"Raise the white flag. I'll go to the ice myself and negotiate with Tepuxin! Bring a batch of gold. I want to see how greedy this bastard is!"
Fadeyev turned over and dismounted and was about to go onto the ice, but all the officers around him stopped him. "No! You are the commander of the corps. You cannot take risks yourself. Let us go!"
Fadeyev shook his head, "No, we don't have time to waste on this kind of negotiation and confrontation. Look at how exhausted our brothers are..."
Chekov, Asavin and other officers looked around. These soldiers, who had braved the wind and snow all the way from Central Asia, were already haggard and unattractive.
The soldiers have high cheekbones, and their cheeks are too thin and sunken. The war horses are so hungry that they will eat the grass in the snow whenever they stop. When the large army is marching, there are always exhausted war horses that fall to the ground. The soldiers They would rush forward like ants and cut up the horse meat to use as military rations.
"Look, these are our soldiers, loyal, brave, and perseverant... But they are also human beings, and they also have limits. We must find supplies, even if we use all the gold to buy them, we must find rations for our soldiers and give them Our war horses have found horse material!"
"None of you can go. In order to save Tepuxin's face, I have to go and talk in person! Put up a white flag... so what's the point of just making these Qing slaves happy for once?"
Having said that, what else is there to say? The guard got a torn white shirt from nowhere, tore it into pieces and tied it to the flagpole, and accompanied Commander Fadeev onto the ice.
Then in the afterglow of the setting sun, Fadeev carefully looked at the grooves on the ice. He couldn't help but exclaimed, "These Chinese are really geniuses in farming. Look at the repairs on the ice, it looks like farmland crops..."
The streets are criss-crossed, the longitude and latitude lines are as straight as a knife or an axe, the deep ice grooves are exactly the same width and depth, and even the black soil and charcoal sprinkled inside are evenly thick.
If the same work was done by these Tsarist Russians, let alone one day, even if it takes three days and the number of people doubled, it would not be completed.
"It's really impossible not to be convinced. These Chinese people are born to create wealth! We, Tsarist Russia, are ashamed of themselves... But it doesn't matter. We have a strong army, so we can naturally extract wealth from these people. This is our The way of living……"
Fadeyev nodded, and the flag bearer and translator began to shout in Chinese on the ice, "Negotiations... Our corps commander wants to see your highest officer... We want to negotiate! Let General Tepuxin come to see us..."
"Unarmed, there are only two of us, and we are not carrying any weapons!"
They shouted all the way and moved forward. When they reached the burned-out rocket bushes, the two stopped.
Soon two people walked down the opposite river embankment. Among them was Hunchun, a big man who looked like an iron tower, followed by an interpreter.
After the four people met at the dividing line in the middle of the river, the bonfires and torches on the north and south banks had gathered into a bright star river, and it was completely dark.
Hunchun brought a lot of lighting torches. After lighting them, they stuck them on the top of the snowdrift on the ice. The surrounding area was brightly illuminated by more than a dozen torches.
"Is this General Tepuxin? The highest military and political officer of Heilongjiang? I am Fadeev, the commander-in-chief of the Central Plains Reinforcement Corps... I hereby pay my respects to you!" After saying this, Fadeev lightly touched the heel of his boots. performed a military salute.
This has already given the Qing people enough face. How could a proud Rakshasa ghost ever take the initiative to salute a Qing official?
Hunchun suddenly laughed while listening to the Chinese translation. It turned out that the other party mistook him for Tepushin. No wonder the intelligence transmission efficiency in this world is very slow. Tepushin had just been arrested a day ago. It was normal for these Cossacks not to know.
"General Fadeyev, what's the reason for you to come to Aihun in this cold weather?" Hunchun said angrily.
Fadeyev was stunned, "General, I don't understand what you mean! Don't you know that I'm here? The Qing court has agreed to our request for a passage, and I even have 20,000 pioneers who have crossed Heilongjiang and gone straight to Going south, now you ask me why I came here?"
Hunchun smiled evilly, "Of course, the court allows you to cross the border, but it does not allow you to hurt our citizens! Who are Gogol and Furmanov? They have hurt many of our people and property. How does this count?"
Fadeyev knew as soon as he heard that this was asking for a bribe. He was scornful in his heart but still had a smile on his face: "General, tens of thousands of troops are crossing the border. It is unrealistic to say that there is no damage at all, War Horse." Trampling will destroy several acres of the estate!"
"Didn't Gogol tell you before that we would compensate for all losses? Didn't you receive the deposit? That's a full four thousand taels of gold..."
"Hahaha, of course it's not enough! That little gold is not enough to support our losses, so you have to increase the price!"
The muscles in the corners of Fadeev's eyes trembled with anger, and he said to himself that the slaves of the Qing Dynasty were indeed shameless, and even asking for bribes had the guts to say that it was not shameful at all, but the situation was that he had to be a ninja.
With a nod, the translator unhooked a backpack from his back. The heavy package hit the ice, and after opening it, a golden light shone.
"Here is one thousand taels of gold, which is my deposit for you. After this war, I will also pay you the balance of ten thousand taels of gold. What do you think?"
"One thousand taels? Is this what the commander of the Central Asian Cossack Regiment can do?" Hunchun said pretending to be angry.
Fadeyev nodded, "Of course I still have gold. I have sixteen thousand taels of gold behind me, but I can't give it to you... I want to ask you to sell us grain and horse feed for that gold. The more the better!" "
Hunchun was stunned when he heard the figure of 16,000 taels. Gold has been scarce in China since ancient times. The official exchange ratio is nominally one barter, but that was still the rate during the Kangxi period when silver was in short supply.
As the Qing Dynasty's national power increased and foreign trade became more frequent, the value of gold continued to rise. Now one tael of gold on the market can be exchanged for more than 20 taels of silver.
Fadeyev spent more than 300,000 taels of silver in one go to buy horse feed and grain. This deal was really a good deal.
Looking carefully at the gold on the ground, Hunchun's heart sank. There were some gold items for daily use, including jewelry, gold cups, ornaments and even saddle decorations. Hunchun could smell it from more than one meter away. The smell of blood.
"If I guessed correctly, these were all stolen from the Mobei Grassland!"
Fadeyev frowned, "The general talks too much. You don't need to ask where the gold comes from. Couldn't it be that we collected taxes?"
"With all due respect, General Tepuxin, you have made a lot of gold and silver from us over the years. Doesn't that money smell of blood? Don't challenge my patience, otherwise your private business may be ruined. I want to see the light..."
Threat, this was Chi Guoguo's threat. Fadeyev thought that he had already grasped Tepuxin's pigtails, so he was not afraid that he would not agree.
