Li Hongzhang was stunned for a moment, and he couldn't help but feel a little uncomfortable, although Xia Bohai's statement was not aimed at himself, but under the favorable conditions of the situation, the signing of a treaty that was not beneficial to the Qing Dynasty, such a thing Li Hongzhang did not do less, the first recommendation is the [Vietnam Treaty] signed by China and France, of course, the signing of this treaty, whether France won without victory, and the Qing court was defeated without defeat, or there is considerable historical controversy, so in 1874 Li Hongzhang signed the [Sino-Japanese Beijing Treaty] , is irrefutable in the case of the prevailing situation, but the indemnity treaty. Pen | fun | pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 ｉｎｆｏ

The background of the signing of the Sino-Japanese Beijing Treaty was that in 1874, the Japanese government launched a war of aggression against Taiwan under the pretext that Taiwanese residents killed Ryukyu fishermen. However, due to the disparity in strength between Japan and China at that time, coupled with the fact that the Japanese army was not adapting to the land and water, the progress of the Japanese war in Taiwan was not good. Seeing that it was impossible to occupy Taiwan by force, the Japanese government signed the "Swap Clauses and Exchange Vouchers between Japan and Qing" (also known as the "Sino-Japanese Beijing Treaty]) with the Qing government in the same year. Although the Qing government forced Japan to withdraw its troops from Taiwan, it paid 500,000 taels of silver to Japan, and at the same time recognized the Ryukyuan people as subjects of Yuben. As a result, Japan had ample excuses to completely annex the Ryukyu Kingdom in 1879 and renamed Okinawa Prefecture.

Although this treaty is not famous in history and the indemnity is not much, it was signed by the Qing court with absolute military superiority, which not only fueled Japan's ambition for foreign expansion, but also allowed Japan to see through the weak and incompetent nature of the Qing court, laying the groundwork for the Sino-Japanese War that followed. And the signatory of this treaty was none other than Li Hongzhang.

But now Li Hongzhang could only smile bitterly and said: " The nobles are brave and good at fighting, the old man is very admired, and since the return of the nobles to China, it is true that they have won the Eight-Nation Alliance, and the sea and land lines are all impressive, but the power of the Eight Nations is not comparable to my Qing Dynasty, not to mention that although the nobles are good at fighting, the army is only thousands, and the navy is only a few warships, and among the eight countries, there are only one or two countries ashamed and angry, and send the army of the country to start the war again, how can the nobles resist, even if they can win, they will inevitably be greatly injured, and other countries may take advantage of the weakness to enter, and so on, so it is better to make a slight concession to the countries to avoid another war, and after the situation in the Qing Dynasty is stabilized, the imperial court will think about change, and make great efforts, in order to enrich the country and strengthen the army, and the nobles also have a lot to do, wait until the national strength of my Qing Dynasty is strong and the military revolution is excellent, and then try to take revenge on the shame, I don't know what Commander Xia thinks?"

Xia Bohai smiled and said: "What Zhongtang said is not unreasonable, we didn't win a few battles, we didn't know how many catties and taels we had, in fact, we all only had more than 6,000 people, any country in the Eight-Nation Alliance, its overall strength is above us, if there is really a country to attack with the strength of the whole country, we are indeed difficult to resist." ”

When Li Hongzhang heard this, he couldn't help but be a little surprised, he thought that Xia Bohai would have to argue with him, but he didn't expect Xia Bohai to admit very frankly that his strength was indeed not as good as any of the countries in the Eight-Nation Alliance, but Li Hongzhang also understood that Xia Bohai was not making concessions to himself, but there must be follow-ups.

Sure enough, Xia Bohai continued: " However, among the eight countries, only Japan and Russia are closer to the Qing Dynasty, and the other six countries are separated by the ocean from China, with a distance of more than 10,000 miles, and if they want to attack China with the strength of the whole country, it must be an expedition of laborers, which not only costs a lot of money, but also has too many variables, I am afraid that it may not be possible, and the eight-nation alliance is not monolithic, and the contradictions between each other are very deep, so we believe that the current scale of the war is already the limit that all countries can reach, and it is difficult for the eight-nation alliance to expand the scale of the war. ”

Li Hongzhang was silent, and then Li Jingfang said: "Commander Xia, you said that the Eight-Nation Alliance is extremely contradictory, I don't know how to see it?"

Xia Bohai said with a smile: "Please ask Political Commissar Qin to explain this, he has a lot of research on the general trend of the world." ”

Qin Zheng said: "First of all, Britain, although Britain is the world's largest power, but now Britain is fighting the Boer War in Africa, has invested more than 400,000 troops, costing 20,000 pounds, but the war is still stale, the outcome is undecided, so Britain at this time can not launch a large-scale war, and France and Germany in the Franco-Prussian War enmity, in Europe to contain each other, now Germany is strong and France is weak, France of course does not dare to invest too much strength overseas, And the German expeditionary force has just been defeated by us, the army fleet has been completely wiped out, and has lost Qingdao, there is no foothold in the Far East, naturally can no longer send a large army, the United States just defeated Spain two years ago, received Spain's colonies in the Americas, Asia, and now it is being digested, and the United States is not known for its troops, of course, it will not easily invest troops, as for Italy and Austria-Hungary, it was originally a number, Britain, France, Germany, The United States has not taken action, and they will never dare to act rashly, so the six countries of Europe and the United States are actually not worried. ”

In fact, these things that Qin Zheng said, Li Hongzhang and others have also seen some of them in the newspapers of various countries in Shanghai, but they are all some limbs and scales and claws, and they can't understand the essentials, but Qin Zheng has connected these things together, so that they have a general understanding of the current world trend, according to Qin Zheng, at least Britain, France, Germany, the United States, Austria and Italy are unlikely to invest more troops in the Chinese battlefield.

