A Man of Science and Engineering in Troubled Times Wandering in the Late Qing Dynasty

This trip back and forth took a lot of effort, and the road conditions were really bad at this time.

And Zhang Zhidong, late at night, was still trying to persuade Zaifeng with affection and reason.

He knew that this was definitely a first-rate event.

Zaifeng listened tirelessly, but when he thought about it, Zhang Zhidong was right. Yuan Shikai had cultivated too many party members over the past few decades, and the power of the Beiyang New Army and Beiyang Trade was basically inseparable.

But the more this happened, the more he wanted to kill Yuan Shikai. After thinking about it, he said: "No matter what, Yuan Shikai's crime is true and he must be punished."

Zhang Zhidong's throat was dry and he could only sigh: "Let him return to his hometown after opening a vacancy."

Zaifeng asked: "What's the reason?"

Zhang Zhidong said: "Just find any excuse to get sick."

Zaifeng did not hear the irony in Zhang Zhidong's words, and felt that he could proceed step by step. After his brothers took control of the new army, it would not be too late to kill Yuan Shikai.

So he quickly drafted an imperial edict: "Yuan Shikai is suffering from foot disease and has difficulty walking. He immediately opened a vacancy and returned to his hometown to recover from his illness."

Before the imperial edict was even stamped with a seal, the message had already been sent to Tianjin via telegraph.

Yuan Shikai read the telegram, and fortunately, after Zhang Zhidong's plea, he was only fired.

Yuan Shikai breathed a long sigh of relief, and then shook his head: "I'm afraid Xiang Shuai's situation will be difficult."

Yang Du asked: "Master Yuan, what's going on?"

Yuan Shikai smiled and said: "After all, they are just a bunch of brats. It's okay, it's okay! Let the kitchen prepare a midnight snack. I want to thank the Emperor!"

Yuan Shikai brought out his best wine and toasted Li Yu: "I will never thank you for your kindness. Yuan must remember the kindness of the emperor and his master."

Li Yu said: "The commander-in-chief is too polite. According to common sense, the court should not dismiss important ministers casually."

He also expected Yuan Shikai to bury the Qing Dynasty.

Yuan Shikai drank a glass of wine: "After today's running around, I also discovered one thing. Cars are really a good thing. In the past, I only thought they were novel and interesting, but I didn't expect that they could save lives at critical moments. By the way, the Imperial Master's office in the suburbs of Beijing The factory only produces cars, right?”

Li Yu said: "To be precise, they are the core spare parts of production."

"Parts and spare parts?" Yuan Shikai said, "How can this be done? If you want to build a car, you have to build a serious car."

Yuan Shikai didn't know that Li Yu's method of producing spare parts was actually more profitable and the risk was lower.

As a terminal product sold directly to consumers, cars are generally responsible for consumers, not the parts factory but the vehicle manufacturer.

Li Yu had no choice but to say: "There are currently no conditions for complete vehicle production."

"Okay," Yuan Shikai didn't really understand anyway, "When the production of complete vehicles can begin, someone from Yuan will definitely fund it heavily."

While they were drinking and drinking, Liang Shiyi came over with a telegram and said to Yuan Shikai: "Commander, new news."

Yuan Shikai said: "Let's just say it directly, we are all our own people."

Liang Shiyi said: "The imperial censor proposed to the regent Zaifeng, hoping to allow the exiled Kangliang to return to the country, but he was immediately rejected."

Yuan Shikai ate a quail egg and said with a smile, "I had guessed it a long time ago."

If we follow the thinking of a qualified politician, after Zaifeng takes over power, the right choice should be to try to open up the country to Kang Youwei, Liang Qichao and others who are in exile abroad, just like what was done in the early years of the Republic of China.Because no matter how many things Kang Youwei did to disgrace the Empress Dowager Cixi and Emperor Guangxu in 1898, after all, during his years of exile abroad, he always advocated loyalty to the emperor and did not join forces with the revolutionary party to deal with the Qing court.

Moreover, after Guangxu's death, Kang Youwei was very sad. He immediately stated in American newspapers that Guangxu must have died an untimely death, and that there was a conspiracy in it, and he wanted to vindicate Guangxu.

Now that Empress Dowager Cixi is away, the possibility of Kang Youwei, Liang Qichao and others returning to China to participate in politics is at least theoretically possible.

Because Kangliang was so famous and engaged in constitutional reform, which coincided with the Qing court's constitutional policy, if the regent Zaifeng followed the trend and appointed talents, the situation in the first year of Xuantong might have been different. look.

However, Zaifeng's various operations were exactly how to make the Qing Dynasty buried as soon as possible.Since centipede insects are dead but not stiff, let them be exposed to the sun!
In the afternoon of the next day, Tang Shaoyi arrived in Tianjin by train and was relieved to see that Yuan Shikai was finally fine.

Yuan Shikai pointed at Li Yu and said, "You little brother is really an incredible person."

Tang Shaoyi said: "That's not true! Brother Shucai understands the laws of the universe. This little thing can't trouble him."

Li Yu smiled and said, "It's the car that I should be grateful for."

