When Governor Barak heard Lin Fei say what he had had a secret conversation with the British, he immediately decided that he had been betrayed by the British, he exclaimed, took two steps back, his legs were weak, and he collapsed directly on the sofa, he shook his head in surprise and muttered to himself: "Why is this happening?" Why is this happening......"

Lin Fei laughed and said: "The reason is very simple, the competition between the big countries is strength, and a weak country without strength has no qualification to speak, not that I intend to humiliate your Spanish Empire, at this time, you are already an out-and-out weak country, all you can do is to sell all kinds of interests to gain the mercy of the British." ”

"You have betrayed all kinds of interests, but the British are not stupid, they will assess the price to pay to obtain these benefits, if they want to get those benefits, they will have to defeat the Chinese Empire, but are we so easy to fight? So they have to settle for the next best thing and sign a free trade agreement with us. ”

Although Governor Barak did not want to be called a "weak country" by Lin Fei, he was powerless to refute it, so he could only ask sadly: "Why do you want to sue me for this?" ”

Lin Fei said with a smile: "I want to sign a formal armistice agreement with you alone, I don't know what you think?" ”

Governor Barak smiled wryly and said, "Do we still have a choice?" Tell me about the content of the Armistice Entente. ”

Lin Fei Zhengse said: "The content of the entente is very simple, the Spanish Empire announced that it would abandon the colony of the Philippines and withdraw a government agency, army and police, I originally wanted you to compensate us for our military expenses, but I know that your current national strength is very weak, and you may not be able to come up with so much money." ”

"I don't have any bargaining chips in my hands that can make you honestly compensate for military expenses, so I won't let you compensate for military expenses, you just need to take out the money to redeem your prisoners of war, they will cost money to eat and live with me."

Governor Barak thought for a while, and said, "I have to ask Governor Sanders for advice on this matter. ”

Lin Fei smiled: "Of course you can, I agree with you to ask for instructions." ”

Governor Barak took his leave, Lin Fei looked at Governor Barak's back and was secretly happy, a small bug device played with the British and Spaniards.

At this moment, the phone on Lin Fei's desk suddenly rang, and Li Mingming's voice came from the earpiece: "Your Majesty, Rogers and Claros have started a secret conversation again, do you want to listen to it in person?" ”

Lin Fei didn't even think about it, so he said directly: "Immediately pick up the tapping phone." ”

Li Ming said "understood", and then another phone on Lin Fei's desk rang, and Lin Fei asked Hou Yunting to pull a monitoring line to his office in order to facilitate his own monitoring.

Lin Fei picked up the phone, only to hear Claros's voice ringing: "Damn it, what kind of free trade agreement are we going to sign with the Huaxia people?" The face of our British Empire has been lost. ”

Rogers said with a smile: "Don't complain, sometimes a trade treaty can destroy a country more than a military strike, and we can use this treaty to punish the Chinese people heavily." ”

Claros's tone was full of suspicion: "How can the Entente punish the Huaxia? ”

Rogers laughed out loud and said, "Of course there is a way, you can listen to me slowly......"

Lin Fei was listening intently, but he didn't expect Rogest to suddenly stop talking, his tone changed, and said, "It's almost dinner time now, why don't we go to the Western restaurant across the street to eat, and let's talk about these things at the table." ”

Claros's echo sounded in the earpiece, followed by the sound of the door opening, and then Captain David came in and reported: "Your Majesty, members of the British Mission, Rogers, Claros, and Adriano have gone out, and they said they were going to eat at the western restaurant across the street. ”

Lin Fei nodded, waved his hand to let the captain of the guard out, and as soon as the captain of the guard left, Li Ming came over and said, "Your Majesty, they deliberately avoided us, will they find our eavesdroppers?" ”

Lin Fei thought to himself that people in this era had never heard of bugging, how could they find out, but he couldn't say it clearly, so he shook his head and said, "Don't worry, they won't find out." Li understood that he was still worried, but when he saw Lin Fei's confident look, he didn't ask much.

Lin Fei continued: "Go and invite Fu He, the governor of the People's Bank of China, to bring him and Wang Ruihe to the free trade agreement negotiations tomorrow, and let him organize some businessmen to attend together." ”

Li Ming agreed, turned around and went out to prepare, while Lin Fei silently calculated in his heart, what tricks did the British want to use in the trade agreement?

The next day, on July 21, the third round of talks between China and Britain began, on the Chinese Empire, Lin Fei and Fu He sat on the main seat, Wang Ruihe and others sat behind him, and on the British side, Rogers and Claros were sitting opposite Lin Fei and Fu He, and the others sat on both sides.

