Lin Gao Qiming

Chapter 2791 Peace Negotiation ()

Information about the imperial attack from the capital began to flow continuously to the Foreign Affairs Bureau through the business and foreign affairs lines. Soon, most of the elders also knew about the situation through the security affairs liaison meeting.

Regarding the Ming Dynasty's suppression, most of the elders, except for the military ones, laughed it off and didn't even think it had much to do with them. First of all, no one thinks that the Fubo Army will be defeated militarily; secondly, the front line has advanced to Wuling. Not to mention the veterans in Hainan, even in Guangzhou, there is not much threat from the Ming Dynasty. Guangzhou is not only more prosperous than before, but its luxurious enjoyment has also reached a higher level due to the new gadgets of Australians and the influx of a large number of government agencies and enterprises. It is quite a bit of a waste of money.

But for the military and intelligence agencies, their responsibilities naturally cannot be ignored. It’s time to get into “preparing for war”.

The army's preparations for war are complicated, but the preparations for the intelligence and control units are much simpler. They just know "what" the emperor plans to do and "how to do it."

Judging from the intelligence sent, Ming Dynasty was indeed preparing for an attack. Its offensive intentions can even be said to be undisguised. In this time and space, the concept of strategic deception is still very vague, and it is difficult to maintain tight confidentiality in actual operations. So Jiang Shan believed that this matter was a certainty and there was no debate.

The next "how to do it" is the key point. Strictly speaking, how to suppress the Ming Dynasty is not the key target of the intelligence agencies. There were only a few routes south to attack Guangdong and Guangxi in the 17th century, and the Ming army did not have any amphibious landings or airborne operations. Ability. The General Staff did not need to spend much effort to analyze the possible march routes and combat plans of the Ming army. Intelligence agencies can only do so much.

What really interests the intelligence agencies is that the information coming from various channels is mixed with some special information, that is, does Ming Dynasty really want to "go south", or rather, what is the real purpose of Ming Dynasty going south?

As long as Ming officials are not telling lies, they all know that the winning rate of going south to fight against Kun is not higher than regaining Shenyang and annihilating the Manchu Qing Dynasty. It can even be said that wiping out the Manchu Qing Dynasty can still be done with some effort. After all, Huang Taiji and his calamity The looting group is also having a hard time. It is beneficial to Ming Dynasty to use all possible means to engage in delaying tactics. It is no longer possible to drive away the Australians.

Rushing to launch a crusade with almost no chance of winning would be very detrimental to Ming Dynasty from a strategic perspective.

The elders can see it, but can’t the wise people of Ming Dynasty see it? Do they have some secret weapon?

"Of course there is no secret weapon, but in general, the drunkard's intention is not to drink." Xu Xu said.

He was not in the CIA conference room at the moment, but in a conference room of the Internal Security Bureau. A weekly internal security meeting is taking place here.

Since the establishment of the Foreign Intelligence Bureau, at Jiang Shan's suggestion, all intelligence agencies under the Senate have held such a meeting every week to exchange information and communicate with each other. In order to effectively analyze and utilize intelligence, we can also borrow resources from other departments at any time.

Because this system worked effectively, it has been continued ever since.

At this moment, the conference room was full of people. The "four great kings" of the Foreign Intelligence Bureau, the General Reconnaissance Bureau, the Political Security Bureau and the National Police were all present, as well as the newly established General Security Bureau. According to management, people from the commercial and trade department also attended the meeting.

"What's that about?"

"It depends on the court's face." Wang Ding said with a smile. "The conquest of Kun was an act of Chongzhen to protect his face. We have already analyzed this issue at the beginning. It is impossible for the imperial court to turn a blind eye to our actions to conquer Guangdong and Guangxi. We easily took away two of the thirteen chief secretaries of the two capitals of the Ming Dynasty. The imperial court is disgraced. If no action is taken, will anyone in the imperial court take it seriously? Even if it fails, this battle must be fought - this is a matter of attitude. "

"Wouldn't it be more embarrassing if we failed?"

"You can win the battle, but you can't admit defeat." Li Yan said, "Everyone understands this truth."

Jiang Shan smiled and said, "Things are not that simple." He cleared his throat, "Based on all information, we believe that the Ming court is preparing for peace talks."

There was a slight ripple in the conference room. All of us here are staff members of the intelligence management unit. They engage in intrigues, talk secretly, and make false claims to the east... These routines are all too familiar. But the word "peace" still aroused great interest in them.

Is peace negotiation good? Yes. Both the Ming court and the Senate wanted to negotiate peace. One wanted to take advantage of this opportunity to gain a breathing space and concentrate on dealing with the Later Jin and the peasant army; the other wanted to implement the strategy of "building high walls and storing up grain" to ease the external environment and gain development space, and also to infiltrate through trade. The purpose of both sides was to gain more time to prepare for war.

However, the international relations in East Asia in the 17th century were based on the vassal and tributary system. China's Central Plains regime became the center of the Yuan Dynasty, and each tributary state recognized this central status and formed the external vassals of the central regime. The suzerain-vassal relationship encompasses more than just international relations. The basis of this relationship is the Chinese-Barbarian order. Consider China as "China" and neighboring countries as "Barbarians".

The nominal problem became an insurmountable obstacle.

