The Parliament of the British Empire began to be formed in the 13th century by the county lords, elite knights, and high-ranking citizens, and by the 19th century there were three reforms, in 1832, 1867 and 1884.

In 1832, the reform of the conference was mainly aimed at the redistribution of the rights of the industrial bourgeoisie and the division of power with the imperial aristocracy, and some achievements were made, but the main power was still in the hands of the aristocracy, among which the royal family headed by the empress accounted for the largest component, and the main resolutions of the so-called parliament were passed by the empress.

At the behest of Queen Victoria, the British Parliament negotiated for several days the issue of reparations for the Sino-British War, and both the aristocracy and the merchants representing the bourgeoisie believed that the dignity of the empire had been challenged, that it was necessary to punish the Qing state, and that a reparations treaty was necessary to protect the interests of the empire.

And this treaty cannot be included in the provisions of the "Tongzhou Treaty", but must appear as a completely new treaty, you must know that in this war, their entire detachment was destroyed by the surname, more than 20,000 officers and men of the army and navy were killed, and thousands were missing, even in a large battle in the Crimean War.

In their "proud and noble" heads, they obviously do not think that even if the empire suffers a defeat, they must pay even a penny to the other party in humiliation, on the contrary, the Qing state must first obediently return the prisoners, and then compensate the empire for the attrition of the war.

Driven by this domestic mentality, the telegram in Dalhousie's hand is particularly vividly expressed, although to a certain extent the former governor of India also takes it for granted, and similar wordplay he himself has planned many times in India.

Dalhousie carefully read these terms, first of all, to clear the country to compensate 40 million taels of silver; Second, the Qing State exempted all goods exported by the British Empire from duty, and at the same time, the Empire sent an official to serve as the governor of the Canton Customs to pay compensation with customs duties. Finally, the British Empire was allowed to establish a naval base in Taiwan.

On the French side, apart from the first two almost identical, the last one allowed France to station troops in a place on the border between Vietnam and China, that is, in Yunnan.

In addition, dozens of small clauses were listed, which were enough for the incognito forces of Britain and France to take root in the Qing Kingdom, but in the end, both Britain and France solemnly promised to provide weapons and even directly send troops to help the Qing government axe to quell the civil strife of the pagan cults in the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom.

At this time, both Dumont. Rosseff or Dalhousie received this telegram with the same question in mind, that is, was it possible for Lin Haijiang to agree to such a clause? The country did not understand the changes in the Far East, and now the negotiations with the Qing were divided into two parts, and the question of prisoners had to be negotiated with the commanders of the Nanyang naval divisions who were at war with them, and they had clearly felt that the Qing had begun to lose control over the local governors and soldiers due to the rebellion.

The official position of the Admiral of the Nanyang Navy Division could not represent the political axe in the Qing Dynasty to negotiate between countries, and the diplomatic importance of negotiations between the two countries was usually not handed over to a soldier like the Admiral of the Navy according to international practice.

In the Qing Kingdom, it was likely that the Minister of War or the prince or something like that, and both of them were confident that they would achieve most of the terms of the resolution.

If they live here for a year, I am afraid that even if the Qing Empire agrees to pay compensation, there is probably not much money left for the indemnity, and their trip is simply a sheep's mouth, because before the empire is completely determined to carry out a war of alluring the country, the British and French forces in the Far East are far less sharp than the ironclad fleet mastered by Lin Haijiang.

Dalhousie and Dumont, who had always been accustomed to speaking by force. Rousseff met Lin Haijiang, a bastard who always liked to speak with cannons, and he was helpless for a while, so the two discussed all night, they knew that only by combining the issue of prisoners with the treaty negotiations could this negotiation be successful, and the object of the negotiation must be the political axe of the Qing State, not a local force like Lin Haijiang.

The telegram of the resolution of the British and French on the compensation treaty has also been sent to Yanjing, and it is believed that in a very short period of time there will be new representatives to negotiate, and more importantly, within three days, a combined British and French fleet will appear in the waters of the South China Sea of the Qing State. The answer is clearly no.

"Drag!" Dalhousie opened his small eyes and said with a slight gloom: "Survive these three days, and as soon as the fleet appears, we will be victorious, and then Lin Haijiang will be arrogant and domineering, he is also an official of the Qing State, and he still has to listen to the orders of the Qing court." ”

Dumont. Ruseff was still just a businessman in his bones, and his greed for life and fear of death was his real surname, obviously he was frightened by Lin Haijiang's actions in the past few days, and then saw the tragic situation of those French prisoners, he was afraid that if he accidentally angered the admiral of the sailor, he would also become a member of the captives.

