"Beautiful Mrs. Connor, it's such a pleasure to see you."
This time it was Russian Ambassador Resal.
Mrs. Connor politely replied: "Mr. Ambassador Resal, it's nice to see you too."
Resal shook hands with Li Yu again: "Mr. Imperial Master, your wireless equipment is really easy to use."
Li Yu asked: "It was transported back to St. Petersburg?"
Resal said: "One unit was shipped back to St. Petersburg, and another one was placed in Yekaterinburg. Together with the two previously purchased, I think we can already achieve timely communication during the movement."
Well, although the Russians did not engage in the construction of radio base stations, they actually used several radio equipment to construct a relay-style transmission link.
The distance from Beijing to Moscow is almost 6,000 kilometers, and with one or two transfer stations in the middle, communication can indeed be achieved. If you really want to calculate it, this will not only save trouble, but also cost a lot less. The key is that the front line has already been fought, so we can only compromise and choose shortcuts.
With the arrival of the Russian ambassador, envoys from various countries also arrived one after another.
It will definitely be extremely difficult for future generations to organize the top leaders of so many embassies together, but it was different in the late Qing Dynasty. These diplomats usually had a very small area of activity, cramped in the small Dongjiaomin Alley.
Say, like...neighbors.
But now the neighbors are not in harmony.
When Japanese Minister Uchida Yasuya and Russian Ambassador Resal met their eyes, they felt as if they were going to kill each other.
American Minister Connor said with a smile: "War is just a common occurrence for us. There is no need to hurt our friendship for a little gain or loss on the battlefield."
He also thought that this war would not be fought on a large scale.
French Ambassador Lupin also came to smooth things over: "Today we are more interested in elegant things like culture."
At present, Japan and Russia have declared war, but it has not caused any major losses. Diplomats from many European countries do not believe that it will turn into a super decisive battle.
Russian Ambassador Resal had to say: "Yes, culture, what we want to talk about is culture."
Japanese Minister Uchida Yasuya continued: "If it really compares with culture, then we have something to say. Even the culture of the Qing Dynasty is countless times better than that of other countries here."
To be honest, although our national strength was very weak at the end of the Qing Dynasty and the beginning of the Republic of China, Europeans have always been very obsessed with Chinese culture.
Thousands of years of continuous cultural reproduction are no joke, the accumulation is too deep.
But when Uchida Yasuya said this, he actually wanted to bring the Qing to his side as much as possible. He also had a large number of spies operating in the Qing to spy on Russian intelligence.
Zai Zhen also arrived. His English was very weak and he didn't understand what everyone was saying, so he asked Li Yu to be his translator.
Knowing Uchida Yasuya's thoughts, Zai Zhen was actually a little happy.
However, Russian Ambassador Resal seized on Uchida Yasuya's words: "All countries here? Hmm, that's not a small tone. Do you, Japan, want to engage in cultural confrontation?"
Uchida Yasuya seemed to have guessed that he would say this and deliberately leaked the truth, so he said: "Ambassador Resal, please pay attention to what I said, it is the 'Qing Kingdom', not the Great Japan Kingdom."
Resal and others looked at Zai Zhen together.
Zai Zhen was at a loss for a moment, and cursed in his mind: Ma De, it's none of my business that you guys are fighting, why did you push me out?
Zai Zhen is still very young, and these envoys abroad are already veterans in the diplomatic field, and there is no one that Zai Zhen can deal with.
Zai Zhen said casually: "Neutral, we remain neutral! As for culture and so on, let's talk about it, Wen Wu is the first, Wen Wu is the first! Haha, haha..."
Uchida Yasuya continued: "What a sentence 'Wen Wu is the best', beautiful, beautiful! Ambassador Resal, do you know what the next sentence is?"
Resal really didn’t know, so he remained silent.
Uchida Yasuya kept to himself and continued: "The next sentence is 'There is no second in the military.' Of course there is no second on the battlefield, just like Crimea many years ago."
The Crimean War was an extremely important battle in the history of modern wars. It should be said to be the first modern war. It produced countless new theories, strategic tactics, etc.
Moreover, the Crimean War was a major defeat for Tsarist Russia. Since then, it lost the possibility of advancing westward and turned its focus to the east.
Uchida Yasuya is really a diplomat, and there are words in his words, obviously expressing dissatisfaction with Russia's eastward advance; at the same time, he ridiculed Russia's defeats in the European battlefield, and pointed out Russia's true intentions.
Ambassador Resal was indeed a little angry: "Mr. Uchida, please stop provoking me! Most of the countries here are from Europe. Our Czarist Russia's eastward advance is to curb your terrible Yellow Peril!"
The "yellow peril theory" was really first proposed by Tsarist Russian politicians thirty years ago.
In 1873, the Tsarist Russian politician Bakunin mentioned the "Yellow Peril" for the first time. He believed that anti-Christian forces would emerge from Asia, especially East Asia. Since the Huns and Mongolia had historically conquered Europe, Bakunin declared that China was the "
Great Danger from the East".
