Chapter 87: The Fate of History

The increasingly fierce controversy over the Sino-French conflict in the land of the Qing Dynasty directly pushed Li Zhongtang, the governor of Zhili of Tianjin Wei, to the forefront, and soon the negotiations between China and France on the conflict in Vietnam officially began in Tianjin Wei.

"Dear Lord Li Zhongtang, I hope that the issue of the vassal state of Vietnam will be a separate part of the negotiation, so that the French Republic and the Qing Empire can obtain a satisfactory result of the negotiation more quickly, what do you think?"

"Vietnam is a vassal of the Great Qing State, and this cannot be changed," with the results of the naval victory in hand, Li Zhongtang naturally felt very different, and it could be seen that Baohai's attitude had changed a lot today.

"On this point, the French Republic also fully agrees, but for the possibility of such hostilities on both sides repeating it, I recommend that I sign a peace declaration! to avoid the jīization of contradictions! ”

Li Zhongtang was still very happy that Baohai put forward his request for peace so quickly, which is exactly what he had always hoped for, and the war between Britain and France, from his point of view, was the result of both losses anyway, and it cost the people and money, which was the last thing the two empress dowagers in the court wanted to see, so they should do their best to achieve a compromise between the two sides.

"Your Excellency Baohai, on behalf of the Qing Dynasty, I promise not to attack the French army on their own initiative, but the French navy and army must retreat to the line of 1875 in which Vietnam actually took control, and annul the two Treaties of Saigon, which were signed with Vietnam, a vassal state of the Great Qing Dynasty!"

Waiting for Li Zhongtang's sentence not to take the initiative to attack, of course, the French Republic will never spit out the ròu that eats into his mouth, for this Baohai deeply agrees, he understands very well that the senior officials of the Qing State have a strange laziness, once they enter the negotiation process, they think that everything is fine, they do not understand that negotiation is nothing but a continuation of war and politics.

"Lord Li Zhongtang, then we need to negotiate the treaty carefully, during this period, I hope that the armies of both sides will exercise restraint and not take the initiative to provoke disputes, I don't know if your Excellency agrees with this!"

Seeing that the French were finally willing to sit down and have a good talk, Li Zhongtang thought about it, now that the Dingzi Army has been stationed in Langshan, and the Nanyang Naval Division on the Yellow Sea is also fighting well, Ding Richang has already sent a telegram, saying that it is because of the new artillery developed that the advantage of naval warfare has been obtained, but it is ...... Since the Nanyang Naval Division is fighting well, the affairs over there in the South China Sea will be handled by Ding Richang.

There is another problem, that is, the problem of Beiyang China Merchants, because the war in the South China Sea has severely affected the trade income of China Merchants, and if the war is not stopped, China Merchants' seaborne trade to South Asia, India, and Europe will not be able to operate normally. Sheng Xuanhuai came to ask himself if he would negotiate with the British Minister Sir Wittoma to change the British flag to continue trading!

"This point, the Qing Kingdom naturally agrees, we can sign a ceasefire agreement first, and wait until the peace agreement between the two sides is ready, and then a formal ceasefire! However, your navy must immediately stop the blockade of the trading merchant ships of the Great Qing Kingdom! ”

After more than 10 days of consultations, the two sides finally signed a Sino-French memorandum of understanding on 15 July in Guangxu 6, in which the two sides promised to cease fire in the South China Sea and not compensate each other for the losses of the Nanyang Navy Division and the French Jiāo Tochina fleet. China withdrew its troops, France declared that it had no intention of encroaching on Vietnamese land and undermining Vietnam's sovereignty, France recognized the status of the Qing State as the suzerainty of Vietnam, and the Qing State recognized the jurisdiction of the southern part of Vietnam now occupied by the French, and took the Red River as the boundary, and the north was under the protection of China and the south to the protection of France.

