In the face of adversity, the Chinese workers in Peru longed for the care of their motherland, and sent their complaints back twice through officials of the U.S.
Embassy in Peru.A submission in the hands of President Meng wrote: "Since arriving in the port, the work has been continuous in the morning and dusk, and the forced labor has been inseparable from the cold and summer, and the rich and the poor have been bullied, and the good and the good have been despised for reason, and the contract has been regarded as old paper, and the lives of others have been rushed."
Food, clothing, industry and silver only know that they are stingy, haggard and tired, and they are not willing to be merciful.Common demands, constant beating and scolding, or being shackled and working hard, or enduring hunger and cold and ploughing and hoeing and difficult to stretch, with grievances and grievances. ”The resignation was submitted to the Qing government on April 16 of the following year, and the illegal trafficking of Chinese laborers in Peru, which had not signed a contract with the Qing government, was finally exposed."
The Qing government is incompetent" President Meng sighed and put down the submission, "I don't read it, the more I look at it, the more angry I become." ”Princess Katrina Kafu said with a smile: "It's the president himself who has to look at it, a weak country has no diplomacy, and it is indeed good to hand it over to Li Hongzhang, he can be angry, but the president can't." ”Peru's trafficking of Chinese laborers has also caused resentment in other capitalist countries.After the middle of the 19th century, Macao replaced Xiamen as the center of Western Chinese labor trafficking, according to incomplete statistics, 117429 Chinese laborers were trafficked from Macao in the past 10 years of 18641873, most of them to Cuba and Peru.In 1873, there were more than 300 pig parlors in Macao, all of which were run by Portuguese, Peruvian and Spanish people.The prosperity of the Chinese workers' trade in Macao has affected the interests of the United States, Britain, and other countries, because these countries, unlike the old colonial countries of Spain and Portugal, need to expand their foreign commodity markets, unlike Spain and Portugal, which regard the trade of Chinese workers as their only trade with the East, they naturally cannot tolerate the impact and interference of Macao's coolie trade on their so-called "legal" trade.Thus, Britain and the United States "are compelled to take effective steps in self-defence, even if not on noble grounds, to put an end to this trade so dangerous for their interests."
The Peruvian "Mayesi" was fully loaded, and more than 200 Chinese laborers returned to China, and these Chinese laborers were "stuck in the bilge like a prisoner, and the wind and wind were flowing day and day."
The Japanese authorities detained the ship "Mayesi" and notified the Qing government to conduct a joint investigation with the consuls of Britain and the United States in accordance with the practice of "having an appointment with Britain and the United States in a country without a treaty, and the consuls of Britain, the United States and other countries to conduct a joint investigation, and the captain of the ship and all 230 coolies on board were arraigned."
This is the first time that the captain of an ordinary coolie ship has been interrogated and convicted of his actions", so the incident has far-reaching international implications: first, it has attracted more attention than any other scandal involving the coolie trade, and more and more people have become aware of the evils of the coolie trade.Secondly, it confirms the alleged abuses of transporting coolies on their way to foreign countries.Finally, the trial also put Peru and Portugal at the center of the world's attention, forcing the governments of both countries to ban the coolie trade. ”At this time, Peru's sugarcane and cotton production and guano mining were in a prosperous period, and a large number of laborers were urgently needed, so "it became a major task for the Peruvian government to establish additional provisions that would allow the continued import of Chinese laborers to the satisfaction of China, as well as to the satisfaction of Peruvian commentaries and international public opinion."
