When British Foreign Secretary Curzon met British Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin, he always felt a bit of a grudge in his heart. But on the surface, Curzon had to maintain respect for Prime Minister Baldwin, which inevitably expanded the grudge.

Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin took the report submitted by the British Foreign Office and began to read it, giving Curzon time to calm his displeasure. The Prime Minister's conference room in Downing Street was very spacious. Offices in the Downing Street building generally had 10-30 square meters, but the rectangular Prime Minister's conference room exceeded 70 square meters.

The Prime Minister sat in the center of the long side of the long table in the conference room, flanked by the Prime Minister's secretary and the Prime Minister's political advisor. The Cabinet Secretary, who was also the Head of the Civil Service, sat at the short side of the long table near the door, facilitating the civil service leader, who called himself a 'humble public servant of society,' to enter and exit the conference room and coordinate the Prime Minister's various meeting processes.

This position should actually have belonged to Curzon, at least Curzon himself thought so. In May 1923, the then-Prime Minister Bonar Law was confirmed to have cancer, and it was terminal, so he decided to resign as Prime Minister immediately. Since the main elders of the Conservative Party were all outside the cabinet at that time, there were only two suitable candidates, namely the then-Foreign Secretary Lord Curzon and Baldwin.

However, things turned out differently from what Curzon expected; ultimately, Baldwin won the Prime Ministership. Curzon learned part of the inside story after inquiring carefully.

Ultimately, Baldwin was elected Prime Minister. Curzon learned the inside story that made him extremely unhappy: those conservative MPs thought Curzon lacked experience in domestic affairs, and some thought Curzon was annoying.

But Prime Minister Baldwin, supported by Conservative MPs, because he wanted to promote trade protection policies and failed to understand He Rui's determination to unify China, hastily held a re-election just half a year after taking office, wanting to obtain an absolute majority in parliament. Unexpectedly, Britain did not support trade protectionist policies domestically, causing the number of seats in the House of Commons to drop from 304 to only 258. Correspondingly, the Labour Party won 191 seats, and the Liberal Party also won 159 seats, a significant increase in seats.

After experiencing this disastrous end to the 1923 general election, Baldwin remained Prime Minister until the opening ceremony of the new parliament in January 1924. Subsequently, his government collapsed because a motion of no confidence was passed, and Baldwin resigned as Prime Minister.

Curzon always believed that if he were the Prime Minister, he would never have made such a big joke. There was no need to touch on the issue of increasing protective tariffs domestically at all; just uniting with Japan to pressure He Rui would be enough to prevent He Rui from completing unification. Such achievements would naturally win a stable and large advantage for the Conservative Party.

With such unhappiness in his heart, Curzon saw that the Prime Minister had quickly browsed through the Foreign Office report. Curzon gathered his mood, ready to face the Prime Minister's inquiry.

Prime Minister Baldwin hesitated a bit. The approach to China provided by this report itself was quite tough, requiring the He Rui regime to fully accept its previous international status and recognize all old treaties.

After entering politics, Baldwin spent most of his time in the finance department. His understanding of the He Rui regime naturally started from finance. Baldwin could figure out very clearly that even if Britain imposed a trade blockade on China, and even if China lost tariff revenue, the rapidly improving domestic economic situation in China had improved China's overall fiscal situation. For Britain, this situation presented another form. Because it lost assets and privileges in China, Britain had been suffering losses in such a confrontation. From a financial perspective, such a situation must end as soon as possible. The longer the delay, the greater the loss for Britain.

Making a decision in his heart, Baldwin said, "Mr. Curzon, as an outstanding diplomat, do you have no way to solve the problem through diplomatic channels?"

Curzon had indeed made such preparations, but he didn't want to bring them out. So Curzon replied, "Your Excellency, do you think the He Rui regime will not be hijacked by domestic nationalist sentiments in China? Current diplomatic efforts will only make the He Rui regime think the British Empire is showing weakness."

