American meteorologist Edward Lorenz said in a 1963 article submitted to the New York Academy of Sciences: "A butterfly in the rainforest of the Amazon basin of South America, with a few occasional flaps of its wings, can cause a tornado in Texas, USA, two weeks later." ”
And something that seems to be unbeatable to you, in the end, through the chain reaction of ghosts and gods, can actually determine your fate, this is the so-called butterfly effect, and Zuo Zongtang At this time, he probably couldn't imagine his fate, and he was connected with a large group of people who didn't know who it was until he died.
Queen Isabella II of Spain, when she reaches the age of talking about marriage, she can't make her own decisions, who she wants to marry, it's up to her, it's completely the result of the political game of the great powers.
In the final outcome of the struggle, France prevailed, and she was forced to marry a husband who did not want to be her husband, but wanted to be his "sister".
What's even more pitiful is that although Queen Isabella II is mediocre, she is healthy and in demand, while her "sister" husband is only interested in "handsome pot", so she can only rely on cheating to solve her physical needs.
So the whole Spanish palace was in chaos, and every man was watched by the hungry queen and her husband, and either he had to sleep with the queen or her husband, and it was said that the queen went to bed whenever she could, and was never picky.
But you must not think about it, think that this is a beautiful thing, although we look at her portrait today, people seem to look so-so, but it is likely that it has been seriously photoshopped.
Portrait of Queen Isabella II.
Because there is a record that there was a royal doctor, unfortunately the queen took a fancy to him, so the queen forced him to have a good time, but it is said that the queen looked terrible, and the food was not good, the doctor finally couldn't bear it, ran away, and vomited as soon as he went out, you can imagine how ugly the queen actually looks.
In 25 years, Spain changed 34 times, promulgated 7 constitutions, and had 15 riots, and finally in September 1868, she was overthrown by a coup d'état**, and hurriedly ran to Paris for refuge.
Queen Isabella II's live-action**.
Incidentally, the European royal families of the time were basically relatives, and most of them were from the Habsburgs. Such a person, Zuo Zongtang has been around all his life, and he doesn't know her existence, so how did she affect Zuo Zongtang's fate? Don't worry, this is the result of several things intertwined, let's explain them one by one, and it will take a few chapters to string them together.
After the French Catholic Church came to China, they told people the story of Jesus the carpenter, saying that he was an Internet celebrity, and hoped that everyone would become his fans and become brainless fans.
But in the eyes of the Chinese at that time, a carpenter was an Internet celebrity, just running around the rivers and lakes to brag about it, and it was not an inspirational reading story, naturally it would not be respected by everyone.
Coupled with the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Movement, which caused the deaths of nearly 100 million people in China, and it is said that Hong Xiuquan is the carpenter's brother, both of them were born to the same father, so most righteous men and gentlemen will instinctively think that Catholicism is a cult.
Therefore, the missionaries wore out their lips and begged people everywhere to add powder, but except for those scoundrels who had bad intentions and wanted to find a foreigner as a backer, and the marginalized people in society, there were no people who could stand in society and were willing to join the church.
But at that time, there was no Internet, let alone Weibo, forums, Douyin, etc., if the missionary wanted to seek attention by selling cute treasures, it was obviously impossible, and even if there were, at most, it could only be like Luo Yufeng and Sister Furong, becoming people's jokes after dinner.
Different from Buddhism, everyone speaks of a fateful word, and if there is a fate, they get together, and if they don't have a fate, they scatter in two, and they don't disturb each other. Catholicism is very persistent, and you have to believe in it.
Since the traditional methods did not work, the missionaries began to look at what was lacking in Chinese society. What is needed? So that they can quickly recruit a large number of fans. Soon, they found that the Chinese knew nothing about scientific knowledge, especially in medicine, and were simply backward scum, and actually believed that what kidney tonic could cure impotence, and eating human blood steamed buns could cure tuberculosis, and they were completely in backwardness and ignorance.
In the West at that time, Lavoisier had already laid the foundation of chemistry, Pasteur had already discovered bacteria and knew the principles of treatment for most diseases.
