When Li Xin became the Minister of Foreign Affairs, the atmosphere in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs immediately changed. The original Ministry of Foreign Affairs was just a very ordinary liaison organization. It wasn't that the two Ministers of Foreign Affairs didn't want to do better. First, they didn't have a solid foundation, and second, they didn't know much about the economy, so it was easy to misunderstand the foreign devils' judgment.
Now that the Minister of Commerce became the Minister of Foreign Affairs, he immediately made use of the accumulated information. The colonial era was the era of ultimate interests, and the Ministry of Commerce was also the department of ultimate interests. The foreign devils' opinions could easily be made relatively close to the truth.
"Commander-in-chief, why don't you order the central government to prepare for war? I don't think the British will give up. "Li Xin raised this question when he went to see Vézé alone.
Wei Ze replied, "The preparations for war have been made a long time ago. As long as the construction of the fleet in the plan is completed, the trials are adjusted, and the personnel are allocated, coupled with a period of training, I'm not afraid of the British attacking. In that case, it doesn't matter if I give the order or not. "
"But I always feel that it's better to be mentally prepared." Li Xin was still more insistent on his view.
"I used to think so too, but I haven't been thinking that way recently. I've already made the judgment that the British will attack. I've also discussed with my comrades many times about going to war with the British. This is the general direction, but I didn't think that the specific situation would be a situation where the British would take the initiative to provoke and even attack. In more specific matters like this, I'd rather deal with it as it comes, rather than do something useless. "Vézé explained to Li Xin, who was quite satisfied with him.
Li Xin was 31 years old this year, nine years younger than Vézé. Even in the current era where senior officials were generally young, Li Xin was still a very young ministerial official. He was born in a Hui merchant family and had been studying since he was a child. At the age of 12, he joined the Liberation Army with his family and was one of the tens of thousands of people who went to Guangdong. He was still young and vigorous at this age. Li Xin was somewhat unconvinced and said, "Commander-in-chief, you've repeatedly taught us not to fight unprepared in class. I think that prejudgment is also a kind of preparation. "
Vézé smiled and said, "I was also young when I taught you, and I felt that everything was under my control. At my current age, it's not that I've lost my motivation, but I truly understand that I couldn't see through some things in the past. Just like you, I believe that when you were the Minister of Commerce, you always wanted to serve the country. But did you ever think that you would serve the country as the Minister of Foreign Affairs? "
"This … I didn't." Li Xin admitted frankly.
Vézé explained patiently, "It's the same with the British. We can prepare from the basic principles of war. But we are not fortune-tellers. We do not know when the English will attack, what equipment they have, how many troops they have, and what preparations they have made in secret. In a situation where we don't have enough information, making excessive predictions is not a good thing for us. "
"Commander-in-chief, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is also responsible for intelligence work. I will do my best to improve our intelligence network and make predictions more accurate. "Li Xin expressed his expectations for the future to Vézé.
Li Xin did not understand Vézé's thoughts, which made Vézé feel regretful, but his youthful drive made Vézé very pleased. Young people grew up bit by bit, and Vézé could only look forward to Li Xin's growth.
If one wanted to grow, one had to experience it. The British did not care what the Chinese thought. After the end of January 73, the central government resumed foreign affairs. The British ambassador then continued to pressure China on the trade issue. "If China continues to adopt this policy, we can only impose a trade embargo on the two countries according to our country's laws and the war between China and Russia."
"Oh? Has Russia officially declared war on us? "Li Xin asked, pretending to be puzzled.
China and Russia were fighting happily, but Russia did not declare war on China because of the distance or other reasons. The central government did not care about this matter. If Russia did not declare war, China would focus on recapturing the territory stipulated by the Treaty of Nerchinsk. The harsh climate was the biggest enemy of the Chinese team. If Russia declared war, China would attack Russia in a wider area. The harsh climate was still the biggest enemy of the Chinese team.
The British ambassador actually knew that Russia had not officially declared war on China. The diplomatic work to encourage Russia to declare war on China was in progress, but it was effective … The Russians were in the long stage of the big power game with the British, and they were very afraid of any action by the British. But this was not a problem. For the Empire where the sun never sets, it was really easy to find a reason.
The British ambassador sneered, "Spain has officially declared war on China."
