As a rising power, both the empire and the United States have a great conflict of interest with traditional colonial powers such as Britain and France.

Although the scope of the conflict is not global, for the Empire, the conflict with the British in the Asian direction is still relatively large.

Southeast Asia, the South Pacific, Central Asia, and North America, all of which had certain conflicts of interest with the British.

If you break it down into a certain region, there are also countries that have conflicts of interest with the empire, such as France, the Netherlands, the United States, and Russia.

Even the newly rising Germans, in the past two years, are trying to expand their colonies, and they have seized some desert islands with the empire in the South Pacific waters that have little use value, but fortunately, the empire relies on the advantage of geographical distance and started relatively early, so the harvest is far greater than that of the Germans.

If in the Pacific, the Reich was picking up leftovers from Britain, France, and Spain, then the Germans were rummaging through garbage cans to find the few leftovers.

International relations at any time are very complex, with interests and conflicts entangled with each other, especially between several major powers, which are even more aimed at each other in some directions, but cooperate with each other in some directions.

Such was the case with the Empire and Great Britain, who, despite the conflict between the Empire and Great Britain on many issues, had reached a relatively definite intention to cooperate in Central Asia, otherwise the two countries would not have entered into formal negotiations on Afghanistan, and such negotiations would have excluded the Russians.

Through the Afghan issue, Britain and the empire engaged in secret diplomatic negotiations for several months, at first talking about the Afghan issue, but as they talked, the topic gradually extended to many other issues, such as the situation in Southeast Asia, including the expansion of the Ning Kingdom, the independence of Langang State, and the market division between the two countries in Southeast Asia.

There are also the problems of Alaska in the Americas, Hawaii, and the island of New Guinea in the South Pacific.

Finally, there are very important new tariff agreements, etc.

These are all major issues facing the relationship between China and the UK, and many of them are agreements that have been negotiated for a long time without mutual satisfaction.

At the beginning of 1880, by virtue of the Afghan question, the two countries reached many public and secret agreements on many of these important issues.

One of the agreements that can be made public and has the most influence is the China-UK tariff reciprocity agreement.

In this agreement, the two sides negotiated in detail tariffs on the main import and export commodities of the two countries, and finally reached a new tariff agreement that was barely acceptable to both sides.

One of the most important of this new tariff agreement for the empire is to raise import tariffs on mechanical and industrial products.

Of course, as a concession, the empire further reduced the import tariffs on some goods on the basis of the original, including cotton, coal, and timber, which the British attached great importance to.

As the world leader of the United Kingdom, other countries have been eyeing the new tariff agreements between the British and China, and the British have not been able to get the empire to reduce the tariff ratio of certain goods or too high, let alone other countries.

Therefore, countries including the United States, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, Russia and other countries are also very happy to sign new tariff reciprocity agreements with the empire one after another.

The most important role of this new tariff agreement for the empire is to further raise the barriers to the import of industrial products, especially light industrial products.

The core idea is that whatever can be produced domestically will raise import tariffs.

This is a very typical trade protectionist measure, using the lever of tariffs to protect the development of domestic industry!

Of course, raising some tariffs will definitely reduce tariffs on some goods, and other European countries will also raise tariffs on some of the empire's exports.

For example, the United Kingdom did not hesitate to raise the import tariffs on cotton products from China in the United Kingdom and its colonies to avoid the impact on the British domestic cotton textile industry.

This, to a certain extent, raised the cost of the products of the empire, especially light industrial products, to enter European countries and the colonies under their control.

However, although the empire's industry has also developed for more than 20 years, the main products that can be exported are mainly concentrated in some low-tech light industrial products, especially cotton cloth and daily industrial products, and the market for these products has not been able to open the European market before, and the main market is in Asia.

As for the products with relatively high technical content, they are ordnance products, guns, artillery and warships, and these products cannot be bought in Europe, and the main markets are some small countries of the third or fourth rate or simply local warlords and the like, and the countries with relatively strong national strength and also buy imperial ordnance products are only Ottoman Turkey, the sick man of Europe.

