No one could have imagined that the second expedition of the Anglo-French alliance would end like this, with more than 60,000 army troops, a huge fleet composed of hundreds of ships of all kinds, and elite and experienced commanders and commanders, carefully preparing for more than half a year, and finally rounding half the world to the Far East, with the result that all 60,000 army forces were annihilated in less than a month. The defeat was portrayed in England as a Saratoga defeat in the Far East and in France as a Waterloo in the Far East.

The British Palmerston cabinet collapsed, and in France, more than a dozen high-ranking officials resigned, and demonstrations against the war in the Far East broke out in both countries to varying degrees. Merchants marched with signs saying "We need Far Eastern trade" and "We need Far Eastern markets", families of soldiers marched with signs saying "Let the children go home" and "We need fathers, husbands and sons", and others marched with signs saying "We need peace" and "We can no longer shed blood for the Far East". The major media in Europe also rushed to report on this incident, and the domestic media in Britain and France made incomplete criticisms of this stupid war launched by the government and the army, while the foreign media mostly gloated.

On the fifth day after the news of the defeat of the British and French expeditionary forces returned to Europe, Prussia announced that its diplomatic relations with the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom in the Far East had been upgraded to the level of ambassadors, and the two sides exchanged ambassadors and began negotiations on a new trade treaty on the expansion of trade between China and Prussia. Then Austria-Hungary, Italy, Norway, Sweden and other countries did the same thing in Prussia, which made Britain and France feel as uncomfortable as eating flies.

Since both Britain and France have failed, what about the Russians? You must know that this expedition was participated in by the three countries. The people of Europe did not wait long, and a few days later, first of all, several newspaper media of the Ottoman Empire exposed the defeat of the Russian army in the Far East. The Russians' 30,000 elite Cossack cavalry were annihilated, and Chita, Nebuchu and other places were lost one after another. Together with the Russian defenders in these places, the Russians lost more than 50,000 men.

At this time, the last fig leaf of the Three Kingdoms Alliance was also torn off. The news of the defeat of the Russians was due to the inconvenient transportation and lack of information in the Far East and Northeast, and the Russians' intention to conceal it, so the people of Europe did not know the news until the news of the defeat of Britain and France came.

Well, the expeditionary operations of the three countries are all kneeling, and Britain and France still have the Far Eastern special fleet left to support the scene, and the question in front of Britain, France and Russia comes, is it war or peace?

After the fall of the Palmerston cabinet, after several days of intense debate in both chambers. Edward, 14th Earl of Derby? Jeffrey? Smith? Stanley once again came forward to form a cabinet, and Stanley was the leader of the British Conservative Party, and the Conservatives finally overthrew the Whig cabinet through this war and regained control of British politics. At the beginning of his presidency, the first question before the new British cabinet was the question of how the war in the Far East would end.

The British were not willing to give up their high and dignified face at first, and in the debate between the two houses of parliament, the first proposal of the new cabinet was the bill of the continuation of the war, and Stanley's proposal was to force the surrender of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom of China through a continuous blockade of the Far East and attacks on various ports by naval fleets.

Of course, this bill has been refuted to the fullest extent when it was discussed in the House of Lords. What does the new cabinet think? If this bill passes, will it be okay? Does Britain still need a market in the Far East? Do you want those captured soldiers to go home? Do you want control of other colonies? The strongest opposition was to the merchant group, whose losses during the two years of war were enormous. Moreover, the rest of Europe began to take advantage of the war between Britain and the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom to try to expand their trade in China. If the war continues, British merchants will be squeezed out of the Chinese market.

At the same time, some lawmakers have also rejected the plan from a military point of view. With thousands of kilometers of coastline and numerous port cities in China, how many ships would the coalition need to use to achieve the blockade? All right. Even if Britain did blockade the Far East, it would inevitably lead to strong protests from other countries. You don't do business yourself, but others still have to do it.

Moreover, now that the American Civil War has begun, Britain does not want the Northern government represented by the advanced industrial blocs of the United States to win, so that a powerful industrial country will emerge in the Americas that competes with Britain for the American market, so Britain must withdraw from the Far East as soon as possible and strengthen its intervention in the American Civil War, instead of sinking deeper and deeper into the Far East.

As a result, Stanley's first motion was vetoed, and then the cabinet members could only sit down and discuss a more realistic plan, through the United States to carry out peace negotiations to end the war, but the interests of Britain could not be damaged, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom should ensure that the pre-war situation was restored, and strive to get some war reparations, even if in the end because of the defeat of the war, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom did not pay, and there could be no British reparations. And all these negotiations were guaranteed by the blockade of the Far East by a huge fleet, and if the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom did not agree to this peace treaty, Britain would tentatively threaten to blockade China with its fleet.

Well, this proposal is still a bit brainy, but at least it sees the dawn of peace, and the arrogant majority of the British people are more in favor of this proposal to end the war with dignity, because they still have the last guarantee, that is, a strong fleet of the navy.

