The sun was shining directly outside Tianjin, although the weather was cooler than a few days ago, but it was still unbearable, and the war seemed to be over, but the troops were again fighting the enemy twenty miles outside Tianjin, but this time it was no longer with the Japanese army, but with the troops of the various countries stationed in Tianjin. There were no trenches, no barbed wire, and the coalition of nations numbering less than 4,000 men was scattered very thinly, surrounded by more than 200,000 revival regiments. At this time, Tianjin has become a pendulum of a table clock, and the Haihe River is the only exit of the city.

In the north of Tianjin, the piles of Japanese corpses near the Tangshan Railway Station have not yet been cleaned up, and in the narrow mountainous area between Yutian, Zunhua, Qianxi, and Fengrun, the siege and annihilation battle is far from over, or this is no longer a battle, but a simple siege, and the price of shells and bullets has also risen.

There is an opinion within the General Staff that it is best to starve to death for the Japanese troops in the encirclement, and another opinion is that the construction of the Xi'an-Xinjiang War Readiness Railway will begin soon, and these prisoners of war can be used as free labor, which can be regarded as the best use of materials. However, no matter how you choose, except for the skirmishes in Gyeonggi that have fled from the Japanese army, the enemy forces in the entire area have been completely wiped out, and the war seems to be over for Kannai.

In other theaters, only the fighting in central Korea was extremely fierce, and the Koreans, who had finally found a chance for revenge←, began to launch a training attack on the Japanese army with the support of the revival army. But the morale was extremely high, and it was encouraged by the military internal affairs workers. They like to fight hand-to-hand battles with the Japanese army the most, which not only can improve the courage of the soldiers. It is also possible to save on more and more expensive ammunition.

In the face of the crazy attack of the North Koreans, Terauchi Masatsuki often chose to avoid the war, constantly exchanging space for time, in order to wait for domestic reinforcements to help, but deep down, more in his heart, he hoped that the base camp would approve his retreat to Tsushima and the Korean coalition forces across the sea to attack and defend, in a secret telegram to the cabinet, he frankly admitted that in the face of more than one million Korean coalition troops, even if all the troops of Zhili were rescued, they could not hold the southern part of Korea. The result of the insistence on defense was that the last army of the empire was exhausted in Korea, and the Tsushima Strait was eventually garrisoned by peasants and students who had never carried guns at all.

Terauchi Masatsu's opinion coincided with Prime Minister Matsukata's considerations, but in the face of the boiling public opinion in the country, even the emperor did not dare to rashly issue an edict for the Korean army to abandon the defense line and retreat to Tsushima in one go, so the order that had been drafted long ago was placed in the base camp.

Eurasia was full of war, but from June 18 the Chinese government announced the total annihilation of the Russian Siberian Army. By June 27, the revival army encircled and annihilated the Japanese troops everywhere and advanced to Seoul, Korea, and such a rapid and sharp reversal caused the world's attention to shift from the difficulty of the German army cutting through Belgium to the East Asian theater, and newspapers from various countries rushed to report on the war in East Asia. It has also caused many people to think about the impact of the outcome of the Sino-Japanese war on the Far East and the whole world.

Almost everyone is sure that the Japanese Army will have a hard time resisting a Chinese attack in Korea, and there is even a lot of speculation. It is quite possible that the Chinese army will be able to occupy the Japanese mainland - the Tsushima Strait is not wide, as long as minefields can be laid and submarines and torpedo bombers can be skillfully used. It is difficult for the Japanese Navy to defend the Tsushima Strait, which is less than 200 kilometers.

In the Washington Naval Affairs Committee, a copy of the Washington Post was thrown on the table. Chairman of the Committee, Alfred Brown. Thayer. Colonel Mahan looked at Theodore sitting in a chair. Roosevelt held his breath and spat out: "What a stupidity! ”

"Yes, it's the stupidest thing I've ever seen, not one of them." Roosevelt went hunting in Africa after his presidency, and when everyone thought he would never get out of the rainforest, he appeared in front of everyone, although blind in one eye. The year before last, he lost the presidential campaign because he did not receive support, but after all, he was a celebrity, and his family's influence was there, and after the war in Europe, he was bent on taking mercenaries to France to fight against Germany.

"China can't develop its navy, and even its army needs to be restrained." Since being given the pen, Mahan's life has become more and more boring, "but for the sake of petty commercial interests and the removal of the so-called Japanese threat, they woke up a sleeping lion, and they did not think at all what its awakening would bring to the whole civilized world!" ”

Mahan was so agitated that he kept calling dignitaries when he bought a hydraulic press from China, but the bureaucrats assured him that the merchant ship would be sunk by the Japanese Navy somewhere in the Pacific. As a result, the merchant ship was indeed sunk, but no one could explain why the hydraulic press that should have sunk to the bottom of the sea appeared in the Nanjing shipyard. Now the warships are getting bigger and bigger, the caliber of the guns is getting bigger and bigger, and the armor is getting thicker and thicker, and if the metallurgy, fine metal processing, and warship design capabilities are further improved, then China will be able to build dreadnoughts in less than 10 years, and super dreadnoughts in less than 15 years. China is not Japan, and its development potential will allow it to build an ocean-going fleet ten times larger than Japan's, which will only compete with the US Navy for sea power in the Pacific.

