In August 1863, the British and French, American, Chinese, and Dutch ministers to Japan had recently held a number of meetings to discuss the present situation in Japan.

Diplomats from various countries are also actively liaising with their own countries, and the most important thing is to ask for help from their own countries.

However, in the summer of 1863, there were not many countries in the Far East that could draw a large number of military forces to intervene in the Japanese civil war, for example, the Americans were powerless, and they had sent the Wyoming to bombard Shimonoseki before, or because this battleship had originally arrived in Japan because it was chasing the attack ships of the American Confederate Confederates, and later planned to go to Shanghai to monitor the movements of the ironclad ships ordered by the Confederate from China, and it was just a way to bombard Shimonoseki.

Now it is basically impossible for them to transfer troops to intervene in the civil war in Japan.

The French, they are still mired in the quagmire of war in Vietnam, although they have a small victory in three days and a big victory in ten days on the Vietnamese side, from a military and tactical point of view, the French have undoubtedly achieved a great victory, but the Vietnamese Nguyen Dynasty will not surrender to the death, this has no choice but to continue fighting.

And the more territory you occupy, the more forces you will be able to contain.

Now the French have invested 5,000 troops in Vietnam, but the French generals who led the army still felt that their troops were insufficient, and asked for reinforcements from the other side.

Therefore, there was little hope for the French to send troops to Japan, and at most they would send a few warships.

The Dutch were even less likely, the sea coachman had been defeated hundreds of years ago, and was now barely able to maintain a colony in Southeast Asia.

In this way, the only people who could actually deploy troops to actually intervene in the Japanese civil war were Britain and the Chinese Empire.

Although Britain is still fighting in Burma, and India is not too peaceful, Britain is a global colony. The enemy was at war almost all the time, so even if there were other places to contain troops, if the British were determined to take revenge on the Japanese themselves, it would be a matter of a word.

The Chinese Empire was simply close to each other, and the Empire was not currently engaged in large-scale wars with foreign enemies, although its naval strength was not good. But it's not a problem to deal with the day's myself.

Therefore, how to intervene in the Japanese civil war was really discussed only by China and Britain.

However, the dispatch of troops was a large-scale military operation with the possibility of a landing operation, which was not a simple matter for the Chinese Empire and Britain.

Even if the decision is made now, it will take half a year for the British to transfer warships and soldiers from India and other places.

Not to mention, the date of sending troops has to be decided in the United Kingdom, and this back and forth cannot be decided without more than half a year's effort.

There were no British to take the lead. Especially without the British fleet, it would be very difficult for the Chinese Empire to send troops alone, and it would be difficult to solve the logistical problem alone, not to mention whether the naval force could escort the entire fleet.

The Chinese Empire was not like the British, who were able to dispatch dozens, if not hundreds, of transport ships to maintain a supply line at sea.

So even if Lin Zhe wanted to send troops alone and help the shogunate exterminate the Chosu Domain and Satsuma Domain, there was nothing he could do.

However, Lin Zhe is not in a hurry about this, and the situation is now under control. The contradictions between the reformists and the shogunate have become clear, and the Japanese who have been revered by the Emperor have already seized military power one after another. The army that controlled the southwest region tried to overthrow the shogunate and conquer it directly by force.

However, the people in the Tokugawa shogunate were not all idiots, and although their rule was opposed by many Japanese reformers, some die-hard conservatives, especially the middle and upper samurai class, were still their supporters, and the reformers were preparing for war. The shogunate was also preparing for war.

In this case, Lin Zhe chose the simplest and most effective method, which was to arm the shogunate and let the shogunate's army completely suppress the reformers.

Against this background. Several Chinese merchant ships loaded with 1856 Linde rifles also sailed into the port of Edo!

Li Bocang has been in high spirits for a while, because with the turmoil in Japan's own country, Li Bocang, who was originally a nobody in the imperial officialdom, has gradually become famous, and in recent months, he has not only contacted the Minister of Foreign Affairs Song Guanqian directly in letters.

Even the excerpt of the report to China was personally reviewed by Lin Zhe many times, and at the same time, he also received several telegrams from the palace, which is not easy for a middle-level diplomatic official.

In response to this internal turmoil in Japan, it was also the first time in the history of the empire that foreign ministers directly communicated with the emperor through ocean telegrams.

The telegraph line from Nanjing to Shanghai had been completed and connected to the ocean-going telegraph network operated by British merchants, so that Lin Zhe could communicate with the diplomats stationed abroad directly by telegram without leaving the palace gate.

Li Bocang has received telegrams from Lin Zhe many times!

Of course, the emperor's telegram cannot be called a telegram, but a telegram, a name that is modeled after the oracle, which evolved from the oracle, and was given specifically for the decree conveyed by the telegram.

In the telegram, Lin Zhe very clearly instructed Li Bocang that the core of Japan's diplomatic work is to safeguard the existing system of Japan, and to delay and hinder Japan's modern educational reform and industrial reform.

Any attempt to change the existing system and the existing education and industrial policies would be seen as a serious challenge to the Empire!

Although Li Bocang did not understand why Lin Zhe used the term 'serious challenge' to describe Japan's domestic reforms, as a front-line diplomat, his mission was to carry out the will of the empire, and as a standard absolute monarchy, the emperor's will was the will of the empire.

