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Volume 1: Fierce Battle in Changsha Chapter 745: The Road Home

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    Sir Elgin returned to China. When he boarded the battleship USS Resolution, he forgot to take a look at the beautiful Victoria Bay on the deck. His mood was very complicated. He recalled that when he first arrived in Hong Kong a few years ago, he brought  A powerful navy and army came together, but now when we go back, it is so desolate.

    He didn't know whether he succeeded or failed in the Far East. He finally signed a peace treaty with the Taiping Rebellion to end the war. This was a war fought at the wrong time, the wrong place and the wrong object. In the end, Britain and France fought for redemption.  The captured soldiers paid more than 20 million pounds.  This price was the result of repeated negotiations between Elgin and Sir Corrington. It actually included war compensation, but it was just called ransom.  The captured soldiers and generals were being handed over one after another. The coalition sent fleets to the north to pick up a large number of prisoners. The brave soldiers could finally go home. From this point of view, Elgin finally felt that he had achieved something.

    Then some privileges and unequal agreements between Britain and France in China were cancelled, and even Hong Kong became a real free port. The sovereignty was returned to the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, but only the police took over the security here. The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom was not allowed to station troops or warships. The British enjoyed  Priority rights of residence, merchant ships from any country can dock and trade here.

    In the end, what made Elgin laugh bitterly was that just after the peace treaty was signed, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom came up with a generous trade treaty. They planned to import steel worth up to 100 million U.S. dollars from the United Kingdom. According to them, this was only the first  According to the trade quota for steel imports in the first phase, if the steel products from Britain and France are of high quality and low price, they will consider continuing to place additional orders.

    Elgin knew what they needed so much steel for. The Taiping Emperor was very ambitious. He planned to build railways across the country, including a railway from Beijing to Shanghai and then to Guangzhou, a railway from Beijing to Harbin in the north, and a railway from Beijing to Harbin in the north.  The railway from Lanzhou to Xinjiang and the railway from Beijing to Ulaanbaatar.  It can be seen that the people of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom are planning to fight.

    Sir Collington was very interested in this matter. It was hard to imagine that there would be such a large trade volume between two countries that had just ceased war. But Elgin knew that Britain now needed the market of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, and the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom needed the global market.  The largest industrial country produces steel.  Since the beginning of the American Civil War.  Britain's steel trading volume in the United States has dropped sharply. It is just right for the Taiping Rebellion to take over the export share of the United States at this time. Sir Collington could not refuse. Elgin believed that even the Prime Minister himself could not refuse. Maybe they lost in the war.  The losses can be recovered from these trades.

    Through the South China Sea.  Along the way, Elgin's battleship Determination was accompanied by dozens of warships and transport ships. It carried the first batch of captured soldiers to return home. Most of them were soldiers captured in the Battle of Guangzhou and could return to China.  They seemed very happy.

    Elgin talked with several captured soldiers, and they all agreed that the Taiping soldiers were very powerful in combat. They were especially impressed by the soldiers who defended several forts. All of them died in battle, but none of them surrendered or surrendered.  They were captured. Many of them blew grenade bombs on their bodies before dying and died together with the coalition soldiers.  The captured soldiers said that from now on they would rather be deserters than come to the East to fight against this army called the Taiping Army.

    Erjin thought of the Qing cavalry who were ready to die on the Bali Bridge battlefield. Didn't they also rush over with explosives and want to die with the coalition forces?  Only at this moment did Elgin understand.  The reason why this Eastern country can be inherited in the East for thousands of years is not accidental, because they have a heart that is ready to die in order to defend their land and country at any time.

    In the South China Sea, Elgin also saw the Taiping Navy. This maritime guerrilla force caused a lot of trouble to the coalition's maritime transportation lines. Now Elgin saw a strange sight, that is, their ship  There were many pirate ships gathered in the team.  Elgin knew that the Taiping Navy had absorbed many pirates in the South China Sea to fight for them through bounties and threats. He believed that with the end of the war, these pirates would be naturalized by the Taiping Navy.

    In the Strait of Malacca, Elgin's fleet encountered a Taiping navy that was fighting pirates.  The coalition fleet did not intervene, but just watched the Taiping Navy defeat the pirates. After the battle, Elgin saw at least twenty pirate ships being captured by the Taiping Army. Later, both fleets docked in Malacca to rest.

    I met the commander-in-chief of this Taiping Army in Elgin, Malacca.  This general, who was also a pirate, told Sir Elgin that the Taiping Navy would resolutely eliminate those pirates who committed heinous crimes. In the South China Sea and even further waters, the Taiping Navy would fully protect the peaceful merchant ships of all countries.  Safety.  Elgin made no reply to this. He knew how the British navydeveloped.  The privateering fleet in the early years was a pirate fleet. When they wanted to rob merchant ships, they would change the navy flag and raise the pirate flag. When they went to war on behalf of the country, they were regular navy, and they did not know about the Taiping Rebellion.  Will China's navy continue to develop in the same way as the British navy in the future?

