Rebirth of the Spanish Empire

Chapter 184 Ito Hirobumi’s chief think tank

On the Korean Peninsula, Gyeonggi-do is the capital of the Korean Empire (reformed from the Kingdom of Korea in 1897), the puppet government of the current era of Japanese rule.

In the Tongyuan Mansion, which is on the same level as the royal palace.

"Oh, do they think that since I am not in the position of Prime Minister, do they think that our influence has been reduced?"

"Ito-kun, let's not cause trouble for them. As long as we do the finishing work well, then you can go back and take the position of Prime Minister of Japan for the fifth time. Then, it's not you who has to say anything. Calculate"[

"Yes, Mutsu-kun, you are right. You are worthy of being my super thinker, Hirobumi Ito, hahaha."

It turned out to be Mutsu Munemitsu. For this name, no one who pays attention to East Asia does not know this person's name.

Mutsu Munemitsu was a Japanese politician and diplomat during the Ito Hirobumi cabinet period, also known as Mutsu Yonosuke. In his heart, Ito Hirobumi was always proud to receive his sincere help.

In 1868, he gained the appreciation of Iwakura Kushi and began to enter Japanese politics; then during a chance conversation between the two, they both admired each other in their hearts, and later appointed him as the Minister of Foreign Affairs in his Ito Hirobumi cabinet. In 1888, he served as Japan's minister to the United States and concurrently as Mexico's diplomatic ambassador. He was one of the key figures in the history of modern Sino-Japanese relations. During his tenure as Foreign Minister, he took advantage of the Donghak Party uprising in North Korea and used "cunning" diplomatic methods to launch the Sino-Japanese War of 1898-1899. Therefore, Japanese diplomacy during this period was named "Mutsu" and was called "Mutsu diplomacy."

"Ito-kun, I love you so much," Mutsu Munemitsu said.

"I don't mean to give you any awards. Who doesn't know your skills? Who among the Chinese people doesn't hate your wisdom? I have to say, Lu Aojun, your diplomatic wisdom even makes me admire you." Ito Bowen said without any pretentious sincerity, because in his opinion, this compliment was not even as high as the evaluation he gave to the other party in his heart.

After the Tonghak Party uprising broke out in North Korea, Mutsu Munemitsu, who was his right-hand man, ordered Jun Sugimura, charge d'affaires of the Japanese Embassy in North Korea, to visit Yuan Shikai, the Qing Prime Minister in North Korea, to negotiate trade matters, and used sweet words to induce China to send troops to "replace the enemy". , and at the same time moved the cabinet to make the decision to send a large army into North Korea.

At the same time, it also urged Keisuke Ohtori, the minister to North Korea who returned to the country for vacation, to return to his post early and personally explain to him that "we have the determination to resort to war even if we have to resort to war" and may wish to "take decisive measures without scruples." . In fact, the task of provoking the war was given to Big Bird. After Otori returned to office, he first proposed the so-called "joint reform of Korea's internal affairs case" between China and Japan on the orders of Mutsu. On the one hand, it prevented the Japanese invading troops from leaving Korea, and on the other hand, it prevented the Qing army from returning to China in order to wait for opportunities to provoke provocations.

Then he decided to single-handedly coerce the North Korean government to "reform its internal affairs" to create pretext for war. These are simple to say, but you need to be careful and accurate in timing when doing it. Hirobumi Ito was initially worried about Mutsu Munemitsu at that time, and after seeing that the progress was going well, he started to let him go.

At this time, in order to prevent Japanese forces from entering North Korea, the Russian government advised the Japanese government to work with China to withdraw troops from North Korea. Mutsu resorted to deception, saying that Japan was "determined" towards North Korea and "will never challenge China to attack."

In early July 1894, Ogna, the British Minister to China, came forward to mediate the Sino-Japanese dispute. On July 9, the Prime Minister's Yamen invited Japan's temporary acting minister to China, Komura Jutaro, for negotiations. The Japanese government was determined to launch a war and deliberately caused the breakdown of negotiations. After the negotiation broke down, Mutsu Munemitsu was extremely excited and immediately instructed Komura Jutaro to submit a "second letter of cessation of diplomatic relations" to China on July 12. Komura submitted a note to China on the 14th, accusing China of "making trouble out of trouble" and "even if unexpected changes occur in the future, the Japanese government will not be held responsible."

