Master Yuan, start!

Ignoring the onlookers around him, Sohkata Kotaro, who had been waiting at the dock, stepped forward and said, "Aoki-kun, let's go."

"Okay, I haven't stepped into the Oriental Academy for many years. This time I came to Shanghai, I just want to reminisce about it." Nobuzumi Aoki, who was called Aoki-kun, nodded and immediately walked towards the Oriental Academy on Kunshan Road in Shanghai.

Soon, the two men led the members of the fraternity society behind them to the school, but they left everyone behind and entered a dark room in the school where a tea table had already been set up.

"Munakata-kun, how is the hero who attempted to assassinate the French consul?" Aoki Nobuzumi asked nervously, holding a teacup in his hand.

"He's already fled back home under an assumed name." Sohō Kotaro passed the latest intelligence to Aoki. "The French can't find the murderer, so they're taking their anger out on the Qing!"

"Yoshi!"

Aoki Nobuzumi held the teacup tightly in his right hand and couldn't help but feel happy that his plan had succeeded.

Both Sohna Kotaro and Aoki Nobuzumi were spies sent by the Japanese government to the Qing Dynasty to collect intelligence.

Historically, Nobuzumi Aoki was called the first "China expert" by the Japanese military. He also founded the first "Aoki Agency" with the purpose of invading China. He is the founder of Japanese spy warfare.

He was later hired by Yuan Shikai as the highest military adviser to assist in the establishment of the Beiyang Army.

In the original time and space, Sotaro Sohkata discovered the departure time of the Beiyang Fleet from Weihaiwei, which enabled the Japanese Combined Fleet to deploy in advance near the Dadong Bay in the Yellow Sea, waiting for the enemy to tire themselves out and gaining the upper hand for the Japanese fleet's victory in the Sino-Japanese War.

In this time and space, both of them were sent to China to collect intelligence in 10, 1884 years ago, according to the original historical trajectory.

Among them, Aoki Nobuzumi was sent to Beijing, but because of Yuan Shikai, Beijing had lost its value for obtaining intelligence after the Anti-Curtain Campaign, so he was sent to study in Germany.

After receiving the news that Russia coveted the northern islands, the Japanese government quickly recalled Aoki Nobuzumi from Europe, wanting him to analyze the situation in Russia and Eastern Europe and prepare for war with Russia.

Kotaro Sohkata stayed in Shanghai to gather intelligence. After the "Russian Ship Southward Movement" incident, he was also entrusted with an important task.

That is, "to prevent Russia and France from attacking Japan from the north and south"

The French often beat and scolded the Chinese in the concession, and Sohna Kotaro, who often came into contact with all kinds of people, knew this very well.

If there were no special circumstances, this phenomenon would only be written into his report and passed on to Tokyo, and would not cause any waves.

However, with the changing international situation, after receiving the report, the Japanese government asked Sohō Kotaro to take advantage of the conflicts between the Chinese and the French in the French Concession to create chaos and attract the attention of the French to the Qing Dynasty.

This would prevent Japan from being caught in a dilemma of being attacked from both the north and the south in the upcoming "Japan-Russia conflict".

After all, in this time and space, because the French seized Taiwan, their development focus shifted from the original southwest region of China to both the southeast and southwest.

Moreover, due to the wealth of the Southeast, France dumped a particularly large number of goods there. Although the Taiwan colony was far smaller than Vietnam's, the economic benefits gained by the two were almost equal.

The cost of treatment is 4% off; purchasing agent: the silk san meal in Taiwan is much lower than that in Vietnam.

Taiwan has become a thorn in France's side in East Asia, and the geographical advantages of this thorn are becoming increasingly prominent.

There are two natural channels for goods to travel north from Taiwan. One is through the Taiwan Strait connecting to the mainland; the other is through the Ryukyu Islands connecting to Japan.

The French had always wanted to open up trade routes to Japan to prepare for the sale of French goods, but the Japanese side continued to mediate and delay.

Therefore, the Japanese government was worried that the French would take advantage of the situation after Japan declared war, so it decided to take the initiative and provoke the Franco-Qing dispute.

All I can say is that this is what the Japanese are like. They will do anything to survive. This national character has been ingrained in them since ancient times.

Even if the historical trajectory changes, the approach of never giving up to achieve the goal remains exactly the same.

When he was powerful in the original time and space, he used the method of missing soldiers several times, from the 918 Incident in Shenyang, to the invasion of Shanghai, and then to the attack on Beijing.

In this time and space, he has not yet shown his fangs, so he concealed it slightly and used assassination to frame others.

However, it now seems that the Japanese strategy was very successful.

"Mr. Souma, if you can stop France, you will be a hero of the Empire of Japan!" Aoki Nobuzumi raised his matcha and looked at Souma Kotaro in front of him with admiration.

