It is worth noting that Schneider Iron and Steel Company of France bought half of the shipbuilding steel during the shipbuilding process. They have no worries about whether the large-scale shipbuilding will attack the French, but the weapon steel is produced by the Arsenal itself because of security considerations.
After a year of intense construction, at the end of 14 years, all the main parts of warships have been completed and armored, and the remaining weapons and equipment are still being installed. At this time, the navy requires the arsenal horses to be delivered so that they can enter the training state before deciding.
Naval officers and soldiers continue to build naval maintenance arms while training the arsenal, and directly help the construction to gain experience.
The navy has also made a plan to cope with the short-term doubling of the size of the army, and tried every means to recruit all freshmen from the naval school into the navy, bringing their instructors and teaching materials to the ship for daytime training and studying at night, and recruiting one-third of skilled sailors from the same voyage fleet to give them formal training, hoping that they will be able to beat the small warships in driving and cooperating.
It has taken a series of extreme measures for more than a year to successfully train officers and men who meet the plan, but their military level needs to be tested by war
The army’s expansion plan has also been expanded from the regular army to 600,000 by supplementing the reserve soldiers. At the same time, the recruitment and training of reserve soldiers have been started to recruit soldiers in various places, and 1.4 million recruits have been successfully recruited in training camps in various places. During the intensive training period, these people can be trained before the war. In addition to being able to undertake auxiliary warfare, the main thing is that the regular army will supplement the soldiers and be ready to fill the casualties of the regular army.
It is easy to recruit more than 1 million soldiers with a population of 100 million, and one third of them are educated and literate soldiers. After the baptism of war, a group of officers will be born and sent to military schools for further study for a few years, which will be a generation of backbone officers.
It is impossible to hide the fact that the army is expanding and preparing for war. All western countries recognize that World War I is inevitable, and everyone is looking forward to seeing how much this new eastern country weighs. Of course, none of them believe that they can defeat France and want to measure the true strength of a country by the degree of being beaten by the French army.
The parties, France and China, kept singing at the official level, and both peace song vowed to ensure that the two countries were close and there was no possibility of a war. Obviously, they were all waiting for the opportunity when they were fighting for it.
At the same time, they are all secretly wrestling on the diplomatic front!
Section six hundred and nineteen Diplomatic preparations
It’s impossible for the French to learn from the Franco-Prussian War, although they are as proud as the Charles Louis Napolé on Bonaparte government at that time. Napoleon didn’t do a good job as a diplomat at that time, and naturally thought that once the Franco-Prussian War started, Austria-Hungary would definitely declare war on Prussia with France, so as to form a double attack on Prussia? ? ? ．? r? ? ? ? e? As a result, the Austro-Hungarian Empire did not have any intention to participate in the war, which led to the defeat of France alone in the war.
The most fundamental reason why France did not adopt flexible diplomatic measures in those years was pride. They thought that they could easily defeat Prussia, and their understanding of allies was to share the advantages of the war. Therefore, they were unwilling to win over their allies and form a strategic encirclement network against Prussia.
Now, the French have learned from their mistakes. Even though they think that the strength of a big country can’t be compared with that of the French Republic, they have done some diplomatic work. The focus is on Britain. This is an objective reason. It is decided that in this era, apart from France, there are other countries in Britain. Diplomacy is at most political, but military is of little practical significance.
However, France’s diplomatic activities in Britain were not successful because France did not want to give up its interests in Vietnam. They planned to monopolize the situation here, and it was impossible to allow the country to share a piece of it. They tried to impress Britain on the condition that they supported Britain’s expansion in Myanmar and hoped to sacrifice Myanmar’s interests in exchange for Britain’s support for their annexation of Vietnam.
Britain is naturally ambitious about Myanmar, but the problem is that Myanmar is different from Vietnam. As early as France licked the wounds of the Franco-Prussian War, Britain turned Myanmar into its own protectorate. They had already obtained France’s interests in Vietnam without the consent of France, so the exchange of French people was not equal in Britain’s view.
In addition, Hurd’s diplomatic activities in Britain have restricted France. With Hurd taking over the post of Prime Minister, ordinary British people are full of illusions and goodwill. It is a political risk for the government to rashly formulate a policy of being unfriendly to Great Britain, and Britain is really reluctant to let France occupy Vietnam. In this case, France can threaten the big territory, and Yunnan is tantamount to threatening Britain to build two railway hubs from Myanmar to Great Britain and India to the sea. They think it is better to let France, a wolf as hungry as they are, stay as far away from the meat in their bowls as possible.
