Master Yuan, start!

"At the moment, it seems there is no need to intervene, unless..." Ogene picked up the black tea and blew on the hot steam: "Those republicans want to intervene!"

"Haven't they already intervened?" When talking about the situation in China, Dounale seemed to be more tough than Ogene.

"Are you talking about the unsigned secret treaty between them and the Governor-General of Jiangnan?" Ogene put down his tea and asked.

"Besides this, of course, there are also the increasing number of armed soldiers in the French Concession in Shanghai." Dounale sighed, "It seems these republicans are no longer satisfied with Taiwan's interests."

MacDonald was born into a British military officer family. He joined the British Army in 3 and later worked in the British Foreign Office.

His visit to China this time was not only to succeed Ogene as the new Chinese ambassador to China, but also to bring the latest guidance on the East Asian situation in London.

Historically, during his eight-year term, Dounale witnessed the French government's forced lease of Guangzhou Bay and Zhanjiang Bay. He used the excuse of responding to the French threat and maintaining Hong Kong's security to pressure Li Hongzhang to expand the area of ​​Hong Kong.

In the end, he and Li Hongzhang signed the Hong Kong Extension Convention, which enabled Britain to obtain the "New Territories", a piece of land that occupied 70% of the area of ​​Hong Kong in the future.

In this treaty, in order to save face, Li Hongzhang requested that Chinese troops and officials be stationed in the New Territories. In order to sign the treaty as soon as possible and avoid any setbacks, Claude MacArthur agreed to this request.

This place where Chinese officials were stationed was the famous "Kowloon Walled City" which has left traces in many film and television works.

Of course, this all happened in another time and space.

In this time and space, due to the sudden rise of Yuan Shikai, the French did not lease Guangzhou Bay and Zhanjiang Bay, but instead forcibly leased Taiwan and half of Xiamen.

The British government originally wanted to use the excuse of protecting Hong Kong's security to ask for more land from the Qing government, just like in the original time and space.

However, it happened that the North and the South were divided, and Li Hongzhang's South China Sea Fleet showed its power in the Philippines, so the British temporarily gave up this idea.

After all, the reason why Dou Nale dared to force Li Hongzhang in 1898 in the original time and space was because the Beiyang Fleet's tiger skin was exposed by the Japanese, and the Qing Dynasty was completely reduced to a clown in the eyes of Europeans.

At this time, the South China Sea Fleet is at its peak, and the British do not want to do anything that will lose money, so the matter has been delayed until now.

It was not until the French colluded with Liu Kunyi and exposed their ambitions in the Yangtze River Basin that the British became nervous again and reconsidered the issue of defending their interests in China.

"Do the French dare to take action even with the Far East Fleet at their side?" Ogene, who was a civil servant, shrugged his shoulders and did not take Dounale's warning seriously.

Ogen thought that he had lived in China for eight years and had a fairly clear understanding of China and the situation in East Asia.

As far as he knew, France's first Far East fleet was not large, probably about the same level as China's South China Sea Fleet, far behind the Far East Fleet in Sasebo, not to mention the British Empire's Singapore Fleet.

"France may not dare to act alone, but what if the Russians are involved?" Dounale took out a copy of the Daily Telegraph brought from London.

In today's Britain, the best-selling newspaper is not the beautifully printed Times, which costs a shilling per copy, but the cheap Daily Telegraph, which costs only 1 pence per copy.

The latter is half the price of the former, and is known for publishing rumors and romantic news. In order to increase sales, most articles have radical views and are keen to attract attention.

"Crown Prince Nicholas completed a shuttle diplomacy tour in Europe. Starting from St. Petersburg, he visited Germany, France, and Austria, and finally arrived in Greece by ship. He returned home via the Turkish Straits, where he was received with the highest honors by the four countries.

Filo Extraction? County 9679102

But why didn't he cross the English Channel? Is Britain going to face a Europe that is united again?

Last time, it was Russia's General Winter who defeated the arrogant Napoleon's army. This time, who will stop the French and Slavs from uniting? Can we rely on the Qing people with pig tails?

What's wrong with this country? I can't help but think deeply. Perhaps the politicians in Whitehall feel that things have become too comfortable since Queen Victoria delegated power? This must be a problem with the system that's overly permissive towards ministers. "Your Majesty, please take back the reins!"

What is written in the newspaper may not be true. I am an old Londoner. How can I not know what the British newspapers are like?

Ogener put down the newspaper and shook his head disapprovingly: "Sir Claude Donald, you know the quality of the Daily Telegraph. It's just used to please the poor people in the slums.

As a government official, how could you take what this newspaper says seriously?

"Then this evidence must be true." Dou Nale took out another document from his pocket and placed it in front of Ogene.

