"We do not expect any support from the French side, all we hope is that the French navy will not attack our civilian ships. If you believe that this is beyond your bottom line, we have no way back. Zuo Zhidan said a little exhausted.

The negotiations between China and France are going very badly, France is still the bandit logic of Europe, and if you are not able to overwhelm me with the navy now, I will have to ask for a price. Therefore, the French put forward a lot of conditions, that is, not to mention not to use warships to attack the merchant fleet of the Liberation Army.

"Since you have supplied weapons to Vietnam, it shows that you have no attitude of peaceful coexistence with us at all." The representative of France has always been biting the and dripping down. They insisted that China recognize French expansion in Vietnam and identify with French expansion in Vietnam.

These questions have been quarreled so many times that Zuo Zhidan didn't even feel angry, and he said like a repeater: "Is your act of selling weapons to the Manchu side your attitude of being willing to live in peace with us?" ”

"The Qing court is the official government of China, is there anything wrong with us doing business with the official government?" The representative of France also persistently maintained the French attitude.

After half a day of meaningless arguments, Zuo Zhidan tiredly said that he would talk about it tomorrow. The representative of the French side also seemed to be tired enough, and the two sides have quarreled repeatedly in the past few days, and finally quarreled to a bottom line. The Liberation Army demanded that the trade route with Siam be opened without any influence, while the French side demanded that the Liberation Army not support the Vietnamese government, and explicitly supported the French side in cutting a knife in Vietnam.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs was tasked with getting the French to publicly agree not to attack the Canton-Siam maritime trade route without a fleet. In the previous negotiations, Weeser had already made it clear that the Liberation Army could turn a blind eye to the military conflict between France and Vietnam, and would not send troops to intervene in the war between France and Vietnam. The French did not expect the Liberation Army to openly support the French strategy of invading Vietnam, let alone to appreciate or even help the French to carry out the operation of encroaching on Vietnamese territory.

Hong In-gil still held the idea of diplomacy first, and when he convened the meeting, he tried to find a way to convince the French. However, Zuo Zhidan put forward a completely different idea, "Dumb mosquitoes bite people to death, and the French are buzzing so badly, I'm afraid that they are also afraid in their hearts." I think it's enough for us to talk about this, and send warships directly to escort the merchant fleet to Siam and start talking about the rice trade. The French dare to do something to our fleet, but we have some to talk about! ”

As soon as he heard this kind of construction that tested the bottom line of the French with concrete actions, Hong Renji hurriedly objected, "How much money does it cost to build a ship, if the French really do it to us, then the loss will be too great." ”

Now the Ministry of Foreign Affairs really does not know the attitude of the French, and when it comes to the losses that will be caused in the event of a military conflict, even Zuo Zhidan does not dare to make his own claims. Fortunately, at this time, the Governor's Mansion had moved back to Guangzhou, and after talking with the French, he could go back to report.

After receiving the report, Wei Ze originally wanted to take the topic to the General Staff for discussion, but after thinking about it, he decided to go to the Standing Committee to discuss the matter first.

In the past few days, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has repeatedly reported to the Standing Committee on the contents of the talks, and after listening to the reports that were no different from those of the previous days, the members of the Standing Committee, who were once extremely annoyed by the arrogance of the French, did not bother to get angry again. Finance Minister Li Yuchang said: "Governor, even if we can't open the route to Siam, life will not be worse than now." What are you afraid of what they will do? Moreover, the recent military budget has been almost spent, and if there is another war, we are afraid that our budget will run into a deficit! ”

By this time, it had already entered September 1860, and in three months, the 1861 budget meeting would be held, and in March, after the Spring Festival, the 1860 fiscal year would officially end. At such a juncture, the finance minister's response was naturally to put the problem under control for the time being. The trade routes for the purchase of tea from Hunan and Guangxi were not fully determined, and the budget could not include the money for the purchase of tea in 1861, so the Ministry of Finance was cautious about any point of view.

"Even if there is a conflict with the French now, we don't have to go to war with the French immediately. Had it not been for the military conflict with the French, the rice trade to Siam would have been opened this year. We went to Guangxi to fight this time on the basis of rice and coal from Vietnam. If we can open up a new source of rice this year, we will be able to lay out in Guangxi next year. It was Lin Asheng of the Political and Legal Committee who spoke, a veteran who had always been calm, but he supported the action first.

