In the Thanh Hoa Palace, the emperor of the Great Southern Empire, Nguyen Phuc Shih, was sitting on the throne, and the civil and military officials of the Great Southern Empire were arguing in the hall.

"What the Northern Dynasty is trying to do this time is different from the past, Nagong is a vassal who does not solve the problem, and must resist to the end!"

"But the Ming Dynasty united with France, the waterway went hand in hand, and now the national capital Hue is still under the threat of the Ming army, and Jiading is attacked by the French army, if you don't negotiate peace with the Ming Dynasty, I'm afraid there will be a disaster of losing the country!"

"It's not the first time that the Northern Dynasty has offended my Great South, which time has it not suffered heavy losses and fled back in embarrassment? Now that my Great South is at its peak and my soldiers are strong, what is there to be afraid of? The victory of Thanh Hoa has shown that the Ming army is nothing more than that. ”

"What we met in Qinghua was only the vassal army of the Ming Dynasty, not their elite royal division, and now that Emperor Zhu has arrived in Guangzhou, the Ming army stationed in Guangxi is coming in a steady stream, and Danan can only endure humiliation and bear heavy burdens......"

The four pillars of the Privy Council of the Nguyen Dynasty were divided into two factions with dozens of civil and military officials, including the secretaries of various ministries, the counselors, and the government affairs of the five armies, and they could not compete with each other.

Fight for what? It is fighting for the future of the Great Southern Empire!

The Great Southern Empire has indeed reached a critical moment of life and death now, in fact, these officials who followed Emperor Ruan Phuc Shi to personally conquer the conquest were all opposed to peace in their hearts. Because they can't accept the fact that the Great Southern Empire, which was at the height of its national power only 10 years ago, fell into the crisis of national extinction overnight?

That's right, it's the extinction of the country!

If it's just to be soft and a minister to Ying Tian, just send some souvenirs or something, and then you can get a bunch of gifts that are several times higher. No one in the Great Southern Empire will take it seriously.

But the problem is. This time, the Ming Emperor Zhu Jishi was an insatiable tyrant. What he wants is not the submission of the Nguyen Dynasty and the specialties of Da Nan, but to cut Da Nan's territory! I also took a fancy to the fertile land of the Er River (Red River) basin, where Tokyo Hanoi is located!

This is the main grain producing area of the Great Southern Kingdom, once it is lost, the day of the Great Southern Kingdom will be just around the corner! In the past four years, there has been a severe famine in various parts of Da Nan, and at least hundreds of thousands of people have starved to death! If the grain-producing areas of the Er River valley are lost, will the Nguyen Dynasty still be able to mix?

Therefore, the Ruan Dynasty is inclined to resist the war, but the cruel reality is in front of everyone. Da Nan's national strength could not compete with the Ming Dynasty and France at all, and even the 15 Wei Naval Army, which was regarded by the Great Nan monarchs and ministers as the support of the Great Wall, was vulnerable in front of the combined fleet with the Ming and France. The only two European-style warships bought from India in the last century were easily sunk by French battleships.

Although the elite Beijing soldiers of the Ruan Dynasty defeated the Ming army in Thanh Hoa, the loss figures of the two sides were close, and the Ming army Du Wenxiu was just a miscellaneous army sent by Emperor Zhu as cannon fodder, and the Western-style army of the Ming Dynasty that really swept away the Manchu Empire and the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom had not yet been dispatched!

As for the strength of the Western-style army, there is no confusion about the Nguyen Dynasty. Their Nguyen Dynasty originally hugged the thighs of the French, relying on French officers and weapons to train 50,000 European-style troops to destroy the powerful Xishan Dynasty.

However, it is interesting that after the destruction of the Tay Son Dynasty and the unification of Annam, the de facto founding emperor of the Nguyen Dynasty, Nguyen Phuc Anh, who rose to prominence with foreign guns and cannons and Western-style armies, began to turn to conservatism and Confucianism. He deprived the pro-Western and Christian Nguyen Phuc Thanh (Nguyen Phuc Anh's eldest son) of the succession to the throne. He made the concubine Nguyen Phuc Thanh (Emperor Nguyen Phuc Thanh), who admired Confucianism, the crown prince, and tore up the treaty with France. Declared a vassal to the Manchus. They also threw both Western learning and Western-style armies learned from the French into the garbage heap and replaced them with armies with half-firearms and half-cold weapons.

