scourge the qing dynasty

Chapter 197 Armistice Negotiations
At noon on September 11, 29th year of Kang Mazi in the Qing Dynasty, on Baishazhou, five miles southwest of Wuchang, in a temporary marching tent, next to an ordinary hardwood square table, the Wu army and the Qing army attracted much attention. Armistice negotiations officially started for the first time.The participants of the meeting are as follows: the chief negotiator of the Wu side is Hu Guozhu, the chief secretary of the Pingxi Palace and the left general of Jinwu, and the left and right deputies are Lu Yifeng and Zhongshu Shifang Xueshi respectively; the chief negotiator of the Qing army is the four assistant governments The last of the ministers - Kang Mazi, the last grand master of the dynasty, Ye Bilong, and the two deputies are Zheerken, the Minister of Rites, and Fu Dali, the head of the Imperial Academy.

This is a negotiation that is destined to be full of hostility, disputes, bargaining, and gunpowder. Even before the negotiation officially started, Wu Jun’s representative and Mi Qing’s representative launched a psychological contest. I am also the plenipotentiary representative of the Qing emperor to participate in the negotiations, so I asked my seat to sit north and south, taking the meaning of respect from the south, which made Wu Jun's representative fall into the psychological disadvantage of being a vassal from the north.

It's a pity that among Ye Bilong's opponents, Lu Yifeng, who is the most difficult, cunning, and best at psychological tactics, although Fatty Lu doesn't understand ancient geomantic omen, he has also heard that representatives of the Volunteer Army and the U.S. Army during negotiations in Panmunjom in history There was a fierce battle over who would sit in the north and who would face the south, so Fatty Lu immediately pointed out that the Qing army had lost consecutive battles and lost consecutively. They should be at a disadvantage if they sit south and face north. .

Faced with Fatty Lu's questioning, Ye Bilong immediately argued that what Wu Jun defeated was only Oboi, not the Qing court, and Wu Jun was negotiating with Kang Mazi, the Qing emperor, as a courtier this time, so he should sit on the south side !Fatty Lu immediately retorted, saying that this negotiation was a fair and just armistice negotiation, not a tribute from the Pingxi Palace. The title was not deprived, so Wu Jun's defeat of Obai was equivalent to defeating the Qing court!So, Wu Jun representatives are qualified and must go from north to south to win!
The two sides insisted on their own words and refused to give in to each other. They fought with each other for nearly an hour, and the quarrel was so blushing that neither party was willing to make principled concessions. In the end, Ye Bilong became angry and demanded to end the negotiations immediately until the two sides sent representatives to each other to reach an agreement. The seat direction will be re-negotiated!Fatty Lu did not show any weakness, and immediately agreed to Ye Bilong's request to suspend the negotiation, and threatened: "Yi Zhongtang, of course you can suspend the negotiation, this is your freedom! The necessary expenses, as well as the expenses of the Yunnan-Guizhou generals and soldiers who guard them, must be borne by your army! From today onwards, 5000 taels of silver will be tattooed every day. After the negotiation is reached, your army must compensate our army for this expense, otherwise, we will The army has the right to refuse to release these prisoners!"

"5000 taels of silver a day? Go and grab it!" Ye Bilong furiously said, "How much do we have captured Prince Baylor? How much food do you eat in one day? The grain bought by 5000 taels of silver can put their prison cells Is it buried?"

"Yi Zhongtang seems to have forgotten that thanks to your economic blockade, the price of food in Yunnan and Guizhou has skyrocketed." Fatty Lu replied coldly: "The senior prisoners of your army have fish and meat every day, and the people of Yunnan and Guizhou even eat food. I can’t afford to support so many princes Baylor and more than 2 bannerman lords. After calculating the various expenses, the price of 5000 taels of silver per day has already been discounted [-]% by the humble officials.”

"Of course, if Ye Zhongtang thinks the price of 5000 taels a day is too expensive and wants to lower it a bit, that's fine." Fatty Lu added with a sneer, "Please ask Ye Zhongtang for a price, even if you only pay one tael a day. Okay, we will use this tael of silver to pay for the freight of the common people and the wages of the cooks, and then we will buy firewood, rice, oil, salt, soy sauce, vinegar and tea. Please invite King Kang, Prince Shun, 46 Baylor shellfish and more than 200 noble generals above the leader, and please be The more than 2 captured bannermen and soldiers will enjoy it, and we will tell them truthfully that it is not we who deprive them of food and clothing, but you, the elderly in Zhongtang, and only give more than 2 of them a food subsidy of one or two taels of silver a day."

