Reborn as King of South America

Chapter 219 International Students

The Han Dynasty was founded on military power, but among the students sent to Western countries, military academy students only accounted for one-tenth of the total number of students, while students from applied industries such as steel metallurgy, machinery manufacturing, and chemical industry accounted for six-tenths, and the rest were invested in research in emerging fields such as electricity and oil extraction.

Based on later generations' understanding of industrial development, Li Mingyuan planned the industrial layout of the Han Kingdom step by step. During the ten years of hard work with little rest, the sixteen-year-old boy grew into a mature and steady middle-aged man.

Twenty-six years old was no longer considered young at that time. Most of the old people who had followed Li Mingyuan in the uprising had started a family and a career. People like He Yanliang, who got married the earliest, already had four children. The eldest son was ten years old and would be admitted to a secondary school in another year.

The primary schools in the Han Dynasty had a four-year curriculum. Students generally started school at the age of seven and went to secondary schools for three years at the age of eleven. After three years, each student participated in a one-year military training. Then, based on their graduation results and performance in military training, students with excellent grades would enter preparatory courses for higher universities or military academies. Those with unsatisfactory grades would either choose to study in secondary scientific and technological colleges or work in other industries after graduation.

Li Mingyuan was quite satisfied with the domestic development. However, under the urging and advice of his subordinates such as Liu Pu, Sun Bin and Zhao Yan, Li Mingyuan began to consider his personal marriage issues while caring about the country's development.

The imbalance in the male-female gender ratio in Han was greatly alleviated after the number of Chinese female immigrants increased. However, Li Mingyuan, who had been busy with military and government affairs, rarely had the opportunity to come into contact with women outside. Therefore, the marriage issue was postponed again and again until Sun Bin returned to Han and inadvertently told Liu Pu about the daughter of Songkhla Lord Wu Jin. At the suggestion of Liu Pu and others, Li Mingyuan agreed to let them take photos of Wu Lingxuan and decide whether to marry her after seeing the real photos.

The Wu regime controlled five prefectures in the central part of the Malay Peninsula, with an area of ​​3.323 square kilometers and a total population of . In terms of land area and importance to Han immigrants, it was no less than the two provinces in northern Annan.

After the defeat in the Franco-Prussian War, France accelerated its expansion into the southeast peninsula in order to recover the huge losses caused by the defeat in the Franco-Prussian War.

In November 1873, France sent Garnier to Tonkin to occupy Hanoi first, attempting to further invade Vietnam. In early December, they occupied Haiyang, Ninh Binh and Nam Dinh. At this time, the Annan court invited Sun Bin's Nanyang Corps of the National Defense Army to fight against the French invasion. After Li Mingyuan learned of Sun Bin's report, he sent 11 troops to the Nanyang region, expanded the Nanyang Corps to 12 people, and allowed Sun Bin to expand the militia according to the changes in the situation in Annan. After receiving support from 1874 troops and a batch of weapons in the country, Wang Dashan and the Annan army defeated the French army and killed Garnier, the commander of the French army, outside Hanoi. The attack of the Nanyang Corps of the National Defense Army forced France to change its strategy of directly annexing Annan. In January 1, France sent Huo Daosheng to Tonkin to negotiate peace with Annan.

In February 1874, the Annamitish government reached an agreement with France, in which France agreed to return Hanoi, Haiyang, Ninh Binh and Nam Dinh, and the Annamitish government allowed France to survey the waterways entering China from the Red River.

After the signing of the peace agreement, under pressure from France, the Annan court sent Le Tuan, Nguyen Van Huong and others in March to sign the Second Treaty of Saigon with Du Bailey, the Governor-General of the French Saigon Colony. The treaty stipulated that Vietnamese diplomacy was under French supervision; France occupied the entire Cochinchina and enjoyed extraterritoriality in Vietnam; and the Red River and the three ports of Hanoi, Haiphong and Qui Nhon were opened as trading ports.

The Annamitage court signed the Second Saigon Treaty, and the French army's influence spread to Haiphong, Annam, and began to border Quang Ninh Province controlled by the Nanyang Corps. The French troops stationed in Haiphong and Hanoi were like a dagger at the door of the Nanyang Corps, threatening the security of Quang Ninh and Lang Son provinces at all times.

After the Second Treaty of Saigon, France completed its final plan to annex the three Southeast Asian countries. After the death of the Nguyen Emperor of Annam, the French colonists would launch a war to fully annex the three Southeast Asian countries.

During his tenure as Governor-General of Nanyang, Sun Bin reported the situation in Annan to Li Mingyuan with great concern many times. He was always worried about the expansion of French colonial power. The National Defense Army was far away in the Han Kingdom in South America. The 8,000 Nanyang troops were already the largest garrison size that could be maintained in the country. If the number was larger, it would have an adverse impact on domestic development.

Li Mingyuan knew clearly that the real purpose of the French occupation of Annam was to use Annam as a springboard to invade the southwestern region of the mainland, and then establish an Asian colonial empire like India in Asia.

The combat effectiveness of the French colonial army is really disappointing. In the original history, not only did the poorly equipped Black Flag Army successfully ambush small French forces many times, but even the Qing army in Guangxi region fought against the French attacks, causing considerable damage to the French army.

