alliance.

Teng Yuzhao also advised Cixi in his memorial that a large number of pro-war officials must not be dismissed or punished at this time, especially the top officials who advocated the war.

Otherwise, it will not only seriously affect the morale of the army in the fight against the enemy, but will also encourage the arrogance of the great powers, making the foreigners more arrogant, and in future peace talks, they will demand huge compensation.

In fact, this is extremely unfavorable for an early peace negotiation.

Cixi took Teng Yuzhao's secret memorial and read it over and over again for a long time.

In Cixi's heart, she had agreed with Teng Yuzao's opinion to a certain extent, especially his analysis of the different ideas of the great powers and his suggestion that she pretend to move the capital to show her determination to resist the enemy, which made her admire Teng Yuzao even more in her heart.

Cixi deeply agreed with Teng Yuzao's suggestions. She even thought that Teng Yuzao was more than just a famous general in ancient and modern times. She could even say that Teng Yuzao was a figure like Zhou Yu and Zhuge Liang.

However, when it comes to the pro-war faction, Cixi has her own ideas.

Although her approach to dealing with the pro-war ministers and officials was intended to show goodwill to the foreigners, there was another most important reason, which she could not say openly.

That was to clear her of any involvement in the court's support for the Boxers in killing foreigners, including the siege of the foreign embassy district, so as to prevent the foreigners from targeting her, as they claimed that they wanted her to return power to Guangxu.

She couldn't imagine what would happen to her if she returned power to Guangxu!
Just before leaving Beijing, she had Guangxu's favorite concubine Zhenfei pushed into a well and drowned her.

Guangxu must have hated her to the core. Under such circumstances, how could she return power to Guangxu?

She also deeply hated the ministers who encouraged her to believe that the Boxers were invulnerable, which gave her the courage to challenge the foreigners.

Therefore, she had to deal with these pro-war ministers, and the only one who was a little troublesome was Zai Yi.

Although Teng Yuzao did not say it explicitly, he emphasized in the secret memorial that the "prime officials who advocated war" should not be punished. This was obviously referring to Prince Duan Zai Yi. She had to take Teng Yuzao's words seriously.

After thinking for a long time, Cixi sighed softly, turned to Li Lianying and said softly, "Lianying, arrange for someone to bring a brazier."

Cixi's words not only made Li Lianying slightly stunned, but then Li Lianying did not arrange for the eunuch to go out to prepare the brazier, but walked out quickly himself.

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(End of this chapter)