After understanding the cause and effect, Zhu Jinglun couldn't help but sigh at Little Japan's ability to adapt to changes. Pen & Fun & Pavilion www.biquge.info

It can be said that Japan's invasion of Taiwan this time has done everything it can do without leakage.

Before the invasion of Taiwan, there was an atmosphere of public opinion in Japan that was conquest of South Korea, and the DPRK should first be blamed for giving Japan a reason for the emergence of such an atmosphere.

After the success of the Shogunate Movement, Japan announced the establishment of a central power with the emperor as the core, and then began the Restoration Movement, abolishing the foreign relations of the old shogunate, on the one hand, signing trade treaties with Western countries, including the Ming Dynasty, and other countries that came to the door, and then taking the initiative to send envoys to North and Pyongyang to sign new treaties with the Manchus and Korea.

The Japanese Foreign Minister Deputy Shima Tanechen, Foreign Minister Yanagihara Maemitsu was sent to Tianjin, and signed the "Qing and Japan Repair Regulations" and "Qing and Japanese Trade Regulations" with Li Hongzhang, the governor of Zhili. In the end, Li Hongzhang, who was entrusted by the Qing court to handle foreign affairs because he showed his hand on the Tianjin teaching plan, felt that this was not a matter, he was a pragmatic person, so he finally followed the wishes of the Japanese.

However, Japan's diplomatic activities to Korea have suffered setbacks. At the end of the Ming Dynasty, after Japan fought a battle with the Ming army in Korea, Toyotomi Hideyoshi was repulsed, and after understanding that Japan's national strength could not touch the mainland, the Tokugawa shogunate in charge of the country has always adopted a friendly attitude. North Korea is almost the only country that has formal diplomatic relations with Japan, which Japan calls a correspondence country. The officials of the two countries correspond regularly and exchange attitudes.

However, the Tokugawa shogunate entrusted the communication with Korea to the daimyo of Tsushima. The Tsushima clan set up a fixed institution in Korea and named it the Kuryo Wakan. Through this Kualyang-kan, the Japanese credentials were conveyed to Korea and bilateral trade was conducted.

However, before, both the Tokugawa shogunate and the Tsushima clan bypassed one problem, and that was the problem of the emperor. But now that the Japanese had declared that the power had been returned to the emperor, they began to use the name of the emperor to deliver credentials to Korea, and the Manchus didn't care much, but the Koreans couldn't accept it.

Because the words "imperial state" and "emperor" appeared many times in the national letter, which was completely unacceptable to North Korea. The kings of Korea could not claim to be emperors, and they were only comparable in rank to the county kings of the Manchu Qing Dynasty, but now that the Japanese emphasized in their letters that their king was the emperor, how did Korea deal with itself? Accept it, it seems to admit that the Japanese emperor is also the emperor, then North Korea is invisibly a generation lower. What to do if you reply to the Japanese, the king of Korea does not dare to call himself emperor, and it is not enough to be ashamed to call himself the king of the county.

Therefore, the Koreans refused to accept this credential, and the receptionist of the Caoliang Wakan said that he was ill and could not see the Japanese envoy.

If Japan had been in communication with Korea for 300 years, it would have been a major failure for Japanese diplomacy, and the Japanese were actually very active, and they decided to bypass the Soliang Wakan and go directly to the Korean local government. Sent personnel to Donglai Mansion to negotiate directly with the government envoy Zheng Xiande. In the end, Japan sent an envoy to Sagara Masakaki, and the museum keeper Fukami Masakai led dozens of librarians, interpreters, and users, and set off from the Wakan on foot to Donglae Province on July 1, 1872, but the Kuryung Wakan instructor Ando Hui tried all kinds of means to stop and hinder Sagara and others from going, and the incident was later called the "Kuyaki Interception" incident by Japan. It became the fuse that caused Japan's later invasion of Korea.

After the outbreak of the Pavilion-Japanese Rebellion, it caused a huge repercussion in Japan, and a large number of Japanese samurai who had not been able to change their fate after the Meiji Restoration immediately cried out for the conquest of Korea, and the people established organizations such as the Korean Conquest Party to actively promote the government to launch a war against Korea.

Fortunately for the Japanese, during the Meiji Restoration, power remained in the hands of an elite group that was able to adopt a cautious approach to the war. Therefore, they cautiously contacted all parties first, for example, during the visit of the vice-island minister to the Northern Empire, the nominal establishment of diplomatic relations with the Qing court, the biggest purpose was to inquire about the Qing court's attitude towards Korea.

It is a pity that the bureaucrats in the prime minister's yamen told the Japanese that although Korea said that the Qing Dynasty was a vassal state, the Qing Dynasty had never interfered in the national affairs of Korea, and the two sides had only exchanged courtesies.

The Japanese knew very well what the nature of the historically Chinese-centered suzerainty system was, and they wanted the Qing court to say that they could not control the affairs of Korea.

In the same way, they also made the officials of the Qing court say that they could not control Taiwan.

It was during this mission that the vice island of Tanetomi mentioned the Taiwan issue for the first time, because two years earlier, in 1871, two Ryukyu merchant ships drifted to Taiwan, one drifted to the area actually under the jurisdiction of the Qing government, and was well rescued by the local government, and the other drifted to the Shengban boundary, and was killed and plundered by the natives of the Peony Society, which is the famous Peony Society incident.

