Chapter 1520 Three Kingdoms Alliance
The alliance proposed by Haihan is actually a relatively general topic, which includes several different aspects such as establishing diplomatic relations, opening up trade and immigration, and concluding military alliances. Among them, the one that is relatively easy to reach consensus is probably the establishment of diplomatic relations.
Even if Haihan did not use coercion or inducement, North Korea actually had little resistance to establishing diplomatic relations with him. Just follow the normal process, it may take a long time for diplomacy to pave the way, and you will never be as embarrassed as you are now. Issues such as trade immigration are relatively simple in North Korea's eyes. In any case, Haihan, who pays attention to business reputation, is much better than Houjin's forced buying and selling. What is really more difficult is actually the conclusion of a military alliance. On the one hand, they are worried about the fierce revenge of Hou Jin, and on the other hand, they also feel that they cannot bypass the Ming Dynasty, the nominal suzerain country, to fight with a third country. Make an alliance. Kim Sang-hyun claimed that the alliance depends on Ming Dynasty's intention, which is not entirely an excuse.
The Ming Dynasty was not as accepting of this as North Korea. The Haihan people occupied a lot of the Ming Dynasty's land in the south, and they used it to establish a country and divide the territory. This was a de facto invasion of the Ming Dynasty. If it weren't for the war in the northern border and the Central Plains that prevented Ming from taking action, how could Haihan have been able to make so many small moves in the south so easily. Now that Haihan has grown up, he can even attack Ming Dynasty on the negotiation table with regard to the security of the northern border. But how could the Ming Dynasty court tolerate this tone so easily?
Even if Mei Shengchuan, who had received benefits from Haihan, could bear it, he was afraid that he would not be able to report to the court after returning. After all, the authority given to him by the court did not include so many alliance conditions. He took it upon himself to agree to all these conditions, and he was worried that he would be raped to the end when he returned. Even though Haihan had promised him many personal benefits before, he was afraid that he would lose his official status and would be of no value to Ming Dynasty and Haihan. Then it would be a question of whether these so-called promises could be fulfilled.
But Mei Shengchuan also understood that if Ming Dynasty rejected this alliance invitation, it would probably lose a powerful foreign aid that could really solve the threat from the north. This is only one aspect. If Haihan bypasses the Ming Dynasty and draws North Korea over, then the Ming Dynasty is likely to lose this vassal state. This kind of loss is also something that the Ming Dynasty cannot afford. If we write a memorial and report it back to the court at this time, it will probably take at least half a month to wait for the result of the discussion there, and the Haihan people will obviously not have the patience to wait for the capital to come up with a A solid conclusion.
According to the deadline given by Bai Kesi, if the envoys of Ming and North Korea cannot make a final decision within three days, the alliance negotiations will be terminated. Haihan's military operations in the Liaodong region will also be suspended, all proactive military plans will be canceled, and the possibility of peace talks with Hou Jin will be retained.
The last item proposed by Bai Kesi is tantamount to a trump card for the envoys of the two countries. If Haihan negotiates peace with Houjin, let alone whether there is a possibility of alliance between the two countries, even if Haihan has some considerations, Selling some obsolete weapons to Houjin would be enough for the two countries. When the time comes, it will be too late to regret not being in the same camp as Haihan.
In the end, it was North Korea that was the first to relent. After all, this country really couldn't afford to lose. The Haihan people can evacuate Liaodong at any time, and the Ming Dynasty has a great cause. Even if Houjin has the upper hand on the battlefield, it will not be possible to destroy this huge empire in a short while. The North Korean military is weak. If Ming Dynasty and Haihan do not come to help, then they will really have no choice but to wait and die. And for a suzerain country that can no longer provide asylum to North Korea, what's the point of retaining its existence?
After weighing the pros and cons, Kim Sang-hyun finally chose to compromise and expressed his willingness to refer to the plan proposed by Haihan and conclude an alliance with Haihan. However, Jin Sangxian did not hide this decision from Mei Shengchuan out of awe of the Ming Dynasty, so as not to make the other party hate him. If possible, he certainly hopes to maintain the traditional friendly relations between North Korea and Ming Dynasty.
