afterglow

Chapter 245 Non-aggression;

Compared with the century-old enemy on the other side of the strait, the current domestic situation of the Gallic Chicken is even worse.

The severe blow to the economy caused by the Great Depression has not been fully overcome even today. There are many bankrupt companies and the unemployment rate remains high.

The difficult status quo has directly led to the intensification of political struggles in France. The left and right factions are fighting endlessly, and radical movements are common.

Under such circumstances, the French Republic has to face the military threat of the German Society directly, and they know their fear of the Germans only by the solid line of defense built with huge sums of money.Of course, the proud French will not admit this to death.

The bloody European War 20 years ago directly killed a generation of young people, but in the end they gained very little. Nowadays, the French only hope to maintain the status quo, and if there is one less thing, one less thing will be less.

What's more, whether it is good or bad for France's interests to turn against Ming Dynasty, the few interests on the Eastern Islands are just mosquito legs, and using them as bargaining chips in exchange for trade restrictions on Germany is very reasonable at the moment.

The final bottom line that the French emissary was told before leaving was actually relatively low. Apart from allowing at least 6 months for French companies to transfer assets, the main condition was to require Ming to reduce trade in rubber and tungsten concentrates with Germany. , the bottom line is 40% and 65% respectively, and the time limit is 10 years.

However, how much can be talked about depends on the ability of the emissary.

At first, the French secret envoy tentatively proposed to reduce the trade volume of rubber by 60% and tungsten concentrate by 90%, but was immediately rejected by the secret envoy of Ming Dynasty.

"This request is too urgent and dishonest. At least the existing contract should be fulfilled. The trade income of tungsten concentrate is also of great significance to our country. A [-]% reduction? This is not much different from a complete severance, and it is unacceptable."

"But, sir, who knows if you signed a long-term contract?"

"Long-term contracts can be voided, but short-term contracts should be fully fulfilled."

"Let's talk about the cuts again, sir."

"Rubber can be slightly more, but the tungsten concentrate can be reduced by at most [-]%." Daming secret envoy said decisively.

"You said 'more', how much is it?" The French secret envoy obviously knew this kind of word game. In this case, whoever said it first would be at a disadvantage, so he threw the ball back.

"About 60.00% five."

Only cut 5% more rubber, but the tungsten concentrate has to be changed from 90% to 20%? ? ?

"Sir, I'm starting to doubt your sincerity." The French emissary said with some dissatisfaction.

"I think so too." The British emissary on the side took a puff of his cigar and echoed, "With enough sincerity in trade, a diplomatic, economic, and even military conflict can be avoided. This is very worthwhile for China."

"Big mistake, how can the security of the Celestial Empire be considered with a businessman's thinking? Dongying is only [-] miles away from the mainland of our country. It can be called a gateway, and any price is worth it."

"But sir, Kyushu Island has always been a colony of your country." The French emissary retorted.

His implication is that there is Kyushu Island as a buffer in the middle, so there is no need to exaggerate what he said, what is the place of the door, what is the cost of safety.

"It is the territory under the jurisdiction of the Xuanwei Division and the submissive town, not a so-called colony." The secret envoy of Ming Dynasty corrected this point first, and then said seriously: "Kyushu Island is very small in our opinion. You all have a voyage of more than three thousand miles The bomber, after flying over the Daming Sea, will be the essence of Su Song."

The emissaries of the three parties are all carefully selected roles, and verbal skills are not taken lightly, and the negotiation between you and me continues from there.

The lack of natural resources in Germany has limited its military strength to a large extent. The four resources of oil, copper, tungsten, and rubber are indispensable for war machines. Britain, France, and other European countries have always strictly restricted Germany, Hungary, and the Czech Republic. The resource imports of other countries can barely meet the needs of peacetime.

Obviously, if you want to go to war, you must hoard resources, but the main suppliers of these resources have succumbed to the instructions of Britain and France. For example, the Netherlands' rubber and oil trade with Germany has always been at a very low level.

Although in order to make more money, the Dutch will secretly sell more secretly, but the total amount is still too small.

Therefore, the bulk of the rubber trade with Germany in recent years has been completely taken over by Daming and Annan; in addition, cargo ships loaded with tungsten concentrates, molybdenum concentrates, and nickel concentrates also set sail from Haiphong and Guangzhou to Hamburger.

