That was in 1784, ten years later, and Brown was not the East India Company's senior in Canton, but a small scribe.

At that time, there was such an incident, a merchant ship named Ms. Hughes arrived in Guangzhou, according to custom, in order to express the joy of the voyage to China, the captain ordered a gun salute to be fired, but there was an accident, resulting in the death of two Chinese onlookers.

The local authorities strongly demanded that the captain hand over the criminals, demanded that the guns be handled, and in order to threaten the delivery of the Ms. Hughes, the authorities also kidnapped a crew member. At that time, the East India Company was also under pressure from the local government to instruct the captain to hand over the sailor who caused the accident, and the East India Company's Taipan said at the time that the gunner would receive a fair trial and leniency, because according to his knowledge of Chinese law, the person who caused the accidental death could have his sentence reduced.

But he didn't know too much about China's judiciary, there was a law but no legal system, and where the law was put it might not be enforced according to the rules, after the gunner was handed over, he was hanged without a strict trial at all.

At that time, when accepting the East India Company's request for surrender, the captain of the Lady Hughes also wrote a earnestly worded letter to the East India Company Taipan, "I beg respect the honorable Smith (Taipan) to take care of this old man, you had better contact the Hao official for this old man's case, and I hope that the Chinese will not hurt this poor old man, because the incident was a complete unfortunate accident."

Not only that, but the East India Company Taipan also received a letter of reprimand from the Governor of Liangguang, accusing them of failing to hand over the prisoners at the time of the crime, and giving the East India Company a stern warning.

Brown was an eyewitness to the incident, and after the incident, he was terrified of the local laws and the attitude of the local officials who were condescending and did not take human life, especially the lives of foreigners, seriously.

But because of this, he couldn't let the nearly 100 people on the three ships be handed over to the local government, before they captured Harald from the merchant house, Harald was a Norwegian after all, and he was not an employee of the East India Company, but these people were sent directly to Taiwan from the East India Company's fleet, except for the low-level sailors, there were many Indians, most of them were British.

If these people were handed over and interrogated by the local government and found out that they had ties to Taiwan, Brown did not dare to guarantee that the other party would not discern in detail the legal relationship between the British East India Company and the Chinese East India Company formed by Zhou Lang, but directly executed all of them.

Brown didn't dare to take the risk anyway, so he immediately armed the sailors and confronted the officials who captured them.

At the same time, he mobilized his connections and first went to find Cai Shiwen, the chief merchant of the Thirteen Lines, and Pan Qiguan, who were intermediaries between them and the local government.

Brown knew that the confrontation with the government was very serious, but the local government had an advantage, that is, if you have money, you can do things, and if you have money, you can do things, in fact, as early as 1722, there was a foreigner like the Miss Hughes murder, when the use of 2000 taels of silver quelled the incident, but unfortunately when the Ms. Hughes incident, the East India Company was not experienced enough to deal with these legal issues, so it was not done in advance, and before the court opened, the person was secretly hanged.

Brown, who has been in China for more than a decade, has long figured out these rules, so he plans to resist arrest first and then settle it with money.

However, the news sent back by Cai Shiwen's people was that the customs superintendent refused to be accommodating, and he could not pay any money, and in turn demanded that the East India Company hand over all these people, otherwise he would threaten to cut off trade with Britain.

The unspoken rules are no longer working, Brown can only go through official channels, he sent people to Macau immediately to wait for the departure of Magalny, he believes that Magalny's identity is a British envoy, representing the British government, hoping to use this official capacity to negotiate with the local government and put pressure on the local government.

Brown really didn't understand why the customs were so persistent in arresting people this time, according to his understanding, the Sheng Zhu of Guangdong Customs was a person who liked silver very much, he dared to take any kind of silver, and he dared to carry any kind of things, but this time he just refused to be accommodating.

Morizumi is indeed a money-grubbing man.