"Then please ask the Spanish ambassador to submit the declaration of war to us." As a former Minister of Commerce, Li Xin knew the British's tricks better than anyone else. The Sino-British trade was indeed relatively large, but it was not large enough to make the whole of China succumb because of trade. On the contrary, because of urbanization and the deepening of land reform in China, private economic activities were greatly active. The taxes that could be collected had increased a lot. Even if the trade with the British was interrupted, China's economy would not collapse. Not to mention that the trade between China and the United States was also quite good. With stronger cargo capacity, China's merchant ships could even go to South America to do business.
Not being afraid of the British didn't mean that the foreign minister could talk nonsense according to his mood. Li Xin smiled and said, "I don't think the Spanish can affect the friendly relations between China and Britain."
Seeing that Li Xin seemed to have the intention to give in, the British ambassador tried to continue to persuade Li Xin, while Li Xin talked nonsense with the British ambassador on the basis of maintaining his principles. In short, Li Xin obeyed the central government's policy and would never accept any forced dumping by the British on China.
Normal trade was like this. Since China could produce heavy industrial products to replace the British, the British could not do anything about it. This was no longer a question of whether the China market was open or not, but a question of commercial competition. If they wanted to solve this problem by force, the British might as well send troops to attack Germany and the United States. These two countries were different from China. They actually needed high-quality heavy industrial products from the United Kingdom. The governments of the two countries completely relied on high tariff barriers to forcibly keep British products out of the two countries' markets. Now the tariffs of the United States and Germany were over 50%. If their tariffs were the same as China's 15%, the British manufacturers would definitely be able to beat the similar products of the two countries. It would cost a lot of money to send the fleet to China, and the money was enough to build a few battleships.
The British ambassador to China was even ready to give up on using threats to deal with China, but Downing Street's order forced him to continue to use tough measures. Downing Street's request was to at least force China to be able to use sterling as the settlement currency and even the reserve currency in China. The British government specifically asked China to allow the British to issue sterling bonds in China. In addition to these, Downing Street specifically mentioned to try to support countries around China that dared to take military action against China.
Wanting China to open its financial market and supporting countries that dared to fight China, these two goals were completely in line with Britain's interests. After opening up China's financial market, even if the British couldn't force China's state-owned enterprises to buy British products, they could at least invest in China's state-owned enterprises and get a share of the profits from China's booming state-owned enterprises. Raising funds from British bonds in China was a very profitable thing. Preventing China from completely controlling the entire Northeast Asia was a long-term strategic problem. These two goals only conflicted on the practical level. But the British had been stirring shit for hundreds of years, and they had encountered this kind of trouble many times, so they were quite confident in their ability.
Hokkaido was still covered with snow in February, but in the Muran region, many areas of the land had already exposed black ground. The most conspicuous building in this area was the towering ironmaking furnace. The snow on the roof of the ironmaking workshop around the ironmaking furnace had long been melted by the heat, and the dry roof didn't look like there was any sign of winter. Muran was already the most important industrial center of the Republic of Prawn, and the core of this industrial center was the Muran Ironmaking Plant.
On the policy of aiding the Republic of Prawn, China's attitude was "teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime." With the population and land area of the Republic of Prawn, it was impossible for it to have a complete industrial system. It was a very simple problem, cotton was not suitable for growing in Hokkaido. Having an industrial system that was suitable for the Republic of Prawn not only allowed the Republic of Prawn to protect itself, but also gave the Republic of Prawn the ability to counterattack Honshu. The British controlled the three islands of Japan, so China naturally supported the Republic of Prawn to fight against it.
More than half of Japan's coal mines were in Hokkaido, and a considerable part of the iron mines were also in Hokkaido. The land in Hokkaido was fertile, and there was a lot of precipitation every year. Even if agriculture could only be grown for one season, it was enough for the people of the Republic of Prawn to eat.
The Republic of Prawn implemented an electoral system, but it was quite Japanese. The right to vote and the right to be elected were different. The right to be elected was only granted to citizens with a certain degree of education. Citizens only had the right to vote.
Equivalent to citizens, they had to be soldiers. After adopting a system where all citizens were soldiers, and men and women had the obligation to serve, the Republic of Prawn had a problem. The women in the northern vassal states also received military training, so women could also fight on the battlefield. This meant that women also had the right to vote. This was a big conflict with the Japanese tradition.
Finally, after a discussion in the parliament of the Republic of Prawn, they came up with a plan. In addition to serving, women also had to give birth to two children before they could automatically have the right to vote. This result looked very strange, but it was really reasonable and convincing. The commander of the China Dispatch Army in the Republic of Prawn, Lieutenant Colonel Zhou Xinhua, in addition to being surprised, had to admire.
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