Chapter 27: The Tower Will Fall (Part 1)

  The snow had just cleared, but the clear sky was only fleeting. The thick dark clouds quickly gathered again in the sky, and a bigger blizzard seemed to be coming.

  This is the city of Beijing, the capital of the Qing dynasty. If we count from the Ming dynasty, this city has experienced nearly five hundred years of wind and snow. The city remains unchanged, but the dynasty has changed twice. The Ming dynasty has long since disappeared into the river of history, and the current Manchu Qing dynasty is also trembling in the wind and snow. The foundation of its rule has been hollowed out by internal and external troubles, and the trend of collapse is already unstoppable.

  The snow on the street wasn't thick, but it was bitterly cold. There were hardly any pedestrians on the street, only a few vendors sitting at the wonton stall on the side of the road, huddled together with their sleeves wrapped around them, leaning against the warm earthen stove, chatting idly with the boss who also had no business to attend to, passing the time in this unbearable winter.

  A sedan chair wrapped in white silk turned from the street corner, and the sedan bearers were also dressed in plain white, with steady footsteps, ignoring the crowd of common people shrinking on the side of the street, swaggering onto the imperial street, "hanging" towards the direction of the Forbidden City.

  "Is that the sedan chair of a high-ranking official?" A newly arrived laborer in the capital city sniffled and asked the wonton stall owner.

  "High-ranking official? Don't be ridiculous! Haven't you seen the goose feathers on the hats of the guards beside the sedan chair? Those used to have peacock feathers, but they were removed after the Emperor's death." The wonton stall owner muttered under his breath. "The one sitting in that sedan chair is none other than a prince of our Great Qing Empire!"

  "Which prince? I've heard there are more princes in the capital than there are turtles in the Yongding River."

  "That's not clear at all. It's strange, when the prince goes out on patrol, why doesn't he bring his retinue? ... Hey, kid, 'the turtle in the Yongding River' refers to officials, you can't call the prince that. Besides, there aren't many princes in this capital city, but there are plenty of iron-fisted Beile, Beizi, and Fuguo generals - if you throw a brick, you'll hit a few."

  ……

  The common people guessed correctly, the person sitting in that sedan chair was indeed a prince of the Qing Dynasty, Prince Gong of the First Rank Yūwěi, who inherited the title of the famous "Ghost Sixth" Old Prince Gong Yi during the Tongzhi and Guangxu periods. According to his generation, he is the nephew of Emperor Guangxu and the elder brother of the new emperor Xuantong, with a prominent position in today's imperial court, and ambitious or vigorous aspirations.

  "Hurry! Hurry! How can this be? You're even slower than a woman with bound feet!" Little Gong Wang sat in the sedan chair, stamping his foot to urge the bearers to speed up, while the hand holding the telegram copy shook uncontrollably, and his face was also changing rapidly.

  That telegram draft was a circular telegram, also known as "circular telegraph". This term was invented by foreigners and refers to the most convenient way of making one's views public through telegrams. It is usually sent in plain code without specifying the receiving location, so every telegraph office that receives it can make its contents public, and the whole world will know what it means. Of course, not everyone can afford this new toy, because since the receiving office is not specified, several telegraph offices on the line may receive the telegram, and one has to pay for several copies of the telegram, which costs hundreds or even tens of thousands of dollars for a single circular telegram. It's not something that ordinary people can afford, and even foreigners rarely use this means of communication, because their newspapers are well-developed, and it's more convenient to publish an advertisement than to send a circular telegram.

  The telegram in Yu Wei's hand was not sent by foreigners, but by Chinese people. The place of dispatch is Jiujiang City, and the sender's name is "Zhao Bei", a notorious rebel leader. The content of the telegram is not complicated, but the information inside makes one's hair stand on end, because it is a declaration of rebellion. Just last night, Jiujiang City was no longer under the rule of the Qing Dynasty. Moreover, what is even more astonishing in the telegram is that those rebels actually elected Yuan Shikai, a high-ranking official of the imperial court, as their leader to replace the Qing Dynasty's rule over China and become the "President of the Republic of China".

  What is meant by "troublesome autumn"? This is it! Some time ago, the new army in Anqing rioted and occupied the provincial capital. The imperial court was busy dispatching troops and warships to put out this small spark of revolution, but unexpectedly, the rebels in Jiujiang raised their flags again and rebelled. Judging from various signs, the rebel forces that occupied Jiujiang city were actually the new army units that had been conducting autumn maneuvers at Taihu! When news of this change first broke, not only was the imperial court shocked, but even foreigners were greatly surprised.

  In the past, people's minds were at peace, but now they are in a state of turmoil. The current Qing dynasty is plagued by internal and external troubles, with the people struggling to survive. Anyone who isn't an idiot knows that this Qing dynasty is doomed, but no one expected it to collapse so quickly.