So they have learned to use nitrous oxide as an anesthetic, operate on patients, and can already be proficient in acute appendicitis. At the same time, due to the development of chemical technology, they have also mastered the manufacturing methods of aspirin, quinine, iodine wine, and all kinds of messy sulfides and arsenides, which can lead to some headaches, brain fever, cardiovascular and diseases, as well as infectious diseases such as malaria, and even some simple cancers.
So the church began to open hospitals to treat Chinese at low prices, even for free, on the condition that Chinese listen to their stories about Jesus the carpenter, and then become fans of Jesus.
Although Western medicine was not perfect at this time, the ** result had already thrown off a few streets of Chinese medicine, so for the Chinese at that time, it was simply a miraculous mess.
So everyone is speculating, what exactly is their magic medicine made of? So what does this matter have to do with Zuo Zongtang?
Of course, everything we talk about, it's a different butterfly, flapping its wings. There's also a butterfly that sounds even more irrelevant. Lincoln enacted the Homestead Act, which led to the westward expansion of the United States, and after the Civil War, a large number of people poured into the western United States.
Soon, they discovered large gold deposits in California, Colorado and Nevada, and the gold rush arose, and the United States became the world's largest gold producer.
Due to the influx of a large number of ** into the market, for the British gold standard system has long been carried out, laid the material foundation, the Western powers gradually took ** as the main monetary means, ** status began to decline day by day, ** also gradually bottomed out, there was a surplus. At this time in Europe, an important thing happened, Prussia defeated Austria and unified the north of Germany, but there were still four small states left in the south, under the protection of France, not included in the territory of Germany, for this, Prussia's iron-blooded prime minister, Bismarck, was angry.
In China, another little butterfly flapped its wings and the news of Lei Huang's victory not only completely diluted, but also caused Zuo Zongtang to fall into a comprehensive crisis. Everyone doesn't know if they still remember that Du Wenxiu, who once petitioned, is now the sultan of the Islamic State in Dali, which is what the king meant.
Du Wenxiu. Two years ago, when the Qing court was concentrating on fighting the Twist army, when the interior was empty, he sent more than 200,000 troops, planning to take Kunming first, and then attack Sichuan, and finally connect the entire Muslim rebellion area.
This plan sounded ambitious, and Du Wenxiu's troops, far better equipped than the Muslim rebels in the northwest, had purchased a large number of foreign guns from the British colony of Burma, and launched this menacing attack while another army in Yunnan, Cen Yuying's Dian army, was sent to Guizhou to quell the rebellion.
At that time, the Muslim general Ma Xian was left behind in Kunming, and many people were worried that he was unreliable, because he also participated in the original Yunnan Muslim rebellion, besieged Kunming, and forced the former governor Hengchun to death. And later, he also joined forces with Du Wenxiu, severely damaged the Qing army, and finally joined the side of the Qing court under the appeasement of the governor Xu Zhiming, but he was also a bad record before, and many people were still wary of him.
When Du Wenxiu's army approached Kunming, many people feared that he would fall to Du Wenxiu, and Du Wenxiu also wrote to him personally, persuading him to rejoin the Muslim rebels and jointly create the Islamic State on the basis of common beliefs and the affection of former comrades-in-arms.
At that time, Ma Xian's army was only a fraction of Du Wenxiu's army, and many Muslim generals under him were secretly preparing to surrender to Du Wenxiu.
But Ma is now at a critical moment, unmoved, he swore in public that he would swear allegiance to the imperial court, resolutely defend Kunming, and the city would never surrender.
After learning that some of the Muslim generals defending the city were plotting to deal with Du Wenxiu's rebels, he did not hesitate to wipe them out, including the deputy general He Guoan, the staff general Ma Xuelin, the garrison Ma Yunlong, etc., all of whom were his township party, but he showed no mercy and executed them all on the spot.
Then he led his soldiers of various faiths, in the face of the enemy's heavy encirclement, held on to the lonely city, dragged Du Wenxiu's army, and a year later, with the support of Cen Yuying, finally defeated Du Wenxiu's Eastern Expeditionary Army, completely reversing the tide of the war in Yunnan. Therefore, when the good news reached Crystal City, the imperial court was overjoyed, and later Cixi met him many times and invited him to watch a play in Cining Palace, and specially prepared halal food for him.
