Chapter 79

The scorching summer in Beijing was truly a torment for the Manchus, a nomadic people who had originally lived amidst the white mountains and black waters, and who lacked the genetic makeup to withstand the heat. Although they had been inside the pass for more than two hundred years, the summer was still unbearable for them.

The sun overhead radiated endless heat, and the large willow trees by the roadside had their leaves drooping from the heat. Even the cicadas hiding in the trees chirped weakly, and the old men dozing in the shade had their chests exposed, with large beads of sweat rolling down their bodies.

"Cool tea... cool tea, large bowls of cool tea... freshly made mint tea..."

"Watermelon... watermelon, sandy-fleshed watermelons from Daxing, old man without teeth can eat one without fear of it being too sweet..."

"Selling fans, imperial concubine folding fans, large palm fans... shake them and the cool breeze will come naturally..."

In the alleys of the old city, even the cries of the vendors were weakened by the scorching sun. The heat was so intense that even the most ferocious dogs were too lazy to bark at the vendors, lying on the ground with their tongues hanging out.

Just as the entire city was sweltering and everyone was enduring the heat, a sudden shocking rumor spread like a match lit in a boiling oil pot, and the flames quickly engulfed the city.

On a scorching midday, all the teahouses and taverns in the city suddenly became crowded. People lowered their heads and whispered, a bizarre rumor shocking the entire city.

"Sir, you've come, please sit... Oh, have you heard? There's a riot in Tanggu Port, and it's said that thousands of people have died..."

"Is it true or not... Waiter, bring a pot of high-quality liquor... Tanggu is a place where Chinese and foreigners live together. If so many people die, won't the foreigners come to negotiate? Tell me quickly..."

"Oh, you two are chatting here? Let me tell you, Tanggu is almost completely wiped out, with at least ten thousand people dead, and the blood has turned the sea red..."

"Wow! Where did you get this news? Really that many people dead..."

"Hey... you don't believe it, but my tenant in Changping, his uncle is a fisherman in Tanggu. They say people in Tianjin no longer eat sea fish..."

People rushed over, "Mr. Liu, please tell us in detail, why don't they eat sea fish?" Mr. Liu wiped the sweat from his forehead, enjoying the attention.

"Grandma, it's because there are too many dead people, over ten thousand bodies, and they couldn't be buried in time, so they were thrown into the sea. Those sea fish have feasted on human flesh, do you think they can still be eaten..." Before he finished, there was a chorus of retching in the room, and it took a while to calm down.

At this moment, the waiter, who was adding water with a copper pot, was also stunned and asked, "What's going on! Why did they start killing people?"

"Stupid boy, you don't understand. Do you know what a civilian uprising is? It's when the people go crazy, rushing into the streets, killing anyone they see, robbing stores, and raping women, committing all sorts of atrocities... Why? Who else but that traitor Xiao Letian..."

"Do you know that in the spring, the Beijing Prime Minister's Office sent a group of... what do you call them... inspectors to the industrial special zones. In Tanggu, they experienced a civilian uprising, but it was just a small one, with only a few hundred people..."

"Today is different, with tens of thousands of people rioting in Tanggu. All the foreigners in the city fled to the sea, and the foreign ships were armed with guns, almost starting a battle with the rioters..."

In the mouths of these rumor spreaders, Xiao Letian became a ruthless villain, gathering hundreds of bandits and brutally suppressing the peaceful protests of the people. Even the Ninth Marshal, Zeng Guoquan, got involved, with the Xiang Army's Jizi Camp deploying heavy cavalry, causing heads to roll among the people.

In the teahouse, the speaker's saliva flew, and the listeners were stunned. The innkeeper at the counter couldn't even count properly, making several mistakes without realizing it.

Just as everyone was cursing Xiao Letian, two young scholars walked into the teahouse. Hearing the chatter of these Eight Banners loafers, they became angry.

"A bunch of parrots, not thinking for themselves. If Xiao Letian were so powerful, wouldn't the Tianjin commander suppress the uprising? And how many tens of thousands of people are there in Tanggu? Do you know how many people live in Tanggu?" The two young men snorted, showing their disdain.

"Oh! Who forgot to tighten their belt and exposed themselves... Oh, aren't you the two gentlemen from the Prime Minister's Office? I'm so forgetful, what's your honorable surname..."

The rumor spreader turned to curse, but unexpectedly saw a familiar face, two clerks from the Prime Minister's Office.

"Waiter, bring a pot of green tea to cool me down..." The two clerks from the Prime Minister's Office weren't angry, bowing to the Eight Banners gentlemen in the teahouse.

"Gentlemen, don't listen to those baseless rumors. We are all Manchus, and we should listen to the Emperor and the Empress Dowager, and to our Eight Banners princes. These rumors are clearly spread by some people to mislead us... Tanggu has only ten thousand people, why would they all die and be thrown into the sea? Do we even have any unmarked graves left in our Great Qing?"

"Let me tell you the truth. The Prime Minister's Office received a secret report last night. Guess what? It turns out it was a trick by a group of local gentry, a scholar named Huang, who used land rents to incite the people to riot, aiming to sabotage the industrial special zone of the Great Qing..."