It is no exaggeration to say that these important rare metals in the metallurgical industry can control the situation of the war, so the French are eager to suppress the power of the Germans from any feasible angle.

Because the secret envoys of Ming Dynasty were too tough and confident, the secret envoys of Britain and France chose to suspend the negotiation.

Although they showed a firm attitude and repeatedly threatened that they would never make big concessions for the benefit of their own country, they were actually afraid that the talks would collapse.

The result of the collapse of the talks is self-evident, and the vested interests of the Western countries, or at least Britain and France, in Japan will be in vain.

The number of values ​​is indeed small, but the negative impact it brings is far greater than the value itself.

First of all, it is impossible for Britain and France to go to war for this, and everyone knows what the garrison in the concession is. The result is that they are easily defeated and then leave in disgrace.

In this way, public opinion will ridicule the government's incompetence, the public will question the strength of the country, and ambitious parties will take the opportunity to make noises. This will undoubtedly make the already unstable political situation worse.

This is only the most direct impact. If we consider the indirect impact on economy and trade, as well as the unpredictable vicious consequences-Da Ming will not do anything, and will directly attack the Nanyang region by the way...

That's too bad!

So the secret envoys of Britain and France continued to send reports to their own countries from the afternoon of the same day until midnight to solicit opinions.

After a day of deliberation, the next day's renegotiation will be much smoother.

Even though the two secret envoys were still acting like yesterday, the Daming secret envoy could easily sense that the confidence of these two people was two points weaker, and he couldn't help laughing secretly in his heart.

Hehe, these Xiyi are really hard-boiled guys, but it's just mediocre.

However, in order to take care of the self-esteem of these two secret envoys, the Ming secret envoy also saw through it without telling the truth, and did not sneer at it. He just casually said, "How glorious it was when it was strong in the past, but how embarrassing it will be when it declines later", which has already made the sensitive The faces of the two were red.

The results of the negotiations were quickly drawn up, and the document tentatively titled "Agreement on the Transfer of Forces and Assets in Japan" was quickly sent back to the three countries.

"First, the transfer will begin on March 7938, 3;
Second, the various transfer actions of Britain and France from the Japanese archipelago should be completed before June 6 of the same year, and assets that have not been transferred must be discarded after the deadline.not destroy any physical property;
Third, Daming should cancel the long-term mineral export contract with Germany, and the short-term contract of less than 360 days can be fulfilled;

Fourth, the export volume of tungsten, molybdenum and nickel concentrates to Germany should be reduced by 35% compared with this year, and the export volume of rubber should be reduced by 50%.This limitation period is 5 years.

Fifth, Ming should sign a 2-year non-aggression treaty with Britain before February 1, and make a public statement. "

The deal that was finalized was far worse than Britain and France had envisioned - for Britain, the non-aggression pact was only six years old instead of at least ten as initially hoped; for France, trade cuts with Germany were also smaller than hoped Much less, and only five years.

This undoubtedly made Britain and France deeply unhappy, but for now they can only hold back.

After all, if Daming turned the tables and stopped talking, the two of them would suffer even more in the end.

But if you think about it another way, not only do you have time to withdraw most of the assets that were already unsafe, but you also get a small amount of things that are beneficial to your country. Is this not bad?

Official British and French reports at home promoted the event as a great diplomatic victory, but some pointed out that it was at best a Pyrrhic victory.

As for the others, Daming naturally didn't have the time to negotiate with the Netherlands, Belgium, Italy and other countries one by one, so he chose to negotiate secretly with Britain and France first.

Now, the two Western civilizations have compromised, and the rest of the countries followed suit and agreed.

The Russians who are in a mess at home and can't take care of themselves are the most interesting. They don't even have the time to evacuate the assets of the lease, so they simply put a clear price and sell them at a lower price.

The weapons and equipment of the garrison were also directly sold to interested feudal towns. Rifles, light machine guns, heavy machine guns, infantry guns, armored vehicles, etc. were all packaged and sold.

It is the Americans who are the toughest. This is partly because Daming went to Britain and France in private instead of the United States. This made some politicians with a strong sense of pride extremely dissatisfied. After making so much effort, you deliberately ignored it, right?

In addition, the main reason is that the United States still has no plans to completely abandon the Far East-the ambition is still there, even though the Philippine colony and the Japanese concession have little income, they still insist on it.

