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

Chapter 689 Leaving the Palace
Beijing Nanyuan Airport.

Li Yu piloted a plane and landed slowly. When he and Lu Bicheng walked down the ladder, Feng Yuxiang immediately came to greet them with a smile: "Grand Secretary Li is indeed a man of both civil and military talents, and he can also fly a plane."

"Sometimes I feel itchy and can't help but drive around," said Li Yu.

"How impressive! If we can build an air force in the future, we will be able to dominate the world," said Feng Yuxiang.

Li Yu smiled and said, "It's not hard to get planes, but it's too hard to train pilots. And given the domestic situation, we can't afford to spend that much money to support the air force."

"Hasn't Academician already created it?" Feng Yuxiang said.

"I am mainly focusing on civil aviation," Li Yu said. "Next year, we should have an improved all-metal civil aircraft with a passenger capacity of 10 and improved safety."

"Carrying 10 passengers? It sounds like a big thing," said Feng Yuxiang.

"The size is indeed much larger. This is the direction of the future. Ford in the United States has even joined in the development of all-metal passenger aircraft." Li Yu explained.

Feng Yuxiang praised: "Mr. Academician is indeed a cultured person. I, a rough man, can't imagine how to study something that can reach the sky."

Li Yu said: "It's not as difficult as I imagined. It's just that science education in China has just started, and the financial situation is poor and the political situation is chaotic, which makes it impossible to carry out many scientific research projects."

"As a soldier, I feel extremely ashamed when I hear your comments!" Feng Yuxiang said regretfully.

Li Yu added: "Feng Ru has also developed a seaplane at the aircraft factory, but it probably won't be used much. On the other side of the ocean, Japan has successfully developed a warship called an aircraft carrier a few years ago, which will be the strongest weapon at sea in the future. The power of science and technology has made the military strength of the great powers advance by leaps and bounds."

"Japan?" Feng Yuxiang's capable subordinate Lu Zhonglin became alert. "Aircraft carrier? It sounds like the fantasy weapon described in Star Wars."

Li Yu said: "Some fantasies are definitely deduced from reality."

Feng Yuxiang sighed and said, "It seems that we still need to work hard."

Japan began building the Hosho aircraft carrier in 1919 based on the British plan. It was launched in late 1922 and is generally considered to be the first specially designed and built aircraft carrier.

The Feng Xiang has some very strange designs, such as the end of its flight deck is not up, but down. The Japanese designer said it was to increase the take-off speed, but the aircraft carrier pilots have been complaining about it.

Moreover, the stability of the Fengxiang aircraft carrier is very poor and it is used for training most of the time.

But the Hosho was the only Japanese aircraft carrier that survived World War II intact...

Li Yu came to see Feng Yuxiang today for another reason: to attend Feng Yuxiang's wedding. Li Yu took out a package and said, "I just learned that General Feng was going to hold his wedding in Nanyuan, so I brought this one thing in a hurry. It is said that this is a short sword that Emperor Qianlong once used."

Feng Yuxiang was surprised and asked, "The emperor's sword?"

Li Yu smiled and said, "This dagger is not the Longquan sword, but it is not an ordinary thing either. It is a suitable gift for a hero."

Feng Yuxiang asked: "Even if it is a short sword, it seems to be a treasure in the palace, right?"

Li Yu said intentionally or unintentionally: "Now the antique market in Beijing is full of treasures secretly sold by the small court. If I didn't have some say in the Salt Bank, many things would have been sold to the Japanese."

Feng Yuxiang pondered for a while and said, "Could it be that they want to use the power of the Japanese to cause trouble?"

"That's hard to say." Li Yu said.

Feng Yuxiang put away his dagger and said to Li Yu, "Mr. Academician, Madam Li, please sit inside. It's a bit shabby, please forgive me."

Feng Yuxiang's wedding banquet was extremely simple, even simpler than that of ordinary people. There were only four dishes on the table, as well as steamed buns and millet porridge.

This was his second marriage. After Feng Yuxiang's first wife passed away, many upper-class people wanted to marry their daughters to Feng Yuxiang, a general who commanded thousands of troops, even including Cao Kun, the leader of the Zhili clique.

But Feng Yuxiang said to the matchmaker: "It is a great honor to marry the daughter of Lord Cao, but I have a request. No matter who marries into our Feng family, they must follow the traditional rules of the Feng family, wear coarse cloth, eat simple meals, learn to spin and weave, and raise the children of the ex-wife."

After hearing this, Cao Kun had no choice but to give up.

Feng Yuxiang was a Christian and met his second wife, Li Dequan, in church.

It is said that Feng Yuxiang once asked Li Dequan why she wanted to marry him, and Li Dequan replied: "The Lord was afraid that you would not work for the people, so he sent me to supervise you."

Feng Yuxiang was very satisfied after hearing this.