"There's no time, you've seen Lin Haijiang's methods, when the time comes, the warship will be cut off from water and food, and the soldiers can bear it, but Your Excellency and I are both weak and sickly, and we will reach the limit in two or three days."

"And what is His Excellency Rousseff's suggestion?"

"My suggestion is to negotiate according to the original plan, anyway, it is a negotiation, we can talk about it, as long as we don't let go, it can drag on for time. Moreover, the emperor of the Qing State is estimated to have received the telegram a long time ago, and I am afraid that a new negotiator has been sent now, and perhaps we will win this negotiation in a day or two. ”

Dalhousie thought about it and felt that it made sense, in the face of such international disputes, the Qing rulers often did not delay for too long, and the fear of a strong fleet would make the emperor react the fastest, so he agreed.

It's just that Dalhousie and Dumont. What Rosseph didn't expect was that reality didn't turn out the way they thought it would.

Although the telegraph was invented and applied as early as the thirties of the 19th century, China's telegraph was calculated to be about 1871, when the Danish Great Northern Telegraph Company secretly led the submarine cable from the sea, laid it along the Yangtze River and the Huangpu River to land in Shanghai, and set up a newspaper room at No. 12 Nanjing Road, which was the first telegraph waterline established by imperialism in China and a telegraph office set up in the Shanghai concession.

As for the private telegraph office, there are also small telegraph offices, usually run by the wealthy and foreign businessmen, and the distance is also very short, as long as you pay a few taels of silver to the local government.

Due to the continuation of the butterfly effect, even Lin Haijiang did not realize what kind of unpredictable impact his arrival had on this time and space, and the strong ships and cannons of the foreigners gave the Qing Dynasty rulers quite a shock, and some princes and nobles were curious after seeing the so-called strange silver skills of Western countries.

And the telegraph, which can send information to hundreds or even thousands of miles away in a very short time, shocked them even more, if it were on the battlefield, a war report from Guangzhou to Yanjing by a fast horse, how could it take a month, and the telegram may be delivered to the destination in a few hours, or even a few quarters of an hour, and the efficiency will be higher or lower immediately.

In the war of the bandits, there were several extremely critical battles, and if the battle report could have been transmitted to Yanjing half a day earlier, the bandits would definitely not have developed and grown to the point where they are now.

Under Lin Haijiang's several suggestions, Su Shun and several princes and nobles built a telegraph office in Yanjing, but at present it is still limited to short-distance transmission of telegrams, if the British send a telegram to Yanjing, they will also have to go through several telegraph offices in the middle, and some places will also have war horses to transmit reports, and it will be a miracle to be able to deliver to Yanjing in three days, as for Guangzhou to transmit a message to Yanjing, it must first be sent by a war horse to a private telegraph office opened by foreigners in Shanghai, and then a telegram can be transmitted to Yanjing.

The telegraph offices in Guangdong and Fujian were all single-line contacts in the hands of the Nanyang Naval Division, and they were basically isolated from the outside world.

At this moment, the agreement between Britain and France and the telegram of the application are still slowly spreading on the road, which is the excerpt sent out by Ye Mingchen more than 20 days ago, and he has just entered Yanjing City at this moment.

In the imperial study of the Forbidden City, there is a row of neatly stacked folds in front of the dragon case, and there are hundreds of them stacked on top of each other, of which half of them are about banditry and rebellion, and Xianfeng and several elderly military ministers are discussing and approving them.

Not long after, Zhan Shi from the Military Aircraft Department came in from outside with a bunch of new folds and presented them to the dragon case.

Turning back to the Forbidden City from Chengde, Xianfeng's leisurely days did not come to an end after a few days, the British and French allied forces in Dagukou were frightened by a gun that scared him to Chengde, and there was almost no one to deal with the government affairs in the court. As a result, the government affairs of the local governors were accumulated, and it became the scene of today.

After the recital, Xianfeng squeezed out his head and frowned at the newly released recital.

"Ladies and gentlemen, how long will it take for these notes to be approved?"

"Back to Your Majesty, it will take at least three days, but the premise is that there are no new folds to be presented." A minister replied.

"Then spread my will, in addition to the twists and turns related to the bandits, the rest of the irrelevant ones will be temporarily detained, and now the long-haired demons are rampant, and the bandits will not be eliminated, and I will not be able to sleep and eat." Xianfeng hurriedly made a will, and now he was upset when he saw these twists and turns, and his heart flew to his Lan'er early in the morning.

"But Your Majesty, the war with Britain and France ......" An old minister was about to start playing, but Xianfeng waved his hand impatiently to interrupt him.

