I have to admire Li Xiucheng's luck, he chose to attack Shanghai this year, and the choice was really timely. Pen × fun × Pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 Not only were the French stuck with Prussia and unable to take care of the Oriental question, but after his attack on Shanghai was blocked, suddenly there was chaos on the part of the Manchus.

On June 21, thousands of people in Tianjin besieged the French Catholic Church. Catholicism has always been brutal in China, and the French bishop ordered the Tianjin County Order to disperse the crowd, but did not get a satisfactory answer, and even shot Liu Jie's servant in the street, killing Liu Jie's servant on the spot.

This kind of brutality angered the people, and the angry people stormed the French consulate and killed the French consul and secretary, after which 10 nuns, 2 priests, 2 other French consulate personnel, 2 French nationals, 3 Russian nationals and more than 30 Chinese believers burned down the French consulate, Wanghailou Catholic Church and 4 Christian churches opened by local British and American missionaries.

The famous Tianjin lesson plan broke out in history.

Britain, the United States, France and other countries jointly protested and dispatched warships to threaten them.

This move greatly attracted firepower for Li Xiucheng, and for a time the possibility of collusion between the Qing court and the foreigners was greatly reduced, and the British had to transfer part of the fleet, which also reduced the pressure on Li Xiucheng, and the most direct thing was that the supplies smuggled by the Ming merchants were more.

But the most important thing is the political significance, once the Qing court fell out with the foreigners, the Taiping army could defeat them one by one, which made Li Xiucheng feel that the success of the Northern Expedition was greater, and once Yang Fuqing and Wang Haiyang also thought so, their motivation for the Northern Expedition would increase, and they could actively go to the Northern Expedition without using force coercion.

Zhu Jinglun from Guangzhou began to worry, he did not expect that the Tianjin teaching case would still happen as scheduled, at this tense moment, stimulate the nervous nerves of the British, and the ghost knows if it will get out of control.

In particular, even the Russians and Americans were involved, and if one was not handled well, the eight-nation coalition appeared ahead of schedule.

In case this happens, Zhu Jinglun's plan is to simply strike first and take the first step to capture Beiqi again, which is better than the four countries of Britain, France, the United States and Russia entering Beijing, and the good things looted by the Manchu Qing Dynasty.

Therefore, when the news of the Tianjin teaching case reached the Ming Dynasty, the Ming army immediately received the order and began to urgently move their hearts, the officers on leave canceled their vacations, the soldiers visiting relatives immediately returned to the camp, the army began to conduct intensive exercises and training, and the navy began to assemble in Guangzhou, ready to go north at any time. At the same time, the logistics department began to stock up on military supplies, and for a time the prices of grain, cloth, and gauze on the market rose by 10 percent.

The movements of the Ming Dynasty made the relevant parties even more nervous, because they saw that at this moment, it seemed that the only country that had the strength to interfere in the affairs of the East seemed to be the Ming Dynasty.

But no one wanted the Ming Dynasty to intervene, especially the British, and maintaining British interests in the Yangtze River was their biggest diplomatic criterion in the East, because Shanghai had become the largest British trading port in the East, importing and exporting thousands of taels of silver every year, which could not be parted.

If the Ming Dynasty intervened, whether it was to go north to Beijing and Tianjin, or to intervene in the Yangtze River basin again, the British thought that it was not good for them, the last time the Ming Dynasty rescued the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, monopolized the Tianjing port for half a year, if the Ming Dynasty was playing this method once, monopolizing the interests of Shanghai, the British lost too much.

If the Ming Dynasty went north to Beijing and Tianjin, the British were worried that the gaffe would get out of control, the problems in Europe were still burning, the French emperor was bent on humiliating the Prussian king, and if Prussia refused to give in, it would be another war, and Britain would not be able to draw forces to interfere in the affairs of the Far East for a while, so the most reasonable measure for them at present was to maintain balance.

The world hegemon is sometimes really bad, it is really heartbreaking, not only to protect its own interests, but also to protect its own predators, it is really difficult to operate. A few years ago, the British and French troops marched into the North and helped the Qing army defend against the Taiping Army in Shanghai.

Although this incident arose because of the French Catholic Church, France is a papal state appointed by the pope, and the whole of the East is the protocratic diocese of France, so the French behaved extremely tough, and their warships formed a joint fleet with the British as soon as possible, and threatened Tianjin with war, obviously they did not think that they had no strength, and the French were extremely proud at this time, and they did not take the possibility of war with Prussia in their eyes at all.

The Americans have always wanted to be able to take advantage of tricks and will not use strong measures, and the Russians tend to have a more barbaric impression in Europe, giving the impression of being good at using violence to solve problems, but in the East, since the last Opium War, they have shown a fox character, but this time they have also been killed, and it is obviously not easy to remain neutral.

In the face of such a complex and chaotic situation, the British have always liked to find allies, unite and even rely on the strength of others to solve problems, but at this time they found that in the east, all they could borrow was the power of the Ming Kingdom. Except for this force, other countries are powerless to interfere at this time for some reason.

Therefore, Wei Tuma sent a note to Daming again, hoping to be consistent in the Tianjin lesson plan.

The invitation of the British Empire was a status symbol in this era, and during the First Sino-Japanese War, Britain signed an equal trade treaty with Japan, and the British told the Japanese that this treaty meant far more to Japan than the army that defeated the Qing Dynasty.

But the question is for whom, to change to a slippery government, at this time will also be very willing to accept the British demand, work for the British, so as to use the power of the British, to win their own interests, and then with the help of the British hegemony in the world system, to safeguard the interests they get, in short, to work for the British, and then share a little hard-earned money, which is what Japan later did.