Li Dequan was quite capable. She had previously studied at Union College for Women and was one of the few highly educated women in the Republic of China period. 49 years later, she became the first Minister of Health.

-

Although the Zhili clique now seems to have taken over most of the territory, it is now in real danger. It won’t be long before the situation takes a sharp turn for the worse and becomes completely out of control.

The first was the Fengtian warlords who were ready to make moves. After the defeat in the first Zhi-Feng War, Zhang Zuolin was not at all convinced and had been preparing his army to enter the pass again.

The Guangzhou National Government, which they temporarily ignored, also made big moves, mainly because the Soviet Union began to support Mr. Sun. At the military meeting in Guangzhou, Mr. Sun had already decided to launch the Northern Expedition. By the way, the Whampoa Military Academy was established in Guangzhou. The development of Whampoa was really fast. In two or three years, its momentum would surpass the Baoding Military Academy, which had been established for many years.

However, the Fengtian clique was the first to take action.

Compared with the Zhi-An War four years ago and the First Zhi-Feng War two years ago, this time the Fengtian clique came out in full force. Zhang Zuolin led an army of 25 south and launched the Second Zhi-Feng War.

The Zhili clique also put all its resources into the fight. Wu Peifu led an army of 20 to engage in direct confrontation with the Fengtian Army in Rehe and Shanhaiguan.

The Feng clique sent the young marshal Zhang Xueliang to the front line. Wu Peifu was quite disdainful when he found out, and said directly: "Zhang Xueliang is a little kid. I think he is just a playboy. Last time in Beijing, he was dancing all day. He doesn't know how to fight! This time we must strike hard at the Northeast Army and capture Zhang Xueliang alive!"

Even though Zhang Xueliang's troops were well-equipped, mostly Japanese equipment, Wu Peifu looked down on them and even treated Zhang Xueliang as a "transportation captain."

But what Wu Peifu didn't expect was that when the fighting really broke out, the protagonist was not him or Zhang Xueliang, but Feng Yuxiang who "stabbed him in the back" from behind.

——Wu Peifu’s house was robbed.

Feng Yuxiang's defection at the critical moment caused the Zhili clique to be instantly defeated.

Feng Yuxiang rode into Beijing on a tall horse and immediately did something he had wanted to do for a long time - expel the Qing Dynasty.

In fact, as early as 1917, when Zhang Xun's queue army restored the monarchy, Feng Yuxiang, who was ordered to enter Beijing to attack Zhang Xun, almost couldn't help but rush to the Forbidden City and drive away the small court that had "gained something for nothing".

Feng Yuxiang called Lu Zhonglin over and said, "Take a team of people with you. We must make the Qing court leave the Forbidden City today!" After receiving the order, Lu Zhonglin called Li Shizeng, the representative of the temporary cabinet, and came to the gate of the Forbidden City.

The change of guard had just been completed here, and all 1200 soldiers who were previously responsible for guarding the Forbidden City were disarmed by Feng Yuxiang.

Shaoying, the Minister of the Imperial Household Department, stood at the palace gate with a confused look on his face, looking at the "Revised Conditions for the Favorable Treatment of the Qing Dynasty" handed to him by Lu Zhonglin.

Lu Zhonglin glanced at his watch and said, "Sign it quickly and leave the Forbidden City within three hours."

"Is it true?!" Shaoying shuddered violently, and instantly felt as if the sky had fallen. It took him a minute to recover and he said to Li Shizeng, "Aren't you the son of Grand Secretary Li Hongzao? Why are you helping the authorities to oppress the Qing Dynasty?"

Li Shizeng stood there without saying a word.

Shaoying then looked at Lu Zhonglin and pleaded, "Aren't you the adopted son of Grand Tutor Lu Chuanlin? Why are you so hard on the Qing Dynasty?"

Lu Zhonglin was a soldier, not someone he could easily mess with. He touched his pistol and said, "If you don't move out, I'll have the artillery on Jingshan Mountain open fire!"

Shaoying knew that the situation was irreversible, so he rushed to the palace with the documents.

In Chuxiu Palace, Puyi was leisurely eating apples with Wanrong when he heard Shaoying running over, shouting, "Your Majesty, Your Majesty... Feng Yuxiang has sent troops! And Li Hongzao's descendant Li Shizeng said that the Republic of China wants to abolish the preferential treatment and asked for this, to be signed..."

Puyi's hand froze instantly, the apple fell to the ground, and he hurriedly took the "Revised Conditions for the Favorable Treatment of the Qing Dynasty" and began to read.

Shaoying took a few breaths and continued, "Your Majesty, they said, they said we have three hours to move out!"

Puyi was not very panicked at first, because he had already prepared himself mentally for this matter. Even according to the earlier preferential conditions, they would have to move out of the Forbidden City in the future. It was just that things happened too suddenly and the time given was too short.