As for European countries such as Britain, France, and Germany, people will not buy the ordnance products of the empire at all!

In addition to the tariff agreement, the Empire also signed an agreement with Great Britain in the South Pacific, in which the British recognized the Empire's rights to the Bismarck Islands and the northeastern part of the island of New Guinea, and in return, the Empire recognized the British rights and interests in the southeastern part of the island of New Guinea and related dependent islands.

Originally, the two countries were going to negotiate on the Langang State and Borneo issue, but the differences between the two sides were too great, because the British hoped that the Empire would completely abandon its support for Langang and give up its intention to include Langang as a vassal state, and the Empire would naturally not agree.

In addition, Borneo is still mainly Dutch territory, and the British cannot decide directly.

Therefore, if the two sides can't get along, they will tacitly put this issue on hold for the time being, and everyone will continue to fight openly and secretly, and then talk about it after the winner is decided.

On the basis of the war between the Ning Kingdom and Siam in Indochina, the empire promised not to support the Ning Kingdom's claim to the territory of the Siam Kingdom, of course, this kind of agreement naturally cannot be a public agreement, but China and Britain secretly signed a memorandum on the situation in the Indochina Peninsula, which can be regarded as a private commitment by the empire to the British.

The secret memorandum was mainly to curb the expansion of the countries of Indochina, whether it was the Ning Kingdom or Siam, and the expansion of their strength was unacceptable to China and Britain.

There is even a sentence in it, China and Britain agree that the expansion of the French in Indochina over the years is the main reason for the chaos in Southeast Asia, and that it is necessary to curb the ambitions of the French in Southeast Asia, and if necessary, to drive the French out of the Indochina Peninsula, or even from Asia completely.

As for Alaska, China and Britain agreed on a minimum garrison limit, the Empire was not allowed to station too many standing troops near the Canadian border, and the United Kingdom would not station a large number of troops near the border with Alaska.

However, this agreement is practically meaningless, because Alaska is a frozen land, and even if the British do not restrict it, the empire will not be able to station too many troops here, and the British will no longer be able to station them here.

In addition to several overt and secret agreements, there is naturally the issue of Afghanistan.

The Empire recognized that the British had certain special interests in Afghanistan, and in return, the British would become the new king of Afghanistan under the auspices of the Empire.

After the conspiracy between China and Britain, the British will sign an armistice agreement with Ayyub, the British will recognize Ayyub as the king of Afghanistan, give Ayyub independent domestic power, the British will obtain diplomatic power in Afghanistan, and the empire will supervise the implementation of diplomatic power in Afghanistan as an adviser, and all relevant foreign policy decisions related to the empire must be approved by the empire.

Under the collusion between China and Britain, the empire did not hesitate to sell Russia.

In June 1880, a formal agreement was signed between the British and the Ayyubid, and the Ayyubid officially became king of the Kingdom of Afghanistan, and the following month, the British and Ayyubids joined forces to defeat the Russian-backed Rahman's army.

In the past two years, the empire first supported the British invasion of Afghanistan against Russia, and later united with the Russians to support the Afghans against the British army.

But in 1880, in the face of the interests ceded by the British, they did not hesitate to sell Russia and re-sided with the British.

In just two years, the empire has changed its position on Afghanistan three times, and it is true to say that it is a wall-to-wall problem.

The agreement between the empire and the British seems to have given the British diplomatic power in Afghanistan, but it was not important to the empire, and the most important thing was that the Ayyub controlled the power of Afghanistan.

This Ayub is pro-China, how did he pull up the army? Isn't it just the empire that supported it?

After Ayub took control of Afghanistan, although he lost diplomatic power, given time, the Afghan side will certainly not be satisfied with the loss of diplomatic power in the future, and will inevitably demand something at that time.

When the time comes, it will be another war!

Afghanistan is a meeting point of contradictions between China, Britain and Russia, and it is foreseeable that Afghanistan will not be peaceful for the next ten years or even longer.

Therefore, if he wants to fight for more interests now, it is better to support Ayub and then carry out slow infiltration.

