In early summer, Nanjing is in the season when the plums are ripe, and there is no sunshine for ten days and half a month.

Lin Zhe watched the raindrops of beans hitting the plane tree outside the window, but there was not the slightest sigh in his heart that those literati and writers sighed about the continuous drizzle.

It's been raining a little hard, and it's been a long time!

And this is not a good thing for farmers around Nanjing, where the continuous large-scale rainfall has caused the water level of the rivers and lakes to rise rapidly, which is very likely to cause flooding!

Yesterday, people from the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry handed over a report, saying that three days ago, the Huai River in northern Jiangsu burst its banks, flooding a large area of farmland, and now the cabinet is planning how to provide disaster relief!

What really worries Lin Zhe is not these small-scale floods, but the continuous large-scale rainfall in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River, that is, in southern Anhui, and the Panyang Lake area of the Jiujiang River has entered a dangerous water level, once the flood reaches the lower reaches of the Yangtze River, it may cause large-scale flooding along the Yangtze River basin.

For this reason, the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, which was aware of the particularly heavy precipitation this year half a month ago, has already notified all localities in advance that they must do a good job in flood prevention.

In today's torrential rain, I am afraid that there are still countless people with raincoats and hats sticking to the river dam, I don't know how many farmers are worried about God, for fear that God will ruin their harvest for a year.

In this era, the ability to resist natural disasters such as drought and floods is too low, although the scale of this year's rainfall is larger, but it will not be encountered in decades or even a century, at most it is only once in three or five years, but even so it is enough to make people worry.

It seems that in the next few years, we will increase investment in water conservancy facilities, and we can't just let floods occur along the river basin when it rains!

When Lin Zhe looked at the rain outside the window, he thought about how to strengthen the investment in river engineering. Just when it was time to squeeze money out of there, there was a knock on the office door. 、

Young. A secretary walked in lightly: "Your Majesty, Minister Song of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs asks to see you!" ”

Lin Zhe turned around. Then he said, "Let him in!" ”

After a while, Song Guanqian walked into Lin Zhe's office steadily!

At this time, Lin Zhe had already taken his mind back from today's rainstorm, stepped forward and sat down on the sofa by himself, and then gently raised his finger and pointed to the sofa opposite: "Sit down, what do those British people say?" ”

"Thank the emperor for the seat!" After saying respectfully, Song Guanqian carefully sat down on the sofa opposite, and like all the courtiers when facing the seat, his buttocks were only touched by the edge of the sofa, and he definitely didn't have the courage to swagger and sit down.

"Your Majesty. Wechen had many talks with the British envoy a few days ago, and the British are still very tough now, saying that if our army enters Burma, it will have a major impact on the situation in Burma, and will seriously affect their security in British Burma (Lower Burma) and India! Song Guanqian said: "They still resolutely do not recognize the suzerainty of the empire over Burma, and they also revealed that the British have gathered enough troops in the Lower Burma area to prevent the situation from worsening!" ”

Hearing Song Guanqian say this, Lin Zhe frowned. These British really regard Burma as their meal, and if they say anything to prevent the situation from worsening, isn't it clear that once the Chinese army sends troops to Burma, they will go directly north to fight the Chinese army in a war!

Lin Zhe said: "What did the Gongbang Dynasty say? ”

Song Guanqian said: "What else can they say." Left and right are just following behind the British! Last month, he also invited us to send troops to encircle and suppress Lin Chengting's department, but now we are resolutely not allowed to enter the imperial army, and it also means that we will not come to pay tribute in the future! ”

"It seems that these Burmese have been completely controlled by the British!" After Lin Zhe said this. As if to say to himself: "It seems that the suzerainty of Burma cannot be maintained, and in this case, it is time to change the method." You can't let the British directly station troops in Burma, and then Chen soldiers on the border with the empire! ”

The British ambitions for Burma are well known. But it is a pity that in this era, the Burmese themselves are powerless, the previous two Anglo-Burmese wars, Burma was a mess, and even the entire southern coastal area of Burma was ceded to the British, becoming part of British Burma, that is, Lower Burma in the traditional sense.

Today's Burmese Gongbang Dynasty is just surviving, and if there is no influence from foreign forces, it will be completely annexed by the British in ten or twenty years.

However, this kind of thing is difficult for Lin Zhe to accept!

If the British occupied Lower Burma, then British Burma, India, and China's Yunnan border would be separated by a Upper Burma region controlled by the Gongbang Dynasty, and a buffer zone would have avoided direct conflict with the British.