There was no hypocritical politeness in the talks, and the two sides went straight to the point, and Rogers first said: "Your Majesty, we drafted a free trade agreement yesterday, please take a look." ”

Finally about to confront the intrigues of the British, Lin Fei's heart couldn't help but feel excited, he nodded, and said, "Please take out the trade agreement." ”

Rogers took out a copy of the document from his briefcase, put his hands on the table, pushed it in front of Lin Fei, and said with a smile: "Please take a look." ”

Lin Fei, as the emperor, of course would not take the text by himself, an attendant got up and took the text, and respectfully held it in front of Lin Fei, Lin Fei pointed at Fu He casually, Fu He immediately stretched out his hand and took Wen Jiàn, Lin Fei said: "President Fu, read out the terms of the agreement." ”

Fu He said "yes", and then glanced at the British coldly, he used to operate a silver account in the area of Guangzhou, and after the big British bank entered Guangzhou, with the various privileges of the colonists, he crushed his silver account alive, so he had no good impression of the British, and today he is also holding back a force to pick a thorn in the trade agreement.

Fu He picked up the text and read it coldly: "The Free Trade Agreement between the Chinese Empire and the British Empire, one, a treaty port...... Lin Fei was touched when he heard "one, a treaty port", because the unequal treaties signed by the British forced the Qing government to sign were all in this format.

Although Lin Fei was touched, he didn't say anything, Fu He continued: "The Chinese Empire has opened a number of ports to trade with the British Empire, and the specific location will be decided after consultation between the two sides. ”

After Fu He finished speaking, he looked at Lin Fei with an inquiring gaze, Lin Fei nodded and said, "There is no question, continue reading." ”

Fu He continued: "First, the tax on import and export goods, all imported and exported goods, the tax value is 300%, and no arbitrary increase or decrease is allowed, and no additional fees are allowed. ”

When Fu He said this, he put down the text, frowned and said to Lin Fei: "Your Majesty, this import and export goods are taxed, and they harbor evil intentions, so they must be guarded against." ”

Rogers heard Fu He's words and hurriedly said, "What is Mr. Fu talking about?" Where does this clause harbor evil intentions? ”

Fu He's color changed, and just as he was about to speak, Lin Fei stretched out his hand to stop him, and then said calmly: "The clause says that the tax rate cannot be arbitrarily modified, so if my Huaxia Empire wants to increase the tax rate, it can't?" ”

Rogers said with a smile: "If you Huaxia Empire want to increase the tax rate, you can discuss with us and negotiate a suitable value." ”

Fu He couldn't suppress his anger anymore, he slapped the table with a "snap", and said angrily: "Ridiculous, you are doing this, it is clear that you are depriving us of the right to set tariffs independently..."

Lin Fei smiled faintly and said, "President Fu, don't be rude. Fu He glared at Rogerst fiercely, turned his head, Lin Fei looked at Rogers, and said: "A country's tariffs have always been set independently, and there has never been a country's tariffs that need to be agreed with foreign countries, I don't know if I'm right?" ”

Rogers said with a smile: "Who said that there is no national tariff agreement with a foreign country? The tariffs of the Qing Empire were determined through negotiation with us. ”

Lin Fei let out an "oh" and said, "Since this is the case, then I will agree." ”

As soon as Lin Fei's words came out, there was an uproar in the audience, Fu He turned his head to look at Lin Fei, he was so anxious that he was about to cry, and said, "Your Majesty, you must not... The tariffs of the Qing State had no autonomy, so the goods of the British could enter the Qing Kingdom at a very low price, so that none of the goods of the small workshops could be sold, and countless workshop owners pawned their wives and daughters, and their families were ruined... Yin Jian is not far away, so you must guard against it..."

Wang Ruihe walked a few steps to Lin Fei's side, and said anxiously: "Your Majesty, the cost of goods for the British is lower than ours, if we don't protect our factories with tariffs, we will have 28 textile factories closed in three months, more than 2,000 people will be unemployed, and there will be cigarette factories, sugar factories, ......."

Lin Fei raised his hand and waved down, the noisy voices of the crowd suddenly stopped, Wang Ruihe also stopped talking, Lin Fei looked at Rogers, and said word by word: "If the tariffs of our Chinese Empire are to be agreed with your British Empire, then will the tariffs of your British Empire also be agreed with our Chinese Empire?" ”

Rogers was speechless for a moment, and Claros said on the side: "Of course, our British Empire's tariffs must be set independently, how can we discuss it with you?" ”

Lin Fei smiled and said, "Your tariffs can be set independently, and ours will be discussed with you, aren't you bullying people?" ”

Rogers originally thought that Lin Fei didn't understand the economy, so he wrote a clause in the agreement to deprive the Huaxia Empire of tariff autonomy, but now seeing that Lin Fei had seen through his tricks, it was difficult to insist on it, so he said: "Then the tariff autonomy, let's discuss it later." ”

This book was first published from 17K Novel Network, the first time to see the genuine content! R405