1900！

As the bell tower on the "China Square" rings the bell of the Western New Year, the world has entered the 20th century in the bright and dazzling colorful fireworks, and Dalian, as the heart of the three eastern provinces, has entered this century with an unusually cheerful and ambitious feeling. Pen & Fun & Pavilion www.biquge.info

On this night, the lights in Dalian were bright, the electric lights of the buildings were not extinguished all night, and the electric lights and street lamps together reflected the eve of the new century, ushering in the new year with light.

In the early morning of the new year, while the cleaners sweep away the remaining snow from the streets, a black "Oriental" car is driving at a speed of 50 kilometers per hour, perhaps this new type is a symbol of the new century.

No, in fact, the "Oriental" car was just put into production last year, the first batch of only 150 units were produced, and its users were either senior government officials or company executives, at this time, no one noticed that this black cowhide soft five-seater car, what kind of changes will be brought to traffic, for many people, the car is just a fresh and expensive "toy", on the streets of the New Year, more but still by tall horse-drawn carriages, I don't know since when, Those Mongolian horses that have been improved for two or even three generations have begun to appear on the streets, although their body shape and pulling strength are still inferior to those of Western light horses, but compared with the short and rough Mongolian horses, after eight years of strict improvement, the Northeast horse, as a semi-mature horse breed, is becoming more and more widely used in all aspects.

After eight years of development, Dalian at this time is completely like a bustling city compared to eight years ago, and as an "old man". Tang Zhaoyi, who witnessed the development of the city from scratch. When looking out the window at the bustling city outside the car. There was still something strange on his face.

Sometimes, miracles, even as witnesses, wonder if it's real.

Eight years ago, what was here?

In terms of population, eight years ago, the population of the Northeast was less than seven million, but in the last eight years. However, the population of Northeast China has rapidly increased to 30 million, and more than 21 million immigrants have migrated to Northeast China through official and unofficial channels, bringing sufficient labor force to the development of Northeast China.

Eight years ago, the Northeast was poor and white, and apart from large areas of barren land, only southern Liaoning had relatively prosperous towns, but now, the migrant settlements scattered along thousands of kilometers of railway lines are thriving this once barren land and new streets. It is also making the three eastern provinces more and more prosperous.

Everything is changing, eight years. It's like a reincarnation, in just eight years, this land that has not changed much for thousands of years has undergone fundamental changes, with prosperous cities towering over the land, factories towering, and steam locomotives spitting smoke galloping on thousands of kilometers of railway lines.

In two years, when the three eastern provinces are established for ten years, what will become of this place?

Thinking of the city that will change every few days, Tang Zhaoyi couldn't help but think about it, that is, in this imagination, the car drove into the compound of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the Dongfang brand car stopped steadily in front of the foyer, and at the moment when the car stopped, Tang Zhaoyi ended his imagination and returned his mind to work.

At the end of last year, in order to prevent the Nanyang Republic from being involved by other countries, with the tacit consent of Britain and even the Netherlands, the Nanyang Republic was changed to a province, but it was not incorporated into the "Qing State" as a province, but became a "quasi-province" like Korea under the Governor's Office of the three eastern provinces, and when the time was ripe, it would be incorporated into China.

Of course, this is not the work of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in fact, after the completion of diplomatic formalities, this matter is now entirely under the responsibility of the Ministry of Civil Affairs, but the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has a much more extensive work, just as the contradictions between the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the United States on the Hawaii issue are still unresolved -- in the Spanish-American War two years ago, it was not only Russia that "took advantage of the fire" to rob, but the Northeast was also involved, but it was not noticeable -- the Second Sino-Xia Treaty was signed in Hawaii.

According to this treaty, "China" obtained the diplomatic rights of Hawaii and established the Hawaiian Governorate in accordance with the treaty's permission, which marked Hawaii becoming a de facto colony of China, and of course, the signing of this treaty was completely coercive. The outbreak of the Spanish-American War convinced the Queen of Hawaii, who had been imprisoned by American expatriates, that the next target of the United States was Hawaii, and she chose China under the promises made by the Minister to Hawaii.

Although the legal procedures have been completed, the United States is extremely dissatisfied with China's unannounced occupation, and if it were not for the large gap in naval strength between the two sides, it may lead to further confrontation, but the absence of further naval confrontation does not mean that the diplomatic confrontation will end there; to this day, the United States still "does not recognize" the Hawaiian Unified Prison Office, and even shows its determination by withdrawing its minister, in other words, the United States retains its power over Hawaii by "not recognizing" China's unified jurisdiction.

However, this did not prevent the Navy from building a large naval base in Hawaii to strengthen its naval presence in the Pacific, but in the eyes of the Americans, this behavior of the Navy was obviously aimed at the United States' "war preparations" behavior, which led to a sudden decline in relations between the two sides, and the United States has repeatedly strengthened its armaments on the West Coast in the past year.

As Foreign Minister Tang Zhaoyi, the most important task now is to resolve this dispute, of course, the premise of solving the problem is that on the Hawaii issue, no concessions will be made, which cannot but give Tang Zhaoyi a headache.

And this is just one of the many headaches, such as the Boer War, the trade problem with Russia, and so on, all of which are bothering him, of course, if these matters are divided into priorities, the most worrying thing for him is probably the ongoing "Anglo-German negotiations".

"Sometimes, negotiations are just negotiations!"

Putting down the confidential document marked "Top Secret" in his hand, Tang Zhaoyi couldn't help but let out a long sigh. If before that, he was worried about the Anglo-German alliance and thus kicking the Northeast aside, now, he no longer needs to worry about this.

"Minister, you mean, we don't need to worry about that anymore?"

As the Minister's Attaché looked at the Minister with some surprise, according to the Ministry's description of Britain, the current Britain is "a waddling and exhausted giant", and it is precisely for this reason that in order to maintain the huge colonies, Britain will change its "isolationism" and look for allies around the world.

"Germany, as a rapidly rising power, needs the support of Britain in order to gain more colonial benefits in the frenzy of the imperial powers to carve up the world, so the two countries have been engaged in a series of secret alliance negotiations since two years ago, but ...... After all, it's just a negotiation! ”

Tang Zhaoyi did not answer the question directly, but once again sighed that Britain and Germany had ghosts.

In fact, in the past two years, the negotiations between Britain and Germany have achieved brief success on some issues, such as the Samoa Agreement signed last year, but the lack of a common interest basis between Britain and Germany on many issues makes it impossible for the two countries to achieve a final success.

You must remember that Bismarck pointed out that no government is strong enough to serve the interests of a friendly country without regard to the condemnation of sacrificing the interests of its own nation. Britain tried to reduce its pressure in the Far East by forming an alliance with Germany to make Germany contain Russia in the Far East and the Pacific, but Germany was unwilling to offend Russia because of British interests, on the contrary, he preferred that Britain and Russia would be involved in the conflict in Asia, so that they could not take care of European affairs, and now Germany's increasingly powerful naval power and its strong expansion** are intensifying the contradictions between Britain and Germany, and the current negotiations are ......"

It was only the British career diplomats who used their ingenuity to trick the Germans into a minimum of neutrality with beautiful lies when Britain was drawn into the Boer War, so that their support for the Boers would remain "morally high".

"Your Excellency, will Britain make concessions on the question of the navy? Just like they can accept our Navy, why can't they accept Germany? ”

As a young diplomat, it seems that he is still a little unable to understand the diplomatic thinking of the British, who can accept the expansion of the Northeast Navy, but cannot accept the expansion of the German Navy.

The answer was very simple, for Germany, the colonies it had seized were just a scrap of tea from the old empire of Britain, Russia and France, and Germany had always been haunted by this situation, and their Second Majesty believed that only by expanding the navy, seizing maritime supremacy, and breaking the British monopoly could Britain be forced to make concessions on the colonial question. The ambitious Emperor made the development of a large navy and the seizure of colonies the main objective of German foreign policy, and in such a situation, England, as the largest colonial empire in the world, could not accept their naval expansion, as far as our expansion ......"

After a slight pause, Tang Zhaoyi's eyes glanced in the direction of the sea, and then said in a rather sighing tone.

"Our expansion is necessary to counter the Russians according to the needs of the British, and in this case the British can naturally accept our expansion, as for the Germans, ......"

Looking at the young man in front of him, Tang Zhaoyi shrugged his shoulders helplessly.

"They made a bad choice, and what about us? The UK needs our expansion! We need to pin down the Russians here! That's why the British don't want us to devote too much attention to the Pacific! (To be continued.) )