"You even count the expenses of the banner soldiers and captives?" Ye Bilong's mouse tail almost stood up in anger.

"If Ye Zhongtang wants the captives of the bannermen to be treated the same as the captives of the green battalion soldiers, of course we don't need to count the money." Fatty Lu replied with a smile: "You can report to the prince immediately if you are a low-ranking person, and ask him to treat the captives of the bannermen the same as the Han captives." , were all sent to the mines to do hard work, and were given a meal of pig food every day. Each person could not mine [-] catties of ore a day, and there was not even a meal of pig food! At that time, we will report to the Qing court to explain that we did not want to This is what you asked us to do, Ye Zhongtang."

"Rogue! You are a complete rascal!" Ye Bilong roared unbearably, and shouted: "Little thief Lu Yifeng, don't think that you are majestic now that you are pretending to be a tiger? Wait until our Qing court reaches a negotiation with Wu Sangui, be careful! You have no place to die!"

"Old thief Ye Bilong, what did you call my father-in-law just now?" Hu Guozhu, who had been watching Fatty Lu tossing Ye Bilong with a smile, suddenly changed his face, stood up and shouted with a livid face: "Old thief Ye Bilong, you have the guts Insult my father-in-law again!" The Wu army's followers at the back also changed their faces and drew their swords one after another, so frightened that the Qing army's followers behind Ye Bilong and others also drew their swords one after another. The atmosphere suddenly became more tense.

"My lords, my lords, I have something to say, something to say." Fu Dali, who has a good temper, hurried out to smooth things over, stopped everyone and said to Hu Guozhu: "General Jinwu, I am really sorry, Ye Zhongtang made a mistake unintentionally, and he did not intend to do it in his anger. I said something disrespectful to Prince Pingxi, and I hope you will be a large number, so don't take it to heart. And you, Yu Zhongtang, we are here to negotiate an armistice with Prince Pingxi, not to intensify the conflict. , please apologize to General Jin Wu, let’s leave it at that.”

"General Jinwu, this old man made a slip of the tongue. He definitely didn't mean to insult Prince Pingxi on purpose. I hope General Jinwu will forgive me." Ye Bilong also knew that he was wronged, so he had no choice but to apologize honestly.

"Hmph! Unintentional mistake? I'm afraid you are behind the scenes, and you are insulting our prince like this?" Hu Guozhu snorted coldly, and then warned with a pale face: "One more thing, we have something to say first, since we have made up our minds to follow the prince On the side of the Qing monarch, the murder of the treacherous official Oboi has already put life and death aside. If Ye Zhongtang insists on threatening us with words such as "settling accounts after autumn" and "after-event liquidation", we don't mind clearing the monarch's side again and punishing others. A group of treacherous parties in the court! At that time, you alone will be responsible for the consequences!"

Ye Bilong didn't dare to speak anymore, if old traitor Wu used the excuse that he deliberately sabotaged the armistice negotiations and played the banner of the Qing emperor again, the fate of Oboi and the fate of Oboi's family might be his fate and the fate of his whole family. .On the other side, Fu Dali hastened to smooth things over, clasped his hands and bowed and said: "General Jinwu misunderstood, Ye Zhongtang didn't mean that, but Ye Zhongtang just hoped that Mr. Lu would be careful with his words and deeds, and don't take our Eight Banners captives as captives for threats." It is out of good intentions to worry that those captives will be detrimental to Mr. Lu's official career after they are released, and there is absolutely no intention of threatening."

At the end, Fu Dali proposed again: "General Jin Wu, Master Lu, and Master Fang, since both of us are going to sit in the north and everyone has a reason to be eligible to sit, then we should each take a step back, instead of sitting in the north-south direction, change Sit in the east-west direction. Prince Pingxi has a west character in his title, so I invite Jin Wu generals to sit on the west side, and we sit on the east side, how about that?"

Although Fu Dali's proposal seemed to take a step back, the direction of the seat was first proposed by the negotiator of the Qing army. Now he is forced to change the previous proposal, which is tantamount to compromising with the Wu army, and the momentum has already weakened a bit. Hu Guozhu and Lu Fatty Of course, the others had no objection, and all sat on the west side of the square table. Ye Bilong, who had no choice but to sit on the east side, had no choice but to sit on the east side to start a formal negotiation with Wu Jun's representative.But it didn't take long. Given the huge difference in terms of peace talks between the Wu army and the Qing army, the contradictions between the negotiating parties naturally intensified again.

