Chapter 3507
Chapter 3507
Chapter 3507
The vast majority of guests attending the Zhoushan Forum were participating in an international exchange activity of this scale and level for the first time. On the first day, they inevitably felt very novel and were not sure whether they could express their views on various international current affairs in front of other countries.
However, the public speeches by Annan and the King of North Korea undoubtedly set an excellent example for the guests. Many guests who had originally been on the sidelines also took the stage to express their views.
A series of small-scale talks held that afternoon gave each country the opportunity to discuss cooperation and negotiate differences with other countries.
The main topic of the second day of the Zhoushan Forum was to explore civil war and the international environment.
This is a very broad topic, and it can be broken down into quite a few items worth exploring.
Almost all the countries attending the forum had experienced civil wars of varying sizes in their past history. The only exception was probably the host, Hai Han.
The Hai Han Kingdom was officially founded only thirty years ago, and during these thirty years, Hai Han has been expanding its territory almost non-stop, and all of its military operations have been directed externally, and there has indeed been no internal armed conflicts.
The person presiding over the meeting today was Hai Han's Minister of Defense Yan Chujie. He first invited several guests to come on stage to express their respective views. Most of them believed that civil war would weaken the country's strength. If the country was invaded by foreign enemies during the civil war, it would face the danger of national destruction.
Ming Dynasty ambassador Yue Shizong felt very uncomfortable listening to these guests. Although these guests did not mention any names, Yue Shizong felt that every word of their speeches was directly pointing at Ming Dynasty.
The civil war broke out in the Ming Dynasty and Hai Han appeared in the South China Sea in the same year. In the seventh year of the Tianqi reign, the peasant army that emerged in Shaanxi turned the heartland of the Ming Dynasty upside down.
Although the two emperors Tianqi and Chongzhen tried their best to suppress the peasant army, the Ming Dynasty was unable to concentrate its efforts to quell the civil war due to the presence of the Qing Dynasty in the north and Hai Han in the south. In addition, various party struggles and civil unrest continued, which dragged down the huge empire in 30 years.
Within the Ming officialdom, many people, including Yue Shizong, believed that if there had been no interference from external enemies, the Ming would have been able to wipe out the rebellious peasant army in the country long ago, and would not have caused such great chaos in the country.
On the other hand, if there had not been peasant armies causing trouble in the country, the Qing Dynasty and Hai Han would not have had the space to grow and develop. Before they could really gain momentum, the Ming cavalry would have crushed these two hidden dangers.
Unfortunately, the wheel of history cannot be reversed. Who could have imagined thirty years ago that the Heavenly Kingdom would be forced to embark on a path of rapid decline because of the rebellion of the peasant army?
Although the Ming Dynasty has not yet been destroyed, its territory has been severely encroached upon by Hai Han. Not only has it lost all its coastline, but it has also lost the most prosperous Jiangsu and Zhejiang regions. The gap in national strength between the two countries is also growing. It is probably a long way off to restore the glory of the empire.
Yue Shizong was lost in thought in the audience, while Yan Chujie on the stage had already brought up the topic of other civil wars in which Hai Han had intervened—including the Ming Dynasty, of course.
Although Hai Han did not directly participate in the war between the government army and the peasant army within the territory of the Ming Dynasty, a large number of weapons, equipment and military supplies that flowed into the Ming Dynasty from Hai Han did appear on the battlefield.
But today, even if Hai Han does not intervene, given the current situation of the Ming Dynasty, it seems unable to end the protracted civil war on its own.
The Ming Dynasty was not a successful case of Hai Han intervening in civil wars, and Yan Chujie did not waste words on it. The key examples he really wanted to use to illustrate his point were still Annan and Korea, the two countries with which Hai Han had the closest relations. Before Hai Han was officially founded, it had already sent troops to intervene in the ongoing civil war in Annan, and supported the Zheng family to win the civil war and become the ruler of Annan.
Yan Chujie described Hai Han’s action of sending troops to participate in the war at that time as “upholding justice,” and it effectively shortened the progress of the civil war and prevented tens of thousands of Annan people from being dragged into the war.
There seems to be nothing wrong with this statement. After all, after Hai Han intervened, the northern army led by Zheng Xun never suffered a defeat. It marched southward and defeated the Nguyen clan in the south without any ability to fight back until they were finally defeated and surrendered.
If Hai Han had not helped, the civil war in Annan might have gone on like that of the Ming Dynasty, year after year until the country collapsed.
The rapid rise of Annan after the end of the civil war seemed to prove that Hai Han had a good vision in choosing Zheng Xun, a suitable person to govern Annan.
The situation in Korea was slightly different from that in Annan. Hai Han had sent large-scale troops to Korea twice. One time was to help Korea repel the invasion of the Qing Dynasty. The other time was when a palace coup occurred in Korea in 1638. Hai Han sent troops to quell the rebellion and supported Lee Seong-hyun to ascend the throne.
As for the second palace coup, since Hai Han sent troops from nearby military bases in Korea, the situation had not yet developed to the civil war stage, and it had already been pacified by the Hai Han army.
Of course, when Yan Chujie told this story, it became another positive example of Hai Han's timely intervention. Otherwise, if it had been ten days or half a month later, a large-scale civil war might have already begun in North Korea.
Later, Zheng Zao and Li Yi, who were present at the scene, also confirmed Yan Chujie's statement.
After citing past successful examples at length, Yan Chujie finally began to get to the point – if a civil war broke out in one of Hai Han’s neighboring countries right now, should they stand by and watch, or should they actively intervene?
Yue Shizong came back to his senses when he heard this. Could it be that Hai Han wanted to use this as an excuse to once again launch military action against the Ming Dynasty?
However, last year's war with Hai Han was declared over only in late summer and early autumn. After several rounds of negotiations, the two countries finally signed a ceasefire agreement.
Although both sides knew that this armistice agreement might not be effective in the long term, the signing ceremony took place only half a year ago. Was Hai Han going to tear up the agreement and reignite the war so soon?
Yan Chujie had been performing on stage for so long, obviously paving the way for the next move. Yue Shizong's heartbeat suddenly quickened, and he quickly sat up straight and pricked up his ears, fearing that he would miss a word.
Someone asked in the audience: "Is the question raised by General Yan a hypothetical situation, or is there really a country in the midst of a civil war?"
Yan Chujie answered the question directly without any hesitation: "It's true. According to the intelligence we have, a civil war in this country is about to break out in the near future."
Someone responded, "Why not just follow what General Yan said before and help the righteous side to end the conflict as soon as possible to avoid loss of life."
Yan Chujie said, “If Hai Han were to make the judgment, it would be too one-sided. The purpose of holding this forum is to allow many countries to participate in the discussion of the international situation. I hope everyone can express their own opinions and state their views.”