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Many years later, the question of whether the first railway in Asia should be located in Vietnam or China was debated endlessly. But no one questioned the conclusion that the first railway was a freight railway.
The Viceroy's Office imported steam engines from England and built a very short freight railway between Vietnam's Hongji Port and Hongji Coal Mine. Not long after the completion of this railway, the railway between Foshan Iron and Steel Center and the port was also completed. Coal and ores no longer needed to be transported by carts. Trains could easily transport the mountains of ores to the steel plant for smelting.
This was a very important trade between China and England. By exporting technology, equipment, and engineers to China, England earned several hundred thousand taels of silver in one go. In addition to the United Kingdom, Hong Kong received a commendation, and the Ministry of Transport of the Viceroy General's Office also had an official unit of the Railway Administration.
The Chinese and English did not consider each other as friends. After Downing Street analysed the situation in China, they felt that there was no need for the British to send out 100,000 troops to flatten Guangdong and recover the Governor's Office. However, this only meant that the British central government didn't want to go on an expedition. It didn't mean that the British central government really understood what was happening in the Far East.
Therefore, when the British personnel in Hong Kong learned from the French that the Viceroy General's Office was privately negotiating with the French, they immediately became excited. China and France had fought a war, and any losses suffered by either France or China in the Far East would effectively benefit the British, so the British were very happy to see the French beaten up miserably. For the same reason, any two powerful countries bypassing the United Kingdom to negotiate would make the United Kingdom extremely nervous.
The British were desperately trying to figure out what the Viceroy's Office and the French were talking about. They invited Hong Ren, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Commander-in-Chief's Office? I asked this question when I was drinking tea. Hong Ren? He only said one sentence, no comment.
The French side had been infiltrated by the British and they soon received news from the French side. The Viceroy's Office was preparing to open a commercial route to Siam. This route would pass under the eyes of the French. If they could not reach a peaceful consensus with the French forces in southern Vietnam, the Liberation Army would not be at ease with the safety of this route.
According to the information received from the British side, the negotiations were not going well. The French, who had suffered a great loss in the Kowloon area, demanded an exorbitant price. While demanding compensation from the Viceroy's Office for their losses, they also accepted many of the French's conditions. The Restoration Governor's Office immediately told the French that if they didn't agree, then they could only send troops to the South of Vietnam to help the Vietnamese fight. After driving the French out of Vietnam, the Liberation Army could sail however it wanted.
The English were delighted to see that there was a conflict between the two great powers. The European shit-stirrers were best at meddling in these matters. The focus of the conflict was on the sea, which was the field that the United Kingdom was best at.
On September 1, 1860, the French and British consuls in Canton went to see the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Restored Viceroy, Hong Jen. The British publicly stated that they would not accept any military conflict between the Liberation Army and the French at sea. When he heard that, he was stunned. The Liberation Army had never intended to mobilize the navy to fight a naval war with France. God knows where the British got this kind of bullshit information from.
In Hong Ren? When they didn't understand what the British meant, Zuo Zhidan, the representative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs who was in charge of military affairs who attended the meeting, said keenly, "Does the British not accept us sending troops to the south of Vietnam to fight by sea?"
The representative of the United Kingdom blinked his eyes. Based on their understanding of Hong Jen, this man knew something about the situation in Europe, but he was not a very astute person. So the British were going to send out some vague signals to muddy the water as much as possible. Unexpectedly, someone in China could directly point out the core of the problem. This messed up the British's original plan.
So the British representative said, "We oppose a military attack on France."
"That means you don't oppose a military attack on China by France?" Zuo Zhidan said.
The British representative just sneered but didn't answer. He didn't expect that the Liberation Army would press forward step by step. It was really a failure to make the contradiction so clear on a diplomatic occasion.
However, Zuo Zhidan obviously thought differently from the British representative. He smiled at the French representative and said in a tone without hostility, "Why haven't I heard of the news of the merger between France and Britain? Or is Britain willing to fight for France unconditionally? Or is Britain willing to fight for France without receiving money or benefits? "
France was also a big country with dignity. Even the diplomats had some self-restraint. After being ridiculed like this, the French representative's face became extremely ugly. But this time, the French did have the intention of using the power of the British. Being ridiculed by the Liberation Army, France could only accept it for the time being. With France's military strength in the Far East, they did not have the capital to fight the Liberation Army independently.
