Beijing is now in a festive atmosphere, with officials and citizens alike enjoying rare holidays and food that they are reluctant to enjoy. Li Guoying, the governor of Sichuan and Shaanxi, also took advantage of this opportunity to move around, hoping that the auxiliary minister would understand his difficulties and agree to withdraw troops from Chongqing.

Although the imperial court resolutely disagreed with the withdrawal of troops from Chongqing at the beginning, after seeing Li Guoying repeatedly begging and pleading, and analyzing the pros and cons of holding Chongqing for the imperial court regardless of his body and identity, even the empress dowager and auxiliary ministers were also moved. Although she was very dissatisfied with Li Guoying's blatant slashing of the face of the imperial court and dismantling the imperial court's platform in the recital, the empress dowager also sighed lightly to the officials on the left and right after reading Li Guoying's recital of Li Guoying's plea for entering Beijing: "Li Guoying, a minion, is still loyal." ”

Although Li Guoying turned defeat into victory, and tried his best to shirk responsibility, complain, and desperately exaggerate the enemy's losses after every defeat, unlike modern countries, the country's requirements for loyalty are very low. Just like in the Opium War in Deng Ming's previous life, Lin Zexu also tried his best to conceal the news of the defeat in his recital to Daoguang, and used the great victory of the Qing army to make the emperor happy. When the front line was already in ruins, Daoguang thought that the Qing army was moving from victory to new victory - left in a modern country, if the front commander did this, he would be sent to a military court; But in the ** country, even if Lin Zexu did this, he was still a loyal and good courtier of Emperor Daoguang, because he did not completely reverse black and white, did not call the British commander brothers, and did not send a cart of ransom money to the British army camp at the same time as reporting the victory.

Under the chain of loyalty, the honor and disgrace of courtiers and minions are tied to the emperor, and if you don't make the emperor happy, don't want to do your errands, and you will be replaced by colleagues who dare to lie and tell nonsense with their eyes open. Ming Jun is able to pick out those who can not only lie but also do things from among the ministers who are generally lying. And the reason why Daoguang is a faint monarch is that he blew away Lin Zexu, who lied with a low Cheng dù, but replaced him with a lying and unscrupulous person.

The Empress Dowager and the Auxiliary Minister had both entered Beijing from outside the Guan, and they were obviously more knowledgeable about the world than Daoguang, who had lived in the Forbidden City since childhood, and although they had some opinions about Li Guoying, they could still realize that this person was available.

When he agreed to let Li Guoying come to Beijing to play the right role, the auxiliary minister had already intended to approve the withdrawal of troops from Chongqing, but the imperial court had made a big show of reinforcements to Sichuan, allocated a large amount of food and salaries for this, and also transferred a huge amount of manpower from Shanxi. Since Li Guoying is so loyal, there is no need to find someone else, the governor of Sichuan and Shaanxi returned to Beijing to play the right role, and it was naturally wise for the imperial court to agree to withdraw the army out of trust in the front-line person in charge who had the best grasp of the actual situation; And in the future, if the prince faction uses the topic to make a big storm, he can also push the responsibility on Li Guoying's head, saying that the imperial court's decision to support Sichuan is not wrong, and the subsequent situation in Sichuan is not a small good but a great good, but Li Guoying is greedy for life and afraid of death, and in order to save his life, he actually dared to go to Beijing and play right. The imperial court just didn't investigate for a while, and gullible the words of this loyal and treacherous dog slave, ruining the good situation in Sichuan.

