The year entered 1900, the year when the Eight-Nation Coalition entered Beijing. Pen @ fun @ pavilion wWw. ｂｉｑUｇE。 ｉｎｆｏ

But it was obvious that it was impossible for the Eight-Nation Coalition to enter Beijing, but the Russians entered the Manchurian and Mongolian regions, as in history.

Therefore, the contradiction between the Chinese government and Russia is very great, and it is the consensus of the whole world that war will break out between the two countries sooner or later.

The Chinese government has been looking for strong allies that could help it, and Germany meets all the requirements, but Germany does not want to provide China with this military guarantee.

For Germany, a war between China and Russia was inevitable, and it was unknown whether there would be a war between Germany and Russia. Moreover, the more China confronts Russia in the East, the more Germany's security can be guaranteed. Therefore, they do not want to get involved in the Sino-Russian contradictions.

Unless China can give them enough benefits.

Previously, Germany focused on the interests of the Yangtze River basin and northern China.

With the expansion of the economic hinterland from the lower reaches of the Yangtze River to Hankou and Changsha in the German-run Nantong Port, the north-south trade is also becoming more and more concentrated here.

The Yangtze River inland waterway route imports rice, wheat, wine, cotton, vegetables, fruits, and livestock, and exports include cotton, sugar, seafood, groceries, and rice. The import goods of the northern coastal route are mainly beans, soybean cakes, miscellaneous grains, wheat, timber, medicinal materials and fruits, etc., and the export goods are mainly silk, cotton fabrics, tea and southern goods. The imported goods of the southern coastal route mainly include green sugar and rock sugar, melon seeds, sea cucumbers, sea vegetables, sumac, tobacco, indigo, sweet potatoes, salted fish, paper, soap, cinnamon, homespun cloth, glass, crystal, white lead and fruits.

The huge trade volume soon made Nantong a port with a very fast development speed, sharing a considerable share of the trade, and with the help of German capital, it launched an impact on Shanghai's status as a trade center, at least the Germans imagined that, they wanted Nantong to become the "Shanghai of Germany", competing with the British-controlled Shanghai port.

It was only with such a weight of interest that Germany could risk part of the risks of the Sino-Russian war.

However, they had previously proposed to the Qing government to build a railway from Nantong to the hinterland of Sichuan, but the Qing government controlled by the Ming Dynasty not only refused, but also quickly handed over the right to build the railway to the Ming Railway Company; Immediately afterwards, Germany proposed to build a railway from Nantong to Beijing, but was rejected by the reunified Chinese government, and it was immediately handed over to the Daming Railway Company.

Because of the unsatisfied appetite, Germany never agreed to the request for some kind of military alliance with China.

Now the Ming Dynasty once again used Samoa as a condition, hoping to form a military alliance with Germany, and after thinking about it, the Germans thought that Samoa's weight was not enough.

They hoped that China would give Germany greater benefits.

The Germans came up with a new plan, hoping that China would lease a piece of land on the other side of the Yangtze River in Nantong to Germany, not to develop a new port. Instead, it was planned to build a bridge over the Yangtze River from Nantong.

Once the bridge is repaired, it will become a shortcut from the south to the Jiangnan region, the north-south railway built by the Ming Dynasty will pass through Nantong, bringing greater trade volume to Nantong, and the repair of the bridge will further facilitate the north-south traffic, and further intercept the trade volume of the Yangtze River mountain tour to the downstream, so that Nantong and Shanghai will occupy more advantages in the competition.

The lease of their own territory to the foreign powers, this is already an increasingly intolerable humiliation for the Chinese government and people, the Germans leased Nantong, is already the limit of the price to pay for reunification, they now have to further expand, and the current China is no longer the Ming before the reunification, the smooth integration of the past few years, has greatly strengthened the control of the Chinese government, no longer worried about the joint interference of the powers.

In particular, Britain dragged into the Boer War, France and Russia signed a continental agreement with the Ming Dynasty, the danger of joint intervention by the great powers no longer existed, and the Chinese government had put the recovery of Nantong on the agenda, how could it be possible to agree to Germany to further expand its rights and interests.

However, out of diplomatic considerations, he patiently began to negotiate with Germany.

There is no doubt that the alliance is primarily directed against Russia, but in other respects there is a need for cooperation between the two sides. For example, Germany is very worried about the threat of Britain and Japan to Germany's interests in Korea, and the Anglo-Japanese naval agreement is considered by the Russians to be aimed at Russia, and China believes that it is aimed at China, and Germany also believes that it is a huge threat to Germany, so while Germany provides guarantees for China's land security, it also hopes that China can provide some guarantees for Germany's interests in East Asia, and Germany hopes that once Japan attacks Germany's concession of Pusan in Korea, the Ming Dynasty should provide support to Germany.

