After peacefully resolving the crisis of Russia's attempt to access the sea, the Ming Dynasty is bound to become the best candidate to resist Russia, at this time, all countries that want to contain Russia must support the Ming Dynasty, first of all, Britain must be fully supported, and secondly, after a few years Bismarck was ousted from power by the young calf of Wilhelm II, Germany gave up Lala Russia, France seized the opportunity to establish a military alliance with Russia, even Germany must support the Ming Dynasty, with the support of Britain and Germany, the two major powers of the sea and land, and then a decisive battle with Russia, in order to pay the minimum cost, Receive greater benefits. Pen @ fun @ pavilion wWw. ｂｉｑUｇE。 ｉｎｆｏ

Otherwise, with the Ming Dynasty, even if it defeated Russia like the Russo-Japanese War, what can it get from Russia, even if Russia is driven back to the west of the Ural Mountains, the world powers that did not intervene in the war will not be able to accept the Ming Dynasty's annexation of Russia's Asian lands, only by joining a world alliance and completely defeating Russia, can we use the power of the alliance to carve up Russia to the greatest extent.

It's like after Russia went through the impact of the Russo-Turkish wars to no avail, and realized that if Russia wants to gain control of the Turkish Straits, it must join a European Union to carry out a big war that drags all countries in, the first world war in history, Russia fought with Germany and Austria-Hungary at the same time, and also divided its forces to attack Turkey, the purpose was to fight for the strait, and their plan at that time was supported by France and acquiesced by Britain, but Britain was not very relieved, So Churchill sent the Anzac to seize control of the Channel, only to be defeated by Turkey.

This is all a later story, the winter of 1887 passed quickly, the Ming completed the withdrawal from Vietnam, so that the Vietnamese breathed a sigh of relief, it turned out that the Ming really did not have the ambition to occupy the territory of Vietnam, not like the Ming Dynasty emperor of the year, after suppressing the rebellion in Vietnam, directly stayed, annexed Vietnam.

In the spring of 1888, the ice in Bohai Bay was slowly melting, and the Russians had already built a large fortress after the British had not taken action to break the ice last year. But where is the experience of France, the Ming has the ability to blockade the enemy for a long time when it is unable to conquer the fortress.

Even if the Russian fortress was built extremely strong, so what, when the sea was blocked by the wise navy and the land communication was cut off by the Ming army, could the Russians live by gnawing the stones of the fortress?

Since last winter, the Ministry of War has begun to create public opinion on the Russian threat in the Ming Dynasty, and has made sufficient preparations for the war, but the people of the Ming Dynasty seem to be more concerned about the warm south, and are not interested in the cold north, and do not understand why the Ming Dynasty wants to go to the bitter cold land to compete with another foreign country.

There are even some so-called experts who are "proficient in the art of war" who throw out all kinds of sensational opinions, believing that the imperial court's attack on the Russians in the north is just a pretense, which is clearly a strategy to destroy the Russians in a false way, and it is under the banner of fighting Russia, the Northern Expedition to the Manchus. There are really many people who believe this strange argument, because there are really many people who hope that the Ming Dynasty can conquer the world in the Northern Expedition, and after the Ming-French War, even the most stubborn conservatives gradually identify with the Ming Dynasty more than the Manchu Qing.

After the beginning of spring, the public opinion of the war in the Ming Dynasty failed to mobilize the enthusiasm of all the Chinese people, but it confused all the Western countries, who, according to their own understanding, believed that Daming was really preparing for a war.

After the end of the freezing period, the main force of the Ming Navy immediately went north, quickly controlled the sea control of the Bohai Sea, and then the troop transport ship sailed to Qinhuangdao, and the first phase of 100,000 troops quickly landed to deter Russia.

On the other hand, under the repeated urging of Daming, 50 million pounds of British military subsidies entered Daming's account. The Ming army immediately from Qinhuangdao out of the mountain customs, through the Liaoxi corridor into Lianshan, Lianshan Ming Dynasty called Lianshan Station, is the Ming Dynasty set up to lead to the outside of a post station, later Nurhachi rises, Sun Chengzong and Yuan Chonghuan through the Liaodong defense line, Lianshan is an important link, built a fortress, called Lianshan Fort.

In later generations, Huludao was built as a city, and Lianshan became a district of Huludao, so Lianshan is very close to Huludao, which can be said to be the best choice to blockade Huludao port.