  It's said that Pu Wei shouldn't have gone out on such a cold day, but just now, an official from the Imperial Household Department and a eunuch rushed over to deliver an imperial edict, announcing that Prince Gong would be receiving an audience. After inquiring, it was learned that Jiujiang had fallen into the hands of the revolutionary party, and the rebel army's telegram had spread throughout the country and even around the world. The court was panicked and could only summon him, gathering princes and high-ranking officials to discuss politics. Pu Wei didn't dare to be slow, hastily got into his sedan chair, without even bringing his ceremonial guards, and rushed to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to copy a telegram draft, then galloped off to the Forbidden City for an audience.

  The sedan chair stopped outside the Daqing Gate, and a two-person shoulder sedan was already waiting in front of the gate. A fourth-rank eunuch leading the way saw the sedan approaching and hastily led the junior eunuchs to carry the shoulder sedan forward.

  "The slave pays his respects to His Majesty!" The eunuchs knelt down and knocked their heads.

  "Alright! Let's go into the palace then." Xiao Gong Wang didn't waste any words, and directly got onto the sedan chair, carried by those eunuchs, entering from the Daqing Gate, passing through several layers of heavy palace gates, heading straight for the inner palace.

  Just like outside the palace, inside the Forbidden City was also a vast expanse of white, with snow covering the ground and white silk hanging from the eaves of the palaces. The two emperors had yet to be buried, and their coffins were still in the temple where they lay in state. The atmosphere in the palace became even more gloomy and frightening, and the eunuchs and palace maids wore heavy mourning clothes, walking with their heads hung lower than usual. The air inside the palace was suffocatingly oppressive.

  The sedan chair stopped in front of the Yangxin Hall, and the eunuch who led the way shouted outside in a shrill voice: "Prince Gong is here to pay his respects by imperial order!"

  Xiao Gong Wang knelt on the steps in front of the hall, cleared his throat and shouted: "Your humble servant Pu Wei, paying respects to Your Majesty!"

  "We're all family here, no need for formalities, come on in." A woman's voice came from the Nurturing Heart Palace.

  Yu Wei stood up, and a eunuch guarding the door lifted the curtain and shouted: "The Empress Dowager's edict, announcing the arrival of Prince Gong to pay his respects!"

  The east warm pavilion of the Nurturing Heart Palace was already filled with people kneeling, all of whom were high-ranking officials of the imperial court wearing court attire and hats, with the feathers on their hats removed and wrapped in white cloth. Everyone was dressed in heavy mourning attire. By the window, a middle-aged Manchu noblewoman sat upright on the kang, wearing a cotton-padded banner robe, her "two braids" also having had the ornaments removed, holding a three-year-old child in her arms, who was also dressed in heavy mourning clothes, with a pair of curious eyes sizing up the old men and uncles kneeling in the room.

  That child is none other than the current Emperor of the Great Qing Empire, Xuantong. The noblewoman holding him is the Empress Dowager Longyu, the widow of the late Guangxu Emperor and the niece of Empress Dowager Cixi.

  Yu Wei walked up to the kang, rolled up his sleeves, and knelt down behind Prince Regent Zaifeng, knocking his head on the ground and saying: "Your humble servant..."

  "Enough!" Empress Dowager Longyu sighed. "The national situation is not good, and these empty rituals are of no use. Since everyone is here, let's discuss it. The British ambassador just sent a telegram saying that the British consul in Jiujiang has confirmed the news, the Taiping Autumn Exercise New Army has rebelled, Duanfang and Yin Chang have been beheaded by the rebels, and now the rebels have occupied Jiujiang City, shouting to attack Jiangning and Guangdong. The governor of Jiangxi sent an urgent report saying that the provincial capital is empty, with only a few thousand tired soldiers, and the rebels will come down to plunder at any time, Nanjing cannot be defended, and once Nanjing falls, the rebels can go to attack Guangdong. A few days ago, the disturbance in Anqing had just subsided, now Jiangxi is about to erupt again, what should the court do? Tie Liang, you are the Minister of the Army Department, in charge of the soldiers and horses of the whole country, you speak first! Which province's new army can be relied on?"

  "This is all my fault... I am incompetent and have failed the imperial court!" Tieliang was speechless for half a day, and could only kowtow. But this couldn't be entirely blamed on him - before being summoned, he had been busy dispatching troops to Anhui to suppress the rebellion of Xiong Chengji. However, just as the vanguard of the Yi Army had set out, news arrived that the Nine Provinces had changed their allegiance, and with the various uprisings and Hui Party activities across the country, the Qing Empire was now ablaze on all sides. Not even the great ministers of the "Tongzhi Restoration" could have maintained calm in this situation, let alone Tieliang. No one knew better than Tieliang what the current state of the military was - if those local defense troops were truly reliable, why would the imperial court have spent so much money training new armies? Which branch of the new army was trustworthy? This question was indeed difficult to answer. According to secret reports, members of the Tongmenghui were active in the new armies of various provinces, but due to lax discipline and close surveillance by the imperial court, they had not dared to make a move... yet. Now that the new armies of Anhui, Hubei, and Jiangsu had rebelled, would the rebels in other provinces' new armies not take advantage of the situation? And what about the brotherhoods in the local defense battalions - did they have no ulterior motives?"

  The current situation is probably not something that the imperial court can handle on its own.