At the same time as Zuo Zongtang's good news of recovering Dong Zhiyuan came, Ma Xian and Cen Yuying also won victories on the battlefield in Yunnan and were attacking Du Wenxiu's nest Dali.
Therefore, many ministers in the imperial court suddenly felt that since Ma Xian, who believed in Islam, could learn his way back and regain his loyalty to the country, why couldn't the sect leader in the northwest?
Mutushan's statement is not entirely unreasonable. Moreover, more importantly, Yunnan's military expenditure is only a fraction of that of the northwest, and of course, there are some objective reasons for this: First, Yunnan is rich in natural products, and the problem of eating is not serious, so there is no need to import a large amount of grain from other places.
Secondly, Yunnan is rich in minerals, especially rich in copper ore, which is money when it is cast, so it is basically self-sufficient and will not add too much burden to the imperial court. But many people don't think so, they think that the root of the problem is that Zuo Zongtang is in the northwest, just blindly using the strong, and does not use the trick of razing and razing, so everything must be done by himself, relying on the soldiers of the imperial court to solve it, which naturally costs a lot and is difficult step by step.
This year, Zuo Zongtang's direct military expenditure has spent 5.7 million taels. If we include the resettlement costs of the displaced people, the indirect costs of transporting grain, sending salaries, and sending troops in various places have already exceeded 10 million yuan, so although they also achieved victory, they are in sharp contrast with Yunnan's expenditures.
Moreover, in this year, the entire income of the imperial court was less than 70 million taels, and after deducting normal expenses, it was not enough for all the surpluses to be invested in the northwest battlefield, and it was necessary to borrow money from foreigners to barely maintain, so it is conceivable how much pressure there is.
Therefore, although Zuo Zongtang won the victory on the battlefield and made progress in dealing with the problem of displaced people, the finances of the imperial court were almost unbearable. At this time, Zuo Zongtang was preparing to take advantage of the victory to attack and take Jinji Fort, and he was faced with a lot of money, which made many ministers worry that the protracted war would lead to the financial bankruptcy of the Qing court?
As soon as they are unable to make ends meet, it is inevitable that they will have to raise taxes on the peasants, and the officials at the grassroots level are likely to take the opportunity to loot, and this will easily cause the officials to force the people to rebel, and the hinterland, which has just stabilized with great difficulty, will once again fall into turmoil, and it is very likely that new rebellions will be induced, and the gains will outweigh the losses.
Not only the ministers are worried, but the Empress Dowager Xi is also worried, facing the desk, the mountains of money reports in the northwest, Cixi is also thinking, can there be a way to save money to solve these problems?
Therefore, in this atmosphere, Ma Xian's victory is of great significance, and many people attribute the reason for Yunnan's small military expenditure to the success of the Muslim strategy of Muslim system, and they very much hope that this method will also be used in the northwest to solve the problem of financial crisis.
Therefore, although Dong Zhiyuan was recovered and the main force of Shaanxi Muslims was defeated, which made everyone happy for a while, but soon, everyone frowned again for the question of money, and more and more people began to support Mu Tushan's plan, feeling that this was the best way to solve the problem in the northwest.
Cixi actually wants to adopt Mu Tushan's plan, but she has a prerequisite, that is, the sect leader is just a disease of ringworm, not a big problem, let alone a character like Li Yuanhao, otherwise, the appeasement will become a drink to quench thirst, this is not only her opinion, but also the opinion of several other important ministers of the imperial court, but thousands of miles away in the crystal city, how should they find out the truth?
Zuo Zongtang is also under a lot of pressure now, he has spent so much money, he is also in pain, although every penny is for the country, he has a clear conscience, but he also knows that he can not delay in the slightest, he must solve Jinjibao as soon as possible before the court can not hold on, otherwise, once he gets out of another Western Xia Kingdom, he will become a sinner through the ages.
So he kept applying to the imperial court for more troops, and now his army has added a lot of strange things, Zhang Yao and Song Qing, who are two newcomers, one is known as the world's first rake ear, and the other is a tactical expert.
Let's talk about the first rake ear in the world, that is not everyone can be, he is appointed by the Empress Dowager Cixi. This person was born in the hometown of the Twisting Army, and he has practiced a good kung fu since he was a child, and he is famous far and wide.
