Zuo Zhidan looked up at the sky after coming out of Wei Ze's office, which was a very subconscious action. Looking at the lofty sky, Zuo Zhidan's mood did not relax because of this, but felt heavy pressure.

"Whether you can continue to be a minister in ten years is not up to me, but up to you. If you think that working at the grassroots level is faceless, it is useless to persuade others. If you feel like you're just going to work at the grassroots level and gain experience. It's useless for others to say anything. All the experience does not fall from the sky, but is accumulated on the job. What kind of work experience do you want to accumulate, and what kind of achievements do you want to achieve in the end? It's all up to you. Wei Ze said very seriously, and this seriousness made Zuo Zhidan feel even more embarrassed.

He has been engaged in diplomatic work for many years and is theoretically experienced in diplomacy. However, in this era, there are not many diplomatic problems, there are only a few big countries, and there is no such thing as equality between large and small countries. No amount of diplomatic experience has been accumulated, and there has been no breakthrough. The policy of iron and blood at home meant that peace was only a transitional state between wars. In such a situation, diplomacy is, in a sense, a dispensable microphone department.

Compared to the foreign service, the executive branch is a promising industry. But Zuo Zhidan wants to start from the grassroots level, and he does feel that he has succumbed to his talents. But Wei Ze's attitude was very serious, and Zuo Zhidan simply rejected Wei Ze's offer. After refusing, Zuo Zhidan felt regretful, Wei Ze never made things difficult for comrades, since he arranged it like this, he must have a reason for such an arrangement. If he gave up this opportunity, would Wei Ze not give Zuo Zhidan another chance in the future?

The mood of suffering from gains and losses lingered in his heart, Zuo Zhidan looked at the sky for a while, and then gritted his teeth and left the door of Wei Ze's office. He decided to do a good job in this negotiation with the British, and only by making great achievements could he stabilize his position.

When he returned to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Zuo Zhidan gathered the personnel and asked everyone to start sorting out the existing information and straightening out the intelligence of European countries. The data seems to be piled up, but when it is really subdivided, there is nothing special. These are the more well-known guys in European countries.

Zuo Zhidan looked at everyone's busy work and was a little disappointed. The complex system of succession to the throne in Europe is difficult for China to understand, and the kings of Europe are all relatives, and the intricacies of blood relations are simply difficult to understand without the stories of insiders. As for the European industrial and commercial giants at this time, they were inextricably linked with the royal family, the government, and the aristocracy. Outsiders simply don't have a way to start.

If you can't figure out the situation in Europe in the palm of your hand, you can only deal with the problem simply. Weeser's Iron and Blood is the simplest option. In these operational parts, Zuo Zhidan found that the ability of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was really inferior to Wei Ze, who was not in charge of diplomacy at all.

"Am I making the wrong choice?" Zuo Zhidan had to think about this problem.

Personal reflection is a personal issue, and history never stops because of the individual. The assessment of the situation in the Far East by the British side was also carried out in London.

"China is massively manufacturing ironclad ships, this is a challenge to the Far East, and we should not believe China's claims!" The parliamentarians made generous statements in Parliament, both in terms of what they talked about and in the direction they pointed.

"If China has no plans to go to war, if it has no intention of resisting British dominance in the Western Pacific, then why is China building so many warships?" The parliamentarian speaks of a very realistic balance of power.

According to the intelligence gathered by the British, China had no plan to attack Britain for the time being, but it had a plan to meet the British intervention fleet when it moved south to seize the Dutch East Indies. The purpose of China's massive construction of new ironclad ships is to drive Britain out of the South China Sea, and this is a fact that Britain absolutely cannot accept.

After the end of the American Civil War, the United States began to sell large quantities of wartime production and purchases, with large quantities of artillery and rifles sold to the Japanese, and naval ships to the Spaniards. This is the attitude of peace.

The Chinese side has no such movement at all, and not only has it not sold its armaments, but it is now constantly expanding its armaments for ocean-going wars. As the world's largest naval power, Britain is well aware that the production of armaments requires a lot of money, and the maintenance of armaments requires a lot of investment. The British Royal Navy relied on conquests and war revenues to maintain a large fleet. China's purpose in building a huge navy is self-evident.

"If China is willing to limit its naval equipment, we can believe that the Chinese do have plans for peace!" British parliamentarians made their own demands.

