Both sides are racing against time, whether Zhu Jinglun has accumulated enough strength to fight against the entire Qing Dynasty before the Qing Dynasty can draw out his strength to launch a crusade against him, or whether the Qing Dynasty will draw enough strength to crush him before he is ready, it depends on who can run ahead of the two forces, and who can beat the time. Pen | fun | pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 ｉｎｆｏ

As if to celebrate Zhu Jinglun's silent and successful coup d'état, the delegation led by Chen Zhiting returned to China a few days later, Zhu Jinglun asked them to dock in Hong Kong for three days, waiting for his own organization to meet them, Zhu Jinglun wanted Bai Gui, Mukdenne, and all the officials of the Guangzhou Prefecture to wait on the dock in Xin'an, and he wanted to make Chen Zhiting a hero, a hero who went to the country.

The fourteen Shangjia county commanders appointed by Zhu Jinglun were radiant, and they saw that the imperial court would respond to Zhu Jinglun's needs, and their official seals would be built for them.

HD revised the charter to stipulate that the General Taxation Department must visit one port every month, and stipulated that the Guangdong government should set up an independent inspection team to audit the accounts of the customs every year, and the supervision was institutionalized rather than personalized. He abolished the system of internal and external classes, and the locals and foreigners adopted the same grade classification, the same salary standard, the same promotion method, and the same inspection method, which marked the unification of the personnel system.

Bai Gui and Mu Kedenne looked solemn, Bai Gui's arrival also made Mu Ke Denne understand the truth about Beijing, Zhu Jinglun is not Bai Gui's person at all, let alone Yixin's person, Zhu Jinglun is really opposed, but the court wants to appease him, and the court can't admit that he is really opposed.

Bai Gui had to hold down Zhu Jinglun and prevent him from using troops against the court, and Mukedenne had to continue to deceive the bannermen and prevent them from making trouble.

Everyone made their own choice.

The squires of Xin'an County are more simple, they are the only group of people who come from the bottom of their hearts and do not have any psychological entanglements, only they are not holding any purpose, and came to welcome Chen Zhiting, because in their hearts, Chen Zhiting is really a hero, a hero who went to Yi to destroy the country, ask for the people's lives, stop the Yi chieftain, and protect the family and land, Ban Chao and Zhang Qian are just like this.

These people have all made a choice, only Chen Zhiting has not yet made a choice, because the choice has not yet been placed in front of him, and he does not know the fact that Guangdong has the surname Zhu.

At this moment, he stepped down from a huge ship, what a huge ship, so big that there was no wharf in Chiwan Port that could accommodate it, so he could only stop in the Lingding Ocean outside the port, and then let the people on board go down to the small boat before they could be transferred to the port.

This is a Swedish giant ship, a new giant ship built by the Swedes, with a displacement of 5,000 tons, built specifically for Chinese trade, with a huge cargo hold filled with iron ore and iron ingots, and even the ship's name is the Great Guangdong.

Chen Zhiting was not the only one who walked down the ship, the Swedish and Danish missions also came, but the center of people's attention was only Chen Zhiting.

When he came ashore, he held up a piece of paper in his hand, as if Chamberlain had taken a promise from Hitler, and publicized it in front of everyone.

This is the original London Declaration, which bears the seals of the Queen and the Prime Minister of England, as well as the private seal of Chen Zhiting, who promised on behalf of the Guangdong government that the locals would not attack the British at the treaty ports and would allow the British to do business and live, and the British promised not to seek to cede an inch of land in Guangdong.

For the British, this piece of paper may be meaningless, except for the later New Territories in history, the British have never expanded their territory, ceding Kowloon because Hong Kong has no hinterland space and cannot be developed, and the lease of the New Territories is because Kowloon is also saturated with development, but in this era, the British themselves have objections to whether to develop Hong Kong, and how many officials and parliamentarians think that Hong Kong is a money-losing commodity and a burden.