"This..." Eugen looked at the letter paper with the seal of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and fell into deep thought.

"It was discovered that French merchant ships, flying the American flag, were crossing the Western Pacific to deliver supplies to the Russians in the Kuril Islands."

Chapter 240 Old Friends from China

As the first person in nearly 50 years to transfer from a military attaché to become the British Minister to China, Claude MacDonald's visit to China was not just a simple job transfer.

He also shouldered another important task, which was to curb the expansion of interests of other European countries in China on the one hand, and to monopolize colonial interests in China as much as possible on the other hand.

Just India alone would make the British Empire a true empire on which the sun never sets, with a naval power that surpasses all European countries. What if China were added to the mix?

q扣un91+[101

The British government originally had no such idea. After all, the national conditions of India and China are completely different.

What Britain colonized was not "India" but the place called India.

In the South Asian subcontinent, the British Governor-General's Office actually occupied only a little over 6% of the area, and the rest was occupied by large and small princely states and tribes that cooperated with the British Governor-General's Office.

China is different. No matter how bad the Qing Dynasty was, it was still a unified government. China had a unified political entity. If Britain wanted to follow India's example and establish the British Governor-General's Office in China, the first to be affected would be the Beijing court.

Historically, the British had thought about splitting China to gain greater benefits. When Hong Xiuquan established his capital in Tianjing, British missionaries were ordered to meet with Hong Tianwang and express that the British were willing to support the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom and the Qing Dynasty in dividing the country and governing separately, and could also provide weapons, cannons, food and medicine.

Of course, the prerequisite is that the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom recognizes the unequal treaty signed between Britain and the Qing Dynasty.

Unfortunately, Hong Tianwang refused without even thinking about it and drove these "pagans" out of Tianjin.

If Hong Tianwang had not been so tough at the time and had pretended to agree to calm the British, then perhaps there would not have been a need to place a large number of Taiping troops in Suzhou and Changshu to guard against the "foreign rifle team" in the Shanghai Concession.

In this way, the Taiping Army could concentrate its manpower to attack the Qing Dynasty's Jiangnan and Jiangbei camps, or support the Taiping Army's Northern Expedition, or even go to eastern Zhejiang to establish a stable rear base.

However, all this was just a possibility. In the end, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom failed. Although it was regrettable, this outcome also made the British give up the idea of ​​annexing large tracts of Chinese territory.

It was not until the division of China into North and South that the British regained hope.

China is nominally divided into two parts, but in reality it has become six parts: Northwest, Southwest, Lingnan, Huguang, Jiangnan, and North China.

The British are not pushovers. When they see an opportunity, they will certainly take action.

On the one hand, they made friends with powerful figures such as Yuan Shikai and Liu Kunyi, and continued to carry out economic infiltration outside the Great Wall and in the south of the Yangtze River. On the other hand, they expanded their forces to the borders of southern Tibet and Yunnan to exert pressure.

To this end, the London government formulated the "Second India" plan, intending to turn China's Yangtze River Basin into the second jewel in the British crown.

In their view, the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau is India's natural barrier and it is best to control it in the hands of the British Indian Governor-General's Office, so that the defense of the Indian colony can be more solid.

China is so huge that the London government believes that the Yangtze River basin can be included in the jurisdiction of the future Chinese Governor-General's Office.

The mountainous areas at the junction of Zhejiang, Jiangxi and Fujian provinces, as well as Guizhou and Sichuan further inland, should be left to the Chinese to deal with.

As for further north, the London government did not want to confront the Russians directly. Their idea was to support agents to consume Tsarist Russia.

Just as the northern part of colonial India was dominated by the "semi-independent" states of Kashmir and Afghanistan, in Central Asia, it was not the British but the princely states and tribes that faced Tsarist Russia.

As its colonies continued to expand, Great Britain, with a population of only over 3 million, was simply unable to shoulder the responsibility of global defense.

Naturally, they chose the combination of "Guangxu Yuan Xiangcheng" as the best choice to resist Russia's southward advance.

If the 20th century saying "The British Empire will never surrender until the blood of the last Indian is shed" proves the value of India to Britain.

In order to defend India, the British in the 19th century also made necessary sacrifices.

The British will not give up India until the last inch of Afghanistan is reduced to scorched earth!

Likewise, the British would not abandon the Yangtze River basin until the last man in northern China had died.

Yuan Shikai had long been their chosen collaborator in resisting Russia.

Especially after the Japanese government took a negative attitude towards the Russian occupation of Defu Island in the Kuril Islands, the British increased their expectations on Yuan Shikai.

