Fox of France

Just as many people in the city hoped, Governor Prima was indeed negotiating with the French and the Netherlands outside the city at this time. To delay time, or to seek a surrender plan that "guarantees the life, property and personal dignity of the British in Cape Town."

The reason for the delay is that just after the night battle in the Saldanha Gulf, Governor Prima realized that the loss of sea control was inevitable. And he learned that the other party still has transport ships alive. At that time, Governor Prima judged that the prospects for this battle were not very good. From then on, he began to find a way out for the British in Cape Town.

After the night battle in the Saldanha Gulf, Governor Prima immediately issued a new order to the "Miracle" frigate that had just returned from a rapid battle-go to India immediately, get in touch with the Indian side, and let the Indian side send People and ships came to support, or came to evacuate overseas Chinese.

Theoretically speaking, there is a big war in Europe, and the Indian colony may get the news a little earlier than here, and those guys with ulterior motives may take the opportunity to make trouble. So at this time, it stands to reason that the East India Company should need reliable and easy-to-use immigrants. And the East India Company also has enough capacity to transport the British here in Cape Town, together with their property.

But considering the distance is too far, it will take at least a month to send the distress message from here, and then it will take another month for the ship from the East India Company to come over. If you take into account the reaction time of the East India Company, it is really terrible.

Governor Prima knows that although the East India Company is a company, it is almost no worse than the British government when it comes to bureaucracy and the like. And they are influenced by Indians, a bit Indianized in many places. Well, Joseph Bonaparte said: "When you gaze into the abyss, the abyss gazes into you."

Put it on the guys of the East India Company, that is: If you are always dealing with Indians who have no sense of time, you will also become East India Company people who have no sense of time.

As an analogy, when an East India Company guy tells you he'll be at your place in no time, he's already at your door and ready to knock, then generally, you still have time to light a Havana , enjoy it for a while, and then you can hear the knock on the door; if he tells you that he will appear in front of you in ten minutes, well, you can take a shower with confidence, and then take Go out with your girlfriend, go to see a Shakespeare play, then come back, wait a little longer, and he should be there; if he tells you that he will be there in an hour at most, then you can wash up and sleep, At least today, he won't bother you anymore. As for tomorrow, well, who can say what will happen tomorrow?

Therefore, the official document for help fell into the hands of the gangsters of the East India Company, and then let them spend a few days discussing it, it would really be like a certain monkey went to Li Tianwang to discuss that Li Tianwang's daughter robbed a good family The question of the man's responsibility, and Taibai Jinxing reminded him of the sentence: "Great Sage, you must know that if the official document runs here for one day, it may take a year in the world... For this matter, you Do you really want to go public?" Then the monkey immediately chose to go private, I can't afford to wait for the public!

Therefore, Governor Prima must make two-handed preparations. First hand is preparing to move to India. If those guys from the East India Company can know the priorities and send the ships in time, they will retreat to India. But in case, in case the official documents were discussed with the East India Company for a few days-well, a few days of the East India Company's time-then he must be prepared to really surrender to the French.

But in either case, they will have to negotiate to buy time.

Since you want to delay time, there are naturally some tricks to delay time. And the most important trick is to dig out the details.

"First, question the other party's negotiating qualifications and require them to issue legally valid identity certificates. In this process, it can be delayed for a period of time, and then you can criticize other aspects. Anyway, you are constantly using details and creating details. Just avoid the substantive issues. In short, we must grasp the scale, not only to delay the time, but also not to let the French and the Dutch feel that we have no sincerity in negotiating, um...do you understand?" Governor Prima Said to Bona, the representative who was going out of the city to negotiate with the French and the Netherlands.

"My lord governor, I'm not quite sure about this." Bona replied truthfully.

"Ah, Bona, never pretend to understand, this is really your best quality." Governor Prima said, "We can emphasize that there must be a very reliable way to ensure the safety of the British citizens in the city and their property. For example, the document signed by His Excellency Napoleon, the first ruler of France, and asked them to allow us to leave with property and weapons. In short, it is just to put on a look that we know we can’t fight, but we can’t trust you, so we want to keep it The appearance of money and life.

In fact, they also have difficulties. Their artillery can destroy our cannons, but it is impossible for them to destroy our fortress with cannons alone-they cannot have so many artillery shells. Of course, without cannons, they could still rush in by relying on rifled guns and explosive devices. But the bastion is a bastion after all, it is impossible to rush in without killing people, and if people die, not just one or two. Therefore, they also need to talk.

In addition, this is a fringe battlefield after all, the outcome is not decided here, neither we nor they can delay it. If they win on the European battlefield as they say, sooner or later our place will be theirs. If we win in Europe, even if they capture Cape Town, Cape Town will be ours in the end. So, why would they want to break into the fort a few days earlier to kill people? Well, by the way, you can see if they are in such a hurry to get to town. "

"Is there any particularity in this?" Bona asked again.

"From a logical point of view, they don't need to be anxious at all. If they are particularly anxious, it means that their previous propaganda that they won a decisive victory in Europe is false. Most of the battle in Europe is still very anxious. It is very likely that we and them will end up in a tie. In this case, it makes sense to hold Cape Town. If this is the case, the bloodshed may really be avoided. But we still have to delay as much as possible ...Well, you have to pay attention, there is still a difference between verbal anxiety and actual anxiety. Do you understand?"