There is no way, the difference in the terms of the truce proposed by the two sides is too huge. Wu Jun asked the Qing court to compensate military expenditures of 3000 million taels of silver and 300 million shi of grain and grass. The four provinces of Sichuan, Pianyuan, Huguang, and Guangxi were required to be placed under the direct jurisdiction of the Pingxi Palace, and the appointment of large and small civil and military officials was determined by the Pingxi Palace. However, the Qing court demanded that the Wu army withdraw from all occupied provinces except Yunnan and Guizhou. The management power is also only given to local officials who are below the fourth rank of the old traitor Wu, and the appointment of officials above the fourth rank must be reported to the Qing court for approval.

In addition, the asking price for the captive issue was even more disparate. Wu Jun asked the Qing court to redeem all the Manchu captives with 500 million taels of silver, and asked the Qing court to unconditionally return Wu Shilin, the traitorous grandson of the old man, and his daughter-in-law, Princess Jianning. However, the Qing court did not want to give a single penny. It demanded that Wu Jun unconditionally release all the Han and Manchu captives, and demanded that the old traitor Wu send his eldest grandson Wu Shifan back to the capital as a hostage before returning the traitor Wu's second-grandson and daughter-in-law.The only undisputed clause between the two parties is to hand over the whole family of Oboi, who killed Wu Yingxiong.

It is obvious that the Qing court is pursuing the idea of ​​asking prices all over the sky and repaying the money on the ground. It intends to bargain with Wu Jun bit by bit, so as to delay time, and use the favorable situation that the Qing court's war machine is gradually fully activated to force Wu Jun. Make huge concessions and exchange time for war preparations at the smallest cost—even at no cost, as long as the time is delayed to a certain extent, the Qing court will no longer need to negotiate with Wu Jun.Fatty Lu, seeing through the evil intentions of Ye Bilong and others, immediately winked at Hu Guozhu and Fang Xueshi, and called them to a corner of the tent.

"Uncle, Mr. Poetry, all the dogs are delaying time." Fatty Lu said in a low voice: "They deliberately lowered the price so low that they intend to wait for reinforcements from other provinces to be transferred to Huguang. Negotiate, take the opportunity to slash prices and reduce losses."

"That's right, I think so too." Hu Guozhu nodded lightly, then lowered his voice and asked, "Is there a way to crack it?"

"Put pressure on them." Fatty Lu whispered in Hu Guozhu's ear, "Threatening them like this..."

Soon, Hu Guozhu returned to the negotiating table, and without sitting down, he said directly: "Yi Zhongtang, in view of the huge disparity between our two sides in terms of the amount of military compensation and the price of redeeming captives, our Pingxi Palace has decided to end the negotiation immediately." Negotiate today, and ask you to reconsider the amount of compensation, and come up with a negotiation amount that can show sincerity. You can send envoys to discuss the specific resumption time of the negotiation after you have matured your consideration."

"It's easy to say." Ye Bilong couldn't wait for Hu Guozhu to procrastinate, stood up immediately, and said with a smile: "General Jinwu, I hope you can reconsider the issue of money and food compensation and the exchange of prisoners. , is still very sincere in negotiating."

"Don't worry about Ye Zhongtang, I will report this matter to the prince truthfully." Hu Guozhu nodded vigorously, and suddenly added: "By the way, Ye Zhongtang, we have to explain in advance about the injuries and illnesses of the Eight Banners prisoners of your army. one time."

"General Jinwu, please speak, the old man is all ears." Ye Bilong suddenly had a bad premonition.

"It's like this." Hu Guozhu said with a smile: "When the soldiers of your army were captured by our Yunnan-Guizhou army, most of them were wounded, and the injuries were very serious, but our Yunnan and Guizhou are from all over the world. The notoriously poor place is short of doctors and medicines, and it is also powerless to treat the injuries and illnesses of your prisoners. Therefore, your prisoners often die of serious illnesses or injuries. Therefore, we hope that Ye Zhongtang can end the negotiation and arrange These captives were taken back to the north for medical treatment—otherwise, the time would be too long, and even if Ye Zhongtang reached a negotiation with us, I am afraid that many captives would not be taken back to be reunited with their families."

Ye Bilong's old face began to turn pale, and Zhe Erken and Fu Dali's faces were also pale, and they had understood Hu Guozhu's implication.Over there, Fatty Lu leaned forward and said with a smile: "But please don't worry about Ye Zhongtang. According to Zhu Fangdan, the master doctor of the lower official, the death rate of your prisoners is not very high although they are seriously injured. Only about 1000 people died of illness in one day, and more than 2 Eight Banners captives could survive for more than 200 days, so Ye Zhongtang must not be too anxious, if something happens in a hurry, we will feel guilty.