"Don't worry, Yang Maozitu is nothing more than gold and silver, it can't damage the foundation of my Qing Dynasty, not to mention that they have been repulsed, and the bandits and demons are really going to take away my country, I heard that the foreigners have suffered huge casualties, even if they want to fight, they are afraid that they are powerless, and the negotiators of the foreigners did not enter Beijing to see me first after they arrived? Negotiate with Lin Haijiang in Guangzhou and Nanyang? What is the reasoning behind this? Is there still me in Lin Haijiang's eyes? Let the people sent by Yang Maozi make trouble in Guangdong for a few days, and if the foreigners want to continue fighting, the Nanyang Navy Division can accompany them. ”

Several ministers said yes one after another, but they all looked at each other a few times, and their eyes were full of helplessness.

Su Shun also tightened his face on the side, he originally supported Lin Haijiang, but this time Lin Haijiang actually let the marines enter the capital and enter the capital, committing today's suspicions, and Jing Shou and others fell into the ground, so it is better to say little in this matter.

After all, the Nanyang Naval Division has become a big thing, and it will cost Nanyang and foreigners to fight to the death? Su Shun looked at Xianfeng, who had a tangled expression on his face, rubbed his hands, and finally swallowed back the words that came to his mouth.

Now the officials in this capital, as long as they are old, who does not remember the military disaster when Emperor Daoguang was in power more than ten years ago [***], thousands of British troops fell to Guangzhou within a day, and then invaded Fujian and Zhejiang in the north, 20,000 people beat the corpses of the eight banners of the imperial court green camp all over the field, and even the forts were demolished cleanly, the dignity of the dignified and clean was swept away, and the national body almost did not exist.

After the signing of the "Treaty of Nanjing", the Qing Dynasty lost more than 21 million silver dollars in compensation, Hong Kong Island was ceded, and it is not known where it will be ceded in the future? Maybe one day will come when the land of the Qing Dynasty is really gone.

A few years ago, the British and French armies almost entered the Forbidden City, and if it weren't for Lin Haijiang, the admiral of the naval division, to send people into Beijing, I am afraid that this palace would have been destroyed at this moment. According to the news obtained by the spies outside, a fleet of foreigners was wiped out by the enemy at sea, and this fleet is said to be under the command of Lin Haijiang, the commander of the Nanyang Naval Division?

This news is okay, but the captives of the foreigners have been delivered to Guangzhou, which is equivalent to handing over the hot potato to the hands of the imperial court. Compared with the "Tongzhou Treaty", it seems that the Qing Dynasty will accompany him this time, and even his pants will be gone.

It's just that these words, Su Shun and others are also rotten in their hearts, not to mention speaking in front of the emperor, even with the officials of the same dynasty, they dare not say a word.

Since the emperor opened his mouth and temporarily stopped all matters except for the bandits and demons, then they as courtiers naturally had to do the same, and this dragon seat was not at ease.

The bandits' power is now getting bigger and bigger, especially after sinking the two warships Longwei and Longsheng, they even wantonly bought guns and artillery from foreign merchants, and even said that they would also buy foreigners' warships, so as to defeat the camps in Jiangnan and Jiangbei in one fell swoop and attack along the river.

In Anhui, Jiangsu and other places, the Taiping army has already occupied the main roads leading to these two provinces, some small towns and small towns have been reduced to Taiping territory, and the Hunan army led by Zeng Guofan has been defeated before, and it is by no means easy to reorganize the army overnight. Now the Qing army is drawn from the provinces, and it is a temporary army, and its coordination and combat ability are far inferior to those of the Hunan army, and it is extremely difficult to resist the Taiping army.

In 1856 in history, the Qing army had surrounded Nanjing for three years, and the winged king Shi Dakai broke the Hunan army in Zhangshu, Jiangxi, which could have annihilated the Hunan army of Zeng Guofan in one fell swoop, but temporarily turned back to Nanjing to participate in the siege battle, and relieved the siege of Nanjing, but let the Hunan army escape the catastrophe and breathe.

After the "Tianjing Incident", Yang Xiuqing, the king of the East, and his subordinates were all killed, and Shi Dakai escaped from Nanjing to stand up for himself.

But all of this has never happened in the time and space of this world, Lin Haijiang's assistance to the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom to a certain extent avoided the killing of Yang Xiuqing, the king of the East, and indirectly led to the decline of the Hunan army, and the most direct effect was the sudden emergence of Lin Haijiang's Nanyang Naval Division.

To a certain extent, in addition to the jurisdiction, population, and army, the old port is higher than the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom in terms of real combat strength, especially at sea, Lin Haijiang's imaginary enemies have always been only Western countries, and the Qing Dynasty, which is currently dragged into the quagmire of war by the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, is simply unable to develop a navy.

One word, money!

