Master Yuan, start!

Of course, he also heard from the British that the Russian Tsar was not interested in state affairs after being assassinated, so he understood that Alexei in front of him was just a coward.

Therefore, he not only did not intend to make concessions, but also intended to further exert extreme pressure: "I heard that the Japanese local government had already set foot on Sakhalin Island 50 years ago, erected boundary markers on it, and established a residential settlement in the southern part of Sakhalin Island.

It was only because the Japanese were focused on their domestic affairs 10 years ago that they reached an agreement with your government on the ownership of Sakhalin Island.

But now Japan is ambitious to expand its territory. If I tell the Japanese about China's ambition to retake Vladivostok, I believe they will reconsider the Sakhalin Island agreement. "At this point, Yuan Xiangcheng looked up at Alexei with a threatening look.

"When the Governor-General of Amur is in Northeast Asia, he will not be facing pressure from China alone, but from the joint efforts of China and Japan."

Yuan Shikai planned to use the threat of China and Japan joining forces to capture Outer Manchuria to intimidate the Russians. Although this was unlikely for Yuan Shikai, the Russians did not dare to deny this possibility.

What the Russians fear most in Northeast Asia is that China and Japan will join forces, with China attacking from land and Japan attacking from the sea.

The Japanese attach much more importance to Sakhalin Island than the Qing Dynasty. As early as the Tokugawa Shogunate period, Japan's Matsumae clan sent troops to garrison Sakhalin Island. Later, the Tokugawa Shogunate nationalized the defense rights of Sakhalin Island.

Therefore, if China and Japan join hands, the Russians will have no choice but to withdraw from the Far East, because it is impossible for the Russians to fight against two populous East Asian countries alone when they are thousands of miles away.

However, due to the incompetence of the Qing Dynasty in the original time and space, this strategic concept did not take shape.

Instead, the Russians took a piece of the Qing Dynasty from the north, and the Japanese took a piece of the Qing Dynasty from the south, and the two countries had their fill in Northeast China and Korea.

Seeing that Alexei's face was ashen and he didn't say anything, Yuan Xiangcheng felt that the time had come and he couldn't force him any further, so he said a few soft words.

"Also, as far as I know, the trade volume between North Korea and Russia's Far East has been rising steadily since two years ago. Although Russia imports a large amount of grain, a large number of specialties from the Vladivostok region are also transported to the East Asian continent through North Korea. The transportation volume of mink fur, deerskin, and timber breaks records every month.

This is far more money than 1000 taels of silver per soldier, not to mention there is no risk. Mr. Alexi, I think you need to think carefully about it.

Zhu Erdian had been drinking coffee nearby, seemingly absent-minded, but when he heard Yuan Shikai's threats against the Russians, he couldn't help but tremble slightly with his hand holding the cup.

This little guy from East Asia was surprisingly brave. Although I knew that Yuan Shikai was probably just trying to intimidate others and was using the British as a pretext to bully others, everyone would look for a boss, and not everyone could handle it well.

The Ottoman Turks took vengeance on Britain and France, and also fought against the Russians, didn't they?

However, the Russians in the Far East are not very powerful, so maybe it will work? Zhu Erdian looked at the Russian envoy.

Alexei clenched his lips, wishing he could tear Yuan Shikai to pieces in the next second, but when he saw the British man, Sir John Jordan, looking at him jokingly, he had to say it word by word.

"Compensation is not necessary, but Russian warships must be given the right to resupply fresh water in Yongxing Bay, and all trade between North Korea and the Russian Far East must be restored immediately!"

Yuan Xiangcheng glanced at Zhu Erdian, and after he nodded, he turned to Alexyuk and said, "What about the compensation for the Chinese soldiers, Your Excellency, isn't there a clause in Russian law that stipulates that killing someone means paying with one's life or money?"

"The Russian Empire will never pay even a single ruble in compensation to the backward East Asian countries!" Alexei insisted on his last principle.

Seeing that the pressure had reached its limit, Yuan Xiangcheng sighed and put forward his own conditions: "How about this, Your Excellency, Minister Weber and I will establish a Sino-Russian Friendship and Trade Foundation in Seoul, which is dedicated to expanding trade between Russia and China.

At the same time, the compensation for the Chinese soldiers was paid in the name of the foundation, not the Russian government or the Governor-General of Amur.

In addition, I can promise you that Russian warships can dock at any of North Korea's established ports to resupply daily necessities, but since only Incheon has a standard pier, only Incheon can be opened at present."

"This..." Alexei was confused for a moment. Why did the Chinese man in front of him suddenly become so easy to talk to?

