"By the way, Your Majesty, Weichen still has something to start." Zuo Zongtang respectfully reported: "The righteous king still has an urgent chapter to be forwarded to His Majesty through the military report. With that, he took out a somewhat crumpled letter from his bosom and presented it to Feng Yunshan.

Feng Yunshan opened it and looked at it carefully, closed the letter and said: "After King Yi pacifies the Western Frontier, he wants to stay for another two or three years and govern the Western Frontier well. In addition, King Yi put forward a lot of suggestions on the governance of Western Xinjiang in the chapter, first of all, he suggested that the imperial court should establish a new province in the newly occupied vast area of Western Xinjiang, and he suggested that it be named Kazakh Province, with the intention of encircling the Kazakhs. What do the two Aiqing think? ”

Wu Ruxiao's heart moved, and he said: "Your Majesty, Weichen thinks that King Yi's proposal is very good. However, the direct establishment of the Kazakh Province is easy to be used as an excuse by Tsarist Russia and Britain, it is better to establish the Kazakh Khanate in name first, and it is controlled in the hands of our Chinese Empire anyway, and when the imperial forces are sufficient, then declare that the Kazakh Khanate belongs to the empire and is transferred to the Kazakh Province, which may be less troublesome. ”

Zuo Zongtang nodded happily and echoed: "Your Majesty, what Lord Wu said is reasonable. Now that they have just controlled the western Xinjiang area, where there are the majority of Kazakhs, they can first establish a nominal Kazakh Khanate, support a puppet to come to power, and other major officials are mainly selected and sent by the imperial court, and slowly educate those Kazakhs. In this case, Tsarist Russia and Britain really have no way to make excuses. As long as the army is in the hands of the imperial court, there is no fear of anything. ”

Feng Yunshan nodded and said, "Since this is the case, he announced the establishment of the Kazakh Khanate to the outside world, and directly ordered the righteous king Shi Dakai to temporarily lead the military and political affairs of the Kazakh Khanate. Internally, the Kazakh Autonomous Region was prepared, and then renamed Xijiang Province, which means the west of Xinjiang. More than 100 people were selected from last year's scholars to rush to the Kazakh Khanate to take up their posts as magistrates. Well, that's up to the Cabinet. ”

Feng Yunshan was extremely relieved of Shi Dakai, with him, the Western Xinjiang would definitely be able to stabilize. On the contrary, he was a little concerned about the war with Tsarist Russia in the north.

He asked: "Zuo Aiqing, the war in the west has been basically won. Taking advantage of the fact that the Russian ambassador had not yet sent people to negotiate, and it was summer again, he tried to build a fortress in the Outer Northeast and completely hold the Outer Northeast Region. By the way, the 7th Infantry Division has now occupied all of the Baikal area, and it is necessary to relocate some Han and Mongolian people to settle there, how is the castle built? ”

Zuo Zongtang replied: "Your Majesty, a total of two fortified cities have been built at the north and south ends of Lake Baikal, namely Suwu North City and Suwu South City, which are expected to be completed by September before winter. They all moved in to the scale of 20,000 people, and then continued to expand in the spring of next year, mainly Mongolians, and grazing around, fully adapted to the life there. Specifically, the Ministry of Agriculture is implementing it, and the General Staff has sent 5,000 garrisons there to cooperate. ”

Feng Yunshan was very satisfied when he heard this. Today, the entire Outer Northeast has been basically occupied by the Chinese Empire, and the area around Lake Baikal, to the Trans-Khingan Mountains, the entire Heilongjiang River estuary, and Sakhalin Island are all under the control of the 7th, 8th, and 9th Infantry Divisions. The Beiyang Fleet led by Liang Peiyou also captured Petropaplovsk, the base of the Siberian Fleet of Tsarist Russia, a month ago, capturing all the last three warships of Tsarist Russia in the Far East, and the entire Kamchatka Peninsula also fell into the hands of the Beiyang Fleet.

Feng Yunshan knew that he had snatched back all the Outer Northeast territories that Tsarist Russia had occupied for more than ten or even twenty or thirty years, and that Tsarist Russia would definitely not give up, and with the characteristics of the Russian nation, there was no possibility of reconciliation between the Chinese Empire and Tsarist Russia, and they could only do their best to subdue them.

For Tsarist Russia, the first thing to rely on was the large number of soldiers, especially the Cossack cavalry roaming the steppes of Eastern Europe, and the second was to adapt to the cold weather. Therefore, this time to control the western Xinjiang, as long as you control these Kazakhs and hire a group of people to work for the imperial court, you can deal with Tsarist Russia very well. What's more, with the current industrial development of the Chinese Empire, it is no worse than that of Tsarist Russia, and its wealth and population are incomparable.

