Bai Le asked: "If Your Highness does not participate, can you give me some advice?"

Li Junwei shook his head: "No, don't participate, after all, you are about to return to Beijing, so it's best not to get involved in this kind of thing. This time, why not go back to Beijing with me?"

Li Junwei has been in contact with Bai Le for a few days and feels quite good. Li Zhaocheng has a good impression of him. In addition to the relationship between the British Prince's Mansion, Li Junwei also intends to support the other party.

Bai Le smiled bitterly: "Even if I don't want to participate, I'm afraid I can't avoid it."

"Are you an empire ambassador to Guangnan? Is it appropriate for you to participate in the internal affairs of Guangnan?" Li Junwei asked in confusion.

"Your Highness, this is not a question of whether it is appropriate or not, but this is the duty of the minister."

"Control matters between vassal states is also the responsibility of diplomats?" Li Junwei was even more puzzled, but Bai Le nodded with certainty: "Your Highness, you have been familiar with major power diplomacy over the years, Western diplomacy, and the situation within our vassal system."

Bai Le ordered people to move forward quickly, avoid these Japanese, and gave a simple explanation.

Guangnan is a vassal state of the empire, and Japan is currently the same. Especially the Japanese who are causing trouble, all of them are from the vassal states in southwest Japan. They are relatively independent regimes and have independent foreign relations. But the problem is that both Guangnan and Japan are small countries, with a population of less than one million.

Generally speaking, the most important thing in the foreign relations of these countries is their relationship with the empire. For example, Annan and Guangnan have reached peace under the mediation of the empire and each established one country, but neither side has sent envoys to each other, but they also have exchanged with each other. If the citizens have problems in the other side, they will directly look for the embassy of the embassy in the country.

The vassal states of Nanyang only sent one mission in the Empire Shin Kyung and Penang, and most of them did not send an mission to other countries. If there was any problem, they just asked the Empire to participate and mediate.

Guangnan is still quite special. Because its foreign economy is prosperous, they sent envoys to Siam and Japan, but the problem is that it is a very capable team, so capable that there are often only a few people. For example, Guangnan’s consulate in Nagasaki rented a small house next to the Imperial Consulate and opened the courtyard wall. If you encounter any problems, you should go to the Imperial Consulate.

After all, these are small countries, and sending dozens of people to station in foreign countries is extremely expensive for them.

Therefore, diplomatic envoys stationed in vassal states of the empire often had to act on diplomatic affairs of more than a dozen countries. In the words of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, this is when brothers fight and they all ask their father to judge.

Li Junwei shook his head helplessly, thinking that nothing was easy, so he said to his son: "Zhaocheng, from today on, will you help Bai Le?"

"Ah? I, what can I do, what can I do, and why do I ask me to help?" Li Zhaocheng looked puzzled, but Li Junwei's answer made him even more puzzled: "I asked you to help because you are unwilling to help, and you will not help."

After saying that, Li Junwei got off the carriage and returned to the consulate to enjoy his ice cream.

"Your Highness...what does this mean, the second young master?" Bai Le grinned, not understanding a single sentence.

Li Zhaocheng shook his head: "Who knows what mysteriously said? Anyway, I'll just help me. Tell me, Lord Bai, what can I do?"

When Bai Le saw that Li Zhaocheng was really willing to help, he immediately said, "No need to do anything. You can change your clothes and attend the meeting. With your identity as the second son of Prince Yu's Mansion and a son of the imperial family, everything is easy to say."

"Will you just hang up my photo?" Li Zhaocheng spread his hands and said half-jokingly.

Li Junwei asked his son not to help, but to experience it. Because this time his two sons traveled west, Li Junwei discovered that his second son had a problem, that is, he was too easy-going, so easy-going that he had no airs and no majesty.

This is really bad. After all, he is a child of the royal family. Even if he does not become an emperor in the future, he must have a certain attitude whenever he achieves something.

Li Junwei found that his second son didn't care much about these things, he was thick-skinned and did not feel embarrassed at all. But he was not completely embarrassed. He did not feel embarrassed at all, but he was afraid of losing the royal family. Then this was easy. Wherever he needed to show his demeanor the most, he should be cautious in what place and prevent embarrassment at all times. Isn't it just a diplomatic occasion? If he was embarrassed, he would be a loser in the country.