Relying on the combat effectiveness of the Nanyang Army, Li Mingyuan believed that they could fight on equal terms with the French colonial army. However, once the French government sent reinforcements to Annan and used warships to cut off the mainland's supply to the Annan Army, or even more seriously cut off Han's Far East immigration channel, the impact on Han would be more serious than losing the two northern provinces of Annan.

In July 1883, Emperor Tu Duc of the Annamitish court died. The French army would take advantage of the opportunity of the Annamitish court being leaderless to annex Annam. There were still five years before 7. Before there was an effective way to prevent the French army from annexing Annam, it was very important to support the Wu regime in Songkhla and build Songkhla into another immigration base for the National Defense Force in the Southeast Asia region.

Wu Lingxuan was the daughter of Wu Jin, the lord of Songkhla. In an era that emphasized matching up, she was the most suitable match for Li Mingyuan. Therefore, even without seeing Wu Lingxuan's photo, Li Mingyuan knew that marriage with the Wu family of Songkhla was an inevitable result.

In the newly built small palace in Xinjing, Li Mingyuan was distracted by his thoughts on the relationship with the Wu regime in Songkhla when a personal guard came in and handed him a telegram document: "Your Highness, this is the list of the fifth batch of overseas students who are about to return home. Please take a look."

"Well, go down first. I'll call you in if there's anything."

Li Mingyuan took the telegram and sent the guards out.

Turning his gaze to the telegram in his hand, after reading it carefully, Li Mingyuan found several familiar names on the list.

"He Linshu, Yang Jiannian, Chen Binshi, Wang Jinyong, Chen Shituan, Chen Shiyi, Chen Shiding."

Li Mingyuan read out seven names in a low voice one by one, and recalled the scene of sending them to study abroad three years ago, and couldn't help feeling a little emotional.

He Linshu is the youngest among the seven. He was only fourteen years old when he went abroad to study three years ago. He is the youngest among the 600 international students in Class 5.

He Linshu was supposed to continue working as an apprentice for foreigners in the Malay Peninsula. In 1874, when the Han Kingdom recruited Chinese immigrants in Southeast Asia, He Linshu followed a nearby Chinese family to immigrate to America, and was soon selected as a student to study in Germany.

Yang Jiannian and Chen Binshi are children of Chinese businessmen in Singapore. Chen Binshi’s father, Chen Jinzhong, is a famous Chinese businessman in Singapore. Since Chen Binshi’s grandfather Tan Tock Seng founded his business in Singapore, the Chen family has developed over two generations and gradually became the richest Chinese in Singapore. They were also elected as leaders by local Chinese.

The Chen father and son were enthusiastic about helping the Chinese. In 1844, they established a Western-style hospital to serve the Chinese in Singapore. It was the earliest Western-style hospital in Singapore.

In 1873, at the invitation of Li Mingyuan, Chen Jinzhong immigrated to the Kingdom of Han and served as the Deputy Minister of Commerce of the Kingdom of Han. Also accepting Li Mingyuan's invitation were well-known Singaporean Chinese Hu Yaji, who was proficient in English, French and Dutch, and Zhang Fanglin, a juren.

Chen Shituan, Chen Shiyi and Chen Shiding are three brothers from the same family. They are from the Ming Dynasty in central Annam. The Ming people are descendants of the Ming people who were unwilling to accept the rule of the Qing Dynasty. There are about 1874 people in Annam. In , the Second Treaty of Saigon was signed, and the end of Annam was certain. Dissatisfied with the corruption of the Nguyen Dynasty in Annam and to avoid the exploitation of French colonists, more than Ming people left the southern Annam controlled by France with the assistance of the Nanyang Corps and immigrated to the Han Kingdom of South America or the two provinces of Lang Son and Quang Ninh controlled by the National Defense Force.

The Mingxiang people retained Ming-style clothing and held memorial services for the emperors of the Ming Dynasty every year. Moreover, since they maintained the tradition of passing down poetry and books from generation to generation, talented people repeatedly emerged in the imperial examinations in Annan. Among the Mingxiang people who defected to the Han Kingdom, there were more than a dozen officials who had served in the Annan court, such as Zhu Jishan, a doctor in the Ministry of War, Zheng Qiru, former prefect of Fulong, Zhang Guanghai, former extra secretary of the Guanglu Temple, Zheng Huaiji, former doctor in the Ministry of Works, Wang Jin, former prefect of Hongzhi, Zhang Huaijin, former magistrate of Guangtian, and Mei Rui, former magistrate of Jianhe. As for those Mingxiang people who did not serve in the Annan court but obtained the titles of scholar or juren, there were also more than 30 people.

Compared with some of the Ming officials who defected to Han State, the family of the three Chen brothers is more famous. The three Chen brothers are the ninth-generation descendants of Chen Yangchun, a scholar in the late Ming Dynasty. Chen Shituan's father, Chen Shen, was once the Minister of the Ministry of Works and is currently the Minister of the Ministry of Works of Han State. His grandfather, Chen Jiancheng, was ranked third in the Wuxu exam in the 1838th year of Minh Mang () and later served as the Minister of War.

The Chen family immigrated to Han State. Under the guidance of their father, the three brothers Chen Shituan participated in the selection of overseas students. After being selected, they chose metallurgy as their major.

Three years passed in a flash, and a group of enthusiastic and ambitious young people were about to return to China after completing their studies. Li Mingyuan was looking forward to seeing the changes they would bring to the Han Kingdom after returning from their studies.

(End of this chapter)