……

Paris, France, inside the palace of the Second French Empire.

Emperor Louis Napoleon Bonaparte held a report from the Far East in his hand, and he looked at it very carefully, and the expression on his face was very strange, and he turned from calm to surprise, and then slowly shocked and solemn.

The report was handed over by Bourblon, the French minister to the Chinese Empire, on the recent changes in this ancient oriental country.

"It seems that Uncle is right! This sleeping lion of the East has now woken up! Bonaparte's face was full of emotion! As Emperor of France, he always remembered what his uncle, the great man, had said about the country of the East. Now it seems that it is very pertinent.

In Bourblon's report, the newly formed Chinese Empire was described as a wealthy and powerful country, and the Emperor of the Chinese Empire, who was younger than himself, was a great figure comparable to himself.

"The industrial revolution and military revolution are in full swing in that country, and the fruits of the industrial industry are slowly being felt. Your Majesty, I saw with my own eyes that the place they called the Pudong Special Economic Zone across the street from the city of Shanghai was full of black smoke and factories for steelmaking, textile, shipbuilding, and coinage. In just a few years, the population of Shanghai County has tripled, and it is said that their capital, Shengjing, and Guangzhou, a major trading city, have a population of more than one million, which has already caught up with Paris, which has thirteen urban districts. ”

"They invested heavily in building several railways. Your Majesty, as you know, their territory is vast, and the prospects for building railways are very broad, and in less than five years since the founding of the country, more than 3,000 kilometers of railways have been built, and at this rate, they will soon surpass our France! I propose that the French Empire establish a full-fledged cooperative relationship with them, or even a close alliance. You know, Prussia and the United States have close relations with it, and in the past two years they have earned more wealth from the Far East than even Britain, and even more so than France. The Central Railroad Company of the United States, which contracted the construction of railways from the Chinese Empire alone, earned tens of millions of francs in profits every year, and there were many factories and mines, which were even more incredibly profitable. ”

"Your Majesty, this country is rich in resources and extremely rich. Not only is it rich in traditional commodities such as tea, raw silk, and porcelain, but now it is also due to the development of industry, mass production of cloth, and a kind of kerosene for lighting, which is not only for domestic consumption, but also exported to Japan and the East Indies, which is cheaper than European cloth, and has begun to gradually occupy the Far East market. And their country is even richer. The overthrow of the Manchus looted the vast wealth accumulated by the Tatars for 200 years, giving them an astonishing amount of money to develop their military and industrial forces and strengthen their national power. Not only that, but they also developed and promoted Western education, learned science and technology, and enlightened and enlightened the originally ignorant people. Primary, secondary and higher schools, and even more advanced compulsory education for children and vocational education for adults, for the training of skilled workers, Your Majesty, I suggest that we in France should follow suit. ”

"Their emperor even reformed the military system that did not conform to muskets and artillery, and I heard that even the conscription system was also reformed, and an army comparable in number to Tsarist Russia was established, and the recent war with Tsarist Russia in Siberia and the Outer Northeast seemed to have defeated the Russians and occupied the territory of the Russians, indicating that their military quality and weapons were no longer weaker than the Russians. Moreover, the Eastern Empire, with a population of more than 400 million, is still expanding its army with more than 100,000 men every year, which is a terrifying country, and in five years, I can conclude that they will have more troops than they can compete with the whole of Europe. Moreover, it was recently learned that the Chinese Empire and the Sikhs of Punjabi in the Hindustan region seemed to have a close relationship, and that the Sikhs helped them to march to the Kazakh Khanate in Central Asia and defeat the Tsarist Cossack army there. According to intelligence, they have an arms company called Krupp, which produces Krupp rifled guns that are more advanced than the Armstrong guns, which were newly invented by the British...... Also, it seems that they have long copied our Mini rifles, and are working on a more advanced musket, but they have not heard any details. In terms of navy, they already have four offshore fleets, one of which is the South Sea Fleet, which defeated the Dutch East India Fleet and the British East India Combined Fleet in one fell swoop, and its strength is no longer to be underestimated, in short, the rise of the Chinese Empire has become an inevitable ......"

The more Bonaparte looked at it, the more solemn his face became, and finally stood up and muttered, "Feng Yunshan, what kind of monarch are you?" I already thought highly of you, but I didn't think I would underestimate you. Unexpectedly, you are a hero who can compete with your uncle! It seems that I can't hesitate any longer, and I have decided to cooperate with you! ”

Putting down the report in his hand, Bonaparte shouted out of the corridor: "Come, inform the generals of the Admiralty and the War Office to come to me." ”