Chapter 182 North Korea, a small country, is very important

In November 1889, in the name of the East China Sea Division's round-round visit, Hu Chuyuan secretly arrived in London and began to meet some old friends, including John Arbuthnot Fischer, who had been promoted to Rear Admiral.

After the end of the Battle of the Horsetail Sea in the Sino-French War, John Fischer's ability and talent were recognized by the whole of Britain and were truly reused in China. Now he is the Third Secretary of the Navy of the British Admiralty, and also the director of the Royal Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, responsible for supervising the construction of King Power-class battleships.

Under the introduction of Sir John Fischer and Sir John Brooke, Hu Chuyuan successively met with the British Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary of Foreign Affairs, the Marquis III of Salisbury, and the British Secretary of the Navy, Sir Richard Hymanton, and revealed to them the information that Russia and France were about to conclude the Triple Agreement.

In fact, Britain also has some predictions about this, but there has been no formal intelligence to confirm this.

After having conclusive information, the British political axe should be said to be very angry. The support they gave to Japan has multiple meanings. The first is to support the Japanese against China, the second is to fight against Russia, and the third is to maintain the reading of the Japanese to prevent the Japanese too close to France.

Out of its own interests, the British Foreign Office soon warned France, Russia and Japan respectively, demanding that the three parties stop concluding the treaty. If the treaty is adopted, Britain will completely favor China and provide large-scale assistance to China.

On the other hand, British Prime Minister, Marquis of Salisbury III, privately told Hu Chuyuan that if the Qing Empire agreed not to protest against Britain's privileged status in China, Britain would support China's naval expansion against Russia.

The biggest bait he gave is the King's Warship to be built by Britain. As long as Hu Chuyuan agrees to this condition, Britain will sell two or four Kingships to the Fuzhou Ship Administration and provide new technology transfer to support the Fuzhou Ship Administration to produce new battleships with a displacement of more than 8,000 tons.

Both sides have cards. China's strength is indeed growing rapidly, while Britain is holding on to the Far East issue. Hu Chuyuan also believes that Britain cannot tolerate the birth of the Triple Agreement between Russia and France.

In just one week, Hu Chuyuan and the Marquis of Salisbury III held six talks. Finally, the two sides made some concessions. When China abolishes the existing gold system and realizes a new international reciwill tax policy, Britain will gradually give up its tariff control over China within ten years.

Before that, when Hu Chuyuan signed a customs trade agreement with any country, he had to report and approve it with the British minister in China. Although he did not encounter too many obstacles, it was a very annoying thing after all.

Secondly, the UK must impose an equivalent domestic agricultural tax on Indian tea, and maintain the most-favoured-nation treatment of raw silk, tea and hemp textiles in China.

Third, Britain no longer enjoys the right to read inland river navigation, and gives up a number of small concessions on the Yangtze River waterway. China will compensate the Tianjin International Public Concession according to the equivalent concession area.

On the basis of these three, Hu Chuyuan agreed not to protest against other British privileges in China for a period of 20 years.

After reaching this consensus, Hu Chuyuan signed the new Sino-British Naval Cooperation and Arms Sales Agreement with the British Admiralty in the name of the Prime Minister's Senior Minister and the Privileged Minister of Guangxu. It is basically a copy of the original Yingfu Agreement, but a number of new provisions have been added.

According to this agreement, the British will sell two Ningyuan-class battleships and three new troop carriers to Fuzhou Ship Administration, all of which will be handed over by September 1892.

The Ningyuan-class battleship is a new type of battleship slightly modified on the basis of the Junquan-class design scheme. Two ships will be built at a time, and two more will continue to be purchased in the future as the flagship and main battleship of the East China Sea Division in the next ten years.

The biggest change is to change the four 343mm caliber main guns in the UK to eight 305mm caliber main guns. The British don't want to sell the 343mm caliber main guns at all, and Hu Chuyuan actually doesn't want them.

According to the requirements of Hu Chuyuan, all ships must use the best cold-pressed nickel-chromium steel that the United Kingdom can provide at present. The whole set of technology and supporting 12,000-ton dock facilities are sold to Fuzhou Ship Administration. During the whole construction process, Fuzhou Ship Administration will send a technical team of no more than 60 people for internship observation. .

The British have always been an adult at a starting price. The full cost of Fuzhou Shipping Administration is naturally amazing, but at this time, the problem that can be solved with money is not a problem.

The agreement was publicly signed on December 3, 1889 and announced to the outside world, which had a huge impact on the whole of Europe and the Far East.