The dispatch of envoys to China, which had been planned for a while, could not be delayed any longer.The envoys must embark on their journey immediately, and they must succeed, otherwise the Peruvian economy will be irreparably damaged.Captain Guersier was appointed Minister Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to Japan and China.And he soon achieved his desired goal in Japan, accumulating experience in negotiating with the mysterious Eastern Empire.The Peruvian envoys embarked on the road to China and began negotiations and negotiations.With the authorization of President Meng, Li Hongzhang began to negotiate with the Peruvians, and the two sides went through three rounds of difficult and unusual negotiations.From the very beginning, the focus of the Sino-Secretarial negotiations was on whether to repatriate Chinese workers or to make a treaty first.President Meng meant to let Peru unconditionally return the Chinese workers, and the travel expenses would be paid by the Chinese country, but Peru naturally refused, and the biggest purpose of the Peruvian government's request for Ge's trip to China was to promote the establishment of direct, frank and sincere contacts between the Peruvian government and the Chinese government and to make it finalized in the form of a treaty.In a letter to Li Hongzhang, the Secretariat of the President of Huaguo demanded that "because I heard that there was a mistreatment of Chinese workers in Peru, I ordered that the whole Chinese bank be sent back to China, and that confessions were not allowed before the treaty could be negotiated."
In the first head-to-head confrontation between the two sides, the envoy claimed that "there are more than 100,000 Chinese in the country, who are doing business or working as workers in the country, and that there is no such thing as suffering from torture, and that the newsprint rumors here and there are false and fabricated rumors are absolutely unreliable."
Li Hongzhang said that Peru "has never made trade with China, but has abducted many people to go abroad, and the cases that have been reported by the accusations are not only hated by the Chinese people, but also known to friends in the West." ”In the ninth year of Tongzhi, the U.S. minister forwarded the submission of Peruvian Chinese workers as evidence, and the envoy argued that "there is no such situation, the Chinese are all willing to go, and now most of them are living in Peru, and they do not want to return to China, how can they force the whole bank to send them back, but China should be protected, and its own country is afraid that China does not believe in peace, so it is here to discuss how to establish a charter to protect the law in the future, and China's Chinese-phobic workers will suffer losses, and send ministers to come to discuss with good intentions, there is nothing wrong in our country, if China does not consult, I am afraid that there will be comments from various countries", and said, "If China still does not believe it, Please send someone to Peru to check first".Li Hongzhang said, "The country has poisoned the Chinese at most, and it is difficult to discuss who is willing to serve as a consul or make it difficult to speak alone."
The two sides parted unhappily.In the second round of talks, the envoy vigorously defended Peru's crime of abusing Chinese laborers, and claimed that "even if the country sends an envoy to China to negotiate the treaty, if the treaty is concluded, it will be protected according to the treaty."
Li Hongzhang calmly said: "China has always put the people's lives first, and it cannot ignore it, and should send personnel to the country to find out whether there is really any mistreatment of Chinese workers before trying to deal with it properly."
Seeing that the goal could not be achieved, the envoy threatened to return to China if he was not allowed to make a contract, and the negotiations reached an impasse.Britain, the United States, and other Western countries began to intervene and carry out multi-party mediation, and Li Hongzhang calmly analyzed the situation and was ready to make some conditional concessions, "If you want to first investigate with the meeting that the statute is not a treaty, so as to gradually fold it down, or you can accept the urgency of our ministers, and still reply to the envoy in detail, and allow us to send personnel to investigate and draw up the four articles of the statute for investigation and handling, which is to meet and negotiate again." ”Under these circumstances, the negotiations could not continue, so the British envoy Wittoma "agreed to the presidential secretariat of the Chinese state that the Peruvian envoys should go to Beijing for a temporary stay, and only to count the friendship between the British and French ministers, not to deal with business, and to go to Tianjin again in the coming spring," and put the matter on hold for the time being, with the aim of "hoping to promote the negotiation of a treaty between China and Peru that all the embassies wish to see.""
The president is angry."