The French solution is similar, they intend to follow behind Britain to pick up ready-made, they have no guarantees, because Napoleon II is now sitting on the crater, and great changes in the country may break out at any time, how to end the war, France is behind Britain.

The Russians were the most ridiculous, and Tsar Alexander II said that Russia could afford a temporary defeat, and that Russia had stopped the advance of the Taiping army in the Far Northeast and would organize a counteroffensive later. All European countries scoffed at this, and Russia said this because it was proud that China could not threaten their European land. It's not good to lose Chita and Nebuchu, Russia has a lot of land anyway, and Muravyov's Far Eastern Army still has four divisions of troops, so it is not a complete defeat, so everyone will consume it first. It was actually the cold that held back the Taipings, but the Russians thought it was unlikely that the Taipings would dare to penetrate deep into the Russian hinterland.

After more than a month of debate, the British Parliament finally sent instructions to Sir Colrington, Minister Plenipotentiary for the Far East. That is, Prime Minister Stanley's second bill, the core content of which is only three. First, both sides ended the war and returned British prisoners of war. Second. Restore all pre-war British interests in the Far East. Third, in turn, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom was required to pay a certain amount of war reparations.

More than three months had passed since the defeat at Canton, and it was not until the spring of 1862 that Sir Colrington received instructions from home, and when he received this instruction, Sir Collington did not know whether to cry or laugh, because there were other things that had happened in the course of more than three months.

The first is that after the severe cold has passed, the Taiping army continued to launch an offensive in the northern region, the day before receiving instructions from home. Sir Colrington received information from the Americans that the Russians had been dealt another major blow in the north. Yakutsk, the largest stronghold of the Russian army in the Far East, was captured by the Taipings, and four divisions of the Russian army were completely annihilated, and the Russian governor of Siberia, Muravyov, was taken prisoner. The last vestige of Russian forces in the Far East was gone, and the Taiping army and the Mongol cavalry galloped freely across the vast Siberian land, and the Russians were almost driven east of Lake Baikal.

The second is the Allied Fleet, although the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Navy is weak, they and the pirates of the Far East launched an unlimited naval raid on the Allied fleet, and the lone British ships will definitely be attacked. The scope of the attack even extended to the Strait of Malacca. Admiral Dundas had to send a fleet to escort merchant ships and supply ships, and several naval battles broke out in the South China Sea, all of which ended in British victories, but each time the number of ships in the fleet decreased. The Taiping army only lost a few red single ships or armed merchant ships converted from large merchant ships, and this piecemeal tactic caused headaches for the coalition fleet.

Then there is the blockade of Hong Kong Island by mines and the shelling of Hong Kong Island on the Kowloon Peninsula has never stopped, and the coalition forces have not been very good at dealing with these small mine-laying boats that come out at night. There were a few times when the coalition forces were ruthless. A fleet was sent out at night to drive out the boats, and the fleet of six warships was then guided by the boats to a reef. Because it was a night adventure, the British navy did not pay attention to this trap. Although they sank most of the small ships, they were trapped in this sea area and were then completely annihilated by the main force of the Taiping navy. Later, the British navy no longer dared to pursue those mine-laying boats, but as soon as they heard any movement at night, they fired artillery to drive them away, and then at dawn they had to send ships to clear the mines in the channel, otherwise Hong Kong Island would not be able to get supplies from the ships, and they were afraid that they would soon become chaotic on their own.

Therefore, Lord Colrington felt that the instructions given by the country were very inappropriate, and they threatened to blockade all the ports of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, and demanded that the other side agree to the terms they offered. Now Sir Corrington also has a great concern, that is, maybe one day the enemy will come from the Kowloon Peninsula, if it is not for Dundas's fleet still struggling to support Victoria Bay, once the fleet withdraws from this water, it is believed that the Taiping army assembled on the other side of the river will cross Victoria Bay and invade Hong Kong. Once Hong Kong Island falls, the British will lose one of their best footholds in the Far East, and the blockade of the enemy's coastline will require a large number of supply ships to follow. And because the Marines and the Army were lost, the Navy might have to take any port as a supply base, because as soon as the British landed on the mainland, they would be greeted by the enemy's man-to-sea tactics.

However, the domestic instructions could not be ignored, and Sir Collington could only meet with the American minister and put forward a plan for the United States to mediate. The American minister was very happy at first, thinking that the British finally understood and were willing to restore peace in the Far East, but after listening to Sir Collington's later request, the American minister immediately lowered his face and said: "Please pay attention to one point, once Britain dares to blockade the Far East coastline, we in the United States will never agree, we need China's trade!" ”

Of course, Sir Colrington knows what the Americans want, and the northern government of the United States now needs to trade with China to earn military spending, and also needs some material support from China, and the United States will definitely not do it, and other countries will not agree. But Lord Colrington could only say: "Your Excellency, I hope that negotiations will begin first, and then we will work together for peace." ”

Sir Colrington said a lot of things, and finally the American minister also understood Sir Collington's difficulty, and in any case, first revealed to the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom the information that the British were willing to sit down and negotiate, and as for the final outcome of the negotiations, God knows...... (To be continued......)