"I see, Your Excellency Governor," Bona replied.

So Bona, the representative of the British, left Cape Town with a few cavalry, and started the first negotiation between the two sides at Babel's farm not far from Cape Town.

After the two parties meet, first introduce their identities.

"I am the plenipotentiary sent by Sir Bowen Prima, the Plenipotentiary Governor of the Cape Colony appointed by His Majesty the King of our country, to negotiate with you a cessation of hostilities in order to seek a peaceful plan. This is my authorization. Bona first showed the power of attorney in his hand to Philip Treville and Babel, who represented France and the Netherlands respectively.

The two looked at the power of attorney—it was just a formality—then Babel nodded and said: "Then, we can start—although your country is still not a party to the Paris Declaration until now. However, As long as you lay down your arms and surrender to us, and abide by the obligations in the "Paris Declaration", we will, in accordance with the principles of our and the Holy See's "Paris Declaration", give your country's officers, soldiers, and peaceful residents a humanitarian and Christian benevolence. treatment."

Looking at the smug look of that Dutch bumpkin, Bona wanted to slap him in the face and tell him not to daydream. But he took a deep breath and held back.

"Before officially starting the negotiations, I also want to confirm your authorization and find out whether you have been authorized by your government, so you can negotiate with us on behalf of your government..."

Of course, neither Babel nor Treville could have fully qualified authorization certificates. So the two sides arguing about this issue.

Bona insisted on seeing effective documents that could prove the identity of the other party, preferably an authorization document signed by His Excellency Napoleon, the first ruler of France, in order to conduct effective negotiations.

"Otherwise, even if we have talked about something, if your government says that you have not been authorized at all, and the documents you signed are completely illegal, then what should we do? Are you going to return the weapons and Cape Town?" Give it to us? Then we call again and talk again? No, no, you must have sufficient authorization documents, otherwise, we can’t talk. I suggest you get in touch with the country as soon as possible to obtain authorization.”

"We have authorization, Governor Babel has authorization from the Netherlands government."

"Yes, but Mr. Babel's authorization states that he is the interim plenipotentiary governor of the Cape Town colony appointed by the Netherlands government. However, Cape Town is still in our hands, that is to say, the Netherlands The Cape Town Colony of the Netherlands does not exist yet, so Mr. Babel’s status as the governor of this non-existing colony naturally has problems. At that time, you say, the Cape Town Colony of the Netherlands does not exist at that time, so The agreement signed by the Colonial Governor of Cape Town in the Netherlands is naturally invalid, and then he refused to implement the agreement we reached. Aren't we being cheated in vain?" Bona shook his head and replied.

So the two sides debated for more than a week on the issue of the identity of the representative. During this period, Babel repeatedly slapped the table and threatened to let "cannons and rifled guns debate", but after all, the French and Dutch coalition forces did not really launch a larger-scale operation, and it was still a feint attack every day— —bombardment, feint—bombardment. The infantry feinted and the artillery bombarded, and the artillery bombarded the infantry's feint. Even when the Dutch infantry feinted to attack, the British didn't fire at all, and planned to shoot it closer with muskets, and then the Dutch retreated back to the story. Of course, Babel said, this showed "the sincerity and magnanimity of the Netherlanders in the negotiations".

After pulling the skin for more than a week, the British were finally willing to admit the other party's negotiating qualifications, and then, new problems appeared again. That is the seats on both sides, and the national flag on the table.

Boehner found that the seats behind the negotiating table were not the same size. The seat backs of the Dutch and French seem to be a little higher than those of the British delegation. So he made a strong protest against this, and everyone quarreled all day because of the height of the backrest of the seat. The next day, when Bona came to the negotiating site again, he brought a high-back chair with him. The back of this chair was obviously higher than that of the French and Dutch chairs. cut. And the seats are noticeably wider too.

Then, everyone fell into a competition to make the back of the seat higher and higher, and the seat as a whole became wider and wider. Soon, the seat had to be divided into several parts and moved into the negotiating room. Re-installed on-site - because the height of the seat back has exceeded the height of the door, and the width of the seat has also exceeded the width of the door. If this situation continues, I am afraid that the day when the backrest of the seat will press the ceiling is just around the corner.

So we had to spend another day to reach an agreement on the standard of the seats we used. Further negotiations were able to continue.

However, after only two days of talking, Treville discovered that the national flag that the Englishman placed on his table was larger and taller than the national flags that were placed on the table by the Dutch and the French. So the national flag on the table replaced the back of the seat and began to grow crazily, and it grew faster than the back of the seat... So everyone spent another week carefully discussing the various layouts and arrangements of the negotiation venue , and reached an agreement on the clothing standards of the personnel of both parties. Then the barbaric comparisons were suspended. Otherwise, it is estimated that next week, everyone will compare whose hat is on the head, or whose heel is higher.

In short, it took almost a month, and everyone finally achieved the first major result of this negotiation - the "Agreement on the Disposal of Related Matters in the Negotiation".

It took more than a month for the French cannons to land on land, and it took more than half a month to shell the British after landing on land, and then it took more than a month to discuss what kind of seats and flags should be used, And the negotiation of what kind of hat to wear. Governor Prima felt that India should have already received a call for help, and it was time for them to respond.