In November 1889, Hu Chuyuan secretly arrived in London under the guise of a circumnavigation visit by the East China Sea Division, and began to meet with some old friends, including John Abbasnot-Fischer, who had been promoted to rear admiral in the British Royal Navy.

After the Battle of Mawei in the Sino-French War, John Fischer's abilities and talents were recognized throughout Britain and were truly valued at home, and today he is the Third Admiralty of the British Admiralty and the Director of the Royal Naval Dockyards in Portsmouth, overseeing the construction of the Sovereign-class battleships.

Under the recommendation of John Fischer and Sir John Brooke, Hu Chuyuan successively met with the British Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary, Marquess Salisbury III, and the British Admiralty, Sir Richard Hymanton, in an unofficial capacity, and revealed to them the information that Russia and France were about to conclude the Triple Entente.

In fact, the British also had a certain prejudgment on this, but there has been no official intelligence to confirm this.

After having conclusive information, the British political axe should be said to be very angry, and the support they gave to the book itself has multiple meanings, one is to support the book against China, the second is to fight against Russia, and the third is to maintain the reading power of the book, so as not to let the book and France get too close.

Out of consideration of its own interests, the British Foreign Office quickly issued warnings to France, Russia, and China, demanding that the three sides stop concluding an agreement, and if the agreement is passed, Britain will be completely biased towards China and provide large-scale assistance to China.

On the other hand, British Prime Minister Marquess III of Salisbury privately told Hu Chuyuan that Britain would support China's naval expansion against Russia if the Qing Empire agreed not to protest against Britain's privileged status in China.

As long as Hu Chuyuan agrees to this condition, Britain will sell two to four Sovereign-class battleships to Fuzhou Shipmaster, and provide new technology transfer to support Fuzhou Shipmaster to produce new battleships with a displacement of more than 8,000 tonnage.

Both sides have cards, China's strength is indeed growing rapidly, Britain is grasping the Far East issue, and Hu Chuyuan also believes that Britain will not tolerate the birth of the Russian-French Three-Power Entente.

In just one week, Hu Chuyuan and the Marquess of Salisbury III held six talks, and in the end, each side made some concessions, and when China abolished the existing centigold system and achieved a new internationally reciprocal tax policy, Britain would gradually relinquish tariff control over China within ten years.

Prior to this, when Hu Chuyuan signed a tariff and trade agreement with any country, he had to report to the British minister in China for approval, although he did not encounter too many obstacles, but after all, it was a very annoying thing.

Second, Britain must impose an agricultural tax on Indian tea equivalent to its domestic value, and maintain most-favored-nation status for raw silk, tea, and hemp textiles to China.

Third, Britain no longer enjoys the right of inland navigation and has given up a number of small concessions on the Yangtze River waterway, and the Chinese side will compensate the Tianjin International Public Concession according to the same area of the concession.

On these three basis, Hu Chuyuan agreed that for a period of 20 years, there would be no further protests over other British privileges in China.

After reaching this consensus, Hu Chuyuan, in the name of the Prime Minister's Senior Minister and the Minister of Privilege of the Guangxu Emperor, signed a new "Sino-British Naval Cooperation and Arms Sales Agreement" with the British Admiralty, which was basically a copy of the original "Anglo-Fortune Agreement" but added a number of new provisions.

According to this agreement, the British side would sell two Ningyuan-class battleships and three new troop carriers to the Fuzhou Shipping Administration, and the five ships would be transferred by September 1892.

The Ningyuan-class battleship is a new type of battleship with a slight modification on the basis of the Sovereign-class design plan, two of which are built at a time, and two more will be purchased in the future, as the flagship and main warship of the East China Sea Division in the next ten years.

The biggest change was to change the best British four 343mm guns to eight 305mm guns, the British did not want to sell 343mm guns at all, and Hu Chuyuan actually did not want either.

According to Hu Chuyuan's requirements, all ships must use the best cold-pressed nickel-chromium steel that the UK can currently provide, and the complete set of technology and supporting 12,000-ton dock facilities will be sold to Fuzhou Shipyard, and during the entire construction process, Fuzhou Shipyard will send a technical team of no more than 60 people for internship and observation.

The British have always been experts in starting prices, and the entire cost of the Fuzhou shipyard is naturally very amazing, but at this time, the problem that can be solved with money is not a problem.

This agreement was signed publicly on December 3, 1889, and made public to the outside world, and had a tremendous impact on the whole of Europe and the Far East.

Subsequently, Hu Chuyuan quickly visited Germany to talk about the possible names and implications of the signing of the Entente alliance between France and Russia, and that Germany's interests in China were not great, but it was not yet possible to allow France and Russia to expand in the Far East.