This memorandum was quickly recognized by the bigwigs of the Military Aircraft Department, and the situation in Vietnam, which originally seemed to be precarious, seemed to have changed greatly all of a sudden, from the Empress Dowager of the Two Palaces to Prince Gong, who was quite appreciative of Lord Li Zhongtang's ability to do so, and how much military salary could be saved at this time, this was the most concerned thing in the imperial court. For the Qing court, the millions of Manchu talents in captivity in the capital were their roots, and the entire Chinese territory should supply gold and silver to these Manchu nobles, old and young, and the whole of China was only to feed their vassals.

As for that piece of jiāo toe Vietnam, the vassal state has not come to pay tribute, to be honest, this is just a matter of decency, it is not important at all, this time the Nanyang naval division won a big victory, this is also an opportunity, let the French talk about this matter clearly, Tian Dynasty's face is preserved anyway. ,

When the content of this memorandum reached Fuzhou, Zhang Peilun and Ding Richang, the governors of Fujian and Zhejiang, naturally had no objections, and the victory of the Nanyang Navy Division was a major prerequisite for the signing of this memorandum.

However, after this memorandum was handed to Qin Kai from Ding Richang's hand, Qin Kai was inexplicable, and the hard fighting in the training camp and his own great power in the South China Sea actually obtained a treaty that was not much different from the "Sino-French Memorandum of Understanding on Vietnamese Affairs" that appeared in the original history. However, historically, after the establishment of this treaty, it took a long time until the fall of the Jouferry cabinet before it was agreed to by the French government, which cannot but be said to be an unexpected repetition of history.

And another news that Ding Richang brought to him made him a little depressed, about the recital for him to ask for merit, was temporarily suppressed by the Military Aircraft Department, Lao Ding went to the relationship to ask, but the result was unexpected, it is said that the people from the Beiyang faction immediately played, saying that Qin Kai had just been appointed as a new Taoist, and he was immediately promoted, which was not usual.

Obviously, there was a huge amount of energy behind this voice, so that the matter was put on hold for the first time. But now the issue of Qin Kai's imperial court reward has become a hot concern in the capital, and the Military Aircraft Department knows that if it is so meritorious and not rewarded, it will provoke public anger, and the pen of that gang of Qingliu is not easy to deal with.

So soon another reward came down, Zhang Peilun, the governor of Fujian and Zhejiang, and Ding Richang, the governor of Fujian, added a yellow vest to show their favor. Qin Kai fought meritoriously, added 'Baturu' bravery, and rewarded 'world position', which made Qin Kai really embarrassed, Lao Tzu came to rebel, and the official in Beijing did not give himself such two inexplicable rewards. Lao Tzu should not do anything full of Baturu, what a "worldly job"! Let me serve the Manchus for generations, mén don't have it!

As for Qin Kai's official position, he completely stepped on the spot now, and his calculation of going to Vietnam to earn an official position with confidence crackled, but unfortunately there was no movement just by the sound.

The two Shangguan added yellow vests in a daze, which is according to the convention "Senior generals or ministers who are effective in combat and have outstanding merits can add yellow vests!" However, seeing the pitiful reward of Qin Kai, who worked hard to get the war in the South China Sea, both of them were a little embarrassed, and they both handed over words to Qin Kai, wanting to help him fight for a promotion!

In the end, under the protection of the two bigwigs, Qin Kai finally had one more appointment in his position - temporarily taking charge of the military affairs of the Nanyang Naval Division, which is definitely a job that has no benefit and pays for money, not only that the official position has not been promoted, but even the name is temporary! This made Qin Kai depressed for a while, but fortunately, it was temporarily carried by Ding Richang and Zhang Peilun, and he didn't have to turn around and ignore it for the time being.

What he cares about now is not the official position, these two bigwigs are sitting there, and they will have to rise up in time, and he is now wondering which people are the Nanyang Naval Division!

