Chapter 3515
No matter how much Geng Jimao pleaded, he was ultimately unable to obtain a sea passage from Liaodong for the Manchus. This means that in the coming period, the Manchu and Qing Dynasties will still have to rely on the channels provided by Haihan if they want to conduct trade activities with the outside world.
This means that during Geng Jimao’s stay in Zhoushan, it is difficult to achieve any results in his meetings with other countries. After all, if other countries want to visit the Manchu and Qing Dynasties, they must first obtain Haihan's permission before they can pass through the Haihan-controlled areas and enter the Manchu and Qing territories.
However, Yan Chujie did not get things done. He agreed to some of the fifteen-point demands put forward by Geng Jimao, promising to gradually relax control measures on border trade activities so that Manchu and Qing border residents could more conveniently enter Haihan territory to work.
The reason for making adjustments in this regard actually came from the suggestion of Chen Yixin, the chief executive of the Northern Region.
Developing Liaodong requires a lot of manpower, and the cross-border labor transported by the Manchu and Qing Dynasties is paid much lower than that of Haihan nationals, which can greatly reduce local labor costs.
In coal and iron mines in Anshan, Benxi and other places, thousands of Manchu workers are now employed by Haihan on a long-term basis, and they have become the main group of local miners.
However, Chen Yixin was not satisfied with the existing scale of foreign workers. He hoped to obtain more cheap labor from the Manchus.
This can not only poach the young and strong labor force of the Qing Dynasty, reduce their war potential, but also meet the needs of the northern region's own development. It is really two birds with one stone.
The Manchu and Qing Dynasties also hoped that through such cooperation, Haihan would gradually reduce supervision and obtain scarce supplies from the outside world more conveniently.
The Qing government had long since expressed its desire to regain the Liaodong sea port to Chen Yixin. However, this matter involved the country's long-term development strategy and had to be decided by the executive committee, and Chen Yixin could not make the decision alone.
For this reason, Chen Yixin took the initiative to send an invitation to the Manchu Qing Dynasty to send people to attend the Zhoushan Forum, and arranged high-level one-on-one meetings on his behalf.
Although Geng Jimao failed to achieve the most important goal, he still gained something. It was not in vain, and he could explain to his superiors when he returned.
Yue Shizong, who met with the Executive Committee on behalf of Ming Dynasty, was not so lucky. He put forward twenty suggestions on improving relations between the two countries, but all of them were rejected by Ning Qi on the grounds of "untimely" and "unachievable".
The twenty suggestions put forward by Yue Shizong were basically from the standpoint of the Ming Dynasty, requiring Haihan to give up control of certain disputed areas, relax various sanctions and restrictions on the Ming Dynasty, and promise not to launch military operations against the Ming Dynasty, etc. Waiting may seem reasonable, but in Ning Qi's opinion, it is an unreasonable thought that goes beyond the rules.
It also included demands similar to those of the Manchus, that is, to regain at least one channel to the sea from Haihan.
"I would like to remind Mr. Yue that Ming Dynasty is a defeated country, and the treatment it deserves is clearly stated in the armistice treaty signed last year. It has not even been a year, and your country is thinking about overturning the previous agreement. It is too much. A little anxious.”
Ning Qi refuted Yue Shizong mercilessly, without saving any face for him.
Since the Ming Dynasty only sent an ambassador as a representative, rather than important ministers or princes and nobles, it shows that the Ming Dynasty attaches limited importance to this forum, so there is no need to waste too much saliva on talks of this level.
Yue Shizong could only smile bitterly at this accusation. As an ambassador stationed in Haihan for a long time, he didn't know that once these twenty points were proposed, they would be immediately refuted by Haihan. However, these demands were drawn up by Emperor Chongzhen and his cabinet ministers. Yue Shizong was just a loudspeaker used to read out the demands, and he was not qualified to influence the decision-making in the court.
Yue Shizong really doesn't agree with this purely verbal approach, because not only is it difficult to achieve results, but it may anger Haihan and lead to unpredictable consequences.
But Yue Shizong did not have the ability to change the minds of the big shots in the capital. They felt that after losing on the battlefield, they must find face elsewhere, and such a strongly worded diplomatic statement may be the easiest way to implement it at the moment.
Even if there are no actual results in the end, it can still be regarded as an expression of the Ming Dynasty's perseverance in the face of powerful enemies and used as material for internal propaganda.
However, Ning Qi did not mention anything, and directly brought out the armistice treaty signed by the two countries last year, blocking all room for discussion.
Not only that, Ning Qi in turn asked Yue Shizong to urge the Ming court to speed up the payment of war reparations.
The armistice negotiations signed by the two sides last year involved a huge amount of war reparations. Ming Dynasty was unable to pay the full compensation for the time being. It could only owe most of it first and then negotiate to repay it in installments.
This naturally became a life-threatening rope around Da Ming's neck. Haihan tightened it from time to time, which would make Da Ming very uncomfortable.
It is natural to pay back debts. If Daming does not want to pay this money, it will have to fight Haihan again. However, past experience shows that the more times you fight Haihan, the larger the amount of war reparations will be, and it will only increase, not decrease.
Yue Shizong was also well aware of the stakes involved, so he naturally could not stand firm on this topic. He could only say in a low voice that Ming Dynasty would pay war reparations on time in accordance with the previous agreement.
In the end, the results of the talks between the two sides were almost nil. The only consensus reached was to continue to implement the contents of the armistice agreement signed by the two sides last year and try to avoid further conflicts.
Of course, in the relevant reports published in newspapers afterwards, they were probably just diplomatic rhetoric such as "the two sides exchanged views friendly and cordially and reached consensus on issues of common concern". Ordinary people would not think of the actual relationship between the two countries. In fact, the situation has deteriorated to the point where they no longer accept each other's opinions.
However, for Yue Shizong, the failure to reach a new agreement was expected, but it cannot be said to be disappointing.
Yue Shizong believed that the real gain from this trip was not the individual meeting with senior officials of the Haihan Executive Committee, but that it was clear that the target that Haihan wanted to focus on at this stage was not the Ming Dynasty.
This time, Haihan organized many dignitaries from many countries to visit Japan with great fanfare. In Yue Shizong's view, it was clear that Japan was to be used as a chessboard and shooting range, so that countries could observe up close how Haihan manipulated a country and pushed it into war. abyss.
At the same time, Haihan will also take this opportunity to demonstrate the actual combat performance of weapons and equipment, and will inevitably have to promote it to various countries.
Although Ming Dynasty has lost the qualification to be a buyer, Yue Shizong is still very concerned about the situation of Haihan's export weapons. He also wanted to see what the current level of the Japanese army, which was said to have purchased a large number of Haihan weapons, was like.