"In order to contain a wolf, I went to wake up a lion." Roosevelt placed the cigar on the ashtray, pressed his fingers lightly on the blind eye, and then crossed his hands to a more comfortable sitting position: "The Allies have decided to help them preserve the remaining Japanese army in Naoli by incorporating it into the French Foreign Legion." Of course, it won't be that simple, and the Japanese had to shed blood for the war to regain their freedom. However, without the support of the United States, the Chinese will continue to blockade the Bohai Sea, which means that they will starve to death outside Tianjin. ”

After many years of dating, Ma Han heard the sound and knew it, and he said: "So what can I do?" ”

"Immediately write a report with the conclusion that China will in the near future pose a full-scale threat to US interests in the Pacific. I'll hand it over to Wilson tomorrow when I meet with Wilson's assistant House. Roosevelt said. I hope that the White House will immediately change its strategy toward China, support this plan of Britain and France, and send these yellow-skinned monkeys to the European battlefield, and for the sake of peace. The East Asian war must be stopped immediately, and the squadron can only stop at Korea. ”

"That's exactly what happened. But will they listen to us? "Roosevelt imagined everything so well that Mahan didn't believe it." I heard that Secretary of State Mr. Bryan not only proposed that President Yì support China's occupation of Taiwan, but also that he encouraged the Chinese to occupy Japan's Ryukyu Islands, supposedly to widen the gap between China and Japan, and those people really didn't understand what they were doing. ”

"It will work, I promise." Roosevelt laughed, "As long as it is certain that the Chinese will not be converted to Christianity in the end, the Puritans will be completely desperate." ”

Roosevelt said so confidently because he had long seen through the essence of Wilson's China problem: as a Puritan president, he appointed a Puritan minister to China. At the same time, there was a missionary-turned-director of the Far Eastern Department, and the constant preaching of Christ, American-style democracy, and the increasingly important Chinese YMCA among the Gengqian students, all of which showed that the movement initiated by the church in the last century to reform the Chinese barbarians had been pushed to the highest point by these people.

However, none of the Renaissance people in power in China believed in Jesus Christ, and they still admired their own culture with all their might, and because of the two evil calamity wizards. The number of people who believe in Christianity in China is declining dramatically. If Mahan, a naval strategic authority, had written an article analyzing the strategic interests of the United States and China in the Pacific, missionaries had concluded that Chinese could not have been influenced by Christ, and considering the fact that the power of China and Japan had reversed, Wilson would probably abandon his previous China policy. Get on the right path.

At noon the next day, Mahan brought a report entitled "The Chinese Empire and Pacific Sea Power" written overnight into the White House by Colonel House, Wilson's most trusted assistant. ”

"Mr. Mahan thinks the situation is more serious than what is written in the report." House looked at the president with his glasses. Very solemn: "And according to the intelligence of the British intelligence services, there is a secret agreement between China and Germany. After defeating Japan and receiving reparations, China will immediately attack Russia. Mr. President. China's attack on Russia is nothing more than Russia's loss of the Far East, but this is not the most terrible, if the squadron goes south to attack Indochina or even India, then the situation is ......"

"It can't be!" President Wilson lifted the frame excitedly, he could not believe the British reasoning, "The Chinese have exhausted their finances after defeating Japan, and they have no navy, and they cannot attack Indochina, let alone India, without gaining maritime superiority." ”

"Mr. President, in fact China has no less than a hundred German submarines, as well as an unknown number of torpedo bombers. With a range of more than 2,000 miles for submarines and more than 200 kilometers or more for torpedo bombers, it is enough for the Chinese Navy to gain sea supremacy within 200 kilometers of the coastal waters. Indochina is originally connected to China proper, and even India is not too far apart. Colonel House said.

