C1697 The Eight Flags of Helplessness

's death was due to her being worshipped by all the officials of the, if she did not die, no one would dare to cause trouble.

That year, after the incident with Gengzi, Ci Xi declared war on the Myriad Kingdoms, causing Li Hongzhang, Zhang Zhidong, Liu Kun and the others to immediately come to the southeast to protect themselves, which also means they directly told the foreigners that we do not recognize the imperial declaration of war, if you like Beijing then go and fight Beijing, you can't beat us up anyway.

In the end, the Westerners agreed. The entire war had gone on without any interference from the allied forces of the eight nations of the southeast region. As a result, the war had been completely wiped out in the three provinces of Beijing and Jinji.

There was a record in the annals of history that when Ci Xi had escaped from Beijing, he had gone westward without being heard from for nearly a month. No one in the imperial government knew whether he was alive or dead.

At that time, the Governors who had protected themselves in the southeast had secretly linked forces, wanting to withdraw Li Hongzhang as the President and reform the Republic.

He even suggested to Zhang that Jiangnan should set up an independent state and prepare to attack the north.

Sometimes, the truth of history was hidden in the wild history, and perhaps what was recorded by the wild history was not necessarily true, but the fact that the later generations could see the wild history meant that the scholar who wrote the wild history at that time represented a large part of the people's thoughts, and that his thoughts, or made-up fantasies, were things that the people wanted to see and even longed to see.

It was precisely because of this desire in the hearts of the people that they tried their best to spread it. This was the reason why it had been passed down for hundreds of years, allowing future generations to see it.

This is a very important circumstantial contribution of wild history to history. Wild history, don't ask him to be absolutely correct. Wild history can't be absolutely correct, because even orthodox history can't do this.

However, the wild history that could be passed down for hundreds of years had not disappeared. This meant that the wild history represented the mainstream public opinion at that time. This was a very important circumstantial evidence to study the trend of the hearts of that era.

Just from the incident with the Mutual Security in the southeast, we can see that the authority of the late Qing had been scattered. Even with Ci Xi's control over the entire late Qing, he still could not gather power, let alone Tongzhi, Guang Xu and the other patients.

The more power was divided, the more severe the constraints would be! If the empire's resources could not be gathered, then of course they could not create large project that could reverse the destiny of the empire.

What was even more terrifying was that the Qing Dynasty's political system was never perfect. They were born with the ability to divide power, and the ghosts of the eight kings negotiating the government roamed in the hearts of every single flagman.

After the fall of the Emperor's authority, it would be difficult for it to be erected again! To put it bluntly, the entire group of eight flags did not wish for another Kang Xi, Yongzheng, or dryad to appear from the bottom of their hearts.

How dangerous and depressing it would be to have such a powerful monarch! If you want to cut off my head, I will chop off your head. If you want to cut off my head, I will chop off my head.

To follow such a master, even one had to be careful of corruption. It was better to follow a cowardly and useless emperor. If everyone was corrupt, even the imperial kitchens would covet the emperor's money. If the emperor knew about this, he wouldn't be able to do anything about it.

That was why the revival of the Tongzhi Emperor would definitely enrage all the other Eight Flags!

The bad to root group of eight flags naturally oppose the centralization, this has already become a 'crab bucket effect' What is a crab bucket effect?

Even the crab catcher at the seaside would take a bucket without a lid and throw a crab inside without even putting the lid back on the crab.

Is it because the edge of the crab bucket is very smooth? In fact, that's not the case. Crab barrels are very common and any crab can easily climb up there. However, don't forget that a tyrannical person like Crab doesn't know how to show courtesy.

Half a bucket of crabs fought each other to get out, one going up, the other dragging his feet up, then the third going up, and finally all falling to the bottom of the bucket.

Just like this, they held each other back, entangled each other, and messed with each other. As a result, the crabs didn't need to be covered or watched by anyone. Half a bucket of crabs was basically unable to escape.

This was the Crab Bucket Effect, and late Qing's officials were actually like this. The Eight Banners and Chinese Officer s were like crabs, staring at each other as if they were black-eyed chickens.

Just look at the thirty thousand new army in Xishan Camp, who would be in command? In fact, he couldn't give it to anyone … Was Yi Xuan willing to give it to him? Was he happy to give Yi Cong a gift? Everyone was thinking the same thing. Everyone was extremely wary of outsiders.

This was because there was this kind of gene in the Eight Flag Military groups, and they were very clear who was the boss of the weapon, and this was also their ancestor.

You are on guard against me, I am afraid of you, all the court officials are scared of you, the result is a strange phenomenon, the Great Qing, which occupies more than ten million square kilometers, the final military power depends on the North Sea of the Chinese to keep up appearances.

In the end, there was only one important factor behind Tongzhi's absence: All the Eight Flags hoped to have a strong army, but they did not want anyone else to have such a strong army. They all hoped to own such a strong army.

The more people thought about it, the greater the suspicion between them. The more people suspected, the more restrictions they would have. In the end, everyone thought about it, but no one could do anything about it.

It could be seen that the roots of the destruction of the late Qing had long since been planted in the early stages of the founding of the Empire.

If he could figure this out, then he would be able to figure out the historical failures of the Metropolitan War. All applications to add battleships, rapid-fire guns, and ammunition had been rejected before noon. Even the North American navy burned the most garbage coal, while the Japanese navy burned only high-energy white coal and anthracite.

This was definitely not something that could be explained with a single sentence. The main reason was because of the balance created by the internal affairs of the imperial court.

You, Li Hongzhang, have already spent tens of millions of silver, are you still not satisfied? He even needed to add more cannons? Do you want to rebel? If he bought one less battleship, the rest of the imperial court would be able to give him several million silver taels.

The late Qing was such a conflicted society. On one hand, they desperately wanted to have a strong navy, because they were scared of the foreigners and had to have some power to protect themselves.

On the other hand, they naturally did not believe that these daoyin generals who carried such heavy soldiers, not to mention you Chinese, even the Manchu himself, as a general, was extremely afraid.

Actually, according to Guang Xu's first year of Qing Nation's power, as long as Qing Dynasty put down their grudges, they could exert their power together! It was almost like a game to create a pure western strong army of around a hundred thousand people.

How much could one hundred thousand pure western troops cost? This amount of money was like a drizzle to the over ten million square kilometers of the Qing Empire. They did not even need the food from Jiangnan to raise enough money from Shanxi, Shandong, and Zhitong provinces.

Just look at the warlords' chaotic battles in the later generations of the Republic of China. A warlord of the province could pull out hundreds of thousands of Western-style soldiers. Yan Xishan, the famous Shanxi king, had started his career in Shanxi Province. At its peak, he had 400,000 soldiers, and at its lowest, he had 100,000 soldiers.

Even Yan Xishan, with his backing from a province, could pull out such a strong army, let alone the Qing Dynasty who was in charge of the entire country. This was enough to prove that it was not that the Qing Dynasty was without reforms, it was just that they did not want to change from the start.