"Mr. Aoki, if Japan wants to dominate the world and be popular among its neighbors, heroes of all generations are indispensable. How can I be the only one to enjoy the title of meritorious official?

I'm responsible for Eastern intelligence. Regarding the Western world, it's up to Aoki-kun."

Kotaro Sohkata also picked up a cup of matcha and expressed his respect to Nobuzumi Aoki who was studying in Germany.

Chapter 215 Three Lines of Defense

The Japanese celebrated the success of their conspiracy in Shanghai, and Liu Kunyi was leisurely waiting for the final development of the matter by the Huangpu River.

In the seventh month of the lunar calendar, Shanghai is in the hottest drought period, which is a very dry and hot time.

After coming down from the Zhongshan Governor's Mansion in Jiangning, the elderly Liu Kunyi could not stand the high temperature on the ground. Now he was lying on the bed with his long gray braids and wearing coarse linen clothes to cool off.

In addition to himself, there were three people in the room: Yu, Tao and Kang, who were accompanying them in handling the assassination incident.

"Jin Shan Yu Lian Yuan's calligraphy, where did Yuan Xiangcheng go after arriving in Shanghai?"

Yu Lianyuan took the well watermelon cut by the servant and placed it in front of Liu Kunyi and replied respectfully:

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"General Xian, I don't think this man is cut out to be an official. He'd be perfect for being an actor."

Liu Kun took a bite of the cool melon flesh and wiped the water stains from his mouth with his sleeve without caring: "Oh, what do you mean?"

Yu Lianyuan took the watermelon, but before he could reply, Kang Youwei on the side said, "General Xian, you don't know that Yuan Shikai has been running around Shanghai all day since his speech at the dock.

Today he went to the British Concession Consulate to meet with Chinese and foreign merchants, and tomorrow he went to the school and temple to please the young people. His voice was heard all over the Huangpu River.

Yu Lianyuan took a bite of watermelon and replied, "I think he probably thought victory was a sure thing this time, that the French were bound to attack, and he got a little carried away."

"Wandering around the streets, talking about this and that," Tao Senjia took over the conversation, saying disdainfully, "He's just like a street performer. He doesn't have the bearing of a high official. He's really bringing shame to the Governor."

Liu Kun had lost his worry expression from the past few days. After hearing this, he smiled calmly: "Haha, we have the Grasshopper Emperor and the Flower and Willow Emperor, so what's wrong with having an actor governor?"

He was in a really good mood today because the French had agreed to his loan request.

Without ceding territory or paying compensation, and just by apologizing in a private name, you can borrow nearly 1000 million taels of silver. Where in the world can you find such a good deal?

As for things like railway rights, goods produced by mainland legal factories being equivalent to imported goods, and no taxes or levies, he thought they were all trivial matters and no need to worry about them.

Anyway, I just suffered a little loss. Once the French weapons arrive, I can directly mobilize a powerful army in the world. After I have conquered the north and the south and unified the world, it will not be too late to turn around and deal with the French.

Liu Kunyi was feeling complacent about his ability to form alliances, but he didn't realize that he was ultimately confined by the limitations of the times and had unknowingly stepped into the vortex of capital globalization.

In fact, even if the French consul had not been assassinated, as long as he wanted to borrow money from European and American countries, most countries would be willing to lend, unless it was for war and would damage their own colonial interests.

In both Opium Wars, Britain aimed to sell more goods to the Chinese, which is called commodity export.

Historically, after the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895, commodity exports turned into capital exports.

The so-called capital export means building factories in China, using Chinese raw materials, and then selling the produced goods to China.

On the one hand, this can more effectively exploit the interests of the colonies. On the other hand, the already overflowing capital in Europe and the United States can be transferred to the colonies to further strengthen themselves.

Capitalism has already begun its silent evolution at this time.

After the 1890s, capitalism in Europe and the United States entered a period of rapid development. It was from this time that laissez-faire capitalism began to gradually turn into "monopoly capitalism".

The trusts in the U.S. steel and oil industries; the syndicates in the French glass and metallurgical industries; the cartels in the German coal and electricity industries.

These are among the iconic organizations of monopoly capitalism. In this era, different forms of monopoly have emerged in different countries, but the purpose is to seize capital interests more efficiently.

If you can control the colonial railways, the next step is to control the power supply in the cities along the lines, and the next step is to control shipping:

In this time and space, France, as a "lender-interest imperialist", could not miss this opportunity to expand its capital. The financial capital that had been invested in Russia in the original time and space was frantically trying to find a way out.

Algeria, West Africa, Vietnam, Taiwan and Xiamen cannot accommodate so much capital. Now that they have found an opportunity, they will naturally extend their tentacles further into mainland China.