Yuan Shikai did not want to offend the Russians. His original plan was to use the power of the British to force Russia to retreat in the Sea of ​​Japan crisis. It would be great if he could get a cold treatment.

But he never expected that before the second negotiation, news of the Tsar's assassination came. He knew that this was a great opportunity and that he could use this incident to reach a certain degree of cooperation with the then Far East Governor-General's Office.

Because if he offended the Russians, they would definitely start the construction plan of the Trans-Siberian Railway ahead of time. By that time, Yuan Xiangcheng's railway would not have reached Harbin, but the Russians would have built it to the eastern section of the Sino-Russian border first. Then he would be in tears.

Only when the Far East was in a neither-good-nor-bad situation, Korf, the Amur Governor-General and a Lithuanian nobleman, would not seek support from St. Petersburg. After all, no one wanted to be a waste in the eyes of the Tsar. Who among the real Russian nobles would come to the Far East to be an official?

Although the title of governor sounds good, being the governor of Amur is not even as good as going to Central Asia. At least the climate there is warmer.

Therefore, Yuan Shikai first deliberately stopped the grain trade to artificially create a bargaining chip, and then decided to return the bargaining chip during the negotiations, and also offered a big gift: "Russian warships can dock at all built ports in North Korea."

The condition of "already completed" is very delicate. What is the standard? It was determined by Yuan Shikai at that time. If it was delayed for a few years until the Northeast Railway was completed, by then the Russians might not be able to carry out the Stolypin reforms and would be bombarded by the Far East, leading to widespread civil uprisings.

Alexei came to his senses and quickly asked Yuan Shikai if he was joking. After receiving an affirmative answer, he immediately expressed his willingness to sign the treaty.

So the next day, China, Britain and Russia jointly issued a telegram stating that the Sea of ​​Japan crisis had been resolved.

The telegram stated that the incident was a complete misunderstanding. Now that the misunderstanding has been resolved, it is natural to restore trade between the two countries to normal.

At the same time, the Russian envoy stated that he would set up the Sino-Russian Friendship and Trade Foundation in his "personal" name, and would allocate funds from the foundation to compensate the dead and wounded soldiers.

At the same time, Yuan Shikai also announced that the soldiers who had already headed to the Tumen River would return one after another. Only then did the world know that Lord Yuan was ready to go to war.

When the news came out, there was naturally a lot of cheers!

Newspapers from all factions in the north and south highly praised Yuan Shikai's diamond-like and bodhisattva-like way of handling things.

Even the Qingliu who had previously attacked Yuan Shikai for provoking border conflicts had nothing to say. After all, Yuan Shikai's talk of war was just talk, and the issue was eventually resolved at the negotiating table.

Of course, amidst all the flattery, there were also some harsh voices, some saying that Yuan Shikai was using his large army to gain power and seek fame.

But more young people took to the streets, partying hard and promoting Yuan Shikai as the greatest minister of the time.

Many people also pointed out that the reason why Yuan Xiangcheng was able to achieve such success in just four years was because he learned Western methods in Korea and reformed the Korean system.

Therefore, with the instigation of some people with ulterior motives, the voices for "quick reform and strengthening" became louder and louder, until it became so loud that Empress Dowager Cixi in the capital could hardly ignore it!

Chapter 101: Quiet in the West, Chaos in the East

1888 was a largely peaceful year for East Asia, with Japan quietly licking its wounds. Ito Hirobumi temporarily abandoned his attempts to control the Emperor and instead promoted intergovernmental collaboration among various factions. Orders for Japanese shipbuilding continued to pour in from British and French shipyards.

As for North Korea, most of its young scholars have been immersed deeper and deeper in the dream of becoming a great power that Yuan Shikai has woven for them in the past two years.

Defeating Japan and resisting Russia are things that no Korean sages in history have ever done, but Yuan Shikai achieved both of them in just a few years. The prospect of Korea's integration into China was so bright that these scholars once felt that they were "happy here and didn't miss the king."

Only some elderly people who were loyal to the emperor were alone at home, feeling sad and depressed. On the one hand, they sighed at the great power of China, and on the other hand, they lamented the incompetence of the previous king.

However, they could neither raise the banner of rebellion against China and restore their country, nor follow the example of Boyi and Shuqi, who refused to eat Chinese grain. They missed the harmony between the ruler and his subjects during the Joseon Dynasty, but also had some hope for the bright future of the Chinese Korean Province.

Even if Yuan Shikai was willing to give them one or two official positions, they would flock to the new government in Seoul to take up their posts.

In Russia, after the current Tsar was assassinated, the turmoil in the court lasted for more than half a year. After the bodies of thousands of "Narodniks" were handed over, this wave of political trends finally came to an end.

