Slaying the Qing: My Taiping Heavenly Kingdom

On November 19, 1857, Li Hongzhang, the foreign minister of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, met with Baron Gros, the plenipotentiary representative of the Gallic Empire, at the county government office in Zhonghai County.

Baron Gross was very pleased with the meeting after learning that Li Hongzhang was actually the foreign minister of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom.

In his view, this undoubtedly showed that the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom attached great importance to this meeting and sent high-ranking officials to attend.

"Your Excellency, the Empire and the British Empire are extremely dissatisfied with your country's brazen attack on the concessions in Zhonghai. These concessions were obtained from the Qing Empire. We have signed relevant treaties with the Qing Empire. Your country's current actions are a complete breach of those treaties."

The arbitrary arrest of our diplomats by your country is unacceptable to us.

Therefore, we hope that your country will apologize to us and compensate us for our losses.

Otherwise, we will absolutely not let this go!

Baron Gross looked as if their interests had been greatly harmed.

After hearing Baron Gros's shameless remarks, Li Hongzhang couldn't help but sneer inwardly.

"Just as His Majesty the Heavenly King said, these foreign devils are simply shameless. They were clearly defeated by the Heavenly Kingdom on the battlefield, yet they still pushed all the blame onto the Heavenly Kingdom. They even want the Heavenly Kingdom to apologize to them and compensate them for their losses. They are shameless to the extreme!" After dealing with foreign devils, Li Hongzhang had gained a deeper understanding of them.

"Your Excellency, I must reiterate to you that the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom neither recognizes nor accepts any of the treaties you signed with the Qing Dynasty. The reason our army attacked Zhonghai County and the concessions was entirely because your consul had privately formed an army and launched an attack against us. Therefore, we had no choice but to retaliate."

This time, you and the British Empire have brazenly declared war on the Heavenly Kingdom. Not only did you deploy your fleet and bombard our fortresses, but you also landed thousands of ground troops, launching a substantial invasion of the Heavenly Kingdom. This has already caused immense losses to the Heavenly Kingdom.

We hope that you and the British Empire will compensate the Heavenly Kingdom for its loss of 20 million taels of silver, and promise not to launch any further invasions against the Heavenly Kingdom.

The Kingdom of Heaven may exchange envoys with you, establish embassies, and conduct trade.

However, you are absolutely forbidden from smuggling opium or other contraband into Heaven. If discovered, all smugglers will be executed.

Li Hongzhang then put forward a series of demands.

Baron Gros's face immediately turned extremely ugly.

His purpose in meeting with the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom's top officials was to extort money from them.

But now it seems his plan backfired.

The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom actually turned around and demanded compensation from them. Wasn't that turning everything upside down?

"Your Excellency, it is you who should compensate us for our losses. Your attack on our concession, as well as your attack on our fleet and landing forces, caused us enormous losses. Therefore, you should compensate us for our losses!" Baron Gros said.

"Your Excellency, I cannot agree with your statement! You were the ones who attacked us first. At the same time, you sent your fleet and troops to invade us. Why should we be asked to pay compensation? Logically speaking, this does not make sense!" Li Hongzhang looked incredulous.

"Your Excellency, I'm not here to reason with you. Besides, this world isn't about reason. It's about who has the bigger fist!" Baron Gross decided to drop the pretense and laid everything bare.

Li Hongzhang couldn't help but raise an eyebrow. These foreign devils were still so shameless! They could actually say such shameless things so openly.

"Your Excellency, it seems you have not won. On the contrary, the Heavenly Kingdom has emerged victorious in the war!" Li Hongzhang retorted.

This immediately enraged Baron Gros.

In his view, Li Hongzhang was clearly mocking them.

"Your Excellency, the Gallo-British Empire is one of the world's top powers. And the British Empire, on which the sun never sets, is the world's hegemon. Although we were unable to achieve victory in the recently concluded war, it was because we underestimated our enemy."

Next time, we will never underestimate our enemy like we have now. If both our countries go all out, we can deploy hundreds of warships and send hundreds of thousands of troops on an expedition.

"Will you be able to withstand it then?"

Baron Gross looked proud.

For these diplomats, national strength is undoubtedly their backbone.

Both the Gallo Empire and the British Empire, which was the dominant power, possessed extremely strong strength.

This naturally allows these diplomats to stand tall.

Li Hongzhang frowned. He was well aware of the formidable strength of the British Empire and the Gallic Empire.

Given the current strength of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, it was indeed no match for the British Empire and the Gallic Empire.

The problem was that, even though the British Empire and the Gallic Empire were powerful, they were too far from the Far East.

Their military strength simply cannot be projected to such a distant location.

"Your Excellency, I acknowledge that the British Empire and the Gallic Empire are very powerful. But how many troops can you send to the Far East?" Li Hongzhang countered.

Baron Gros's face immediately turned extremely ugly.

He seemed surprised that Li Hongzhang knew about this weakness of theirs.

The Far East is too far from Europe.

Their troops had to travel from Europe to the Far East, detouring around the Cape of Good Hope in Africa, crossing the Indian Ocean, entering the South China Sea, before finally heading north to reach the Far East.

The excessive distance directly limited the projection of military power between the British Empire and the Gallo-British Empire.

If Europe and the Far East weren't so far apart, it wouldn't have been impossible for the British Empire and the Gallic Empire, with their combined strength, to destroy the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom.

At most, the price to be paid is just a little higher.

The meeting between the two sides had progressed to this point, practically laying everything out in the open.

Baron Gross knew that his plan to extort the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom had completely failed.

The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom had a very good understanding of the British Empire and the Gallic Empire.

Furthermore, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom possessed formidable military strength. Therefore, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom was not afraid of war between the British Empire and the Gallo-British Empire, and naturally, it was not afraid of their blackmail.

"Your Excellency, is this your final answer? If so, then there's no point in continuing these negotiations. When more troops from the Empire and the Empire on which the sun never sets arrive next time, that will be the time for your complete annihilation and for you to pay the price!" Baron Gro said viciously.

"Your Excellency Baron, then we shall wait and see. Let's see whether you or we will be defeated!" Li Hongzhang was not intimidated.

This meeting ended unhappily.

After leaving Zhonghai, Baron Gros returned directly to Hong Kong Island.

After meeting with Count Elgin, Commander-in-Chief of the Allied Forces, Baron Gross reported the results of his meeting with the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom's high-ranking officials.

Count Elgin was also very dissatisfied with the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom's assertive attitude.

After discussing it, the two decided to further explain the strength of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom to the domestic authorities and request that more troops be sent so that they could defeat the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom in one fell swoop.

Both Count Elgin and Baron Gros were keenly aware of the power of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom.

In particular, the military strength of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom should not be underestimated.

If the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom were allowed to continue developing, it would inevitably replace the Qing Empire and become the master of the Far East.

At that time, it will be wishful thinking for the British Empire and the Gallic Empire to invade and plunder the Far East.

Furthermore, as the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom grew stronger, it even threatened the interests of the British Empire and the Gallic Empire.

Therefore, both Count Elgin and Baron Gros believed that the British Empire and the Gallic Empire should take advantage of the fact that the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom was not yet very powerful and use their full strength to defeat it, so as to eliminate any future troubles and prevent the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom from developing into a major threat to them.