Such a statement was approved by quite a few people in the parliament, and the characteristic of the world hegemon is to have the power to overwhelm one country at any time. The only way to maintain dominance in the Far East was to give the British navy an overwhelming advantage.

The British Parliament is an elite democracy, and there are those who demand that China be forcibly suppressed, and there are opinions that differ from it.

"China will not give up building ironclad ships." Another member of parliament who spoke used only one sentence to silence the rest of the council for a while.

"If China is to be subdued by military force, it is necessary to send all the capital warships of the British Empire to China and sink all Chinese warships along the way. Full-scale shelling of Chinese port cities, complete destruction of their naval shipyards. However, according to intelligence, in addition to the shipyards along the coast, China also has shipyards in Wuhu, thousands of miles from the coast, which can also produce ironclad ships. Is our fleet going to go thousands of miles into the Yangtze River of China to destroy the shipyards of China? The MP had more information about China, so even if his words implied a distrust of the Royal Navy, the other MPs could not directly refute it, even if they didn't like it.

"Let us send our fleet halfway around the world to wage war against China, and the purpose of the war is only to prepare for a possible future attack by China against Britain. If that's our reason, I think we'd better wipe out these European countries before attacking China. After all, they pose a much greater threat to us than China. At least if our fleet is damaged, we can quickly return to the shipyard for repairs. The lawmaker's words made other lawmakers who shared the same opinion laugh out loud.

The lawmaker bowed slightly to his supporters with a smile, then put away his smile and continued: "We won the war against China 30 years ago, but that victory is unlikely to be repeated. And once this war starts, how long are we going to hold out? Five years or ten years? Or longer? Will Britain be able to survive by pouring huge financial spends into that bottomless pit every year? In case, I mean in case. In the event that we lose the war, what will the British Empire face? ”

This concludes the remarks of this congressman, and a considerable number of parliamentarians agree with it. Of course, they don't know the historical situation, and after the end of the two crows, the British finally used the guò big tobacco trade to fish in China. After expanding the market in China and obtaining a large amount of metal currency, Britain's economic problems were alleviated considerably.

Now the rise of the Liberation Army has promoted the development of British heavy industry, and after the implementation of the stable trade settlement system, the British train industry has developed rapidly, and orders from China have increased the export of British heavy industrial products. If there is an all-out war with China, it will be a long-term war, and trade between China and Britain will inevitably be interrupted.

China's tea can still be replaced by tea from India and Sri Lanka, but silk imports must rely heavily on the Chinese market. No matter how good long-staple cotton is, it can't replace raw silk. An unwinnable war must be avoided for Britain.

Both hawks and doves have their own reasons, and there are less hawkish MPs who have been given the opportunity to speak, "Do you think China's technological level can surpass that of our Britain?" ”

This is actually a good reason, as the UK has always been a very leading industry as a technological pioneer in Europe. China, the British really didn't put it in harshness. Many MPs agree that since Chinese technology cannot catch up with the UK, there is no reason to be afraid of China.

Next to speak was an admittedly dovish MP who stepped up to the podium and said, "Gentlemen, I just heard the saying that Chinese technology cannot catch up with the British. I had dinner with one of the chairmen of a steel company. At the dinner table, we talked about the latest open-hearth steelmaking technology. And I happened to read some of the information about China's steel companies, and I found one thing. Around 1860, open-hearth steelmaking was already being used in China. You may not know about open-hearth steelmaking, and I don't give a professional explanation of it. I can only explain one thing, this is a technology developed in France only in 1864. It was only in 1867 that we in England began to use this technology in steel mills. ”

This comparison is so clear and clear that British parliamentarians are dumbfounded. The parliamentarian continued: "China's warships have been using propeller technology for a long time, and we only recently started to completely phase out paddle ships. Gentlemen, I am not for war, but I can understand the thoughts of parliamentarians who support it. China's current technological development is not too fast to catch up with China, and they are not lagging behind us in many technologies. In such a situation, I would like to ask you to make a rational decision whether to take strong action because you feel threatened, or to avoid a pointless war in the face of such facts. ”

The words were a bombshell, and some of the dovish MPs were a little shaken. Similarly, a portion of the hawkish lawmakers are also beginning to waver.

After several days of debate, the British Parliament finally decided by a certain margin not to go to war with China for the time being. But it is necessary to increase intelligence work against China. Be sure to figure out what really happened in this ancient country.