It was already New Year's Day, and the snow in Beijing had stopped, and the inside and outside were covered with white snow. For the people of Beijing, the second year of Tongzhi seemed to be a good weather symbolizing the year's weather. In the Fengsan Wuyi Hall of the Old Summer Palace, the Qing royal family members were enjoying the New Year's Day banquet, but it was a bleak cloud...

A que banquet is a small banquet, similar to the "spoon banquet" commonly mentioned today. The dishes are relatively simple and the actions are relatively casual. The banquets are held on New Year's Day and the fifteenth day of the first lunar month every year, and are mostly held in the Ganqing Palace in the Forbidden City and the Fengsan Wuyi Hall in the Old Summer Palace. More than ten days ago, the mother Empress Dowager Ci'an moved out of the Forbidden City on the grounds of recuperation and prepared to live in the Old Summer Palace for a long time. Therefore, Xingzhen had to accommodate Ci'an and arranged all activities on New Year's Day in the Old Summer Palace.

The participants of the Qu Banquet were all members of the royal family, namely the princes, grandsons, etc. who were "selected" by the emperor, and the kings, dukes, and belles from the nearby branches. The "gong" here refers to the elders in the royal family. The dishes are placed on high chairs, one for each two people, and after the ceremony is performed according to customs, they write poems and drinks to celebrate the festival. In addition to the Qu Banquet, there are also court officials who invite the main ministers and banquets to foreign vassals.

In addition to a series of activities such as banquets, sacrifices, ancestor worship, burning incense, trampling on the New Year, and staying at the New Year are naturally inevitable. However, the Taiping Army in the south did not seem to care about New Year's Day, and still launched their so-called winter offensive. The Qing army suffered consecutive defeats, which put a shadow on the New Year's Day celebrations.

The entire province of Guangxi was completely lost more than 20 days ago. Since the elite Qing army in Guangxi was completely destroyed in the battles of Guilin and Liuzhou, the remaining Qing army in Guangxi did not make much resistance. They either surrendered or surrendered to the Taiping Army, and when Peng Yulin asked for an order to take the remnants of Guangxi into the Yunnan management, he only responded from the Baise Department to less than 10,000 Qing troops, and the entire 110,000 Qing troops in Guangxi were almost completely wiped out.

The Qing army in Guangxi did not slow down Chen Yucheng. Instead, the Tiandihui Rebel Army, which was entrenched in Yulin Prefecture, caused some trouble to the Taiping Army. The reason was very simple. Zhu Hongying did not agree to hand over the department to accept reorganization. He proposed that the conditions for surrendering to the Taiping Army were very simple, which was to maintain the independence and integrity of his own army. This was naturally untolerable by the Western King, so the Taiping Army had to spend a week dealing with Zhu Hongying's troops.

Zhu Hongying, who held 30,000 troops, thought he had some strength to talk to the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom about conditions. Within a week after the Taiping Army's ultimatum, his 30,000 troops were devastatingly attacked by the Taiping Army. Within another Guangxi rebel army, He Goujian took action very quickly. He Goujian and Zhu Hongying broke up and fought against the Qing army for several years in Guangxi. Naturally, he knew him well. Even many generals under Zhu Hongying were old acquaintances of He Goujian, so they took a two-pronged approach to military strikes and win over and divide. In the end, Zhu Hongying was betrayed by his subordinates and killed him. All the rest of his troops surrendered to the Taiping Army.

Peng Yulin took over a difficult mess. Du Wenxiu, who was rebelling against the Qing Dynasty, officially issued an edict to the world, accepted the command of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, was appointed as the Secretary for Military Affairs of Yunnan, and was granted the title of Marquis of Pingnan. Du Wenxiu launched 100,000 troops from Dali to attack eastward, with the target of Kunming, the capital of Yunnan Province. After Chen Yucheng captured Guangxi, he received support from the newly formed Fifth Army, so he ordered the First Army to station in Guangxi to rest, and the Fifth Army quickly advanced westward. In response to Du Wenxiu's offensive, he prepared to give Kunming something to attack.

The battle situation in northern Jiangsu and Huainan was also in a state of turmoil. Here, the Taiping Army did not seem to care about the gains and losses of each city and a place, but they also care about the vitality of annihilation of the Qing army. After Lin Fengxiang lies in dormant for many years, he fought a big battle in Suzhou.

At the beginning of the Suzhou Battle, Lin Fengxiang surrounded Suzhou with the troops of the First Army and one division. There were only more than 10,000 Qing troops in the city, so naturally he did not dare to go out of the city to fight the Taiping Army. After asking for help, a large number of Qing troops from Xuzhou, Yingzhou, Haozhou, Henan and Hebei came to the rescue. In addition, the troops trained in various places, there were almost 80,000 Qing troops gathered in Suzhou, including the 10,000 elite new army of the Qing army in Cheng'en's army.

The battle lasted for more than two months, from the end of September to the end of the year, Lin Fengxiang used his troops to be invincible, and always saw that the weak parts of the Qing army concentrated their superior forces to encircle and annihilate. The Second Army continued to move in Suzhou, Mengcheng, Huaibei and other places, annihilated several groups of Qing troops to aid the Qing army during the movement, and finally caused various Qing troops to gather and dare not advance. Finally, he turned around and fought a decisive battle with the elite Qing army of Cheng'en who arrived in Suzhou. After one battle, the Qing army still adopted the old platoon array, but naturally it was defeated by the Taiping Army, which had more flexible tactics, more variable weapon range and accuracy. Finally, three cavalry regiments of the Taiping Army attacked and destroyed the Qing army in Suzhou in one fell swoop.

