After intensive arrangements by the Qing court, before six o'clock in the morning, the messenger set off from the capital and rushed to Tianjin at an accelerated speed of 600 miles.
Fu Chang'an received the edict in the afternoon and felt a little relieved when he saw that the imperial court had issued an edict to the garrison troops stationed in eastern Zhili. Then he ordered people to find Tianjin Daoqiao Renjie and ordered him and the British to negotiate with the Northern Navy.
Qiao Renjie is forty-four years old this year and was born in Juren. He learned martial arts when he was young and was quite courageous. After becoming an official, he became famous for catching thieves, so he was specially promoted to be a fellow magistrate of Shuntian South Road. In the history of another time and space, Qiao Renjie was famous not for catching thieves, but for being responsible for entertaining the Macartney delegation who went to Rehe to meet Qianlong.
However, because of the emergence of Beihai Town, Qiao Renjie and Macartney met in advance. The famous little Stangdong was only nine years old at this time and also lived on the "Dingbei" with his father.
Qiao Renjie first took people to Dagokou, and then boarded the "Dinghai" by boat to meet Macartney. After hearing the other party's request, Macartney was of course very willing, but he also put forward a condition.
"Master Qiao, we are all living on the boat now. Can you find a place for us to live on the shore? This will make it easier to communicate if something happens."
How could Qiao Renjie dare to agree to such a thing, so he replied that the matter would be conveyed to the superiors, and please wait patiently. All matters in the Qing Dynasty must be decided by the emperor, and even the imperial envoy in Tianjin has no right to agree. However, the capital is very close to Tianjin, so there will definitely be news within a day or two.
Macartney was very happy to hear this, and immediately consulted with Sir John Jervis, the leader of the officer corps. After some selection, Horatio Nelson and his deputy, Staunton, and his son became the final candidates. So early the next morning, the three of them, the translator, and Qiao Renjie, who had changed into civilian clothes, boarded a 300-stone sand ship, carried some gifts brought from England, and sailed towards the North Sea ship.
When the sand ship was one nautical mile away from the Thor, a black assault boat sped towards the sand ship. When they saw the long white waves coming from the tail of the assault boat, the British on the sand boat let out bursts of exclamation.
Horatio Nelson said to George Standing next to him: "Their ship has no sails or oars. I don't know what is driving it. It is really amazing. If this technology can be obtained, the British Empire's navy will definitely dominate Atlantic and Indian Oceans.”
Standong nodded and said nothing. According to the intelligence obtained by the mission from the Governor of Madras and Macau, this force, which had been confronting the huge Qing Empire for several years, relied on super powerful weapons and ships to crisscross the coast of the Qing Empire, and even the Governor of Guangzhou and the Macau authorities They all suffered big losses.
What shocked him the most was a rumor he heard in Macau. Two years ago, the "king" in charge of Beihai Town landed in Guangzhou. He only brought a few dozen people with him and captured a large number of local officials in Guangzhou. What he faced at that time were thousands of heavily armed elites. .
From the Manchu navy general, Stendong also heard that the "king" was leading an army to fight against the Tsarist Russian Empire in the north.
This is too bizarre! He really couldn't think of anyone in the world who could challenge two huge empires at the same time. Even the British Empire didn't dare to do this.
And his son Xiao Si stood beside his father, looking curiously at the two large ships not far away. What he was thinking about was that the deck was so big, could he ride a horse on it?
After the North Korean Navy's speedboat approached the sand ship, it ordered the other party to lower its sails and slow down, and then boarded the ship for inspection.
Qiao Renjie felt panicked when he heard the other party speaking extremely fluent Mandarin. Although he was born in Tianjin from the Qing Dynasty, he was also a Han; strictly speaking, he was from Shanxi and had nothing to do with the Qiao family in Qixian County.
The Qing court strictly blocked information outside the customs, and people in the official circles only knew that the court had suffered repeated defeats. For many people, whether it was Jinchuan or Jinchuan, Myanmar, or Junggar, which one lost first and then won? There is nothing to be afraid of if there is an occasional defeat. The world is still peaceful in Guan, and no one will think that the Manchu rule is unstable.
