"No, no, no!" French Foreign Minister Védrine shook his finger at the head of the Chinese Office in Europe, "France has never intended to sell the right to dig the Panama Canal. We just reached an understanding with the Colombian government six months ago that the canal could be completed and put into use with a four-year delay. France will definitely build the Panama Canal. ”

The Office of the People's Republic of China in Europe is a diplomatic agency with a higher rank than ambassadors to Europe, and the current head of the Office, Huang Zunxian, is a waiter at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. But French Foreign Minister Védrine apparently did not hide his hostility in front of him.

Huang Zunxian returned to the Chinese embassy in Paris and immediately sent a telegram to Beijing to report the firm attitude of the French side.

And after Huang Zunxian left, Verdrina said to his secretary with a fierce smile: "Even if the Panama Canal is left there in vain for thirteen years without digging a centimeter of the river, France cannot hand over the canal to the Chinese!" ”

Vedrina's secretary chimed in sternly: "Yes, Mr. Minister. China is France's second greatest enemy, and France firmly rejects all moves that are beneficial to China. ”

This is not the idea of just two people in the French Foreign Ministry, but of the entire French Third Republic.

-- What is good for China is bad for France!

Huang Zunxian is a veteran of diplomacy, but in such a political environment, France is also helpless.

His telegram was soon delivered to Liu Xian, who was not surprised. To take the Panama Canal, the focus is, of course, on the French, but the French are the last to be solved, and Liu Siam must first get Colombia before that. This chaotic country. The situation in the country is extremely tense, and it is already on the verge of civil war.

Colombia is a politically influential country in South America. It is located in the northwestern part of South America, bordered by the Pacific Ocean to the west. It is bordered by the Caribbean Sea to the north, Venezuela to the east, Brazil to the southeast, Peru and Ecuador to the south, and Panama to the northwest. He is the political legacy of Bolívar, the original Republic of Gran Colombia, who can shake the whole of America with a shake of his body. At least South America! Of course, this is because they have Bolivar!

Bolivar, known as the Washington of South America. After the end of the independence movement, he used his personal charm to glue together a huge monster, which is Gran Colombia. It encompassed what is now Colombia and Venezuela, as well as Ecuador and Panama.

When Venezuela and Ecuador declared independence after Bolivar's death, Colombia was left with its own homeland and Panama. For more than 60 years, the situation in Colombia has been tense, with the Conservative Party and the Liberal Party vying for power, fighting each other, and frequent civil wars. The political situation has been in a state of instability for a long time.

In the 1884 general election, the Conservative candidate R. Nunez was elected president. The Conservative government enacted a constitution in 1886 in order to consolidate the dictatorship of large landowners and restore the power of the Catholic Church. The proclamation of Catholicism as the state religion strengthened the power of the president. Naturally, it aroused serious dissatisfaction with the Liberal Party, and the contradictions between the two sides were fierce. A civil war is about to break out.

Liu Xian even doubted that the Colombian government was so kind to France. Is it that France has promised to support the Conservative Party in secret?

Otherwise, how could anyone push the money out of their pockets? 20 million francs and 5 million francs, this is not a concept!

But. What can be done to solve Colombia's problems? Sending people to contact the liberals in their own country, supporting the liberals to fight a civil war, unify the country, and then XXXXX, this tm is too troublesome and too time-consuming. Who knows how long this civil war will last. If it is the same as 'relieving and releasing the war' for three years, or even longer, the daylily will be cold.

In five years, in five years, a canal connecting the east and west of the Americas was completed. And counting the previous 'preparations', work had to begin before 1899. In 1905, Liu Xian hoped that his Pacific Fleet would be able to quickly enter the Atlantic Ocean through the canal. After the canal was completed, the surrounding supporting facilities, such as the port and naval base, also needed years of construction and construction, and before 1910, Liu Xian could not say whether there would be a war.

His schedule was set for ten years, and in ten years, everything was done!

"Send someone to contact Colombia and send out the news that we are going to open another canal - the Nicaragua Canal. Immediately make official contact with the Nicaraguan government. ”

When Liu Xian ordered people to contact France, he did not officially let the Ministry of Foreign Affairs contact the governments of Colombia and Nicaragua, but only asked the Military Intelligence Agency to go in and wave a check to inquire about intelligence and secret information.

Now that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has officially approached the governments of Colombia and Nicaragua, the Military Intelligence Agency has quickly handed over the information to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The focus is on Colombia, the Nicaraguan government is very well settled, and the transformation of the US Latin American policy from the "Monroe Doctrine" to the "carrot and stick policy" has not yet been completed, and it has been severely crippled by China, and now the Nicaraguan government is really a 'blank period'.

It is rare to find Colombia, where the conservatives in power are deeply pro-British and French, and many of the liberal leaders are from Remain. They advocated the abolition of slavery and government dictatorship; revocation of clerical privileges, confiscation of church property; A constitution was enacted to provide for the separation of church and state, and to proclaim freedom of belief, speech, and the press. These people are a complete cooker!