    After crossing the Indian Ocean and the Red Sea, Elgin reached Egypt. After landing, they took a train for a while and then boarded a British Mediterranean Navy ship and headed for Britain. Arriving in the Mediterranean meant that they were closer to home.  Of course, the number of captured soldiers accompanying him decreased a lot. Soldiers recruited from colonies such as India and North Africa disembarked and returned to their respective countries along the way. In the end, only the soldiers of the Scottish Highland Corps left with Elgin. Elgin did not  Love these Scots so much.

    As the British mainland gets closer, Elgin's mood becomes more complicated. He doesn't know what kind of scene will greet him in London. Will he be scolded as a coward?  sinner?  Or something else?

    London's Thames Harbor was a scene of huge crowds today. Elgin saw the surging crowd from a distance. He became a little upset. As a loser, he couldn't hold his head high and walked down the gangway. He even felt very ashamed.  But when he walked down the gangway, the crowd burst into cheers, "Welcome home, kids!"

    It turned out that the cheers were not for me, most of the crowd gathered at the port came to greet the returning soldiers.  The wife found her husband, the child found his father, the mother found her son, and the excited cries echoed over the port for a long time.  No one paid attention to Elgin and others. There was no accusation, no abuse, nothing. Elgin seemed to have been forgotten, and silently got into a black carriage and left here.

    The official residence of the Prime Minister in Downing Street has changed its owner. Here Elgin met the new Prime Minister Stanley. The leader of the Conservative Party behaved in high spirits and did not seem to have the slightest sense of shame of defeat.  After a brief greeting, Elgin first expressed his failure during his stay in the Far East, but Stanley comforted him: "Forget those unpleasant experiences. There were major mistakes in our China strategy before. Damn the Whig Party."  It caused our defeat, but we pulled back from the brink and returned to peace. Sir Elgin, what I care about more is that we got what we wanted more through the war, right?"

    Elgin knew what the Prime Minister was talking about. He solemnly took out a thick trade agreement and handed it to the Prime Minister and said: "Your Excellency, Prime Minister, this is a new steel import trade agreement signed between the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom and us.  It¡¯s worth around ¡ê50 million.¡±

    The cabinet members present all applauded warmly, and the finance minister shouted excitedly: "Let us recast the guns into steel and sell them to the Chinese again. They need the same things as us!"

    Everyone is excited about this huge trade agreement. In addition to the steel trade agreement, letters of intent for China's railways, telegraph lines, factory construction and other investment projects have also appeared in front of people one by one. The British are stunned.  Didn¡¯t they find out that these were the last things they wanted through the war?  Now that they got it, and got it after defeat, they realized what a stupid thing they had done before.

    Stanley¡¯s face was red. He affectionately called Elgin a hero and praised him for everything he had done in the Far East. It was his persistence in the Far East that allowed the empire to end the war with dignity and get the Eastern market fully opened.  A large number of northern coastal cities of the Taiping Rebellion, such as Tianjin, Dalian Bay, Yantai, etc., have officially opened their doors to trade with Britain. What an incredible achievement. Thinking of being able to do business with 400 million people, people all believe that the second great development of the British Empire is about to begin.  has arrived.

    A few days later, these trade agreements were exposed in the newspapers one by one. No one mentioned the opium trade. The British Parliament even passed a resolution to gradually reduce the opium trade in the Far East and replace it with other business with the Chinese in the Far East.  craze.

    As captured soldiers returned home one after another, Britain began to gradually forget the pain of defeat in the war. China began to introduce foreign capital for development of a large number of minerals. The British were eager to try. China became Britain's most important trading partner after the United States.  As for the ransom of those prisoners of war, no one cared about it. The ransom was distributed to the people of the various colonies. Britain seemed to have lost nothing.

    China, on the other hand, is constantly absorbing British capital injections. With the start of a large number of railway construction projects, China's transportation has been greatly improved. Products that were previously difficult to transport from the mainland can be exported. Economic and trade promotes China's own industry and commerce.  The booming development of both parties was actually a win-win situation for a long time. This kind of cooperation was not balanced until the outbreak of World War I.

    Sir Elgin, Admiral Grant, Montauban and others returned one after another.After conquering Britain and France, General Grant was eventually promoted to marshal, and Montauban was also promoted.  Later, Sir Elgin did not hold any government positions and spent his later years in his hometown. In his later years, he wrote a memoir of the Far East War, which is said to have sold well.  Grant's experience was the same as Elgin's. He remained idle at home with the title of marshal until his death.  Montauban played an important role in the French army and performed well in the subsequent Prussian War.  On August 9, 1866, he became the 31st Prime Minister and Minister of War of France. He formulated an adventurous battle plan that led to the defeat of the French army near Sedan. On September 4, the Second French Empire was overthrown, and he retreated to Belgium and separated from it.  In politics, he died in Versailles in 1878. It is said that he also wrote a memoir, but it did not sell as well as Elgin's (To be continued.)
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