Chapter 405

  Xin Changjun seemed very concerned about the cessation of the war between the Qing and France and the subsequent peace negotiations. He knew that the current court minister presiding over the negotiations was the Governor of Guangdong and Guangxi Gu Yanchuan, the old Taishan of the Earl.

  So here, Lord Earl, you can inquire inside information that the outside world does not know.

  Xin Changjun struggled, and still asked out; "Yuan Ding, the outside reports are inconsistent, I don’t want to take the liberty to ask, how much progress is the war in the southwest?"

"Squandering flowers gradually become charming, so Asakusa can have no horseshoes." Li Fushou chanted Bai Juyi's poem in response to the question. Xin Changjun thoughtfully aftertastes, thinking that Lord Earl must have sentiment, and asked carefully; What's the explanation for this?"

"Hey……"

Li Fushou sighed faintly, with a helpless wry smile on his face, said, "Today the Manchu court is governed by many forces, and the saintly dynasty orders Xixi reform, and there is a Lafayette behind him who disagrees. The governor of Guangdong and Guangxi, Mr. Gu Yanchuan, really took on a drudgery. , Negotiations with France became more difficult.

  It’s my fault, he kept urging him to rush forward.

  France is worthy of being a veteran colonial country. Although it lost on the land battlefield, it still shouted high asking prices for peace talks, as if it were a victor in the war.

  The French government proposed a solution to the problem of the Kingdom of Vietnam;

   Adopting the method of demarcating a small neutral zone, the Qing country withdrew its troops stationed in Vietnam, recognized French colonial rule over Vietnam, and opened the barbaric consumption of Yunnan to France as a commercial port, opening the door to Yunnan for France.

  This plan attempted to negotiate to obtain the northern Vietnamese colony that could not be obtained by war, and to open the southern gate of Manchu and Qing Dynasty to a commercial port, which was simply whimsical.

  Master Gu Yanchuan categorically rejected this plan, and months of negotiations were fruitless.

  At this time, in view of the special relationship between China and Vietnam and the serious threat posed by the invasion of France to the Qing Dynasty, the struggle between the court and the main battle group was fierce.

  This kind of internal friction

   was keenly noticed by the French, which is reflected in the increasingly tough negotiation.

  Master Gu Yanchuan also took a tough stance and clearly pointed out the inside story of the last French cabinet’s fall and was responsible for the war. The Chinese side was not ignorant. This made the French a little bit restrained, and the tune was not so high.

  The Chinese plan is for France to withdraw from Hanoi and restore the orthodox position of the Royal Court of the Kingdom of Vietnam in the region. The two sides of the Qing Dynasty and France set up a neutral zone with Hanoi as the boundary.

  This plan was rejected by the French side. They were unwilling to give up the results they had obtained. The strategy of attacking the Indochina Peninsula was the core of the French country’s policy of colonizing Asia. Although it suffered serious setbacks in the Kingdom of Vietnam, it was impossible to give up easily.

  Now France has occupied the Kingdom of Laos, the Kingdom of Cambodia and most of the Kingdom of Vietnam, and basically controls the Indo-China Peninsula. It only owes the northern part of the puzzle.

  During the French War

  Governor of Guangdong and Guangxi, Gu Yanchuan's two new armies shined brightly, which made the arrogant Europeans have to start to re-examine their policies towards the Qing, and turn from arrogance to pragmatism. This may be the biggest gain of this war.

  In the face of the huge Manchu empire with surviving force, the French temporarily dispelled the unrealistic idea of ​​colonization.

  The negotiations between the two sides lasted for several months. After several rounds of confrontation, China retreated significantly from its original position, striving to reach a formal contract as soon as possible and end the war in the South as soon as possible.

  Its background is that the Zhuhe faction represented by Li Hongzhang, the prime minister of the Shang Beiyang court, gained the upper hand and obtained the approval of Galeries Lafayette, who had long been tired of fighting in the south. This caused the pressure on the shoulders of the governor of Guangdong and Guangxi to increase sharply and he had to make a significant concession.

The new plan is to establish a neutral zone bounded by Shanxi, and the Qing and French armies will disengage from contact. This is essentially equivalent to the withdrawal of the Qing army from the Shanxi prefecture that it originally occupied, retreating to the front lines of Beining, Xinghua, and Taiyuan prefectures to redeploy, and occupy the last of the northern region. Position.

After the signing of the    peace treaty, the puppet regime supported by France in Hanoi was recognized by the Qing, the two sides enjoyed the right to equal trade, and the Chinese assets in Vietnam were respected and protected.

  The French state is unable to continue to increase its troops significantly to the Far East. The governor of Guangdong and Guangxi, Mr. Gu Yanchuan, has sent a letter to warn that this is the final concession.

  In general, this is the best result that can be obtained at present. Apart from some small clauses that need to be considered, the general conditions are these. The Qing and France contracts will be signed in the near future, thus ending the war. "

I see

  Xin Changjun could not help but let out a long sigh, how difficult it is to do things in the current court, the soldiers in the front fought bravely to kill the enemy, the blood was sprinkled on the battlefield, and a large number of foreign ministers who were dragging their legs in the rear ruined a lot of good things.

  "Yuanding, we can provide Mr. Gu Yanchuan with more realistic and pertinent suggestions on France and Europe policy, and we can even send competent personnel who are familiar with diplomatic negotiations to help him fight for reasonable terms."