"In addition, Mr. Methodist of the Far Eastern Division also talked to me this morning, and he believes that although China is now de-barbarizing and giving more benefits and freedoms to the people, under the interference of the infidels, the number of believers in Christ is not increasing but decreasing, and the worst thing is that the number of young believers in the YMCA and among the international students is decreasing. He was pessimistic in estimating that perhaps it would not take 10 years for the gains made before to be wiped out. ”

Colonel House explained the situation so harshly that President Wilson was silent for a while and then asked in a deep voice, "Who is behind this?" Japanese? Or the British? ”

Seeing that the president asked about the point, Colonel House said: "This time it is Mr. Roosevelt, but who is behind it, I think there are people in the navy and there are also Britons." Mr. President, I think there really seems to be something wrong with our previous strategy. Colonel Mahan believed that it would be extremely dangerous for China's 400 million population to be concentrated in an efficient political organization, equipped with modern equipment, and confined to what was already a narrow territory for him. [Note 1]

Before the Sino-Japanese War, his China policy was to prevent any external country or group of countries from being in a position of absolute political control; At the same time, China must be asked to insist on an open door, and in a broader sense beyond the general understanding of the term, that is, China should be open not only to business, but also to European ideas and European missionaries from all fields. [Note 2]

And now the situation is that the Ba'ath government has complete control over the country. With the victory of the war against Japan, this control will become more and more secure. Although it is also open, this openness is only commercial and technological. Rather than being ideologically and culturally open. We thought that the Sino-Japanese War would be as devastating as the Russo-Japanese War, but this was not the case, and China's finances were depleted, but they could still be maintained. Unlike Japan, which borrowed money to start a war, China relied on its own tax reserves to spend most of its war military expenses, and now that the war is over so soon, it does not need to rely on foreign capital to maintain the operation of the government.

Mr. President, the situation in these 10 days is not at all what we had assumed it was. If we continue to adhere to our previous China policy, then an enemy more terrifying than Russia will rise on the west coast of the Pacific Ocean, which will cause great damage to the long-term interests of the United States, and we should adjust our previous China policy. ”

After House's long remarks, President Wilson began to be a little moved after reminiscing, and he said: "That means that you have to give up supporting China and support Japan now?" ”

"Yes, Mr. President." House said. "What Yang Jingcheng's government is really worried about is that if it goes to war with the treaty countries, then his foreign trade channels will be cut off by the navies of Britain and Japan. That's why he signed that treaty with us earlier this year; Another important thing is that he hopes that the United States will support the removal of many unequal privileges in a few years. ”

House mentioned China's two weaknesses in a row, and Wilson immediately understood what he meant. "If we break that treaty, then we will be in a completely passive position diplomatically," he said. ”

"Yes, Mr. President. This is true, but we have an arbitration treaty with the UK. If it is opposed by the UK because it supports China's entrepot trade from the Philippines, then according to the arbitration treaty. The treaty with China will be canceled; Support for China's removal of many unequal privileges is only a moral support, and if Congress opposes it, the treaty will be null and void. ”

When China and the United States signed the treaty at the beginning of the year, House, Secretary of State Brian, and others had a detailed discussion, and how to avoid the risks in the content of the treaty was the focus of the discussion, and after discussion, they finally held that the United States could use the US-British arbitration treaty to avoid the responsibility for the US-Japan contradictions after the signing of the Anglo-Japanese alliance, and the United States could also use the US-Britain arbitration treaty to avoid the responsibility for possible Sino-British contradictions. Although this is not stated in the treaty, when the conflict between China and Britain occurs, it is not unreasonable to forcibly include it in the scope of the arbitration treaty, and the arbitration judges in the arbitration court are all Caucasian, and the result will also be biased in favor of the Caucasian.

Finally putting down the pencil he had been playing with, Wilson said, "Help me inform everyone in Washington that I want to urgently convene a cabinet meeting to revisit our China policy." After President Wilson finished speaking, he said uneasily: "House, if we really want to change our previous China policy, then the Chinese will be very angry, and all the gains we have achieved in China will probably be lost, and I, the businessmen in China, will protest, and even I may be impeached by Congress." ”

Seeing that Wilson had finally made up his mind, Colonel House smiled and said: "Mr. President, it is much better to lose the Chinese market than to let China become another Russia, if all countries can coordinate their policies towards China, then the Chinese can only boycott American goods again at most, and then things will gradually calm down and eventually return to the original state." In addition, I don't think we have done anything wrong, and it is the shared responsibility of all signatories to uphold the 1901 Beijing Protocol, and the United States cannot stay out of it.

There is no need to worry about merchant protests and congressional impeachment, the war in Europe is making American factories run at full capacity, trade with China is only the smallest part of our foreign trade, and Britain and France have recalled merchant ships to their homes, there is a shortage of merchant ships in the Pacific, even if the Chinese do not boycott American goods, it is difficult for merchants to find merchant ships. ”

Colonel House's final persuasion finally moved Wilson, the United States excuse is very just, and what China can do to the United States is to boycott American goods like nine years ago, but now Europe is at war, even if the businessmen have complaints, it is very slight, and when the war in Europe is over, the British, French and Russian forces return to East Asia, under the pressure of the outside world, these things between the United States and China are nothing at all, in the words of the Chinese themselves, to raze is the ultimate good policy.

