As soon as Xiang Ying's words came out, the atmosphere on the city wall froze. Looking at the confused eyes of these people, Xiang Ying and his friends knew that they had guessed right. These people had never listened to the Prime Minister's diplomacy course.
Everyone in Ryukyu knows that Xiao Letian is good at teaching, but many people don't know that Xiao Letian always teaches students in accordance with their aptitude in class, and Xiao Letian's focus is different for different audiences.
For example, people like Cai Hao, Liang Kun, and Xiao Hexin talk more about the impact of future military technology on war and strategic knowledge, while Lin Yuanmiao and Fan Jian talk more about the future of paper currency. Development path, talk about Jewish financial methods.
If the class was full of Japanese swordsmen such as Noheita, Hyotarō, and Shimazu Dairo, then the lecture content would focus on national integration and the rise of Asia.
Anyway, Xiao Letian is a big liar, and the military history he accumulated in his previous life is enough for him to squander it for a few years. Anyway, after all the private goods in his stomach are wiped out, his subordinates will probably be able to evolve their own brains. How beautiful it would be to be a hands-off shopkeeper.
Let’s put aside whether Xiao Letian’s dream can be realized. His method of teaching students in accordance with their aptitude is still very correct. As the saying goes, time waits for no one. Xiao Letian doesn’t have time to cultivate all-rounders now. He can only cultivate a large number of partial talents. Among his own team, and Xiang Ying's group, Xiao Letian focused on teaching them about the public law of nations and diplomacy. He hoped that these college students could produce a group of truly reliable diplomats.
The power of diplomacy is very powerful. During the Second Opium War six or seven years ago, American Minister John Howard relied on his shrewd diplomatic skills to get both sides of the aisle and actually signed the treaty without sending a single soldier. No less than the diplomatic treaty between Britain, France and Russia.
You can get actual diplomatic benefits without spending a single group of soldiers. Hua Ruohan is indeed a diplomatic genius, with more than a hundred thousand soldiers hidden in his chest.
Today, Xiang Ying held his neck and asked to take over the management of prisoners of war. His tough attitude of not giving anything surprised the Ryukyu monarchs and ministers present. They had never seen Xiang Ying so rude before, and they forgot to scold him for a moment. .
It wasn't until Xiang Ying brought up the subject of the British-French coalition's attack on Beijing six years ago that everyone present knew that Xiang Ying must have his reasons.
"Your Majesty, gentlemen, why did the British and French forces burn down the Old Summer Palace six years ago? Is it really because Gong Cheng was traitorous and the British and French were greedy for money? If they were greedy for money, why didn't they massacre the city? How could a little Gong Cheng command Elgin?"
"The Manchu Qing Dynasty has always hidden a big secret that has not been made public. Please don't let the Manchu Qing Dynasty's hypocritical face deceive you."
Xiang Ying's question made everyone present speechless. Only Molière smiled. He stared at Xiang Ying with twinkling eyes and suddenly asked, "Who are you? I don't record you in my intelligence. You I've already got a clue of what I want to say. If you can get this knowledge from Xiao Letian's mouth, it means you are not a nobody..."
Xiang Ying did not answer his words, but gave him a cold look, then turned to King Shang Tai and said.
"In the spring of 1860, the British and French allied forces arrived in China one after another. They gathered outside Dagukou at the end of July. They formally attacked Dagukou in August. They captured Tianjin at the end of August. By the end of September, the coalition forces had reached Bali Bridge in the capital..."
"The Manchus will never tell the people. In fact, for such a long time, the British and French envoys have never given up trying to resolve conflicts through diplomatic means. Moreover, before the bloody battle of Bali Bridge, Parkes and several envoys had already been Qing was detained..."
"And..." Xiang Ying took a few breaths to calm down, "and they were treated inhumanely. This is one of the reasons why the Manchu Qing Dynasty was extremely passive at the negotiation table in the later period..."
At this moment, Molière, who was leaning against the city wall with a swollen face, suddenly said, "I'll tell you what happened next... Seng Gelinqin was the Manchu official who negotiated with Parkes the most, and his negotiations were actually barbaric. Tortured to extract a confession... Senggelinqin made Parkali kneel and knocked his head on the ground to get him to agree to withdraw the troops. Parkali said that he was a negotiator and could not make the decision, so Senggelinqin continued to let Parkali His head hit the ground again and again until the blood stained the floor tiles..."
"Not only that, this barbarian finally detained all 39 representatives who participated in the negotiations and escorted them back to Beijing. Among these people, Parkes and the secretary of Elgin, the British Plenipotentiary Envoy to China, were imprisoned in the prison of the Ministry of Justice, and the rest The place of detention is the Old Summer Palace..."
Molière sneered and said, "Old Summer Palace, the emperor's summer palace was destroyed by the barbarism of the Qing Dynasty... When these people were escorted, their hands were tied with leather ropes soaked in water. It has never been untied, and the leather rope is getting tighter and tighter, and within a few days the binding will begin to rot and grow maggots.”
