The princess in front of Zhu Jinglun, Alexandra was born in 1844 in the royal palace in Copenhagen, the capital of Denmark, and her father, who was next to Christian, was a prince. Pen? Interesting? Pavilion wWw. ｂiquge。 ｉｎfo

But he didn't introduce his status as a prince just now, because he was not the biological son of the current Danish king, but a prince elected by the nobles, and the current king Frederick VII had no male heirs, so the Danish nobles chose his cousin, the fourth son of the Duke of Glücksburg, Christian, as the prince.

However, once the Swedish king gave birth to an heir, his princely status was not guaranteed, so Christian did not introduce his princely status, but he was eligible to live in the Danish royal palace for a long time, and his eldest daughter was also born in the royal palace, and I heard that Hans Christian Andersen himself told her stories since she was a child.

Christian IX reigned, there were no great merits, but there were also achievements, and the kings of small countries were not allowed to have merits, but the ruling was still recognized by the Danes, and his diplomatic skills were quite excellent, and his three daughters, respectively, married to King George VII of England, Tsar Alexander III of the Russian Empire, and Prince of Hanover, were called the father-in-law of Europe in contrast to Queen Victoria.

His eldest son married the daughter of the Swedish king, and the second son was elected as the king of Greece by the Greek Congress, it should be said that the reputation of this king is still good, otherwise the Greeks would not have chosen his son as king, and later the fairy tale writer Ander wrote "My other name is Christian IX" after falling ill, which can be regarded as a recognition of him.

Compared with the future king of this small country, Zhu Jinglun is obviously more interested in his daughter, although she is only seventeen years old, she is already recognized as a beautiful princess in Europe, and only this kind of princess can marry into the British royal family, Zhu Jinglun is interested in her, not because she is beautiful, although she is indeed much more beautiful than Victoria's fat woman, Zhu Jinglun is mainly interested in her and his husband Edward VII will become the figures in the European fashion industry in the future, this kind of fashion culture launched by the royal family, is simply an excellent brand.

"Of course, thank you for the compliment."

Alexandra smiled very steadily, and there were some noble ladies around who frowned, obviously not going to accept being kissed on the back of their hands by a Chinese.

Ever since Rousseau portrayed the Chinese as a dirty, immoral, and fraudulently commercial people, the Chinese have become barbaric in the eyes of Europeans.

Just as Rousseau's predecessors, Voltaire and others, portrayed China as a kingdom ruled by saint-kings, and Chinese as superior people who did not believe in Christ but whose actions were in line with the teachings of Christianity, these depictions of the two political philosophers were not true, but had their own ends.

In Voltaire's time, the most advanced system in Europe was the monarchical system, and he was promoting his idea of monarchical system, so he could establish China as a model, and China needed to stimulate European countries to change; In Rousseau's time, he was promoting his British-style democratic ideas, and China suddenly became a negative teaching material, and naturally wanted to smash China's beautiful image to the ground.

The power of these scholars, who have never been to China, is so great that they can change the minds of Europeans, and this is the power of a powerful cultural discourse. So the Chinese fever arose in Europe during Voltaire's time, and the Europeans began to despise the Chinese in Rousseau's time.

The reason why Zhu Jinglun values Alexandra more than Christian is that Alexandra will definitely have a stronger cultural discourse power than her father in the future.

But Christian was clearly more interested in diplomacy, so he volunteered to come to China as the head of the delegation as a prince.

After a simple welcome ceremony, Zhu Jinglun invited them to the humble county government of Xin'an, and then arranged for them to take a boat to Guangzhou.

After a brief exchange, Zhu Jinglun submitted a notice to them, telling them that Zhu Jinglun remained acquiesced in the commercial benefits they had obtained from the Qing Dynasty government, but that any agreement they signed with the Central Dynasty from now on must be approved by the Guangdong local government, otherwise it would never be implemented.

Only by accepting this circular can they engage in formal diplomatic activities with Guangdong, otherwise they would have been able to go to Beijing, but Zhu Jinglun assured that Guangdong would not accept any benefits they received from Beijing, at least not in Guangdong.

When they arrived in Hong Kong, they had already heard from their ministers that there might be a coup d'état in Guangdong, but they had not received any official notices or diplomatic requests, so de jure they had to continue to recognize the Qing Dynasty as the legitimate government of the country.

But now the local government of Guangdong has submitted such a notice to them, which makes them find it difficult to deal with it, first of all, it is not an independent statement, nor does it seek to recognize Denmark and Sweden as independent states, but only expresses their attitude in terms of commercial diplomacy.

Although it is impossible to compare the diplomatic procedures of the West, all the diplomatic procedures are also explored from reality, and the basic diplomatic norms are the methods of the British foreign policy, so what Westerners believe is that the modern diplomatic system is the norm of the British people's foreign relations.

But the Chinese have clearly broken these norms.

