The Ming Dynasty began from Sarhu

Chapter 460 Du Du's Persistence

In the second year of the Kangxi and Qianlong eras, relations between the Qing Dynasty and the four European countries entered a honeymoon period.

Although the Qing Dynasty and European countries did not send envoys to each other and lacked mutual understanding, Du Du also asked British merchants:
"Where is England? Does it border Rakshasa? Is the Queen of England married? What does she look like?"

Absurd questions like these sound ridiculous.

However, because they had a common enemy to deal with and common interests, the relationship between the Qing Dynasty and Britain and other parties began to heat up rapidly shortly after the outbreak of the Liaoshen Campaign.

In essence, the Qing Dynasty, like the four European countries, was a colonial power, but the degree of civilization between them was different:
The Qing Dynasty was still in the late stage of slavery, while Britain and France were about to or were experiencing a bourgeois revolution.

Du Du told the representatives of European countries that China's material resources would be used to meet the needs of other countries.

This is not just an irrelevant slogan of the Qing emperor.

Du Du was truly willing to cede land, open trading ports, abolish the Guangzhou Trading Company, and change all the bad habits of the former Ming Dynasty's foreign trade.

The Qing Dynasty will adopt a friendly and protective foreign policy towards Europe for some time to come - if the Qing Dynasty can exist long enough.

Over the past few years, the plenipotentiary minister Pham Van Chai and the East India Company representative Cologne had been talking at cross purposes for a long time, and finally had an in-depth and friendly discussion on issues such as China's trading ports, tariff rates, and ceded territory.

In the end, Fan Wencai and the British gentlemen reached an agreement, achieving a win-win situation for all parties. (France, the Netherlands, Spain, and Russia also obtained unilateral most-favored-nation treatment for China, ceding territories they deemed suitable for colonial outposts, such as the Zhoushan Islands, Sakhalin Island, and Taiwan Island.)
However, such an agreement is destined to be a mirage.

Just like the friendly negotiations between the Governor-General of Guangdong and Guangxi Qishan (Note 1) and the representative of the British Chamber of Commerce Elliot during the Opium War in later generations, which eventually led to the signing of the Treaty of Chuanbi (Note 2), neither Fan Wencai nor Kelun had the right to make any decisions on behalf of their country because the emperors of both sides would not buy into it at all.

It is impossible for the British Parliament to dispatch tens of thousands of troops (the number of troops promised by Cologne to the Qing Dynasty) to invade China for the sake of Far East trade. Of course, Britain does not have the strength to do so now.

It was even more impossible for Dudu to cede the birthplace of the Qing Dynasty (Hetuala) to Tsarist Russia and let the Cossacks become a colony.

According to the terms signed between Fan Wencai and British merchants, the Qing Dynasty would open 15 coastal trading ports to European merchants, covering the entire Chinese coast, from Yingkou in Liaodong in the north to Lingao in Hainan in the south.

The British demanded the abolition of the Guangzhou trading company system. In the future, British merchants trading with China would deal directly with the Qing government rather than with the unscrupulous merchants in Guangzhou.

Fan Wencai agreed readily.

Seeing that the Qing Dynasty was quite sincere, British businessmen also extended their olive branch.

The East India Company will provide the Qing army with necessary weapons and equipment. Once Shenyang is captured and the Qing army enters the pass to pacify the world, the British Kingdom will be responsible for all the artillery and instructors needed for the war.

Of course, the Qing emperor had to pay a certain amount of military expenses, and if necessary, the Royal Navy could also intervene in military operations against the small southern court.

When Grand Secretary Fan Wencai reported the negotiation terms to the emperor, the emperor did not show any dissatisfaction.

The so-called Qing dynasty's loss of sovereignty and humiliation of the nation is merely the wishful thinking of later keyboard warriors. At least in Du Du's view, aside from the tiny corner of Hetuala in northeastern China, everything else was for sale. After all, it wasn't the homeland of Jianzhou, so selling it was fine. Only selling one's own homeland would be considered a loss of sovereignty and humiliation of the nation. Neither Du Du nor Empress Dowager Cixi considered the Celestial Empire their homeland, so their acts of selling out their country weren't truly treasonous. The Qing emperor had no understanding of, or interest in, topics like tariff rates and unilateral most-favored-nation treatment.

He didn't care about opening trading ports. Most of the ports were controlled by the Southern Ming court and had nothing to do with the Qing Dynasty. So just open them.

The only thing that made Du Du feel unhappy was that the red-haired barbarians wanted to occupy Hong Kong Island and Jeju Island. Hong Kong, a poor and remote place, was fine, but Jeju Island was important and must not be occupied by the red-haired barbarians, otherwise it would become a disaster sooner or later.

The Qing Dynasty urgently needed the red-haired barbarians' strong ships and powerful guns to deal with the Liu Bang and the Southern Ming Dynasty, so the emperor could only endure it for the time being.

In the winter of the first year of the Kangxi and Qianlong reigns, rumors began to spread in Liaodong that Emperor Wuding had defeated the Northern Expedition Ming army in Linqing, Shandong, and killed several generals including Huang Degong and Wu Sangui. He was now preparing for a Northern Expedition in Linqing.

Du Du was dismissive of this, suspecting that it was a rumor deliberately spread by the Shenyang defenders.

The Qing Emperor did not believe that Liu Zhaosun was still alive.

In order to determine whether this person was killed in the explosion, Du Du spent a lot of manpower and material resources and spent a full two months investigating. Finally, he confirmed that Liu Zhaosun was dead.

Now, could it be the ghost of Liu Zhaosun who suddenly leads the troops to fight in Shandong?

Fortunately, His Majesty the Emperor was unaware of the tragedy that occurred in southern Liaoning at that time, and he was even unaware that the leader of the Bordered Blue Banner, Elli, had been cut into pieces by the thief Liu.

The scouts sent by the Lord of the Bordered Blue Banner to Shenyang for help encountered a double blockade by the Shaanxi Corps and the Khorchin Cavalry on the way, suffering heavy casualties and only one in ten survived.

When the surviving white-armored soldiers of the Bordered Blue Banner fled back to Shenyang, Emperor Wuding's eastern expedition army followed closely behind them and was less than fifty miles away from Shenyang City. Of course, these are all later stories and will not be mentioned for now.

Du Du knew that a British merchant ship had been ambushed in Shandong and a number of artillery pieces had been lost, but the emperor believed it was the work of pirates and had nothing to do with Liu Bang.

Because Liu Zhaosun was already dead, he could not and dared not believe that the thief Liu could still occupy Shandong and land in southern Liaoning.

Du Du was unwilling and afraid to accept the fact that Emperor Wu Ding had been resurrected. He had sworn a solemn oath in front of Liu Zhaosun, saying that he would serve him wholeheartedly and go through fire and water. Unexpectedly, just three years later, Du Du rebelled.

Of course, in the next few days, he will have to face this sad reality.

Du Du would not make the same mistake that Nurhaci made in Shenyang.

Note:
1. Borjigit Qishan (Manchu: kian): A member of the Borjigit clan and the Plain Yellow Banner of Manchuria, he was a minister of the Qing dynasty and a representative of the peace faction during the Opium War. He died of illness in the army in the autumn of the fourth year of Emperor Xianfeng's reign (1854). He was posthumously awarded the titles of Grand Tutor to the Crown Prince and Associate Grand Secretary, and granted a posthumous title of Wenqin, in accordance with the regulations for governors-general.

2. The Chuanbi Treaty: The Chuanbi Treaty (also known as the Chuanbi Treaty) was a draft peace treaty privately drafted by British representatives during the Opium War.

(End of this chapter)