After the affairs on the Afghan side calmed down, the empire joined forces with the British to mediate the war between the Ning Kingdom and Siam.

In the end, the Ning Kingdom and Siam reached an agreement, the Ning Kingdom withdrew its troops, and Siam paid the Ning Kingdom an indemnity of 2.5 million yuan, what should Siam do if he has no money to compensate?

It's okay, China and Britain formed a joint banking group to make loans, and through loans, China and Britain increased their economic penetration into Siam, and the French also wanted to get involved, but they were slapped in the face by China and Britain without hesitation.

It is said that France has not had a good time in Southeast Asia in recent years, although it has controlled Nanqi, but the empire has continuously supported the Kingdom of Vietnam over the years, which has brought great military pressure to French Nanqi.

In fact, the Vietnamese have long been hopeful that they can take back Nam Chi, and they are not even willing to fight again, but with the empire standing behind them, the Vietnamese actually want to not fight if they don't want to.

So although I didn't want to, but under the pressure of the empire over the years, I would still fight with the French every once in a while, and as a result, over the years, the Vietnamese became poorer and poorer, and they owed a lot of debt to the empire, and they couldn't see the end of paying off the loans.

The French were not having a good time, and they needed to maintain a large number of troops in Nam Chi all year round, otherwise they might be driven into the sea by the Vietnamese.

A few years ago, France wanted to take Cambodia down, but as soon as it took action, the Vietnamese were forced to fight by the empire, and finally Britain also intervened, which led to the French in Southeast Asia for 20 years, and the military expenditure was not a few, but it was not able to expand.

In addition, it was surrounded by the empire and England, and now Nanqi is a quick chicken rib for France, and it is a pity to abandon it if it is tasteless, and it has to spend a lot of military expenditure every year to maintain it.

Of course, even if it is difficult, the French will not give up easily.

It will take a lot of time and work for China and Britain to completely drive out the French.

Calm returned to Southeast Asia and Central Asia, and even Borneo, which had been fighting for a long time, ceased fighting in 1880.

In recent years, with the support of the empire, the Langang State has developed quite rapidly, not only increasing a large number of Chinese immigrants, but also gaining the support of the local aborigines, and following the system of the Ning Kingdom, with the Chinese as the superstructure, absorbing a large number of local aborigines.

In 1877, with a total force of 4,000 men, the Langang State defeated the third large-scale attack of the Dutch, and in the war, severely damaged the Brooke dynasty founded by the British, which was allied with the Dutch.

The war of 1877 not only defeated the combined offensive of the Dutch and the Brooke dynasty, but also captured a large amount of territory of the Brooke dynasty in one fell swoop, and the Brooke dynasty, which had been enshrined in the Sultan of Brunei, had already lost a large amount of territory.

At that time, the state of Langang already controlled the western part of Borneo and part of the northern part of Borneo.

In the end, the Sultan of Brunei was forced to recognize the sovereignty of the Rangang State over the area originally occupied.

In this case, Langang has also suspended the war for many years, after all, the war has been fought for so many years, and Langang is also uncomfortable, it is originally a small country with little power, if it continues to fight, it is estimated that the country will be gone.

At this time, the Langang country was basically independent, and although the United Kingdom and the Netherlands did not recognize it, it was difficult to eliminate the Langang country that had become a climate.

Therefore, the empire, which had been standing behind it, finally began to explicitly support the Langang State, and at the end of 1880, it officially accepted the tribute of the Langang State and appointed Liu Enguan as the 'Langang Commander'.

The reason why the king was not directly canonized like the Ryukyus, Korea, and Vietnam was because the system of the Langang State was different, they were not a hereditary monarchy, but a republic, and the head of state, that is, the 'great unification', was elected by a major member of their own group of dozens of people.

Therefore, the confirmation of the suzerainty can only be carried out by appointing the 'Langang Commander'.

As a result, the state of Langang became a formal vassal state of the Empire, and its head of state was chosen by himself, but nominally appointed by the Empire. (To be continued.) )