On the way to Beijing, Li Guoying also guessed the first half of the story, which in his opinion was a sign that the imperial court valued his opinions. And since the imperial court is willing to listen to its own voice, it should not be difficult to persuade the imperial court to abandon Chongqing. When he first arrived in Beijing, the tone of the auxiliary minister was also evidently relaxed, and no one had any intention of being stubborn on the Chongqing issue. It is also easy to understand why the resolution could not be formed immediately, that is, the imperial court wanted to take its time, first reveal the rumors, and then suddenly complete this matter -- wasn't it just about to clean up Yu Qi, who was rebelling in Shandong, and even the excuses were ready-made, and when they were halfway through the battle, they said that the troops were tight, and they temporarily gave up supporting Chongqing for the sake of the safety of Gyeonggi, and after the Shandong rebellion was wiped out, everyone pretended that they couldn't think of returning the army to Yucheng.

Li Guoying was a loyal minister of the Qing court, and since he heard such and such hints from the mouth of the auxiliary minister, he waited with peace of mind and never urged, so as not to make the empress dowager and the auxiliary minister unable to come to power.

But in the last two months, the rumors have gradually changed again, with the arrival of Jade in Beijing, the Manchurian Taijun in Beijing knows that there is an important town in the northwest called Chongqing, and the governor of Sichuan is high-minded and wars, and can also capture a lot of treasures in the battle with the traitors.

Since Chongqing has become the focus of attention of the old and young masters of the Eight Banners, the auxiliary ministers began to look around and talk about him, and no longer mentioned the withdrawal of troops, but sent letters to Chongqing one after another for 800 miles. Every time the envoy returned, not only the princes and ministers often had a share, but even the messenger who ran errands could make a small fortune. As jewelry made of jade and precious stones was put on the wrists of Gege, or grabbed by the Manchurian Taijun for fun, Li Guoying found that he was less and less popular with Beijing officialdom.

Today, Li Guoying was waiting outside the mansion of Lord Kupilon early in the morning, and heard that it was the Governor of Sichuan and Shaanxi who made a special trip to congratulate the 15th Festival of the first lunar month, but the auxiliary minister did not let him wait for a long time, and the butler of Kupilon also personally greeted him at the door, and took Li Guoying's gift list with both hands. After quickly glancing at the gift list, the housekeeper remained silent on his face, and led Li Guoying to the door of Ji Bilong's study with a smile.

After asking the auxiliary minister for peace, Li Guoying quickly cut to the chase, and began to ask when the evacuation of the defenders of Chongqing would be officially approved. Hearing this, Ji Bilong immediately lowered his smile, and looked at Li Guoying sternly: "In the past three years since your governor Sichuan and Shaanxi, the imperial court has invested a lot of military salaries in Chongqing, and I have asked you several times if there is a way to solve the self-sufficiency of the Sichuan army, even if it is to reduce the burden of the imperial court a little, but you have never been able to come up with a way." ”

"This ......" Li Guoying secretly complained in his heart, it is simply unrealistic to rely on the military cantonment to achieve self-sufficiency in the garrison. Tens of thousands of troops need 100,000 strong men to farm, but in addition to food, the army also needs weapons and armor, if these are self-produced, then a large number of craftsmen and miners are needed, which will further increase the demand for tuntian; In order to protect the tuntian and mines, more troops are needed, and more troops need more strong men; A year or two is fine, if victory is far away, these people have to dress in addition to eating, and in addition to eating and dressing, they have to marry and have children; There is even more Deng Ming next to him. Didn't Da Ming just believe in the nonsense of raising Liao people in Liaotu, thinking about making Liaodong self-sufficient, and finally being dragged down alive.

Emperor Chongzhen grew up in the inner palace and didn't know the world and believed Yuan Chonghuan, but Li Guoying felt that it was impossible for Ji Bilong not to understand this truth.

"This is Gao Mingzhan's latest recital, and I copied a passage." Kubilon threw Li Guoying a note.

The governor of Sichuan and Shaanxi hurriedly picked it up, opened it and only glanced at it, and screamed in his heart: "Bitter." ”

In an urgent letter from Beijing to Chongqing a few years ago, the issue of military spending was once again raised, and Gao Mingzhan said that western Sichuan was full of jade and ivory, and that as long as they were provided with sufficient weapons and armor, the Qing army could plunder Deng Ming's mines and sell the seized stones back to the interior in exchange for a part of the military expenses.

