Xu Jingcheng heard Lin Yuan's words and whispered: "It's not a place to talk outside, let's go in and talk." ”

Lin Yuan nodded, gently pushed the door open, the two came to the house, turned on the electric light, Xu Jingcheng took out a document and handed it to Lin Yuan, and said: "This is sent by Lu Wansu, the great treasurer of Da Shengkui, when you are away, and this document contains the list of people in Russia for this negotiation." ”

Lin Yuan looked at it again, the names on it were stranger than the other, and they didn't even have the Ilya he was familiar with, Lin Yuan asked, "What's wrong with this list?" Is there something wrong? ”

Xu Jingcheng pointed to the person at the front and said, "Look at this person." ”

Lin Yuan whispered the name: "Ivankovic? Giles? What's wrong with this person? ”

Xu Jingcheng said: "Do you know the "Ili Treaty" that we signed with Russia in the seventh year of Guangxu? ”

Lin Yuan nodded and said, "Of course, this treaty not only allowed the Russians to plunder more than five million taels of silver from us, but also allowed them to occupy more than 90,000 square kilometers of our land, how can I not know about it!" ”

Xu Jingcheng said: "Then do you know who the Russian representative of the negotiation is? ”

Lin Yuan looked at the name written as "Gilles" and asked, "Is that him?" ”

Xu Jingcheng nodded and said, "That's right, it's this Gilles!" His prestige in Russia is very high, and he is called the 'Russian Bear' by the Russians, in our opinion, bears are stupid and stubborn things, and in the eyes of the Russians, bears are brave and fearless things, so this Gilles is called the Russian Bear, which is enough to show his talent! ”

Xu Jingcheng continued: "Although I did not participate in the negotiation of the signing of the Ili Treaty, it was an old man of mine who participated in the negotiation, his name is Zeng Jize, the son of Zeng Wenzhenggong, and he is responsible for the negotiation. ”

Lin Yuan nodded and said, "In other words, this Gilles is extremely difficult to deal with, isn't it?" ”

Xu Jingcheng said: "Exactly, not only that, this Gilles is also good at using a variety of means, cunning and despicable, Brother Ji Ze also said that this Gilles seems to be able to read minds, and sometimes his thoughts can be known by him!" ”

Lin Yuan thought to himself: "Mind reading? Is there really such a thing? I'm really looking forward to fighting this Gilles, who is known as the 'Russian bear', as soon as possible! He didn't wait long, and early the next morning someone came to report: Russian Foreign Minister, Ivanovich? Giles asks to be seen.

Lin Yuan didn't immediately ask people to invite him in, but asked people to tell this Gilles, saying that he had something to do now, and asked him to wait for a while, and then Lin Yuan brought Xu Jingcheng and discussed with him: "I don't know what Gilles wants to talk to me about this time?" ”

Xu Jingcheng said: "I think it will definitely have something to do with the upcoming negotiations, so let's invite him in." ”

So Lin Yuan asked Gilles to come in, and when Gilles appeared in front of him, Lin Yuan couldn't help but be stunned, in his impression, this Gilles, who was called the "Russian Bear", must be a big man with a tiger's back, but he didn't expect that he was a tall and thin old man, and he had no entourage by his side.

Gilles walked up to Lin Yuan and smiled respectfully: "I am the Russian Foreign Minister, and I am in charge of this negotiation." ”

Lin Yuan thought that this Gilles would be aggressive when he came up, but he didn't expect him to be so polite, so he politely greeted him, Gilles looked at Xu Jingcheng and said with a smile: "Mr. Lin Yuan, I want to have a separate business with you, and I hope your deputy will avoid it." ”

Lin Yuan thought to himself: "There have been a lot of things that want to deal with me alone, either to make a deal with me or to give me silver, today this Gilles repeats his old tricks, it seems that I have silver again." ”

So Lin Yuan asked Xu Jingcheng to go back first, and then said to Gilles: "Do you have anything to do with me?" ”

Giles said with a smile: "According to your Chinese words, I have nothing to do but go to the Three Treasures Hall, and I came to you to talk to you about the international situation in the world today and the status of your country." ”

Lin Yuan thought to himself: "He doesn't talk to me about things related to this war, but he wants to talk to me about the international situation and the status of my country. ”

So Lin Yuan bowed his head, and Gilles smiled: "Nowadays, there are only a handful of countries in the world that can be called powerful countries, first of all, Europe, Britain is undoubtedly the strongest country in the world, both in terms of economic strength and military strength, it can be called the king of the world!" ”

"However, Britain's status as the king of the world is already in jeopardy, and there are two countries in the world that have come from behind, one is Germany, Germany's steel production has surpassed France last year, ranking third in the world, and they have more new technologies; The second is the United States, since the end of the American Civil War, the United States can be said to be thriving, and now the steel production has been firmly in the second place in the world, and it is not much different from the United Kingdom. ”

"There are still old powers in Europe, such as France, Austria-Hungary, Spain, the Netherlands, Portugal, etc., but apart from France, the others have decayed to the point of decay, especially the Netherlands and Spain, the Netherlands is known as the coachman of the sea, but now they can't even put together a navy."

"Spain had an Armada back then, but since the Armada was defeated by the British, they have been in a slump, but the Spaniards still occupy a few excellent lands, such as the Philippines in Asia and Cuba in South America, but these people are too close to the United States, and the Americans regard themselves as God's chosen darlings, so expanding the land has become a matter of course for them."

Recently, a military expert named Mahan in the United States published a book called "The Impact of Sea Domination on History", which had a great impact on the United States, so the United States also raised the tide of building a navy, and in my opinion, the Philippines and Cuba will sooner or later be in the pockets of the Americans!"

Lin Yuan thought to himself: "It seems that this Gilles is really not simple, he can actually see the international situation clearly, in our time, in 1898, the United States and Spain broke out into war, known as the 'Spanish-American War', in this war, the aging Spain was defeated by the United States, and lost colonies such as the Philippines and Cuba. ”

Gilles continued: "These are far away from your China, and I believe you must be very interested in the country I am talking about below, and that is Japan!" China has fought several wars with Japan in history, the most recent of which occurred in 1894, when the Qing army had already lost a mess in the land battle in Korea, and you stood up and defeated Japan when it was about to win. ”

"Later, Japan took the opportunity to occupy Korea, and also occupied your Chinese Shengjing for a time, and then you led the troops to beat out, Japan regarded these two defeats as a great shame, you can take a look at this, I believe you can understand what will happen to Japan."

Saying that, Gilles put a booklet on the table, and Lin Yuan picked it up and couldn't help but be surprised.