Li Zhaocheng believed that the mediation that Bai Le, the empire's ambassador to Guangnan, should be preparing a meeting in the large office of the consulate. Both sides were arranged on both sides, raised their own national flags, and then made statements under Bai Le's appointment.

Describe your interest demands and rationality, accuse the other party of his wrong behavior, and after the in-depth and friendly conversation between the two parties, Bai Le came forward, each hitting 50 slaps, and then slaps one by one and ended the matter.

But the fact is not the case at all. The so-called mediation is very simple. Guangnan Kingdom sent the right prime minister and the head of the Ministry of Rites. The Japanese side was the envoy of the Satsuma vassal in Guangnan and the Japanese president of the Nanyang Merchant Federation. After the four people arrived, Bai Le was not polite at all and directly scolded him in the office, even hearing it upstairs and downstairs.

This is true when each beats the fifty-year-old board. After scolding Guangnan, he bribed imperial officials and scolded the Japanese to disturb the throne's car, Li Zhaocheng sat aside, enduring the sweat caused by the dress on his body. According to the script given by Bai Le, he just threw down a sentence.

"If it cannot be resolved, go to Shinkyong to negotiate textile quota."

This is a loud and painful slap. With such a slap, you don’t even have to give sweet dates, so both sides were convinced, saying that they would not pursue each other and re-engage in friendly consultations.

The reason for this is that they are really worried that the textile quota consultation meeting will be decided to go to Shinkyo. If that is the case, neither side will suffer any benefits. This consultation meeting will be decided in Hue, Guangnan, and the next time it will be decided in Nagasaki, it will be won by the two countries through great hardships.

The reason is very simple. When the two countries negotiate, the difference is how much this cake can be cut by itself. If you go to the Empire Shenjing for consultation, whether this cake has it is a question.

After all, the largest textile power in the world is the empire.

The problem of textile quota stems from the changes in the empire's foreign economic policies. Thirty years ago, the empire had been promoting free trade, believing that this was equal and beneficial to all countries. But the problem is that after so many years of policy publicity, no country followed.

All countries in the world, facing the industrialized products of the empire, take the initiative to lock in the country or use tariffs to control trade. In the interactions with Western countries, overseas colonies are even more exclusive economic zones.

Therefore, free trade has gradually shifted to reciprocal trade, that is, the two sides have reciprocal restrictions and opening up. The empire's requirement is that the empire must never be allowed to have a trade deficit with European countries.

However, in the East, the empire's general trade surplus with vassal states led to the general outflow of precious metals in various countries, causing many problems. However, the vassal states were originally politically unequal to the empire and could not be economically equal. Therefore, in terms of trade policies against vassal states, the empire would deliberately tilt its trade policies and gradually resolve trade restrictions on the empire through trade negotiations.

Reciprocal trade still exists, but what is entangled is no longer trade volume, but trade authority.

For example, in Japan, rice was a hard currency in Japan for a long time, and rice was used to pay wages to samurai and the army. However, after Japan was forced to establish a country, cheap rice from Southeast Asia entered Japan, directly destroying the value of Japanese rice and forcing Japan to establish a more advanced monetary system.

Because of this, Japan implemented various policies to restrict the entry of overseas rice into Japan. For a period of time, it even claimed that rice in Southeast Asia was grown from smokey land and was poisonous and women could not have children after eating it.

In addition to limiting the import quantity of rice, Japan has also long implemented an overseas rice official sales system, completely monopolizing the sales of foreign grains in Japan, which greatly harmed the interests of the imperial grain merchants. If it were just rice, it would be fine. After all, the Empire is not the main exporter of rice, Java, Siam, and Annan, but the Empire is the main exporter of soybeans, corn, sorghum and other miscellaneous grains and feed. The Empire's three provinces of the North Sea and several appeasement zones in the inner Xinjiang region rely more on the Japanese market.

In order to lift this restriction, the empire proposed a textile quota plan for profit.

There are actually two types of textile quotas, one is the textile entry quota, and the other is the textile raw material quota. The former is mainly silk fabrics, and Guangnan and Japan both produced silk. In the early years, Japan imported raw silk from the Ming Dynasty, but with the rise of the empire, the demand for silk fabrics increased greatly, which made the price of silk fabrics soar, and it was profitable for Japan to produce silk fabrics.

