Chapter 58 My Conspiracy on the 58th Day

On November 4th in the ninth year of Tongzhi (AD 1870), the Tianjin Machinery Manufacturing Bureau was formally established, with Shen Baojing temporarily appointed by Li Hongzhang as the general office. At the same time that the Tianjin Machinery Manufacturing Bureau was established, Li Hongzhang chose a place between the Daqing River and the North Canal to build an ammunition depot for storing ammunition and finished machines. Most of the machinery bureaus still employ foreign technicians, while all Chinese technicians come from Jiangnan Machinery Manufacturing Bureau and Jinling Machinery Bureau.Although the scale of this bureau is not as grand as Jiangnan Bureau, it is still several times larger than Chonghou's original bureau.

Before that, Li Hongzhang saw that Zhili was empty of troops, and the capital had only ten battalions of 6,000 people in the Shenji Battalion, and there was only the cavalry under the jurisdiction of General Heilongjiang outside the mouth.In other important places in Zhili, there are only a few military depots and grain and grass transfer bureaus, and almost no soldiers. It was only at this point that Li Hongzhang suddenly realized why Zhang Zongyu was able to drive straight into Jifu in a few days and nights, causing the government and the public to shake and the two palaces to change color. In the final analysis, Zhili's defense was too weak.

At the request of Li Hongzhang, the 20,000 Huaiyong who had been abolished and turned into economical divisions were divided into three batches and stationed in various mouths of Zhili, and a cavalry team was recruited outside the mouth, and foreign coaches were hired.At the same time, there is one general grain platform and ten grain distribution platforms. In order to make the grain road unimpeded by water and land, he transferred tens of thousands of Huai troops to the banks of the Grand Canal, dug moats, built embankments, and dredged the river until ships of all sizes could pass unimpeded.After he served as Beiyang Minister of Commerce, in order to facilitate trade and administration, he also requested to add the Tianjin Customs Road and set up a special yamen in Tianjin, hoping to handle affairs quickly and not be subject to local constraints.Following the example of Shanghai, a tax office was added in Tianjin.

Li Hongzhang recommended Ji Mingdao, Chen Qin, a doctor of the Ministry of Criminal Affairs, as the temporary acting agent of Tianjin Customs Road, and Shen Baojing, the general office of Tianjin Machinery Manufacturing Bureau, Tianjin Taxation Department.The imperial court approved them one by one.Soon, the General Taxation Department Hedejia appointed a German, De Cui Lin, to take over the Tianjin Taxation Department. Li Hongzhang had only been in Zhili for four months, and he punched and kicked, using what he had learned all his life, to govern Zhili, a stagnant pool, with great vigor and vigor, and his popularity was booming day by day.

At the end of the year, Maemitsu Yanagihara, the special envoy of Japan, arrived in Beijing and made a trade request to the prime minister's office.The Prime Minister's Yamen reported to the empress dowagers of the two palaces according to the law.The Empress Dowager Cixi drafted an order from the Military Aircraft Department and consulted the governors all over the country.Ying Han, the governor of Anhui, could not stand it, saying that he "would cause future troubles." The Empress Dowager Cixi couldn't make up her mind, so she asked the Military Aircraft Department to copy over twenty copies of Yinghan's papers and distribute them to the governors of various places for discussion.In fact, it is said that governors from all over the country are involved, but in fact it mainly depends on the attitudes of the north and the south.

The minister of trade in Nanyang was Zeng Guofan, governor of Liangjiang, and the minister of trade in Beiyang was Li Hongzhang, governor of Zhili.South Zengbei Li has the most say in matters concerning foreign trade requests, and the attitude of other governors is irrelevant. Zeng Guofan was on vacation, so Li Hongzhang naturally had to take the idea alone.Li Hongzhang was not in a hurry to book, he asked his attendants to pick out all the books that should introduce Japan, read them one by one, and asked an Englishman and an American for advice, and the two of them had nothing to hide. told him.