But China still wants to reach out to Colombia. China, which already occupies most of the United States, has the ability and strength to replace the position and position of the United States in American affairs. China must also hollow out Latin American countries and engage with the Latin American world. In this 'going out' strategy, Colombia is the first shot!

In October, the Chinese government made official contact with the Colombian government. He also sent a high-level team headed by Huo Guangzheng to Paris to openly contact the French government to explore the possibility of transferring the concession rights of the canal, and solemnly put forward a request for the acquisition of the French Canal Company.

In November, China, with its own group of civil engineering experts, formed a technical committee to begin a survey of the Panama Canal, while the Ministry of Foreign Affairs launched a massive lobbying campaign within the Colombian government to build public opinion for the acquisition of the French Canal Company. Then he said that he would cooperate with Nicaragua and build another canal to compete with the Panama Canal!

This deliberately spread disinformation worked wonders. Frightened, Colombian Ambassador to the United States Martínez. Silva. Yes, the place where this master stayed at this time was New York, USA. Rather than Richmond, the eastern capital of Central North America.

The diplomat, who has a worrying IQ, is calling on Colombia without consulting his own government. Hurried to Richmond and made a public statement that it was a good idea for China to dig the Panama Canal instead of France.

Maybe he just wanted to delay China and perfunctory China, but his identity and his remarks made him the object of hostility for the whole of Europe in an instant.

Soon Silva was harshly rebuked by the Colombian government, and Silva was removed from his post. But the Colombian government is really apprehensive about the Nicaragua Canal. In order to continue to put pressure on the Colombian government, He Qing, deputy commander of China's North American garrison, visited Nicaragua in late November. It was warmly welcomed by the Government of Nicaragua. In addition, the temporary convening of the National Assembly in China, and the proposal of the cabinet to discuss the issue of appropriation for the construction of the Nicaragua Canal, had a great impact on the Colombian government. And the value of the Panama Canal stock has also fallen again and again! The hard-line general manager of the French Canal Company, Yu Tan, resigned, and the new general manager, Maurice. Bo continued to resist. Who let him have the support of the French government behind him?

Liu Xian, who was far away in Beijing, always paid close attention to the attitude of the Colombian government, but what he did not expect was that the Isthmus of Panama region had feedback earlier than the Colombian government. The Panamanians there are seriously dissatisfied with the Colombian government, and the upper elite among them are dreaming of the Panama Canal!

The Isthmus of Panama is small in size and small in population. But there has long been a tendency towards independence here. In 1821, when Panama finally gained independence from Spain, it reluctantly became a member of the Federal Republic of Gran Colombia, along with Venezuela and Ecuador. The Panamanians here, especially the elite among them. The lack of identity with the Confederation of Gran Colombia, a country cobbled together purely by Bolívar's charisma, forced Bogotá's central government to repeatedly crush the Panamanian independence movement by force. The result is a further increase in mutual hatred and diaphragm.

In 1830, when the so-called Federal Republic of Gran Colombia disappeared. Panama became the Republic of New Granada (1831-1858), a province of what is now the Colombian government.

As a new country that has just been founded. New Granada naturally wanted to have a golden waterway on its territory, and the Panama Canal was noticed by the Spaniards hundreds of years ago, but the high cost and cost discouraged the Spaniards. New Granada, with its limited financial resources, was unable to support such a massive project, so it made sense to rely on external forces. However, the innate sensitivities of the Latin American nation led the government of New Granada to carefully stipulate that concessions for the construction of the canal could only be given to private companies, and that foreign governments were not allowed to intervene.

Britain, France, the United States, the Netherlands, Spain, and all other countries with interests in the Americas participated in this competition, and it was not until December 12, 1846, that the United States and New Granada concluded the Treaty of Peace, Friendship, Navigation, and Commerce between the United States and New Granada, also known as the Treaty of Petrarch-Mariarino, with 36 articles, of which Article 35 provided that the United States acquired the following rights:

United States citizens, vessels, and merchandise shall enjoy all the rights (all exemptions, privileges, and immunities) to citizens of New Granada within their territory, and the same shall be accorded to United States passengers, mail, and merchandise passing through the Isthmus of Panama, and the right of way or transit shall be open to the Government of the United States and citizens in the future when any transportation facility is constructed in Panama, and the Government of New Granada shall not impose on United States citizens tolls higher than those of citizens of New Granada, nor shall it impose import duties on United States goods.

Considering the political turmoil in New Granada, the Americans also had a few hands left in mind just in case of accidents. After the end of the Mexican-American War in 1848, the United States signed the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo with Mexico, seizing the power to dig a canal in the Tehuantepec Isthmus, and in 1849, it signed the Treaty of Squial with Nicaragua, which granted the privilege of digging the Nicaragua Canal.

The latter was forcibly abolished after the end of the Sino-American War. This is because the "Washington Treaty" stipulates that all the privileges and interests enjoyed by the United States in Latin America are owned by China.

In 1850, the United States spent $7.5 million to build a railroad connecting the two oceans on the Isthmus of Panama, which took five years to complete. This is the Panamanian railway, which was sold to the French by the Americans for three times the price! (To be continued......)