Chapter 46 Before the Delegation to England

Queen Victoria summoned his Prime Minister, Foreign Secretary, Secretary of Navy, Secretary of War and other cabinet members, the Queen has not been summoned to the meeting for many years, which makes the Prime Minister unable to ask the Queen for instructions on everything, so it also indirectly promoted the development of the British constitutional system, this time the Queen summoned the Prime Minister was very surprised. Pen | fun | pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 ｉｎｆｏ

At the meeting, the queen first asked about the affairs of China and Britain in the South Asian subcontinent, and the admiral first challenged, saying: "The glory of the British Empire cannot be provoked, and we must fight back harshly against China's provocative behavior, and send our most powerful Atlantic fleet to defeat these Chinese, but they know who is the boss!" ”

Next came the Secretary of War to speak; "The navy is obviously no longer able to stop the Chinese, I ask for an increase in the budget, an increase in the army's military spending, and an update of the army's equipment, we can send troops to fight in the South Seas in India, I believe that soon the Chinese can be driven out, and the navy can help transport troops!"

Next up is the Chancellor of the Exchequer; At this time, it is impossible, our military spending this year has seriously exceeded the standard, and it is impossible to increase the budget for a while, without our military presence in the Balkans, there is no need, I think we can withdraw our troops, and the daily military expenditure is a big expense! If this continues, we will have to borrow money! I really don't want to see the faces of those bankers, greedy and inhumane!

How can we withdraw our troops, after the withdrawal of our troops, Russia will definitely fight back,

How can you do it without withdrawing troops, do you know how much military spending is now!

Would you like to see your soldiers hungry on the front lines?

I don't care how much the military spends, but my soldiers can't go hungry, and of course they can't withdraw their troops!

The queen was fired with a headache! Signal to stop!

All the ministers have done it!

Then the queen began to ask the prime minister's opinion!

This prime minister is the third prime minister of the Victorian era, Victoria's favorite prime minister is dead, in the era of Dieth is the era of rapid expansion of the British colony, it can be said that Diess and Victoria united to create the legendary "empire on which the sun never sets".

In the hands of the current Prime Minister Salisbury, the empire of the sun never sets has been formed, but he has another serious problem, military spending, the huge empire of the sun does bring a lot of benefits to the empire, Britain has the most powerful navy in the world, and the British navy now accounts for nearly half of the world's navies.

However, to rule the land, there must always be an army, and if there is an army, there must be a huge military expenditure, and Britain also has a very large army, but these armies are distributed in various colonies around the world, but they are relatively weak!

It is actually a very laborious thing to maintain the military balance on the European continent, so sometimes Salisbury really feels that Diess is not deliberate, and the territory will die when it is defeated, leaving such a mess for him to clean up.

Prime Minister Salisbury did not answer directly, he said, I would like to hear the advice of the foreign secretary first.

The Foreign Minister said that according to the information sent back from China, China hopes to be able to handle this matter peacefully and is willing to resolve this matter through diplomatic channels, which is in the interests of our two countries, so I am in favor of resolving this matter peacefully!

At this time, Prime Minister Salisbury said, "We are not here this time, and I would like to ask all the cabinet members for advice before making a full and detailed report to Her Majesty!"

At this time, Queen Victoria took out the letter of state handed over by Guo Songtao and handed it to the prime minister, and then said, I like this little emperor of China very much!

I think you should think about what he said, after all, it is not in the fundamental interests of the two countries to fight, and every soldier's mother hopes that their children can return home safely!

Submit this matter to the parliament for full discussion!

Then the queen left and ended the meeting!

Out of the palace, all the ministers began to move around, all looking for their own support, soldiers, of course, they want to fight, this is the moment to reflect the value of soldiers!

Therefore, the opinions of the navy and the army are unified and must be fought, not to mention that they have not taken China into account in the first place!

First of all, Britain began to escalate and expand the situation on the Sino-British border in India, so that China and Britain had to pay attention to the existence of this problem.

Just when the British cabinet members were preparing, the delegation also received news from Guangxu, and at the same time, European countries generally agreed with Guangxu's idea of unity and cooperation, equality and mutual benefit, benefit sharing, and unity to look forward (money)! They all hope that the Chinese delegation will visit their own country first.

In particular, German Prime Minister Bismarck and the President of France sent a letter directly to Guangxu, inviting the delegation to come to their country first, and promising to give the most reasonable negotiation conditions!

Guangxu is thinking about whether to separate the people! Guangxu knows that the current Atlantic Ocean is not very peaceful, and when the fleet reaches the Balkan Peninsula, that is, when it reaches the coast of Portugal, it will be separated!

This time on the way to the voyage encountered a large group of robbers, this gang of robbers in this sea area arrogant habits, saw the appearance of merchant ships on the beach, so they gathered dozens of pirate ships rushed over, they have been doing it for a long time, dozens of ships they will not pay attention to!

After the ship in front saw the pirate ship, it naturally changed direction, the pirate laughed and laughed, if you want to escape, it is impossible, our ship is very fast, and tracking prey is also an important subject for pirates!

But when they saw the ships that kept appearing behind them, they were dumbfounded, and they couldn't even fucking see the bounding fleet. Moreover, several ships did not change course at all, and soon broke away from the fleet, divided into two columns, and formed a battle formation, as if they were ready to defend these pirates.

As the two sides approached, the pirates finally saw clearly, it was a warship, but the flag of the warship at the beginning was so strange! Most of the warships are this kind of flag, I have never seen this kind of temperament in this sea area, which country's navy at this time! But this doesn't matter anymore, he has already given the order, turn to run quickly, this flagship is a battleship with a full 8,000 tons, and his ship is not enough for people to waste a single run!