"When he first came here, Emperor Xianfeng sent people to interrogate them. Later, the Chinese failed in the Battle of Baliqiao and Emperor Xianfeng fled in a hurry. No one took care of the remaining people, so these foreign ministers were tied up with their hands behind their backs and knelt down. On the ground, there was no water or rice for three days..."
"According to later survivors' recollections, Times reporter Bowlby died on the fourth day. The body was left in the cell for three days, and then was thrown into the wild and eaten by wild dogs; Lieutenant Anderson, his hands and feet were strangled until he was born. When he was infected with maggots, he looked at the maggots on his hands and spread all over his body. He went crazy, screamed for three days, and died; a French prisoner, maggots entered his mouth, ears, and nose, and finally went crazy..."
Molière became more and more excited as he talked, and in the end he almost shouted, "One survivor was still counting maggots in prison, saying that 1,000 maggots could be reproduced in a day."
"This is the ancient civilized country that you brag about, savages, you are all a group of savages... In the end, you lost the war, you couldn't defeat us, and you returned these prisoners to the coalition forces, but... there were 39 of them when we went, Only 19 people came back, and they were all tortured until they were no longer human. If such atrocities are not punished, then God will not bless us..."
Molière's chest kept rising and falling, and then Xiang Ying sighed and took over the words, "That's right, according to the laws of nations established by the Europeans, if an envoy is killed, the city will be destroyed in the future, and no chickens or dogs will be left behind. Moreover, Elgin also made a special point, that is, when entering Beijing, you should not kill people or disturb the people, but you must burn the Old Summer Palace, because his envoys were imprisoned there..."
"Before setting fire to the Old Summer Palace on October 18, Elgin also posted a notice in Beijing explaining the reasons for burning the Old Summer Palace and the scheduled time of setting fire: "Everyone, regardless of high or low, must be punished for their stupid fraud. , the Old Summer Palace will be burned down on the 18th as a punishment for the emperor's breaking of his promise and as revenge for violating the truce agreement. No one who has anything to do with this will be affected by this action, but the Qing government will be responsible for it. "
"Haha..." Xiang Ying sneered twice. "It's a pity that Elgin's notice was of no use. Who among the people in Beijing would care that the emperor's home was burned down? The garden was originally where the emperor lived, so what does it have to do with me?" Go ahead, whoever breaks in will get it, love as much as you want, what can't you stand about abusing a prisoner? This has been the case in China for many years, and I even picked out some grammatical errors in the notices."
"So, the destruction of the Old Summer Palace was not only a complete military defeat, but also a diplomatic defeat. If there was a sensible person who could stop Emperor Xianfeng at that time... Oh, of course that is my fantasy. , I just said that if, if the entire dispute had been resolved according to Western diplomatic methods, I am afraid that even the city of Tianjin would not have fallen..."
"Your Majesty, we cannot repeat the mistakes of those idiots in the Manchu Qing Dynasty. No matter how angry we are, we must restrain ourselves... If you really can't restrain yourself, then just endure it until the prime minister comes back. This can always be done."
There was dead silence on the city wall, and no one spoke. Finally, Molière spoke first, "Well... if Xiao Letian told you these diplomatic secrets, then he is really a European expert... But I just I’m confused, it’s impossible for his profound knowledge to be unknown in the Western world. What is his identity..."
Before Molière could answer his question, a wave of waves-like calls suddenly came from the direction of Naha Port. Everyone looked closely and saw that the water battle for catching lobster soldiers in the entire bay was coming to an end.
"No... Your Majesty, please come with me. The sword-drawing team is following closely behind. We must go to the dock immediately to stop the atrocities... Hurry up, people will die if we are late..."
King Shangtai did not dare to neglect, and turned to the imperial guards and shouted, "Keep Molière in captivity and do not torture him... As for the rest of the people, all the horses in the city must assemble. Let's go to the dock quickly..."
After a while, the south gate of Shuri City opened, and more than a dozen war horses rushed out. The Ryukyu King's flag was flying in the hands of the imperial guards. Xiang Ying was afraid that the people would not obey the order, so he asked Lin Zhen to display a Xiao character recognition flag, and a group of They rushed toward the pier like a dragon. Behind them, hundreds of swordsmen and Shimadzu warriors chased after the horse's ass.
The Naha Pier is now completely crazy. The French soldiers who were driven into the sea are now fished out like drowned rats one by one.
This naval battle was a one-sided massacre. The French army only had more than 2,000 people in total. Their rifles lost their function after falling into the sea. However, there were more than 20,000 Ryukyu soldiers and civilians who rushed into the sea to arrest people.
The ten to one gap caused the French army that was trying to escape to completely collapse. Many French soldiers with poor water resistance forced four or five fishermen to drag their feet into the deep sea and drown alive. If the officers of the New Army had not said so before, If you catch them alive, it is estimated that all these lobster soldiers will have to be fed to sharks.
People were everywhere on the trestle. When a French soldier appeared on the sea, soldiers and civilians took out long ropes to fish him out, and then tied him into rice dumplings.
"Damn, damn invaders, your 'good days' have finally arrived. Grandpa, I have 108 tricks to play with you slowly. Even if I kill you, it's just because I'm not good at my craftsmanship..."
"Folks, tie them up like lobsters... Our chance for revenge has come."