At the same time, Mutsu Munemitsu also sent a telegram to Keisuke Otori, the Japanese minister in North Korea, stating that "British mediation has failed and decisive action is now necessary." On the 19th, Mutsu secretly ordered Otori: "Promoting the Sino-Japanese conflict is indeed an urgent task at the moment. In order to implement this matter, any means can be adopted. All responsibilities will be borne by me, and the minister does not have to have any internal concerns." After receiving the call, Otori ordered the Japanese army to break into the Korean palace on the 23rd, kidnap the king, and establish a pro-Japanese puppet government. On the 25th, the Japanese navy used despicable means to suddenly attack a Chinese ship off the coast of Toyoshima, North Korea, brazenly provoking a war.

In this way, the Sino-Japanese Sino-Japanese Sino-Japanese War was carried out in Japan, uh, to be precise, under the control of Mutsu Munemitsu, according to a unilateral plan, and in the end, the fruits of victory were obtained according to the plan.

After the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War of 1898-1895, the Qing government suffered successive military defeats. In January 1895, it was forced to send Zhang Yinhuan, the left minister of household affairs, and Shao Youlian, the right minister of the Ministry of War, the governor of Hunan, as plenipotentiary ministers to Japan to seek peace. Before the Chinese peace negotiators arrived in Japan, the Japanese government held an imperial meeting on January 27. Mutsu Munemitsu personally drafted a draft of the peace treaty and proposed to him harsh conditions such as Korean independence, China's cession of territory, and compensation as the basis for negotiations.

At this time, he was appointed by Hirobumi Ito as Minister of Peace and Plenipotentiary. Since the situation on the battlefield in China had not yet become clear at that time, and the strength of the Beiyang Fleet, which had always been regarded as a serious threat to Japan, still existed, Mutsu Munemitsu planned to sabotage the negotiations with him in advance and decided to find various reasons to "refuse to continue negotiations with them."

When representatives from China and Japan held their first meeting in Hiroshima, Mutsu and others refused to negotiate on the excuse that the Chinese representatives had "insufficient power." On February 2, during the second meeting between the two parties, Mutsu once again raised the so-called "insufficient power" and arbitrarily terminated the meeting. During the meeting, under the instructions of Mutsu and others, all the telegrams sent by the Qing government to the peace representatives were detained by the Japanese side, and the Chinese peace representatives were prohibited from using code to send telegrams to the country. Later, even clear telegrams were also banned. After the outrageous insults, the Chinese representatives were expelled to Nagasaki on February 5 and were given a time limit to leave the country. Afterwards, Japan achieved a series of military victories and threatened to capture Beijing.

Under Japanese diplomatic and military pressure, the Qing government had to appoint Li Hongzhang as Minister Plenipotentiary, and went to Japan to start peace negotiations with him at Shimonoseki Chunfan Tower. Then on his way back to his apartment, Li Hongzhang was shot and injured by the Japanese war fanatic Toyotaro Koyama, which caused an uproar in public opinion around the world.

Just when Ito Hirobumi was deeply worried that the Western powers would use this to interfere, his own think tank stood up and advocated immediately asking Li Hongzhang to condition a ceasefire. After receiving Emperor Meiji's approval, China and Japan signed an armistice agreement. Then the issue of unequal treaties was negotiated. On April 1, with the consent of him as prime minister, Mutsu handed over ten paragraphs of the peace treaty including land cession, compensation, trade rights, etc. to Li Hongzhang, and ordered a reply within 4 days. On the 10th, after arguments between the two sides, Mutsu and others slightly reduced the amount of treaty reparations and asked Li Hongzhang to respond within 3 days. Under pressure from Japan, the Qing government agreed to sign, and on April 17, the Treaty of Shimonoseki was signed.