However, France’s diplomatic activities in Germany were quite successful. Bismarck supported France’s actions in the East, respected France’s special interests in the East, and believed that France had the strength to safeguard its interests in Vietnam. The significance of Germany to France lies in obtaining German support, so that France can have no worries about the future. Once a large-scale ground war is to be carried out, France can rest assured to deploy troops from Europe.
France has also carried out diplomatic activities with Spain and Russia. Spain is dying, but it is also interested in Vietnam. It is only a commercial interest, but France aims to monopolize it. Therefore, the Spanish law has given France substantial help and cannot agree to France’s request to allow the French fleet to make Philippine ports if necessary.
Russia, like Germany, believes that France has the power to safeguard its own interests, and they have expressed the same attitude towards France. Obviously, the Russians hate that France can’t have a big fight with it.
In addition to Hurd’s special lobbying, diplomats have been running around constantly, and have been maintaining good relations with Britain and participating in various Sino-British friendship activities.
However, Hurd’s diplomatic activities after the appointment of the Grand Admiral were mainly aimed at diplomats from neighboring countries in East Asia who were active in Manchu, North Korea, Japan and Ryukyu. The purpose was simply not to ask these countries to support large-scale military operations, but to hope that everyone could be unified in diplomacy. The suggestion to these countries was to prevent France from dying out and Vietnam from actually preventing white people from expanding into East Asia, which was of great security significance not only to all East Asian countries.
After the Ryukyu Kingdom was restored to China, Ryukyu JI Wang was the only leader, and they would promise anything. They promised to condemn the French occupation of Vietnam if necessary.
Although Japan had a big conflict with Japan, the big military attack on Japan made Japan full of hatred against Japan, but Japan is a nation with a strong sense of crisis, and they don’t want to see white countries go to Asia to destroy a country in Asia. Today, France came to destroy Vietnam, so whose turn will it be? Ryukyu obviously has great protection, but it is far more powerful than Japan. White people will undoubtedly choose to attack Japan in Yamato, so the Japanese government promised to protest to France once the situation comes to a necessary moment, diplomatic protest will not cause trouble.
In the hands of Li Hongzhang, Li Hongzhang decided to adopt the ostrich policy, that is, ignore the dispute over France, but don’t ask when the world doesn’t have the facts of these two countries. The French have also looked for them. They also have this attitude. Even if they are United with France, they will not make a big deal before the Qing Dynasty is 100% sure. Aisingiorro and Sun Zao will lose their ancestors’ courage to survive and make progress. North Korea is as uninterested as the Qing Dynasty. His sovereign country doesn’t want to cause trouble, and naturally they don’t want to.
As a result, there is a great possibility of verbal support from Ryukyu and Japan in East Asia, and other countries will remain silent.
Of course, the Manchu empire, though old and weak, is undoubtedly the diplomatic focus of the two countries.
France fantasizes that once the war breaks out, it is not in their plan to attack the Manchu and capture the big territory, but it is very possible to force the Manchu to sign the city alliance, and it is impossible to stop with the Manchu. Although Vietnam is in conflict with France, France thinks it is necessary for him to form a network against the big encirclement. Manchu is obviously the most suitable object
The same is true of the Qing Dynasty, but I am not worried about the military pressure of the Qing Dynasty. Because Zeng Guofan and Zuo Zongtang, the military leaders of the Qing Dynasty, died in tandem at the end of last year and the beginning of this year, the lack of a commander in chief did not pose a threat to the Qing Dynasty.
Section six hundred and ninety Once left to die
Shi Zeng Guofan should have died long ago, but he has been strong for so many years, but he can’t let go of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, which is the biggest rebellion in his eyes and the fastest update.
After the successful suppression of the Taiping rebellion in Tianjing, the mood that supported Zeng Guofan was dispersed.
According to big information, Zeng Guofan was in poor health in the last stage of suppressing Taiping rebels.
After insisting on suppressing the Taiping rebels, Zeng Guofan stabilized the order in the south of the Yangtze River and cleared up the remnants of the Taiping rebels, Zeng Guofan dismissed his troops.
The Xiang army was abolished mainly at the request of the Manchu court. According to the information, after Zeng Guofan suppressed the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, there was a debate in the Manchu court. Radicals believed that they should take advantage of the situation to invade and suppress the Taiping Army to wipe out the pseudo-unification map in one fell swoop.
At that time, Zeng Guofan and Li Hongzhang refuted this argument at the same time, arguing that Xiang and Huai armies were still fighting against each other and asked the court not to speak out of turn about the war.
