Who wouldn't want to take back Hong Kong?

Chen Zhiting and the Manchu officials were probably very happy to accept it, but they really didn't think about it, not because they didn't want to think about it, but because they didn't think about it. Pen "Fun" Pavilion www.biquge.info because no one would think that the Ming Dynasty was worth fighting against the arrogant British for the sake of Hong Kong, a small place. It wasn't an option at all, so they never thought about it.

But now that Zhu Jinglun has said it clearly, Chen Zhiting is first happy, and then worried.

He was happy to see the repossession of Hong Kong, because where the British occupied, it was too close to the Ming Dynasty, and it was always a hidden danger.

But if he wants to take back Hong Kong and fight a war with Britain, Chen Zhiting thinks it is not a wise move.

"The emperor thinks twice!"

Chen Zhiting sighed and stood up, and was about to kneel down as he spoke.

Zhu Jinglun hugged him: "Kneeling around, you can see that people are big, talk well!" ”

Chen Zhiting was also used to it, so he gave up his hand and continued to advise.

Zhu Jinglun waved his hand and said: "I didn't want to start a war with Yingyi, this time is different from the past, and we will fight in the past, but now my country's tax burden depends on commercial taxes, and Yingyi doesn't have to land, just drive the warships over, blockade us for a few months, and we will starve to death." ”

Chen Zhiting was puzzled: "What does the emperor mean?" ”

Zhu Jinglun sighed: "I didn't expect to clash with Yingyi in Hong Kong at this time, but the incident in Ningbo gave me a new idea. ”

Thinking of the matter in Ningbo, Chen Zhiting also nodded.

Last year, the Ming fleet blockaded Ningbo, and then sent troops to land, but at that time the British and French attitudes were very tough, and they also sent warships-for-tat, and the two fleets once confronted each other for a while. In fact, as early as a few years ago, Li Xiucheng had already captured Ningbo, and it was also because of the persecution of Britain and France that Li Xiucheng had to withdraw from Ningbo, so before occupying Ningbo, Zhu Jinglun had a plan in his heart, if Britain and France did not object, he would take advantage of the situation to occupy the port of Ningbo, and if Britain and France had a tough attitude, it was not impossible to give in.

After really seeing the attitude of Britain and France so resolutely, Zhu Jinglun discussed with Chen Zhiting, and already planned to withdraw his troops, anyway, the warships were sent to respond to Li Xiucheng's offensive against Zhejiang, and at that time, with Zuo Zongtang's withdrawal to Jiangbei, Li Xiucheng had already controlled Zhejiang, so it was of little value to forcibly keep Ningbo.

But unexpectedly, at this time, Britain and France did not oppose the occupation of Ningbo by the Ming army, but after putting forward some uninnovative requirements such as protecting trade, they acquiesced to the Ming army's occupation of Ningbo and withdrew their warships.

At first, Zhu Jinglun thought that the French had retreated, because with the end of the American Civil War, the Lincoln government began to station heavy troops on the Mexican border, with the purpose of targeting Britain and France, especially France.

In 1863, at the height of the American Civil War, Emperor Napoleon III of France instigated Maximilian, the second son of Archduke Franzkar of Austria, to be invited by the Mexican constitutional monarchists to become the monarch of Mexico. The British also supported this plan, because the government of President Juárez of Mexico at that time refused to repay the debt owed to Europe, and Britain was the main victim, with the support of Britain and France, and at the instigation of Maximilian's wife, Maximilian, an enlightened aristocrat with great ambitions, was crowned Emperor of Mexico.

Then France sent troops to land in Mexico and drove President Juárez into the mountains. The Americans are republicans, they naturally do not want a rotten monarchy in Europe around them, let alone a regime controlled by Britain and France, they can't spare their hands in the civil war, they can only endure a breath, as soon as the civil war is over, they immediately make a threat to the border, and at the same time vigorously support Juarez, sending him a large amount of arms and materials.

Zhu Jinglun thought that this was the reason for the concession of Britain and France, and thought that Britain and France would concentrate on resolving the contradictions in the Americas, after all, Mexico was much closer to Britain and France than Ningbo.

It took many months to figure out that the main reason was still in China, the reason why Britain and France opposed the occupation of Ningbo by the Ming army was mainly because of interests, mainly because of the attitude of the British, and France's foreign policy in Asia was to follow the British at this time, but when Li Xiucheng firmly controlled Zhejiang, Britain and France weighed it and thought that it would be more in line with their interests to hand over Ningbo to the control of the Ming State.

First of all, Ningbo, as a port in Zhejiang, basically relied mainly on Zhejiang's commodity goods, but the Taiping army had already controlled Zhejiang, if the Taiping army further sought to control Ningbo, and the British and French resolutely defended Ningbo, the two countries would pay a huge cost, they found that the Taiping army was equipped with much more muskets and cannons than in the past, which were provided by the merchants of the Ming Dynasty; If the Taiping army was taken by the power of Britain and France, even if Ningbo was abandoned, the British and French judged that the Tianping Heavenly Kingdom regime would probably also manipulate the trade issue in Ningbo, and I am afraid that it would not be so smooth for them to transport raw silk and other goods from Ningbo out of Zhejiang with peace of mind.

In the end, the two countries negotiated closely, thinking that instead of handing over Ningbo to the control of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, or making the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom an enemy for this reason, it was better to let the Ming Kingdom control here, at least in terms of foreign trade, the Ming Kingdom did more efficiently, and the special alliance between the Ming Kingdom and the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom made the British and French think that the Ming Dynasty controlled here and could better protect Ningbo's trade, but they also put forward their own requirements, that is, the British continued to control the customs in Ningbo, and the Ming Dynasty guaranteed this, so the Ming Kingdom was already ready to give up, got the administrative power of Ningbo.