At the same time, with the tacit approval of Alexander III, the Russian Crown Prince began to gradually get involved in state affairs. His first task was to visit Austria-Hungary to ease the situation between Russia and Austria that had worsened due to the Bulgarian crisis two years ago.

Since the collapse of the Vienna system, the European balance of power that had lasted for more than 50 years has been broken.

If Russia wants to gain a strategic advantage, it must either join hands with Britain and France to squeeze the space of Germany and Austria-Hungary and develop towards Central and Eastern Europe.

Either it could stand with Germany and Austria-Hungary, isolate France and exclude Britain, but this would also mean that Russia could no longer exert influence in Central and Eastern Europe, which were Russia's traditional areas of influence, but instead had to develop Central Asia and the Far East, which had little benefits.

Before the Franco-Prussian War, successive Russian tsars generally chose the first option, that is, to cooperate with Britain and France. In all the Russo-Turkish wars, the Russians relied on the naval support of Britain and France.

However, after the Franco-Prussian War, the German Empire was established and Germany became one of the five major powers in Europe, which greatly integrated the power in Central Europe. Russia could no longer infiltrate Central Europe with impunity.

In Eastern Europe, Russia's influence was influenced by the Austro-Hungarian Empire, but due to the German-Austrian alliance, Russia was cautious in this area.

Therefore, in order to stabilize the European borders, Tsar Alexander III had no choice but to choose the second option at this time, to make peace with Germany and Austria and sign the Triple Alliance Agreement twice. Of course, this was inseparable from the mediation and matchmaking of German Chancellor Bismarck.

But in the final analysis, it was the Russians who chose the most suitable allies for them based on the geopolitical situation.

But getting closer to Germany and Austria means moving away from Britain and France.

How could the troublemaker Britain give up this opportunity? So it supported the Austro-Hungarian Empire in the Bulgarian crisis, weakened the pro-Russian forces in Bulgaria, and made Russia's attempt to establish a pro-Russian regime fail.

On the one hand, they confronted the Russians in Persia, Afghanistan and other places, and at the same time supported Yuan Shikai in the Far East against the Russians who were heading south.

Crown Prince Nicholas went to Austria-Hungary in order to reverse Russia's strategic disadvantage.

He also heard about a minor friction in the Far East. He heard that a local official accidentally fired at a Qing soldier, which caused British warships to patrol north. The situation in Northeast Asia was tense for a time.

Fortunately, the matter was finally resolved, and Governor Amur also brought news of the increase in Sino-Russian trade. Now that it has ended, there is no need for him to worry about such things for the time being.

Crown Prince Nicholas, who was just 20 years old, thought that since the British were so powerful, there was no need to waste time fighting with Britain in areas where the empire was weak.

You don't know until you take over the country. Once you take over, you will find that Russia is like a leaky bed, with high debt, peasant uprisings, and widespread terrorism.

In the twenty years after the reforms of his grandfather Alexander II, Russia built nearly 3 kilometers of railways in one go. After his father came to power, the trend of road construction did not slow down. Borrowing money to build roads made Russia's treasury increasingly empty.

However, collecting land taxes became increasingly difficult. In agriculture, after abolishing the poll tax, the government significantly increased land taxes to supplement annual revenue. However, his grandfather's reforms were incomplete, and most Russian serfs received only barren land and a mountain of debt. Following the land tax increase, tax arrears became increasingly serious, with a shortfall of nearly one-fifth of the tax bill.

At the same time, Russia's industrial development was difficult to describe. Due to the exploitation of officials and the poor geographical location, few capitalists were willing to go to Russia to open factories.

This led to the long-term backwardness of Tsarist Russia's industry, making it unable to absorb the huge agricultural population that overflowed after the serfdom reform, resulting in these people having to remain in the countryside.

This in turn increases the burden on farmers.

In terms of society, Alexander II's reforms led to rapid urban development, further liberalization of social life, increased investment in education, changed the previous practice of only accepting children of aristocrats into school, and now recruited students from all walks of life.

But this also brought more problems. After graduation, students who received Western education could not find suitable jobs in Russia due to the weak industry. Some of them joined the army, some went to Europe, but more of them became a force for social instability.

They had studied Western political systems and believed that the current social situation was caused by the backward Tsarist system, so they gradually formed the terrorist organization Narodnaya Volya.

When Crown Prince Nicholas thought about the external pressures Russia would face from Europe, Central Asia, and the Far East, as well as internal crises such as debt, industry, agriculture, and assassinations, he felt that Russia was not yet able to bear the cost of attacking on three fronts, so he decided to open a gap in Europe, the most important part of the empire.

Since the British want the Far East, let them be proud for a while, and then turn their guns after the Russian Empire has dealt with European affairs.