   "Too much intervention will inevitably be controversial. This move may be judged by the court, so it is not beautiful."

  "But...I'm always reconciled, Yuanding. In fact, the Manchu and Qing Dynasty had already won the land war, but this victory was not reflected in the contract at all."

  "Nine out of ten people in the world are not as good as they want, so what?"

  Li Fushou felt itchy and overwhelmed by this situation. He sighed lightly, picked up the tea cup and tasted it carefully.

  The implied meaning in Lord Earl's words, Xin Changjun can fully understand, and this makes his mood also gloomy, as an old official who once served in the court, so the country's feelings are constantly cut off anyway.

   Seeing corruption in the land of China, the court officials in power, the queen mother arbitrarily, and the impossibility of the court, it is like a dark cloud that makes people feel heavy. That kind of powerlessness is really maddening.

  Mid and late 19th century

The United States opened the gate of Fusang with strong ships and artillery. The British and French forces invaded the city of Peking, landed on the Indochina Peninsula and colonized the Indochina Peninsula. Northern Tsarist Russia looked at the warm southern land, and even brewed the frenzied "Yellow Russia Project" in an attempt to dismember the vast territory. Qing empire.

But the homeland is still in deep sleep. The courts are fighting for power and deceit, and there is suspicion and distrust between Manchu and Hanchen. The latter party dominates the imperial party, and the decadence of the end of the feudal dynasty is everywhere. People are so anxious to jump their feet, but they call for nothing?

  This is a troubled world and a world of great controversy.

  Look around the world

  There is no peaceful place where you can develop uncontested with the world. Similar to the words of Chinese scholars such as Ma Xiangbo and other sour Confucian scholars, they are extremely stupid and should have been swept into the garbage dump of history long ago.

  If you don’t go to colonization, if you see weakness, others will colonize you.

  This is the case of the Manchus, Fusang, the Korean Peninsula, Burma, Afghanistan, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, and the same. No one can escape, but sooner or later.

  Xin Changjun supports the strong expansion policy of Lord Earl from the heart. Why not take advantage of a good place?

  In the entire East Indies region, there has never been a unified and powerful country in history. The geographic scope of the indigenous countries is limited to Java and Sumatra, and it is a pattern that is horrendous.

in Africa

  Except for a few indigenous regimes such as the Kingdom of Ethiopia and the Kingdom of Zulu, other places are far from the concept of a country, showing a primitive state of tribal territory, and there is even no clear division of territories.

  The intervention in Africa at this time cannot be said to be an aggression.

Regardless of whether it is coaxing or grabbing, the process is not important. What is important is the result. As long as Queensland obtains an internationally recognized agreement and cedes a large area of ​​land from the indigenous chiefs, it can form a legal advantage in Africa. Stable rule.

  After talking about business

  The two chatted for a while, before Xin Changjun left.

  Now that various businesses in Queensland are thriving, and the war has ceased, there have been two major financial awards from the Wool and Koi Mining Bureau. These are huge incomes of tens of millions of pounds a year, making the finances more lenient.

This made Li Fushou's mood particularly comfortable, and he did not feel pressure to bear the standing army of the five divisions. The four battleships dedicated to the 50th anniversary of Her Majesty's accession to the throne were equally easy to deal with, and there is still room to promote the deep development of northern Queensland and the Seven Stars in the Qingshui River Basin. The town’s development project, the promotion of the coastal railway double-track project, the promotion of the Borneo Sujing plan, and the remaining power to reach thousands of miles away in Africa.

  As the talents trained by his staff take up the heavy burden and solve a lot of trivial government affairs, Li Fushou is much more leisurely now, and only handles some official duties in the morning every day. The afternoon and evening are leisure time.

Queensland’s rest and bathing system follows the Western practice of one rest every 7 days. In addition to the Queen’s Birthday, Halloween, New Year’s Day, Christmas and other statutory holidays, it also adds Ching Ming Festival, Dragon Boat Festival, Mid-Autumn Festival, Stove, Spring Festival and other statutory holidays. Featured festivals, the annual vacation time exceeds one hundred days.

  Administrators and territorial officials of the Queensland State Self-Government Office can enjoy statutory vacations, or outing and hunting in the suburbs, or gathering with friends of three or five, or wandering in the house to enjoy the fun of reunion with their families.

  It is this kind of open and prosperous social life and relatively relieved pressure that makes Queenslanders more confident and enthusiastic, showing a completely different mental outlook from the old continent.

  This is indeed a land blessed by God. The coastal areas are full of rainfall, the climate is mild and the climate is like spring all the year round, the sufficient sunlight allows plants to grow very luxuriantly, and the fertile land has rich pastures.

  Go west across the Great Dividing Range and enter the semi-arid temperate grassland climate. Because the warm and humid ocean water vapor is blocked by the Dafengshuiling Mountains, the rainfall suddenly decreases, and you can see a vast landscape, similar to the desolate western United States.

  So far

  Queensland's development is still concentrated in the coastal areas east of the Great Divide. It rarely involves the western and central regions. It is often a desolate scene with no one in a hundred miles, let alone any market town.

This vast and beautiful land is too vast. The area of ​​Queensland (including the Northern Territory) is larger than Xinjiang. Most of the more than 4 million people are concentrated in the eastern coastal areas. The central, western and northern regions are large tracts of uninhabited areas. Development in the future.

  (End of this chapter)