Me and Empress Dowager Cixi

Chapter 24 Lafayette returns to his hometown (1)
Probably because of psychological factors, when the imperial train finally entered the border of the three provinces in the Northeast, everything seemed to be quite different from before, even the fields outside the train window seemed to be a little different.But exactly what has changed, I can't tell.That kind of feeling should be produced involuntarily when we just enter a strange place.This yellow imperial train, which was forced to drive slowly before, started to speed up now. Maybe it also has a different feeling of its own. Want to have a better time?

I have known for a long time that the sorghum in the three eastern provinces is famous, but I have never seen it.So, as soon as I got out of Shanhaiguan, I kept running to the window and looked into the distance again and again, but every time I was disappointed, there were no special plants at all.Later, I asked the eunuch who devoted himself to studying botany, and he smiled and said to me: "The sorghum at this time is only one or two feet high, like wheat, even if you saw it, you would not recognize it." However, It is conceivable that after a few months, they will grow to be as tall as a person.Because of their thick leaves, at that time, from Shanhaiguan in the west to the border with North Korea in the east, it will be densely green, almost like a big green tapestry on the ground.If you look at it from a high place, you can see green everywhere, and the smaller houses, creeks, ponds, and other kinds of plants are all blocked by sorghum, and you can't see them at all!Therefore, people in the three eastern provinces called the sorghum fields "green gauze tents", and no one would find out how many teams hid in them.

Slowly, our train drove into a very desolate area. There were no decent buildings on both sides of the track, let alone a majestic large building complex; if there were houses, they were mostly scattered broken tiles The covered low house is a place where the poor can barely shelter from the wind and rain.Occasionally, some animals are seen, some are wild, some are raised by people, such as cattle, sheep, horses, pigs, elk and so on.They wandered leisurely in the fields, and some of them soaked themselves in a dirty river, getting all muddy, which made people laugh.The queen mother is a person who loves animals, and seeing them roaming freely in the fields at this moment makes her even more fond of them.But it is a pity that she brought so many people, from ministers to eunuchs, it is very difficult to find someone who is very knowledgeable in zoology, or there is no one at all, otherwise she will definitely be reused .

On the issue of land use, the Chinese do not have any sense of planning, and they probably feel that any place can be used to bury the dead.So, even if you are outside the pass, you can still see those buns in the fields, alone, one here and one there.However, there is one advantage outside the pass, that is, the weeds seem to grow faster and better than inside the pass, so each grave is covered with a lush green meadow, which is quite comfortable to look at.

The Jingfeng Railway is built along the coastline. When we look east from the window, we can see the coast of Liaodong Bay looming in the distance.

After entering the boundaries of the three eastern provinces, my feelings are very complicated, and what I feel most deeply is that this place still maintains a rough atmosphere.I am not too surprised by this, because my ancestors belonged to that kind of strong and unruly nation hundreds or even thousands of years ago. The reason why they can thrive in this vast wilderness is to rely on Natural strength and bravery.Farming and hunting are their way of survival, which invisibly makes this nation have a strong combat effectiveness. Later, they easily conquered Middle-earth by relying on tens of thousands of horses.Although the banner people inside the pass have gradually become weaker, the common people outside the pass still have not lost the bravery and roughness of the nomads, and all of them have more or less inherited the characteristics of their ancestors.

In addition to those tombs, we also saw a few scattered county towns.They are all very small and far away from the railway. Looking from the car, they seem to have reached the end of the sky.Fortunately, the great eunuch Zhang De was there, and he was familiar with the geographical conditions here. With his guidance, we knew that those were the county towns. Otherwise, we would have thought it was a big rock rolled down from the mountain when it was dark from a distance. Woolen cloth.

When I first came out of Shanhaiguan, there were plains everywhere on both sides. Once I passed Xinmin, not only the population became less and less, the plains were gradually replaced by high and low mountains.Some of these mountains are very close to the railway, and some are far away. Although they are all branches of a large mountain range, none of them has a majestic momentum.Only far to the west, one can vaguely see a majestic mountain range straight into the sky, and it stretches endlessly.Our train was slowly moving towards it, at first it was like pale ink, then slowly turned gray, and finally turned into a very lovely blue!Of course, we are still very far away from it.

When I was intoxicated by the mountains in the distance, I suddenly felt something changed around me.Although no one took excessive actions or words, the order on the queen train unexpectedly became not as good as before, and an atmosphere of commotion spread in the air.I felt very strange in my heart, so I quickly asked the people next to me, and only then did I know that our train will not go directly to Fengtian, but will stop at Huanggutun, which is the previous stop of Fengtian.For the rest of the journey, I will rely on the sedan chair I am used to in daily life, and the slow-moving train will enter the rest state in advance.

It's time to get off the car, so I don't have much interest in admiring the scenery outside the window. Besides, there is indeed nothing worth admiring during this journey.

Slowly, the commotion intensified.The queen mother also knew that the journey was coming to an end, so she began to direct the people below to prepare for getting off.Although there is no need to tidy up the bedding or tidy up the boxes, the antiques and jades placed in the small imperial court, as well as the puppy named "Hai Long" and the two parrots enshrined by Yuan Shikai, all need to be extra careful, so everyone It's also very busy.

When we arrived at Huanggutun, the first thing that caught our eyes was a brand-new concrete platform, which was the same as the one at Tianjin Station, with many banners and lanterns hung neatly and beautifully.Of course, this is also because it was notified in advance, otherwise I don't know what it will be like.In addition, just like Tianjin, such an important occasion must be presided over by an extraordinary person, and this person is the governor of Fengtian, Huaitabu.He is a Manchurian, and the power in his hands is comparable to that of Yuan Shikai.

