Master Yuan, start!

"Okay, then I'll give him some more silver and winter clothes."

"Your Excellency is truly a kind-hearted person!" Yiktang'a readily followed his advice.

That night, Ming Ye hurried to the Shengjing General's Mansion, followed by someone, who was the half-grown child outside the city during the day.

"Can you trust me now?" Yuan Xiangcheng asked.

"I believe it. Lord Yuan sent someone to buy medicine for grandpa. He is my lifesaver." The half-grown child pretended to kowtow.

"No thanks, tell me about your grandfather in detail."

"Yes!"

It turned out that this middle-aged scholar was indeed a Sauron, but his father died in battle while resisting the encirclement and suppression of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom more than 40 years ago.

As for the Saurons, they often did not live to a ripe old age, and it was common for them to die on the battlefield.

After the Qing government counted the names of the dead, they gave them silver compensation and sent their belongings, including armor and weapons, back to his father's home in Chaoyang.

However, it happened that a drought occurred in Liaodong at that time, and the local officials of the Qing Dynasty had been corrupt for years, resulting in Chaoyang local government no longer being able to provide much money for disaster relief.

The local officials deducted his father's pension and only sent him back a set of armor and a big sword.

The middle-aged scholar was just a child at the time and had little knowledge, so he could only accept it with tears.

Later he learned that there was a pension, so he went to the government office to ask for money. However, because he was born with a disability and was not cut out for fighting, the Manchu magistrate believed that he would never have a chance of turning his life around, so he had him beaten up.

After that, he could only hang around at the bottom of society. Because he was a Sauron, he was not liked by the Manchus in Shengjing City. Fortunately, he had studied in a private school for a few years in his early years, and he made some money by teaching ordinary people to read and keep accounts.

Because of this, he also got to know Li Fengkui, who was a well-known chivalrous bandit in Chaoyang area at that time. He specialized in punishing corrupt officials and saving the poor, and he was given a lot of help.

After a few interactions, the frail scholar at the time developed an inexplicable feeling towards the anti-Qing peasants.

As a Sauron, he should be loyal to the Manchus and the Qing Dynasty.

But the bloody reality told him that his father had sacrificed his life for the Qing Dynasty, but he didn't even see a penny.

It was not until Li Fengkui's act of robbing the rich to help the poor was cracked down by the government and he was forced to rise up in rebellion against the Qing Dynasty on behalf of the people that he realized that this was truly a cannibalistic world.

The Qing emperor did not treat the Solon people as human beings and drove them like animals. The Han officials also did not treat the people as human beings, and the officials forced the people to rebel.

For the first time, he transcended his own ethnicity and, as a low-level person in the Qing Dynasty, empathized with farmers like Li Fengkui.

"So, that house was originally the main hall of a temple?" Yuan Xiangcheng asked.

"That's right, but it's been in disrepair for a long time. The side rooms have long since collapsed, and even the original wooden Buddha statue in the main hall has been cut down and used as firewood.

"My grandfather later had a stone tablet brought in and carved the inscriptions himself," the teenager replied respectfully.

Yuan Xiangcheng and Ming Ye looked at each other in surprise. They didn't expect to meet a person with such a bizarre life experience.

As both Solon people and peasants, they not only hated the Qing emperor, but also hated corrupt Han officials.

Class hatred even outweighed his national identity, making him and Li Fengkui sympathize with each other.

Yuan Xiangcheng could only sigh at this kind of life experience.

He overthrew the Qing Dynasty not because he wanted to establish another feudal dynasty with a Han Chinese emperor, but because he wanted to build a modern China where everyone could live and work in peace and contentment.

If the Qing Dynasty is overthrown by then, and local officials are still corrupt officials who only know how to exploit the people, then what is the difference between Manchus and Han people? What is the meaning of their existence?

The current class oppression can force a few Manchus to rebel against the Qing Dynasty and hate corrupt officials, and in the future it may cause a Han Chinese to rise up against the government.

There is no time to delay, this chaotic world needs to end as soon as possible.

After letting Ming Ye take the half-grown children away, Yuan Xiangcheng spread out the map and carefully analyzed the battle situation on it with a pencil.

The Heilongjiang general's attitude is probably unclear at the moment and he has not responded to Cixi's wishes.

General Jilin was promoted by Cixi, and according to Cixi's wishes, he was mobilizing troops to prepare to march south.