Liu Shen slid his feet quickly, and even ran back to Mawei to lie about the military situation, but as soon as the news of Qin Kai's victory arrived, he was cut by Ding Richang to be investigated, and the people and horses of the Nanyang Naval Division who returned were quite unstable during this time, after all, in this war, these pipes were also responsible for defeat, until the "Fujian New News" came out, and the officers and soldiers saw the positive arguments about the Nanyang Naval Division against the French army, and they naturally felt very much about Qin Kai.

Now Liu Shen's system can be described as a tree falling down, although these pipe bands may not be a big talent, that is also a veteran of more than ten years of sailors, especially grassroots officers and sailors, this is an indispensable talent for the navy, and he is still struggling to train newcomers on merchant ships.

So that day, Wan Dafu thanked Qin Kai for his life-saving grace, when he came to visit, Qin Kai received them very warmly, these people can be said to be convinced of the training camp now, the only question is that Qin Kai is only temporarily in charge of military affairs, will he be in charge of the Nanyang Navy Division in the future, and will he treat them well, after all, they were Liu Shen's subordinates before!

Qin Kai didn't say anything, just took these pipes to the stamping machine chuáng factory and took a turn, facing the roar of these huge machines, and saw those jīng stamping equipment produced from the machine like snow, these people suddenly realized, why the Nanyang sailors can only play with wooden boats, and this Lord Qin is an ironclad ship as soon as he makes a move! What's even worse is that they are only a few miles apart, and they are in the same Mawei Shipmaster, they are like deaf and blind people, and they don't understand these changes in the shipyard at all, which shows Qin Kai's methods. ,

Qin Kai said very boldly that after temporarily taking care of the military affairs of the Nanyang Naval Division, he would give the officers conditions, choose one of any three!

The first is to continue to stay in the Nanyang Naval Division, and the salary will increase by 5%, but you can't continue to do pipe bands, you can join the training camp first, and you can continue to serve as pipe belts after passing the guò assessment! Or raise your salary by 20%, and just receive the money and don't do anything! retains his official body and is completely marginalized.

The second is to quit the Nanyang Naval Division, join the Mawei Sea Trade Company, first be the deputy captain, after being familiar with the route, and then promote, the annual income, Qin Kai only gave an approximate number, not less than 1000 taels, and more work, this is much more than the pipe belt of the xiǎo warship.

The third option is more direct, according to the number of people on the ship, Qin Kai purchased, a soldier, sailor converted into 30 taels, the rated number of these Nanyang naval division's warships is nearly 200 people, and they directly take the money and run away.

These three conditions can be said to be very generous, these pipe bands are naturally very grateful to the boldness of jī Qin Kai, and soon the pipe bands of the Nanyang Navy Division have made up their minds, only two pipe bands proposed to continue to stay in the army, and most of the rest of the pipe bands choose to go to Mawei Shipping Company, or receive a salary and do not work! As for those who sold their crews to retire home, some people did just that.

And the two pipe bands who joined the training camp were Wan Dafu and Chen An, Chen An bet on the right treasure this time, ran to Vietnam, not only made military merits, but the governor also promoted him to a first-level official position, although he was not old, he was still full of confidence to follow his nephew Chen Mo to the training camp together.

Wan Dafu is the rest of his life after the catastrophe this time, thinking that he should have died at that time, he didn't expect to be able to return to Mawei, this is his fate, he pondered for a long time, so he decided to continue to serve in the army, and look at it, this Qin Supervisor can be compared to Liu Commander on the road, and the blood of the battle that day made him seem to have changed as if he had changed.

Qin Kai was a little inexplicable about Chen An clamoring to join the training camp, this half-old man, what are you still making trouble here! But this old man is also reliable, and finally pondered, after taking a turn in the training camp, let him go directly to follow the Mawei shipping company to run the task of transportation escort, which is also a relatively simple job, but someone must go to Cào to do it! Chen An is tǐng suitable.

After this war, the Nanyang Naval Division could only use four warships of more than 1,000 tons, namely "Chaowu", "Chengqing", "Dengyingzhou", and "Ji'an", among which the Chaowu ships were damaged and could almost be rebuilt in the shipyard, while the largest of the Xiǎo type warships was only the 600-ton "Jingyuan" ship, and there were also a number of training ships and a number of transport ships.