When the yellow imperial train finally pulled into the station, the newly built platform was already filled with countless senior officials kneeling, and a grand reception ceremony was inevitable.Although there is no Western band like Yuan Shikai here, the due etiquette will definitely not be less than Tianjin.However, these people were not as lucky as the Tianjin officials. The Empress Dowager was not interested in this at this time, and she was indeed tired during the past few days on the way, so she wanted to stop this journey quickly, and she didn't have the heart to perfuse those high-sounding etiquettes.She kept urging Li Lianying to prepare a wedding for her.As soon as Luanyu was ready, she hurriedly hid inside, so the burden fell on the sixteen eunuchs who were responsible for carrying the sedan chair. They carefully lifted the empress dowager's Luanyu and walked forward.

The queen mother has already boarded the sedan chair, and the rest of the people don't have to stay at the station.Immediately following the Empress Dowager's Luanyu, they set off one by one in sedan chairs, those of Guangxu, Longyu, Concubine Jin, and us female officials.The eunuchs, big and small, were all very idle, and followed on foot with the Fengtian officials.

There were no more officials in Fengtian than in other places, probably in order to welcome the Empress Dowager, more people were specially mobilized to participate in this ceremony, so the team looked mighty.Like the eunuchs, they all wore neat and brand-new official uniforms, which were extraordinarily gorgeous.The two or three miles long line will be interesting to see from a distance.I remember when I was young, I followed my father to participate in several sacrificial ceremonies, wedding receptions, and funeral ceremonies; after entering the palace, I became a maidservant, and I saw several honor guards beside the Empress Dowager, but the level of excitement was not as lively as this one .It's not just about the number of people. When it comes to beauty, other guards of honor are also hard to match.

After walking for about half an hour, an extremely huge city gate was placed in front of us.If there is a city gate, there is a city wall. The city wall is not very high, but it can be seen from the color and style that it must have a long history. However, I have not investigated it carefully, so I cannot rashly say what era the building is.Fortunately, the story in this book is not affected by it, so it doesn't matter much.

A hexagonal watchtower was built on the city wall, which has many similarities with the buildings in the Central Plains.I once heard people say that when Qianlong returned to Fengtian, he felt that the buildings here were too old and not beautiful. Under his vigorous style, he immediately took out the money and built many new buildings in Fengtian. , this watchtower may have been built at that time.

In general, the common gates in China are equipped with two left and right doors in one door opening.But the city gates here are very special, they are really two gates, because each one is very large, and can cover the gate opening tightly by itself, perhaps it was designed like this to strengthen the defense back then.

We passed through these special two doors and entered Fengtian's Forbidden City.The royal road leading directly to the deep palace is very wide, covered with golden sand, and our mighty team walking on it has a strange color.Think about it, on the golden road, there are colorful people walking, how can the scene be described by the word "beautiful"?

The situation on both sides of the royal road also has to be mentioned, it is also a special scenery.Since the queen mother's Royal Forest Army had not had time to transfer in, Waitabu specially selected hundreds of Manchu soldiers from his team to temporarily protect the queen mother.At this time, they were kneeling far away on both sides of the imperial road, about three or four feet away from us.There were also a group of people kneeling in the empty space in the middle. They were also officials of Fengtian, but some of them were not qualified to pick up the driver at the station because of their low official rank, while the other part just happened to catch up with the driver even though they were qualified to pick up the driver. There are important government affairs in the yamen, but I can't go there.Therefore, these two groups of people also formed two teams, kowtowed to the queen mother on the side of the royal road, and it was considered as a pick-up ceremony.

The hundreds of Manchurian soldiers dispatched by Waitabu were nominally to guard the Empress Dowager, and they came to the Forbidden City; weapon.This is very difficult!They came here to protect the Empress Dowager, and if anything happened to the Empress Dowager, they would be responsible.However, without any weapons in your hands, how can you subdue assassins or rebels with empty hands?Therefore, if there are really assassins now, these Manchurian soldiers will be dead on the left and right.Fortunately, at that time, not many Chinese had pistols or bombs. Even if they were going to assassinate the Empress Dowager, they only used swords. In this way, with so many people resisting, the assassin would not be able to succeed.Therefore, there is no need to worry about those soldiers, and there will be no accidents.For Waitab, the purpose of mobilizing these hundreds of bannermen was to protect the safety of the queen mother, but in fact it was just to curry favor.

As I said before, I am a restless person, so when my sedan chair passed through the city gate, I opened the sedan chair curtain a little bit, and kept peeking at the situation outside.At that time, I clearly saw that the walls of the imperial city had been damaged, and some old bricks with scars were thrown on the ground, and those gaps clearly showed signs of being demolished privately.In addition to being in disrepair for a long time, clumps of weeds have grown on the city wall, and the royal majesty has been destroyed.Some gaps are relatively large, and many small trees have grown on them. I really don't know what it will look like in a few years!I thought to myself, it must not have been like this when it was completed, and I don’t know what it was like at that time.

For me, this imperial city did not produce the special feeling I imagined.Although I know very well that our ancestors rose here, it seems that it should feel a little different, but after all, the age is too long, and it is difficult for us to feel nostalgic.Besides, we have lived in the Central Plains for a long time, and we are very familiar with it, so when we really return to our hometown, we feel very strange.I thought at the time, if the ancestors came out of the ground to meet us at this time, what would I do?Probably you can only welcome them with the etiquette you treat strangers, and nothing else.

(End of this chapter)