At the end of 1882, the thirteenth economic crisis gradually revealed its destructive power, and Britain, France, Germany, Italy, the United States and other Western industrial countries all suffered from its effects.

In December 1882, the Han government formulated a plan for the introduction of European technology, authorizing the legations in European countries to lead the introduction of technology in the host countries.

In February 1883, the last convoy of Nanyang legionnaires and Chinese from Annam departed from northern Annam, thus ending the two-year evacuation of Annam.

The Nanyang Army and the Chinese in the Ann Nan Beiban area were all evacuated, and the northern provinces of Lang Son, Quang Ninh, and Bac Ninh quickly fell behind the control of the Cochinchina colonial army.

Affected by the economic crisis in Europe, the French government was eager to expand its colonies overseas in order to pass on the economic crisis at home.

Therefore, when the news of the death of the king of Vietnam reached Europe in June 1883, the republican government immediately authorized the colonial army of Cochinchina to start a plan to fully occupy the entire territory of Annam.

Without the containment of the Nanyang Army, the decaying and weak army of the Annam government was like an old fence wall in the face of the offensive of the French colonial army.

On July 16, 1883, the French attacked the Hue Haikou Fort, and on the 17th, invaded the capital Hue. On the 23rd, the defenders of Annam surrendered without a fight, and were so humiliated that they signed the "Franco-Vietnamese New Peace Treaty", known as the "Treaty of Hue", with 27 articles. Under this treaty, France made Annam its protectorate and controlled Vietnam's internal and foreign affairs. The French minister Ho Lo (Mu Mang) immediately posted a notice claiming that the entire territory of Vietnam belonged to the law and warned the Qing army not to interfere in the affairs of Annam.

In September 1883, the first part of the Qing army in Guangxi, according to the instructions of the Qing court, was stationed in the northern part of Annam, and confronted the French colonial army in Shanxi and Baosheng.

On November 13, 1883, in order to dispel the Qing court's goal of interfering in the situation in Annam, the Cochinchina Governor's Office ordered Guba to lead 6,000 troops to attack the Qing army's positions stationed in Shanxi (northwest of present-day Hanoi), and the Sino-French War officially broke out.

On April 17, 1884, the Qing government was forced to sign the "Concise Treaty of the Sino-French Conference", recognizing France's "right to protect" Vietnam, agreeing to open a port for trade on the Sino-Vietnamese border, and declaring that the Qing army in Beiqi would withdraw to the border.

In early May, the French army forcibly took over the Qing army garrison near Lang Son in Vietnam, but was met with a return fire and the French army retreated.

On June 15, the French navy invaded Keelung, Taiwan, and was repulsed by the defenders.

On the 3rd of July, French warships anchored at Mawei Military Port suddenly attacked the Fujian Naval Division. Due to the Qing court's policy of avoiding war and seeking peace, the fleet was hastily responded to the battle, passively beaten, and finally suffered the doom of the entire army. On the sixth day of the first lunar month, the Qing government was forced to declare war on France.

In August, the French ships invaded Taiwan again and were blocked by the Qing troops in Huwei (now Tamsui).

In the first month of 1885, the French ship invaded Zhenhai, Zhejiang, and was shelled by the Qing army, the French army was defeated and retreated, and the commander Guba was seriously wounded and later died in Penghu.

At the same time, on the Sino-Vietnamese border, the Qing army failed to resist and retreated, allowing the French army to capture the important border town of Zhennan Pass (now Friendship Pass). Zhang Zhidong, the new governor of Liangguang, then appointed the veteran Feng Zicai as the military assistant of Guangxi, redeployed combat readiness, and on the 8th of February, he won a great victory at Zhennanguan. On the 13th, he won another great victory at Lang Son and seriously wounded the commander of the French army, Negri.

The successive victories of the Qing army made the French army in Hanoi extremely frightened and prepared to flee. France's Jouferry cabinet also collapsed due to defeat. On 19 February, the Qing Dynasty signed the Paris Armistice Agreement with France, and on the 22nd, ordered the front-line troops to cease fighting on the 1st of March and withdraw their troops on the 11th. On 27 April, Li Hongzhang was authorized to sign the "Ten Articles of the Sino-French Treaty on Vietnam" with the French Minister to China, Badeno, in Tianjin. Due to the cowardly retreat of the Qing government, China was defeated undefeated, while France was victorious.

The withdrawal of the Nanyang Army meant that the Han government had abandoned its policy of intervention in the Far East, and as long as the Western countries did not act aggressively against the Natuna Islands, Songkhla, and Lan Fong, the Han government's attention would not be shifted from South America to the Far East again.

While the Qing and French armies were fighting in Annam, the situation in the rest of the world was rapidly changing.

