In the shogunate's court meeting on July 4, the fifth year of the Ansei period (1858), the Qi Zhao clan suffered a disastrous defeat.

But this has nothing to do with Naohide - even though Qi Zhao himself praised him for developing the northern Ezo land and countering the Lucian invasion, in fact Naohide and Qi Zhao's line have never been involved.

What really gives Naohide a headache is that the Lucian warship is approaching the border. So where will he, the person who first provoked the dispute between the two sides, go, now becomes a big problem.

But "good fortune never comes in pairs, misfortunes never come alone". Before Zhixiu could take a breath, the bad news came from Jiushan. Mr. Tan'an died suddenly on the fourth day of the seventh month in the Heli calendar due to overwork.

After Naohide received the news, he immediately visited Xiao Pu and asked for permission to visit him in Niray Mountain. However, he did not get the corresponding permission until Mr. Tanan's coffin returned to Edo on July 15th.

It wasn't that the shogunate was unkind, but that Naohide couldn't get away - in early June of the Japanese calendar, special envoys from Lucia and England visited Edo one after another. In addition to the negotiations on the trade agreement, the dispute over the Battle of Shirozu also became a center of negotiation.

The key issue. As a party involved, Zhixiu naturally cannot escape.

In August 1857, Lucia invaded Baichu, and was defeated because of underestimating the enemy. This matter is very clear, and the shogunate has photos and confessions from captured sailors of Lucia as evidence.

However, Ignatiyev, the special envoy of the Lu people, insisted that this was a one-sided statement. According to him, pirates from the Lussia Navy recently landed ashore and were then unprepared to be raided by Fuso. As for the confession, it was tortured.

The product is completely insufficient as evidence.

Therefore, he asked the shogunate to apologize and pay compensation and severely punish the parties involved.

However, the Lu envoy then made a big mistake - when he saw that his negotiating opponent was weak, he opened his mouth and proposed that Fuso would cede the northern Ezo land to Lucia.

The shogunate was originally prepared to settle the matter and admit it even with some money, but the Lucia envoy was so confusing and greedy that it completely aroused the resentment of the important ministers. The foreign trade officials who went to negotiate changed their previous tolerance and became tough.

stand up.

According to the words of Chuanlu Shengmo, the leader of the negotiations, "Griefing is for seeking perfection, but 'perfection' is no longer available, so what is the point of grievance!"

This change in attitude of the shogunate was actually affected by external factors:

More than a month ago, the Anglo-French coalition defeated the Tang Dynasty, and the draft of the Jinmen Agreement was completed. Fusang was shocked by the news. After evaluation, the shogunate decided to open up the country for trade, so as not to "repeat the mistakes of its neighboring countries."

But unexpectedly, things happened again:

The Xianheng Foreign Company sent a steam clipper to report that on June 25, 1858, twelve Anglo-French warships attacked the Taku Fort again, but the result was a disastrous defeat, and even Admiral James Hope was seriously injured.

After hearing the news, the attitudes of many ministers were shaken, and they felt that even if the country was opened to trade, there would be no need to make too many concessions. However, in the end, the original view of "one should not launch unplanned troops to kill lives" prevailed.

But what I never expected was that the special envoy of the Lu people actually made a request to cede territory!

It was clearly an invasion, but the result was to confuse right and wrong. It went so far that it pushed the shogunate into a corner from which it could not turn. After the invasion failed, it even proposed to cede territory. It can be said that the intention to destroy Fuso was undisguised. This time, even the most solemn

All the ministers had nothing to say.

However, falling out immediately was not the first choice - the shogunate still did not have the courage, so it decided to ask the three special envoys of Mi Ren, Lan Guo and Yingji to help coordinate.

At this time, the three special envoys are not all in Uraga:

Harris, the rice envoy, came to the field in July of the third year of Anzheng (1856) and never left;

Curtius, the special envoy of the Lan Kingdom, was in June of the fifth year of Jiayong (1852).

He went to Nagasaki to take over the Ranguo Trading Company, and was later appointed as a special envoy. In March this year, he went to Edo to pay homage to the emperor. Now he has returned to Nagasaki and is discussing a trade agreement with Oguri Tadjun and others;

As for the English envoy Elgin, he came closely following the Lucian envoy and is now on Uraga's warship.

It was late June in the Heli calendar, and the trade agreement between the shogunate and the Mi people had been signed, while the agreement with the British was still being negotiated. If the British were asked to coordinate at this time, Elgin would definitely take the opportunity to demand benefits, but now he had no choice but to

A dead horse is treated as a living horse doctor.

Not to mention that the Languo envoy was far away in Nagasaki, the two special envoys, Mi and Ying, actively launched their activities after receiving the request from the shogunate. Within a few days, they notified the shogunate that the matter was clear-the Lucians agreed to form a four-party coordination meeting.

, specifically discussing the battle of the White Lord.

The Coordination Council adopts Western court procedures, with special envoys Mi and Ying serving as judges, and the ruling will be made after Lucia and Fuso submit their evidence.

However, everyone in Edo is not optimistic about this form - people who are not from my race must have different minds. People with the same culture and race, how can their elbows turn outwards? In the end, it is not Fuso himself who suffers!

In fact, the shogunate was also prepared for this and had reached an agreement with all parties before the court session. "The coordination committee can only decide what is right and what is wrong, but cannot determine the specific amount of compensation."

In other words, after deciding who was right and who was wrong, Lucia and Fuso discussed compensation matters.

To put it bluntly, because the Lucians were unreasonable and the shogunate was unwilling to start a war, they just found this step to relax.

This incident caused a sensation in all parties, and many people applied to observe. In the end, the coordination meeting decided to borrow the official hall of the Uraga Executive Office, and the number of observers was 30, half of which were arranged by the shogunate themselves, and the other half by the Western Three Kingdoms themselves.

