After entering the Shanghai business district in 1858 compared with previous years, it has been completely different, along the north bank of the Huangpu River on the Bund Avenue, there are various styles of buildings, with Baroque style, such as the Bund Hotel, which has just been completed and opened, and is currently the tallest building in Shanghai, also has a delicate Rococo style, such as the headquarters of Xinde & Co., in addition to traditional Chinese style buildings, such as Shanghai Customs, and Gothic buildings, For example, the Bund Hotel is opposite the headquarters of the Shanghai Textile Company, which belongs to the royal family.

Basically, the architectural styles of Western countries and the traditional Chinese styles are gathered in this small business area, and together with the foreigners who speak English, French, Spanish, German, Russian and other languages in the business area, this business area has become a veritable city of all nations.

The whole business zone is developing rapidly, and many factories in the business zone make the sound of rumbling machines, and then produce many goods, including raw silk that has been sold all over the world, supporting the bulk of the income for the trade zone and even for the Chinese Empire, as well as consumables such as soap, matches, and foreign cloth that the people need daily.

At the same time, there are a large number of ordnance, guns and warships, and even those two-wheeled and four-wheeled carriages are included.

It's a city full of life and hope!

Song Guanqian stood in front of the window of the office of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the business zone, looking out the window at the scene of the Bund Avenue and the Huangpu River, which was always crowded with boats in the distance.

How long will all this last if war breaks out?

Song Guanqian did not know, nor could he predict what kind of negative impact the war would have on the trade zone once it broke out, and as a diplomat, he knew that the military had already begun to prepare for war. But he didn't know the details, and he didn't know whether the military would be able to hold it.

Victory or defeat?

Song Guanqian didn't know!

All he knew was. Lin Zhe had already sent him a handwritten edict, asking him to delay the declaration of war by the British and French forces no matter what.

Although Song Guanqian was not a military personnel. But he also knew that it was the military that needed time to prepare, whether it was to stock up on supplies in advance or to draw troops, and in the era when there was no air transport and rail transport, war preparation was very time-consuming.

It will take months to hoard supplies and transfer troops, to say the least!

And now Song Guanqian's task is to buy the military these times, so as to avoid the Anglo-French coalition coming over when the military has completed preparations for war.

Song Guanqian looked at the night outside, and gradually the general realized that he had been standing in front of the window for two or three hours, slowly turned around, and then pushed open the door of the office. He said to his subordinates outside: "Get ready, make an appointment to meet the British and French consuls tomorrow!" ”

No matter how difficult the task of delaying time was, Song Guan had to do it, not only because it was Lin Zhe's personal request, but also for the title that Lin Zhe promised.

In Lin Zhe's secret edict, he promised Song Guanqian in black and white that as long as his mission could be completed, then he would be a baron at the very least, if it went well. It is not impossible to get a viscount or even an earl and a marquis.

As a high-ranking official of the empire and the co-minister of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Song Guanqian knew the preciousness of the title better than outsiders!

In the vast Chinese Empire, there were hundreds of civil and military dignitaries. Since the official raising of the flag at the end of 1856 and the establishment of the emperor in early 1857, Lin Zhe has only been awarded a total of about 30 titles. And seven or eight of them were given to the royal family and relatives, such as Lin Zhe's cousin Lin Lan. This Lin Lan, as Lin Zhe's only cousin for three generations, was before Lin Zhe gave birth to a son in terms of blood. The only legitimate heir to the imperial throne, Lin Zhe made him a viscount.

For example, the two brothers of Empress Chen Jing were both named barons, and then Lin Zhe's mother's mother's family, that is, Mrs. Lin's maiden family, Mrs. Lin's two surviving brothers and two cousins were also named barons.

However, the titles obtained by these royal clansmen are not hereditary, and except for Lin Lan, who serves in the palace affairs department, the others do not have any public office, that is to say, they belong to the ranks of idle nobles, and they do not have any real power in their hands.

At present, among the nobles of the empire, the military aristocracy is the most, and the only three counts are all military generals, namely Shi Qingxuan, Lin Anfei, Xu Yanqing, and among the seven viscounts, in addition to Lin Lan, a royal clansman, and Bi Yutong, the prime minister of the civilian system, the remaining five are also all military generals.

And the barons are mostly military generals.

In the civil service system, the only person who has received the title is Bi Yu and the same person!

If Song Guanqian can obtain the title of Lin Zhe's blockade, even if it is the lowest baron, it is enough to lay his foundation in the empire, and in the future at the cabinet ministers' meeting, he Song Guanqian will have enough seniority to only be below Bi Yutong, and in a few years, who dares to say that he has no chance to ascend to the position of prime minister of the cabinet like Bi Yutong?

Song Guanqian worked as a comprador in a foreign trading house in his early years, and was later introduced to Lin Zhe's shogunate, and like other high-ranking officials in the cabinet, he was one of Lin Zhe's early members of the shogunate.