Mei Shengchuan did not feel angry because of this. He could completely understand the thoughts of the Koreans. After all, the weak would always try to seek protection from the strong. Haihan State uses Chinese characters to speak Chinese, and the people are no different from the Han people of the Ming Dynasty. Naturally, it will not be too strange to North Korea, and it is more like an enhanced version of the miniature Ming Dynasty, a Han Chinese regime with strong military and economic strength. , and is also willing to provide help for North Korea to resist foreign enemies. It is naturally easier for North Korea to establish diplomatic relations with such a country.
Bai Kesi, who is good at using the situation to add weight to negotiations, once again dealt a heavy blow to Mei Shengchuan at this time - if Ming Dynasty wants to exclude itself from this alliance, then Haihan cannot guarantee that he will not use force against Ming Dynasty in the future. The logical explanation for this is that after the truce between Haihan and Houjin, there is still the possibility of an alliance in the future. If such a cross-regional alliance is reached, then Jin Haihan, one in the north and one in the south, can start to figure out how to carve up the Ming Dynasty.
Of course, Mei Shengchuan immediately realized the horror of this hypothesis. Although he knew that Bai Kesi's statement was most likely just a verbal threat, this risk was something that Ming could not bear. The military strength of Hou Jin and Haihan was far superior to that of the Ming Dynasty. If the north and the south went to war at the same time, the Ming Dynasty might really be in danger.
So the choice left to Ming Dynasty inexplicably changed from whether to form an alliance with Haihan to whether to allow Haihan to form an alliance with Houjin. In this way, it seems much simpler to weigh the pros and cons of this issue. For the benefit of Ming Dynasty, Mei Shengchuan must destroy the possibility of reconciliation between Haihan and Houjin no matter what. On the multiple-choice question of friend or enemy, the only choice left to Ming Dynasty was the former.
After two days of detailed consultations, representatives of the three countries finally signed a memorandum on the alliance agreement in a village south of the Golden State Isthmus defense line. Although this memorandum is not a formal agreement that will eventually take effect, the content of the final agreement will generally be based on this, which can be regarded as basically finalizing the matter.
The relationship between the Ming Dynasty and North Korea was originally that of a suzerain state and a vassal state, so the description of the relationship between the two countries in this agreement did not go beyond the original scope and basically followed the current actual situation. The focus of the agreement is naturally the relationship between the two countries and Haihan.
The first is the Ming Dynasty, which will formally establish diplomatic relations with Haihan State, open up the trade rights of several state capitals in the coastal areas, and allow Haihan to hire Ming people to work for him locally - this is actually a disguised permission for Haihan to work in the Ming Dynasty. Recruit immigrants within the country because there is no requirement that the employee’s place of work must be within the territory of Ming Dynasty. But just such a small trick in the way of expression has already cost Umeikawa a lot of effort to convince Haihan to accept this roundabout expression.
This is a political and economic arrangement, but the content of military cooperation needs to be more cautious. Umeikawa did not even dare to agree to use the word "military alliance" in the agreement, but carefully combined "alliance", The term "alliance" was changed to "cooperation", and the scope was only temporarily limited to Shandong and Liaodong provinces. The main reason for this was that Haihan's garrison behavior in the Ming Dynasty was too sensitive, and the place where the Ming Dynasty really needed Haihan's action was actually limited to Liaodong. Under Haihan's insistence, Mei Shengchuan was able to Reluctantly agreed to add Shandong, but still limited the scope of Haihan's activities in Shandong to Fushan County, Dengzhou, and Zhifu Port could only be used as a transportation port for the turnover of personnel and materials, and could not be built as a military base for the Haihan Navy.
Of course, both sides understand that the restrictions on Zhifu Port are only to allow Mei Shengchuan to report to the higher authorities after returning. In fact, the Haihan people have already built a military port and a military base for the navy and army on Zhifu Island, and have maintained it for a long time. There is a certain size of army stationed there. However, after Haihan occupied Lushun, an ice-free port with better conditions in Liaodong, the Haihan military did intend to move some military institutions and facilities originally deployed in Zhifu Port north to Lushun to facilitate the military operations on the Liaodong front. Scheduling.