In addition to the superintendent of the Guangdong Customs, he also served as the Minister of the Interior, the Chamberlain of the Ministry of Industry and the Ministry of Households, and the Secretary of the Ministry of Industry. Not only was he greedy for money, but he also had the courage to fight, and even took the pearls and jade porcelain in the palace and even the emperor's jade treasures out of the palace and sold them. After it was discovered, the emperor only dismissed him from all his errands, and finally granted it to the Minister of Internal Affairs of Xiling to handle the construction of the imperial mausoleum.

Soon after the completion of the imperial mausoleum, when it came to the Shuowang sacrifice day, he should have personally presided over the sacrifice, but he privately sent someone to replace him, and as a result, the entourage was outside the white pile in the mausoleum area, and the feng shui forbidden land within the green pile opened a pond to take stones, which is a serious violation of the ban, and it is an act of destroying the feng shui of the imperial tomb.

Therefore, Sheng Zhu was dismissed and sent to Xinjiang. But the emperor could not bear it, forgave him for his guilt, and rewarded him with the title of deputy commander. The next year Sheng Zhu died, and the emperor gave him a grace. Who knows, when he died, the bigger things he had done were exposed, it turned out that he was in the construction of the imperial mausoleum project, arbitrarily embezzled the silver taels of the project, and cut corners. The emperor was angry and ordered someone to raid the house, but he found an old account, which recorded that he had withheld more than 50,000 taels of silver and detained 40,000 taels of silver to purchase Lianshan stone, and two amounted to 90,000 taels.

Even the money for repairing the imperial tomb dares to be greedy, and it is nothing to buy treasures in the palace in the Internal Affairs Office in comparison. Of course, such a person is greedy for money, but the question is, why does Shengzhu dare to be greedy for this kind of money, this can no longer be described as bold, it is simply a death, unless he is a madman, otherwise he must have no fear, even if something happens, he can afford it, he belongs to the latter, because of several cases, the emperor has sent him lightly.

The reason is very simple, this guy is a magnate, and not an ordinary magnate, a first-class magnate of the Manchu Qing Dynasty.

Needless to mention the scenery when Conglong entered the customs, it is said that he himself was a duke, and he was awarded the title of his father's third-class Cheng'en Gong, and according to the principle of downgrading inheritance in the Qing Dynasty, his father's title was higher.

But the identity of Sheng Zhu can not be described by ordinary princes and disciples, because his family is really the power of the powerful, the prince of the princes, but in fact, the Sheng Zhu family is very ordinary, and he lived an ordinary but yearning for a rich life in his childhood, and his father only achieved the position of the Minister of Internal Affairs at the highest, although he is also a powerful family, but it is still far from the real princes and nobles, and even when he was a child, Sheng Zhu often encountered discrimination from the children of powerful people of the same age, because his family was born in a white flag.

The fortune is completely dependent on a lucky thing, that is, the sister who was sent to the palace to be a show girl, in the 39th year of Qianlong, was given by Qianlong to become the grandson of the fifteenth son of the emperor.

Twenty years have passed, his sister not only gave birth to a number of princes and princesses, the key is that his brother-in-law Yan Yan has been quite favored in recent years, the old Qianlong Emperor often teaches in person, and there are rumors within the Eight Banners magnates that Yan Yan is likely to have been established as a prince by the emperor, and his name has long been hidden behind the Zhengda Guangming plaque, just waiting for Qianlong to die, take out the edict to succeed to the throne.

The status of the brother-in-law is good, and the status of Sheng Zhu is also rising, not only the officials are getting bigger and bigger, but they are also fat, such as the Minister of the Interior, the grain road and other officials he has done, but the fattest is still the lack of Guangdong Customs supervision. Guangdong Customs is known as the South Treasury of the Son of Heaven, and the tax money collected is not actually handed over to the Ministry of Households, but directly to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, because the customs is under the management of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and the money is owned by the emperor's Inner Treasury.

