The weather in the north began to slowly become much colder in October, and on October 21, the first snow of the year fell in Beijing, and the whole north was covered with snow everywhere, but fortunately, the snow clearing work of the Republic was done well, and it did not affect the traffic in the city.

On the morning of that day, a black car drove into Zhongnanhai......

Beijing Zhongnanhai, Haitian Pavilion.

After three weeks of growth, Chen Zeyu's eldest son, who is almost full moon, has become more and more fleshy and cute, and while accompanying his wife, the young head of state is changing tricks and teasing the newborn child almost all day long, which makes him feel a little happy.

Chen Zeyu hasn't been anywhere these days, and after throwing all the state affairs to the cabinet, he "nests" in Haitian Pavilion all day long to accompany his wife and children, which can be regarded as a happy life.

Pity...... After all, Chen Zeyu is not the former Shu lord Liu Chan, and the easy time is short after all.

On this day, when Chen Zeyu was still sitting on the edge of the shaking bed scratching his son's small palms and making him happy, his wife walked in from outside.

"Hanyin, Minister Li Enfu has come to ask for a meeting, you can go quickly."

"Hey, whatever." Chen Zeyu hugged his wife beside him and said with a smile.

"Stop making trouble, let's go......"

As if coaxing a child, Wu Xiatong kissed her husband on the cheek, which made Chen Zeyu cry and laugh.

Shaking his head and sighing bitterly, Chen Zeyu, the national leader, could not really throw the dignified foreign minister aside.

……

"Führer, two weeks ago, the British Indian fleet suddenly blockaded the port of Siam, and the British garrison in Southeast Asia began to be stationed in the border area of the two countries in the Malay Peninsula."

After congratulating the head of state on his happy son, Li Enfu said with a straight face.

"By the way, the Siamese envoy just arrived in Beijing yesterday to ask our country for military assistance."

Listening to Li Enfu's words, Chen Zeyu's heart moved slightly, he already knew the reason for the British Chen Bing Siam at this moment, it was nothing more than that his own party's previous blame for the Siamese drug trade had worked, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs naturally did not know about this aspect.

Chen Zeyu thought of Siam, and couldn't help but think nervously in his heart, and his tone turned to a cold voice, "It's not time to clash head-on with the British, you go and show their envoy that our country will strictly maintain neutrality in the 'conflict' between the two sides!" ”

Siam, a country that struggled to maintain its independence between the British and French colonies in Southeast Asia, has now become a pawn abandoned by Chen Zeyu.

"Okay, I'll reply to them......" Li Enfu nodded.

Watching his foreign minister walk out of Haitian Pavilion, Chen Zeyu narrowed his narrow eyes......

……

On October 7, 1898, the British government suddenly conveyed an ultimatum to the Siamese royal family about the drug trade, and on the same day, the British detachment in India suddenly appeared off the coast of Siam's air port and blocked the entire sea lane of Siam for the next few days.

On October 24, just as the Siamese envoy in Beijing was disappointed to return home, the negotiations between Britain and Siam officially broke down, and on the same day, the first British colonial army stationed in the Malay Peninsula "marched" into Siam.

On October 26, British and Burmese forces captured the southern Siamese city of Songkhla and burned down the world-famous statue of the reclining Buddha.

On November 4, just as the Siamese government was moving south to defend against the British army, another British colonial army suddenly attacked the Siamese capital Bangkok under the cover of the fleet.

On the second day, seeing that Siam was about to be destroyed, the French, fearing that they would not be able to get a piece of the pie, drew troops from the Indochinese colonies to invade the eastern territory of Siam on the same day, but in a week, they invaded Luang Prabang and Ubon Ratchathani in Siam, and the whole Siam was in chaos in an instant.

On 9 November, after sending troops to completely wipe out the local resistance, the British and the French held bilateral talks in Bangkok, and on 10 November, an agreement was reached that the French would agree to withdraw from Ubon Ratchathani and other places in southeastern Siam, provided that they would secure Luang Prabang.

On 13 November, Siam Rama V abdicated the throne under duress from the British. After his abdication, the British made his younger brother Zheng Tuo the ruler of the country, and on the same day, the former Rama V family was escorted to the British warship, and the former king's family was extradited back to India for trial for the crime of "drug trafficking".

On November 22, after a brief interrogation, all the Siamese royal criminals, including King Rama V, were convicted by the British Grand Court of Calcutta, in which the former Siamese King Rama V was beheaded along with all his 32 captured sons, and the rest of the royal family were sentenced to hard labor.

At the same time that the blood stained the water of the Ganges River, Chen Zeyu in Beijing also received the news, and the "culprit" who directly led to the Anglo-Siamese dispute could not help but sigh at this time.

Born in 1853 at Bangkok's Amalim Palace, King Rama V, the fifth king of the Chakri dynasty of Siam, ascended to the throne in 1868, almost at the same time as the Meiji Restoration began in Japan, the dark-skinned, sturdy King of Siam who had received a Westernized education and spoke fluent English.

By the time he succeeded to the throne, all of Siam's neighbors, as well as most of Asia, had become colonies of European powers (Burma, India, and Malaya were British colonies; Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos were French colonies), and even Rama V had to surrender some of the non-core lands in exchange for the country's sovereign independence, mainly by ceding part of Laos to France and returning the four predominantly Malay provinces in the south to Malaya (then under British control).

It was in this harsh international environment that Chulalongkorn quickly developed Siam into a modern country through his 30 years in power, and managed to maintain the country's independence in the face of strong pressure from Britain and France.

In the original history, Chulalongkorn would skillfully take advantage of the contradictions between Britain and France, hiring British advisers and granting British merchants some mineral mining rights in exchange for the protection of British sovereignty over Siam, and then in the sporadic conflict with France, Rama V made Britain and France reach an agreement to maintain the status quo of Siamese territory at a relatively small cost, so that Siam could finally become a buffer state between British and French power in Southeast Asia.

Unfortunately, at the instigation of the butterfly wings of Chen Zeyu, Chulalongkorn, the most respected king of Siam, died in humiliation.

When the news reached Siam, the local people were immediately plunged into grief, and popular riots broke out in many parts of the country, but they were brutally suppressed by the British colonial army.

On November 24, under the guns of the British colonial army, the new lord of Siam, Zheng Tuo, tearfully announced his abdication, and accepted the canonization of the Viscount of Chiang Mai of the British King Victoria with immediate effect. Almost at the same time, Zheng Bao, the eldest son of the former Rama V, who had been hiding from the British for many days, suddenly appeared in the northern Thai city of Phayao and waved the banner of the rebel army. Unfortunately, it did not take long for the British colonial army to flee rampantly, much to the disappointment of the local patriotic people.

By December 19, the few remaining rebel troops were forced to withdraw from the border and hide in the Mekong River valley on the border of Burma, Siam and Laos to continue guerrilla warfare and resist the colonial tyranny of the British.

It was in this context that one of Seris's river gunboats sailed from the upper Lancang River in Kunming on December 26 into the jungle-shrouded Mekong River basin......