Decide on candidates.

After asking Fuso to familiarize themselves with the procedures, the coordination meeting opened on June 21, the fifth year of the Anzheng Period (1858). The plaintiff was Ignatiev, the special envoy to Russia, and the defendant was the former shogunate Hakushou Hideo Hide.

The process went as expected by the officials of the shogunate. As the judges, the Mi people and the British people showed partiality to Lucia many times.

In fact, the shogunate was very well prepared:

Since Naohide arrived in Edo last year on standby, photos, confessions of captured Lucians, the merchant ship that caused the incident, and witnesses related to Lord Shiro have all been gathered in Edo - Naohide took the matter on himself, so Lord White

Not many of the backbone were involved, only a dozen ashigaru, town residents, fishermen and dock workers were involved.

No matter how rigorous and thorough you are, the Lucians are unreasonable.

Lu people's lawyers used their rich experience to put forward many fallacies:

He insisted that the Lucian navy chased the pirates and landed ashore, implying that the White Lord was harboring the pirates;

The Fuso cargo ship involved in the incident had already been sunk at the dock by the Lucian Navy. Therefore, there was no evidence to prove the death. The shogunate sent Naohide's lawyer Jisaku Ruanfu, and Sugita Narukyo was furious;

As for the signed confessions of the captured Lu people, Lu Xia's lawyer refused to admit it on the grounds that they were coerced. He also asked several captured navy soldiers to retract their confessions in court, saying that the white masters had abused them many times and that the confessions were torture.

the product of;

The witnesses on Master Bai’s side were also questioned many times by him in the name of interests;

The most annoying thing is that the photos provided were also questioned by the other party as being staged.

"Then what can be regarded as conclusive and irrefutable evidence?!"

Facing the questions raised by Fuso's lawyer, the two judges from England and America were speechless.

However, seizing on the excuse of procedural fairness, the two magistrates declared many of Fuso's evidence and testimonies invalid.

open

After three days of court proceedings, even the Westerners who were attending the meeting could no longer stand it and left the table in protest. As for the fifteen audience members arranged by the shogunate, all of them had long since been kicked out in the name of disrupting discipline.

Seeing the situation deteriorating step by step, Naohide had no choice but to take action personally.

In the final analysis, the two professors at the Tibetan Law School, Minsaku Ruan Fu and Sugita Chengqing, still do not know much about Western law and cannot appreciate the essence of "procedural justice" and "reasonable and well-founded" law.

Anyway, the two of them felt that it was impossible. After reporting the matter to the shogunate, Naohide began to defend himself.

Based on the "Right of War and Peace" and the "Public Law of Nations" of the Law of Nations, he fought with the Lucians in terms of war system and war regulations, maritime passage, seaside restrictions, personal protection, etc.

First of all, he used the documents issued by the English captain James at the time as evidence to prove that the White House had never mistreated prisoners of war;

Secondly, based on international practice, he explained that the landing of the Lussia naval forces was an illegal act - although the Lu people's lawyers argued that the White Army first bombarded the Lu side's warships, which triggered the war. But at that time, Lussia and Fusang did not have any

It is agreed that the intrusion into territorial waters cannot be cleansed no matter what.

Finally, the Lu people became angry and said that the White Navy would start a war on the high seas first. As soon as this was said, the whole audience burst into laughter - the Fuso Navy was notoriously weak, and no one believed that they dared to attack foreign warships!

Therefore, in two days the Lusiya people were defeated, so the special envoy of the Lu people applied for an adjournment of the court on June 26th in the Heli calendar.

At this point, the negotiation of the dispute came to an end. It is said that even the two special envoys of Britain and the United States said privately, "If it continues, the shogunate has a great chance of winning."

The Western people who were watching also had a great change in their view of Fusang:

It is one thing that Naohsiu is fluent in English, but it means that Fuso is not a completely closed and backward country;

What is even more surprising to these people is that there are actually people in Fuso who know the two classics of the Law of Peoples, "The Right to War and Peace" and "The Law of Nations"! How can I say this? It is as surprising as discovering muskets in a native tribe!

However, the development of the situation has unexpectedly worsened!

Late at night when the court was adjourned on June 26, five Lucia warships unexpectedly pulled anchor and sailed north, only to be discovered the next morning. Moreover, the Lu people’s envoy was also missing, which caused great uneasiness in the shogunate!

At this time, Edo already had steam warships and larger sail warships, but after careful consideration, the shogunate center still did not send a warship to follow - this was for fear that the Lu people would deliberately provoke a war.

Finally, on the afternoon of June 27, the Uraga navy sent two high-speed communication ships to rush to Hakodate and Shirozu to report the news. It was not known whether they would arrive in time.

The shogunate also specifically asked Harris, the Mi people's envoy, and Elgin, the English envoy, for help. In the end, both of them said that the Lu people had not reported their whereabouts, and reassured the envoys, "Rusia is also a civilized country, so there is no need to speculate on it."

But an uneasy premonition has always hung over the heads of the Edo shogunate.

However, the internal fighting within the shogunate that was unknown to everyone had reached its peak at this time. Previously, two elders were dismissed on June 23 of the Japanese calendar, and four Yurenzhi daimyo were scolded on June 24, so it was also

No more measures can be taken, we can only take it one step at a time.

On July 22nd, the news from the Northland finally reached Edo, and Lucia took action as expected. On July 7th, the Lu navy attacked Hakodate, and four days later they attacked Shirozu.

Because the clipper merchant ship from the North also returned at the same time, the news was not successfully blocked and spread throughout Edo overnight, causing a great turmoil!
Chapter completed!