Therefore, although he did not understand why His Majesty Lin Zhe was so disgusted with some reform forces in Japan, it did not prevent him from implementing this strategy.

In the entire empire, I'm afraid that no one cares more about the reform of the Japanese book than Lin Zhe!

Asia is too small to support two industrial countries, and now that China is carrying out the industrial revolution, the future position of Japan can only be to serve as a market dumping ground for the industrial products of the empire and a source of industrial raw materials.

And Lin Zhe's attitude of attaching importance to Japan has also directly led to diplomacy with Japan becoming a hot issue in the empire in the near future!

Although for many people, Japan is just a small country in the East. It is no different from Siam, Myanmar, Vietnam and other countries, but Lin Zhe's attitude of attaching importance to it makes many people also pay attention to the original day.

From time to time, important ministers would write to express some views on Japanese diplomacy, and when they learned that some people in Japan's own country (the Emperor and the Emperor's faction) were going to expel the imperial merchants, many people jumped out as if they had exploded. shouted and wanted to send troops to set foot on weekdays.

The general staff of the army even went to great lengths to devise a plan for the so-called "Landing Day" operation, and they planned to start from Korea, cross the Tsushima Strait, and then land in the Japanese "Hon-Chosu area", and then sweep across the Japanese islands.

As a result, some high-level officials in the empire were more enthusiastic about Japanese affairs, in addition to the fact that Japan dared to expel the imperial merchants and damage the so-called imperial face, but more importantly, because of Lin Zhe's attitude of importance.

As the saying goes, there are good things at the top and some investment at the bottom, Lin Zhe attaches great importance to the affairs of the day, and those who think about it all day long want to figure out the holy will. The officials who pandered to it would naturally follow up in time, and then try to show their impression of being proficient in Japan's affairs in front of Lin Zhe.

In this environment, Li Bocang, the imperial minister to Japan, has become the most prominent middle-level official of the empire in the past six months!

Li Bocang's name frequently appears in reports of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in cabinet meetings, and even in military meetings of the military.

In this regard, Li Bocang also ushered in the pinnacle of his career!

Throughout the summer of 1863, he traveled to Japan's treaty ports such as Nagasaki and Edo, and then held talks with diplomats from Britain, France, the United States, and the Netherlands. At the same time, from time to time, I saw some important ministers of the Tokugawa shogunate.

On September 13, Li Bocang was invited by Tokugawa Ieshige, the general of the Japanese Seiyi Shogun. Let's go to Edo for a consultation!

The two had a meeting for nearly an hour in an attic in the country manor of the Tokugawa family, and the details of the meeting between the two have not been announced, and at the same time, no written record has been left for this meeting, even the Imperial Ministry of Foreign Affairs has no detailed record of this meeting, and although the parties have revealed some information about the meeting on some occasions in the future, this information does not conform to the facts at all after dissemination.

At the same time, it is very crucial. Neither of the parties left a personal record of the matter, and there was no such thing as a personal memoir or biography.

As a result, later generations were full of suspicions and even conspiracy theories about this meeting.

Later generations of Japanese and domestic history books wrote about this meeting, calling it a shameful meeting in Japan's modern history, and fabricated the content of the meeting at that time, criticizing Tokugawa Ieshige at the beginning of this meeting. Sold the whole day.

The reason why this meeting will be written in the history of later generations is because after this meeting, that is, the next day!

The Tokugawa shogunate officially announced the requisition order against the Nagasu and Satsuma domains, and began to hunt down and kill the soldiers of the Emperor's faction, and even directly sent troops to Kyoto to kill them, trying to control Emperor Hinomoto at the first time.

This move by the Tokugawa shogunate directly triggered the civil war in Japan, and this war is known in history as the "War of Rebellion"

Behind the Tokugawa shogunate, the Chinese Empire, Britain and other countries organized armies to begin the conquest of the Nagasu Domain and the Satsuma Domain!

At the same time that the Tokugawa Shogunate had just announced its conquest of the Nagasu Domain and other revered kings, the Tokugawa Shogunate and the Chinese Empire had signed a number of agreements, one of which was an arms purchase agreement.

The Tokugawa shogunate ordered 5,000 second-hand 1856 Linde rifles, 18 second-hand smoothbore front-loading guns, and a batch of ammunition from the Shanghai Textile Company. The price was so low that the Vietnamese would be envious, because the price of the ordnance was so cheap that the 1856 Linde rifle was only three pounds.

The price of this batch of guns is at least half less than the normal price of national arms, almost half sold and half given.

Lin Zhe sent this batch of ordnance to the Tokugawa Shogunate, not because he was generous, but because he was worried that the Tokugawa Shogunate's army was too poor, and it would be a bad thing if he couldn't defeat the Chosu Domain and the Satsuma Domain at that time.

In addition to the arms purchase agreement, the shogunate also signed another bill with the empire, and that is the loan agreement!

It costs money to buy arms, and it costs money to build a new army, so the shogunate borrowed some money to purchase ordnance and other war materials.

In addition, there is a third agreement, and this agreement is about Ezo land! (To be continued.) )

PS: Tomorrow and tomorrow are busy for the New Year, it is estimated that there is no time code word, and the update is not regular and quantitative, everyone forgive me!

In addition, I will give you a greeting for the early years in advance, well, the point is: bring the red envelope!