After the commander of the British army that invaded China and forcibly occupied Hong Kong Island, Foreign Secretary Palmerston accused Yilu of not carrying out the order and "handling national interests according to his own fantasies as he pleases", giving up attacking Zhoushan and occupying a desolate island, and finally because of the occupation of Hong Kong, he was quickly dismissed by the British, because many members of the parliament believed that the cession of territory would lead to long-term hostility against China, and the colony would become a burden to the British government for a long time. He later admitted that the cession of Hong Kong was his ultra vires.

In addition, there is partisanship, the Liberal Party has always believed that Hong Kong was occupied when the Conservative Party was in power, so often after the Liberal Party came to power, began to criticize, especially the huge cost of maintaining Hong Kong's operation, "if I knew that the expenditure was so huge and the effect was limited, it should not have been occupied in the first place."

Zhu Jinglun knew the British very well, so he had been restricting the development of Hong Kong Island, so he sent Chen Zhiting to Britain with a huge mission, so that the British promised that they would not cede land again, as long as Hong Kong Island was so big, he would always have a limited role, and he had to maintain a certain amount of expenses, so it would be easy to get it back from the British.

Chen Zhiting did not understand this, he used the territorial view of an agricultural country to guess the land view of the maritime people, so he thought that he had obtained a promise for the more than 20 million compatriots in Guangdong not to be violated.

As for the issue of the jurisdiction of the Hong Kong government over the British in Kowloon, which he agreed to without authorization, he felt that it was just an itch of scabies, and it was not a big deal, and he was also mentally prepared to be investigated by the local government of Guangdong.

Ignoring the presence of high-ranking officials such as Bai Gui, Mukdenne, and Zhu Jinglun, the squires cheered and crowded to the dock, and gathered around Chen Zhiting to read the guarantee (declaration), but Chen Zhiting carefully put it away, really afraid that these people would tear it up for him.

Then he was surrounded and came to Bai Gui and others, and respectfully greeted his superiors.

Bai Gui nodded, Mukedenne was very wooden, and Zhu Jinglun laughed, and then said:

"Lord Governor, Lord Chen, it is a great achievement to cross the ocean to the west in the face of the British king, not to fall into the power of the kingdom, and to force the chiefs not to dare to invade the frontier again. The lower officials dared to sponsor Lord Chen as the prefect of Guangzhou, but I don't know what the governor meant? ”

What can Bai Gui say, he is unconditionally to appease Zhu Jinglun, he knows that if he doesn't agree, Zhu Jinglun himself will be appointed directly, and at that time, he won't even look good on face, so it is better to agree directly, at least in the eyes of outsiders, he, the governor, is still a bit majestic.

So he nodded: "What Lord Zhu said is very true, and this governor also sees it this way." ”

Chen Zhiting was a little stunned, he went abroad, how could he come back and go straight to the prefect of Guangzhou, from a small county to the prefect of Guangzhou, this is not a matter of speed at all, but from impossible to possible, you must know that the county is just a miscellaneous official, you don't need a serious background to do it, and a prison student can also be a county official, so there are so many people who desperately want to take the imperial examination.

But such an important position as the prefect, no matter how desperate, it can't be done, there is a Qing generation, it is rare to see an official below the jinshi level to achieve the prefect level, although Chen Zhiting has an identity of lifting people, but he also knows that there is no hope of being a big official if he fails to pass the Jinshi examination, so he has always insisted on the imperial examination and did not come out to be an official, until the manhole was attacked by foreigners, he changed his mind and planned to stay in the local area to be an official, and he extinguished his plan to take the Jinshi examination.

I was going to be a miscellaneous official for a lifetime, but I didn't expect to be suddenly promoted to the prefect, and I was carried away by happiness for a while.

"What are you doing in a daze? Thank you Governor for your promotion. ”

As soon as Chen Zhiting was excited, he directly knelt down on the granite ground of the dock and kowtowed to thank him.