It is impossible for the Senate to recognize the Ming Dynasty as the suzerain.

Even if the Ming Dynasty accepts the Senate and its equal status, the Ming Dynasty cannot accept it. The Portuguese in Macau were in a special situation. Strictly speaking, they came to Macau just to stay as guests, and the Ming Dynasty government always existed.

In the eyes of the emperor and ministers, they could accept the theory that the Kun thieves were descendants of Chinese Miao people, but at the same time, in their eyes, the Kun thieves had lived overseas for a long time and did not know the etiquette of the Celestial Dynasty. They were no different from overseas barbarians. Let the Ming Dynasty be on an equal footing with this political entity. Seriously violated the political correctness of the Ming Dynasty.

Of course, it is not completely hopeless. After all, the Senate and the Manchus are still different. The Manchu and Qing Dynasties had been at war for nearly twenty years since 1618. Hundreds of thousands of Ming troops were killed and injured, and millions of Liao people were massacred. Several raids into the pass caused huge damage, with numerous casualties among soldiers and civilians near the capital.

As for the Kun thieves, they only occupied Guangdong and Guangxi, and only tens of thousands of Ming troops were wiped out on the battlefield. They did not cause a sensational massacre, nor did they loot or raid near the capital.

Besides, after they called themselves the Song Dynasty, it became easier to accept them emotionally.

But how to operate it specifically and what excuse to use to negotiate peace is a big problem.

Especially the Ming Dynasty, which had always "not ceded territory, paid indemnities, or reconciled to each other," would continue to fight against the emperor even if he was captured. What's more, the imperial court's survival has not yet reached a critical stage.

So once Jiang Shan's conclusion came out, everyone was somewhat skeptical.

"Let me first talk about why we judged this way." Jiang Shan picked up a report in his hand. "This is our study and judgment report on the capital and court affairs in the past six months. There is a lot of content. I will not list them one by one. You can take your time when you go back. Let’s take a look. Just a few important points.”

"The first is Yang Sichang's memorials and summons records. The original text summary and related translations are appended to the report. Generally speaking, his idea of ​​​​'pacifying chaos' is the same as in history. They all use the peasant army as the main attack The object, that is, "to fight foreign affairs and secure domestic affairs" is the guiding ideology of the future Minister of War. His thinking is fully recognized by Chongzhen, both historically and now. If you look carefully, it can be seen in the Zhao Dui records. Yang Sichang said a lot of good things about us, and the emperor seemed to agree with it.

"Secondly, there is the collection of Cantonese rates." Jiang Shan said, "This fully illustrates the current mentality of the imperial court. The Cantonese rates, like the Liao rates, are levied in response to foreign enemies. In theory, the funds are earmarked for special use - at least that is the case with the Liao rates. But You can see the relevant memorial from the Ministry of Household Affairs: the amount of Guangdong salary is 210 million, and 100 million has not been confiscated yet and is ready to be used to "pacify the thieves". Fu Zonglong will most likely not get even one-third of the remaining 110 million taels. One-but the imperial court asked him to 'train troops and build weapons'."

"Third, Fu Zonglong came back, and his official position was governor of Southern Jiangxi. Although he was also a local military and political official, compared with the corresponding officials in Liaodong and the mainland, he had more titles such as prime minister, governor, manager, and district governor. It's hard to imagine what he should do. Coordinate the armies to launch a large-scale southward expedition."

"You mean Zheng Kun is just a cover?" Ran Yao questioned, "But this doesn't prove that Ming Dynasty will negotiate peace with us."

"Maybe it's more to give an excuse for peace talks..."

"Negotiating a peace after losing the battle? That's not the case in the Ming Dynasty. Even Emperor Tumubao was arrested and did not negotiate a peace."

"I'm afraid this is very possible." Xu Xu said, "Based on what I gained from this trip to the capital, there is already an undercurrent of peace talks between the DPRK and China. This is actually very attractive to the emperor. Peace talks can give The benefits brought by Ming Dynasty are obvious..."

"Since there are benefits, why not negotiate for peace? The initiative is in their hands!"

"This is the court's face mentioned earlier." Xu continued, "Perhaps it should be said that Chongzhen's face. Everyone has listened to Teacher Yu's lectures and probably has a certain understanding of Chongzhen's character and behavior. He is very I hope that I can become a wise king and a saint, and I don’t want to have any flaws, so asking him to negotiate with me will probably not work.”

Everyone at the meeting nodded together. They had all heard Yu E Shui talk about the "Chen Xinjia Incident."

"So he hopes that someone in the government will take the lead in making this suggestion. He has actually hinted at Wen Tiren for several months, but Wen Tiren did not accept his hint."

"That's right, just because Chen Xinjia can't carry it clearly doesn't mean that Wen Tiren can't carry it." Someone laughed.

"We have no way of knowing whether he can grasp it clearly. But our view is that Wen Tiren did not take this matter to heart. All his thoughts are now focused on bringing down Qian Qianyi and bringing down Fushe. ”

Wen Tiren's "unable to carry it" does not mean that others "can't carry it". After all, the "Chen Xinjia Incident" has not yet occurred, and the officials have not lost trust in the emperor. Therefore, those who want to take the opportunity to cater to the holy will are already eager to try.