In the battle of Suzhou, the Qing army in Huai Shang, northern Jiangsu, and Henan suffered great damage to its vitality. Senggelinqin sent 30,000 Mongolian cavalry south to barely stabilize the front. After Suzhou was conquered, Lin Fengxiang set a wedge on the Qing army's Xuzhou defense line, which made the Qing army extremely uncomfortable.

If the failure of the front-line war was just a morale blow, and opening the ban outside the pass and discussing peace with foreigners was a pain for the Qing royal family. The fertile field outside the pass was a thousand miles away, and it was almost over the end of the Little Ice Age. Although the climate sometimes recurs, it was no longer the harsh appearance of the late Ming and early Qing dynasties. The climate outside the pass also stabilized and began to be suitable for farming.

The royal family and other nobles of the Qing Dynasty had more or less divided lands outside the pass. Although the court's order was to summon domestic slaves or refugees to go out to pass the pass and reclaim, after the results were achieved, these people could be raised to the banner, and the court also borrowed a lot of silver from the eight masters of Shanxi merchants for the reclaim, and they only used grains to repay the loan in installments after harvesting. In addition, the eight masters of Shanxi merchants could directly send people outside the pass to collect grain.

Xingzhen's method is indeed very beneficial, but she ignored the stubbornness of the conservative thoughts of the Qing Dynasty. Since the political decree was issued, Cian's royal family elders went to cry every day. After all, the reclaim fee was returned to the court. Once the reclaim was not smooth or the income was lost, or because it was too far outside the pass, the clan elders were not cared about and were greedy for food by the slaves. They were afraid of taking responsibility, and even more afraid that once the slaves stood up outside the pass and returned to the pass after the population was reproductive, they still didn't know who had the final say that land. As for Feng Shui, dragon veins, alarming the ancestral tombs and other excuses, there were countless. Cian actually wanted to hide when moving to the Old Summer Palace.

The foreigners discussed peace talks by the Japanese 6th office. Since Yi? became the head of the Military Affairs Minister, he has been the first prince and minister in the court. He has launched a large-scale Westernization Affairs, and the royal family called him a fake foreigner, referred to as the Japanese 6th for short. It would be fine to establish peace talks with the foreigners, and they were preparing to agree to open the port in the north as a trading port, but it touched the pain of the conservative forces in the north. Therefore, accusations, abuses, stolen the country and other slanders, which were noisy and endless.

It is strange that there are not a thousand or eight hundred memorials to impeach Prince Gong, but in the end they were as silent as a rock sinking into the sea. After exploring the news, the ministers learned that they were all kept by the person in the west. Only then did everyone wake up slowly. It turns out that Prince Gong was the person in the west who was supporting him, so everyone began to slowly aim at the person in the west. Unfortunately, the generals in the west who were supported by Zeng Gelinqin and other military power, and the King Party, Guiliang, Weng Tonghe, Shen Zhaolin and others in the inner support. Even the new military weapon camp in the capital, the infantry commander's yamen, Fengtai, Ruijian and other soldiers were controlled by this person. Ci'an was not very responsible, so no one could compete with him in the palace, so he was as powerless as a shaking tree.

But people have a mouth and five-pointed mind, but they can be satisfied if they can't fight. So the uncle and sister-in-law control the government, the hens are common rumors, and the uncle sleeps his sister-in-law and other vicious words that are often heard.

Xingzhen naturally could not remain indifferent to these ghost tricks. The guards in Shangyu's spare parts investigated everywhere. Once they found out that the spread and spread rumors, they were imprisoned in prison without any mercy. But the result was not very good, and the rumors were not banned. Instead, the person in the west had extra charges, and they were convicted of the words.

After learning about it, Xingzhen couldn't help but sneer. When wasn't the Qing Dynasty guilty of words? There were fewer literary inquisitions? But she took it a step further this time, and it was not enough to say it! But she also understood that these rumors were repeatedly banned. Behind them was the masterpiece of the conservatives among the royal family. Although the guards in Shang Yu's spare parts could catch people, they did not dare to touch the nobles. The so-called one-touching movement of the whole body is not the time to touch them. So Xingzhen temporarily endured this tone. Apart from talking and slandering, the royal family did not do anything more outrageously. Both sides were waiting for their opponents to make mistakes.

This banquet was held in this situation. Although the banquet maintained the joy on the surface, it was undercurrents behind the scenes. With the contribution of the peace talks between Dagukou and the foreign fleet retreating south, Prince Gong Yi was the most proud figure at the banquet. He raised his glass and toasted everywhere frequently, which was very popular.

Zailing, Yixiang and others were naturally resentful. Zailing was sitting next to Zailing. Prince Hui Mianyu. Seeing Yi's proud look, Zailing couldn't help but say, "Uncle, look at the pride of the Japanese Six. If the one in the west had not supported him, and if the former emperor Daoguang were not supported, this kid would have been encircled by the lower sect's mansion."

Mianyu was very experienced and said lightly without comment: "But now the crisis is not comparable to the previous episode?"

Zailing was choked and said unwillingly: "Look at the man in the west is also full of spring breeze. He is still dating to the Japanese on this table, and the people spread their scandals."

Mianyou's eyes chilled and she said lightly: "You and I are ministers like King Gong, please pay attention to your own words! How can you believe all the rumors in the market?"

Zai Ling laughed dryly, and Yi Xiang came over at the next table and said, "You don't know. The people who spread the word "has a good reputation, you don't know yet. If you continue like this, I see, the court has the final say to the men and women."

Mian Yu was the one who was exempted from the ceremony of the Xianfeng Qin from kneeling and worshipping. He was extremely loyal to the royal family and said coldly: "I think that the person who entrusted the heavy responsibilities by the late emperor will not be mistaken. Are you two drunk? Go back and rest earlier!" The two of them were bored and dared not say anything else. (To be continued...)
Chapter completed!