Yuan Shikai said: "In the future, I will ask the Tianjin Chamber of Commerce to purchase more cars to support Li Yu's business."

Yuan Shikai asked Tang Shaoyi again: "How are you preparing for your trip to the United States?"

Tang Shaoyi said: "I will board the ship the day after tomorrow." Before Yuan Shikai was dismissed from office, he was in charge of foreign affairs and was promoting the establishment of an alliance between China, Germany and the United States.

Strictly speaking, it was the Germans who first proposed it, because they discovered that Japan had established an alliance with Britain and that the Anglo-Japanese alliance would threaten the interests of Germany and the United States in the Far East, so they pulled the United States and China to prepare for an alliance.

Yuan Shikai believed that this matter was feasible. It was not a bad thing to have the support of two great powers. Although a weak country had no diplomacy, a weak country had no military, so it was best to gain as many benefits as possible in diplomacy.

Today's attitudes towards China are not bad between the United States and the United States, and Li Yu's contacts with the two countries can be considered to have a positive effect.

So Yuan Shikai sent Tang Shaoyi as envoy to the United States.

It is a pity that this matter was blocked by Japan and ultimately failed.

As for why Japan is trying its best to obstruct it, everyone must understand that at this time, Japan has begun to have the idea of ​​​​being greedy and swallowing the elephant.

Yuan Shikai asked again: "How is Xiang Shuai doing in the court?"

Tang Shaoyi said helplessly: "It can be said that there are constraints everywhere."

Yuan Shikai said: "Those young royals are too self-righteous."

Zhang Zhidong in the palace was indeed worried.

An imperial edict was issued at midnight last night, asking Yuan Shikai to leave his post and return to his hometown. This morning, another imperial official suggested that Yuan Shikai should be killed.The funniest thing is that the reason given by the censor was that Yuan Shikai had soldiers and would rebel.

Zhang Zhidong just said before that because Yuan Shikai has soldiers, he cannot kill him. If he kills him, Beiyang will rebel.

As a result, the censor actually said the same thing in reverse!
What a system!

But Zaifeng liked hearing this and instantly regretted the imperial edict issued in the middle of the night and wanted to take it back.

Zhang Zhidong was so angry that he said: "This censor deceives you and ignores you!"

Zai Feng clicked his tongue and said dissatisfied: "Zhang Zhidong, why do you always contradict me? Yuan Shikai's ambition is as well known to everyone as Sima Zhao's ambition. Don't you know? Are you pretending to be confused or are you an old fool?"

Zhang Zhidong said: "The Queen Mother summoned me before her death and asked me to assist the Regent, because he was afraid, afraid that the Qing Dynasty would begin and end with the Regent!"

Zaifeng couldn't help but dare to say that he would subjugate his country?
Zaifeng sneered and said: "Do you really think that Lafayette is very fond of you? Don't you think about why you have been hiding in this place for decades? Because Lafayette knows that you can't do practical things! Everyone knows how well you are doing in Western affairs. Very well, without Li Zhongtang, you can't even run an iron factory! You can only talk empty words, and you also talk about Chinese learning as the body and Western learning as the application. It's all empty talk! I said before that Yuan Shikai was missing in the Qing Dynasty and there would be someone else to replace him. , Zhang Zhidong, the same goes for you, there won’t be much with you, but there won’t be much without you!”

Zaifeng's words were too harsh, which was heartbreaking for Zhang Zhidong.

Zhang Zhidong staggered on his feet and said in a daze: "It's my fault, I'm sorry. I'm retiring. I won't say another false word after seeing you."

Yuan Shikai's guess was absolutely correct. It didn't take long for Zhang Zhidong to be silenced by Zaifeng, and he never wanted to care about political affairs again.

Anyway, his power has long been emptied out, and he can't do anything without being allowed to say anything.

Cixi probably would not have thought that Zaifeng, who had always been obedient and obedient during her lifetime, would become a completely different person after becoming the regent.

Maybe he already hopes that Puyi will never grow up.

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When Li Yu was in Tianjin, he happened to go to the concession to buy a newspaper and saw that this year's Nobel Prize had just been awarded.

So I sent a telegram to congratulate the winners, and as usual, I wrote an introduction to this year’s Nobel Prize winners to Ta Kung Pao.

This year's three natural awards in physics, chemistry, and physiology are worthy of special mention and will be of great interest to the public.

For example, Lippmann’s color photography;

The Physiology Award is related to immunity;

The most famous one is definitely Rutherford, who won the award for his radioactive theory achievements around 1903.

But what he won was the chemistry prize!

Rutherford has always regarded himself as a physicist. He majored in physics in college. After graduation, he became a physics professor and entered the Cavendish Laboratory, which specializes in physics.

Now that I have won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, I really don’t know if the Nobel Prize committee did it on purpose.

Rutherford humorously said in an impromptu speech in Stockholm, Sweden: "I have experienced various changes in my life, but the fastest is this: overnight I changed from a physicist to a chemist. !”

You know, Rutherford had a famous saying in the past: "Science only has one subject: physics, and the rest is just collecting stamps."

Then... the boss Rutherford was honored to collect a Nobel Prize stamp in Chemistry!