Russia's top priority now is to temporarily repair the damaged Russo-Austrian relations. Although Austria-Hungary and Russia have irreconcilable contradictions in the Balkans, with the Tsar semi-retired, Nicholas believes that if he wants to stabilize the domestic situation, it would be better for him to go to Vienna.

In addition to visiting Vienna, his destinations also included Berlin, Paris, London, and finally returning to Russia via the Mediterranean.

Therefore, Nicholas II, who would have to wait seven years in the original time and space to ascend to the throne and hold the power of the Tsar, began his political career ahead of time in this life.

However, due to the difference in time, Russia's conflicts were mainly focused on the relationship with the major European countries. Therefore, Nicholas II inevitably placed the focus on the European Russian region, and the development of Russia's Far East was later than in the original time and space.

Therefore, without the orders of the central government, the Russians in the Far East could be said to have "become acquainted with each other through fighting" with Yuan Shikai. After Yuan Shikai reopened the trade between North Korea and Russia, land trade was opened between the two countries. North Korea's cattle and grain could enter the Vladivostok area more smoothly without being affected by the weather, and the trade volume between North Korea and Russia increased month by month.

Yuan Xiangcheng did not choose to eat this part of the profit alone. Instead, he allowed the Russian envoy Weber and the Amur Governor Korf behind him to make a fortune. With money to pave the way, everything was easier. Weber was no longer so hostile to Yuan Xiangcheng.

The British were still the same, committed to expanding Sino-British trade volume. Yuan Shikai did not waste the honeymoon period and sent a group of officers from the Jiashen Right Army to study at the Naval Academy.

The French were somewhat dishonest and often sailed their warships northwards. However, after suffering losses at the hands of Yuan Shikai, they seemed to have no confidence in their own army, so they did not attempt to land. Instead, they frightened the coastal artillery batteries so much that they treated them as if they were facing a great enemy every time, and finally found out that it was a false alarm.

It was rare that there was no war in China, and the north and the south maintained a generally peaceful state. There were minor disturbances, with bandits and robbers causing trouble from time to time, but most of them were quelled by government troops.

But it seems that heaven does not fulfill people's wishes, and people always have to suffer disasters. After man-made disasters, natural disasters come.

In mid-1888, a magnitude 7.5 earthquake struck the Bohai Sea region, and Yuan Shikai felt the tremors in the Seoul area. The earthquake was close to densely populated areas such as the western and southern Bohai Sea.

Countless houses were damaged in Luanxian, Changli, Leting, Wudi, Lijin, Huimin and other areas in eastern Zhili and northern Shandong, and the casualties among the people were incalculable.

After the earthquake, bandits were frequent and the people suffered heavy losses. The Qing government did not carry out effective rescue. The White Tiger Group took this opportunity to send people to the area and secretly develop their power under the banner of defending their hometown.

At this time, the Shengjing-Lushun Railway had just begun construction, so Yuan Shikai submitted a petition requesting permission to relocate the affected people to the Liaodong Peninsula to reclaim wasteland, in order to enrich the population of the Northeast and make up for the shortage of personnel in building the railway.

Industry and agriculture are developing steadily.

Yuan Shikai also took advantage of this opportunity to semi-publicly peddle his Red Confucian thought. After some packaging and additions, deletions, checks and revisions, he changed the name of the New Learning and False Classics Examination, which had a shocking impact on the intellectual world in the past, to Confucianism and False Classics Examination, and published it in the East Asia Times.

The Confucian Pseudo-Classics Examination denounced the Confucian classics obtained after the pre-Qin period as forgeries, claiming that it was Liu Xin who assisted Wang Mang in usurping the Han Dynasty and forging the Six Classics. In order to maintain Wang Mang's dictatorship, he tampered with the writings of the ancient sages and forcibly grafted non-Confucian ideas into Confucian classics.

The study of false scriptures by later generations led to the nation's downfall and the current humiliation of China by other nations. The root of the culprit lies in these false scriptures. China's current poverty and weakness also stem from studying false scriptures, which prevented it from developing modern technology like the West and building powerful ships and cannons.

At the same time, Yuan Xiangcheng placed his "New Theory of the Three Bonds" in the examination of Confucian pseudo-classics, advocating that the "bonds" should be used as examples rather than irresistible dogmas and rules, and claimed that more scriptures had been tampered with, waiting for him to refute them one by one in the future.

Once this article was published, it immediately caused a sensation in the entire intellectual circle of the Qing court, not only because it was signed by an "East Asian scholar" who had published several heavyweight articles, but also because the East Asian scholar put forward new views on Confucianism based on refuting the pseudo-classics.