Therefore, Japan gradually went from exporting silk cocoons to introducing imperial textile machines to producing raw silk, and then to silk fabrics. A complete set of industries have been formed, especially the two vassal states of the Satsuma and the Choshu clan. The export of silk fabrics is the main commodity for its export tax creation.

The two countries of Japan and Guangnan have huge differences from the empire. The empire is a country with sound laws and has laws to protect workers, resulting in a continuous increase in labor costs. Unlike Japan and Guangnan, there are poor people here, especially Japan, and some people, and the labor costs alone give their silk fabrics an absolute cost advantage.

Japan also introduced advanced textile machinery and management methods from the empire, and it was able to plant mulberry trees and raise silkworms, which led to the popularity of Japanese silk fabrics.

In order to protect the empire's silk fabric industry, the empire used tariffs as a means to adjust it. This adjustment not only ensures the interests of the empire's silk fabric industry, but also ensures that the price of silk fabrics is maintained at a reasonable level. After all, the number of people engaged in the industry cannot be compared with the general public. In order to protect an industry, all consumers cannot suffer losses.

Silk fabrics from Japan are important weights for internal adjustment.

The textile raw material quota has almost nothing to do with silk fabrics and can almost be called cotton quota. Neither Japan nor Guangnan can produce cotton on a large scale, and its domestic cotton market was once completely controlled by the empire.

However, Japan controlled its own cotton cloth market and gradually slapped heavy taxes on the cotton cloth produced by the empire. Faced with the strong pressure from the empire, it turned to support the imperial merchants to invest and build factories in Japan. The result was that Japan gradually had a cotton textile industry, but Japan could introduce factories, textile machines, and dyeing machines, but the chronic disease of not being able to produce cotton in the country cannot be solved.

The Empire exchanged the share of cotton exports to Japan for Japan to reduce the Imperial cotton tariffs.

In fact, what Guangnan and Japan compete for the most is the share of textiles, especially silk fabrics, which are the pillar industries of the two countries.

It is not difficult to suppress this quota dispute. The key is how to resolve it. Li Zhaocheng saw that after Bai Le controlled the situation, he worked continuously for several days. While meeting with representatives of the two countries, he kept contacting Shen Jing with telegrams and formulating various forms, in order to calculate how to allocate shares to make it more reasonable.

"This is actually not a matter of textile share." Facing Li Zhaocheng's inquiry, Bai Le raised his head and said helplessly: "This is a matter that affects the whole body. The quota for silk fabrics entering the customs is not allocated well, and the cotton share is also topped. If the entire textile share is not allocated well, Japan will restrict the food exported by the empire, and Guangnan will also move the empire's factories in its domestic areas, one by one. What's more terrifying is that this is involved in all parties in the country, which is a headache..."

Li Zhaocheng looked at the completed report and found that allocating silk quotas seemed to be just an appearance, and the most important thing was the cotton quota. The quota set by the Empire for the two countries was to provide the two countries with 90% of the raw cotton they needed, so that the cotton textile mills in the two countries would not allow them to gain the ability to compete with the Empire for cotton production.

However, both countries demanded that cotton quotas be increased, and even canceled, completely allowing cotton to be exported freely to both countries.

Li Zhaocheng looked at the telegram on the table and found that there were very few telegrams from the official ones, and a large number of telegrams came from economic organizations, the Imperial Cotton Farmers Association, the Textile Chamber of Commerce, the Southeast Chamber of Commerce, etc. These people put pressure on Bai Le to increase the cotton quota, which was the greatest cooperation and support for Guangnan and Japan.

"How do I feel... This mediation is a show for us. Rather than saying that the two countries cannot share the cake well, it is better to take the opportunity to make trouble, so that we can solve the problem of sharing the cake by expanding the cake." Li Zhaocheng said with a frown.

Bai Le's eyes lit up: "Second Young Master, you are really worthy of being the young master of the Yu Wang family, and you are very talented. This may not be a scheduled in advance, but the cooperation between the two countries is tacitly understood."

Li Zhaocheng nodded: "No wonder you only slap your hands and don't give sweet dates. It turns out that these bastards came for sweet dates."

Bai Le nodded with gratitude: "That's what it means, so I have already figured out the quota for textiles. I will set it immediately, but I will talk about the quota for cotton after I return to Beijing. There must be other tricks here, otherwise, I, a small ambassador, would not have received so many telegrams."
Chapter completed!