Under the pressure of France and Russia, Germany also reached a new round of cooperation agreement with Hu Chuyuan to speed up the technical training of the army in aid to China.

After completing his visit to Britain and Germany, Hu Chuyuan arrived in France, Russia, and the United States one after another to persuade France and Russia to abandon their decision to conclude a treaty with Benedict.

With regard to Russia in particular, Hu Chuyuan believes that there is no problem between China and Russia that cannot be resolved through consultations, and if Russia supports the invasion and occupation of Korea, in the end, the only country that will really go to war with Russia will be Russia.

On his last stop, he chose to go to North Korea.

Hu Chuyuan's itinerary was very tightly arranged, and before the ports in the northern sea were frozen, his fleet arrived in Seoul for the last diplomatic PR.

He said that he did not dare to make a complete break with Britain, that Russia did not want to have a conflict with Britain, that France was even more reluctant to expand the contradiction with Britain, and that in addition to the special opposition of Germany and the United States, it was basically impossible for the Triple Entente to be signed at this stage.

However, this does not mean that the ambitions of Russia, Ben, and France to seek the Northeast, the Liaodong Peninsula, and the Korean Peninsula will disappear.

Even if Russia intends to occupy the entire northeast on its own, with the recovery of China's economic and military strength, the two sides will maintain a certain degree of cooperation and understanding in the series of French cooperation for a long time to avoid unnecessary contradictions and conflicts between the two and maintain a united front against China.

In this context, the small country of North Korea is extremely important.

On January 6, 1890, Hu Chuyuan arrived in Seoul before the closure of the Korean coast.

In Korea, the highest permanent official of the Great Qing State was the "Governor General of Korea and Minister of International Commerce", that is, the former Minister Plenipotentiary in Korea, and Hu Chuyuan was the Prime Minister's Senior Minister and Minister of Privileges, a rank several times higher.

As soon as his ship arrived at the port of the Han River, the Korean lord Yi Xi and Concubine Min were already waiting outside the city with civil and military officials, and Yuan Shikai, the governor of Korea and minister of trade and commerce, led troops to greet him.

There are many people who are active in North Korea, and Hu Chuyuan's whereabouts have long been exposed, and out of the etiquette of the clan, the itinerary to come to North Korea has been decided a long time ago, and he did not get off the ship immediately just in case.

The troops of about 600 troops of the Fuwei battalion disembarked first, and the higher positions on both sides were checked, and the onlookers were dispersed, and Hu Chuyuancai walked slowly down from the banqiao under the protection of more than 40 guards of the Hui Society.

As a privileged minister, Hu Chuyuan's courtesy level in the vassal state was equivalent to that of Emperor Guangxu, and when he got off the ship, the court officials were all prostrate on the ground under the leadership of King Li Xi, and they did not dare to raise their heads.

North Korea has the highest etiquette in North Korea, and what it looks like is known to anyone who has watched Korean dramas.

All in all, it's boring.

Hu Chuyuan didn't feel some kind of magical power from it, he walked off the boat coldly, followed the ceremony, took out the holy decree of Emperor Guangxu Zaiyan, read it in person, and then handed over the holy decree to Li Xi, which made everyone stand up.

At this time, Hu Chuyuan glanced at Yuan Shikai with special concern, he was wearing the official uniform of the third rank of the imperial court, he was about thirty years old, he looked very young, but he was very old and capable, and his expression was solemn and respectful.

According to all the current royal palace specifications in North Korea, the only ones that must match his identity and can be vacant are Changdeokgung Palace and Kyunghee Palace.

The level of Changdeok Palace is a bit too high, Li Xi secretly calculated, and wanted Hu Chuyuan to live in Qingxi Palace, but Yuan Shikai heard that Hu Chuyuan preferred the architectural pattern of Chinese and Western styles, and it happened that only the stone hall of Changdeok Palace was considered Western-style, so he forced Li Xi to give in.

When Hu Chuyuan was in Europe, Yuan Shikai had already ordered the Changde Palace to be reorganized, and placed people in the hidden places that might exist around him to prevent him from taking advantage of the gap.

Hu Chuyuan soon took a carriage to Changdeokgung Palace, where he formally met with Yi Xi and Concubine Min, accompanied by Yuan Shikai, the thirty-one-year-old governor of Joseon and minister of trade.

Yuan Shikai's official can be promoted fast enough.

Of course, people have also worked hard, the family is rich and powerful, and the wrist and ability are not simple.

