Chapter 1108

“Her Majesty the Queen has agreed to Your Majesty’s request and is prepared to ransom them for two hundred pounds per soldier.”

After entering this meeting room, Brooke completely put away his arrogance, and his expression became humble. As a defeated person, he knew what he should do now, after all, the lives of tens of thousands of British soldiers were in their hands.

Xiao Ming was stunned for a moment. He had not expected that the British would agree so readily this time. Pang Yukun, on the other hand, looked as if he had suffered a loss, and regretted that he had asked for too low a price. “That’s refreshing. This is the attitude for negotiation,” Xiao Ming said.

Brooke showed a smile. He then said, “However, the prerequisite is that Your Majesty agrees to no longer blockade the shipping lanes, so that the British can freely trade anywhere in the world. Of course, what we look forward to the most is establishing trade with your country.”

“Your Queen Victoria is indeed a shrewd person, but wanting to gain the right to free navigation with so little in pounds is a bit excessive. But it’s not impossible, as long as your merchant ships pay the Empire a three-tenths profit share as an escort fee. Otherwise, I cannot guarantee that they will not be attacked by pirates,” Xiao Ming said with an at-ease expression.

The initiative was now in his hands. It was not easy for the British to gain an advantage from him.

Brooke seemed to have a plan in place as well. He said, “Does Your Majesty mean all the shipping lanes in the world?”

“Do you think that’s possible? From the Cape of Good Hope to the Empire’s shipping lanes.” Xiao Ming sneered. He would not allow these British to set a trap for him.

In fact, ensuring safety at sea in this era was very difficult. The ocean was simply too vast. The Empire’s warships were like a handful of sand in the Yangtze River when they were put into the ocean.

Seeing Xiao Ming’s words become stern, Brooke stopped at the right time. The British parliament had given him full authority for this trip, and he had made many preparations in advance.

This point was also in his plan, as the British navy had also bullied other countries’ merchant ships in this way. So he said, “We also agree to this point.”

Xiao Ming smiled. Compared to the soldiers’ ransom, the income from the trade routes was a constant and significant source of wealth.

However, this all depended on the close trade relationship between the Empire and Europe.

So the next step was for him to open up the British market. He said, “Now let’s talk about war reparations. We will not talk about war indemnities. I demand that you open London as a commercial port for the Empire and allow the Empire’s merchants to trade in Britain.”

When this was mentioned, Brooke’s face immediately flushed with embarrassment. There was a time when this was how they dealt with indigenous countries. Now, the Chinese Empire was using this against them.

However, even so, the parliament had unanimously passed this point. One of his purposes for coming here was to establish trade relations. For them, making London a free trade port between the two countries had both advantages and disadvantages.

The advantage was that they could purchase various industrial products from the Eastern Empire to replicate, and the disadvantage was that Britain’s local industries might suffer a heavy blow.

But after weighing their options, they still leaned towards the advantages, because they were now lagging behind. As long as they could achieve technological progress, sacrificing their own country’s market was worth it.

When their industrial capacity caught up in the future, they could then use policies to drive out the Eastern Empire’s industrial products and support their own domestic industrial products.

“This point makes things very difficult for us, but it is not impossible to agree to. However, the parliament hopes that your country will open up some patents to Britain. We are willing to purchase your country’s technology patents at a high price, such as steelmaking technology, bearing technology, steel ball production technology, and so on.”

“You have quite an appetite.” Pang Yukun could not help but interject. In the six prefectures, this kind of thing called patents was established more than ten years ago.

Now, the archives of the patent office held tens of thousands of the Empire’s patented technical documents. These documents were all protected by the Empire’s law.

Without the patent holder’s application, no individual or organization could use the technology in the patent for profit.

Now that Brooke wanted to use the patents, it meant that the Empire would have to disclose the technical documents to them in exchange for patent fees.

In modern times, Western countries used patent fees to extract a lot of wealth from China.

Brooke said, “Your Majesty, this is just a transaction. We will use your country’s technology and pay an expensive fee for it. This is a considerable income for your country. Why not?”

“And then you can copy our technology and improve your Britain’s industrial capacity,” Xiao Ming came from the present and was very clear about this.

Brooke did not deny it. He said, “Is Your Majesty afraid that our Britain will catch up to you?”

“There is no doubt that you have already been completely left behind by us. But it’s not possible to have the Empire sell important technology to you with just a small amount of money. You should stop your wild fantasies about this.”

Brooke said calmly, “Your Majesty, we still hope you will consider it. The technologies I just mentioned are currently being worked on by our country’s top talents. With the knowledge reserves we have, I believe they will be successfully researched one after another. At that time, these patents will be worthless.”

The atmosphere in the meeting room immediately turned cold. Everyone understood what Brooke meant. It was clear that the British now had a lot of fundamental knowledge and were now applying that knowledge.

After a moment of thought, Xiao Ming said, “I will consider this point. But before that, I will send people to investigate. If what you said is true, it is not a problem to sell these patents to you in advance. Secondly, in the name of the Emperor of the Chinese Empire, I demand the extradition of those two traitors. If you do not agree, this point is non-negotiable.”

“That is acceptable.” Brooke readily agreed. Those two people were no longer of any use to Britain now.

All the things they had mastered were now in the hands of British scientists. It was very cost-effective to exchange these two people for some patents.

Xiao Ming nodded slightly. The patents that Brooke mentioned were just technologies from more than ten years ago in the six prefectures. The Empire now had much more advanced technology.

It was still very cost-effective to use these technologies to exchange for wealth and promote the Empire’s technological development, because according to the intelligence he had received, there was some truth to Brooke’s words.

If the people he sent could confirm Britain’s technological level, there would be no need for him to hide anything. Acting early was the best policy.

However, of the conditions he had put forward, the second one was the most vicious. Once those two people were extradited, it would be a serious warning to those in the country who were preparing to flee to Europe to betray the country.

Because no matter where they were, they would ultimately not be able to escape the Empire’s punishment.