Master Yuan, start!

Liu Kunyi remembered clearly that the Hunan Association Hall in Beijing was broken into by angry citizens, who destroyed the plaque with the word "Old Marshal" written on it and left.

The old coach died of depression the following year, which was definitely not unrelated to this incident.

Liu Kunyi fell into deep thought. Which side should he lean towards?

If you listen to the foreigners and punish the people, you will be called a traitor; if you listen to the people and resist the foreigners, there is no guarantee that France will not be angry and humiliated.

The Tianjin Incident had caused the fleets of seven countries to gather at Dagukou. Now that the French are even more arrogant, how could they give up easily?

To Yue M Group: Damn it, the Seven Nations Fleet, the British!

Liu Kun's eyes lit up, and he thought of the British consul with whom he had gotten along well in recent years. It was the French who came forward to unite with the British, and eventually a fleet of seven countries approached Tianjin.

If he could persuade Britain not to interfere in French affairs this time, then his own pressure would undoubtedly be much less.

"Jin Shan Yu Lianyuan, please help me contact the British Consul in Jiangning!" Liu Kunyi no longer hesitated. "Invite him to wait at Jiangning Station and go to Shanghai with me."

Chapter 208 Step on the accelerator and sprint!

While Liu Kunyi was rushing to Shanghai, Yuan Shikai, who was far away outside the Great Wall, was also busy.

He had just arrived in Lushun from Shengjing, but before he even got off the train, he received the news that the French consul had been assassinated.

"Ming Ye, is this what you ordered?" Yuan Xiangcheng shook the telegram in his hand and looked at Ming Ye.

82?2?6985: One?

"I don't know."

Ming Ye looked at Yuan Xiangcheng's suspicious eyes and acted innocent.

He did order people to take advantage of the situation and stir up public resentment, but he did not order people to open fire.

Besides, the telegram said that the shot was fired with a revolver, which was just produced by the Incheon Machinery Bureau not long ago. Even the officers in each town had not yet been equipped with it, so how could the intelligence personnel have it?

"Please invite Kikuto over for me."

Yuan Xiangcheng no longer bothered about this matter and asked Mingye to call Xu Shichang over to discuss it together.

When he was heading south from Shengjing, Xu Shichang, the governor of Jiaodong, was also heading north from Yantai. The two agreed to meet in Lushun.

After a while, the three of them sat together to discuss countermeasures.

"Weiting, we need to order the 2nd and 6th Regiments stationed in Shandong to move south quickly, and at the same time, order all defense forces outside the border areas to prepare for battle.

The French will certainly not give up easily, so we can just sit back and watch the fight, and wait for the two sides to decide the winner before marching south."

When Xu Shichang learned the news that the French consul had been assassinated, he was overjoyed. He was just worrying about not being able to find an excuse to target Liu Kunyi when this happened.

Now, whether Liu Kunyi makes peace or fights, he will suffer a lot!

"Juren, do you think that if we don't do something, France can really fight Liu Kunyi in the Jiangsu and Zhejiang areas?" Yuan Xiangcheng didn't think so.

"Why not? France still has troops stationed in Taiwan and can be easily sent to Shanghai." Xu Shichang was puzzled.

“The British had many industries in Jiangsu and Zhejiang, and British goods were sold in many provinces, competing with French goods for the market.

If the French attack us and lose, it's fine. But if they win, Jiangnan will be dominated by French goods from now on. Will the British agree to that? "Yuan Xiangcheng looked at Xu Shichang and explained the reason in detail.

War is an extension of politics, and politics is the concrete manifestation of economics.

The Jiangnan region where Liu Kunyi is located is the traditional sphere of influence of the British, and Britain will not allow France to provoke here.

Although the British cooperated closely with France in the Far East, fought the Second Opium War together, and helped the French in the Tianjin Incident.

That is because it does not involve Britain's economic interests, and there is no Sino-Japanese War, and there is no "unity of great powers" among European and American countries in China.

It all depends on one's ability and everyone benefits from it.

Therefore, the French are taking this into consideration and are likely to make threats but may not actually send troops.

After all, the British now have such a deep economic colonization in Jiangsu and Zhejiang that they can just extort some benefits verbally. The French also understand that expanding the war may not necessarily bring more benefits.