Unexpectedly, he did not go to participate in Zhang Lexing's Twist Army Violent Gang, but instead went to run the second faction and took up the promising profession of joint defense.
Because of his hard work and enthusiasm, soon, this young man was turned into a regular, and at a young age, he became a department-level leader and became a political envoy of Henan Province.
I didn't expect the Qing Dynasty to come to Yu to inspect and convey the spirit of the imperial court. This attracted everyone's attention, so the person in charge of the inspection team wrote a few words, put them in front of him, and asked him, what do you think of this person?
Unexpectedly, this young man's face suddenly swollen red, and after a long time, he said, "I don't know this person." The team asked him again: "Are you sure?" You don't know this person well? He nodded, sure, and then the man from Crystal City said to him, "It's your name."
The report pointed out that there was a serious problem in the selection and promotion of cadres in a certain locality, and that the promotion of illiterate people to department-level leaders was a serious violation of organizational discipline and must be corrected immediately.
Although the leader repeatedly pleaded and said that this guy had made a lot of contributions, he still couldn't do it, because what the superior said was also very reasonable, it's okay if you don't know how to read when you're an official, but you don't know how to read when you become a section chief, and you can't even read the report, that's absolutely not good.
So he was immediately lowered by two levels and changed to captain, which was a bolt from the clear sky, and it was a blow to the head.
So this young man secretly made up his mind, learned from the pain, and began the arduous project of eradicating illiteracy. First of all, he thought, don't you say that I don't know how to read, then I will simply carve a seal for myself, on which are written the four big characters of illiterate, and all the documents I handle in the future will be stamped with this seal, so that I can remind myself from time to time.
Then, he has to find a teacher to teach him to read, so who should he find? After thinking about it, he slapped his thigh suddenly, and remembered, my wife!
My wife is a famous lady, not only can I go to the hall and the kitchen, but I can also read and write. So he immediately ran home to discuss with his wife: "Wife, can you take up a little bit of your precious time from today, you can play less mahjong and teach me to read?" ”
My wife thought about it, I provoked you to provoke you, how busy I am, I have to help you spend money during the day, and I have to sleep with you at night. Now you have squeezed out the entertainment time for me, working 24 hours a day, which is a violation of labor law!
So his wife said, go and bring the washboard, kneel on it, kowtow to me three times, and worship me as a teacher, otherwise don't bother me. I didn't expect this guy to really kneel on the washboard, ** pop" and kowtowed three times, since then worship his wife as a teacher, study hard, less than a year, he opened his mouth: "Bright moonlight in front of the bed, two pairs of shoes on the ground, raise your hand to turn on the light, everyone is full of light." ”
This young man, his name is Zhang Yao, and later followed Zuo Zongtang back from the west, and when he was about to reward him, he didn't expect someone to say to Cixi that he was uneducated, don't give him a big official.
Zhang Yao. So he shouted loudly, and the Empress Dowager Cixi said when she heard it, don't worry, it's not easy to tell!
So I personally tested him in the Jinluan Palace, but I didn't expect him to raise his pen and write a thousand-character essay in less than an hour.
The Empress Dowager Cixi looked at it, oops, this character is written in Juanjuan Xiaokai, beautiful! So I asked him, who did you learn this from? Zhang Yao replied truthfully, learned from his wife.
When the Empress Dowager Cixi heard this, she was overjoyed, and said to the ministers: "See, if a person wants to progress, he must know how to respect women and learn to live by looking at women's faces, so that he will become a good comrade!" ”
As a result, Zhang Yao was appointed governor of Shandong, and suddenly became a feudal official, and later was entrusted with the important task of governing the Yellow River, and no one dared to ridicule him for being illiterate.
It is said that one day, he deliberately took 1,000 taels of silver to give to the cadre of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection who said that he was illiterate, thanking him for his encouragement and support, which made the other party's face blue and white for a while.
The other person is Song Qing, although this person is not a Huai army, but he has a good relationship with Li Hongzhang, and he can be regarded as half a Huai army. We mentioned him earlier, that is, when he was twisting, as long as it wasn't Henan's business, he didn't want to care about the guy.