The "Yellow Peril Theory" first appeared in Tsarist Russia, which is not surprising at all, because in Tsarist Russia's view, "a powerful neighbor is definitely not a good neighbor."
In the following decades, on the one hand, China was poor and weak, allowing the West to bully the West; on the other hand, Europe vigorously promoted the "Yellow Peril" theory and called on the white people to unite to deal with the yellow people.
However, people with a discerning eye can easily know that the traditional Chinese nation has never threatened Europe; but in modern times, the Qing Dynasty was poor and weak, and China's national power fell to its lowest point ever, and it posed no threat to Europe.
Therefore, the Yellow Peril theory is extremely absurd.
Even so, Tsarist Russia is still promoting the so-called "yellow peril theory."
The reason? Political considerations at the time! They could use such arguments to obtain "reasonable reasons" for invading Qing territory and gain support from European public opinion.
Very bad intentions!
However, in fact, since the emergence of the "Yellow Peril" promoted by Tsarist Russia, it initially had little influence in Europe.
When it comes to the "Yellow Peril", the most active ones are immigration countries, such as the United States, Canada, Australia and other places. They have set off waves of anti-Chinese waves. And as the "Yellow Peril" theory becomes more and more intense, the Chinese
His status is getting lower and lower.
Immediately afterwards, Japan defeated the Qing Dynasty in the Sino-Japanese War, which affected the interests of Tsarist Russia and completely exposed the weakness of the Qing Dynasty. Therefore, the protagonist of the "Yellow Peril Theory" became the Japanese.
When these diplomats speak, there are countless words hidden in one sentence, and they are tit for tat.
Russian Minister Resal proposed the "Yellow Peril" at this time, obviously seeking the support of European countries to fight Japan together.
French Ambassador Lupin, who had also served as ambassador to Japan before, quickly said: "Why are we talking about this direction again?"
American Minister Connor also said: "It was promised to be a cultural salon, by the way." He saw the portrait of Li Yu and Lu Bicheng in his wife's hand, and then said: "Look at this painting, it is a rare fusion.
Excellent works from both China and the West. Things that use Western oil painting techniques to show the beauty of the East should be today’s theme!”
Connor came over, picked up the oil painting, and then asked Lu Bicheng next to him: "Beautiful Lady Oriental, who painted this painting? The artistic level is so high!"
Lu Bicheng replied: "Mr. Repin from St. Petersburg."
"It turns out that Repin is from Russia, great!" Connor immediately took advantage of this and said, "This is the fusion of cultures."
Repin was already well-known in Europe at this time and was a first-class painter. Everyone felt that it was quite novel to see that Li Yu, a rising star in the scientific community and from the Qing Dynasty, was included in the painting.
Several ministers' wives circulated praises one after another.
Takeda, the wife of the British Ambassador, is also Japanese. After seeing the painting, she said: "I admire Mr. Repin very much. I remember going to St. Petersburg to pay homage to the "Trackers on the Volga River"."
"Trackers on the Volga" is undoubtedly Repin's masterpiece, but it is really inappropriate to say it in the diplomatic arena at this time.
Because the content shows the miserable life of Russian trackers.
After hearing Mrs. Takeda's words, French Ambassador Lupin's head buzzed again.
As expected, Russian Minister Resal said: "Speaking of oil paintings, I also have an oil painting here that was commissioned by the respected German Emperor Wilhelm II and was given as a national gift to our noble Tsar Nicholas II.
"
Resal clapped his hands, and his assistant quickly took out the oil painting called "Yellow Peril".
Um, yes, that’s the name. You don’t need to introduce the content to know what it is promoting.
At this time, this painting was really a well-known "artistic propaganda material" in Europe.
The painting time was roughly during the period of the intervention of the Three Kingdoms after the Sino-Japanese War of 1894 and the Liao Dynasty.
The Three Kingdoms' intervention in the Liao Dynasty was regarded as a shame in Japan. Uchida Yasuya was naturally aware of this painting. He said: "If this can be regarded as culture and art, it is really a shameful artistic taste."
Japan has long been worried that Russia will promote the "Yellow Peril" concept in Europe, because this will be detrimental to itself.
In fact, Russia really wanted to do this. They also drew a lot of cartoons, hoping to package the Russo-Japanese War as a "racial war between white people and yellow people" in order to gain European support and prevent Britain from supporting Japan.
Therefore, Japan spent a lot of money to buy the front pages of many newspapers in Europe and wrote a large number of press releases to defend itself: the war was only to curb the expansion of Tsarist Russia to the south and to maintain peace and development in the Far East.
Such words will sound like farts to future generations, and they will be as stinky as Russian views.
In addition, it happened that the Qing Dynasty chose absolute outsider neutrality. The two people smashed their own teeth together and had to swallow it desperately, which made all countries think of it.
However, the weakness of the Qing Dynasty unexpectedly gained a lot of benefits in the Russo-Japanese War.
Although the Qing Dynasty had a tendency to allied with Japan, it did not choose to form an alliance with Japan, which made Tsarist Russia's so-called "Yellow and White Race War" theory untenable.