Chapter 1515 Common Interests
In fact, the level of mutual trust between Ming Dynasty and North Korea has weakened a lot since Ding Mao messed up North Korea and signed an alliance with Hou Jin. The Ming Dynasty believed that North Korea's signing of a fraternal alliance with Hou Jin was undoubtedly a betrayal of its suzerainty. The North Korea believed that the Ming Dynasty did not provide timely military assistance. It watched helplessly as the Hou Jin army attacked Seoul and almost destroyed the country. It must have felt the same way. There will be resentment and dissatisfaction. In recent years, the relationship between the two countries has gradually cooled down from the warm atmosphere in the past, and the exchanges of envoys are far less frequent than before.
The two countries that were originally closely related have become like this. Of course, they have their own difficulties. If the original historical trajectory continues, the Ming Dynasty will eventually be destroyed in a few years, and North Korea will naturally become a vassal state of the new master, the Qing Dynasty. This period of grievances and hatred between the two countries will also come to an end. But now with the intervention of Haihan, an extraterritorial armed force, the deadlock between Ming Dynasty and North Korea seems to have turned around.
For these two countries, the root of the conflict actually lies in the powerful enemy Houjin. As long as this enemy is defeated, the peaceful environment in Northeast Asia will naturally be re-established, and the relationship between the two countries will gradually warm up. But before Haihan appeared, they obviously couldn't do this. But the problem is that Haihan's helper is too strong, so strong that he takes over the throne. Neither North Korea nor the Ming Dynasty can easily believe that this strong man would be so kind to help them resist foreign enemies. Once something unexpected happens, this Haihan army may be a more difficult enemy to deal with than Houjin. After all, compared to the Houjin army with primitive and backward equipment, the Haihan army's weapon performance and combat methods are more difficult to resist. Please ask God when the time comes. It’s easy to send someone to the gods, but it’s difficult to do so.
Regarding the same doubts, Mei Shengchuan and Kim Sang-heon also have different attitudes. What Mei Shengchuan was worried about was that after the Haihan army took control of the situation in Liaodong, it would reject tigers through the front door and let in wolves through the back door. After driving away Hou Jin, he introduced Haihan, who was more difficult to deal with. What Kim Sang-hyun is worried about is that Hae-han will use force to squeeze North Korea's economy and manpower in the future, just as Kim has done in the past few years, and it may even be worse.
In addition to the hidden danger of Haihan, they are also worried that if the other party chooses to cooperate with Haihan or refuses to form an alliance, it will have a negative impact on their country. After all, the relationship between the three countries is very delicate now. Both Ming and North Korea are also worried that Haihan, as a middleman, will favor one side - North Korea is worried that Haihan and Ming are both Han Chinese in power, and Ming is also afraid that North Korea will embrace Haihan. After that, they no longer recognized the Ming Dynasty as their suzerain country.
But in the eyes of senior Haihan officials such as Sha Xi and Wang Tom, the hesitation and hesitation of Ming and North Korea is simply because they have not been pushed to the edge of the cliff yet, and they still stubbornly believe that the situation in Northeast Asia will not happen in recent years. Fundamental changes. This cannot be blamed on their short-sightedness. After all, in the current international environment, their vision and knowledge are limited by the times. They never expected that the barbarians in Liaodong would complete their great cause of conquering the world in a few years.
Although the emergence of Haihan will greatly slow down the expansion of Hou Jin, there is no way to destroy Hou Jin in a short period of time by relying on thousands of troops far away from the mainland. If the Ming Dynasty and North Korea did not participate, then Haihan would at most be able to push the front line of the Liaodong Peninsula further north in the next few years, but it would be difficult for him to have the spare capacity to carry out a fatal military attack on Hou Jin. In fact, in the plan made by the Ministry of National Defense, if there is no support from Ming Dynasty and North Korea, Haihan will stick to the defense line of the Jinzhou Isthmus for a relatively long period of time and will not waste massive resources to continue fighting north. Even at the end of the war, after the peace negotiations with Hou Jin, the business was discussed at the executive committee meeting of Fort Victory, but this proposal was shot down due to strong opposition from the militants.
Although the coercion and inducement methods used by Sha Xi had a certain effect, for Ming and North Korea, they were not the factors that prompted them to make up their minds. Because Haihan's force was too strong, Houjin seemed relatively weak in comparison, so the impression given to the envoys of the two countries would not be such a strong sense of crisis. This was very important for those who wanted to promote an alliance through a display of force. For Haihan, it is actually a very contradictory paradox.