"Three hours?! What about my property?" Puyi said in panic, "Hurry up and call Master Zhuang! And the prince! I knew something was going to happen, but you didn't let me go. Go find the prince!"

Zaifeng's social skills are slightly better than Shaoying's, but only slightly. The only thing he can do is to extend the time for a few hours. It is definitely impossible to delay it until tomorrow.

Lu Zhonglin was aggressive and asked the soldiers to come in again to convey the ultimatum.

When Puyi's father-in-law Rongyuan heard that Lu Zhonglin had set up cannons in Jingshan, he hurriedly hid in the Imperial Garden.

The trusted ministers around him were so frightened that Puyi had no choice but to sign the document.

Upon seeing this, Zaifeng immediately threw the top hat and feather feather on his head to the ground, "It's over, it's all over! This is of no use anymore!"

Dozens of minutes later, Puyi walked out of the Shenwu Gate. This was his first time walking out of the Forbidden City, and he always felt that the air had a different smell.

Lu Zhonglin had prepared several cars in advance, walked over and shook hands with Puyi, and asked: "Mr. Puyi, do you still plan to be an emperor in the future, or do you want to be a commoner?"

"I am willing to be a commoner from today on," Puyi said.

"Okay!" Lu Zhonglin laughed, "From now on, you are a citizen of the Republic of China, and I have the responsibility to protect you!"

Li Shizeng said: "Since I am a citizen, I have the right to vote and be elected. If I serve the country in the future, I may even be elected president."

This sentence is clearly pure consolation.

But Puyi had finally reached adulthood by then, and he said what is probably the most brilliant thing he said in his life: "I had long wanted to get rid of that preferential treatment, and this time it was abolished, which is exactly what I want, so I completely agree with you. Being an emperor is not free, but now I am free."

After he said this, Lu Zhonglin, Li Shizeng and all the soldiers applauded him.

That day Puyi moved into Prince Chun's Palace in Houhai, also known as the North Palace.

Although he did not have time to take out the treasures in the Forbidden City, in the previous six months, he had already secretly transported more than 70 boxes of cultural relics out and temporarily stored them in Prince Chun's Palace. These things were enough for him to live a carefree life.

Among them is the national treasure-level cultural relic "The Procession of Emperor Taizong to Meet Buddhist Monk Xuanzang".

But among the Qing emperors, it is estimated that only Qianlong had a good appreciation of art. The emperors after him had no time to cultivate artistic cells, let alone the abdicated emperor Puyi. So Puyi really didn't have any idea of ​​cherishing these things, just treating them as another form of money.

"The Procession of Emperor Taizong to Meet Emperor Xuanzong" was later sold by Puyi in Tianjin. After many years, it returned to the Palace Museum.

After the Forbidden City was vacated, Li Yu used his connections to take his wife, children, several Peking University professors and reporters into the Palace Museum for a look.

At this time, the Forbidden City was deserted. There were even spider webs on some windows and weeds growing in the cracks between the bricks.

All the rooms were locked. Lu Bicheng looked through the window at the bedroom of Chuxiu Palace and said, "It turns out that Empress Dowager Cixi's bedroom is so small."

Li Yu said: "Most bedrooms are like this. Maybe the old lady also believes that it is better to make the bedroom and bed thinner and longer, which means 'longevity'. But the things she used were not cheap."

Lu Bicheng said: "It's not cheap to spend millions of taels on a birthday."

Xu Zhimo, the editor of "Morning Post Supplement", was the most sentimental. After witnessing the decadence of the Forbidden City, he wrote several poems.

Lu Xun said: "What Puyi said when he left the palace is quite meaningful. If you stay here and don't go out, you really have no freedom."

Li Yu said: "A Hungarian poet has a very good poem, life is precious, but love is more precious. If it is for freedom, both can be abandoned. But among these things, it seems that the little emperor still only has life."

Lu Xun said: "If it is for freedom, both can be abandoned... This poem is very well written! Which Hungarian poet?"

Li Yu said: "It's called Petofi."

Lu Xun said: "It is written so deeply!"

Xu Zhimo also liked it very much, "If that's the case, I don't have love either, but I don't know if I will give up love for freedom."

Li Yu smiled and said, "Marriage is a grave. It doesn't necessarily provide freedom. People outside want to get in, and people inside want to get out."

Xu Zhimo pondered for a moment and sighed, "It's really hard to make a decision." He then asked, "Mr. Academician, I heard that you will go to Europe and the United States to participate in academic activities this year. Is it true... Will Huiyin and Mr. Liang also go to the United States on the ship?"

Li Yu nodded: "Ren Gong once asked me which university in the United States has a good architecture department. He mentioned this matter and they will go to the United States to study architecture together."

Xu Zhimo was even more sad: "It's ruined, ruined everywhere!"