"What do you mean, Wei Ting?" Xu Shichang wanted to get an answer from Yuan Xiangcheng.

"The most important thing now is to prevent Liu Kun from kneeling. As long as he holds on, the French will be enraged and will inevitably send troops, even with the British watching."

"Chief Instructor, if the French had brought their warships to the city of Jiangning, wouldn't Liu Kunyi have surrendered? In that case, the French wouldn't have to resort to war."

After hearing the two people say this, Mingye couldn't help but ask. In his opinion, it seemed that as long as the foreigners stopped their ships there, the Qing Dynasty would immediately surrender.

8 Yuan Xiangcheng couldn't help but shake his head when he heard this: "What a pity, Mingye, you are from Korea and don't know the situation in China."

Xu Shichang also explained: "Liu Kunyi is not the emperor of the Qing Dynasty. The foreigners' favorite tactic of threatening with warships is useless."

"Right!" Yuan Xiangcheng picked up a pamphlet that recorded the Three Massacres of Jiading and waved it towards Mingye, "The reason the Manchus were repeatedly defeated in foreign wars was because they surrendered as soon as the foreigners sent their warships to Dagukou.

As the san were a foreign race, they did not dare to arm the people for fear of destabilizing the throne, so naturally they believed whatever the foreigners said.

But Liu Kunyi now has no such concerns. He is a Han Chinese, and the Hunan Group is spread throughout the lower reaches of the Yangtze River.

Even if the French sailed their warships into the Yangtze River and approached Jiangning City, Liu Kunyi would not be afraid. At worst, he could just retreat inland.

5 Speaking of this, Yuan Xiangcheng felt a little emotional. He did not expect that the divided Qing Dynasty would be more difficult to deal with than the entire Qing Dynasty.

Liu Kunyi seemed to be the governor-general of Jiangnan in the Qing Dynasty. Therefore, according to convention, the best way for foreigners to achieve their goals was to go north and threaten the Qing court.

But what does that have to do with the current Emperor Guangxu of the Qing Dynasty?

Are these two the same Qing Dynasty?

The French knew this, so it was impossible for them to go north to threaten Guangxu. Instead, they went west to Wuchang to find Cixi and the young emperor, which might be helpful.

But do the French dare?

The Yangtze River stretches for thousands of miles, and there may be mines everywhere. The French may not dare to go deep into the Yangtze River because they are not familiar with the hydrology.

Since the French could not put pressure on Cixi, they could only put pressure on Liu Kunyi. At that time, Liu Kunyi could only seek help from the British. There were only two possible outcomes.

1. The British persuaded Liu Kunyi to pay a small price to compensate the French for their losses.

Second, the British supported Liu Kunyi against France.

Liu Kun would most likely choose the former. After all, the cost of peacemaking is far less than starting a war, and what he has to do is to prevent Liu Kun from making peace.

Thinking of this, a plan took shape in Yuan Xiangcheng's mind. He raised the corner of his mouth slightly and said seriously to the two people in front of him:

"Shaochuan Tang Shaoyi can't sit idle. We must take this opportunity to make a big fuss and ask him to do his utmost to protect the protesting people and scholars. It would be best if we could negotiate strongly with the French!"

Xu Shichang was puzzled. "Weiting, this happened in Shanghai. It's Liu Kunyi's fault. If we speak out rashly, we'll inevitably incur the wrath of the French."

In his opinion, he could at most secretly write a letter to Liu Kunyi to express his support. There was no need to say it explicitly, after all, the two were still in a hostile state.

"Juren, you don't understand. If I take a tough stance against the French, then Liu Kunyi has to be tough too. Otherwise, how will the people of the world view him?

If he surrenders, he will be alienated from the people of the world.

If you want to be tough, you have to be tougher than me. By then, the French will be too busy worrying about him to bother with me.

Yuan Shikai was well aware of the logic used by the two major parties in the United States to vie for votes in later generations. If you are tough on China, then I must be tougher than you, otherwise I will be pro-communist and pro-China!

Once you enter a negative spiral, you can only become more extreme than others.

Anyway, the French consul died in Shanghai, not outside the Great Wall. What Yuan Shikai needs to do most now is to step on the accelerator hard and freeze the accelerator.

Chapter 209 "French Concession Incident"

While the two forces were desperately thinking of a solution, the situation in Shanghai where the incident occurred had already changed.