Subsequently, Hu Chuyuan quickly visited Germany and talked about the possible surnames of France and Russia signing the treaty alliance and its impact. Germany's interests in China were not great, but it was impossible to allow France and Russia to expand in the Far East.

Under the circumstances of exerting external pressure on France and Russia, Germany also reached a new round of cooperation agreement with Hu Chuyuan to speed up technical training for the army in China.

After completing the visit of Britain and Germany, Hu Chuyuan arrived in France, Russia and the United States one after another, and persuaded France and Russia to give up the decision to make peace with Japan, which would only bring them new troubles and losses.

Especially for Russia, Hu Chuyuan believes that there are no problems between China and Russia that cannot be solved through negotiation. If Russia supports Japan's invasion and occupation of North Korea, in the end, the only country that will really go to war with Japan can only be Russia.

At the last stop, he chose to go to North Korea.

Hu Chuyuan's itinerary was very tight. Before the port in the northern sea was frozen, his fleet arrived in Seoul for the last diplomatic public relations.

Japan did not dare to completely break with Britain. Russia did not want to have a conflict with Britain, and France was even more reluctant to expand the conflict with Britain. In addition, Germany and the United States had special opposition. At this stage, it was basically impossible to sign the Triple Agreement.

However, this does not mean that the ambitions of Russia, Japan and France to seek the Northeast, the Liaodong Peninsula and the Korean Peninsula will disappear.

Even if Russia is intended to occupy the whole Northeast alone, with the recovery of China's economic and military power, the two sides will maintain a certain degree of cooperation and understanding in France for a long time, avoid unnecessary contradictions and conflicts between the two, and maintain a united front with China.

In this case, North Korea, a small country, is extremely important.

On January 6, 1890, Hu Chuyuan arrived in Seoul before the closure of the port on the coast of North Korea.

In North Korea, the highest permanent official of the Qing Dynasty was the "Governor and Minister of Commerce of North Korea", that is, the former Minister Plenipotentiary in North Korea. Hu Chuyuan was the Prime Minister of Senior Minister and the Privileged Minister, which was several times higher.

His ship has just arrived at the port of the Han River. The lords of North Korea, Li Xi and Min Fei, have been waiting outside the city with civil and military officials, and Yuan Shikai, the governor of North Korea and minister of commerce, led the army to welcome him.

There are many people who are active in North Korea. Moreover, Hu Chuyuan's whereabouts have long been exposed. Out of Zongfan etiquette, the itinerary to North Korea has been decided long ago. Just in case, he did not disembark immediately.

About 600 troops from the Fuwei Camp got off the ship first, checked the higher positions on both sides, and dispersed the onlookers. Hu Chuyuan walked slowly down from the bridge under the protection of more than 40 guards in Huishe.

As a privileged imperial minister, Hu Chuyuan's courtesy level in the vassal state was equivalent to that of Emperor Guangxu. Seeing him disembarking from the ship, the court officials, under the leadership of King Li Xi, all of them crawled on the ground and dared not raise their heads.

North Korea has the highest etiquette of North Korea. Everyone who has watched Korean dramas knows what it looks like.

Anyway, it's boring.

Hu Chuyuan did not feel any magical power from it. He coldly got off the boat, followed the ceremony, took out the imperial edict of Emperor Guangxu, and read it in person. Then, he handed over the imperial edict to Li Xi, which made everyone stand up.

At this time, Hu Chuyuan took a special look at Yuan Shikai. He was wearing the official uniform of the three-grade members of the court. He was about thirty years old and looked very young, but very capable, and looked solemn and respectful.

According to all the current royal palace specifications in North Korea, only to meet his identity, but only Changdeo Palace and Kyung Hee Palace can be vacant.

The level of Changde Palace is a little too high. Li Xi secretly calculated that he wanted Hu Chuyuan to live in Qingxi Palace, but Yuan Shikai heard that Hu Chuyuan prefers the architectural pattern of Chinese and Western styles. It happened that only the stone hall of Changde Palace was Western style, so he forced Li Xi to give in.

When Hu Chuyuan was in Europe, Yuan Shikai had asked him to reorganize the Changde Palace and place personnel in the surrounding hidden places to prevent him from taking advantage of the gap.

Hu Chuyuan soon took a carriage to Changde Palace, where he officially met Li Xi and Concubine Min. Yuan Shikai, the 31-year-old Governor of North Korea and Minister of Commerce, accompanied him.