But they can only accept it, otherwise they will not talk about it, what is the point of them coming here, the reason why the two countries jointly set up a delegation is because the cost of the mission is too expensive, the consumption of tens of thousands of pounds for a big steamer, plus the fact that both countries know that they are only small countries, and they may be able to achieve greater benefits by joining forces to negotiate.

In the 1850s, the two countries launched the Industrial Revolution almost simultaneously, with domestic factories building, rapid productivity growth, and greater dependence on external markets.

After a short period of negotiations, the two countries jointly replied to Zhu Jinglun's notice, saying that they accepted this clause and that the agreements they signed with the Qing Dynasty in the future would be negotiated with the local government of Guangdong, and would only take effect after the consent of the local government of Guangdong.

In this way, they were invited to Guangzhou.

"You probably wonder why I asked you to agree to the treaty with the imperial court in the first place, you must get our consent, you can understand it this way, the situation of the German Empire before the Napoleonic era, the German Empire at that time was also an empire, but the diplomatic treaty signed with the emperor, do you think it can be used in other states?"

Wallenberg and Christian shook their heads, and the name of Germany at that time was the Holy Roman Empire, which Westerners had become neither sacred, nor Roman, nor imperial, but a loose federation in which the emperor was voted on by the votes of the various eligible electors.

If the king of the Austrian state had become emperor of the empire and had signed a diplomatic treaty with Great Britain, it would have been impossible for the Duchy of Prussia to accept it, nor for the Kingdom of Bavaria, nor would it have been for the small states of Hesse, Hanover, or Württemberg, nor even for the free cities of the empire like Hamburg, and finally even Austria for the emperor himself, and they would not have accepted the treaties that he had to sign as the king of Austria.

But they still don't understand: "But China is a complete country that is consistent from top to bottom, not a loose confederation like the Holy Roman Empire." ”

Zhu Jinglun waved his hand: "It's still like this at present." Our emperor still has dominion over the provinces. But there has been a small change in Guangdong, and you may not understand it. But I tell you in a way that you understand, that is, at least in the diplomatic field, we will be independent in the future. ”

This is a question of the category of sovereignty, and diplomatic power is also part of sovereignty, the most important part.

In the eyes of Westerners, the independence of diplomatic power already means the independence of a region and the establishment of a country.

They don't understand at all that the Chinese Dynasty doesn't care most about this kind of diplomatic right, of course, it is taboo for local governments to communicate with foreign countries alone, which is called private foreign affairs, but it is not diplomacy in the Western political sense, it is with political significance in China, because it often means rebellion, but if Zhu Jinglun only does his own thing in diplomacy and does not raise the banner of open rebellion, unless the Qing Dynasty has the ability to suppress it, they will not interfere, they will only turn a blind eye and pretend not to know.

Zhu Jinglun looked at them blankly and continued to explain: "Okay, you can understand it this way, the treaty you signed with the Qing Dynasty in the future needs our approval before it can be implemented in the Guangdong region. Because we're going to have our own independent foreign policy, you know what that means? ”

Wallenberg and Christian glanced at each other, understood, or didn't need to understand, just need to know the result, and the result was that Guangdong could conduct diplomacy with the outside world independently, that is, if Zhu Jinglun wanted, he could sign a foreign trade treaty with them alone.

This made the two men a little surprised, and they preferred to associate with Zhu Jinglun, because it was already clear that this was a Chinese official who was very willing to communicate with the West, and now he had obtained local power in Guangdong.

The two people, who actually did not have political diplomatic activities, began to wonder in their hearts, whether to add a little political flavor to this purely commercial diplomatic activity?

That's right, they didn't come to Guangdong to conduct political and diplomatic negotiations with the Guangdong government, that was the purpose of their trip to Beidong, they came to Guangdong for purely commercial interests, Denmark was a little envious of Sweden's cooperation with Guangdong, and by helping Zhu Jinglun build an arsenal, the Swedes sold 100,000 tons of iron ore to Zhu Jinglun in the past two years.

The Swedes came here in the hope of more in-depth cooperation, they heard that Zhu Jinglun was copying their own ships, they felt that in this regard, they could also help, if Zhu Jinglun was willing to buy their steel, they would not mind the technology, to help Zhu Jinglun build a shipyard, of course, Zhu Jinglun got this money, to build a large shipyard itself, is also a big business.

However, since Guangdong strives for independence, can it be mentioned that a commercial treaty is signed with a local government, even if it is a local government, the territory and population they control far exceed that of a European country, and it is also a huge market.

So Wallenberg was the first to make a request: "If we can help you with shipbuilding support, I wonder if you are willing to give our country a preferential tax rate in terms of steel exports?" ”

Zhu Jinglun pointed to the thick negotiation content in front of him: "There is no such content in the negotiation clause you submitted. (To be continued.) )