Li Guoying felt that Gao Mingzhan might not have realized what impact his words would have on the strategy of the imperial court, and how Gao Mingzhan got those jadeites came from, Li Guoying was clear in his stomach. He couldn't wait to drag Gao Mingzhan from Chongqing City to his eyes, and scolded bitterly: There are no elephants in Sichuan, are the ivory everywhere growing from the ground? Can you dig up ivory in your mine?

However, of course, Li Guoying did not dare to tell the truth to the auxiliary minister, and what was worse was that Gao Mingzhan actually had witnesses. In Layue, there are a batch of ivory carved Guanyin statues into Beijing, the face is lifelike, and it is snapped up by dignitaries, and such a small thing has also been fried to one or two gold.

Seeing how valuable this thing was, Beijing asked again about the origin of the ivory. At the same time that Gao Mingzhan's letter full of ivory in western Sichuan was sent to Beijing, Yuan Jiawenbi, Hu Wenke, and a Niu Lu from the Eight Banners of the Chongqing Garrison also arrived in Beijing.

Niu Lu said: The Sichuan thieves all have ivory, jadeite and precious stones, and this thing is like a green vegetable sold on the street in western Sichuan, so the thieves will everyone carry it as a talisman - in short, in a war with the Sichuan thieves, even if they are not beheaded, there are also jade and ivory seized, and the goods in Chongqing are absolutely from a legitimate source. It was also reasonable for the soldiers to sell the spoils of war, and the court also saved a reward for beheading.

Hu Wenke said: There are indeed not many elephants in Sichuan (seeing this, Li Guoying almost crushed his teeth, what is not much, there is no at all!) But the elephants over there are all in the sea, and in far away Lhasa, the female elephants there have four tusks, and the male elephants are seven or eight long, and they change their teeth every year; As for jadeite, those who have been to the Tibetan border know that bricks are not used to cast cities there, and the jade city walls of Yishui are used to repair embankments. The most important thing is that ** people will die of dry stools if they don't eat Chinese tea, and nine out of ten Tibetans die like this, so they cry and shout all day long to exchange ivory, jade and precious stones for tea in the hands of people in western Sichuan. This has been the case since ancient times, and it has not changed for thousands of years - Hu Wenke's testimony is mainly to explain the plausibility of Niu Lu's statement, so that the imperial court can understand why in western Sichuan, precious stones, jade, and ivory will be the same price as green vegetables.

Yuan Jiawen didn't break out more fierce news. However, on the thirteenth day of the first lunar month, after Yuan Jiawenbi met with an envoy of the Eight Banners of the Han Dynasty who had been sent back to Beijing after the New Year, he suddenly remembered that there was another important situation that needed to be supplemented with a report to the auxiliary ministers. According to him: When the thieves in western Sichuan train recruits, they also have to train marksmanship, right? Their training method was to prick a white ivory ball with a wooden gun in order to hit another colored ivory ball, with the aim of knocking the colored ball into a small hole - this kind of training was used to train the recruits to shoot accurately, which shows how rich Nishikawa's ivory is.

Forget about Niu Lu's report, Li Guoying knows that he has no choice but to conceal the truth, and although Hu Wenke's report is outrageous, Li Guoying is not very sure whether there is an elephant over there. Besides, he can understand that this is Hu Wenke's attempt to help the former lie. But for what Yuan Jiawenbi said, Li Guoying really wanted to ask: "Do you mean commenting on books and then switching to join the army?" Whose ivory is so rich that it can be made into a ball as a toy? You dare to tell this kind of absurd story! ”

"Well, that's pretty much it." Li Guoying replied hesitantly: "It's not just for training recruits, I heard that in the past, in order to move their fingers, the old people in western Sichuan often held a few small balls in their hands, and their small balls were not made of iron or stone, but made of ivory and jade. ”