However, for Qiao Renjie, when he saw the big ship of the Northern Navy with his own eyes and heard the fluent official language spoken by the soldiers, he finally understood that the other party was a far more terrifying existence than any previous opponent. He looked back at the five huge sailing battleships, which were not even a bit worse than the Thor and Thunder in front of them.
At this moment, a thought suddenly appeared in his mind, which immediately made him sweat.
"Since ancient times, the Hu people have never had the fate of a country that lasts for hundreds of years!"
After some inspections, the soldiers of the Marine Battalion ordered the British on the sand ship not to bring any weapons on board; except for a few people responsible for negotiations, no sailors were allowed to board the ship.
In the eyes of Horatio Nelson and others, everything about the Thunder and the Thor was new. Although the two ships had the same shape, the size was more than double.
Whether it's the huge anchor chain hanging down into the sea at the bow, the towering "flagpole" on the bow, or the dizzying ship building, or the rifles in the hands of the Marine battalion soldiers, or even the boat parked in the distance. Nelson's eyes were full of question marks for sailing merchant ships of more than a thousand tons.
When a group of people walked up the gangway and boarded the deck, their eyes suddenly opened up. The width of the deck made them all open their mouths and couldn't close them for a long time. At this time, Qiao Renjie's legs were sore and dizzy, and he almost collapsed on the deck.
Many years later, when Qiao Renjie recalled the moment he boarded the Thunderbolt, he couldn't help but feel a little proud. Except for Chen Xinhuai from the Guangdong Coast Guard Yamen who had boarded the Thunder God, he should have been the first Manchu official to board the Thunder God; most importantly, he was not a prisoner at the time!
Nelson saw the cannon covered with colorful tarps on the deck at a glance, and he tried to figure out what kind of weapon it was from its appearance. However, an officer on the deck interrupted his reverie. After a brief exchange of greetings, he led a group of people into the poop.
The group of people followed the officer up and down the stairs, followed by two soldiers with guns behind them. When Qiao Renjie felt that he could no longer climb, the officer led them to the door of a cabin on the third floor.
"Report! The other party's negotiators are here!"
"Invite them in." Following the order of a man with a southern accent, Qiao Renjie, Stangdong and his son, and Nelson walked into the cabin and met Deng Fei, the head of the Northern Navy's naval department.
"Gentlemen, please take a seat."
Nelson and Staunton looked curiously at the Oriental man across the long table. He had short hair, less than six feet tall, and was wearing a spotted green dress. The other person's face is thin, and although he is smiling, his prominent cheekbones and pursed lips show his character that is soft on the outside but strong on the inside.
The most striking thing is that this man also wears a pair of extremely exquisitely crafted double-lens glasses on the bridge of his nose. He looks less like a soldier and more like a scholar.
Behind this man, standing against the wall, was a taller man, wearing a dark green helmet, standing upright, like a guard. Moreover, this man also wore a pair of glasses, but the lenses were actually black, making it impossible to see his face clearly.
"Are you drinking coffee or tea?"
"Ah, you actually have coffee? Then give me a cup." Horatio Nelson was very surprised. He didn't expect that there was coffee here, but he didn't know how it tasted.
Stangdong said: "I'd better have a cup of tea. What kind of tea do you have?"
Deng Fei smiled and said, "How about black tea? It's winter. Drinking some black tea is good for your stomach." After saying that, he looked at Little Stendong, who was looking around with big eyes, and asked, "How about a cup of hot chocolate for you?" Sample?"
After hearing what the translator said, Xiao Si Dangdong nodded hurriedly. He hadn't had hot chocolate for a long time since leaving Madras.
After Deng Fei explained to the soldiers at the door, he immediately said to Standong: "This is your child? He is so cute. What is his name?"
If it weren't for the murderous "guard" standing behind the other party and the accompanying Qiao Renjie, Stendong and Nelson would have thought they were guests at someone else's house.