Zuo Zhidan did not continue to pursue. He said, "The purpose of our negotiations with the French side about the sea route is for peace, not war. I know that France and Britain had a hundred years of war. When the British saw that they were about to win, Joan of Arc led the French army to a series of victories. She reversed the war. Later, the British caught Joan of Arc and burned her to death on the grounds that she was a witch. But after a hundred years of fighting, didn't it end in peace? I also know that after the French Revolution, Britain participated in the anti-French alliance. First, they fought with the French Republican government, then with the French Emperor Napoleon. After fighting for more than ten years, didn't it end in peace … "
Listening to the representative of the Liberation Army talk about the old accounts between Britain and France, the British representative did not expect that there would be a person in the Far East who was so familiar with the history of Britain and France. This person even knew about Joan of Arc. The British representative turned his head to look at the French representative, but saw that the expression on the French representative's face was uncertain. It seemed that these words had some persuasiveness.
"The goal of war is for peace. All parties go to war for the peace that their own side hopes for. That's why there is negotiation, and there is an attempt at peace based on the strength of war. Our Liberation Army is very clear that if we can't win, then we can't talk about winning. So when the French representative made a military threat, we also had to show our strength. I want to say to the French representative again, if our goal is really war, then we don't have to show anything, just find the best time to fight. We show this strength precisely because we don't want to use this strength. "Zuo Zhidan said seriously, and the French representative gradually listened. France naturally looked down on China. Even if they suffered a big loss in reality, knowing that the military strength of the Liberation Army was not something that France could fight against, France still regarded China as a barbaric country. Now that he heard the talk about war and peace that could only be heard in European negotiations, the French representative began to feel a little different.
If France could overwhelm China in military, even if the representative of the Liberation Army was eloquent, the French side would not turn a deaf ear to it. Now the Liberation Army did have the ability to invest troops in southern Vietnam and defeat the French army. Then China was a reasonable country, not a country that only knew how to solve problems with war. This was a very important matter for France.
In the end, Zuo Zhidan said, "We are willing to negotiate with France only on the issue between China and France, and the two sides reached a peace agreement. I don't quite understand why the British side raised the threat of war in this peace negotiation! "
After that, Zuo Zhidan stared at the British representative, her face full of provocation.
The British representative was furious. He thought that there were two meanings in the words of the representative of the Viceroy General's Office. One was to show the French that China did not want to fight with France, and the other was to use the historical grievances between Britain and France to provoke the relationship between the two. The purpose of these two meanings was to let the French negotiate with the China alone, and send the British out of the negotiations.
For the world's hegemon, Britain could accept failure. On the road to rise, the British had accepted countless failures. However, the British could not accept being excluded from other powerful countries. If other powerful countries could solve their own problems, they would reject Britain. One of the fundamental reasons for Britain's rise was that it was a troublemaker in Europe. It successfully intervened in almost every contradiction and conflict in Europe, causing Europe to fight endlessly. Step by step, it established Britain's absolute influence on the European continent. Once it lost such influence, the European continent would solve its own internal problems, and Britain would become the target of public criticism. That would be a very miserable ending.
So the British representative hurriedly said, "Let's stop here. Let's take a break! "
During the break, the British representative tried to explain to the French how unreliable the Viceroy General's Office was, and how cunning and scheming the barbaric Orientals were. As European countries, the expansion of Britain and France in the East had to rely on the Europeans' own strength.
No matter what the French side thought, they had to give the British some face. The expansion in Vietnam was a very important breakthrough direction for France, and cooperation with the British was essential. Therefore, the negotiations after the break made no progress, and finally ended hastily.
After the meeting, Zuo Zhidan participated in the internal discussion of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. After the discussion, he went to see Vézé. After reporting the negotiation process to Vézé, Zuo Zhidan said, "Viceroy, the information you gave me and the outline of the conversation seems to be really useful. The French side obviously did not have the initial attitude of completely relying on the British. "
"That's not important. Those who should leave will leave. You should quickly familiarize yourself with the work now. In the future, you will have to take more responsibility in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs! "Vézé said.
"More responsibility?" Zuo Zhidan repeated.
Hearing that Zuo Zhidan seemed to have understood something, Vézé further said, "Yes! Shi Dakai left, Guangxi's Dacheng also left. In the future, there will be more who will leave. The times have changed. I have always trusted my comrades, so I don't want my comrades to make some painful choices. Hong Ren? Comrade is a good comrade, we should cherish him more. "
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