On the other hand, the Ming Navy and the British Navy jointly operated to escort the Ming Marines to Jinzhou and take Jinzhou, cutting off the reinforcements from Huludao, because the north side of Hebei is the continuous Yanshan Mountain Range, and the reason why the Great Wall was built here is to take advantage of the topography here.

With the current technical means, it is not possible to build a railway in the Yanshan Mountains, so the railway line from Zhangjiakou to Huludao built by the Russians made a big circle to the north, from the Mongolian steppe to Liaodong, and then went south, connecting Huludao port through the Liaoxi corridor.

To pass through the Liaoxi Corridor, Jinzhou is an unavoidable gateway, so the Ming army stuck here, which is equivalent to cutting off Russian reinforcements. The occupation of Lianshan is equivalent to the encirclement of Huludao.

After the Ming Dynasty sent troops to Jinzhou, the British thought that Russia would definitely declare war on the Ming Dynasty, and then between these two countries that came in the East and made Britain a little jealous, there would be a great war, and then both sides could not recover for a long time, so that Britain could enjoy a rare breath of relaxation, and use this time to strengthen Britain's power in the East, even if the two countries recovered, they would not be able to compete with Britain for the dominance of East Asia in the future.

However, to Britain's surprise, Russia did not declare war, because Germany intervened, and Bismarck, in the name of mediation, invited representatives of Russia and the Ming Dynasty to discuss the Bohai Bay issue in Berlin, and both countries accepted the invitation in unison.

The sudden jump out of the Germans was extremely strange to Britain, who was in charge of German affairs, and Bismarck had been pushing Russia to the east, and Britain knew very well. So wouldn't letting Russia advance eastward and fighting a war with the Eastern power, the Ming Dynasty, would satisfy Bismarck's purpose?

But at this time, Germany jumped out to mediate, what to do? By no means for the good of Russia, because since last year, a trade war has broken out between Germany and Russia.

The war was first provoked by Bismarck.

After the Russian Tsar Alexander II was assassinated by the Narodnik in 1881, Alexander III, who succeeded to the throne, attached great importance to economic development, presided over the formulation of economic development plans, and promoted the rapid industrialization of Russia, but the economic structure of backward Russia is seriously lacking in capital, Germany is the largest importer of Russian goods, so trade with Germany is the most important source of funds, and Russia's exports to Germany are mainly grain.

Germany is an industrial country, but the agricultural conditions are not good, the population is growing rapidly, the food gap is getting bigger and bigger, about a quarter to a fifth of the grain needs to be imported, Russia is one of their best imports, Bismarck presided over the German government, and Russia signed relevant treaties, in exchange for the lobbying grain import tax rate, in exchange for Russia's preferential tax rate on German industrial products.

Under the condition that the industries of the two sides complement each other, the trade relationship has developed rapidly, and each other has become the largest trading country of the other side.

But in Bismarck's eyes, the economy always came second, politics was the first consideration, and in the face of political interests, the economy had to make concessions to Bismarck's policies at any time.

Bismarck's alliance with Austria-Hungary and the Russian Empire was aimed at isolating France, and compared to Austria-Hungary, Russia was not an ally trusted by Germany, so in the event of a conflict with Austria-Hungary, Bismarck would unconditionally side with Austria-Hungary.

In the Russo-Turkish War of 1877, Russia won a brilliant victory, but Britain did not allow Russia to cross the Turkish Straits to eliminate a naval threat. Bismarck's conference in Berlin ended with Russia giving up the privileges it had seized so much. This greatly improved Germany's position in Turkey, but at the same time made Russia quite dissatisfied with Germany.

In 1885, the Bulgarian-Serbian crisis broke out, Russia and Bulgaria signed a secret treaty to try to control Bulgaria, and the pro-Russian faction staged a failed coup d'état, which led to the expulsion of Bulgaria's advisers and garrisons to Austria-Hungary, which led to the rupture of relations between Austria-Hungary and Russia.

In order to prevent Germany from entering the war, Russia hastened to get closer to France and tried to use France to contain Germany. In the face of the threat from France and Russia, Bismarck was forced to take measures to prepare for war and impose economic sanctions, raising tariffs sharply, and the tax rate on Russian wheat and oats exported to Germany was increased by 50%.

In retaliation, Russia announced a ban on foreigners owning real estate in the western provinces of Russia, which was mainly aimed at Germany, because of historical reasons, there were a large number of German immigrants in Russia, many of whom followed the German princesses who married the tsar in the past, entered Russia, mainly living in the Volga and Don River valleys, operating small farms, Russia banned foreigners from owning land, which directly led to the loss of their farms by German immigrants.

