After the award ceremony, Vézé received a report from the Anhui Military Region. The people in Beijing who "insisted that they were Han" had been sent to Huaibei Huoyang. Huoyang is now completely under military control. The former Nien soldiers, the refugees from Henan who were recruited by the Xiang army to Huoyang, and this group of fellows who 'insist they are Han' held a public hearing. More than ten thousand captive Hunan landlords were sentenced to death and executed by the former Nian Army soldiers who defected to the Liberation Army.
The people who 'insisted that they were Han' were so scared that their faces turned ashen, while the Henan refugees cheered thunderously. They didn't starve to death as tenant farmers in the past few years, but they suffered a lot working for these landlords. After knowing that they weren't the ones to be executed or attacked, the tenant farmers were happy to see these people who had bullied them for several years being killed.
Vézé also felt a lot more relaxed when he learned that these landlords were wiped out. Any country that tried to industrialize had exterminated the landlords. In Europe, there was the French Revolution that killed the feudal landlords. More recently, there was the plantation economy that destroyed the southern landlords after the American Civil War. In the "future" South America and Asia, it was common for landlords and families to be killed in the hundreds of thousands.
The execution itself also confirmed political correctness, and it also strengthened the class position of the Restoration Party itself. Vézé prepared the theoretical program of the party to solidify the foundation of the system in the future. However, the wind never stopped blowing. Almost at the same time, the external affairs fell into Vézé's hands.
Zuo Zhidan was the Minister of Foreign Affairs. He could only manage diplomatic negotiations, and the final decision was still made by the Politburo. The representatives of the Tokugawa shogunate, the French, and the British were no longer people that Zuo Zhidan could deal with. These matters had to be decided by Vézé.
The second Choshu expedition, the war of the four territories, ended with the defeat of the shogunate. The Satsuma Domain had openly betrayed the shogunate during the second battle of Chōshū and single-handedly tricked the shogunate. Shinsaku Takasugi of the Elite Army won a great victory. The Tokugawa shogunate once again sent the Katsu Kaizhou to China to ask for help. Previously, the Tokugawa shogunate heard from Sheng Haizhou that China's attitude was that the shogunate could not afford to lose. This made the Tokugawa shogunate very unhappy.
However, the truth was as Vézé had said. After the defeat of the War of the Four Frontiers, the vassals in the southwest secretly stood on the side of the Saichang Alliance. The Tokugawa family was in a dire situation. On the surface, it seemed like the Tokugawa household still had a huge advantage. However, in reality, the war between the four territories had caused the Tokugawa household's field army to suffer heavy casualties. There was no field army, only the city guards. This meant that the war was basically lost. There was no need to emphasize this point to the Tokugawa shogunate.
Back then, the Toyotomi clan lost to the Tokugawa clan in the Battle of Sekigahara precisely because of the death and surrender of the field army. Later, in the Battle of Osaka, even Yukimura, who was known as the best soldier in the world, could not save the Toyotomi family from destruction. The Toyotomi family was like that, and the Tokugawa family was also like that.
During the attack on Luzon, Vézé still felt loyal to the Empire and wanted to kill the Meiji Restoration. Now, Vézé's attitude had changed considerably. After meeting with the representatives of the three countries, Foreign Minister Zuo Zhidan clearly saw some clues. He could not help but ask, "Your Majesty, why does it seem to me that you want to cooperate with the British?"
The British obviously wanted to support the Saichang Alliance, while the French supported the Tokugawa shogunate. Vézé, on the other hand, seemed to be on good terms with the British.
In response to Zuo Zhidan's question, Vézé had a rare moment of hesitation. After a while, Vézé said, "Our party is fighting against feudalism. The Tokugawa shogunate represents the old feudal forces in Japan. At this time, I support the Tokugawa shogunate. I am always worried that some comrades in the party might use this against us. "
Hearing Vézé express his distrust of some of his comrades, Zuo Zhidan did not dare to say anything else. Vézé also felt that his words were wrong. After a moment, he continued, "I am only completely opposed to feudalism, but not against our own comrades. This is a difference of ideas, but it is not a personal problem. "
Even so, Zuo Zhidan did not dare to respond. Anti-feudalism had always been something that Vézé had been talking about. Based on his understanding of the study documents that Vézé had made, Zuo Zhidan could clearly see that there were supporters of feudalism in the Restoration Party. The idea of abandoning the Party Committee and working alone was not something that only one or two people had.
It was just that Vézé had a firm grip on the army, and most of the people in the other departments had come from the army. Everyone knew that without the support of the army, anything they wanted to do would be small. Thanks to Vézé, everyone's understanding of feudalism was not superficial. To want feudalism, there had to be a certain degree of separation. Different degrees of feudalism had something in common, which was that a certain person or a certain force had the final say in a certain area.
For the new government, there was no such force in the world. It was one thing for the party and the government to turn a blind eye, but when the party and the government really opened their eyes and wanted to speak, the local forces had to be obedient. Because when the party and the government used the army as a tool, any force that tried to resist was bound to end up in pieces.
Zuo Zhidan had long addressed Vézé as His Majesty. Perhaps the Ministry of Foreign Affairs paid more attention to rhetoric, but Zuo Zhidan had long understood that Vézé's power was greater than any emperor's. The comrades in the army addressed Vézé as governor. Rather than saying that they were not used to changing the old title, it was better to say that the comrades in the army thought that they and Vézé were completely on the same side. Using a governor instead of His Majesty was to emphasize the difference between them and the other departments.
Seeing Zuo Zhidan's silence, Vézé asked, "What do you think as the foreign minister?"
Zuo Zhidan deliberated over her words before replying, "If His Majesty really wants to fall out with England in the future, he might as well cooperate with England now. These days, I'm afraid that the English will not allow us to take over the Dutch East Indies. But based on our experience in Luzon, as long as we act quickly, the English won't be able to react. In the end, they will have to admit the truth. The Dutch East Indies is much larger than Luzon. If we really act, the English will react as slowly as possible. It's not a bad thing to brush them off at the beginning. "
This was also a more normal strategy. Vézé pondered and said, "Is that what you think?"
Taizu had said that peace could only exist if there was conflict. In the second half of the 19th century, Vézé did not think that China had any countries that could be called allies. In fact, the great powers of the world were the same as China's Warring States Period. They all changed their allies and enemies at any time according to their own interests.
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