Friedrich did not want to waste time with these men, and the interpreter in the cathar immediately shouted a few times outside the palace gate, and soon an old eunuch came out and spoke in awkward French.

"My Majesty the Emperor of the Great Southern Empire is invited."

Friedrich sat on top of a palanquin he had just captured, and casually shot the old eunuch in the foot, causing him to pee his pants.

"Don't talk to me in French, I can't pass French, let the people inside come out to talk immediately, otherwise I'll burn this place on fire, and then find someone willing to talk."

After a while, Emperor Shao Zhi of Vietnam, accompanied by a group of concubines, came to the square in front of the palace with trepidation.

Friedrich looked at the man shivering among the women in front of him, lost interest in playing, and took out a translation of the text of the treaty that had been prepared and handed it to him.

1. Cedion of the Jiulongjiang Plain to the Austrian Empire, plus an indemnity of 3 million taels of silver.

2. Return the remains of all Western missionaries over the years and make a public apology in writing.

3. A pension of 300,000 taels of silver must be paid to relatives or the church where they belong. ”

The above terms are all within the expectation of Emperor Shaozhi. Although the compensation for the land cession made him feel painful, the Nguyen dynasty was like a live fish waiting to be slaughtered on a cutting board, and he was no longer qualified to bargain.

As a feudal emperor, Nguyen Phuc Xuan does not have the so-called feelings of family and country. As a believer in "existentialist philosophy", his principle of life is "everything is for existence, and existence is everything".

Any other land, money, and people are just passing clouds, and they are not as important as living, so all the acts of losing power and humiliating the country are just ruining wealth and eliminating disasters in the eyes of Emperor Shaozhi.

However, there were two things in the treaty that he could not accept, namely, "to prohibit the slave trade and free all slaves." "Because since the Tang Dynasty, this Vietnam has been the largest slave trader in Asia, and it has always profited from it.

For example, the famous Kunlun Nu (Black Uncle) is from the Saigon market. It is likely that the legendary Bodhisattva is also an allusion to Vietnamese and Persian whiteskins, both of whom are also believed to have come from the Saigon market.

However, with the Ming Dynasty's maritime ban and then the Qing Dynasty's seclusion, and then the gunboat diplomacy of Westerners, Saigon was no longer an important node of trade between East and West. In Vietnam's slave market, only the natives from Indochina remained.

The Vietnamese had been expanding their slave armies by capturing Laotians and Chenla. In addition, some people and criminals who could not pay their debts were treated as slaves, so once the slave trade was banned, it would undoubtedly move the cake of many people.

At the same time, if all the slaves were to be freed, it would be an astronomical amount, and it would certainly arouse the discontent of the whole country.

"What are you hesitating about? If you don't sign it, I'll burn down your wooden house! Friedrich saw the hesitation in his eyes and began to intimidate. After all, according to Franz, some people just don't cry when they don't see the coffin.

Nguyen Phuc Xuan was eager to find out about the matter as soon as possible. But as a monarch, he is not the only ruler of the country.

If the jade seal is really hastily covered like this, then the entire Vietnamese magnates and landlords will be offended by him, not to mention, and because of the disgrace of this defeat, the Nguyen dynasty will die in a humiliating way.

"If you sign it, you will be dead and alive, and if you don't sign it, there will still be a glimmer of life." Thinking of this, Ruan Fuxuan immediately stood up, tidied up his clothes, and stepped forward to say with the support of his favorite concubine.

"My Dayue country has been in practice since ancient times, the law of the ancestors is immutable, and as the orthodox Ruan family, I can't kill or chop for such a big rebellion, listen to it!"

Friedrich really wanted to shoot the trembling old bastard in front of him at this point, but reason stopped him. Because once this titular and legitimate ruler is lost, it will be a quagmire that swallows everything.

He remembered a conversation he had with Franz not long ago about trying to avoid a law and order war; The benefits of a colony depend on its output and maintenance costs.

If the cost is too high, it will be a burden on the country, and too much weight will lead to the intensification of domestic politics.

