The Grand Council chamber was a place of suffocating formality, a room where the fate of hundreds of millions was decided in hushed, coded whispers and subtle political maneuvers. Today, however, the usual atmosphere of staid procedure was about to be shattered. Prince Gong stood before the assembled councillors, his face set like granite, his eyes holding the conviction of a man armed with a new and urgent purpose. The strange, symbolic map gifted to him by the Emperor had gnawed at his mind, and the preliminary inquiries he had made into the Maritime Customs Service had been deeply unsettling. He was ready to open a new front in his cold war with the Empress Dowager.
He began his address, his voice a powerful baritone that filled the vast hall, easily silencing the rustle of silk robes and the clearing of throats.
"Esteemed Councillors, Your Imperial Majesties," he began, his gaze sweeping across the room before settling on Cixi's throne. "For decades, the attention of this court has been focused inward and to the north. We have rightly concerned ourselves with the suppression of rebellions within our borders and the threat of the Russian bear on our western frontier."
He paused, letting his words hang in the air. "But we have been looking in the wrong direction. The real danger, the one that brought the British and French barbarians to our shores, the one that burned our Summer Palace and forced us to sign away our sovereignty, comes not from the land. It comes from the sea."
A low murmur went through the assembled ministers. This was a dramatic and unexpected opening.
"Our coastal defenses are a disgrace!" Prince Gong declared, his voice rising with passion. "Our forts are armed with cannons that were outdated a century ago. Our navy… what we call a navy… is a scattered fleet of wooden junks and river boats, ships that would be obliterated by a single foreign ironclad before they could even get within firing range. We are a giant with feet of clay, our entire coastline a soft, exposed belly, inviting attack."
He unfurled a large scroll on the central table. It was a map showing the known naval strength of the Western powers, the number of their gunboats already patrolling the Chinese coast. The visual was stark and terrifying.
"Therefore, this servant proposes a new, bold course of action," he announced. "The creation of a true, modern Northern Fleet. The Beiyang Fleet. It will be based at the ports of Weihaiwei and Port Arthur, to create an iron shield that can defend the Bohai Sea and the very approaches to the capital. It will not be built of wood and cloth, but of steel. Its ships will be purchased from the finest shipyards in Britain and Germany. Its cannons will be the modern guns of Krupp and Armstrong. And its men, our own brave sailors, will be trained by foreign advisors in the Western arts of naval gunnery and fleet tactics."
The proposal was audacious, radical, and a stunned silence fell over the council. It was broken by Grand Councillor Ronglu, Cixi's most loyal and conservative minister. He rose to his feet, his face flushed with indignation.
"This is madness!" Ronglu declared, his voice trembling with outrage. "More barbarian weapons? More foreign devils on our sacred soil, poisoning the minds of our men with their strange ways? Has the Prince forgotten the lessons of the past? We must rely on the strength of our traditions, the virtue of our culture, and the courage of our people, not the crude, soulless machines of the West."
The debate erupted. Cixi's faction immediately attacked the proposal as a fool's errand, an expensive capitulation to foreign influence. It was in this moment that another powerful figure made his voice heard. Viceroy Li Hongzhang, a man who governed a vast and powerful province, stepped forward. He was a pragmatist, the foremost proponent of the controversial "Self-Strengthening Movement," and had been trying for years to modernize his own provincial army with Western technology.
"Grand Councillor Ronglu's head is buried in the sand of the past," Li Hongzhang said, his voice calm but sharp. He turned to face the conservative minister. "Tell me, Councillor, did your 'virtue' stop the British guns at the Dagu Forts? Did our 'traditions' prevent their armies from marching into this very city? We can stand here and praise our own moral superiority while our coasts are plundered and our sovereignty is stripped away, or we can accept reality. We must have modern ships and modern guns, or the Great Qing will become nothing more than a footnote in our own history, a story told by our conquerors."
The powerful Viceroy's support gave Prince Gong's proposal significant weight. The council was now deadlocked between the conservative faction and the modernizers. The cost, however, remained the primary, seemingly insurmountable obstacle.
"And how does the Prince propose we pay for this… fleet of iron toys?" Ronglu sneered. "The Imperial Treasury is empty. We are still paying indemnities to the British and the French. Shall we melt down the temple bells? Shall we ask the people to give up their rice bowls?"
This was the moment Prince Gong had been waiting for. This was the true target of his attack.
"The funds will not come from the Imperial Treasury," he said calmly. He looked directly at Cixi, who had remained silent throughout the debate, observing, her face an unreadable mask. "The funds will come from the Imperial Maritime Customs Service."
A new wave of murmurs swept the room.
"I propose the creation of a new, independent 'Coastal Defense Fund,'" the Prince announced. "A fixed percentage, perhaps twenty percent, of all revenue collected by the customs houses in the southern ports will be earmarked specifically for this fund. The silver will be transferred directly from the Maritime Customs administration to the administrators of the Fleet Fund, bypassing the usual bureaucratic channels of the Board of Revenue entirely."
The brilliance of the proposal was as stunning as its audacity. Prince Gong was proposing a direct attack on Cixi's secret slush fund. He was proposing to take the very money she was siphoning off to pay for her spies and her palaces and use it to build a modern navy for the state.
Cixi was trapped. The proposal was logical. It identified the only significant and reliable source of income in the empire. And it was patriotic. How could she, the regent, object to using customs revenue to build a fleet to defend the very coast where that trade took place? To object would be to tacitly admit that she had other, more secretive uses for that money. It would expose her to accusations of putting her own interests before the nation's security.
Her face remained a placid mask, but her eyes were like frozen chips of jade. She saw the trap clearly. She saw Li Hongzhang's support, Prince Gong's clever maneuvering. She knew she had been outplayed. For now.
"The Prince's concern for the safety of the realm is commendable," she said at last, her voice smooth and even. "In principle, this Empress agrees that our coastal defenses must be strengthened." She had conceded the main point. But her fight was not over. "However, the details of the administration of such a vast and expensive fund must be considered with the utmost care."
She had agreed in principle, but she had just opened a new battleground: the fight for who would control the money. But Prince Gong had won the first, most important victory. The Northern Fleet, an idea that was just a whisper a few days ago, was now on a path to becoming a reality. Ying Zheng's carefully placed message had borne fruit.