At that time, the Xiang Huai Regiment supported nearly 400,000 troops. If they could compete with the army in the south, it would be natural for the nobles to speak. But if they could not compete in the south, they would have to worry about these two military forces that were out of their control, that is to say, since they could not, they could not stay.
Soon, the Manchu nobles reached an agreement to save the soldiers’ salaries by demanding Zeng Guofan and Li Hongzhang to disarm. However, because of the big worry, they did not dare to dissolve the two most effective military units, but let them keep 100,000 people each. First, they can continue to check and balance each other, and second, they can effectively protect the defensive troops in the Yangtze River from crossing the Yangtze River.
Zeng Guofan has been unable to suppress the forces of the Xiang Army more and more. Because he had to deal with the Taiping rebels, Zeng Guofan was able to endure the bad military discipline of the troops. Occasionally, looting was also acquiesced. But now that the Taiping rebels have pacified the soldiers, they are still used to looting everywhere. This is not what Zeng Guofan can endure.
In the last few years of his life, he has been gradually disarming. Disarmament is not a simple task. There is a saying that there are soldiers and bandits in China. Not only are they keen to oppress ordinary people, but the most important thing is that soldiers and bandits can be transformed into bandits under certain conditions. For example, during large-scale disarmament, almost all dynasties have seen soldiers turn to bandits. A large number of soldiers do not return home but fall into bandits.
Zeng Guofan dissolved Xiang almost overnight after the capture of Tianjing. Although there were quite a few soldiers living in the local Zhanshan Wang, it was so easy for a small number of Xiang soldiers. The main reason was that they made a windfall from officers to soldiers after playing Tianjing. At that time, they were transported from Tianjing to Hunan fleet for half a year before they disappeared. These hundreds of ships were all loaded by Xiang soldiers plundering property from various palaces and even ordinary people’s homes.
Later, Hunan literati remembered that after the Taiping Rebellion, the Xiang army, from officers to soldiers, took money to buy land and build luxury houses all over Hunan. The most luxurious thing was that Ceng Guoquan built a luxury house for the Zeng family, which is said to be comparable to the Wangfu.
History Zeng Guofan can feed 200,000 Xiang troops in the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom for more than ten years. But this time, because of the big intervention, millions of Tianjing people and the property of the princes of the Taiping Rebel were also transferred to the big institute. Zeng Guofan got that Tianjing was a city, and he didn’t have the money to feed his soldiers. Then he could give officers, officials, and soldiers a slow release and let them go home. Therefore, the disarmament process was extremely slow for three years.
The first cut in disarmament was Zeng Guofan’s younger brother, Ceng Guoquan. Zeng Guofan said that he resigned with Ceng Guoquan as the leader, so that other officers would give up their soldiers and replace them with various official positions from the imperial court and spread them around.
Finally, Ceng Guoquan resigned, the officers placed the soldiers, and Zeng Guofan was dismissed. His last afterheat life finally came to an end, and he died in the Governor of Liangjiang last winter.
If Zeng Guofan has completed the greatest wish of destroying the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, Zuo Zongtang died with unfinished business and strong reluctance to regret.
Zuo Zongtang spent the last few years of his life far away from his hometown of Shaanxi and Gansu, where he not only stabilized the place, but also raised funds to run a number of foreign factories and competed with Li Hongzhang thousands of miles apart.
He founded two large-scale enterprises, Lanzhou Manufacturing Bureau and Lanzhou Machine Weaving Bureau, in Lanzhou, where he was stationed. Unfortunately, they were as inefficient as those in the early days of the foreign movement.
Lanzhou Manufacturing Bureau didn’t say where it is impossible to raise a glass to run the machinery industry. If Zuo Zongtang’s army maintains weapons and equipment, Lanzhou Machine Weaving Bureau still depends on a little spectrum, considering the realistic conditions in the northwest, which is beneficial to the local wool resource consciousness.
Theoretically speaking, it is profitable to set up this kind of enterprise in Lanzhou, but the biggest problem of official position is that one does not care about the gains and losses, and the other is that the layman leads the line, which should be in line with the common sense of ordinary people, but it is completely out of date.
This factory was officially completed, with 202,000 yuan from Gansu Good Post Bureau, and Lai Chang, the chief company commander, ordered 400 boxes of complete sets of machinery and equipment from Germany Tailai Foreign Firm, 1000 woolen knitting machines, 20 sets of dyeing machines, 24 sets of steam engines and 32 horsepower, each with a workshop of 230, covering an area of more than 20 acres and employing 13 German craftsmen. The factory is quite large.
At present, 30 warships have been built at the same time, and most of the arsenals are responsible for manufacturing weapons and equipment, and important components such as warship armor are also being produced as planned.