Liu Kunyi still looked at new things with the old perspective. In his opinion, instead of fighting a war with foreigners and losing and paying compensation, it would be better to borrow money from foreigners and avoid war.

We all owe money anyway, so why do we have to go to war with the foreigners?

There was no such thing as ceding territory or paying compensation when fighting against Yuan Shikai.

Thinking of this, Liu Kunyi put down the watermelon in his hand, called in Zhu Hongzhang, the admiral of the Jiangnan New Army, and asked about the military arrangements.

The watermelon had already reached room temperature. Liu Kunyi felt that it had lost its taste and didn't want to eat it anymore, so he ordered his servants to take it away.

After a while, Zhu Hongzhang walked into the house.

"Has everything been arranged in Xuzhou?" Liu Kun asked after taking a sip of herbal tea.

Zhu Hongzhang didn't waste any words. He spread out the map he carried with him and said:

"Reporting to General Xian, the 2nd and 3rd Garrisons are defending the river in the southern part of Xuzhou, the 4th Garrison is guarding Huai'an, and the 5th and 6th Garrisons are stationed in Mengcheng and Fengyang respectively. The Huanghuai defense line is relatively stable."

The so-called Xuzhou South City is actually the small city of Xuzhou on the south bank of the Yellow River.

At this time, the Yellow River did not experience the Huayuankou dike burst, and still flowed south through Jiangsu into the Yellow Sea and passed through the north of Xuzhou City.

The Xuzhou City that Yuan Shikai's national defense army had previously captured was the northern city of Xuzhou on the north bank of the Yellow River. It was a small town newly built after the suppression of the Nian River. It was probably the Gulou and Yunlong districts of Xuzhou city in later generations.

However, Quanshan and Tongshan districts in the south of Xuzhou were still in the hands of the Jiangnan New Army.

After all, it was a night raid, and Feng Guozhang did not dare to cross the river to pursue after his success. In the end, the two armies faced each other along the river.

"Yes, the troops of five towns are guarding the river, which is considered stable." Liu Kunyi was not satisfied after drinking a cup of cold tea, so he stretched out his hand and asked his servants to fetch well water to drink.

"What about the Jianghuai defense line?"

Hearing the question, Zhu Hongzhang moved his finger downwards, and everyone's eyes were drawn to the area between Jianghuai and Wu.

"Reporting to General Xian, 7 men from the Xin Battalion of the 3000th Regiment will defend Lu'an, 5000 men from the Tong Battalion will occupy Anqing, and 2000 men from the Bao Battalion, along with the Yangtze River Navy, will keep a close eye on Zhang Zhidong in Jiujiang."

Wuchang is not a serious threat, so it is feasible to defend it with only one town's troops. Liu Kun nodded in agreement.

He took the cool well water that the servant had just drawn, tilted his head back and drank it, and immediately felt his internal organs extremely refreshed. He wiped his mouth casually with his sleeve and then asked:

"Then, how about Fujian and Jiangxi?"

"The 8th Regiment is in Ji'an Prefecture to guard against Li Hongzhang, and the 9th Regiment is stationed in Quzhou to monitor the three provinces of Zhejiang, Fujian, and Jiangxi." At this point, Zhu Hongzhang's finger moved to the left again:

"In addition, Hengzhou Prefecture has a group of more than 5000 Xiangjia men training militia, who are keeping a close eye on Li Hongzhang's Lingnan New Army from southern Hunan and southern Jiangxi."

It was the first time Kang Youwei had heard such a detailed military deployment, and he immediately praised it, "General Xian, with the addition of the First Regiment stationed in Jiangning and the three old camps in training, Jiangnan has become an ironclad stronghold. General Xian is invincible!"

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As shown in the picture, the yellow circle is the old course of the Yellow River, and the red circle is the distribution of troops.

After eating the watermelon and drinking some cold water, Liu Kun finally calmed down and said with some emotion: "It's a pity that Yuan Xiangcheng was not born in Hunan, otherwise the world would have been ruled by us Hunanese people by now."

Yu Lianyuan, who had been assisting with economic affairs, also agreed: "Yes, timber and ginseng from outside the Great Wall are now freely transported to the south of the Yangtze River.

The foreign merchant ships at the docks mostly used the 2000-ton cargo ships of the Incheon Shipyard. This person is truly a rare talent in foreign affairs."

"General Xian, he's either a confidant or a serious threat." Tao Senjia bent down and advised: "If he insists on the stabbing during tomorrow's talks, why not send someone to him?"

"Let's talk about tomorrow's matter tomorrow..." Liu Kunyi looked at Tao Senjia deeply and said no more.

The sun had already set, and the people in the house slowly retreated and returned to their own residences.