"The Japanese retreated their fleet to Hakodate Harbor in Hokkaido. They had previously been afraid to fight back against the Russian forces at Tofu Island, which was so close to them. They watched helplessly as the Russian Black Sea Fleet, after resupplying in Taiwan, sailed towards Tofu Island.

Currently, all 16 islands, large and small, including Wuluton Island, Ushichi Island, and Paramatsu Island to the north of Defu Island have been occupied!

Dou Nale became furious when talking about the Japanese. He was extremely dissatisfied with the Japanese government's easy loss of the Kuril Islands after a tentative bombardment.

"Sir Claude MacDonald, the Russians are notorious after all." O'Grenier had been in China for a long time, and after seeing Yuan Shikai's achievements in the war against Japan, he had some contempt for Japan:

"Asking a small, uncivilized East Asian country like Japan to confront the Russians is simply asking too much."

"Mr. Ogene, you are a scholar, so you may not be very clear about military deployments." Dou Nale looked up and explained the hidden situation:

"The London government has done its utmost to delay the Russians in order to create an advantage for the Japanese.

During this period, for a full six months, the Japanese government did nothing!

Oh, no, you can't say they did nothing. When we stopped in Hong Kong, the newspapers said that the Tokyo military police were busy suppressing the demonstrations and breaking into the university to arrest protesting students.

Seeing Dounale's disappointed expression, Ougen was too embarrassed to admit that he had failed in intelligence gathering and was derelict in his duty, so he had to speak up to explain for the Japanese and to exonerate himself at the same time.

"Perhaps the Japanese really can't afford the money anymore." Ogene said what he heard:

"Sir Claude MacDonald, during this period of time, one ship after another loaded with "Japanese dissidents" set out from Tokyo and headed for Panama in central America.

In addition, I heard that the Japanese government has repeatedly summoned the ambassador to Japan and asked the London government to borrow money to resist the Russians from the south.

"If we win the battle, we won't have to worry about debts. Do you think the financiers can still go to Tokyo to demand debts armedly?" Dou Nale recalled the legend of Tsarist Russia in the European financial circle.

But no matter what he said, Dou Nale knew that Japan was not Tsarist Russia after all, and the current Japanese government did not have the courage to do such a thing as owing money to foreigners and not paying it back. After calming down, Dou Nale confided his feelings to Ogen.

“Sir Eugene, it was precisely because of the fear that the situation in the Far East was getting out of control that London decided to send more troops to the Far East. That’s why Churchill Jr. was able to accompany me to the Far East as the vanguard of the 4th Hussars Regiment stationed in Bangalore.

Japan was unreliable, and Liu Kunyi also had an ambiguous relationship with the French. If these two pieces of territories were lost at once, the British Empire's colonies in China would be divided into two isolated parts, north and south.

Hong Kong in the south would face pressure from the French in Taiwan, and the German colony across the Lingdingyang would no longer be limited to "civilian use" as originally claimed.

In the north, we must face Russian pressure directly from land and sea.

Between the north and the south lies the long coastline of China.

Mr. Eugene, if this happens, the British Empire's colonies in China will have no benefits at all, and colonization will become a losing business."

Although they came from different backgrounds, Dou Nale believed that Ogene in front of him would be able to understand the hidden meaning of his words.

As expected, Ogene was shocked when he heard this. A losing business? As a British man, he knew all too well the government's original purpose for establishing colonies.

For the pound, the aim is to make money.

Only profitable colonies have a future. If the situation in China's colonies really develops in a bad direction, the backbenchers in London will probably choose to reduce the size and level of the colonies in China at the first opportunity.

At that time, as an official of Chinese colonial origin, will I have any chance of making further progress in politics?

This matter involved his own official career in the next few decades. Ou Gena couldn't help but become cautious when he heard this: "In that case, I think we can increase investment in Yuan Xiangcheng."

"Oh, why do you say that?" Dou Nale had just arrived. Although he had been reminded to pay more attention to Yuan Xiangcheng in London, he still did not have a specific understanding of Yuan Xiangcheng.

"Sir, do you know that there has been a trend in northern China recently to regain tariff autonomy?" Ogene picked up the black tea and slowly put it into his mouth.

"Tariff autonomy?" Dou Nale frowned. "When we returned tariff autonomy to Japan, we thought we could use it as an opportunity to make them align with Britain and resist Russia, but now it seems that's all we have."

Dounale knew that what he said was actually just a way to flatter the government.

China's tariffs and Japan's tariffs are absolutely not comparable. The former brings huge benefits, while the latter is just useless. Instead of making the Japanese disgusted, it is better to go with the flow and do a favor.

However, what was unexpected was that after the favor was done, the expected return did not come, and the Japanese became cowardly in the face of Russia.