In the Wenhua Palace, several cabinet ministers also exchanged views on this.

Li Guangyuan stroked his white beard, "This is interesting, the Americans are not happy, when the time comes...will they fight?"

"There is no problem in the military." Lin Xi didn't really care about this, and said something nonsense.

"I think it's completely possible to keep it. Now the rest of the countries will take the initiative to leave and withdraw their influence, and then only the United States will be left." Yu Shenhua said unhurriedly: "There will be many variables in the future. Keep it, any dispute can be used as an excuse, which is quite convenient."

"I think it's pretty good," Li Guangyuan nodded, and said in a deep thought, "It's just that public opinion needs to be guided a little bit. Other countries are going to leave and stay alone, and it's easy for people with good intentions to use this to make lies."

"Well, let's keep it. Anyway, there is no resolution yet, and it can be resolved at any time in the future depending on the situation." Lin Xi did not object.

The days passed by, and the remaining time was fleeting.

The 37th year of Zhichang was full of absurdity and turmoil. This was a turning year, turning from a peaceful plain to an unknown abyss.

Not long after New Year's Day, the Great Ming Sun Moon Society announced the "Sino-British Non-Aggression Treaty", which caused an uproar for a while, and became a must-talk topic for people from all over the country after dinner.

In contrast, trade cuts to Germany have been overlooked.

On January [-]th, it's time.

A train from Wuhan Prefecture slowly entered Jiangbei Railway Station. A group of young couples got off one of the second-class carriages, followed the traffic signs and followed the crowd to the place where they left the station.

Zhou Changfeng had been waiting here for half an hour, his eyes were jumping rapidly in the crowd, but he couldn't find the target.

Suddenly, a "long wind" came from the front right, which made him startled. Turning his head to look, he saw a woman in a light-colored skirt and her husband walking slowly.

With a petite figure and eyebrows as thin as willow leaves, that's her!
Having not seen her for two years, Zhou Changfeng felt that the sister in front of her hadn't changed from what she remembered. On the contrary, she felt that Zhou's demeanor was older than before.

"Old man? Isn't it so?" Zhou Changfeng pointed at himself and asked in doubt.

Zhou Roujia looked at him seriously again, and said firmly, "There must be something different."

The tall man next to her is Li Shuye, from Jizhou, who is now working in a private food company in Hankou County.

He cupped his hands and said, "The train was delayed when it was filling up coal and water in Luzhou Prefecture. It was two quarters of an hour late, making my brother-in-law wait for a long time."

"It's okay, let's go."

It only took Zhou Changfeng about half a year from being concerned about the private use of military vehicles to accepting it now. Although this is the norm nowadays, he still feels a little disgusted.

From this point of view, Xia Xiaoshi's idea of ​​buying a car is very necessary.

After driving across the river by ferry, and after twisting and turning for a while, it didn't take long to arrive at the small house that Zhou bought.In a few days, this place will be his and Xia Xiaoshi's new home.

"This location is very good. It will be very convenient for my brother-in-law and younger siblings to go back and forth." Li Shuye looked at the surrounding furnishings and praised: "The decoration is quite elegant."

"The location is really important." Zhou Changfeng shrugged, and said casually: "I don't care about the decoration. She is more particular about small poems, so let her."

Zhou Roujia would naturally be able to attend his wedding, and since she came, the husband had to come with her anyway.

This is the basic etiquette. Besides, for ordinary people, Zhou Changfeng is definitely well-off now, how can he not cheer?

And someone Zhou also had his own ideas, and had made a point of confirming whether his brother-in-law would come.

"I'll go make tea."

"Sister, I'm tired of traveling, I'll do it."

After some evasions, Zhou Roujia took over the job of making tea.

Feeling helpless, Zhou Changfeng sat back on the teacher's chair, then smiled and said: "Brother-in-law, I have a good thing, are you happy?"

Then, he succinctly stated the matter of investing in Hengguang Company.

"...I can't have anything to do with the business, so my brother-in-law has to replace you as the shareholder."

Zhou Changfeng has his own reasons for choosing Li Shuye, one is because of his close relatives, and the other is that this brother-in-law is very generous and generous in dealing with others, and will respond to every request.

Such a husband may not be a good thing for a small family living a stable life, but Zhou Changfeng just took a fancy to this and believed that he was completely trustworthy.

(End of this chapter)