The Treaty of Shimonoseki stipulated that China would cede the Liaodong Peninsula to Japan, although they had known that this would cause great dissatisfaction in Russia. But they never expected that on April 23, the Russians would join forces with Germany and France to issue "advice" to Japan, asking Japan to return the Liaodong Peninsula to China. [

Just when he felt that the number was increasing several times, Mutsu Munemitsu, who was taking leave to recuperate, felt that the situation was serious after hearing the news, so he proposed to him an anti-intervention idea to win over Britain against the three countries, and planned to bribe British dignitaries to achieve the above purpose. He ordered the Minister to the United Kingdom, Kato Takaaki, to "use the most secretive method possible to find out and find out the true attitude of the British government." He also told Kato clearly: "You don't have to hesitate about the cost of executing the above order. You will send the money if necessary." However, Japan's bribery method did not work this time. Because the British authorities first considered their own interests and could not risk becoming enemies of the Three Kingdoms for the sake of Japan, the idea of ​​Mutsu was shattered.

Subsequently, the imperial conference was held in Hiroshima to discuss how to deal with the interference of the three countries, and decided to temporarily adopt the plan of convening an international conference to deal with the Liaodong Peninsula issue. When consulted, Mutsu decided to oppose this plan, believing that convening an international conference would attract new interference from the great powers. If China took the opportunity to not ratify the treaty, the Treaty of Shimonoseki would become a dead letter. According to Mutsu's opinion, the Japanese government finally determined the policy of "not making complete concessions to the three countries, but not giving in to China." On November 8, China and Japan signed the "Sino-Japanese Liaonan Treaty", and Japan returned the Liaodong Peninsula to China. However, for this, the Chinese government needed to pay a huge ransom of 30 million taels of silver.

"It is precisely because of your stubborn refusal to give in that the Empire of Japan was able to obtain those tens of millions of silver for development. If it were not easy to compromise like this, at least I know that Japan today is definitely better than without it. The compensation of tens of millions of silver is much more miserable.”

After listening to Ito Hirobumi's words, he smiled, not wanting to argue with his own credit on this matter, but solemnly changed the subject to another topic.

"Ito-kun, with the death of you Jiugen Laosi, although you can be said to be the most powerful person in Japan after His Majesty the King, now that Katsura Taro has obviously risen, we should do more It’s better to be prepared, and, to put it bluntly, with the rise of Xiyuanji Gongwang and Shanxian Youpeng and others who are gradually distancing themselves from us, our available people have begun to shrink. "

The Nine Elders mentioned by Mutsu Munemitsu are the nine oligarchs who controlled power in Japan after the Meiji Restoration. They are Ito Hirobumi, Kuroda Kiyotaka, Yamagata Aritomo, Matsukata Masayoshi, Inoue Kaoru, Saigo Yumichi, Oyama Iwa, Katsura Taro, and Saionji Konobo. These people were more or less responsible for the abolition of the Taishōkan by Ito Hirobumi in 1885. After the cabinet system was implemented, all of them became prime ministers of Japan.

Although it is not expressly stipulated in the law, the selection of the prime minister of the cabinet is first discussed by the elders, and then the elders give the emperor, and then the emperor gives the prime minister the "big order" to form the cabinet, forming the so-called feudal politics. The Nine Elders represent the highest power pyramid in Japan except the emperor's veto power.

The departure of the older generation of strongmen such as Japan's giants Saigo Takamori, Kido Takayuki, and Tadashi Polymichi established Ito Hirobumi and Okuma Shigenobu's status as one or two in Japanese politics.

Then Okuma Shigenobu was finally pulled away by him under his calculated conspiracy. At this point, the Japanese government entered his era.

However, there are still people who are hindering him, and that is the Privy Council composed of nine elders, the prime minister's selection certification body.

The most favorable opponent at that time, Kuroda Kiyotaka, had died in 1900, and Saigo Nomichi also passed away two years later. The only ones left now are him, Yamagata Aritomo, Matsukata Masayoshi, Inoue Kaoru, Oyama Iwa, Katsura Taro and him. Xiyuanji Gongwang, his favorite disciple, and he knew very well which of these people were really on his side.

"Superintendent, an urgent message from Western Australia."

Western Australia! Ito Hirobumi and Mutsu Munemitsu looked at each other, and suddenly felt that something might have happened unexpectedly. At the same time, they were vaguely looking forward to it, because they were also waiting for the arrival of this letter.

Thank you Reiji for your monthly ticket (to be continued.