With the increasing understanding of Japan, Li Hongzhang's ideas gradually matured. While publishing the "Paper on Discussing Tianjin Equipment Matters", he also added the "Film on Complying with Japan's Trade Matters", advocating trade with Japan. Li Hongzhang believes that Japan and China are only a few days away from each other by a strip of water. Since the Yuan Dynasty, the people of the two countries have had exchanges.Li Hongzhang also said that after the opening of the country, European countries rushed to China to gain profits, but Japan did not join in the fun, which shows that it really wanted to make friends with China.Now that China has contacts with all European countries, it is reasonable for Japan to request a contract for trade. It should not be turned away. Maybe after the relationship between the two countries is good, it can be used by me.

Li Hongzhang even wanted to take advantage of Japan's commercial affairs to send envoys to foreign countries to spy on the real situation in other countries, so as to achieve the goal of eternal peace.He realized the inconvenience of not having envoys abroad, and clearly stated that envoys abroad can not only "detect the movement of the other tribe, but try to contact and contain them", and "hope to eliminate future troubles and live in peace forever". When Li Hongzhang put forward this idea, the civil and military forces of the Manchu Dynasty in the Qing Dynasty, even Prince Gong, were far from realizing this point.When the memorial was submitted to the palace, it was naturally scolded by the princes and ministers.However, after repeated arguments with Prince Gong, the Empress Dowager Cixi finally agreed with Li Hongzhang's point of view, believing that the advantages of doing business with Japan would ultimately outweigh the disadvantages, and she agreed to do business with Japan.

According to the instructions of the Empress Dowager Cixi, the Military Aircraft Department issued an imperial decree to Li Hongzhang and Zeng Guofan, specifically pointing out: "Because the country's intentions are very strong, it has already ordered its special officials to discuss with them at that time. Zeng Guofan and Li Hongzhang predicted If it is done properly, the common people will be more sure." After Li Hongzhang received the decree, he considered that the Japanese envoy must go to Shanghai first when he came to China, so he sent an urgent letter to Ding Richang, governor of Jiangsu, in the evening, asking Ding Richang to arrive at the Customs Road Yamen as soon as possible , seconded the treaties signed between Japan and Western countries, and copied them one by one.

The next day, Li Hongzhang passed Chen Qin from Tianjin to Baoding again, and ordered: "It is not a child's play to sign a contract between the two countries. The things after the seal and signature cannot be changed randomly. You must think carefully in advance and prepare for the future." Proper planning will ensure that there will be no omissions. The Ministry has written to Jiangsu Yingjiantai to handle the reception. After you return to Tianjin, you must send staff to meet with Yingjiantai to discuss this matter. You still have to go to Beijing to go to Tongwen When you go to the hall, pick a student who understands Japanese to take with you in case of emergency. You can go back to Tianjin directly from the capital, and you don’t need to supervise the office. The main hall will go to Dagukou for a walk in the next few days. Check out the restoration of the turret."

