Chapter 39 The Final Decryption of the "Tianjin Teaching Case"

At that time, the whole country generally believed that this was a "just act of patriotism" and that the people who took the action were "national heroes". Everyone firmly believed that the things that aroused so many people's indignation would never be based on rumors, and foreigners must have committed illegal acts. . The government dare not control the people!Against any concessions!Against any appeasement!This is the voice of the people. It is not only the people who are angry, but also the great powers, who think that their citizens are too aggrieved to die.The relevant powers drove the fleet to Tianjin, and sent envoys to lodge a strong protest to Cixi's mother and son, demanding that the criminals be punished and compensated for the losses, and war will start if they don't do so!

Empress Dowager Cixi's mother and son were caught between foreigners and the common people, in a dilemma.Therefore, how to deal with this incident has become a major issue to test the ability of Cixi's mother and son to govern. At this time Cixi thought of Zeng Guofan.After all, Tianjin is under the jurisdiction of the governor of Zhili.She said to Zeng Guofan: Zeng Aiqing, I am most assured that you are the one who handles the civil and military affairs of the Manchu Dynasty, and I will leave this matter to you to handle, but I will send you a word: "handle it equally, follow the people's conditions and maintain the overall situation."

How hard it is to not lose the hearts of the people and not offend foreigners! But does Zeng Guofan have a choice?No! Zeng Guofan came to Tianjin with Cixi's highest instructions. He opened the file and began to review and sort out the case.In this unfamiliar place, he used all available resources and worked hard under a lonely lamp. After half a month of hard work, he finally completed this seemingly impossible task. On July 21, 1870, under the pressure of the turbulent public opinion, Zeng Guofan actually played Cixi's "Finding the General Situation of the Tianjin Religion Case" according to the facts. The memorial answered three questions:

One is the origin of those children buried in the churchyard. This year was a year of famine, the plague was prevalent, and many families were unable to support their children. Parents threw their children by the side of the road or directly into the river, and many orphans could only fend for themselves. Later, the nuns and priests of the Foundling Hall found the children, but most of them were dying.After these orphans were taken into the church, some of them died of illness, and after they died, the church sent them out for burial.Some were buried shallower, so they were dug out by wild dogs. This is where the sayings "the chest and abdomen are rotten, and the intestines and stomach are exposed" and "the eyes are dug out and the heart is cut open" come from this.

The second is the strangeness of Wu Lanzhen's confession. Wherever there are people, there are gangsters. There is a local triad organization in Tianjin called "Shuihuohui". Instead of the government, set up private courts to hear cases, and execute those they suspect at will, "punishing evil and promoting good". This Wu Lanzhen was handed over to the county government after being "repaired" by the Water and Fire Association.Zeng Guofan later discovered that Wu Lanzhen had "kneeling wounds", "stick wounds" and "kick wounds" all over her body, and that strange confession was actually the result of torture.

The third is the deep-seated reasons for the "teaching plan". One is the church itself. In the eyes of ordinary people, the church is mysterious (it is closed all the year round, too secret, and it is impossible to peek into the bottom), and people always have some wild guesses about the mysterious places that are not highly transparent.And the church also acted cool and didn't explain at all.Therefore, the church and the common people are artificially separated into two worlds.When ordinary people can't understand the charity project launched by the church (accepting abandoned and seriously ill children for baptism), they will naturally suspect that the church has harmed children.

The second is the psychological gap. After experiencing the Opium War, the Chinese people suddenly fell from the superior position of being the sole ruler of the world to the humiliating situation where only foreigners obeyed, and their hatred of foreigners became more and more turbulent. The third is that the church hides its filth. Some people believed in foreign religions, and some hated foreigners for not believing in foreign religions.The people who do not believe in foreign religions naturally despise the people who believe in foreign religions because they hate foreigners.The problem is that among the believers of the Western religion, there are a small number of local ruffians who take advantage of the power of foreigners to bully men and women, and are especially keen on abducting children and seducing women.Once these scumbags were brought to the government, the government always made major and trivial matters because of their foreigner background, which made the relationship between the cadres and the masses very tense.

In this context, the conflict between ordinary people and foreigners is like dry wood and fire, which can be ignited at one point. In any case, the cause of the "Tianjin Teaching Case" is an out-and-out rumor. Fortunately, in August of this year, Zeng Guofan's main opponent, the French, was overwhelmed by the sudden outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War (French-German War), and had no energy to take care of the nationals who died in the far east. Zeng Guofan's solution after bargaining with the foreigners was as follows: trade his life for his life, kill the leading instigator; pay 500,000 taels of silver to other countries; send a commissioner to France to "apology".The only thing that is determined not to make concessions is to not allow relevant officials to resist their orders. For example, Liu Jie, the magistrate of the county, was dismissed and exiled to the army.

Regardless of whether Zeng Guofan's handling result is fair or not, but this handling plan is doomed to Zeng Guofan's ending-the curse of "traitor" comes surging, and the memorials to impeach him are like snowflakes, all of them want to kill him quickly. In just a few months, Zeng Guofan's reputation accumulated over decades was destroyed.Because criticism is always easy, but doing things is always not easy. Alas.