Hu Chuyuan temporarily focused on King Li Xi and Concubine Min, these two are not very old, one is less than forty years old, he looks very heroic, with a seemingly heroic black beard on his face, but in fact he is just a rice bucket, and his surname is weak.

Concubine Min is a strong woman like Cixi, she has long held the power of the court and government in the palm of her hand, she is one year older than Li Xi, she is well maintained, her skin is fair, but she is not as beautiful as others say.

In the water town south of the Yangtze River, she doesn't know how many stunners are dozens of times better than her.

Everything is just a creation.

This couple does look like sister and brother, and Li Xi relies entirely on his wife Concubine Min to deal with state affairs many times, even including the determination of diplomatic relations.

Before coming to Korea this time, Hu Chuyuan had asked Niu Yugeng to collect the main information and current situation of the Korean Kingdom, and when he sailed to North Korea from the United States, he had been looking at these materials, thinking and calculating all kinds of possibilities.

According to the information provided by Yuan Shikai, after the Qing government strengthened its control over Korea, substantiated the relationship between the suzerains and vassals, and put the power of government affairs and diplomacy in Yuan Shikai's hands, Li Xi and Concubine Min gradually deviated from their original policies, leaned towards Russia, and dismissed several officials with obvious pro-China intentions.

Hu Chuyuan didn't speak, sitting in the palace, quietly thinking about something, drinking the Qimen black tea he brought.

The king of Joseon, Li Xi and Concubine Min, crouched silently in front of him, separated from him by a beautifully decorated black lacquer dwarf case, thirty-one-year-old Yuan Shikai sat behind the black lacquer dwarf case on the right, his expression was calm, but his eyes flashed with a strange and restrained light, as if he was also thinking about something.

Outside the gate of the Zhonghe Palace, the Korean civil and military officials were silently guarding, silent, and perhaps angry in their hearts...... How could they let their king and princess lie dormant for so long, it was simply humiliating, where was such a reason.

Hu Chuyuan was silent for more than a moment, drank the tea in his hand, and then said to Li Xi and his wife: "Get up." ”

Li Xi and Concubine Min breathed a sigh of relief and thanked each other, and then got up and returned to the seat on the left side and sat down together.

Hu Chuyuan said: "The Holy Lord is very angry at your behavior of making friends with Russia in private, so I asked you to salute for an extra quarter of an hour and punish you slightly. After the punishment is over, the matter will pass, and there is no need to mention it again in the future. If you want to have dealings with foreign countries in accordance with the agreement of the suzerain, the Holy Majesty has no objection and supports this, but it is too much to make friends with Russia. I hope you can learn this lesson and don't get into unnecessary trouble! ”

After being translated, Li Xi and Concubine Min were shocked.

Li Xi hurriedly said: "Thank you Lord Qincha, this king will be cautious, saying that Russia has different ambitions for the Qing Empire and our country, which is really not expected by this king, and I hope that Lord Qincha Haihan will report this matter to His Majesty the Emperor!" ”

Hu Chuyuan nodded slightly, and said: "I heard that the financial situation of the DPRK is not very good, and the officials have not received salaries for many years, let alone the army. This is not a good thing, officials do not receive salaries, and they can still rely on greed to make up for living expenses, what can the army do? ”

Li Xi was silent, he didn't expect Hu Chuyuan to say this.

In fact, Hu Chuyuan weighed many things in his heart, and the current Korean kingdom was also guilty of the same problems as the Qing political axe, the officials were corrupt, and there were too many members of the aristocracy, so that half of the kingdom's taxes had to be used for the squandering of the elites, and the entire administrative system and military system were in chaos.

Listening to Hu Chuyuan's words, Concubine Min said: "The ministers are thinking of a good way to implement reforms in the government, but they still need the support of the Celestial Empire." ”

Hu Chuyuan replied simply: "Yes." I've been thinking about it these days, a poor North Korea is not what we want, and this time I'm here, I'll re-sign a new trade agreement with you, and besides, we won't care too much about your internal affairs, but we should discuss a proper countermeasure together for some basic things. The Celestial Empire has also been constantly changing over the years to cope with the changes in the world, and many methods are effective and indeed beneficial. I think we might as well implement it in North Korea to alleviate North Korea's financial problems. ”

Concubine Min immediately replied: "Thank you Lord Qincha for your support, and the ministers are extremely grateful." ”

Li Xi said: "Yes, it is true. ”

At this time, Hu Chuyuan had basically seen the traces of Miao, and in many things, the only person who really took the idea and could really take action was Concubine Min, and Li Xi was not good.

(To be continued)