However, Sheng Fei and the Second Regiment of the National Defense Army have already headed north to Hailongfu and are approaching Jilin, so he cannot get away for the time being.

It is said that Mongolian princes also responded, but it seemed that their response was just a lot of noise but little action. However, Yuan Xiangcheng was not afraid even if they came, because hot weapons would be a massacre against cold weapons.

Feng Guozhang should have succeeded in taking Liaoyang City by now. All the land east of the Liao River has been taken under Yuan Shikai's control, leaving only the land west of Jinzhou and Lushunkou still in the hands of the Qing court.

However, Cixi had already established contact with the Russians. Although Yiktang'a was unwilling to cooperate, Jilin General Changshun might not have such integrity.

Yuan Shikai needed to mobilize troops to watch over the Eight Banners of Jilin while guarding against the Russians.

I just don’t know what the attitude of Heilongjiang General Gong Tong is. It would be great if he could help.

If 20,000 men went north to defend against Russia, then North Korea would only have 10,000 national defense troops left, and only 30,000 to attack the capital.

In addition, troops had to be deployed to defend Fenghuang City, Shengjing and Liaoyang captured along the way, and Yuan Xiangcheng's military strength was gradually stretched to the limit.

How come the more battles we win, the fewer soldiers we have available?

Yuan Xiangcheng stared at the troop deployment on the map with wide eyes, trying to find a foolproof plan.

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It would be difficult for 30,000 people to advance westwards with lightning speed. If they ran into supply difficulties and were surrounded by the Jiashen Fourth Army and the Zhili Training Army, there was no guarantee that the Hunan Army and the Huai Army would not take the opportunity to march north and defeat them.

Beware of the Russians!

Yuan Xiangcheng threw the pencil to the ground, breaking the black tip directly.

Even Empress Dowager Cixi doesn’t care about the Northeast, so why should I care?

I'm not the central government, so why should I care about her?

Anyway, the Russians don’t have many troops in the Far East now, so if they want to invade, then just invade. The Russians themselves are not numerous, so even if they occupy a few pieces of land, they have to rely on the Chinese to develop them.

After we have taken the capital with all our strength, I will turn our guns back to Heilongjiang. No one has built a railway yet. Russia's railway now only reaches Chelyabinsk at the foot of the Ural Mountains, which is more than 2000 kilometers away from the Northeast.

Having made up his mind, Yuan Shikai immediately decided to leave only 5000 troops in northern Korea to guard against General Jilin and the Russians, leave another 5000 troops in Korea to suppress the local situation, and transfer the rest to the Liaoxi Plain.

Fifty thousand troops entered the pass and crushed it directly!

However, before that, he had to expose Cixi's ugly face to the world.

Chapter 133 Yuan Xiangcheng captures Jinzhou Prefecture!

Logically speaking, the New Year has passed and the Spring Examination should be put on the agenda. It is time to determine the chief examiner for the examination.

There are not many scholars left in the capital now. After all, after what happened a few years ago, it is rare to find someone who can calm down and concentrate on the imperial examinations.

The rest of the scholars either gave up the exam and returned home early because they were worried that the war would spread to the capital.

Or they were disdainful of what Cixi did and took a boat to Korea.

So out of tens of thousands of candidates, only less than ten thousand were left. Most of those who stayed were just seeking an official position, and they were all eagerly waiting for the Ministry of Rites to come out and explain the regulations for this year's imperial examination.

However, even among those who stayed, they were divided into two factions.

One faction is the die-hard Cixi faction, or the training faction. They believe that whoever gives orders in the Forbidden City is orthodox.

The other faction called themselves the Imperial Way Faction and supported Emperor Guangxu and Yuan Shikai's uprising. The reason they stayed in the capital was because they were entrusted with a heavy responsibility by their families and did not dare to give up the exam easily. Moreover, they had only prepared money for one trip to the capital and did not dare to go home for fear that they would have no money to come to the capital again.

After all, living in the capital is not easy, and money is spent like water every day.

They could still make some money in the local area with their status as Juren, but this was in the capital, where officials below the seventh rank sometimes had to borrow money at high interest rates to survive the days without their salaries. How many of them would care about a mere Juren?

These two groups of people have different concepts and ideas, and occasionally quarrel.

The former relies on the official support in the capital, so he can often suppress others.