"Dear Sir, I am the deputy envoy of the British East India Company, George Staunton." After speaking, Staunton introduced Nelson next to him, and finally touched his son's shoulder and said: "This is My son, George Thomas Staunton."
Qiao Renjie and the translator also quickly handed over, saying that one of them was responsible for recording the content of the meeting, and the other was the translator. After saying that, Qiao Renjie took out paper, ink, pen and inkstone from the pocket he carried with him and put it on the table.
When he heard Nelson's name, Deng Fei was stunned for a moment and thought to himself, isn't this "the seasick Admiral"? Why did he come to China?
In March 1787, Nelson, who had just ended a lawsuit, married Frances Finney Nisbey, a widowed young woman, on the island of Nevis, and then the two returned to England.
Since his expenses during the lawsuit had to be borne by the government, officials in the Admiralty were dissatisfied with him. In addition, the number of warships in peacetime was small, so Nelson never had the opportunity to lead his ships to sea.
At this time, the five second-level sailing ships built by the Navy for the Qing Dynasty were nearing completion, and it was necessary to send a group of retired officers to China for training. So on the recommendation of Sir John Jervis, Nelson took his wife on board the fleet bound for China. However, since the Qing Dynasty did not allow Western women to board ships, Francis and some other family members stayed in Macau.
However, no one noticed that when Deng Fei was introducing himself to several people, the eyes of the "guard" behind him, hidden behind his sunglasses, kept staring at Stendong.
Nine-year-old Stendong seemed to have noticed something. He tilted his head and looked at the guard. He felt a little scared, so he tightened his father's hand.
"Little bastard, it turns out to be your kid!" Zhao Xin cursed in his heart.
George Thomas Staunton was an extremely important figure in the history of Sino-British relations in the nineteenth century.
It was he who brought the technology of cowpox vaccination to China; it was also he who opposed Palmerston's motion to "establish a court in China."
However, it was he who refused to kneel to Jiaqing and declared that the dignity of the British Empire was inviolable; in the famous House of Commons debate in 1839, he declared that he approved of the invasion of China.
"...after the fullest consideration, I still adhere to the views previously expressed. But the actual breakdown in our relations with China cannot be entirely attributed to a lack of vigilance or foresight on the part of Her Majesty and the present Ministers if we should have submitted to such an outrage. and business in China, without any attempt to defend it, the consequences of which will be transferred to our vast empire in India, where our political dominance will be seriously undermined, is not too far away. Therefore, I am very In favor of the expedition to China."
Everything was due to economic interests, and it was all because of Lin Zexu's "smoking cigarettes" in Humen.
Bullshit sinologist! Bullshit peacemaker! The unforgettable memory of this period of history made Zhao Xin unable to pounce on him and strangle him to death at this moment!
Just when Xiao Si Dangdong felt that the man wearing black glasses opposite him was exuding "murderous aura", which scared him so much that he pouted his mouth and was about to shed tears, a cat meow suddenly came from outside the door.
"Meow~~"
So Xiao Si Dangdong let go of his father's hand, walked to the door against the wall and looked out, and found a fat and big orange cat squatting in the aisle. A moment later, a figure flashed around the corner of the aisle, and a very beautiful girl walked over with a long black ponytail.
"Duofu, why are you running around? Come on."
King Duofu turned over and exposed his white belly, which meant that he wanted to be hugged by A Miao. A Miao said: "No more hugs, you're going to get all hairy on me. Let's go quickly."
Xiao Si Dangdong walked out of the cabin, came to Duofu, and said curiously: "This cat is really fat. What is its name?"
A Miao blinked and spread her hands like Zhao Xin, expressing that she didn't understand at all.
(Blessed: "Another slave!")
At this time, Stangdong saw his son going out and quickly apologized to Deng Fei. When he walked to the door, he was stunned. Deng Fei probably knew what was going on, so he also came over and said to Standong in English: "Mr. Deputy Envoy, if you don't mind, let's talk about business first. As for your son, you can let this girl take care of him first." Go to the restaurant next door and wait. The food on our ship will make your son a little fat man."
After that, he told A Miao about the situation again, and A Miao agreed with a smile.
Standong was stunned. He did not expect that the other party actually spoke fluent English. However, thinking of his mission, he immediately expressed his gratitude, gave some instructions to his son, and then returned to the conference room.
At this time, coffee and tea were served. Nelson picked up the cup and smelled it, and said in surprise: "You actually have coffee beans from Jamaica?"
Deng Fei said: "Actually, I prefer tea, but there are people on the ship who like coffee and have to have two cups every day."
Nelson and Staunton looked at each other and wondered, are these people still in the Caribbean? Never heard of it!
Could it be French? Oh, very possible! According to the representative of the Thirteenth Bank, the gentleman who was stationed in the Thirteenth Bank in Guangzhou from Beihai Town had a very good relationship with the French.
Next, negotiations between the two parties began in a strange atmosphere.
Two British people came, but they represented the Manchu Qing Dynasty; although Deng Fei represented the Beihai Navy, Zhao Xin stood behind him.
At the beginning of the meeting, Stangdong asked Deng Fei about the Northern Navy's intention to come to Dagukou and whether it planned to go to war with the Qing Empire. Nelson expressed his desire to visit the Thunderbolt after the meeting, or, if convenient, to see the sailboat.
What are you thinking about? ! Deng Fei immediately rejected Nelson's request.
Not to mention that there is no distinction between friends and foes on both sides now, even if the armistice negotiations are over, you British people can't even think of finding out a single bit. Both Zhao Xin and Deng Fei will regard the British Empire as an enemy, which has stirred things up all over the world and has continued to do so into the twenty-first century.
Deng Fei told Stangdong that the Beihai Town fleet purchased soybeans in the Liaodong Peninsula and traded fairly. As a result, they were attacked by the Qing army and naturally they had to fight back.
Qiao Renjie, who was writing notes on the side, cursed Deng Fei for being shameless. Why did he attack the Jinzhou Water Camp stationed in Lushun when buying soybeans? As for your ships and cannons, even ten people from the Jinzhou Water Camp would not dare to provoke them! Do you dare to say you have no ambition?
However, Nelson and Staunton expressed their understanding of the North Navy's approach. The first is that they don’t understand the pitiful combat effectiveness of Jinzhou Shuiying, and the second is that as a bandit country that carries out overseas colonization everywhere, the actions of the North Navy are understandable in their eyes, and there is no problem at all!
Deng Fei then said that since the Manchu Qing could launch a sneak attack shamelessly, it should bear the consequences of failure. The Beihai Navy came to Dagukou this time in the hope of starting negotiations with the Qing court on personnel mobility matters.
After listening to this, Stangdong asked: "What if the Qing emperor does not agree to negotiate?"
"Gentlemen, what I want to reiterate again is that the Beihai Navy is also Chinese, and like the people under the Qing Dynasty, they are descendants of Yan and Huang! If Qianlong does not agree, we will first sink all five sailing ships and bombard the big ships. Gukou, landing in Tianjin."
Deng Fei glanced at Qiao Renjie and the translator, saw them wiping the sweat on their foreheads with their sleeves, and sneered: "At that time, it will be easy for the Bei Navy to break into Beijing. Please tell the Manchus what I said. Officials, I only give them three days. If there is no reply, we will shell the Dagukou Fort at six o'clock in the morning three days later. At that time, please move to other ships in advance to avoid danger."
Staunton and Nelson showed regret on their faces, and finally asked: "May I ask what level of officials from the Qing Empire you want to negotiate with?"
"Grand Bachelor, Minister of Military Aircraft!"
"Whoa!" As Qiao Renjie's hand suddenly shook, the brush drew a long ink mark on the paper.
The error-free chapters of "The Forty-Eight Years of Qianlong" will continue to be searched and updated. There are no advertisements on the site. Please also bookmark and recommend the search!
If you like The Forty-Eight Years of Qianlong, please collect it: () The Forty-Eight Years of Qianlong is the fastest to be searched and updated.