Qin Kai pondered for a while, in fact, there were only 3 warships that could be used, and other training ships and transport ships could only be used for training purposes or to escort the Mawei Sea, so the new Nanyang Naval Division set up two formations, one was a tactical formation with the 501 ironclad ship as the flagship, plus the "Chengqing", "Dengyingzhou", and "Ji'an" ships, and the other was a logistics formation composed of the Jingyuan ship as the flagship, plus 4 transport ships and two training ships.

Soon, the new pipe belts of all the battleships were directly assigned by the training battalion, but fortunately, these officers were originally from the Nanyang Naval Division, but they were able to quickly carry out the training of the naval division, and after they were merged into the integrated management of the shipyard, the treatment and food of the soldiers were improved, and soon the training of each battalion was carried out in a good way.

Qin Kai is a half-witted man, he plagiarized and summarized a set of training camp training methods from the training tutorials of the Iron Army in his previous life, but the specific implementation was all implemented by Jiāo for Lu Han and Xu Shoushan, and Lu Han was also self-taught in Qin Kai's daily training, and now he has made this set of norms look good, and they are all natural officers.

The transformation of the warships of the Nanyang Naval Division began on the tenth day after Qin Kai entered the main army, and the latest launch of the "Chengqing" was dragged into the dock for the outfitting of the artillery, and the original 178mm Armstrong breech gun was replaced by a 120mm speed gun. It's not a turret type but a simple gun profile, but the front and rear decks are equipped with 3mén, which greatly increases the firepower! This is also the result of the discussion of the officers, this ship must not be able to install a turret gun of hundreds of tons at every turn, so the caliber was abandoned and the speed and quantity of the fire were chosen.

With the temporary change of the situation in the South China Sea, the fleet of Mawei Shipping Company has swelled significantly, and in just one month, several cargo ships have been purchased again, and they have begun to transport aircraft from Guangzhou and Fuzhou to Haiphong City and Ha Hui County.

These short-distance transportation tasks provided a good training opportunity for the newly reorganized Nanyang Naval Division, and the time soon came before the Mid-Autumn Festival in mid-August. ,

As a matter of practice, all the important officials, stewards and cadres in the army gathered in the Artillery Bureau to participate in the pre-holiday symposium held by the Qin Supervision Office.

Today, Huang Xing and Sun Xiang also came to join in the fun, and the two of them are not yet at the level of being able to participate in this meeting, but with the big hats of Qin Kai's disciples, He Xing, who is in charge of the cào office, will naturally not forget them.

Huang Xing is now participating in the latest artillery research and development plan, not a large-caliber, but a 47mm xiǎo caliber double-linked speed gun, at this time he is holding a few questions to ask Qin Kai to build a point, but for the details, Qin Kai doesn't have too much to build, so kick him to Wang Fei's side, the cannon and the steel are originally the same thing, let them play slowly.

Sun Xiang is now following Chen Tongpu, but he feels like a fish in water, he is deeply involved in this chemical experiment, and now he can independently undertake the research and development of some chemical projects, which makes Qin Kai quite satisfied. In this era, the main driving force for industrial progress lies in the development of the chemical industry. Chen Tongpu's chemical plant has poured too much into his expectations, but so far, the results have not been great.

And Zhou Ruidong, Zhang Kui, and Xue Chao, the three Qin Kai henchmen who had just taken charge of one side, also rushed back to participate in this gathering, everyone knows that the current Mawei Shipbuilding has reached a stage of rapid growth, but it is also facing many problems that were not expected at the beginning, and today is the time to make some decisions.

After the previous greetings, Qin Kai smiled and gave everyone the moon cakes he specially customized from Shanghai, the table was already full of all kinds of snacks and fruits, and there were all kinds of flavors of xiǎo dishes on the side, this is a standard Western-style dinner, so arranged, because the purpose of the party is to discuss things, not to feast.