Bai Gui helped him up, and some encouragement was indispensable.

Chen Zhiting thanked Zhu Jinglun again, and Zhu Jinglun waved his hand: "Go home and rest for a few days, and go to work when you are ready, Guangzhou Mansion cannot always lack a prefect." ”

The prefect of Guangzhou Prefecture is short of personnel, not because of the resistance to Zhu Jinglun and the seal, but because this position has been missing for a long time, before the outbreak of the second opium war in 1856, the prefect is Guo Chaofan, in September 1857, although the war has broken out, but the Qing government does not think that the war happened, Ye Mingchen is still using his Fuyi tricks, he does not know that Britain and France have entered a state of war, Guo Chaofan raised troops at home at this time, and later the British and French forces occupied Guangzhou, he was ashamed to interact with foreigners, One became ill and died the next year.

When Guo Chaofan died, the city of Guangzhou was still in the hands of the British and French forces, and later Bai Gui was promoted to governor, and Qi Ling took over as the governor and concurrently served as the prefect, and the Guangzhou prefect has been taken over by the governor.

So this prefect has always been vacant.

On the ruling side, this is an important position, Zhu Jinglun has no one in his hands, his qualifications are too shallow, and he has been secretly accumulating strength, it is impossible to establish contact with the scholar class, although these civil officials and scholars are very disagreeable, but they are already the most experienced group in governance, and it is precisely because there is no one in his hands that Zhu Jinglun appointed fourteen businessmen as county commanders at one time.

Chen Zhiting was still excited, but Zhu Jinglun pulled him: "The guests are here, don't greet them, it's not the way of the host, introduce me to them." ”

He was talking about the group of foreigners, the Swedish and Danish missions, who stood on the docks and were surrounded by a group of squires pointing and pointing.

The two small countries that have just entered the era of the industrial revolution are very eager to open up China's huge market, and when they see that the Chinese are concerned about the world and send a mission, they are really excited, and the government and the opposition unanimously hope to send a mission to China as well.

"This one's called Ender... tile..."

Chen Zhiting has always been unable to pronounce the names of foreigners.

"Andrei Oskar Wallenberg!"

The Swedes themselves introduced it.

Zhu Jinglun has heard of the founder of the famous Wallenberg family, the Swedish aristocratic business family alongside the Rockefeller, Morgan and Rothschild families.

Extend a friendly hand: "Welcome, distinguished guests from Sweden!" ”

He then introduced the members of the Swedish delegation, who numbered more than 50 people.

Then came another wave of distinct foreigners.

At the head was the son of a duke: "Christian of Grüskburg!" ”

Zhu Jinglun was a little surprised, the Grüskburg family was later prominent, and the Danish, Norwegian and Greek royal families all came from this family, but I don't know if this Christian is the son of the duke in history.

Christian introduced the members of his delegation, all of whom were Danish entrepreneurs, bankers, and government officials.

In the end, there were some who had no position, and Christian was a little reluctant to introduce them, so Zhu Jinglun asked him before he said.

It turned out that these people were not here to negotiate, they were here to visit, some Danish nobles.

This is very good, Zhu Jinglun is very interested.

"This is my eldest daughter, Alexandra!"

Christian introduced Zhu Jinglun to a little girl in a gorgeous dress.

Zhu Jinglun's heart jumped, that's right, this Christian is the Danish King Christian IX a few years later, it was he who gave Bismarck the opportunity to attack Denmark after he came to power, and then the Austro-Prussian War and the Franco-Prussian War finally made Prussia rise and unify the whole of Germany.

And his eldest daughter is called Alexandra, married to Victoria's son Edward, and later Edward became King Edward VII of England, this little girl will become the queen of England in the future, which is really an unexpected bonus.

Zhu Jinglun immediately said politely to the little girl: "Can I kiss your hand, beautiful princess!" (To be continued.) )