This made Zhu Jinglun understand that the British people's attitude towards land is even less important than they imagined, so if Ningbo can give up, can Hong Kong also give up?

Chen Zhiting had another idea: "What does the emperor mean to exchange the pig house for Hong Kong?" ”

Chan Chi-ting was obviously mischievous, believing that Chu King-lun's crackdown on the coolie trade was in search of land in Hong Kong.

Zhu Jinglun shook his head: "Coolie trade is about dignity, human dignity is the most important, our people can't let people sell like pigs and dogs, this matter is not a bargaining chip to negotiate concessions." ”

Chen Zhiting didn't understand: "But Yangyi is very profitable, if you don't give some benefits, I'm afraid you won't give in." ”

Zhu Jinglun sighed: "From the matter of Ningbo, I see that the thing that foreigners are most afraid of, or what they care about the most, is trade. But we have to prioritize our actions, the first priority is to ban the sale of piglets, and the second is to take back Hong Kong. One day when the sale of piglets is not stopped, one day someone and my brothers and sisters die in humiliation, Hong Kong will not take it back one day, but people will not be resurrected when they die. But the British are not afraid of war, so it is useless to threaten them, but if they understand that they may lose greater trade profits by working with us in the piglet trade, I think they will be willing to negotiate with us, and we will have room to turn around at that time. ”

Chen Zhiting nodded: "The emperor means that we can threaten foreigners to close off the country!" ”

Zhu Jinglun sighed, these squires still don't pay attention to business too much, and they have to retreat at every turn.

"It's not about closing the country, you just need to crack down on British trade."

Chen Zhiting didn't understand, he knew that what foreigners were most afraid of was nothing more than banning trade, but it was useless to fight the British alone, he knew too well those foreigners, they dared to do anything for money, and the British were banned, and British businessmen would pretend to be people from other countries, unless they were banned altogether.

Chen Zhiting told Zhu Jinglun about his concerns, he felt that he had already taken precautions, and even thought of Yingyi's possible opportunism, but he still saw some disappointment in Zhu Jinglun's eyes.

Zhu Jinglun said: "To crack down on trade, there is not only one ban, but also a way to raise taxes. ”

Chen Zhiting said: "If you can increase tariffs on the British, they can still pretend to be people from other countries?" ”

Chen Zhiting really couldn't understand how he could only attack the British in trade, and avoid British merchants using merchants from other countries as a cover, or directly letting merchants from other countries sell their goods.

Zhu Jinglun knows very well in his heart that Chen Zhiting is not a successful candidate for prime minister of a modern government, and the Eastern world has not yet cultivated such talents, and in the era of the Meiji Restoration in Japan, a large number of such people did appear, such as Ito Hirobumi, Okubo Ritsu and others, but Chinese scholars are different from the Japanese elite, they have too strong cultural pride, so it is difficult to humbly learn from the West, and the Japanese Restoration elites like Okubo Ritsu, they basically abandoned their samurai costumes from the beginningCutting off the samurai's characteristic bun and throwing away the katana can make the Chinese scholars throw away the brush, and it is a rare thing to write with a fountain pen, let alone make them think in terms of the ideas of the Western commercial society.

But if Hurd is here, it should be easy to find the right way to deal with it.

Zhu Jinglun didn't want to tell Chen Zhiting the answer directly, he was the emperor, and what he said was easy to be superstitious by these people.

So he said: "I haven't thought of the specific method, you might as well go down and discuss, Hurd is British, you might as well listen to his opinion." ”

In this way, Chen Zhiting and others were sent away, although the scholars like them were more traditional, but as long as they were people who were really willing to do things, they didn't care about personal matters when they started doing things, they didn't think they had personal time, they called this a personal promise, so they didn't care whether Hurd was off work or not, they went directly to Hurd's mansion and discussed with Hurd overnight.

In Hurd's view, this problem was not a problem at all, it was too easy to solve, and he not only suggested to them what could be done, but also explained the reasons for doing so, which was a demonstration to Chen Zhiting and other officials of the standard answer to how Westerners think about the problem.

Hurd's method was not what Zhu Jinglun expected, it was just to add internal taxes, and he told Chen Zhiting that if he increased tariffs, it would be a violation of the treaty of trade signed with Britain, and the treaty stipulated that the tariffs were agreed upon, and the tariff rates could not be increased arbitrarily without the consent of the British.

In the case of no tariffs, if you want to crack down on British trade, you can only start with the trade goods monopolized by Britain, and the largest trade goods that Britain currently exports to China are just opiums, so Hurd suggested that excessive tariffs be imposed on tobacco houses in Daming.

Although they could not raise the tariffs of the British head-on, which made them feel very unhappy, they only understood the hatefulness of the tariffs under the agreement, but if they only attacked the British in a flexible way, especially the hated opium trade, Chen Zhiting did not feel too humiliated.

The tensions between Hong Kong and the Ming Dynasty caused by the coolie trade soon caused a chain reaction, and the first one affected was the opium trade of the British.

However, Hurd warned Chen Zhiting that the opium trade is currently the largest trade commodity of Britain to China, and it is easy for the British government to take a tough attitude, so it is necessary to put pressure on the British government in public opinion, and he suggested fighting a public opinion war to encourage the conscientious media in Britain to publicize the dark places of coolies and the opium trade, so that even if the British government wants to protect the opium trade, it has to have moral concerns, and finally has to negotiate with the Ming Dynasty to resolve the dispute. (To be continued.) )