Prisoners were captured in battles, which has happened countless times in China's thousands of years of history, but the defeat of the enemy army through a dignified head-on battle and the capture of more than 2,000 foreign prisoners, including many golden-red or red-eyed white Europeans, is absolutely rare for China.

Since the capture of more than 2,000 prisoners, many imperial officials have come over to take a special look, of course, there are still not many people who have nothing to watch the excitement, and more are officials from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

After the military captured these prisoners, they also did not know what to do, they could neither kill nor let them go, and at the same time, they could not be reorganized into the auxiliary defense force, so they simply only watched but did not deal with them, and transferred the power to deal with them to the cabinet with full power.

The cabinet is responsible for foreign affairs, that is, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which means that it is up to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to decide what to do with these prisoners.

The Foreign Ministry's goal was very clear, that is, to use the more than 2,000 prisoners as bargaining chips for the Foreign Affairs Department and Bao Ling to discuss the treatment of the prisoners in the Bund Hotel in the trade zone for three whole days.

In the end, the two sides negotiated a preliminary tentative intention and reached a verbal agreement, the reason why it was a verbal agreement rather than a written document was because the Song Guanqian of the Chinese Empire insisted on putting the issue of the disposal of these captives together with the final negotiations, that is, the war was over and could not be negotiated until the end of the war, including tariffs and treaty ports.

Although the Anglo-French forces failed to attack Wusong Fort, they did not give up, and many ships traveled between Shanghai and Hong Kong and other ports in South Asia, transporting a large number of supplies and supplies, and even they continued to send troops to reinforce Shanghai.

This war is not over yet!

Therefore, after the negotiations in this regard could not be reached, Bao Ling could only reach a verbal agreement with Song Guanqian. It is used to solve the safety of the captives and the corresponding treatment.

The verbal agreement included that the Chinese military would not mistreat the prisoners while they were in captivity, that their lives would be safeguarded, and that officers, especially those of the nobility, would be treated on an equal footing with them.

It is necessary to explain here why the issue of the treatment of these officers is specifically mentioned. Because the officers in the armies of the old powers of Britain and France in those years were no different from the armies of the Middle Ages, a considerable number of officers were held by nobles, and it was difficult for ordinary people to serve as officers.

This was very common in England, where the so-called officer system of the Royal Navy, although it was already occupied by a considerable number of untouchables, maintained an aristocratic tradition in the army. In many novels or film and television dramas describing the Victorian era and the First World War, you can see the aristocracy actively joining the army after the outbreak of the war. Chicks don't lift.

Moreover, unlike civilians, they joined the army, although they did not receive special military training, but after joining the army, they still held various officer positions according to their social status.

In fact, the situation is somewhat similar to that in the Chinese army, although the officers in the Chinese army are not noble, but basically all are scholars, and the social status of scholars in China, especially in the Ming and Qing dynasties, is much higher than that of civilians, that is, the so-called social privileged class.

However, China's privileged class basically comes from studying and taking the imperial examination. But at present, Western countries, even countries in the cloak of democracy. Most of its privileged class also comes from blood, that is, the aristocratic class.

From the perspective of talent fairness in later generations, China is a hundred streets away from them in this regard.

When you understand this, you will find that there are many British nobles in the British army who participated in the war and were captured. Of course, the French are also indispensable.

In the words of Bao Ling, these gentlemen naturally could not be treated as ordinary prisoners, and must be treated as prisoners of war commensurate with their social status.

Since you said so, Song Guan slapped his thigh in front of him, okay. It's not easy to think about good treatment, hurry up and give me money, you British guys take out hundreds of thousands of millions, and Lao Tzu guarantees that they will fish and meat every day.

Therefore, the end of this verbal agreement is to maintain the living expenses of the coalition prisoners, and the coalition side will provide living expenses according to the number and status of the captured soldiers.

For example, every British and French soldier pays for food, lodging and other messy expenses according to the standard of one pound per day, and every soldier in the colonies of India and Indochina pays for food and accommodation according to the standard of ten shillings per day.

The cost standard of these ordinary soldiers was set by Song Guanqian himself, well, it is definitely not a reference to the price and consumption level in China, but directly compared with the price of London, originally he also wanted to charge those soldiers in India and South Asia for one pound, but the people ordered them to live or die, and even bluntly said that Congress would not care about the treatment of non-national soldiers, and the ten shillings were still the money of the East India Company, and the coalition forces did not pay a dime.

