Sky Curtain: My Great Qin must have an aircraft carrier!

On the sky, a map slowly unfolded, marking the territory of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom.

At first, Emperor Qianlong just watched the spectacle, but the more he watched, the more uneasy he felt.

The direction of these mountains and rivers, the markings of these prefectures, clearly indicate the territory of the Qing Dynasty!

"Traitorous wretch! How dare you seize my territory and usurp the title of king!"

Emperor Qianlong gripped the edge of his desk and roared at the sky.

The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom actually originated in the Qing Dynasty!

With such a powerful bandit causing trouble internally and foreigners with their powerful ships and cannons externally, what could the Qing Dynasty use to resist?

This is tantamount to cutting off the lifeline of the Qing Dynasty, and it will destroy the Qing Dynasty's empire!

"Heshen, you shall set off immediately to conduct a secret investigation in the Guangdong and Guangxi regions!" Emperor Qianlong shouted sternly.

"Find out this Hong Xiuquan and his entire clan, and have them all executed by slow slicing!"

-

The repeated failures to pass the exams caused Hong Xiuquan's mentality to completely collapse.

He fell seriously ill and had a high fever that lasted for several days.

It was during this serious illness that Hong Xiuquan dreamed of an old man with golden hair and blue eyes, wearing a white robe, who gave him a demon-slaying sword and ordered him to descend to the mortal world to sweep away the demons.

After recovering from his illness, Hong Xiuquan was still preoccupied with this strange dream.

Coincidentally, he happened to obtain a pamphlet titled "Words of Advice to the World" distributed by Christian missionaries on the streets of Guangzhou.

He forcibly stitched together his dreams with the contents of the book, arriving at a shocking theory:

That blond, blue-eyed old man is God, Jesus is God's eldest son, and Hong Xiuquan is God's second son!

He came to earth at the behest of the Heavenly Father to save the suffering people.

When Confucian scholars from all dynasties saw this, they were so angry that they blew their beards and glared at it.

"The Supreme God of Heaven is the highest deity of our Chinese nation; how can we allow the gods of barbarians to steal his name!"

"This Hong Xiuquan has forgotten his ancestors and recognized a thief as his father! He is an insult to civilization and a disgrace to the teachings of sages!"

"What a waste of their education! Failing to pass the imperial examinations, they resort to these fallacies and heresies—a disgrace to scholars!"

Many elderly scholars beat their chests in frustration, feeling an unprecedented offense.

They treat foreign evil gods as their own fathers and even falsely claim to be the sons of the Heavenly Father.

Such treasonous words are an insult to the teachings of Confucius and Mencius.

Hong Xiuquan began preaching in the Guangdong and Guangxi regions, telling everyone he met that he was the son of God, descended to earth to slay demons and monsters.

Hong Xiuquan combined folk beliefs with rudiments of Christianity to create the God Worshipping Society, and proclaimed himself the Heavenly King of Taiping.

Although this theory is crude, it is extremely effective.

During the late Qing Dynasty, land annexation was rampant, and exorbitant taxes and levies were as numerous as hairs on a cow, which the people could no longer tolerate.

Hong Xiuquan told them that as long as they believed in the God Worshipping Society, all the wealth in the world would be divided equally among them.

This slogan, which directly addresses the pain points of survival, is more effective than any sacred text, and it quickly gained tens of thousands of followers.

After several years of covert development, Hong Xiuquan had accumulated enough power.

In 1851, he officially declared an uprising in Jintian Village, Guangxi, establishing the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom and proclaiming himself the Heavenly King.

The rebels grew their hair long and changed their clothes, and under the banner of "all under heaven are one family, sharing peace," they won the hearts of the people.

The Taiping army advanced with unstoppable momentum, routing the Qing army and ultimately capturing Nanjing, thus formally dividing the country along the Yangtze River with the Qing dynasty.

On the sky, Taiping soldiers with long hair brandished broadswords, cutting down Qing soldiers who fled in panic.

On the towering city walls of Nanjing, the Qing Dynasty's dragon flag was cut down and replaced with the flag of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom.

"Useless! They're all useless!"

"These Han Chinese have never been peaceful to begin with!"

"They used to be involved in the White Lotus Religion, but now they've abandoned their ancestors and are believing in the heresies of foreigners!"

Emperor Qianlong grabbed the enamel porcelain bowl from the table and smashed it hard on the ground.

The ministers and guards in the palace were so frightened that they knelt on the ground, not daring to utter a sound.

After the anger subsided, an even more terrifying thought arose in Qianlong's mind.

Throughout history, every peasant rebellion in every dynasty was driven by the desire to survive.

But how could Hong Xiuquan bewitch tens of thousands, or even hundreds of thousands, of people to follow him and risk their lives?