Zhou Ruidong, Zhang Kui, and Xue Chao crowded around Qin Kai, reporting progress and problems in a low voice, and listening to Qin Kai's mentions, although they are all energetic young people and very talented, but now in a corner of Vietnam, they have to take charge of everything and take care of everything, which is obviously still a little difficult, which also exacerbates some problems in Qin Kai's system - Yan Zhan Ng lacks civilian personnel, and even Qin Kai has to ask Sun Fu for help.

The highlight of the first round is naturally the report of He Xing, the God of Wealth of Mawei Shipbuilding, but those who are qualified to listen to the report are limited to the core personnel of no more than 10 people.

After more than a year of development, the business of textile machinery has developed to a bottleneck, but the income of follow-up maintenance has increased significantly, and the monthly income can basically stabilize at 150,000 taels.

The income of another piece of printing and dyeing dyes in the textile industry has increased significantly, and now the dyes produced by chemical factories are basically similar to British cloth in terms of quality, and the price of cotton cloth is now very stable, and printing and dyeing huā cloth has always been in short supply due to the price of dyes, which makes the income of dyes continue to increase, and it has been close to 400,000 taels per month. So this piece of income will continue to increase.

The third piece is this year's cutting-edge profits, metal stamping products market, this piece of windfall profits make everyone jīng God uplifted, the current domestic sales output value profit alone is more than 500,000 taels per month, Xu Guofang's production team is 24 xiǎo when the full update of products, and the steelmaking plant Wang Fei is dedicated to the mold xiǎo group established by mén to provide molds for new products. He Xing estimates that the profits of this area will still increase significantly, after all, there is only one Mawei in China.

Since the advent of the "Zhonghua" brand cigarettes, it has immediately swept Guangzhou, and the cigarettes that were originally only exported to foreign merchants have been sold crazy in various ports, and now there have been a lot of imitation cigarettes, but because the supply of paper is only one horsetail, other paper mills can not produce paper at all, and Qin Kai's "Zhonghua" cigarette brand played early, with the emergence of imitations, the price has risen a lot. The cigarette factory built next to the Mawei Chemical Plant can generate more than 1 million taels of revenue per month.

The income of the fifth block comes from the chemical plant, the integrated production system of soda ash, in addition to a large number of by-products such as nitric acid, sulfuric acid, sulfur and so on, which can be used for the production of soda ash as a chemical raw material, and the output value of soda ash as a chemical raw material is also amazing, but Qin Kai does not plan to sell soda ash as a raw material. ,

This thing is a treasure, one of the pillars of the modern chemical industry, making glass, utensils, making féi soap, hard water softening, oil and oil jīng production, metallurgical industry sulfur and phosphorus removal, mineral processing, and copper, lead, nickel, tin, uranium, aluminum and other metals preparation, chemical industry to produce sodium salts, metal carbonates, bleach, fillers, detergents, catalysts and dyes, ceramic industry to produce refractories.

Thinking of these, Qin Kai couldn't help but sketch out countless industries, but unfortunately, in addition to a fat man Chen, a few children who studied in the United States, and Sun Xiang was also a character, he couldn't find any capable people, which made him really depressed for a while. Why are other traversing molecules able to build a chemical base casually, work hard by themselves, and have to go through German technicians to get such a chemical system, and other follow-up industries can't find manpower to do it...... It's so depressing.

Studying in the United States...... Qin Kai thought of Chen Fatzi, but he had a little more thought, there are not only these schoolchildren who stay in the United States and Europe, of course, there are not many government-run ones, but there are not a few Chinese who go to the United States and Europe to work, and the Yankees are not about to engage in Chinese exclusion! Many of the Chinese from all over the world work in local factories and enterprises, even if they are not capable people, at least they are good workers, and there are ...... There are a lot of chemical talents in Europe and the Americas, damn Schleier, there are not many chemical engineers among the German technicians recruited!

We should look a little further...... Qin Kaitian shamelessly began to admire his foresight!

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