Song Qing. Now the imperial court also sent him, follow Zuo Zongtang, don't underestimate this person, the army he led is called the Yi Army, and later with Yuan Shikai's new army, together with Yuan Shikai's new army, together constitute the two major military pillars of the late Qing Dynasty.
Song Qing's greatest ability is that he likes to study Western military theories, and he likes to add some Chinese characteristics to the middle, and then publish it as an academic research report, which has a bit of an academic temperament. Among the Qing palace archives left now, "Yijun Lu Caotu" is from his handwriting.
Yi Jun Lu Cao Tu".
In this formation, Song Qing combined the Western formation with the Chinese Five Elements to create a very famous chain ** array, the design is very reasonable, in a unit of time, can project the largest number of bullets, the efficiency is higher than the Western standard linear three-column formation, so that the current Chinese and foreign ancient tactics researchers, can not help but praise him.
More importantly, in this formation map, he standardized how to march, how to camp, how to advance, and how to retreat, which was also a revolutionary progress for the squadron at that time.
At the same time, Jin Shun, a subordinate of Duolonga, is now also under the direct command of Zuo Zongtang.
Jin Shun, his ancestors also have military merits, and he is an authentic child of the Eight Banners, but his life is not good, and his parents died when he was a child. Then the land was seized by a group of vicious relatives, and since then they have followed their stepmother and depended on each other for their lives. You must know that the banner people of the Qing Dynasty not only had land rewarded by the state as a fixed asset, but also the state had to pay wages every month.
So most of the flag people, who have no worries about food and clothing, soon became a bunch of guys who can only carry cages and birds, except for getting together every day, bragging, drinking tea, and sending out moments, they don't want to do anything else, let alone anyone to join the army to fight.
But Jin Shun is an absolute exception, he actually became a poor man, in order to support himself and his stepmother, there is no way, he is young, he can only join the army to fight.
And because he was poor, he couldn't live without the army, so he fought bravely and impressed the people around him.
In the late Qing Dynasty, not to mention the war, the people of this banner were definitely heroes if they heard the gunshots and were not scared to pee. And a person like Jin Shun, who was born as a banner man and could still ride a horse and shoot arrows, and was also particularly able to fight, immediately attracted the attention of the leaders, and was soon set up as a model, promoted all the way, and became a well-known cavalry general.
Therefore, it is often said that it is not necessarily a bad thing for a person to suffer a little when he is young, but he was born in a honey pot since he was a child, and he is likely not to become a climate in the future, and Jin Shun proves that this sentence is reasonable.
Zhang Yao and Jin Shun were both outstanding cavalry generals, while Song Qing's troops were a modern army armed with foreign guns and artillery, and they combined numbered nearly 30,000 people. Coupled with the newly subdued Dong Fuxiang, now Zuo Zongtang has sixty or seventy thousand people, and the military expenditure is simply an astronomical amount, just when he once again proposed to ask for money and soldiers for the attack on Jinji Fort, Cixi, who was about to collapse every day for money, suddenly became angry and wrote an article to reprimand him, to the effect of: "Why do you have to go to fight Jinji Fort? Do you have to destroy the Master? Can you give me a reliable statement?
You know, in order to support you in the northwest, I used the taxes of 11 provinces to support you, and the pressure is very high, you know? You know that the house where my wife lives now is all dilapidated, and I have always been reluctant to spend money to repair the place that was damaged by the British and French forces last time.
My mother and I haven't bought fashion for many years, and now the bags we carry and the clothes we wear are all A goods, and every penny is saved for you to use in the Northwest Battlefield.
But now, in addition to asking for money or money every day, how long will it take you to solve the problem in the northwest? We trust you so much, you must not let us down. So you must tell me in your conscience that all the means you are taking now are the best solution? ”
Zuo Zongtang looked at the letter, sweating profusely, he knew that the northwest battlefield, such a huge financial consumption, so that the imperial court was about to empty its pockets, and it was likely that in the end, because of money, he was forced to appease the rebellious Muslims, which would cause endless harm, so for the sake of the country and the nation, he must immediately launch a campaign to attack Jinjibao, but how easy is this to say?
On the way home is the New Year