Finance Minister Li Yuchang immediately objected: "If the war starts, we are only afraid that there will be immediate loss of ships." Most of the ships that run the sea are steamships, and the loss is not a small amount! ”

"If there is no war, how can Vietnam willingly do business with us?" Lin Asheng was still concise and to the point, and after finishing speaking, he looked at the other Standing Committee members, "But I don't know if everyone accepts this fact?" ”

The other members of the Standing Committee spoke one by one, and everyone supported Lin Asheng's views in their speeches. The year 1860 was ordinary, with just enough government revenue to feed the local army and workers. The Guangfu Army dispatched two armies, 100,000 troops, and launched a military operation to capture Guangxi. In order not to have too many conflicts with the local area, the troops relied on Vietnamese rice, which was transported by water. Relying on coal and rice from Vietnam, such a large military operation had no impact on food prices in Guangdong.

The Vietnamese were so willing to exchange rice for rifles precisely because the French continued to fight the Nguyen Dynasty in Vietnam, and the Liberation Army controlled the Sino-Vietnamese border as agreed. In order to resist the attack of the French, Nguyen Chao cried and shouted and begged the Liberation Army to sell weapons and ammunition.

The opening of the rice trade route with Siam will ensure that more rice will enter the two markets. After a decade of continuous war, Guangxi was shattered, and the abundant supply of rice could not only sustain local military operations, but even calm the soaring grain prices in Guangxi.

Although he was the nephew of Finance Minister Li Yuchang, Li Weis, the Minister of Commerce, was a military man, but Li Weisi openly opposed Li Yuchang's idea, saying: "If you want to restore order in Guangxi, you need more food and materials to be transported in, and you need to buy tea from Guangxi." I think Siamese rice has a lot of meaning here. ”

Seeing that his nephews were openly opposed to him, Li Yuchang's face was ugly, but he didn't have any intention of giving up, "I still feel that I have to be cautious." If next year, as long as we don't continue to fight foreign wars, we can make up a budget for fighting in the south. Our shipyard is now at full capacity, and we have been working four shifts 24 hours a day with gas lighting. Even so, the built ship was not enough. If there is a war, how long will it take to build the lost ships? ”

Wei Ze listened quietly, although the vast majority of the members of the Standing Committee were from military backgrounds. But Weese is the real representative of the army. As the president of the Restoration Society, Wei Ze's opinions often represent the opinions of the Liberation Society. Seeing that the majority of those in the Standing Committee advocated taking exploratory actions, Wei Ze spoke, "I personally support Comrade Zuo Zhidan's view, dumb mosquitoes bite people to death. The French call this out shows that they recognize that we are a big country with a strong voice in the region. In this case, as long as there are warships to escort them, the French may not really dare to attack our civilian ships. After all, these civilian ships were not there to intervene in the war between France and Vietnam. If they do intervene, we can only prove that we are a great power capable of deciding the fate of Vietnam. The status of a great power has never been negotiated, but fought. ”

The Standing Committee members agreed with Wei Ze's idea very much, but when they saw that the opinions on taking tentative measures were about to be passed, Li Yuchang still stubbornly expressed his opposition, "Governor, the status of a great power is made, but money is not played. We have made a lot of money in the past few years through trade, France is not a small country, and the British are clearly inclined to the French position. The British have already told us separately in the previous paragraph that if there is a war between China and France, Britain will have to remain independent. That is, the British will cut off trade with us. At that time, our losses were more than that. ”

Although Li Yuchang said this to Wei Ze, Lin Asheng took it, "What are you doing by moving the British out?" Really fighting, we are no longer afraid of the British. ”

Li Yuchang immediately retorted: "We are not afraid of the British, but it does not mean that we can destroy the British." The Governor also said that the British ports are all over the world, and we can resist the British attack by military means, but we cannot use military means to force the British to trade with us. If we really want to completely solve this problem by military means, we will delay it for a few years, and when our navy is up, even if the British want to get in the way of us, our navy will just knock the British out of this sea area. It's only a few years, so why bother with this hour and a half? ”

Seeing that Li Yuchang was determined to resist to the end, Levi said half-relieved the siege and half-inquiring: "We sent people to try to open up sea routes, and we don't have to fight. Maybe the French won't fight us at all? Even if there is a conflict, we do not need to resort to force immediately. ”

"If force cannot be used at once, the French will intensify their command after beating our fleet. If it is unwarranted to fuel the arrogance of France, why should I wait? Li Yuchang actually came out with a very insightful attitude.

Originally, Wei Ze just wanted to discuss this issue at the Standing Committee to see what everyone's attitude was. The attitude of other people is as Wei Ze thinks, but Li Yuchang's knowledge and views on political warfare are really beyond Wei Ze's previous views on Li Yuchang. Wei Ze was very puzzled about this question. Was it because Wei Ze had mistaken Li Yuchang before, or was there some other reason? Wei Ze was very interested in this, and he preliminarily judged that Li Yuchang might have some great staff newly summoned by his subordinates. Thinking about it, Wei Ze couldn't even think of who it would be. R1058