On the one hand, he is responsible for supervising the place for the emperor, and on the other hand, it is actually the emperor's means of taking care of his cronies, that is, letting his cronies make money, so he has served as a customs superintendent, and there are few officials from the imperial examination, all of whom are the sons of powerful people, and as a result, there have been four or five major corruption cases, but the emperor did not kill anyone, and there was even a scandal that the East India Company Taipan Hong Renhui could not bear the extortion of the customs supervision, and planned to go to Beijing to find the emperor to sue the emperor. However, Qianlong still held it high and put it down gently, only dismissed the customs superintendent at that time, but was very angry with the foreigners, and imprisoned Hong Renhui in Macao for three years, and then deported him and refused to enter the country permanently.

Sheng Zhu is a gentleman, it is because of the identity of the imperial prince that he was able to get the supervision of the Guangdong Customs, and he thought that he could only make a fortune, but he did not expect that there would be a chance to make meritorious contributions.

A young master like him, especially now that he is in the market, is rumored to be his brother-in-law will inherit the unification, he not only wants to make a fortune, but also wants to make a career and show others, especially his brother-in-law, the future emperor, and let his brother-in-law have a long face in front of Qianlong.

This time, it was easy to run into such a big case as the uprising of Taiwan's Tiandihui and collusion with foreigners, how could he give up such an opportunity to make a name for himself and even go down in history for a little money.

So Sheng Zhu and his tough desire to arrest the British sailors, but when the British armed resistance to arrest them, Sheng Zhu's temper immediately exploded, and he turned against him, when the master is a paper tiger?

So he immediately informed the general of Guangzhou and asked the other party to mobilize the Eight Banners of Guangzhou to arrest people.

Sheng Zhu's identity and status are placed here, and the Guangzhou Eight Banners General does not dare not give face, plus the Eight Banners General is also a flag man, it is impossible not to help Sheng Zhu and shield the British, so soon the Guangzhou Eight Banners will be dispatched.

There were not many people, just a thousand horse infantry, but it was enough to surround three British merchant ships and a hundred sailors.

At this time, Taiban Brown received a reply from Magalny, telling him to let the soldiers break through at any cost, and not to let these crews and sailors fall into the hands of the Qing army.

Not to mention how rotten the Eight Banners were, even the Eight Banners Army in the heyday of the strong period could not stop the armed merchant ships of the West, but the other side chose to break through, and the Qing army had nowhere to catch it, so it sent a small boat to intercept it, but it was knocked over by the other party and opened artillery bombardment, but the other party actually returned fire, killing and wounding more than 20 Eight Banner soldiers.

When things came to this point, Sheng Zhu was still not afraid, but directly wrote a letter to push everything to the head of the British East India Company, and this time he did not mention the matter of Zhou Lang leading the people, and directly said that it was the English people who colluded with the world to disrupt the party, and the evidence was conclusive, and without waiting for the imperial court to reply, he asked the Eight Banners to seal the East India Company's merchant hall, confiscated all the goods, not only sealed the museum, not only detained the goods, but also arrested people, and directly arrested all the East India Company employees, including the Taipan, the second class, and the third class.

And through the thirteen merchants like Cai Shiwen, the word was passed to all foreigners that before the British handed over the merchant ships that caused the accident, not only would they not let go of these Taipan, but they would also stop trading with the British forever, and the Guangdong Customs really had this power.

When things got to this point, other foreigners naturally watched the show, but the British had a headache.

After the headquarters of the East India Company was dismantled, only some retail merchants in Macao remained in Guangdong, as well as the Magalny Mission who stayed here and waited for the wind period and was ready to sail.

As an official envoy sent by the British, and a British nobleman, he was the highest and immediately became the backbone of all the British, and everyone hoped that Magalny would put pressure on the Chinese government to immediately release the head of the East India Company's Canton Commission and resume trade as soon as possible.

Magalny was already in Beijing, he was a proud man, because he had a proud career, and the East India Company and the British Parliament sent him to carry out this diplomatic activity because of his ability. In England, Macartney was openly praised for his sociability, versatility, and delightfulness, as the ideal candidate for ambassadorship, and that he had a brilliant diplomatic career, had led a successful diplomatic mission to Russia, and had a good relationship with the difficult Catherine Catherine, but this time he was deflated in Beijing.