Whether it is the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom or the Qing Dynasty, the most lacking is money, the current competition between the two sides is financial resources, excellent generals are not lacking, the Qing Dynasty has Zeng Guofan, Seng Greenqin generals, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom has winged king Shi Dakai, rising star Chen Yucheng, etc., and even some historians commented in later generations, if Shi Dakai did not leave because of the suspicion and persecution of the Heavenly King Hong Xiuquan, not to mention that the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom can replace the ruling position of the Qing Dynasty, at least it can make the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom exist for ten more years.

In the period from 1840 to the end of the 19th century, the Qing Dynasty was able to build a Beiyang fleet without these plunders and Cixi's extravagant spending, I am afraid that ten Beiyang fleets could have been built.

Lin Haijiang will not let so much gold and silver flow to the West in vain, in the same way, he values the current system more, no matter how rich the rotten feudal dynasty is, its roots have begun to rot, and no matter how advanced the naval guns are, they will become a pile of rusty iron in its hands.

At this moment, whether it is between the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom and the Qing Dynasty, Lin Haijiang only needs to bury his head in developing his own power at this stage, and the old port has become self-contained, so the exchange of interests has almost nothing to do with the Chinese mainland.

Lin Haijiang's shipyard is a base point that he painstakingly established in the interior, and now he is still the commander of the Nanyang Naval Division, and the naval divisions of Fujian and Guangdong are all under his control.

The current Nanyang Naval Division has become his Lin family army, and the fleet of the old port cannot be too involved with the imperial court for the time being, and like the Beiyang Fleet in later generations, he wants to establish a national fleet in the name of the Qing Dynasty for the time being.

If you want a fleet, you have to have warships, whether the warships are purchased from foreign countries or built by the Mawei shipyard itself, the problem of money must be solved by Lin Haijiang himself, and Lin Haijiang, who is now ready to set off cannons and pull flags to visit, never expected Xianfeng to allocate money to himself.

There is no shortage of people in Mawei Shipyard, the only thing that is lacking is money, the old port is developing vigorously, and there is no extra money for the shipyard to use.

The way to get money, Lin Haijiang is not worried, there are many wronged people in this world, he wants to be a smart and strong person, and he has entered the acre of three points of land in Guangzhou, it is the dragon that dives for me, and the tiger gives me to lie on his stomach, leaving the dragon tendon and tiger bones and then letting Lao Tzu get out.

Early in the morning, the officers and men of the three warships anchored on the dock were all awakened by the noise of firecrackers outside, and they all walked to the deck in the coats they had bought at a high price from the city.

"Go and call Your Excellency, something is wrong." It took a long time for an officer to react, and he hurriedly ran back, knocking Dumont respectively. Doors of Rotherff and Dalhousie.

It's still early six, Dumont. Rosseff and both of them had the urge to curse, but the officer who came to knock on the door had a very unusual expression, so he held back his anger, and when he heard what the officer said, the two seemed to have a kind of telepathy, and said the same thing on different warships.

"O my God! The dignity of the empire has been trampled on again! ”

From the deck of the warship and looking into the port, there are densely packed with Qing people with braids and half of their bare heads, and the port that can accommodate 30,000 or 40,000 people is all crowded, leaving two large wooden platforms in these crowds, which can accommodate about six or seven hundred people, and on this large platform, which is obviously about three meters high, there is a group of people wearing white prison uniforms and tying their hands and feet with iron chains, and their faces are clearly white.

There were two large platforms in the open air, one side was occupied by British prisoners, and the other side was occupied by French prisoners, and only some of them could stand on the platform.

"Hell, what's going on? Are they going to hang our soldiers? Dalhousie's eyes were red, as if they were about to burst into flames.

In Western countries, a similar platform was used to hang a condemned prisoner, although there was no gallows, but at this moment, Dalhousie couldn't help but think of the scene when he negotiated with Lin Haijiang and other Qing officials yesterday.

Because the strategy of delaying time was developed in advance, during the formal negotiations, Dumont. Rousseff and Dalhousie talked incessantly about the terms of the indemnity and the cession of the land, and they had to talk for an hour or two for the sake of a few taels of silver, and so they ended the day's negotiations until dark.

Before leaving, Lin Haijiang said in front of everyone: "Westerners love money, we Qing people also love money, everyone still has something in common, I hope that tomorrow, you can also perform as hard as today, but tomorrow, I will definitely give you a good show!" ”

Could it be that the hateful Lin Haijiang wants to threaten us with the death of these soldiers?

Dalhousie couldn't help but slam the guardrail in anger, but he bared his teeth in pain and quickly pulled Dumont. Rousseff went down to find someone.

(To be continued)