Because Song Guanqian can speak French and English very fluently, even if he can speak a few words in Spanish, plus he spent a very long time dealing with foreigners when he was a comprador in a foreign company in his early years, and unlike many compradors who work for foreigners who have always been in Shanghai, Song Guanqian has been to the South Seas and Europe with the foreign ships he worked for.

This experience led him to work as a translator and then as a diplomatic adviser to Lin Zhe, and was responsible for foreign affairs with foreigners, especially European countries, for a long time.

After the establishment of the emperor, the officials of all cabinet ministries were actually directly transferred from Lin Zhe's shogunate, for example, Song Guanqian was mainly responsible for European foreign affairs before, so after the establishment of the cabinet, he directly served as the co-minister of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and was in charge of European foreign affairs.

People who have been in charge of diplomatic work for a long time cannot be knighted through frequent military exploits like military generals, and now the imperial emperor Lin Zhe has very strict control over the title, if there are no special circumstances. If he wants to get the knighthood before Song Guan, I'm afraid he will have to wait until he is about to retire.

But now, Lin Zhe has given him a chance. One can obtain a knighthood, becoming the second civil official to receive a knighthood after Bi Yutong. An opportunity to give yourself a big voice in the cabinet.

No matter how difficult the road ahead is, he can't just give up!

Just when Song Guanqian was thinking about how to work hard to delay the time of the British and French forces, the military also launched a large-scale transfer!

At the same time, the Sixth Army was officially moved to Jiangyin, and the command structure of the Seventh Army in the Shanghai area was also quietly established.

In addition to these direct military transfers, the Construction Department of the Ministry of Munitions began to hire migrant workers from Shanghai and Jiangyin on a large scale to build forts in Wusong and Jiangyin respectively, and also to build fortresses and fortresses on the outskirts of Shanghai and Jiangyin, in order to speed up the construction of these fortifications.

The military requisitioned more than 100,000 civilians at one time. Aim to complete the fortifications within three months!

The Military Training Department has already sent senior officials to Fujian to prepare for conscription with the Third Army. At the same time, it also increased the scale of conscription in Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Anhui, and lowered the quality of soldiers for the first time in order to quickly recruit soldiers.

The training of cadets in military academies is also being accelerated, with a view to enabling the sixth batch of cadets to graduate ahead of schedule and then to be added to the units in order to supplement the serious shortage of qualified officers in the units.

Not only the military is preparing, but the Ministry of Finance is also preparing, and has approved a one-time military expenditure of up to 30 million yuan. Although this military expenditure was approved in the name of military expenditure in the first quarter of 1858, the real purpose of this military expenditure was to prepare for the Anglo-French army.

This time, preparations for the Anglo-French coalition were all-round, because this was the biggest threat that the Chinese army had faced since its establishment. This threat was far greater than that of the Qing and Taiping armies, so serious that the military was not confident that they could hold off the Anglo-French forces in Shanghai.

Otherwise, the military would not have built a fortress on the Jiangyin side to strengthen the defense system of Zhenjiang. Even the navy was ready to fight in a closed quarter, sinking the warships that had been accumulated with great difficulty in the Jiangyin section of the Yangtze River channel.

Ultimately. Or the military does not have enough confidence!

His own family knows his own affairs, and other new armies in China have been established in imitation of the Chinese army. The Jianghuai New Army, the Qing court's training army, and Lin Chengting's Zhenhu army were all like this, and the Chinese army was not worried about these students, and had the confidence to defeat them.

But in the face of his teacher, the genuine foreigner modern army, the student of the Chinese army is also a little apprehensive, and his confidence is not too sufficient.

After all, the training and equipment of these foreign armies are comparable to other enemies in the country, and these foreign armies also use Mini rifles and new foreign artillery, and the Chinese army has no advantage in weaponry, and is even at a disadvantage to a certain extent.

And in terms of training, to be honest, it is slightly inferior, who is the training system of the Chinese army and the strict military discipline that is implemented? It's the British who learned.

Even in tactical formations, it was the British who learned!

When the Chinese army conducts line operations, it likes to use two rows of horizontal formations to fight, which is influenced by the British Army, and the army units of the British are famous all over the world for entering the battlefield in horizontal formations, fighting in two horizontal formations and finally launching a bayonet charge.

Napoleon was such a powerful person back then, but the French army led by him was not the same as the British who were beaten by the British!

Before World War I, other countries such as Germany, France, Russia, and the United States had their own strengths and could compete with Britain in some respects, but the strength of their fleets was certainly an important aspect of the British's continued global dominance, but their land forces were also not to be underestimated.

And now, the Chinese Empire needs to face the threat of Britain, the hegemon of the earth in this era, and France, which is currently the second most powerful on the planet.

The world's boss and the world's second boss teamed up to fight a nascent empire that had just been established but was not over a year old, and it was strange how confident the generals of the Chinese army could be. (To be continued......)