Japan demanded that the Qing government punish Shengfan, and Prime Minister Mao Changxi and Dong Sui of the Prime Minister Yamen said: Taiwan's "Shengfan" is beyond the reach of China's political and religious decrees, and it is a foreigner. The Japanese said, "If you are born and hurt people, your country will not be cured, but I will ask the people of the island." ”

The Japanese figured out the attitude of the suzerain, the Manchu Qing Dynasty, which would not directly intervene in the Korean and Taiwan issues. Then they began to understand the attitude of foreigners.

The foreigners that the Japanese knew best at this time were Russia, which was the first to sign a diplomatic treaty with Japan, and the two countries divided Sakhalin Island, and the other was the United States, which opened the door to Japan. So the attitude of these two countries is the most important thing.

Sonotomi Soejima received the understanding of the US minister on the Korean and Taiwan issues, and also received a guarantee from the Russian envoy Butzer that he would not interfere with Japan's conquest of Korea. This Russian envoy, who once served as a minister in Japan, had a good personal relationship with the vice-island minister, how good was the relationship? When Tokushima Tanetomi left from Hokuya, he directly entrusted Minister Buze to act as an agent for Japan's foreign affairs in China.

Later, the Japanese also found out that Britain, France, and other countries generally sympathized with Japan, and these foreigners did not understand the Eastern system of suzerainty and vassals, and were also very annoyed by Oriental etiquette, and Japan adopted Western diplomatic habits to contact Korea, and on the Taiwan issue, Japan was under the banner of protecting the Ryukyus subjects, so all countries recognized Japan.

Japan did a good enough job, so he figured out that no matter which direction he sent troops, he would not be interfered with by foreigners.

This dexterity in Japan's diplomacy seems to be innate, and it cannot but be admired.

Doing this, what they lack is that the person who made the decision is back. The person who made the decision was not in the country at this time, but went abroad for a visit. The diplomatic delegation headed by Iwakura began its voyage around the world in 1871, including half of Japan's high-ranking officials, and by no means full, a real group of decision-makers, including Kido Takayoshi, Okubo Toshitsu, Ito Hirobumi and other Meiji Restoration veterans. Before the envoy visited, it was agreed with Saigo Takamori and other high-ranking officials who had stayed in the country that all major military affairs would have to be decided after the world had returned from the trip.

The Japanese envoys traveled to Europe and the United States for two years, carefully examining the social customs, political systems, military strength, economic and cultural aspects of Europe and the United States, and greatly influenced their world outlook. When they came back, they found that the domestic officials had done all the foreshadowing and were waiting for them to make a decision. People like Vice-Island are just officials who stay in the country, not officials who have gone abroad to see the market, and what they have done is already so in line with Western concepts that it has to be surprising.

However, Saigo Takamori and others who stayed in China advocated the conquest of Korea, and they were not interested in Taiwan, but the visiting officials did not agree, they believed that it was not the right time, and the conquest of Korea must be carried out after Japan's national strength was strong, and it was very representative that the theory of conquest of Korea was not actually proposed by Saigo Takamori at the earliest, but by Kido Takayoshi in the envoy group, but after going abroad for a while, he returned to China and began to oppose the conquest of Korea, and it was obvious that his travels abroad changed his thinking very greatly.

If there is no war, how can a large number of samurai in the country who have lost their fortunes be appeased? At this time, they set their eyes on Taiwan, anyway, the Qing court said that they could not control Taiwan's life, so Japan stepped forward to take care of it, and just provided a place for those samurai to use their troops.

After the Japanese moved around, and after receiving the support of the United States and even Britain, they rented a British and American warship and carried 3,600 samurai to the coast of Taiwan, and soon clashed with the local indigenous people of the Peony Society. The Japanese defeated the Peony Society with great strength, and soon won the surrender of other nearby feudal societies and united to exterminate the Peony Society.

This peony society is very interesting, saying that barbarism does not wronged them at all, barbarism is just that, and it is extremely unwise. Their previous leader was called Zhuo Qidu, who was the general leader of the eighteen societies in Langqiao, Tainan, including the Peony Society. When Liu Mingdeng, the Taiwanese general of the Qing court, asked Zhuo Qidu to meet with him to discuss affairs between the Han and the "Fan people", the arrogant Zhuo Qidu said: "The Chinese are women, I look down on them, I will send my daughter to talk to them." Later, Zhuo Qi really sent his two daughters over. However, the year before this fool landed in Japan, he died of excessive drinking, otherwise he could have commented on whether the Japanese were women or not.

The natives of this level of civilization obviously could not be the opponent of the Japanese, not to mention that Japan was already equipped with muskets and cannons, even if they were armed with katanas, these natives could not be the opponent of well-trained samurai, so Japan easily conquered the natives in the Langqiao area, and the Peony Society, which killed the Ryukyu people, was razed to the ground by the Japanese.

At this time, the Qing government felt that the situation was serious.

Historically, it was not until Japan sent troops to Taiwan that the Qing court began to attach importance to Japan as a country. It is only then that we began to pay attention to this part of Taiwan. But in history, because of the problem of the Hui people in the northwest, the Qing court was unable to start a war, and finally broke the fortune and avoided disasters and gave Japan a reparation, and learned about it. At present, the Qing court has no spare power to interfere in the Taiwan issue.

But Zhu Jinglun didn't want Li Hongzhang to give hundreds of thousands of taels of silver to the Japanese anymore, not because he felt ashamed, but because he didn't want to stimulate the ambitions of the Japanese.

So he felt the need to intervene and break the claws of the Japanese invasion as soon as possible, and he had to make them understand that it would hurt to reach out casually!

Zhu Jinglun immediately summoned the officials of the Foreign Affairs Department, and reminded Zhu Jinglun to pay attention to Hurd at this time, Zhu Jinglun's summoning of officials often means that he is going to personally interfere in something.