The latter just wanted to pass the imperial examination as soon as possible and did not want to make a big deal out of it, so they often chose to keep quiet.

However, both sides know that the longer it is delayed, the greater the variables will be.

5 After all, there have been examples of suspension of the imperial examination in the past. There were precedents of suspension of the imperial examination during the Three Feudatories Rebellion and the Taiping Rebellion.

6 Today, a small building in the capital that had been silent for a long time became lively again, and the scholars gathered together to discuss again.

The Chaoyang Daily, one of Yuan Shen's tabloids funded by Puwu Jiuci, was located there. It was later closed down by the Qing government. Although the personnel had been safely evacuated, the equipment was left behind.

After Ronglu ordered his people to take over, he simply reused old things and moved the equipment to Liubu Hutong. He also learned from the common practices in the market in recent years and found several officials from the Zongli Yamen to set up a new newspaper called Shuntian Times.

There are only two newspapers in the capital today, Shuntian Times and Beihua Jiebao, and the rest have been closed down by the government.

The former is the official newspaper of the court, which only reports some official articles and government news in the Qing court, as well as condemnations of Yuan Shikai, which is very boring.

The latter was funded by foreigners. Although it was not closed down, most of the news was published for foreigners, and there was very little Chinese news coverage, which did not conform to the psychology of the Chinese people.

Therefore, in the current capital, both ordinary people and remaining scholars miss the Yuanshen tabloid of the past.

Whether the news is true or not is another matter, at least it is interesting!

However, today's reunion in Xiaolou was not to discuss the newspaper, but to do two things.

The first thing is that it is said that the Ministry of Rites will announce the candidates for the chief examiner of this joint examination today. The scholars gathered together to discuss the tendencies, preferences, and taboos of the candidate examiners to avoid bad luck during the imperial examination.

The second thing is that some candidates who supported Yuan Xiangcheng came here to congratulate him after receiving the news that Yuan Xiangcheng was advancing rapidly, first conquering Shengjing and then Liaoyang!

Fortunately, their celebration was just a small one and did not attract attention. After all, the important thing was to exchange information about the examiners.

"I have news from the son of the doctor of the Ministry of Rites. He said that the chief examiner of this spring examination has almost been decided, and the court is hesitating between the final two!" The scholar who knew the inside story revealed the inside information.

"Oh, who are they?" the scholar next to him asked curiously.

"Mr. Pan Zuyin, the Minister of Works, and Mr. Xu Tong, the Minister of Personnel!"

"Oh~~~hiss!" The person who knew the situation showed joy when he heard the first name, but when he heard the second name, he took a deep breath.

"It would be fine if it's Lord Pan, but if the chief examiner is Lord Xu, I'm afraid we won't be able to make it onto the imperial list." A Zhejiang scholar said gloomily.

Someone nearby was puzzled and quickly asked what the difference was between the two.

The scholar who knew the situation recounted, "Master Pan has a gentle and humble disposition, and he cares about young people. When he was the examiner for the Zhili Provincial Examination, not only did he not make things difficult for the candidates, he also lit mugwort to repel mosquitoes for the students in the examination room and provided them with food and water."

"If that's true, he is indeed a good examiner!" Others praised him upon hearing this.

“Not only that, Lord Pan is a steady and pragmatic official. Although he comes from a clean family, he has never rejected Westernization.

In other words, no matter whether your writings lean towards Western learning or are based on orthodox Confucianism, as long as your words are meaningful, Lord Pan will not easily dismiss you!"

Someone nearby was eager to know the experience of the other candidate examiner: "What about Mr. Xu?"

"Lord Xu served as the chief examiner for the Bingxu Imperial Examination in the twelfth year of the Guangxu Emperor's reign. After the results were announced, it was said that scholars from all over Jiangsu and Zhejiang beat their chests and wept bitterly!"

"Ah? What did Lord Xu do? Is it possible that no scholars from Jiangsu and Zhejiang were included in the list?"

"No, there were still some Jiangnan scholars on the list. However, not only did the top spot go to someone else that year, but the number of scholars from Jiangsu and Zhejiang was also a full 30% less than in previous years."

"Are you crying just because you lost the top spot? Which scholar from which province can guarantee that he can win the first prize in one fell swoop?" Others were puzzled, and at the same time, more and more people were watching.