After discovering that China and Germany began negotiations for a military alliance.

Russia was naturally very nervous and paid close attention to this, and even protested with the French government, believing that this move violated the agreement between China and France and Russia, which stipulated that China should not form any military alliance against Russia.

But Britain is also feeling nervous.

As the Boer War progressed, Britain felt more and more that its land forces were weak, and although the Sino-German alliance was talking about Russia, Britain could guess, but who knows if there would be a clause against Britain. You must know that before, Britain and China were also very conflicted. At least in anyone's opinion, it is much bigger than the contradiction between China and Germany. Germany only leased a Nantong, but Britain controlled the Shanghai Concession. Moreover, Germany did not have a military conflict with China, but Britain had a naval agreement with Japan against China.

The more the war went wrong, the more Germany expanded, and the whole West was opposed to the British aggression against the Boers, which made Britain begin to reflect on their foreign policy of isolation, and they found that it was not they who isolated Europe, but who they were isolated.

In addition, France and Russia have established a relatively strong alliance, Germany also has an alliance with Austria-Hungary and Italy, and among the entire Western powers, only Britain has no alliance.

Now Germany is still pulling China into the chariot of their alliance, and once successful, Britain will also be isolated in the East, although there is an Anglo-Japanese agreement, but Japan's weight is obviously impossible to compare with China, Japan is a country hidden by Chinese mainland, which the West is also aware of.

What is the UK going to do?

Britain continued to increase its troops on the battlefield in South Africa, and in contrast to the anti-British movement in European countries, a strong patriotic movement broke out in Britain.

When news of the defeat of the British Empire's armies in South Africa reached Britain, there was a wave of war-advocating chauvinism among the British populace. They bought public bonds, donated food and medicine to the South African front, and Queen Victoria and the Prince of Wales used royal funds to send precious food items such as chocolate and condensed milk to the Imperial soldiers on the front. Many doctors, engineers, chaplains, and nurses packed their bags and volunteered to serve the British army in South Africa, including Dr. Arthur Conan Doyle, whose work was already famous in the Western world at the time. The streets of London were littered with large posters touting the "founders of empire" in South Africa, and there was a rise of belligerence among the British people in support of the government's policy of "carrying the war to the end."

This era is an era of nationalism, is the people of this era wrong, the British of later generations may not hesitate to condemn the mistakes of their ancestors, but in the eyes of the British people of this era, the peaceful and joyful life they enjoy, the rich material wealth they enjoy, are all obtained through the colonization of weak and small nations and countries, so the army became the founder of the empire.

It's an era of the jungle, so they're not wrong.

In particular, Queen Victoria's support for the war led to a large number of British civilians loyal to the royal family.

With the support of the British Empire, Britain quickly mobilized its forces, increased its forces exponentially, and adjusted its tactics, changing the all-out offensive to the focus of the attack, and concentrating its forces to attack the Orange Free State.

At the same time, Portugal was forced to close the ports where weapons and equipment were delivered to the Boers.

In contrast, the British army has an increasing advantage.

However, the anti-British sentiment in the major British countries continued unabated, not only Germany continued to smuggle arms to the Boers, but the Dutch did not give in, and even France was helping the Boers.

Britain became more and more isolated, and worried that Germany and China were too close, so after intense discussions, they suggested that before the Germans, a limited alliance treaty should be signed with China, the purpose of the Chinese is nothing more than against Russia, in order to prevent Germany from using this as an opportunity to pull China to the road of confrontation with Britain, Britain must preemptively form an alliance with China.

So the tone of this alliance from the beginning was that of a preventive alliance, to prevent China from being used by other countries as a potential force against Britain, and as for confronting Russia, it was in the common interest of both sides.

Britain's proposal for a military alliance has made the Chinese government very impressed and has actively launched negotiations with Britain.

In their view, this alliance was actually the same as Bismarck's alliance with Russia, which was only to guard against an alliance between Russia and France, and Britain's purpose in seeking an alliance with China was nothing more than not wanting China to form an alliance with Germany.

Therefore, they proposed that Britain would provide some financial support in the event of a war between China and Russia, but Britain resolutely refused to give any military guarantee that the British army would not attack Russia during the war. This made Daming very dissatisfied, and they felt that the British were treating Daming as a free thug.

After Britain did not make any breakthrough here, the Ming accelerated its efforts to favor Germany, and without negotiating results with Germany, unilaterally announced that it would abide by its previous commitments and that it would continue to support Germany's power claims in Samoa.

Da Ming's statement made Britain nervous when he interpreted it as having reached some secret agreement with Germany.