"Shameless!" Ye Bilong scolded unbearably.

"Are you really ashamed?" Fatty Lu retorted immediately, and said with a sneer: "Yi Zhongtang, before Oboi's killer killed our Pingxi Prince's son, Oboi's treacherous party had already fallen, how could a few killers not know Unknowingly sneaking into the heavily guarded dungeon to start a fight, Ye Zhongtang is in the capital, is it true that you haven’t heard anything about it? You can do the first day of the junior high school, why can’t we do the fifteenth?”

Ye Bilong was speechless again—although Ye Bilong had a weak personality, and was ridden on his head by Oboi and Xiao Mazi in turn from beginning to end, but Ye Bilong was not stupid. Wu Yingxiong's death In fact, Ye Bilong had already doubted the truth of the truth, but he did not dare to publicly express his doubts because the matter had nothing to do with him.Xiao Mazi killed Wu Yingxiong to break the root of Wu's old traitor first, and now Wu Jun killed Manchu captives and threatened the Qing court to reach negotiations as soon as possible, so Ye Bilong naturally has no face to forcefully accuse Wu Jun of being unkind.

"Yi Zhongtang, please don't worry about one more thing." Fang Guangchen's eldest son, Fang Xueshi, is not a good person either, so he leaned over and smiled and said, "If I remember correctly, Ye Zhongtang, you seem to be a man with a yellow banner, right? See For your sake at Yezhongtang, we will do our best to rescue the soldiers of the Xianghuang Banner, and the limited medicines will be given priority to the soldiers of the Xianghuang Banner. The soldiers of the Xianghuang Banner had an accident first—how? Ye Zhongtang, our Pingxi Palace is very loyal, right?"

"In addition." Hu Guozhu added darkly: "Regarding this matter, our prince will also use six hundred miles to send a report to the court, explain the situation to the emperor and the kings of the Eight Banners, and tell the emperor and the kings of the Eight Banners to know- —It is absolutely not that our Pingxi Palace intentionally let the captives die of illness, but that the negotiations took too long, which led to the unfortunate deaths of many soldiers of the Eight Banners."

When he met Hu Guozhu, Lu Fatty and Fang Xueshi, three rascals, Ye Bilong was really a scholar who met a soldier, and he couldn't explain why.In desperation, Ye Bilong had no choice but to grit his teeth and replied: "Thank you three adults for your kind care. Ye Bilong thanked all the soldiers and families of Xianghuang Banner in advance. In addition, I also ask the three adults to treat the captured Eight Banners soldiers equally. Don't let them suffer any misfortune—how about this, the old man will go back and discuss it, how about we negotiate here again at noon tomorrow?"

"It's easy to say, just follow Ye Zhongtang's orders." Hu Guozhu smiled and cupped his hands, and politely agreed.Ye Bilong and the other three didn't speak, they just clapped their hands together and went out of the account together, and hurried back to Wuchang City to discuss again.And Fatty Lu didn't hesitate, immediately pulled the hands of Hu Guozhu and Fang Xueshi, and said quickly: "Uncle, Mr. Xueshi, go back to our camp."

"What's the rush?" Hu Guozhu replied with a smile: "Let's discuss it first, sort out a general content, and then report to the father-in-law and the others."

"Uncle, Ye Bilong and the others gave us a big gift, haven't you seen it yet?" Fatty Lu asked eagerly: "Uncle, Mr. Xueshi, have you noticed? In the negotiation agreement between Ye Bilong and the others, is Isn't something missing?"

"What's missing?" Hu Guozhu and Fang Xueshi were taken aback, then suddenly came to their senses, and shouted in unison: "The green battalion captives are missing!"

"That's right!" Fatty Lu slapped the table and said with a smirk: "The Emperor Mangou is only willing to spend money to redeem the Mangou captives, but ignores those Han Chinese prisoners from the green battalion who refused to submit to us and were sent to the mines to do hard work. We If this matter is spread, what will the Han Green Battalion guarding the city think?"