But Zhu Jinglun is not Japanese, he does not have the character of the Japanese, he does not have the consciousness of being a coolie, he has the self-centered consciousness of the older generation of China, and in this incident, he wants the Ming Dynasty to take the lead.

So in the face of this crisis, Daming has its own actions.

Just when the British found Daming, Daming found someone else, first consulted with the American minister and the Russian minister, hoping that the two countries could maintain restraint and try to maintain restraint from the overall situation of maintaining stability in East Asia. Daming expressed regret over the lesson plan that occurred in Tianjin, and was willing to come forward to mediate and give a fair and reasonable explanation to all countries.

Obviously, the Ming wanted to play a bigger role in this incident, rather than being willing to be the defender of the world system of the British Empire, unwilling to act as a pawn and minions of the British.

The Russians have achieved considerable results in the reform of serfdom, but there are still many problems, because in the reform of serfdom, the serfs bear too much cost, too much protection of the interests of the aristocratic landlords, resulting in constant riots in various places, and the aristocratic landlords, as vested interests, many are not very satisfied with the reform, and China is too far away, so the Russians have no strength and no interest in really intervening in the crisis in the East.

Historically, in the end, it was Li Hongzhang who came forward to quell the incident, and his breakthrough in solving the problem was to persuade the Russians to promise not to kill people, but in the end they just lost money, and several Chinese thugs who killed people were given light sentences by the Qing government.

Therefore, this time the Russians were also happy to accept the mediation of the Ming Dynasty.

The Americans have never been keen on using force to solve problems, and in China's two opium wars, they have maintained restraint, and their foreign policy has always been based on interests, hoping to maintain friendship with other countries to maintain interests, and diplomatically, they used to like to follow great powers like Britain and France.

This time, after the Ming Dynasty came forward and assured them of the attitude of safeguarding their interests, the Americans expressed their support for the Ming Dynasty, an oriental country, and played an active role in the lesson plan.

As for the French, their governments were about to fall under the blow of Prussia, and then the Paris Commune, and it would have been a few years before they themselves figured things out, and now France looked tough, and it was only the last barking of a wild dog that had not yet realized that its teeth had fallen out.

However, Daming still contacted the French and told France that Daming's consistent policy was to maintain trade freedom and regional peace, and that Daming was willing to guarantee France's interests, and expressed regret over the killing of French diplomats and religious personnel, but hoped that everyone could deal with this incident under the premise of peace.

The French showed impatience with this, but they also had to take care of the attitude of the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Jinglun called the ironclad ship to France, not without gain, in addition to letting France accept an equal relationship, for example, they gave up the same extraterritoriality as the British before, and also let the French understand that the Ming is a powerful country in the East, at least with a strong military industry, although this is an illusion, but on the surface it is like this, and it will not be punctured for a long time, Just like the Beiyang Fleet before the First Sino-Japanese War, the whole world thought that the Qing Dynasty was the first maritime power in the East.

The French responded to the Ming by saying that France was willing to keep the peace, but the Qing court had to give a satisfactory account to the French Empire, and the Qing court had to pay the price for harming the citizens and clergy of the French Empire.

They proposed to execute the officials responsible, punish the relevant officials, send an envoy to France to apologize, and give financial compensation. He also demanded that such incidents never happen again, and that the freedom of the Catholic mission in the interior of the Manchu Qing Dynasty be guaranteed.

The French put on a condescending posture, and thought that they had given Daming a great face, but they didn't think about this incident at all, whether the French themselves were also responsible, which was related to the usual way of thinking in the West at this time, they naturally believed that they were the only civilized people, if there was a conflict with people from other countries, it must be because of the barbarism of the other party, so they directly proposed a way to solve it, not so much to respect Daming, willing to let Daming mediate, It is better to let the Ming inform the Manchus of the outcome of their ruling.

But they don't seem to have thought about it: "Shouldn't we investigate the cause of the matter first?" ”

The envoy of Daming made this should have been the most basic suggestion to the French, and the French minister agreed rather impatiently, feeling that it was completely a formality, and the reason for the matter must be that the barbaric Chinese deliberately hurt the civilized French.

Moreover, they proposed that the French conduct an independent investigation, and after Da Ming disagreed, they asked for an international investigation team dominated by the French, but Da Ming still did not agree.

The suggestion given by Da Ming was that Da Ming would send a completely neutral investigation team and appoint a gentleman with a sense of morality and justice to investigate the matter.

As a result, the French still disagreed, let alone the investigation candidate proposed by the Ming Dynasty, and the Ming insisted on sending this person, because this person was selected by the emperor of the Ming Dynasty.

In the end, there was no negotiation with the French, and the Ming announced that he would investigate the matter alone, and sent a note to all countries that before the Ming completed the investigation, he hoped that all countries would exercise restraint, otherwise it would be regarded as disrespectful to the Ming Dynasty, and the Ming would no longer cooperate with the actions of the countries to maintain their own interests in East Asia.

The strong attitude of the Ming Dynasty has given rise to a kind of emerging state trying to dominate the situation in the region, just as the Americans did in the Americas, and although they are very uncomfortable, they do not find it strange, because from their point of view, this is what any country would do, and this is a reasonable behavior to protect their own interests.

It's just that all countries have expressed their incomprehension of the investigators that Daming is going to send.

Because this very controversial figure is Zeng Guofan, Zeng Guofan, who has been promoting the revival of Confucianism and Taoism in the Ming Dynasty in recent years.

No one thought that this great Confucian, who had fought so hard to maintain traditional Chinese religion, would be able to remain objective in the investigation of Catholic cases.