With both sides being very positive, a huge "Explicit Agreement to Expand Trade" was soon introduced. Pen? Interesting? Pavilion wWw. ｂiquge。 ｉｎfo

The agreement stipulates that Daming and France will fully cooperate to promote the export of Daming raw silk to France, and Daming will give up the export tariffs on raw silk exported to France, and even retain the right and obligation to reduce or reduce the turnover tax in the process of production and circulation, while France will give up any tariffs on the import of raw silk by the Ming Dynasty, and at the same time retain the right and obligation to reduce or reduce the turnover tax in the process of production and circulation.

The so-called reserved obligations and powers refer to the fact that once the other party has taken all the means and still cannot achieve the target value of expanding the scale of trade, the rights reserved by the other party will immediately be transformed into obligations to be executed immediately, and if the goal is achieved, it will be regarded as rights, and the other party can choose to enforce or not to execute.

That is to say, within five years, if the export volume of raw silk exported to France by Daming cannot be doubled, Daming will take the lead in reducing the turnover tax in the circulation process, which is equivalent to a tax rebate subsidy, if it still cannot reach the target, France will also give subsidies to imports accordingly.

In addition to the raw silk trade, which was clearly beneficial to the Ming Dynasty, there were also industries that were clearly inclined towards France, such as the steel industry.

After the Franco-Prussian War, France began to attach importance to heavy industry, and vigorously building heavy industry almost became a national policy, even Nobel ushered in the spring, although he did not produce military gunpowder, but because of his gunpowder, it was used as a blasting tool by the Prussian army in the war, and after the war, France finally gave Nobel a license, allowing him to open a factory in France, not only changed the attitude of prohibiting private production of gunpowder in the past, but also provided Nobel with a loan to let him set up a factory.

France began to attach great importance to heavy industry, especially the steel industry, which is most closely related to military production, and Daming is a thriving steel importer, the opening of the railway construction boom, the demand for steel is increasing day by day, before being monopolized by the tax-free British steel products, now France has not only been tax-free treatment, and may even enjoy the subsidies of the two countries at the same time, which is a huge positive for the French steel industry.

There are more than 30 kinds of detailed regulations on other products, including French ready-to-wear, perfumes, wine, clocks, etc., and Ming paper fans, embroidery, straw weaving, ceramics and so on.

Both sides were exempted from customs duties on various handicrafts of the other side almost simultaneously.

Because the French believed that their various fashionable luxury goods could conquer the hearts of the Ming middle class, and the Ming were also confident in their country's vast range of traditional handicrafts.

Zhu Jinglun does not have such strong confidence, he believes that with the advantage of cultural discourse, French luxury goods will soon occupy the pockets of the growing wealthy people of the Ming Dynasty, but he believes that Chinese traditional handicrafts will also enter the French market in a big way, and after being tested in the world luxury market in France, they will be sold in other countries.

After a month of friendly negotiations, before January 22, 1879, that is, before the Lunar New Year in the year of Ding You and Guangxu in China, the 12th year of the Meiji era in Japan, and the 13th year of the Ming Dynasty (counting from the accession of Bei Qi to the throne in 1866), the Ming and French sides signed a treaty with huge contents, which stipulated that it would be implemented immediately after the Chinese New Year, showing the same urgency of the two countries.

At this time, the deep economic crisis in Britain is becoming more and more serious, and the British cotton textile industry is still expanding its production scale during the economic crisis, and the result is that all of them broke out at this time, resulting in a deep crisis in Britain.

In fact, this has a lot to do with the industrial development of Western countries, Britain implements a free trade policy, but Germany and other countries have adopted a trade protection policy, as a result, all countries have started their own industrial revolution, and have started a war in their own textile industry, even Russia has a huge textile industry, using American cotton and British cotton yarn as raw materials to produce fabrics.

The industrial development of these countries has greatly resisted the import of British products, and as a result, the richest Europe in the world is only a small market for Britain, and the largest customer of British cotton textiles is actually barren, and India, the world's largest producer of cotton textiles in the past, because Britain can not influence the tariffs of European countries, but can implement a high tax rate on cotton textiles in India, and impose heavy taxes on British handicraft workshops that are much higher than those of Britain's own machinery factories, and greatly reduce the tariffs on British cotton textiles. Turning India into a colonial economy that exported raw materials for cotton and imported cotton yarn and cloth.

But even if India imports seventy percent of the cotton cloth exported by the British, India's huge population consumes 150,000 tons of cotton cloth from the United Kingdom every year, accounting for 54 percent of the total consumption, and the market that the British cotton cloth cannot occupy is the exquisite Indian handmade cotton cloth, but the Indian handicraft products are also becoming more and more impoverished by the Indians, and the sales channels are becoming more and more narrow, affected by this, India's textile workers have dropped from 6 million textile workers in 1850 to only 2.5 million.

The Indian cotton yarn industry grew rapidly due to the introduction of British cotton yarn machines, with the number of spindles increasing from 338,000 in 1861 to 593,000 in 1874, and the demand for cotton in India increased several times. Indian textile companies can not only meet the local market, but also have export capabilities. But at this time, the size of the Indian textile industry was still very weak compared to the British, and the amount of cotton consumed by Indian textile mills each year was only 7% of that of British textile mills, but the British could not sit still and passed a bill that exempted India from customs duties on British imported yarn.