The White House urgently convened a meeting of the presidential cabinet, and when the results of the meeting reached Beijing, it was already 29 June, and when the White House received the instructions read the telegram several times, and finally felt that there had been a fundamental change in the policy toward China, he suddenly felt a sense of shame. Yes. Ashamed from the inside out, he thinks that Yang is a great person. Although he didn't dare to say that he was superior in front of him, he was at least very confident. Because he stands in righteousness at once. And now, this instruction has made the righteousness he upholds disappear without a trace.

Rui Ensch was not a diplomat, but a Puritan and a scholar, and he was not used to or liked to be deceived by diplomacy. Saving North Korea from Japan's clutches is the most meaningful thing he believes the United States and China have done, which will change the fate of more than 20 million people in North Korea and completely free them from the situation of colonization and exploitation, in accordance with the agreement signed between China and North Korea. Eventually, the DPRK will become a fully independent country, and the Korean people will be truly democratic.

But such a just and great cause was finally abandoned, and the United States no longer supported the oppressed and liberators, but wanted to stand on the side of the aggressor, which was unacceptable to him, completely unacceptable!

He sat in the Legation for a long time, and did not wake up until the clock in the hall struck three times, and today was the last day of the working day in the sixth month of the Chinese calendar, and he had to deliver the note to the Yin'an Hall before the Chancellery closed for work. When I think of the Silver Temple. Thinking of Yang Jingcheng, Rui Enshi suddenly felt a little nervous, he didn't know how to face this person.

While Reinsch was thinking about this mess, the counsellor who came in said, "Sir." Britain, France, and several other ministers were outside the door, ready to send a note to the Chinese government about the blockade of the Bohai Sea by the Chinese navy, considering that the war between China and Japan at Zhili was over. The legation unanimously demanded that the Chinese government immediately lift the blockade of the Bohai Sea. They hope that China and the legation will act in concert to safeguard the rights and interests of all countries as stipulated in the Beijing Protocol. ”

Rui Enshi listened to the report of his subordinates. His expression became in a trance, and the counselor shouted a few words before he reacted: "Please wait a moment." I went with them. ”

At 4:30 p.m., except for Germany and Austria, all the ministers in China went to the Yin'an Hall of the Prime Minister's Office, and handed over a note signed by all the ministers in China.

He did not open it in front of the ministers, but placed the note directly on the table, and then said in a calm voice and in a formulaic tone: "I have received the note, and in accordance with the standard operating procedures of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, my government will reply within twenty-four hours after receiving the note, except holidays." That is to say, my Government will reply to the ministers on the matters raised in the note before 4.30 p.m. on the first day of July. ”

After the French note that the Japanese Army had all joined the Foreign Legion, Britain and France agreed to 'France** Yang Rui took a tough stance on this, frankly saying that the war was not completely over, and that the Chinese Navy's submarine forces would carry out unrestricted submarine warfare in the Bohai Sea in accordance with previous orders, and that if there were ships entering or leaving the Bohai Sea, the result would definitely be sunk; and that the German minister made it clear that the northern end of the Tianjin-Pudong Railway refused to transport these enemy soldiers, and at the same time, the Chinese government also believed that these soldiers were harmless and could not find a treaty basis for the passage of these soldiers to northern China.

Originally, the two sides were entangled, and it was very likely that these Japanese troops would be trapped in Tianjin and starve to death, but they didn't want the Americans to come, and Rui Ensch joined the signatories of the note to make China completely passive in diplomacy, and from the encrypted telegram sent by Lu Zhengxiang, the minister to the United States, Yang Rui and others knew that the US government had torn its face to join the side of the Entente, and the previous treaties and commitments were completely nullified.

Even if these ministers left in the prime minister's office, there was still silence, Yang Rui took a few puffs of cigarette and said to Li Zilong leisurely: "Go and see, no one is far away." ”

Li Zilong didn't know what the prime minister was going to do, so he went out and read the report when he heard the words, "Prime Minister, it's all gone." ”

"Really far away?" Yang Rui asked again. The eyes are very cold.

"It's really going far." Li Zilong said again.

As soon as his voice fell, "Bang! With a loud bang, Yang Rui slapped the photo and scolded loudly: "Fuck the Yankees!" ”

Xie Jintai knew what Yang Rui was going to do, and he had already protected his ears, Li Zilong was stupid this time, and he was suddenly scared half to death, and the Yin'an Palace, which was buzzing in the busy, was even more frightened by the loud noise in the prime minister's room, and it took a long time before the staff quietly started to be busy again, but no one blamed the prime minister for losing his temper again, everyone knew that it was a national shame to watch the invaders swagger away! (To be continued......)

PS: Note 1: The original text was copied from March 12, 1901, by Alfred Brown. Thayer. Mahan to Theodore. Letters from President Roosevelt;

Note 2: The original text is copied from "The Great Power of the Sea", p186-187, Alfred. Thayer. by Mahan;