After Chen Qin took the order, he went to Beijing to go to Tongwen Hall to handle the selection of students.Li Hongzhang was intensively preparing all the preparations for the Japanese envoy to come to China, but what he never dreamed of was that Japan's insistence on signing a treaty with the Qing Dynasty this time turned out to be the pavement for a long-planned conspiracy !In other words, the court of the Qing Dynasty completely misunderstood Japan's intentions. Japan is an island country, facing China, North Korea, and Russia across the East China Sea, Yellow Sea, Korean Strait, and Sea of ​​Japan to the west, and to the Pacific Ocean to the east.The country consists of four large islands, Hokkaido, Honshu, Shikoku, and Kyushu, and more than 3,000 small islands, covering an area of ​​about 370,000 square kilometers.The vast majority of the nationals belong to the Yamato ethnic group, and the ethnic minorities include the Ainu and so on. Compared with the Qing Dynasty, the Japanese island is really tiny.It is this small country, which has been extremely aggressive and ambitious for external expansion since its founding.After the Meiji Restoration, Japan took on a new look and became stronger and stronger. With a little national power, it ordered warships in Western countries to build up its armaments, and then wanted to plunder the neighboring Korean Peninsula, Ryukyu Islands, and Taiwan Island for itself.But at that time, Korea and Ryukyu were both vassal states and territories of the Qing Dynasty, and Taiwan was also the territory of the Qing Dynasty.No matter which of these three places Japan wants to attack, it has to involve the Qing Dynasty.Japan decided to imitate the methods of Western countries, and under the guise of making a contract, it actually sent people to the Qing Dynasty to spy on the national strength and spy on the movement, hoping to prescribe the right medicine and make corresponding strategies. In March of the tenth year of Tongzhi (AD 1871), Date Zongcheng, Minister of Imperial Envoy and Plenipotentiary of Japan, Maemitsu Yanagihara, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Secretary of Foreign Affairs, and 20 people with them arrived in Shanghai by boat. According to Li Hongzhang's prior assignment, Ying Baoshi, along with the Shanghai Customs, took his entourage to the wharf to greet Yida Zongcheng and his party, and arranged to stay in an official post.Ying Baoshi informed Li Hongzhang and the Zongli Yamen of the arrival of the Japanese mission in Shanghai overnight. The next day, Date Zongcheng solemnly proposed to Ying Baoshi that he wanted to take his entourage to visit various places in Shanghai.Date Zongcheng specifically stated that he would visit the military camp and the Jiangnan Manufacturing General Bureau in order to follow suit after returning to China.According to Li Hongzhang's prior instructions, Ying Baoshi politely declined the Japanese mission's request to enter the barracks, and only took them to the Jiangnan Manufacturing General Bureau. In the school artillery field of the Manufacturing Bureau, Liu Yuanmaeguang asked questions, and personally inspected the range and effect of the fireworks, showing an extremely humbly and excited.Yingbao always answers all questions without reservation. When Ying Baoshi was answering, some members of the Japanese mission took out the notebooks prepared in advance and recorded the situation introduced by Ying Baoshi one by one.Ying Baoshi didn't take it seriously, and sighed in his heart: "These Japanese thieves don't know anything, how pitiful they are!" More than ten days later, Ying Baoshi received an order from the Prime Minister's Office, ordering him to take the Japanese mission and board a boat to Tianjin to meet Li Hongzhang.Date Zongcheng, Yanaghara Maemitsu and others stood on the deck, asking from time to time the location and garrison situation of the forts along the way.When Ying Bao didn't know, he would point it out one by one; if he didn't know, he would use his brain and make vague words until Yida Zongcheng nodded frequently. Ying Baoshi thought that Ying should be decent, but in fact, he fell into the trap of the Japanese and planted many seeds of disaster for the future. Li Hongzhang led Chen Qin and others to meet him at the pier.He first asked Chen Qin and Ying Baoshi to send Yida Zongcheng and his party to the post house to rest, and sent several officials to serve them. However, Date Zongcheng opened the protective book that came with him, took out a drafted treaty from it, and handed it to Li Hongzhang, saying: "This minister is here to sign this treaty with your country at the order of the Emperor. The treaty has been drawn up." Alright, please take a look at it in advance, and submit it to His Majesty the Emperor of your country for your approval." Li Hongzhang didn't expect the Japanese to be so short in stature but so impatient. He couldn't help laughing and said, "Your Majesty the Emperor came to sign the contract with the Minister of Yi, and he chose the right person. However, the revision of the contract is related to the lifeblood and future of the two countries." It is definitely not possible to deal with it as soon as we meet. You and I have to sit together and discuss it over and over again. Only after there are no omissions can we draw a seal. The treaty handed over by your minister can be taken back by the Ministry to have a look. As for when to discuss the signing of the contract, the Ministry will only inform your ministers after requesting an order. Your ministers can just rest in the posthouse." Date Zongcheng and others had no choice but to enter the post house and rest in the designated room. Before leaving, Chen Qin specially called the two guards outside the post house to one side and said: "The Japanese pirates are barbaric by nature, and it is best to rob property. You two must watch them and don't let them go outside. Although the emperor There is a decree, and we agree to make a contract with them, but we have to be on guard. If they walk on the street and suddenly have evil thoughts, sneak into other people's houses, kill people and steal goods, I can't explain to the superior, you two It's hard to get rid of the relationship. Listen to the official's order and keep your eyes wide open, and nothing will happen to you." He regarded the Japanese envoy as a Japanese pirate. The expressions of the two guards suddenly changed when he said something, and they became nervous.