"Oh, no. I don't think so. If the He Rui regime wants to develop the economy, they need to trade with the British Empire. As long as we are good at utilizing conditions in this regard, Britain has the opportunity to make the He Rui government reach an agreement with us."

"Prime Minister, the primary task at present is to stop the chain reaction triggered by He Rui." Curzon expressed a different view.

...

The Cabinet Secretary next to him saw this scene and was unsure for a moment whether the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary had swapped identities. The Prime Minister, who should have held a relatively tough attitude, proposed various plans to solve it as peacefully as possible, while the Foreign Secretary, who should have proposed various feasible plans to solve the problem, held a quite tough attitude.

After watching for a while, the Cabinet Secretary decided to play deaf and dumb. After all, Stanley Baldwin's path to Prime Minister was indeed somewhat magical. After Baldwin was forced to step down in 1924, the Labour cabinet that came to power was even weaker than Baldwin. With a series of disasters such as the British fleet being sunk in China and the fall of Hong Kong, the Labour cabinet collapsed in October 1924. After a re-election, Baldwin came to power again.

In the Cabinet Secretary's view, Baldwin had accepted the lesson of the Labour Party's collapse and did not want to repeat the same mistake. If the problem could be solved by relatively peaceful means, Baldwin did not want to provoke a meaningless war.

In the end, neither side could make the other compromise, so Baldwin took the lead in making a request, "Mr. Curzon, please go back and look at the analysis reports of these economic experts, and then we will discuss."

Facing the Prime Minister, Curzon naturally had a disadvantage in status. Since Baldwin said so, Curzon could only take the reports. But Curzon did not give up; he handed some assessments from economic experts invited by the Foreign Office to Baldwin. "Your Excellency, if you have time, you can also look at the suggestions of these experts."

When Curzon stood up and left, Baldwin stared unhappily at the closed door for more than ten seconds, then turned his head and handed the expert analysis report submitted by Curzon to the Prime Minister's private secretary. "Bernard, read this and tell me about it later."

The Cabinet Secretary looked at the Prime Minister's private secretary and couldn't help feeling a little sympathetic. The views of those experts were often contradictory, and it was not easy to describe these opposing views accurately and clearly.

Foreign Secretary Curzon returned to his office, threw the documents on the table unhappily, and ordered his secretary, "Read these documents and tell me about them later."

The secretary immediately picked up the documents and started reading. Just after reading the beginning of the first one, he said, "Your Excellency Curzon, this report is from the University of Birmingham."

Hearing the University of Birmingham, Curzon was slightly stunned and already had an idea. Generally speaking, the document placed at the top was what the other party wanted Curzon to see most. And the University of Birmingham happened to be the alma mater of the current Prime Minister Baldwin. Linking the two, it was hard not to think too much.

While Curzon took the report, the secretary quickly browsed through several other documents and laid them out one by one in front of Curzon. Curzon saw that these reports were all typed by typewriters, very neat. The one from the University of Birmingham was handwritten. Although the person who wrote the report had very beautiful handwriting, there were many alterations on it. Comparing the two, there was more intrinsic meaning.

Curzon did not dislike such manuscripts. Compared with those typed documents, manuscripts could better reflect the author's thinking process, which was also a deep understanding of the author's thinking ability.

Reading the report once, Curzon finished reading the reports of other economic experts and roughly understood Prime Minister Baldwin's attitude. The report from the University of Birmingham was based on a report by Lampson, a 'liaison officer' sent to China by the Foreign Office. Lampson stated in the report that after a long talk with Morrison, the Minister of Commerce of the He Rui government, he decided to believe Morrison's introduction to China's economic policy. He sent its content to Downing Street.