If Guangzhou was the most developed city in China in the mid-Qing Dynasty, then Shanghai was the most developed city in East Asia in the late Qing Dynasty. This record may have continued until the Nanjing National Government came to power.

Even compared with Tokyo and Shanghai of the same period, it was much worse, because Tokyo did not have so many concessions.

After the shooting at the French Concession Consulate, the news not only spread across the country through the extensive telegraph network, but also spread throughout the Shanghai media circles within a few hours, including both Chinese and foreigners.

"Qing mobs brazenly opened fire, and the French consul died in the Far East!"

This was the headline published in the Zilin Shanghai Daily, a newspaper sponsored by foreigners. It put all the blame on the Chinese people without considering the cause of the protest.

"My people are fighting for their rights, and the French consul has been killed!"

This is the front-page headline of a relatively neutral report, which is unbiased and describes the cause and result of the incident.

"French soldiers and police injured civilians, and our Chinese heroes fought back in anger!"

This headline, which is clearly biased towards the Chinese, came from the Shanghai branch of the East Asia Times. As soon as the news of the incident was received, the editor of the East Asia Times called it the "French Concession Incident."

What they said was true. After the French consul was shot and fell to the ground, the protesting people knew something had happened and wanted to escape quickly. The murderer also hid in the crowd and wanted to leave.

The military and police naturally did not want to let the murderer escape, so the soldiers present fired warning shots and did not allow anyone to leave the scene.

But a small number of people still managed to escape. Seeing that more and more people were fleeing, the French military and police opened fire at the crowd in panic, injuring many people.

In the end, a small number of people ran away, while the vast majority were controlled on the spot. Some seriously injured people are even lying unconscious in the hospital, and are about to die with the French consul.

However, no matter how many casualties there are, the number of dead is no longer important. People all over Shanghai and even the world are watching the subsequent developments. Has the murderer been caught?

9667 Jiu+10 Wuzhaoshu group

French military police and concession soldiers arrested hundreds of people and took them back to the cells. However, after searching, they found no trace of firearms. They could only torture the civilians one by one, trying to force them to reveal their "accomplices".

But the captured civilians had no "accomplices" at all. Under torture, they could only make up nonsense. The military and police did not make any distinctions. Anyone who was mentioned was arrested and interrogated in jail, causing chaos in the French Concession.

The French Concession was originally a prosperous place with many shops and stores. The French actions arrested many Chinese businessmen from Jiangsu and Zhejiang. When the clan forces behind these people learned about it, they had to take action and began to seek help from the government or friendly foreigners.

The French military and police, after interrogating dozens of people, did not obtain any useful information. Only then did they realize that they could not continue.

So on the one hand, they contacted the French Governor in Taiwan and asked him to take charge; on the other hand, they rushed out of the concession, captured the Shanghai County magistrate and put him in the concession jail to keep company with snakes, insects, rats and ants, in order to put pressure on Liu Kunyi.

The French Concession, and even the Chinese Quarter adjacent to it, became a desolate "dead city" overnight.

After daybreak, seeing that the French were rampant and almost taking to the streets to arrest people indiscriminately to vent their anger, people from all over the country chose to flee Shanghai.

Even those who did not leave kept their doors and windows closed, hoping that the government would come out to help.

The people of Shanghai were in panic as the trend of consuls being assassinated became more and more serious.

After Tang Shaoyi received Yuan Shikai's telegram, he quickly published a telegram in the newspaper signed by the "President of the National Defense Army", which was half a warning to the French and half to appease the people.

"Do the French still think that things are the same as they were ten years ago? Back then, evildoers were rampant in the court. Although China was not defeated, it was still defeated. Taiwan and Xiamen were forced to be ceded.

Today, our national defense forces already boast 200,000 brave soldiers, and the Jiangnan New Army boasts over 100,000 heroic troops. If the French dare to fire one arrow, the Chinese will respond with ten. Let's see who is braver!

I urge the people of Shanghai, the rich to contribute money, the poor to contribute their labor, and all to do their part to resist the law.

Although I want to go south to unify China, I know that regardless of north or south, regardless of age, all people are my compatriots.

Our compatriots who work at the waterworks, please stop supplying water to the French Concession; our compatriots who carry feces, please stop entering or leaving the French Concession.