India's industrialization of cotton yarn was interrupted by the fact that India was exempt from taxes, the British imposed a tax on Indian cotton yarn, and the colonial government imposed heavy production taxes on India.

However, Britain could not control the Ming government, although the tariff agreement with Britain still had two years to expire, and it was not yet possible to tax British textiles, but after the New Year of 1879, the Ming Dynasty immediately announced a subsidy for textiles.

The loan from France made Daming's finances a little relaxed, and he immediately announced that the opening of cotton yarn and cotton cloth factories within five years would not only be completely tax-free, but also enjoy tax rebates when importing cotton yarn and machinery and equipment, and a certain percentage of loans would be given in terms of financing.

As a result, in the first few months of 1879, the cotton yarn and cotton cloth factories of Daming continued to be built on a large scale.

"Gongbao" opened up a large space to publicize the government's policies to the industrial and commercial circles, saying that the government would do its best to protect the textile industry, and called on the Ming industry to work hard to open modern spinning and textile factories, promote the industrial development of the Ming Dynasty, give more people jobs, and pay more taxes.

The development of the Ming textile industry and the deepening of cooperation between the Ming Dynasty and France gave Britain a kind of anxiety about being excluded from the East Asian market, and the dissatisfaction of public opinion under the influence of the domestic economic crisis made the British government think that it had suffered a defeat in Far East diplomacy.

However, the British were used to being arrogant in this area, and instead of accommodating the Ming Dynasty with a low profile, they began to adopt a confrontational posture and began to find trouble with the Ming Dynasty.

They formally intervened in the ongoing territorial exchange negotiations between the Ming and Manchu Qing dynasties.

Last year, the Ming Dynasty reached a consensus with the Qing court to exchange Yunnan for Jiangnan, and then it was entangled for a long time because of the Shanghai issue, and finally the Shanghai issue became an unsolved case, which was left to be solved later.

But the agreement has not yet been signed, because the Manchus have not yet taken Tianjing, and there is no way to fully fulfill the agreement.

Before the Qing court conquered Tianjing, they also had no spare strength to withdraw their troops from Tianjing and control Huizhou and other places that the Ming army now controlled.

Britain had known about this agreement, but they did not intervene and took a tacit attitude.

Because Britain helped the Qing court, the biggest purpose was to build a Greater Asia Railway from Calcutta in India to Shanghai, this railway in China, through Shanghai, Hangzhou, Nanchang, Changsha, Guiyang to Kunming, which had to pass through Zhejiang, Jiangxi two Ming territories, plus Yunnan in the long-term Hui rebellion, Britain also thought that the Ming control here, better to ensure the stability of this region, so there was no opposition.

But now that it suddenly jumps out to oppose it, it is obvious to find fault.

Either out of checks and balances, or simply to find a diplomatic hole card that can be used as a concession.

Therefore, Britain said that the Yunnan Jiangnan territorial exchange case affected British interests in Yunnan and did not want the Manchus to exchange territory with the Ming Dynasty.

At the same time, it secretly instigated the Qing court to take a tough attitude towards the Ming Dynasty, and Britain would fully support the Qing court's demands.

Obviously, the British have begun to worry that the development speed of the Ming Dynasty is too fast, affecting their interests in China, historically, in order to prevent the economically backward Russia from penetrating into the Yangtze River, they did not hesitate to form an alliance with the small Japan, and now the Ming Dynasty has expanded its territory to the suburbs of Shanghai, if the British are not worried, it is not normal.

However, Britain did not have the habit of going into battle in person, so it planned to adopt the same system as on the European continent, uniting continental countries to balance continental countries, and on the East Asian continent, the only one who could play this role of counterbalance was the Manchu Qing Dynasty.

But now the first goal of the Qing court's army is to attack Tianjing and completely eradicate the last lair of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom.

Seeing that it was done, Zeng Guofan became more and more steady, and his actions in Tianjing could no longer even be described as steady, but showed a kind of cowardice.

The Hunan army in the battle with the Taiping army, the victory rate is getting higher and higher, the victory of the first battle annihilated the Taiping army tens of thousands, and then marched to the Tianjing City, but the outer city of Tianjing is hundreds of kilometers, the city can even grow grain and vegetables, most of the outer city walls are just some earthen walls, or the decayed earthen walls left by the Ming Dynasty.

There is no point in besieging this kind of city, and only by really advancing to the inner city wall can it be possible to completely surround Tianjing.

Therefore, it only makes sense to occupy strategic places such as Yuhuatai and Lion Rock, and the last time Tianjing was surrounded, Zeng Guoquan forcibly occupied these important places, and then used 10,000 soldiers to desperately block the attack of hundreds of thousands of troops organized by Li Xiucheng.

But this time, Zeng Guofan's fierce generals had obviously advanced to Yuhuatai, just because they were caught in the middle of Li Xiucheng's army, Zeng Guofan decisively ordered to retreat, and the military action was extremely conservative, and the advance was slow, which had aroused the suspicion of the Manchu Dynasty civil and military, but Zeng Guofan still went his own way.

In this case, let the Qing court turn against the Ming Dynasty, and the British will pay more price, I am afraid that the Qing court will not have the courage to do so.

But the Qing court did not have the guts, and after the Ming learned that the British were instigating the Manchus behind their backs, they decided to take action against the Manchus.

Almost all of the Ming fleet was dispatched, lighting fires and anchoring, with the aim of rushing to Tianjing, which was still in the war zone!