In October 1884, ships that had gone to the United States, Canada, and Australia to accept Chinese laborers returned one after another, and the Chinese migration caused by the Chinese Exclusion Act entered the final stage.

On November 15, 1884, the European powers excluded the Han government, which had colonial interests in Africa.

Only 15 European countries, including the German Empire, the British Empire, the French Third Republic, the Russian Empire, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the United States of America, the Kingdom of Italy, the Spanish Empire, the Portuguese Empire, the Ottoman Empire, the Dutch Colonial Empire, the Kingdom of Belgium, the Kingdom of Sweden, the Kingdom of Denmark and the Kingdom of Norway, are invited,

A conference was held in Berlin, the capital of Germany, to carve up Africa. The conference lasted for 104 days, and in the course of the conference, Britain, France, and Germany divided the scope of African colonies according to their own wishes, and the contradictions and disputes between the parties continued, and it was not until the beginning of 1885 that the countries reluctantly reached the principle of dividing Africa.

In this way, for the first time, the European and American powers drew on a map the geographical boundaries of their respective tropical Africas in Berlin, far from Africa.

In order to avoid the confrontation between countries in the competition for Africa, the Berlin Conference also focused on the issue of "effective occupation".

After a fierce debate between the countries and Britain, which occupies the largest territory in Africa, a very vague resolution was adopted: the participating countries must notify the other countries of any future occupation of the African coast; It is incumbent upon the annexation of the occupied African coastal areas to ensure the establishment of a governing power sufficient to protect the existing rights and interests. When discussing the issue of free trade in the Congo River Basin, the Berlin Conference forcibly included the colony of Han Congo and the French Congo and northern Angola within the free trade zone without the consent of the Han state.

With regard to freedom of navigation in inland waterways, the international supervision of freedom of navigation in the Congo River basin was finally adopted. The Protocol signed at the end of the Berlin Conference consisted of 38 articles and 60,000 words, but most of them were official articles and were not implemented. The conflict that the Conference attempted to resolve as a result of the partition of Central Africa was not formally discussed at the table, but was resolved through political bargains at the meeting.

These elements are not included in the Protocol. The limited results of this conference are a demonstration of the balance of power that has developed in Africa among the European Powers and marks a new starting point in their frenzied struggle for Africa.

After the Berlin Conference, the pace of the European powers to carve up Africa was greatly accelerated. In 1876, the European powers held only 10.8 per cent of Africa's land, which increased to 25 per cent in 1885 and to 90.4 per cent in 1900, after the Berlin Conference.

By 1912, the continent had been completely divided, leaving only Ethiopia and Liberia to maintain their apparent independence.

In the unprecedentedly fierce war for Africa, Britain formulated the so-called "Second C Plan" from Cape Town to Cairo in an attempt to establish a colonial empire that stretched across the northern and southern continents of Africa.

France has drawn up a "two-S plan" from Senegal to Somalia in an attempt to cross the eastern and western continents of Africa.

Germany has a plan to cross the continent diagonally from East Africa to South-West Africa.

Portugal and Italy also have their own expansion plans. The European powers all wanted to realize their plans for expansion on the continent, which caused serious disputes and conflicts. These disputes and conflicts would become an important factor in the First World War.

In the face of the outrageous attitude of the Western powers in the division of African colonies, the Han government had no more effective means than routine diplomatic protests.

Time is slowly moving forward in turmoil and change.

In June 1883, the concubine Zhang Baoyi became pregnant, and in August, the empress Wu Lingxuan and the two concubines newly included in the harem also reported the good news of pregnancy. In 1884, the four daughters gave birth to two sons and two daughters for Li Mingyuan, and in order to celebrate the birth of the children, Li Mingyuan specially named the four small islands located in the Yizhou Islands in the South Pacific Ocean after the four children.

In January 1885, smokeless gunpowder and a new rifle using smokeless gunpowder as ammunition completed the final verification work and began mass production.

In August 1885, when Western countries were still amazed that the first Makqin machine gun was developed by Makqin, the first heavy machine gun independently developed by the Han Kingdom had entered the Wehrmacht and began to replace the Gatling hand-cranked machine gun and became a heavy fire support weapon for the national defense corps and battalion-level military units.

In May 1887, Crown Prince Frederick was diagnosed with throat cancer, this time because of the case of Prince Valmad being cured, Princess Victoria immediately found He Lianchen, who stayed in the German palace and took care of the health of the crown prince's family, and then under the correct diagnosis of He Lianchen and doctors from various countries, Crown Prince Frederick, like his son, was lucky to break free from the clutches of death.

On March 9, 1888, Kaiser Wilhelm I of Germany died, and Crown Prince Frederick, who had succeeded in surgery, took over as the second emperor of the German Empire. …………