But the ships ahead are going to be out of luck! The first unfortunate was the leader ship of this group of pirates, a double-powered three-masted galleon, the largest of all the ships, when it realized that something was wrong, it had already turned its bow, but it was too late, the main gun of the Dingyuan was a 205 mm smoothbore gun, and a single shell knocked the main ship crooked, and soon the cabin was flooded, and the sailors jumped into the sea one after another to flee.

The other ships of the fleet moved forward one after another, large and small artillery fire in unison, a cannon fire down, all the ships raised the white flag, after seeing that the pirates had already raised the white flag, the Chinese warships first stopped attacking, and then each warship sent people to board the ship, and took control of the ship, and soon the pirate was controlled.

However, at this time, the British warships still showed no sign of ceasefire, and continued to shoot the sailors who fell into the water, and at first other countries also hunted viciously, but France and Germany were the first to realize that this matter was not simple, and they also stopped shooting, and joined the rescue team!

In the end, the British found that only he was still firing, and knew that the whole incident could not be hidden, so they gave up, so there was a ceasefire! Also joined in the rescue of these crew members who fell overboard.

At this time, all the merchant ships are slowly moving closer to the warships again, forming a new fleet to sail, the Chinese Navy is the first to go to sea to fight at this time, and it is far from the mainland, but also in front of the navies of many European countries, this time the Chinese fleet is the main combat warship, so it has played a great role in encouraging the Chinese, just when everyone is celebrating, happy for the victory.

Britain made a statement;

The British of these pirates broke British law and escaped as pirates here, so these people should be brought back to England to be tried, convicted, and punished!

However, Germany and France believe that this group of pirates has been committing crimes in this sea area for many years, and has repeatedly robbed the ships of France, Germany and other countries, so these people should go to France and Germany to be tried and punished.

Now it's clear that the British are behind these pirates, because most of these people speak English. The Saxons are still very easy to identify, and to hand them over to the British is to let the pirates go, and the merchant ships of Germany, France and other European countries are often plundered by these guys, and handing them over to any other country is equivalent to sentencing these pirates not only to death!

And Britain will also be disgraced by such a big scandal, so they are all fighting for the right to detain and judge these pirates!

At this time, the problem was again placed in front of the most powerful Chinese at this time, and when they did not give in, Tang Shaoyi proposed that the Chinese could be temporarily detained but had to be charged, and it was the people of that country, and the daily charge for each pirate was one hundred taels! Know that the cost of living at sea is high!

The British minister immediately objected, and Tang Shaoyi said, then leave it to Germany and France! Britain also disagreed, there was no way for the causal minister to send a message to China immediately, and the British government said that these people must not be allowed to fall into the hands of other European countries, and as for the cost of detention, it can be negotiated with China.

Now the bowels of the British minister are repentant, he has long been informed that there will be a huge caravan passing by, don't beat his idea, but these guys still hit the muzzle of the gun, they deserve it!

But the charges in China are too high, so I'll talk to Tang Shaoyi about whether it can be cheaper!

And how do you explain this to the queen!

Damn the Navy, damn the Cabinet!

You're annoyed this time!

Originally, after fighting Britain and becoming the hegemon of the sea, it was good enough to become the history of Britain, but the tradition is so easy to lose, the British tradition is that during the sea war, the British pirate ships turned into the Royal Navy, and in normal times, they became pirates, you must know that the British Parliament does not want so many navies, so many navies have to be pirates.

This is what the British government knows, but there are things that cannot be put in the open, as long as these guys don't rob the British ships, but the rest of Europe is not clear about the scourge of these guys, which is why the rest of Europe is so pirated, but the cause and effect have to save these pirates.

On the battleship Dingyuan, the representatives of various countries have arrived, discussing how to deal with these pirates, now there is no way, China, as the only neutral country, must come to uphold justice, at this time China did this for the first time, in the past, China invited others to administer justice, this time it is a little unaccustomed!

Prince Gong and Li Hongzhang think that this is, and it is not appropriate for the two old guys to come forward and hand it over to a few Taibao now! Anyway, behind them is the emperor to support them!

In this way, Tang Shaoyi, Liang Dunyan and Wu Zhongxian sat in the middle, and on the moving warship Dingyuan, the coordination activities of European countries hosted by the Chinese began!

This time the coordination is the trial of pirates, and now there are international tribunals in the world, but it is impossible for us to go back to Hong Kong, and it is a colony of Hong Kong, and European countries are not at ease.

Nations are quarrelling!

Finally, China proposed the establishment of a Second International Tribunal in Europe, in which China would rent a place in a European country for a period of 99 years, and establish a Second International Tribunal in this rented place, in which China would enjoy judicial privileges, and China would not have an army here, and follow the procedures of the First International Tribunal in Hong Kong, but only send a civilian official to deal with the disputes over the interests of the countries concerned.

This was agreed to by all the parties at the meeting, and then there was a rush of hope that China would establish a lease in their country, that Britain would offer a piece of land in Liverpool, that Germany and France would also agree to set aside a piece of land at their own ports for China to establish its own lease, and that China's privileges in other areas would be negotiable!

China did not agree, Tang Shaoyi after exchanges with the Guangxu Emperor finally chose to establish the Second International Tribunal in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, because it is the land for international affairs, everyone is to settle international disputes, and make a peace decision, with obligatory implications, so it is impossible for China to spend too much money, and finally the Netherlands is also very generous, as long as China agrees to set up the international tribunal in the Netherlands, everything is easy to discuss, and finally the Chinese government pays the Dutch government a silver dollar per year. Acquired a plot of land in the port of Amsterdam. The lease term is 99 years!

At this time, Huaxia's first lease in Europe, although nominally used to deal with international affairs! But his significance goes far beyond this territory!

When the results of this negotiation were brought to Prince Gong and Li Hongzhang, they couldn't believe their eyes and ears!