………………

In the evening of the same day, when there was no wind in the sky, the army's dilute sulfuric acid reserve was only enough for the airship to take off and land three times. Wet leaflets were sprinkled into the city of Wuchang.There is a picture on the flyer, which shows a Han Chinese slave wearing a green battalion uniform, carrying a heavy ore on his back, crawling on the ground on all fours, and there is a text--Han green battalion soldiers, your master intends to redeem the flag with silver Soldiers, let your comrades who refuse to surrender give us mines on the back of the mountain, do you still want to work hard?
The leaflets landed lightly, but the morale of the Wuchang defenders fell to the ground with a bang. Countless green battalion soldiers began to think deeply. Going home, only caring about their dog soldiers, do we still have to work for such a ruthless master?

"Lu Yifeng is a thief! It's this thief again! It's doing it again!" Although Fatty Lu's name was not printed on Wu Jun's leaflet, he was already using Fatty Lu's trick when he saw this leaflet. Tu Hai, Yue Le and the others, who had suffered a lot, immediately concluded that this was definitely Lu Fatty's handwriting again!

"What's wrong with our Qing Dynasty?" In hatred, Yue Le hacked up the leaflets with a waist knife, shouting as he chopped, "Why did Lu Yifeng, a gangster and rascal, fall into the trap? Such a shameless trick can be figured out." , is this clearly driving a wedge between our Manchu and Han relations and shaking our military morale!"

"Marshal, we found a new kind of Wugou leaflet!" At this moment, a messenger rushed in and held a new leaflet in front of Tu Hai with both hands. Tu Hai took it for a closer look, and his expression changed , hurriedly greeted: "Prince An, quickly read this new flyer!"

"Don't read it!" Yue Le roared angrily, "I don't even bother to read any leaflets printed by that bastard Lu Yifeng!"

"Prince An, you'd better take a look, this flyer is related to you." Tu Hai said with a wry smile.

"It has something to do with me?" Yue Le turned pale with shock, and quickly grabbed the new flyer, only to see a grown man in a dragon robe printed on the flyer, accompanied by two lines of words, one line read: The emperor came out of Prince An's mansion , Gyeonggi as the battlefield!Another line reads: Prince Yue Le, the destiny belongs, change Yuan Yongzheng, the world looks up to it!
"Lu Yifeng! Dog thief! Shameless dog thief! I'm going to fight you! I'm fucking your [-]th generation ancestor, you're screwing me to death—! You even fabricated the title of emperor for me— ——!”

While the unlucky Prince An, who was as unlucky as he was, was roaring on the top of Wuchang City, the sky was getting dark, and Wu Jun's river filling team and cover team began to gather for orders. It was also at this time that Fatty Lu hurried to the tent of the Chinese Army. In the middle, he suggested to the old thief Wu Sangui who was issuing orders there: "Grandfather, according to my son-in-law, we can't just fill in the moat at the east gate of Wuchang. We should ask the soldiers to work harder and fill in the moat at the south gate as well." gone."

"Is it useful?" Old Wu traitor asked back: "We have confirmed that the east gate of Wuchang is the main battlefield, and we have also confirmed that the south gate of Wuchang is rich in groundwater. It is difficult to dig a tunnel directly to the city. Why waste troops?"

"Grandfather, my son-in-law is also out of caution." Fatty Lu insisted: "My son-in-law thinks that filling only the moat at the east gate of Wuchang will not only be detrimental to the deployment of our troops when we attack the city, but it is also very likely that the dogs will discover our tunnel attack." It is better to fill the moats of the east gate and the south gate together, not only can attack the east gate and west gate of Wuchang at the same time when attacking the city, but also can divert the sight of the dogs and cover the tunnel tactics of our army. After leveling the two sections of the moat, the tunnel leakage problem can be greatly improved. Even if the miners make a mistake in the exploration, dig in the wrong direction underground, and accidentally dig to the south, there will be no danger of river water pouring into the tunnel.”

"Then let's fill in the moat to the south as well." Since he didn't have to dig the tunnel himself, and seeing that what Fatty Lu said was quite reasonable, the traitor Wu agreed to Fatty Lu's strong request and ordered Said: "Let Yang Fengxian's infantry team also dispatch, together with Yu Hualong's team, simultaneously fill up the moats of the south and east gates of Wuchang."

The generals of Wu Jun who were present agreed, and when the old traitor Wu was about to say a few words to Fatty Lu, Fatty Lu cupped his hands and said in a hurry: "Grandfather, my grandson-in-law is in a hurry, and I have to go to the military workshop. Say goodbye first."

"Stinky boy, you ran away as soon as you finished speaking, why is it so urgent?" Old man Wu scolded with a wicked smile, then waved his hand and said, "Since you are in a hurry, then you should hurry up, pay attention to rest, and don't be busy during the day and night. Exhausted."

(End of this chapter)