As for Haihan's authority for military operations in the Liaodong region, as well as the ownership of the occupied areas, the agreement was more vague. Ming gave Haihan the power to "act expediently" and negotiated with the Ming Dynasty. During the war in Houjin, the governance of the area could be "entrusted to the local garrison." The so-called local garrison naturally refers to the Haihan Army fighting in Liaodong. As for how to deal with the sovereignty of these places after the war, there is not much to mention in the agreement. Thinking about it, that would be a few years later, and Mei Shengchuan didn't want to find a burden for himself to carry so early.
In addition to attracting Houjin's firepower in Liaodong, another important part of the benefits provided by Haihan to Ming in the agreement was to sell Haihan standard weapons to Ming, including flintlock rifles, large-caliber artillery, and even possible future weapons. There will also be warships. In short, Haihan will provide Ming Dynasty with a package plan for establishing a firearms force, and can provide a complete set of officer training systems and tactical systems according to Ming Dynasty's specific requirements. Of course, training programs outside of arms sales are not completely free, and the specific price will depend on the status of military cooperation between the two parties.
Mei Shengchuan understood that this was the Haihan people's way of guarding against the Ming Dynasty, and they would not train officers for the Ming Dynasty who mastered advanced firearms warfare tactics in vain. Unless it is the Ming army in the coastal state capitals of Fujian and Guangzhou provinces or the troops in Dongjiang Town that have semi-openly defected to Haihan, it is possible to receive military assistance from Haihan regardless of cost. As for the direct troops loyal to the Ming Dynasty, Haihan could set a threshold in the price of military training services, making it more expensive for the Ming Dynasty to form a new army, thus slowing down the formation of combat effectiveness.
But even if he knew that Haihan had arrangements in this regard, Mei Shengchuan could only bite the bullet and reach this agreement first. After all, this was the condition he had fought for with great difficulty. If he didn't get some decent benefits in return, I'm afraid The court would directly treat him as a traitor.
Compared with Mei Shengchuan's simplicity, the North Korean envoy Kim Sang-heon was a little more relaxed. Since Haehan had already obtained the approval of King Li Jie before, there was not much pressure on him not to be able to pay the debt after returning. . As long as there was no obvious treasonous treaty, he could be sure that His Majesty the King would be very pleased to learn that Haihan would provide full military assistance to North Korea.
As for trade and immigration, Kim Sang-hyun believes that these matters are easy to solve, and North Korea will also have significant economic benefits. He does not believe that this will pose any substantial threat to North Korea's security. After all, in this era, few people realize the terrible consequences that an invasion of foreign capital backed by force can have on a country.
According to the agreement, North Korea will provide a large amount of grain, grass and military supplies to Haihan's troops stationed in Liaodong, and send civilians into Liaodong to assist Haihan in developing and constructing the occupied areas. However, in order to protect the safety of the North Korean people, Kim Sang-hyun specifically requested that civilians who went to Liaodong should not be assigned to work on the front line, but could only engage in infrastructure tasks in the rear.
Bai Kesi did not express any objection to this. He did not trust the Koreans who were never reliable in doing things. In addition, frontline projects often involved military secrets. He would rather leave such tasks to the civilians in Dongjiang Town. They also do not want North Koreans to be exposed to the deployment status of the Haihan Army on the front line.
However, Bai Kesi still spoke highly of Kim Sang-hyun's cooperation, saying that Kim Sang-hyun's negotiation task "should be recorded in North Korean history books" and said that he would later send a personal letter to the king of North Korea to request Kim Sang-hun. achievement. This statement made Kim Sang-hyun burst into tears of gratitude, and he couldn't help but wonder whether he should make further concessions on Hae-han's request that the navy be able to freely enter and exit North Korea's offshore waters.
In fact, the current results of the negotiations are better than what Baikes and others expected. At least Baikes is prepared for the fact that neither country is willing to conclude an alliance in the end. But no matter how tortuous the process was, the three parties finally reached a consensus under the pressure provided by Houjin, a common opponent. Later generations will also call this secret tripartite meeting in Liaodong in June 1636 an important turning point that affected the international situation in Northeast Asia.
As the final decision-maker in this negotiation, Bai Kesi naturally took the greatest credit. After the telegram of victory was delivered to Fort Victory, the Executive Committee also spoke highly of the outcome of the negotiations. In particular, the formal establishment of diplomatic relations with the Ming Dynasty can be regarded as the top political event for the Haihan Kingdom since the founding of the country. Many people have been working silently towards this goal, and now they have finally got their wish.
(End of chapter)