Li Hongzhang said tremblingly.After President Meng lost his temper, he sighed and said: "I know that it's useless to lose my temper, it's just annoyed, even if we don't have a strong navy, we can't pose a threat to this small country, they are not afraid of China becoming strong, not afraid of death" "The small state only cares about its immediate interests, besides, this is a problem left over from the Qing court." ”Li Hongzhang comforted.The third round of negotiations was held, and the arguments between the two sides were still fierce.With the support of diplomats such as May Willing, an interpreter at the British Embassy in Beijing, and Sassoon, a US consul, the envoy was arrogant and cunning.Sassoon's letter to US Secretary of State Willis mentioned in the main manifestations of the differences between the two sides: "First, Li Hongzhang refused to use the preliminary agreement as a "treaty" in Chinese.Second, the MFN clause should be included.Thirdly, the following recommendation was included in Colonel Guersier, namely, that China should undertake the obligation to sign an immigration agreement immediately after the report of the commission sent to Peru.Fourthly, Li Hongzhang insisted that this preliminary agreement, agreement or treaty currently under negotiation could be annulled on the basis of the Commission's report and would not oblige the Chinese Government to conclude any treaty in the future. ”Consul Sassoon mediated between the representatives of China and the Secretaries, and he told Li Hongzhang that "the Peruvian government ratifies the special agreement on immigration only depending on the results of the negotiations, so unless a treaty is concluded, China will certainly lose the benefits brought about by this special agreement" and proposed that "the United States clause should replace the objectionable immigration clause with a US clause that only stipulates free and voluntary immigration."
In the end, the stubborn envoy was persuaded to sign the special article of the Sino-Peruvian Conference and the Sino-Peruvian Treaty of Friendship and Commerce.The signing of the special articles and treaties won considerable rights and interests for the Chinese workers.For example, it is stipulated in the special article that if the contract of each Chinese worker does not have the word "return", the contract has expired, the worker is unable to pay the ship's own fare, and if he wishes to return to China, the secret country shall send the worker to the Chinese ship with the ship, and the ship's fare does not need to be provided by the worker, and the secret country shall take care of the following paragraphs in the treaty that are beneficial to the Chinese people.Therefore, "the signing of the Sino-Peruvian Treaty can be regarded as a small victory won by China in diplomacy, especially in its efforts to protect Chinese workers in Peru," and Li Hongzhang's contribution to this cannot be erased.Among them, President Meng has not intervened.However, President Meng is very angry, if China has its own navy, there is no need to suffer from these nests.The special stipulation of the Central Secret Council is: On the one hand, China will send personnel to the secret country to thoroughly investigate the situation of the Chinese people, and show the Chinese workers to make it known.On the one hand, the secret country has all the strength to help and receive it with courtesy.Therefore, soon after the signing of the Sino-secret treaty, Li Hongzhang actively looked for suitable talents to inspect Peru, and he soberly realized that "it is extremely difficult to serve the Peerless Territory today, and there are very different Chinese and foreign languages, laws and customs, that is, people with good character and knowledge are rashly traveling far away and are incompatible, so how to start, and Cuba only investigates the actual evidence, while Peru investigates and does both, and it is especially difficult for those who want to get harmonious and clear and take appropriate measures. and if you want to be proficient in English and Japanese, you must travel abroad without being Cantonese."
Therefore, Rong Hong, who has a deep discussion of Western studies and Western laws, became his first choice, because Li Hongzhang believes that Rong Hong "is familiar with foreign feelings, and will dare to argue with his peers, and his interests are still known.Rong Hong did not fail in his mission, and when he went to Peru, the investigation was completed within three months of reading with swift means, and all the reports were completed.The report is accompanied by a detailed testimony of Chinese workers and the words of Chinese workers in Peru, as well as "24 photographs."
Where the Chinese workers were flogged on their backs and were burned with scars, which made people unbearable to witness, Yu Nai took this photograph and presented them one by one in the eyes of the world.The factory of Chinese workers in Peru is a livestock farm.All kinds of barbaric actions in the field are brutal and unreasonable, and the photography is particularly eye-catching.With such conclusive evidence, there is no room for defense, no matter what is said.This provides a strong favorable basis for the Chinese government to take a tough stance on Peru's contract change.t1706231537: