Although I don't like Joseph very much. Johnston's style, but the proposal he said made Li Yongji quite excited.

Indeed, with the current situation, as long as he, Li Yongji, does not intervene, the Civil War can no longer be fought.

The main reason for this is that the northern government has lost the ability to continue the offensive in the short term after suffering a series of major defeats, and his opponent, the government of the Southern Alliance States, has long been forced to support it.

Therefore, except for the ignorant masses below, anyone who cares can see that the north and the south are now like two exhausted boxers, and neither of them is able to continue fighting, so if there is no accident, negotiating a truce is inevitable.

Even if the Allied States still wanted to continue to fight at this time, Li Yongji would not allow the Southern Army to continue fighting, he did not want to see a United States that continued to be unified, otherwise, he would not have chosen to support the southern government in the first place, but would have chosen the easier northern government.

In fact, according to Li Yongji's plan, after he left Memphis, he would go directly to New Orleans, and issue an initiative in the name of the Chinese Empire, advocating a formal truce between the North and the South, and using his own strength to force them to enter the negotiated armistice procedure in advance to avoid accidents.

Li Yongji believed that with the current strength of the Chinese Empire, especially the combat effectiveness displayed by his expeditionary force, it would certainly be able to win the attention of both the North and the South, and that with such strong strength as a deterrent, as long as a little guidance was given to the North and the South to step down, the leaders of the North and the South would certainly sell China face and enter the armistice procedure ahead of schedule.

In other words, Li Yongji wanted to make a comprehensive truce between the North and the South before leaving, and let the international community recognize the Confederate States of the South and make the independence of the Confederate States of America a fait accompli.

As long as the United States of the North recognized the independence of the country that had been separated from its own body, the other powers of the international community also recognized the power of the Confederate States of the South. It means that the whole world has recognized the new country of the Union State, and at that time, it will be extremely difficult for the United States to annex the Federal States of the South, because it can no longer fight under the banner of civil war, but can only fight under the banner of aggression or counter-aggression.

Don't underestimate this, once the United States of America recognizes the legitimacy of the Confederate States of the South, it will be even more difficult to annex them smoothly, so as to achieve the goal of weakening the United States and bringing North American land to the mainland. There will be no more unified giants, which will not only reduce the Chinese Empire of a formidable opponent in the future, but also reduce the resistance to its own plans to colonize the Americas.

However, in the past days, Li Yongji's plan only ended here, because in his plan, as long as there is a truce between the north and the south, the international community. After the United States of the North also recognized the legitimacy of the Union Powers, he would bring his troops back to China and give priority to domestic affairs, while the North and South Americans would abandon them all.

The reason is simple. After all, this is not China, and the purpose of his trip is mainly to make trouble, and now that the goal has been achieved, it is only right to put his energy back into China. After all, any strategy and tactics are not as important as their own strength.

Li Yongji's energy is limited, and his golden finger is not omnipotent. But there are a lot of restrictions, and it is impossible for him to spend all his energy on the United States at this time.

To put it bluntly, Li Yongji will work hard to develop the country in the future, and there will be no time to manage this side, and according to Li Yongji's understanding, with the current situation, after experiencing this civil war of unprecedented scale, because real reunification has not been achieved, whether it is the United States of the North or the Southern Union States, it is equivalent to being greatly weakened, and no one can get nourishment by annexing the other side, so that no one on the north and the south will want to recover their vitality in less than ten years.

It can be said that the United States is no longer enough to be founded, and it has no economic value, so Li Yongji plans to give up the situation here first and go back to give priority to domestic development, after all, there are still many things to do in China and around China.

However, Joseph's proposal made him see another possibility, that is, to support the agent!

Joseph. Johnston is right, the war is coming to an end, and once the war is over, in the case of the Confederate states, in the case of the loss of foreign enemies, it is likely to fall into a period of princely hegemony, and the power of the local government will override the central government, until this relationship can no longer be maintained, and it will completely change to another form of government.

But until the political model changes, this situation of princes competing for hegemony will definitely continue for some time, which means that if you want to continue to reap the benefits on the side of the Union States, it is useless to negotiate with their central government, you can only negotiate with the respective state governments, but it will be too laborious to do so.

Among them, the Mississippi River Valley in the territory of the Confederate State seems to be sparsely populated, but it is rich in resources, the strategic location is prominent, and it is an important place to communicate the east, west, north and south of the Confederate State.

Think about it, in another time and space, the reason why the Civil War ended so quickly was because the Northern Army won a great victory in the western theater, thus cutting off the logistics support capacity of the Union government, making it impossible for the East and West to continue to communicate, which made the Union government collapse faster.

Now, Li Yongji's troops occupy the richest and most important strategic points along the Mississippi River, and once they leave, these places will return to the hands of the Confederate Powers.

However, Li Yongji's energy and ability were limited, and with the current situation of the Chinese Empire, it was difficult to do a good job in California, and he was simply unable to continue to develop colonies on this side of the Mississippi River.

Today's era is not the 21st century, in this era, even the Panama Canal has not yet been opened, from the west coast of North America to the east coast, to spare a big circle, such a long road, in New Orleans to build a Chinese concession, is really worth the loss.

However, if you don't have to bother yourself, support a warlord as your agent, control the area, and then let this warlord give absolute convenience to his merchants, then the situation is different.

New Orleans, in particular, is not only a natural port, but also geographically important, and if you control it, you can control the entire Gulf of Mexico and the Mississippi River Basin, not to mention the economic value. If you simply talk about military value, it is immeasurable.

Of course, it is not very economical to build a Chinese military base here, but it would be different if you could have a trustworthy agent here to help you.

In the past, Li Yongji didn't have a suitable agent, so he didn't want to continue to waste time and experience here. Johnston's guy jumped out and took it all in. Take the initiative to ask to be a traitor.

From Joseph. Johnston's statement said that there was no more suitable agent than he was, for he was right that there was indeed a power vacuum in the middle and lower Mississippi River in what was now a confederacy of territory.

In the past, these places were all Confederate states, but because of Grant's westward conquest, the power centers in these regions were destroyed. Whether it is Tennessee or Mississippi, the state governments that were originally inclined to the Confederate government have long since ceased to exist in Grant's iron-fisted aggression.

Later, Li Yongji's expeditionary force appeared here again. Sweeping north from New Orleans, unstoppable in its path, he eventually became the new master of the area and replaced Grant's Northern Army. Took control of the lower Mississippi River banks.

Now, the expeditionary force that controls this place is leaving, and these territories are once again unowned. Who to give and not to whom, that's a real problem.

Indeed, in terms of military strength, apart from the Chinese Expeditionary Force and the private mercenaries attached to the Administrator, the Pemberton Regiment of Vicksburg was the most powerful, followed by the Tennessee Regiment of Richmond, and finally Joseph. Johnston's private regiment, the Mississippi Regiment.

Speaking of which, the Mississippi Legion originally belonged to Pemberton's troops, and it was the Mississippi River Legion led by Pemberton who fought with Grant in Vicksburg.

However, after the Battle of Vicksburg, only Pemberton's Mississippi Regiment was left in the entire Western Theater of Operations, which was still fully organized and considered the most powerful force, and the other troops had long been wiped out.

At that time, President Davis of Richmond, in order to avoid a situation where the Pemberton tail would not be overwhelmed, handed over the command of the Mississippi River Regiment to Joseph. Johnston, asking Johnston to lead the force to Memphis.

Pemberton was quite dissatisfied with this obvious decentralization, so he openly handed over the command of the Mississippi Legion, but only handed over the empty shell of the legion, in fact, he had already left his henchmen behind and joined the newly formed Pemberton Legion.

The so-called Pemberton Regiment was a new legion ordered by President Davis to comfort Pemberton at that time, and in recognition of Pemberton's exploits, it was named after him, and continued to be stationed in Vicksburg. Johnston's Order.

Since there was a new system, Pemberton was very bold in recruiting troops, and his original intention was not to rebel, but out of an instinct, an instinct to expand the army.

That's it, Joseph. Johnston only got a shell legion with no men, and he got almost nothing but the Mississippi legion.

Although the Tennessee Legion also belonged to Joseph. Johnston was temperate, but in fact he couldn't command at all, so to put it mildly, Joseph. Johnston's situation is largely unchanged from the past.

Good thing for Joseph. Johnston was not easy to fool, taking advantage of the fact that the expeditionary force was fighting with the Northern Army in front, he quietly developed his strength in the back, and when Li Yongji defeated the Northern Army, signed an armistice agreement with the Northern Army, and led the troops back to Memphis, Joseph. Johnston had quietly grown the empty Mississippi Legion into a force of over 50,000 men.

It's just that although people are easy to pull, this new legion listed on the backdoor is seriously lacking in weapons and ammunition, so he hit the idea on the Chinese, wanting to get a batch of prisoners and weapons from the hands of the expeditionary force, so as to make the Mississippi legion a veritable powerful legion.

Joseph. Johnston is confident that as long as he gives his legion sufficient armament, coupled with his status as commander-in-chief of the Western Theater, with a little operation, the Pemberton who will only expand his army but lacks command ability will not be his opponent at all, and this area of the lower Mississippi River will be his plate sooner or later!

Once he can completely control the lower Mississippi River, he will control nearly one-third of the land and resources of the Union Nation, and no matter what he wants to do in the future, even if it is to compete for the president, he will have more bargaining chips.

Anyway, Joseph. What Johnston said was true, and Li Yongji was indeed reluctant to just pat his ass and leave, and give away all the ground he had beaten down to others. Johnston's proposal was still very appealing.

But then again, it takes energy and resources to support agents, which is another point he is worried about, because the Chinese Empire seems to be powerful now, but in fact it is all inflated, and there is no essential change within itself, and it will take time to accumulate if it wants to become fundamentally strong.

Therefore, after thinking about it, Li Yongji himself couldn't make up his mind, so he simply called the domestic Prime Minister Shen Shiming in the evening and continued to have a conference call.

On the phone, Li Yongji put Joseph. As soon as Johnston talked about the situation, he talked about his own concerns, and then began to ask Shen Shiming what he thought, and asked if the empire was now capable of continuing to support a puppet warlord on the North American side.

"If Your Majesty wants to ask the Weichen Empire itself if it can do this, my answer is no." Shen Shiming said, "Your Majesty, although our country looks quite good in all aspects, in fact, the central government's finances have been in serious deficits for two consecutive years, and there is no way to continue to support a warlord in South America, which is thousands of miles away."

In fact, even if we support a warlord over there, how much good can we get? Do you do business? Not to mention how strong the purchasing power of people in South America can be, let's just say that this is thousands of miles away, and ordinary sailing ships take half a year to come and go, which takes time and costs money back and forth, and we don't earn much.

That is to say, compared to going to the United States to pan for gold, our businessmen are more willing to take a short-distance sea trade, and if they have time to go to the United States, our businessmen will earn more than a trip to the United States, whether they go to Japan or go to the South Seas.

To tell the truth, if His Majesty hadn't forcibly sent people to Hollywood colonization in the United States at the beginning, and later gave a large amount of free land as a solicitation, our Chinese people would not have gone to the Americas to live, and it would be better to go abroad to Korea and Japan.

However, the California side is already the limit of our colonization, and for this reason, we are operating at a discount every year, in fact, those colonial activities are money-losing transactions, but if you want to spare a big circle to go to the East Coast, it will be unattractive. ”

"I hear it." Li Yongji smiled, "What does the prime minister mean, let me refuse that Joseph's proposal?" ”

"Yes, if you want the court to contribute money and efforts, Weichen will definitely refuse." Shen Shiming said, "But then again, if you don't have to pay from the imperial court, Your Majesty is willing to pay for it yourself, or let others contribute money and efforts, and only let the imperial court contribute people, there are still some things to talk about." ”

"Oh? Only let the court send people? ”

"Yes." Shen Shiming sighed, "Your Majesty, over the years, although we have been thriving in all aspects, this natural and man-made disaster has not stopped for a year, but because of the peak military strength of my dynasty, these natural and man-made disasters cannot set off big waves, and the impact on the imperial court is relatively small."

Just recently, we have just put down the unrest in Gansu and Yunnan, and many refugees have been left homeless, and the Yellow River in Henan has been flooded again some time ago, and countless people have been affected...... If His Majesty is willing to take out his inner son and recruit this group of refugees to settle in the past, it should still be possible.

It's just that what Wechen wants to say is that the cost of recruiting these refugees and letting these people go to North Korea and Japan is much smaller than the cost of going to Hollywood, and if you go to New Orleans, it will definitely cost more than going to Hollywood.

Therefore, the imperial court is now short of money and people! If Your Majesty can solve the problem of lack of money, then you have no problem whether you want to colonize the Americas or support agents. (To be continued......)