Therefore, at the reception banquet held for the North Korean envoys on this day, Sha Xi's arrangement failed to achieve the expected results. Although the envoys of the two countries also had conversations, the content was superficial and did not involve much about the essence of the relationship between the three countries. topic discussion. Although Sha Xi was unwilling to do so, he couldn't use too much force at the moment, so he could only temporarily acquiesce to the status quo.
After sending away the envoys of the two countries, Wang Tom stayed and told Sha Xi about the Northern Fleet's experience in Korea. After hearing this, Sha Xi sighed: "It went smoothly on your side, but it got stuck when they got to my place. We will arrange for them to visit the front line soon. If they still can't be dealt with by then, they will have to let them go later. It would be too troublesome for Mr. Bai to come out for an interview.”
Wang Tom said: "I think there was a slight deviation when we made the plan. They should not have let them meet too early. They should have negotiated the terms first, and then removed the veil in the middle after signing the agreement."
Sha Xi said: "But that may not work. If the North Koreans hadn't heard that the Ming Dynasty also wanted to form an alliance with us, would they have been so obedient and sent envoys over for talks? You also said that the envoys sent earlier would go back. After that, we didn’t get much done, so you just blocked the Han River. This shows that these North Koreans refused to accept persuasion and just hit them on the head. If you want them to obey, I think you still have to use some means.”< br>
Tom Wang said sternly: "Then don't do evil things. This is the establishment of diplomatic relations and alliances between countries, not intrigues in the business field. If the situation is overturned, it cannot be saved by spending money."
Sha Xi sighed again and said: "If it were really a business, it would be easy. I can throw money at the other party until he is convinced... You said that the envoys sent by the two sides are people who do not express their opinions easily. How can we operate this as quickly as possible? Promote the results we want?”
Wang Tom was much calmer than Sha Xi and said word for word: "It's like we are marching to fight. Although we will use many tactics and strategies, the real factor that determines victory or defeat is military strength. As long as we keep a firm grasp of the battlefield If we have the advantage, we can naturally turn it into the final victory. Although there are three big countries in Northeast Asia, we are the ones who control the rhythm now. Don't worry, the situation will definitely continue to develop in our favor. .”
Sha Xi seemed to have some understanding after hearing these words, nodded and said: "Tom, you are right, I am too impatient. Even if Ming Dynasty and North Korea delay in forming an alliance with us now, they will still come to us later. They will be the ones who are anxious at that time. However, we have to report the situation here to Mr. Bai, so that he will not be upset when he meets with these two families."
At this time, Bai Kesi has actually completed most of his mission to go north to Liaodong. The field tests of new weapons have been completed. All data and usage reports will be sent back to Sanya after being summarized, and will be finalized after being studied by engineers. The finalization, the improvement of the improvement. In addition, two high-power radio stations in Liaodong have been installed and debugged respectively in Lushun Fort and Jinzhou Isthmus. They have established direct and stable signal connections with Shandong and Zhejiang. This is very important for the Liaodong garrison and subsequent development. significance.
There are only two things left unfinished by Bai Kesi. One is that the military proposes to conduct a long-term harassment war in the coastal areas of the Liaodong Peninsula to attack Hou Jin and look for opportunities to rescue the Han people in the Liaodong area. The second is to wait to meet with the envoys of Ming and North Korea to conduct final discussions on the alliance.
After the military's combat plan was put forward, Sanya's opposition was relatively loud, because the military operations that could have been gradually stopped in the north had to continue, and the military expenditures that would be consumed were quite huge, even for military operations. Fang claimed that this method of combat could effectively solve the population shortage problem in the Liaodong occupied area, but it still could not convince the Executive Committee to unanimously adopt this proposal. Because even if immigrants are recruited from the provinces south of the Yangtze River to settle in Liaodong, the cost is likely to be much cheaper than the military expenditure for a long-term war. Moreover, the military's suggestion also has a drawback, that is, a larger garrison must be maintained in the Liaodong occupied area to achieve such a combat method. And this means that the garrison strength in the southern coastal occupied areas will continue to be maintained at a low level, which is a disguised sacrifice of the defense and security of these areas. However, the southern coast is an important source of Haihan's foreign trade income, and ensuring the security of these areas is also Haihan's fundamental interest. If both Liaodong and the south are to be captured, Haihan can only continue to rapidly expand its army, and this is not what the Executive Committee Would like to see a solution.