Bismarck also issued the Lombard Decree, which revoked Russia's right to issue bonds in Berlin. Russia, for its part, transferred its deposits directly to Paris and immediately received a loan of 100 million francs from the French government. Over the next three years, Paris replaced Berlin as Russia's main overseas benefactor. Between 1888 and 1889, Russia issued 2.4 billion francs of securities in France.

Under Alexander III's trade protection policy, Russia's industrial rapid development, a substantial increase in import tariffs, the biggest victim is Germany, before the outbreak of the trade war between the two sides, Russia raised tariffs, Germany is Russia's largest importer, since 1868, German industrial products occupy more than forty percent of the Russian market, as high as 47% in 1877. By the 80s, Germany's share in the Russian market for industrial imports had fallen to 27%.

This situation seriously affected relations between the two countries, so that from last year, in 1887, Bismarck began to refuse to lend to Russia, and German banks refused to accept Russian securities as collateral. On the one hand, as a continuation of the trade war, on the other hand, it is a pro-French sanction against Russia, and most importantly, it does not want to see the Russian economy continue to develop and become stronger.

Germany and Russia were nominally allied, but they were in conflict both during the 1875 crisis and the 1885 crisis.

However, the British know that the funds for the construction of the Kyakhta Railway in Russia mainly come from Germany, and in recent years, the Kyakhta Railway has not been connected to the sea, resulting in the benefits have always been inferior to the Dongqing Railway with Dalian as an import base.

When the Kyakhta Railway was heavily indebted and the Russians were looking for money to fill the holes, Bismarck renewed his promise to lend money to Russia on the condition that Russia would gain access to the sea in North China and thoroughly improve the operating efficiency of the Kyakhta Railway.

Bismarck nominally demanded that Russia improve the efficiency of the railways, and thus increase the ability to repay the loans, in order to give Russian loans, as if everything was commercial. But behind it is Bismarck's unswerving will to support Russia's eastward advance, once Russia obtains access to the sea in northern China, then it will be mired in endless conflicts with Britain, and Russia's forces will not be able to be transferred back at that time.

Therefore, Bismarck's loan to Russia and his refusal to lend to Russia were actually motivated by political purposes, and economic interests were always on the back burner.

But why did Germany want to mediate the dispute between Russia and the Ming Dynasty?

Because Germany was not optimistic that Russia would be able to keep the port at this time.

If Russia could not keep the port and were attacked head-on by the Ming Dynasty and driven back to land again, their expansion into the eastern seas would inevitably stop, just as they had ended their expansion in the direction of the Mediterranean Sea and began to expand into weak Central Asia and the East after being beaten by Britain and France in the Crimean War.

If this time the Russian expansion in the East is curbed, they will flow like the steppe peoples through the steppe like water to the next direction, and where is that direction?

Expansion into Central Asia has come to an end, and India is only separated by an Afghanistan, and Britain occupies the fortress of Afghanistan, strongly blocking Russia's expansion, expanding in the direction of Persia, and entering the Persian Gulf is also not allowed by Britain. So where is the next direction of expansion for Russia, it seems that there is no other direction than the West.

Once Russia redirects its expansion, Germany, which is close to Russia in the west, will inevitably bear the brunt, and Germany's western frontier is still facing a France that has been seeking revenge in the Franco-Prussian War, and there is no doubt that Germany will fall into the dilemma of being attacked by France and Russia from both sides, which is a land and political price that Bismarck cannot bear.

So Bismarck did not want to see Russian expansion in the East being strongly blocked.

However, the general direction of politics and diplomacy, you can only take advantage of the situation, and you can't twist it forcibly, who let Russia's eastward expansion encounter the rise of the Ming Dynasty.

Bismarck struggled to have no means to deal with it, and at this time Daming sent the solution to him.

At a cocktail party, the Ming envoy to Germany inadvertently asked Bismarck if there was room for relaxation between Daming and Russia, and whether they could stop this imminent war through the concessions of Daming?

Bismarck said that the search for an outlet to the sea is Russia's unchanging and established policy, and it is a strategic direction that is difficult to change. The minister of the Ming Dynasty asked if the Ming Dynasty was willing to accept Russia's peaceful use of the ports managed by the Ming Dynasty, such as the port of Qinhuangdao, which was very close to Huludao, could Russia give up the occupation of Huludao.

I don't know whether the words of the Ming envoy were intentional or unintentional, but they provided Bismarck with an excellent plan, which temporarily stopped Russia's expansion, but kept the contradictions at all times.