The clerks quickly clarified the situation, and the people in the teahouse suddenly understood. "I see, the previous rumors were so bizarre. It turns out it was these scholars who spread the rumors. They are truly a bunch of sneaky scoundrels..."

"Exactly, my banner leader has long said that these Qing scholars are afraid of the industrial special zone succeeding. On the surface, they fear that foreign things will corrupt people's minds, but in reality, they are afraid that we Manchus will have a steady source of income..."

Now, the entire teahouse was buzzing with discussion, and everyone started cursing these Qing scholars. The two clerks then shifted the blame. "Actually, this is also the fault of the Ninth Marshal. The Xiang Army went too far by intervening in Zhili. The Jizi Camp even confronted our Green Standard Army. Even if they had a just cause for suppressing the rebellion, they shouldn't have killed people so casually..."

When people heard there was more to the story, they all became agitated, and the crowd gathered even tighter, not minding the heat and the risk of heat rash. In the teahouses, brothels, and taverns, the most basic social venues of the Great Qing, various rumors began to collide and conflict.

The scholars, who saw themselves as the guardians of the Qing, were desperately trying to smear Xiao Letian and the Ninth Marshal. Besides clearing their own names, they were also naturally opposing the royal family and the Xiang Army. In their minds, Xiao Letian, the traitor, proposed the industrial special zone to seize the dominant position in the imperial examinations.

The Xiang Army, as representatives of the local governors, not being on the same page as the Qing scholars, were also not good. They were equally smeared. The Prime Minister's Office, as staunch defenders of the Eight Banners' interests, knew the benefits of the industrial special zone and could guess the intentions of the Qing scholars and the Xiang Army. In this public opinion battle, protecting Xiao Letian, attacking the Qing scholars, and annoying the Xiang Army was their fundamental strategy.

Among the three forces, only the Southern governors represented by the Xiang Army remained relatively calm and did not get involved in the public cursing. However, their counterattack was more direct. Three days later, Zeng Guofan submitted a report, delaying his scheduled return to the capital in the fall. He claimed that a group of over twenty thousand Taiping remnants had been discovered in the Wuyi Mountains.

This was a direct threat. The Zeng family used this method to express their protest. Taiping remnants in the Wuyi Mountains? Over twenty thousand people? Who knows if he wasn't there to drink Dahongpao tea.

In the summer of that year, due to a small civilian uprising in Tanggu, the three forces were already at the point of stabbing each other in the back. They were just one step away from tearing each other apart in the imperial court.

The report from Tanggu had been quietly piled up in the Forbidden City for seven days. The two Empresses Dowager only briefly glanced at the report and its summary. As for the more than a foot-high stack of testimonies, they had no interest. For politicians, evidence was just a fig leaf, sometimes necessary, sometimes dispensable.

The two Empresses Dowager were silent, and Prince Gong (Yixin) was also silent. The remaining Manchu princes, sensing the tension, also kept quiet. In the Forbidden City, only the young Emperor Tongzhi was jumping around, constantly asking about the incident, first the Empresses Dowager, then the princes, and then the ministers. However, everyone was evasive, making the Emperor furious.

"Mother, what should we do? This is a civilian uprising! Such a big event, shouldn't it be dealt with strictly?" Emperor Tongzhi, sitting beside Empress Dowager Cixi, his face flushed with anger.

"Big event? How big can it be?" Cixi smiled at her son. Tongzhi, hearing this, became agitated. "How big? It's a civilian uprising, and over a thousand soldiers and civilians have died. Isn't that a big event?"

Cixi shook her head. "Not big, not at all. Your Majesty, you are the ruler of the empire. You must remain calm even if Mount Tai collapses before you. A small disturbance in Tanggu, which seems like the end of the world to the common people, is nothing to you..."

"Let's not talk about distant things. Take the Taiping Rebellion in the south, where millions of people died. That's a big event. The Western barbarians from the sea, that's also a big event. The Russians to the north, who are eyeing us, are a big event. But a small civilian uprising in Tanggu is not big at all, and this report should be kept in the archives and not issued."

Emperor Tongzhi seemed to gain some insight. In his mother's teachings, he gradually understood that an empire was not something the emperor could do as he pleased. The so-called supreme imperial power was a false proposition.

"This Great Qing, our royal family and the Eight Banners are always together. With the Eight Banners, we have our royal family. Without the Eight Banners, we would be orphans and widows. This is the ironclad rule left by our ancestors, and you must not forget it."

"As for the Han scholars, the Qing scholars, you must remember to give them a slap and then a sweet date. What they want is for the imperial examinations to be dominated by the Confucian scholars. As long as you guarantee this, these slaves will not rebel. When we Manchus entered the pass, we killed so many Han people, but in the end, they still knelt down and called us 'Your Majesty.'"

Cixi gently stroked her son's head, using a rare gentle tone to impart the secrets of governance, which were not something anyone could learn easily.

"My son, you must always remember that the internal politics of the Great Qing are a struggle among three forces: our royal family and the Eight Banners, the Confucian scholars, and the Han governors, especially the group led by Zeng Guofan. As long as you can balance these three forces, the country will not fall into chaos..."

"What about the foreigners? And the traitor Xiao Letian? What kind of force are they, and how should we deal with them?" Tongzhi's question left Cixi speechless for a moment.

"An unprecedented great change, perhaps only an unprecedented genius can answer it..."

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