Qianlong refused all the demands he made, and did not even give him a chance to negotiate, which gave him a heavy sense of frustration. He is such a proud person, but in fact, he is not strong enough to accept the blow of defeat, and this frustration makes him regard all the unpleasant things he encounters in the process of mission as an insult.

He had come to visit, but when he came ashore, the local officials planted the flag of the envoy on his ship, as if he were a tributary envoy, and when he met the English king, he only had to kneel on one knee, but the Chinese forced him to kneel on both knees, and he only bowed to God on both knees.

If his mission is successful, in fact, these encounters are not the same thing, if you really can't accept it, why do you go earlier, can you pull it out if the Manchu officials plant a flag for you, the other party doesn't agree that you won't go to Beijing, you don't want to bow down on your knees, you can also not see Qianlong, it's a big deal to give up the visit directly, and the end of the visit is not really an unacceptable attitude?

But at that time, Magalny accepted everything, and after Qianlong did not agree to any conditions, he immediately felt that the previous demands became unacceptable, and he felt that his dignity as an English gentleman and nobleman had been insulted.

Once anything rises to the level of emotion, it cannot be handled rationally, so Magalny wrote to Brown Taipan that he would break through at all costs, even if there was an armed conflict, which caused an exchange of fire between the two sides, resulting in the death and injury of the Eight Banners.

When things got to this point, would Magalny calm down, of course not, but he felt even more angry and ashamed, and this time he even thought that this was no longer an insult to him by the Manchus, but an insult to the entire United Kingdom of Britain, and he thought that he had to respond.

Westerners are accustomed to the style of dealing with blood for blood and tooth for tooth, which is unreasonable and wants to stir up three points, not to mention the situation where Magalny feels that he is reasonable.

So Magalny directly summoned all the British in Macao, asked everyone to evacuate the mainland first, boarded the three large ships of the Magalny mission, and after converging the three armed merchant ships that broke out of Guangzhou, the size of Magalny's fleet reached six, and he directly blocked the mouth of the Pearl River.

He also sent a protest to the Canton government, demanding the immediate release of the detained Britons and compensation for them.

Magalny's attitude is tough, but his opponent Sheng Zhu is also an unreasonable master of three points, where is willing to admit defeat, the British aristocrat Magalny wants to save face, and the face of this Qing lord cannot be left without place.

Therefore, Sheng Zhu not only did not hand over the people, but continued to contact the Eight Banners to do it, and also sent Wenhumen and the sailors from all over the country, asking them to drive away the English immediately.

Magalni's blockade of the Pearl River Estuary was for deterrence, but it was found that the other side did not eat this at all, and the blockade alone obviously could not make the other side compromise, so Magalny began to attack the fort.

During the Ming Dynasty, the Weddell fleet of the British Navy could easily capture forts such as Humen, not to mention the Qing Dynasty, where the navy was weaker, so Magalny easily occupied forts such as Humen, and even once captured several forts outside Guangzhou, but Magalny's sad discovery was still to no avail.

Because the other party didn't negotiate with him at all, and he couldn't beat the other party and didn't come to attack, so he was so consumed, and sent troops to confront him.

However, Magalny could not afford to delay it, and since the employees of the East India Company were all detained by the Canton government, and secondly, they could not continue to fight like this, so the trade could not be done.

But Magarny could not accept the defeat and hand over the three merchant ships and the hundreds of sailors on board to Shengzhu.

Since you can't compromise and can't consume, you can only continue to put pressure and exert more pressure to force the other party to compromise.

On the one hand, Magalny called on all the British in Canton to take up arms to defend the British royal family and the glory of God, and on the other hand, he wrote a letter to bring them back to India to ask for support from the East India Company, and at the same time, he also remembered that there was an East India Company army in Taiwan, and the captains of the three armed merchant ships that escaped from Canton, and also suggested that Magalny mobilize this army to put pressure on the Canton government.

Therefore, in addition to asking India for help, Magalny also wrote a letter to send to Taiwan and handed over to Colin, hoping to get Colin's assistance.

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Just one big chapter, let's treat it as two chapters!