Although Li Hongzhang wanted to refute, he could not find a suitable reason, after all, Li Hongzhang is the most world-known Chinese in this era, and will not dismiss Qin Zheng's remarks as nonsense. However, Li Hongzhang does not have a real sense of the world, and his understanding of the world is actually only limited to a local region with China as the core, and he does not have a very clear understanding of the general trend of the whole world. After all, China is not the center of the world situation in this era, and Li Hongzhang is like this, not to mention Li Jingfang, Zhang Peilun, and Sa Zhenbing.

At this time, Qin Zheng said again: "Speaking of Japan and Russia, compared with Britain, France, Germany, the United States, Austria and Italy, these two countries are very close to China, Russia has a wide border with China, and Japan faces China across the sea. However, Russia's territory is vast, but its center of gravity is still in Europe, not in the Far East, separated by the vast Siberia, all barren land, so Russia wants to transfer troops from Europe to the Far East, the difficulty is not under the six countries of Britain, France, Germany, the United States, Austria and Italy, this time Russia took advantage of the Gengzi Rebellion to dispatch 120,000 troops to occupy the northeast region of our country, which is already the limit of Russia's troops that can be mobilized in the Far East. Moreover, after Russia occupied China's northeastern region, the troops had already pushed to the Korean Peninsula, which seriously threatened Japan's interests on the Korean Peninsula, and Britain would not sit idly by and watch Russia's expansion in the Far East; although Britain's national strength is now insufficient, its residual power is still there, and it is just right to use Japan's strength to contain Russia's expansion; not long ago, Japan and Russia almost fought on the Korean Peninsula, and the crisis on the Korean Peninsula has not been completely lifted until now. Therefore, Japan and Russia are now holding each other down, and it is impossible to throw more troops into China. ”

Xia Bohai continued: " Therefore, as long as we draw Japan in this negotiation and say that we can join forces with Japan to deal with Russia's expansion in China's northeast region, Japan will certainly make some concessions to us in the negotiations, and in addition, Britain is about to use Japan's strength to contain Russia, so it is naturally optimistic that it will succeed and will not make too much trouble for us in the negotiations, and France will form an alliance with Russia to jointly confront Germany, so it will naturally not want Russia to invest too much force in Asia, and it can also be used for us, not only to form a good alliance with France, but also to put pressure on Russia through France, to force Russia to accept our conditions, and even to withdraw from the northeast region, so that the entire eight-nation alliance will completely collapse。 ”

After listening to the two of them, Li Hongzhang and others did not come back to their senses for a long time, because Li Hongzhang has always advocated razing and razing, although it is also a small achievement, but on the whole, it is not a success, and there is actually not a lot of stuffy losses, on the one hand, it is because the Qing court's own strength is limited, and if you want to play this kind of game of pulling one faction and fighting another, you also need enough capital. On the other hand, it is also because Li Hongzhang's knowledge is limited, and he does not have a real world vision, although China is not the center of the world, but after all, it is a large country with a large population and a vast territory, and every move will have a decisive impact on the whole world.

It's just that although Li Hongzhang couldn't find a reason to refute it, he didn't completely agree with Xia Bohai and Qin Zheng's views, and always felt that their way of playing was too risky, and the Eight-Nation Coalition Army was so easy to fool? The current Qing Dynasty could not withstand the demolition, so Li Hongzhang thought about it for a while and said: "What the two of you just said is reasonable, but the world is unpredictable, and the two of you really dare to assert that no country will really refuse the conditions for peace talks put forward by your people and increase the troops of the Qing Dynasty?"

Xia Bohai said with a smile: "Of course, we can't guarantee 100% that there will be one or two countries that will send troops to attack China regardless of the consequences, but if something like this happens, we will definitely fight to the end, and I firmly believe that the final victory will definitely belong to us." ”

When Li Hongzhang heard this, he couldn't help but smile bitterly, and said: "Why take such a big risk, not to mention the danger of the war, and now that I am in the Qing Dynasty, I am at a critical juncture of life and death, and I really shouldn't be making a branch out of the ordinary." If you only compensate some silver taels and cede a little land, in exchange for the withdrawal of troops from various countries, the return of the second palace to Beijing, and the stability of the society, and then to seek later, it is not compensable. The old man can promise you that he will never compensate the countries for too much silver, cede too much land, or only compensate for silver, but not cede land. After a pause, Li Hongzhang said again: "You might as well determine a compensation amount, and the old man must be able to talk about this amount, how about it?"