Curzon himself wanted to have a deep understanding of the economy, but he came from a noble background and was good at diplomacy. But he was indeed relatively weak in economics. Thinking of this, Curzon was also somewhat frustrated. The reasons those MPs opposed Curzon becoming Prime Minister were not only that Curzon was only good at diplomacy and did not understand the domestic economy. Lord George Curzon belonged to the House of Lords, which was inconsistent with the status of the Prime Minister (this consideration did not mean that any noble could not serve as Prime Minister); Lord Curzon had a noble background, but the Conservative Party was trying to hide its noble color at that time. These were all reasons for rejecting Curzon as Prime Minister.

Just for these reasons, electing Baldwin, who didn't study well and graduated from the University of Birmingham, made Curzon feel very unfair. But looking at it now, what really added points to Baldwin was probably that this guy had been hanging around in the economic department all along and indeed understood economics better than Curzon.

Anyway, Curzon had understood Baldwin's attitude. Now there were only two roads left in front of Curzon: one was to do as the Prime Minister thought, and the other was to go against the Prime Minister and then be dismissed by the Prime Minister. Curzon chose the first one without hesitation. Sir Curzon, an elite academic achiever, felt it was not worth it to perish politically with the academic slacker Baldwin for such a trivial matter.

So the new plan was submitted and passed. Soon, on February 20, the car of Lampson, the British liaison officer in China, stopped outside Iron Lion Alley. He saw the staff here moving documents and materials, looking like they were moving house.

Lampson knew about moving the capital. Thinking of the location of the new capital seen on the map, Lampson felt somewhat inexplicably unhappy about the vastness of China. Starting from the Second Opium War, Britain was familiar with how to break into the current capital. However, China's new capital was located in the center of China, requiring thousands of kilometers of travel after landing from the sea. The difficulty of making China submit through war had increased too much.

However, these impulsive thoughts belonging to fantasy were soon cast aside. Lampson faced the current reality and prepared to have a quite dangerous exchange with He Rui, the Chinese ruler who controlled millions of army troops.

He Rui received Lampson in a reception room. After meeting, Lampson presented a copy of the "Saigon Four-Power Joint Declaration." He Rui opened it and looked. It was written in the four languages of the four countries. He Rui was not an English major, and many words inside were not clear. However, combined with the Japanese version for comparison, he understood it clearly.

Lampson saw that He Rui was not only not angry but amused. This was not feigned, but truly amused, which inevitably gave rise to a feeling of being insulted. But Lampson knew why He Rui laughed, and also knew that if He Rui laughed, he laughed; he could only keep his lips tight and say nothing.

He Rui was indeed amused. Imperialist diplomacy in this era was so naked: '...The He Rui government changes the international order by illegal violent means and tears up international treaties, which is a huge threat to peace and justice...'

If the Manchu Qing or Beiyang government saw such an evaluation, they would probably be scared out of their wits. Because such a document would be followed by an announcement of military strikes. But this "Saigon Four-Power Joint Declaration" did not have one at the end. It could be seen that the British were quite capable of facing reality and had no intention of sticking their necks out.

With a happy mood, He Rui threw the document on the table in front of him. At this time, two cups of clear tea were served on the table. This time He Rui really couldn't be bothered to treat the foreigner with black tea; whatever He Rui drank, the foreigner could just follow suit.

Lampson thought that He Rui, a 35-year-old power holder, would be angry upon seeing the threat. However, after waiting for a while, he saw He Rui in a good mood and relaxed expression. He was truly somewhat surprised in his heart. He put down the jasmine tea he had drunk most of and decided to probe He Rui. "Your Excellency, in Europe's view, China is a major power full of aggressiveness."

He Rui nodded and replied very approvingly, "Indeed so. You have done too many bad things, so you always apply your own thinking to others. For example, thinking that the atrocities you inflicted on the colonies were inflicted on you reciprocally, even if the British died ten times over, they couldn't equal the number of people killed by you. I can completely understand your fear."

Facing such criticism, Lampson was unmoved. He replied calmly, "Your Excellency He Rui, why do you look at the world with such a victim mentality? With a strong person like you, you can naturally see the British Empire's outstanding efforts in spreading civilization. In the past few centuries, the British Empire has spared no effort to spread civilization to the whole world. Various tragedies naturally occurred in this process, but can you deny that the current world is moving towards a more civilized and wealthy direction?"