After this period of inspection on the Jinzhou front line, Bai Kesi was more inclined to support the military's proposal, but his personal opinions could not influence the attitude of the executive committee. Moreover, he must explain the reasons clearly to the frontline generals, so as to prevent these generals who have been fighting abroad all year round from being dissatisfied with the decision of Fort Victory.
"This is not because the country is reluctant to invest in Liaodong. You should look at the problem from a higher perspective." Bai Kesi was explaining the attitude of Fort Victory to Qian Tiandun, Harugong, Chen Yixin and others at this moment: "Liaodong is a place where It is of great strategic significance to our country, but it is only of strategic significance. Remember that our purpose is to contain Houjin and use this to balance the situation in Northeast Asia and force Ming and North Korea to open their doors to us. At this stage, we don’t have so much energy to eliminate the post-Jin Dynasty and liberate Liaodong. Our fundamental interests lie in the south.”
Haru responded respectfully: "Raising tigers is a danger. I think Houjin must continue to fight until they are unable to move south."
"This is the way a soldier thinks about problems, not the way a politician thinks!" Bai Kesi had to "correct" Harugong's wrong remarks again: "If we really beat Hou Jin so hard that he can't hold his head up, we won't even be able to go back. Threatening the Ming Dynasty and North Korea, let me ask, will they still need our military assistance? I just received a telegram from Sha Xi from Lushun. His negotiations with the envoys of the Ming Dynasty and North Korea are not going well. Part of the reason for the success was that the two countries believed that Hou Jin had no real intention of letting them destroy the country. ”
When Qian Tiandun heard this, he added: "If we hadn't come to Liaodong to hold back the wild boar skin, Huang Taiji would have personally led an army of 100,000 to conquer North Korea at the end of the year. They would have reached Seoul in twelve days, and they could still have jumped Shit!”
"But it won't happen after all." Bai Kesi spread his hands and said: "It's impossible for us to make the North Koreans believe that this kind of thing didn't happen at all. Even if Huang Taiji stood up to testify for us and admitted that he had long been prepared to be cruel. If you attack North Korea hard once, the North Koreans will never believe that they will be defeated in just ten days.”
Seeing that Qian Tiandun did not refute him, Bai Kesi continued: "Both Ming and North Korea feel that they can still withstand it. The greater our advantage over Hou Jin on the battlefield, the more they will think that Hou Jin is not enough to threaten them. national security ”
Sha Xi didn't think too clearly about things in Lushun, but Bai Kesi had already figured it out on the front line. He believed that the military's previous approach of simply showing off its force to visitors was a bit one-sided. Although it won the respect of the outside world for Haihan's military strength, But for promoting the Three Kingdoms Alliance, this approach may not have the expected effect. This view seems to have been verified by the attitudes displayed by the envoys from the Ming Dynasty and North Korea after they came to Liaodong.
Qian Tiandun asked: "Then let us release water on the battlefield and leave room for the wild boar skin to perform?"
"That's definitely not possible. It's too dangerous. We can't afford too many casualties." Bai Kesi shook his head and denied Qian Tiandun's doubts. In fact, not only the number of casualties, but also the title of invincible does not allow the Haihan Army to make mistakes on the battlefield.
"Then what can we do to get the best of both worlds?" Qian Tiandun continued to ask. When it comes to marching and fighting, there are indeed few people in the Haihan Army who can match him, but when it comes to these tricks in international politics, he is indeed not as good as an old fox like Bai Kesi.
Bai Kesi shook his head slightly and said: "It is difficult to achieve the best of both worlds. Choose the greater of the two benefits and the lesser of the two evils. To solve this problem, we must ultimately proceed from the perspective of interests. Let the two envoys Realize the dangers and serious consequences of not allying with our country, instead of letting them re-understand how terrible the combat effectiveness of the Jin Army is. ”
"Then we still have to threaten them with force!" Harugong muttered: "Didn't Wang Tom just come back from North Korea? Then do we have to make another trip?"
Bai Kesi explained: "Tom Wang's trip is to let the North Koreans know what kind of military strikes we can take. And what we have to do next is to let them understand that in addition to forming an alliance, we actually also have There are many other options, but they may not be favorable to North Korea.”
(End of chapter)