The standard of the soldiers is easy to judge, but the standard of those officers is not easy to judge, originally before the Song Pass, they formulated the military rank, which is about twice the salary of the existing officers of the Chinese Army, this price is not low, but the people immediately became angry when they saw it.

"Absolutely not, Viscount Hunt must be treated in a way that matches his status, the standard of three pounds a day is absolutely not good, it's too little!"

Song Guanqian was also a little stunned when he looked at this Bao Ling, and at first he thought he was too much, but after listening to it, he found that he was too little, at that moment, Rao is he had already been talking with foreigners I don't know how many times, and he couldn't help but show embarrassment even on his face that was several meters thick.

"What is your envoy's opinion?"

"At least five pounds a day!" Bao Ling said in a proud tone.

Song Guanqian was speechless, the price he calculated was calculated according to the rank of Viscount Hunter, that is, the price of the lieutenant, but it was obvious that this package was calculated by title.

Yes, they like to pay more money, and they have no reason to stop them, anyway, even if they give money, these captives can at most be able to eat a little more, and they don't have to do hard work, but they won't say that they will treat you as an uncle if they give money.

After the two sides bargained together, the general amount was soon determined, and the coalition side would pay about fifty thousand pounds sterling for the prisoners first, and then talk about the rest of the money.

Well, it is worth noting that this is definitely not a reparation, and the two sides did not even sign a written agreement, that is, Song Guanqian and Bao Ling reached a verbal agreement, and then they directly gave the money, and by the way, they also sent a few people to the prisoner of war camp to check whether the prisoners of war were still alive.

When several diplomats of the coalition army watched their prisoners faint from hunger in the prisoner camp, the spectators were sad and the listeners wept, and when they questioned the diplomats of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on the spot for peace, the officials of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs simply said: "You didn't give money before!" ”

The British and French diplomats of the coalition army comforted the captives and received some letters from them, and many of the noble officers thought of sending them home so that their families could raise ransoms.

When the coalition forces privately paid the so-called living expenses, most of these prisoners of war were in better condition, and the Chinese army still collected money to do things, and after receiving the money, the prisoners of war at least would not be dizzy from hunger, and they could eat a dry meal a day.

As for saying that it is impossible to eat and drink, it is not possible to have money, and the materials of the Chinese army themselves are not sufficient, and they can't live a life of eating meat and drinking wine every day, so you prisoners can't be allowed to enjoy it first.

In addition, although it was said that there was no arrangement for manual labor, several high-ranking generals of the Chinese army had a bad stomach, saying that the barracks you are living in now belong to our military and are not allowed to live, and they want to repair the houses themselves, so these prisoners of war can only repair the prisoner of war camp by themselves.

Those officers, especially the aristocratic officers, were much more treated, and it seemed that Bao Ling's share of so much money basically ensured the basic living needs of these noble officers, and the manual labor of building barracks would not force them to do it.

In addition, some people also paid attention to making money from these prisoners of war, and the people of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs directly opened a kind of commissary in the prisoner of war camp, where they had food, clothing, and drink, and if there was a need, they could even help invite women from the Qinglou from outside, and all that only the prisoners of war needed to take their own money, and the price ranged from several times that of the outside.

When these prisoners of war were captured, they actually didn't have a dime left on their bodies, except for a military uniform, the rest were basically spoiled on the spot, and they were empty, and those officers wrote directly to friends, such as those officers or businessmen, or other money to spend, for example, Viscount Hunt directly borrowed thousands of pounds from the Earl of Elgin, with this money, he lived in the prisoner of war camp for a while, and he didn't look like he was captured at all.

In this process, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs inevitably made a hard move, and Song Guanqian sighed that if a few more prisoners came, perhaps they would be able to collect the construction funds for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs building and start work again.

However, although the coalition forces and the Chinese Empire held several negotiations before and after the prisoner issue, and the two sides also resumed diplomatic contacts to a certain extent, the war between the two sides did not end.

Count Ergin and Gro were not willing to be defeated, on the one hand, they used various connections and powers to request reinforcements and supplies, and on the other hand, they were actively preparing for the follow-up battle.

However, they didn't dare to go to Wusong Fort, when so many people went to fight Wusong Fort, instead of knocking it down, they lost nearly 6,000 people, and it is estimated that they can't take it down the second time, so they changed their purpose, first of all, to strike at the area near the station, and even once sent troops to try to attack Jiading County and Taicang Prefecture, but after sensing that they had moved, Bing Qusong also quickly sent troops to intercept it. (To be continued......)