He Rui knew very well that most British people now were such imperialists, and he didn't bother to waste his breath arguing with such imperialism. He replied frankly, "The moment to liquidate the crimes of colonialism and imperialism will definitely come; Britain cannot escape it. I don't want to discuss this matter more now; I'm just quite interested in Mr. Lampson's view that China is a major power full of aggressiveness."

Lampson certainly knew what sins Britain had committed in these centuries. He Rui not picking out Britain's crimes one by one to scold also made Lampson much more relaxed. He took the opportunity to change the topic, "Your Excellency, even though China has fallen far behind Europe, the elites of your country I have contacted have a nearly paranoid confidence, believing that even if China falls behind in the short term, it will comprehensively surpass Europe in the future and become number one in the world again."

He Rui thought to himself, isn't this nonsense? He was considering whether to say something about this or wait for Lampson to continue. He saw a smile appear on Lampson's face. "Your Excellency, I can see that you are accustomed to such views and are not surprised at all. In Europe's view, this is an extremely aggressive attitude."

"...I would like to hear the details." He Rui became more interested.

"Believing it is only right to become number one in the world in that field is a manifestation of extreme competitiveness. If one believes one must become number one in the world in any field, it is not just a manifestation of multiple competitiveness, but a manifestation of aggressiveness. In the current world, if China can really achieve these, do you think China will continue to stay within its borders?"

After Lampson finished speaking, he picked up the teacup. At this time, the jasmine tea had been drunk for the most part. He reached out and picked up the teapot to fill his cup with tea, sipping it leisurely.

Instead, He Rui, hearing such a statement for the first time, could only think first. He Rui could understand the foreigners' train of thought, but He Rui couldn't substitute himself into the foreigners' thinking. After all, 'You are not a fish, how do you know the joy of fish?'

Hearing that Lampson, a diplomat of the world hegemon at this time, viewed China in this way, He Rui gradually felt that Lampson's words indeed represented the views of some European elites. It seemed that the so-called China Threat Theory was indeed true. And Napoleon's saying about what would happen when China woke up was also true.

Seeing He Rui looking thoughtful at this time, rather than the bored look of 'too lazy to pay attention to you,' Lampson understood that he had finally moved He Rui. He continued, "Your Excellency, can you understand now how important mutual threat is? If you are interested, can you discuss the future with me on the basis of mutual threat?"

He Rui nodded. "I would like to hear the details." After saying this, He Rui's mood naturally turned into his previous calm state. If it were before, He Rui wouldn't have felt any problem. Being told so by Lampson, He Rui realized that his mentality was seen by foreigners as more terrible than naked threats.

Even in Europe, which believes in monotheism, they are willing to use 'destiny' rather than 'fate' [inescapable doom] to describe life. If it is destiny, everyone can still struggle and strive, even if it is a little bit of space, at least they can create something of their own.

But fate is very terrible. Fate is not an unchangeable outcome. Once life becomes fate, every decision one thinks one makes by one's own will is a turning point arranged in advance. The more one strives to progress and struggles hard, the more one sends oneself just right onto the sacrificial altar planned by others, becoming a pathetic victim.

If people in fate were muddled, it would be fine; they wouldn't feel pain from sleep to death. However, people caught in fate are often awake, so at the end of the tragedy, they will question Heaven. Most questions will not receive any response; the unpredictable Heaven remains silent as if hearing nothing.

If occasionally some lucky ones, or unlucky ones, get a response, they will hear a revelation sent down by an emotionless voice, "The Lord does not care."

He Rui tried hard to put away the expression that could scare Lampson, although He Rui didn't know if his expression management could achieve the effect. Finally, He Rui gave up on something he had never practiced and said seriously in his usual state, "Mr. Lampson, I am willing to hear your views."