At the same time, if too much force is invested in a colony, it is very likely that it will fall into a scorching situation where the tail will not be able to fall, and it is easy to generate the idea of separating from the suzerainty under the instigation and demagogy of foreign forces.

Truth be told, colonization has never been a simple process, regardless of whether a country is big or small, strong or weak.

Instead of simply grazing grass or plundering, if you want to keep the blood transfusion from the colonies for the long term, you must first make long-term investment and development.

In other words, the necessary prerequisite for high returns is a stable and uninterrupted investment of money, materials and manpower, which means that you also need to take huge risks.

Natural disasters or even simple mismanagement can lead to losses, after all, the current colonies not only fail to bring economic benefits to the overlord, but also need to suck blood from the mother country.

The slightest carelessness may become a catalyst for intensifying the contradictions of political blocs.

Franz didn't want all of the Austrian expeditionary force to be replaced with PTSD, the kind that scared him when he heard "Foryunate Son".

(Foryunate Son, the famous Vietnam War Divine Comedy, has often appeared in various films and television works about the Vietnam War, originally in Forrest Gump.) ）

In writing to his uncle, a naval genius, he suggested that the Vietnamese hand over twenty thousand slaves. The figure of 20,000 is a shock to European countries, but it is a drop in the bucket for Vietnam, a country with millions of slaves.

So, Emperor Shaozhi finally won the bet, and the Austrian general, dressed in a gorgeous navy blue gown, lowered his gun and pulled a revised and more lenient treaty from his bosom.

And the Vietnamese monarch may not have been driven by the desire to kill with a knife, after all, 20,000 slaves is not as simple as a pain for some families that may endanger his rule.

After completing the formalities, Friedrich led the Austrian army out of Hue, as he was not sure whether the other side would return to help.

If the 100,000-strong army of the Vietnamese really desperately wanted to keep him, the admiral of the Imperial Navy would probably fall here.

Actually, Friedrich was overwhelmed.

At this time, at the other end, the Vietnamese army, which was unfavorable on the Kowloon River Plain, was half-attacked by the prepared Chenla people and lost thousands of troops, forcing the commander Alexandra to choose to confront each other across the river.

However, on the other side of the river, Ambrosius, as the commander of the Zhenla army, was not happy at all. The main armament of the Zhenla army in his hands is still broadsword, spear, bow and arrow, and other antiques that should be displayed in the museum.

And the crosshairs of those artillerymen and gunners under his command depend entirely on faith and luck. Twenty cannons and five thousand guns, if they were replaced by the troops of Austria and other European powers, I am afraid that the opponent would have been defeated long ago.

The attack that had the advantage of the enemy caused only a few thousand casualties, a considerable number of whom were drowned in the water while crossing the river.

Fortunately, however, the edict of the Vietnamese monarch demanding surrender was soon passed into the hands of the front-line general Alexandre, and he dispelled the idea of fighting to the death and led his men to surrender. At this point, the First Austro-Vietnamese War ended, and the Vietnamese ceded the Jiulongjiang Plain to Austria, plus an indemnity of 3 million taels of silver.

Another strategic value of the war was the acquisition of future mining rights for the vast quantities of high-quality anthracite coal that Vietnam possessed. It is an extremely scarce strategic resource and the only occupiable anthracite producer in the entire coastal region of Asia and Africa.

In the age of steam, coal was the blood of battleships. High-quality anthracite coal can not only provide stable and powerful power, but also facilitate the concealment of targets at sea.

In order to win a naval battle, the Japanese Combined Fleet even did not hesitate to spend a lot of money to buy anthracite from Britain, and the inferior coal even indirectly led to the destruction of the Russian Baltic Fleet.

Although the Austrian Empire had a large amount of coal, it was dominated by bituminous coal and lignite, and the artificial production of anthracite was not worth the loss in this era.

At the same time, anthracite is also an important chemical raw material, and its main use is in the fertilizer industry (nitrogen fertilizer, synthetic ammonia).

In addition, anthracite also plays an important role in industries such as ceramics and forging, and it is the best choice for blast furnace injection.

(End of chapter)