However, once the British annexed Upper Burma and took the whole of Burma into their pockets, then China would have to directly border the British colonies in the future.

At that time, the southwest region will face a major threat.

Historically, the so-called Chinese suzerainty over Burma is nothing more than self-deception, the Gongbang Dynasty was still a small hegemon in Southeast Asia at the end of the 18th century, but it only came to pay tribute a few times, and in the past few decades, the British have almost completely infiltrated Burma, and the control of the Gongbang Dynasty is very strong.

So now the possibility of China controlling Burma in the name of a suzerain, or even exerting influence in the Gongbang Dynasty, can be ignored.

The reason why the empire now insists that the empire is the suzerainty of Burma is only to find a reason and an excuse, and this excuse is the best reason to send troops to Burma when necessary.

However, for the sake of a Burma and the British to go to war, and the empire has not yet been unified, Xinjiang is still stained by Aguba, and at the same time in the north and the Russians are also full of contradictions, and now the empire is still in the north of Heilongjiang and the Russian army frequently engaged in small-scale armed conflicts, in addition to the cavalry troops of Wang Lu Yun in Outer Mongolia are still fighting with those rebellious Mongol princes.

And who was behind these rebellious Mongol princes? Isn't it the Russians, you must know that the enemy soldiers of the Chinese army fighting in Outer Mongolia have already discovered the presence of a small number of Cossack cavalry in the troops of the Mongol princes.

At the same time, in order to restore the people's livelihood and develop industry, industry, commerce, and education, the proportion of military expenditure in this year's fiscal expenditure budget for 1860 was only 40 percent, a drop of nearly half from last year's 75 percent.

It is estimated that the total military expenditure in 1860 will be about 80 million yuan, which will not only maintain the continuous fighting of the empire in Xinjiang, Mongolia, and Heilongjiang, but also maintain the large-scale clean-up operations in the country, and more importantly, the continuous rearmament and reorganization of the troops.

In the 1860 military reorganization plan, the army planned to prepare 30 Royal Army infantry divisions, 3 Royal Guards divisions, in addition to at least 10 independent cavalry regiments and two heavy artillery brigades.

In addition to these field troops, there are also a large number of local garrison troops in each province, and according to a province, there are garrison troops ranging from about 5,000 to 10,000 people, so many provinces in China will have at least 150,000 garrison troops.

Under such circumstances, if a large-scale war with the British is maintained, the pressure on the military expenditure of the empire will be quite huge, and it will even seriously affect a series of domestic development plans for water conservancy, agriculture, industry and commerce, and education, which are expected to be implemented this year.

A country can't always be at war, the Chinese Empire was already at war before its founding, not to mention the era of Yu Shengjun, just to say that after 1856, it is also a large-scale war that has lasted for four years, and in the past few years, military expenditure has always accounted for more than 70 percent, 80 or even 90 percent of fiscal expenditure.

If this state continues, it won't take a few years for Lin Zhe to cripple the empire.

In the present period of time, it is impossible to engage in a large-scale war with Britain for the sake of a single Burma.

After all, to be honest, that part of Burma is of little use to the empire for the time being, it is not an economically and industrially developed area, nor is it a military strategic place.

The only thing that is commendable is that if Burma is occupied, it will give the empire an additional outlet to the Indian Ocean, but this outlet is useful for China today?

Half a dime is useless, now the Imperial Navy is so weak that it can't be weaker, and now the overall strategy of the Imperial Navy is still in the control and defense of the sea frontier, and in terms of many strategies and tactics planned by the admirals, once there is a war with Britain, a maritime power, then the Imperial Navy can only block the channel in Jiangyin or other rivers at the mouth of the sea and sink the river to protect itself.

Now the Imperial Navy can't even protect its own coastline, let alone go to the Indian Ocean.

Besides, now that China has no overseas colonial interests to protect, why is it going to the Indian Ocean? It's fun to go to the Indian Ocean to challenge the British?

At this time, it is extremely irrational to go to war with the British, and Lin Zhe has never planned to go to war with the British for a Burma, you must know that he is still enduring the Hong Kong issue, and if he goes to war with the British, it will definitely be for Hong Kong and not because of Burma.

However, we can't watch Burma fall into the hands of the British, the Gongbang Dynasty can't resist the annexation of the British, especially after Lin Chengting enters Burma, it is estimated that the Gongbang Dynasty will fall faster than in history, and it won't be long before the British will directly send troops to Burma.

Under such circumstances, Lin Zhe felt the need to change some of his strategies towards Lin Chengting and Myanmar. (To be continued.) )