Yuan Shikai's official has been promoted fast enough.

Of course, they have also fought for their lives. The family is rich and powerful, and their wrists and abilities are not simple.

Hu Chuyuan temporarily focused on King Li Xi and Concubine Min. The two were not very old. One of them was less than 40 years old, but he looked very heroic. He had a seemingly heroic black beard on his face. In fact, he was just a rice bucket with a weak surname.

Concubine Min is a strong woman like a Cixi. She has put all the power of the government in her hands for a long time. She is one year older than Li Xi. She is well maintained and has fair skin, but she is not as beautiful as others have said.

In the water town in the south of the Yangtze River, I don't know how many beauties are dozens of times better than her.

Everything is just a creation.

This couple really looks like siblings. Li Xi often relies entirely on his wife Min Fei to deal with national affairs, including the determination of diplomatic relations.

Before this visit to North Korea, Hu Chuyuan had asked Niu Yugeng to collect the main information and current situation of the Kingdom of Korea. When he sailed from the United States to North Korea, he had been looking at these materials, thinking about and calculating all kinds of possibilities.

According to the information provided by Yuan Shikai, after the Qing government strengthened its control over North Korea, materialized the relationship between the clan, and the power of government affairs and diplomacy were in the hands of Yuan Shikai, Li Xi and Concubine Min gradually shifted their original policies, tilted towards Russia, and put several officials with obvious pro-China intentions. The staff is laid off.

Hu Chuyuan didn't say anything. He sat in the palace, quietly thinking about something and drinking the Qimen black tea he brought.

King of North Korea, Li Xi and Min Fei, crawled silently in front of him, separated from him in a beautifully decorated black dwarf case. Thirty-one-year-old Yuan Shikai sat behind the black dwarf case on the right side, with a calm expression, but his eyes flashed with a strange and restrained light, as if he were thinking about something.

Outside the gate of Zhonghe Hall, North Korean civil and military officials are so silent, silent, and they may be angry in their hearts... How can they make their kings and princess lie down for so long? It's simply humiliating. How can there be such a truth?

Hu Chuyuan was silent for more than a moment and drank the tea in his hand. Then he said to Li Xi and his wife, "Get up."

Li Xi and Min Fei were relieved and thanked together. Then they got up and returned to the seat on the left and sat down together.

Hu Chuyuan said, "Your emperor is very angry with your private relations with Russia, so I asked you to salute for an extra quarter of an hour and give you a slight punishment. After the penalty, the matter will be over, and there is no need to mention it in the future. You want to have exchanges with foreign countries in accordance with the agreement of the clan. The emperor has no objection and supports this, but it is too much to make friends with Russia. I hope you can learn this lesson and don't cause unnecessary trouble!"

After the translation, Li Xi and Concubine Min were shocked.

Li Xi hurriedly said, "Thank you, my lord. I will be cautious in the future. It is said that Russia has different aspirations for the Qing Empire and our country. It is really not what I expected. I hope you can forgive me and report this matter to the emperor of the emperor!"

Hu Chuyuan nodded slightly and said, "I heard that North Korea's financial situation is not very good. Officials have not received pay for many years, not to mention the army. This is not good. Officials can't get the pay, and they can also rely on greed to make up for their living expenses. What can the army do?

Li Xi was silent, but he didn't expect Hu Chuyuan to say this.

In fact, Hu Chuyuan has a lot of things to weigh in his mind. The current Kingdom of Korea also has the same problem as the Qing Dynasty. Officials are corrupt, and there are too many noble members, so that half of the royal taxes are used for the squandering of the powerful class, and the entire administrative system and military system are chaotic.

Listening to Hu Chuyuan's words, Concubine Min said, "I am thinking about a good strategy to reform the government, but I still need the support of the heavenly dynasty."

Hu Chuyuan simply replied, "Yes. I have been thinking about these days that a poor North Korea is not what we want. This time, I will re-sign a new Zongfan business agreement with you. In addition, we will not care too much about your internal affairs, but we should discuss some basic measures together. The Celestial Empire has also been changing over the years to cope with the changes of the world. Many methods are effective and indeed beneficial. I think we might as well implement it in North Korea to alleviate North Korea's financial problems.

Concubine Min immediately replied, "Thank you for your support. I am extremely grateful."

Li Xi said, "Yes, it's true."

At this time, Hu Chuyuan has basically seen the signs. In many things, the only person who really makes up his mind and can really take action is Concubine Min. Li Xi can't do it.

(to be continued)