After Emperor Ming Ming ascended the throne, Confucianism flourished in Vietnam, emphasizing literature over military force, and it also severed contacts with France and other Western countries, and began to implement a policy of closing the country to the outside world. Although relying on the old capital left by Ruan Fuying, he has reached the peak of national strength. However, the Nguyen army began to show signs of decay, and the defeat in the Chenla War was a testament to the weakening of the Nguyen Dynasty's armed forces.

And now, Zhu Jishi of the Ming Dynasty, who hugged the thighs of foreigners decades later than their Ruan Dynasty and also relied on Western-style army to sweep strong enemies and seize the throne, sent his Western-style army to invade the Great Southern Empire.

Ruan Phuc Shi on the throne looked at the quarrelsome civil and military forces, and such a thought suddenly appeared in his heart: "If Emperor Shizu (Nguyen Phuc Anh) did not throw Western military studies aside, but like Zhu Jishi, the army armed with foreign guns and cannons expanded everywhere, Da Nan may have destroyed Siam and Burma and become a real great empire, and it is even possible to enter the Central Plains, but it is a pity to miss the opportunity......"

There is no regret medicine in the world of Shilu, and Ruan Fushi can only look to the future, giving up the Erhe River Valley is a "prison cut" for the Great Southern Empire, and it is the kind that will definitely be stabbed at that time. Therefore, it is the only choice to fight hard, but to fight and fight, we must continue to seek peace. It is necessary not only to make peace with the Ming Dynasty, but also to make peace with France. The Erhe River basin cannot be lost, and the plains around Jiading cannot be lost.

But what makes people desperate is that whether it is France or the Ming Dynasty, their attitude is very tough, that is, there is no negotiation of land cutting!

Looking at the courtiers who were depressed after the quarrel, Ruan Fushi suddenly felt extremely sad, he thought that he was a promising king, he had not made a big mistake in the past few years since he ascended the throne, and the country of Da Nan was also stable. The responsibility for the current national disaster is not in himself, but in the first emperor! It was they themselves who disarmed the most powerful ...... of the Great Southern Empire

Ruan Fushi secretly lamented: "Da Nan is still too young, and it will be difficult to get ahead if you miss the opportunity!" ”

In the end, this quarrel still had a result, or it could be said that there was no result. Because the strategy agreed by the courtiers was to seek peace by war, while continuing to send envoys to sue for peace, they were preparing for a decisive battle with the Ming army between Thanh Hoa and Hanoi. What else can Nguyen Phuc Thi say about such a strategy? Both hands are ready, if they can't get through, Da Nan will only be dead.

After getting out of the court, Ruan Fushi returned to his study in the Thanh Hoa Palace, just sat down, picked up a copy of "Taixi Military Strategy" written by Engels and translated by Zhu Jishi and flipped through a few pages, and the eunuch led in a young man wearing a red official robe.

"Your Majesty, Weichen has a negative imperial grace. These are the ...... that Wechen brought from Hong Kong"

The man made a gesture and took out a large stack of Chinese newspapers and put them in front of Ruan Fushi, as well as a book, called "Personal Experiences of the Russo-Japanese War", Ruan Fushi took and turned a few pages, and his eyes suddenly burst into a strange brilliance.

"King Rui, is this all true? Did Japan really defeat the Russian Empire? ”

This "Personal Experience of the Russo-Japanese War" is a bestseller in Guangdong, and the author's name is "Mr. Yubai", which is obviously a pen name. The writing is very good, and the story is even more exciting. The story is written in the first person, and the protagonist claims to be a native of Cantonese who studied English and Russian at the Western Bunchu College in Macau, Hong Kong, and spent two years in Japan as a clerk at HSBC, so he speaks Japanese. By chance, he was hired by the Russian fleet to work as an interpreter, and experienced the Battle of the Ryukyus and the Battle of Osaka Bay. The story in the book revolves around the Russian fleet and these two major battles, and the scenes of the bloody battle in Osaka Bay are particularly vividly described, and it seems that they really experienced it firsthand.

"There are such heroes in a small Japanese country!" Ruan Fuying slapped the table hard and shouted.

The person who came was Ruan Phuc Hong Yi, the king of Rui who was sent to Guangdong to sue for peace, and went around in Guangdong and Hong Kong, appreciated the abnormal prosperity of Ming capitalism, and then was sent back to Vietnam by Ming officials. Of course, it was not without gains, he heard a lot about the Russo-Japanese War last year in Hong Kong. During this time, the story of the Russo-Japanese War suddenly became popular in Hong Kong, and a newspaper called "Seiryu Bao" began to serialize the "Personal Experiences of the Russo-Japanese War" written by a person who witnessed the Russo-Japanese War. (To be continued......)