Emperor Qianlong styled himself as the "Perfect Old Man," and during his reign, he exempted the nation from taxes five times and reduced taxes and grain rations for the entire country on numerous occasions.

They repaired the Yellow River irrigation system, allocated funds for disaster relief, and stabilized grain prices in various regions.

Logically speaking, the people of the Qing Dynasty should have been grateful and lived in peace and prosperity.

How come when it came to Tianmukou, it became "severe land annexation and countless exorbitant taxes"?

The more Emperor Qianlong thought about it, the colder he felt. He coldly demanded, "Heshen, I ask you, have the taxes I decreed to be exempted actually been exempted for the people?"

Heshen swallowed hard and forced a reply: "Your Majesty, this servant has examined the memorials of the governors and viceroys of various regions, and they all say that the people are deeply grateful for Your Majesty's benevolence..."

"Nonsense!" Emperor Qianlong roared in anger, grabbing a memorial and slamming it into Heshen's face.

The sharp corner of the folding tablet struck his brow bone, causing it to bleed immediately.

"If the people are grateful for Heaven's grace, why would they rebel? Does Heaven's grace command them to rebel?"

"Has my benevolent rule only nurtured such a group of rebels?"

Heshen was so dizzy from being hit that blood flowed down his eyebrow.

He dared not reach out to wipe it, and kowtowed repeatedly: "This servant deserves to die, this servant will immediately conduct a thorough investigation of the officials in Guangdong and Guangxi..."

"check?"

Emperor Qianlong sneered and sat back down on the dragon throne, his anger growing.

Based on that timeline, the Qing Dynasty only had fifty or sixty years left before it faced collapse.

This thought struck like a bolt from the blue, leaving Emperor Qianlong stunned and disoriented.

"Your Majesty, please calm your anger!"

A censor stepped forward, trembling, and kowtowed, saying, "It is all our fault for failing to supervise properly; we deserve to die. Please punish us, Your Majesty!"

"Alright, stop with that act."

Emperor Qianlong stopped him, his voice cold and hard, "If I were to punish anyone, none of you here would escape."

"They dare to deceive everyone from top to bottom; this is systemic corruption, a collusion between superiors and subordinates!"

The officials in the hall were all pale-faced, and no one dared to utter a sound.

Emperor Qianlong closed his eyes, his mind racing as he considered his next move.

A moment later, he gritted his teeth and shouted, "A-Gui!"

Veteran general A-Gui stepped forward: "Your old minister is here!"

"I order you to immediately assemble a team of capable personnel to thoroughly investigate all officials who have paid bribes as punishment!"

Emperor Qianlong gritted his teeth, his eyes flashing with murderous intent. "Find out one, kill one. Show no leniency!"

"Your subject obeys!" Agui answered loudly.

Qianlong's gaze then turned to Heshen, who was cowering in fear.

"Heshen, I hereby order you to allocate three million taels of silver from the profits of the ocean trading company and use it in my personal name to build bridges and roads and provide porridge and disaster relief in the Huguang region."

Heshen's heart bled, but he dared not hesitate for a moment: "This servant obeys the decree!"

"Again!"

Emperor Qianlong stood up and looked down at everyone. "Issue an order to the Ministry of War to increase the number of Green Standard Army soldiers in the Guangdong and Guangxi regions immediately and to train them rigorously."

"Strictly investigate all cults across the country; anyone who gathers people to preach their religion will be treated as committing treason!"

"Especially those missionaries from the West, keep a close eye on them."

After implementing a series of ruthless measures, the ministers were all terrified.

The Emperor is truly determined to kill, and is about to unleash a bloodbath within the Qing Dynasty.

The group obeyed and scrambled out of the Hall of Mental Cultivation.

Emperor Qianlong walked to the palace gate and looked at the glazed tiles shimmering in the setting sun.

This palace is so magnificent, so grand.

But when Qianlong stood here, he felt a deep sense of powerlessness.

The Qing Dynasty was like a ship riddled with holes, and he was the boatman desperately trying to bail water.

No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't stop the large ship from slowly sinking.

Emperor Qianlong believed he had done a good enough job, even better than his father and grandfather.

But why is this happening? Where exactly is the root of the problem?

"The Republic of China...The New China..."

Emperor Qianlong kept repeating the two names that had appeared on the sky.

Was that the dynasty that overthrew the Qing Dynasty?

How did they govern the world?

……

"Wow, using a religious uprising, Hong Xiuquan was quite the genius!"

"If we follow his theory, wouldn't the Western Vatican have to address the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom as 'uncle'?"

Lu Li rolled over and couldn't help but laugh out loud.

If this were in a game, it would be an absolutely god-tier start.

But after laughing, Lu Li felt a sense of doubt.

"The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom possessed the wealthy lands of Jiangnan and its theories were more advanced than those of the Qing Dynasty, so why did it ultimately lose?"

"Where exactly did things go wrong?"