Chapter 410 The commanding heights of public opinion (third update, please subscribe)

Street confrontations will not lead to war, at most they will only be conflicts.

"I think it's just a conflict of law enforcement authority."

At Prince Gaston's headquarters, Li Yunhao said with a smile.

"We just caught a few soldiers who were doing evil things."

Li Yunhao spoke lightly and casually, as if this matter was nothing at all.

As for things like murder and confrontation, in his opinion they were just trivial matters not worth mentioning.

It was just a conflict of words.

“It’s the Brazilian soldiers!”

Prince Gaston almost said this word for word.

"Freeman!"

Li Yunhao once again emphasized the identities of those people. Their identities were extremely special, they were not ordinary Brazilian soldiers, but just a group of, um... slaves, this was all the sin of the Brazilians.

"Freeman is also a Brazilian soldier,"

Gaston said unhappily.

"Not only did your people beat them, they also killed two of them, and the other is still in a coma. You say this is just a conflict of law enforcement power, but how do you explain this?"

No matter what, you can't kill people, right? You took a step back and killed someone. There is always a price to pay. How can you be so careless as if nothing happened?

In response to Prince Gaston's questioning, Li Yunhao replied.

"Your Highness, I think any gentleman, faced with a woman being bullied, would stand up and uphold justice. What do you think, Your Highness?"

"Um……"

Gaston nodded with some difficulty. How could he not know what kind of people those "freemen" were? A considerable part of the so-called atrocities committed by the Brazilian army were committed by them. Those people were not good at fighting, but they were good at robbery and killing.

The officers have complained to me about this a lot. In their opinion, it is the crimes committed by "Freeman" that have caused the Brazilian army to be criticized by the whole world.

Even the wives of some officers wrote to their husbands, accusing them of the crimes they had committed.

Of course, those officers are definitely not clean either, but that doesn’t stop them from putting all the blame on the “freeman”, but no matter what, those people are Brazilian soldiers after all.

"But they are Brazilian soldiers, and even if it is sanctions, they should be arrested by us."

The prince was a little unsure, how could he not know that the officers had no intention of maintaining military discipline.

"Look, Your Highness, this is the conflict of law enforcement authority I mentioned earlier."

Li Yunhao smiled.

"As for the deaths of those people, on the one hand, they brought it upon themselves, but on the other hand... well, I can only say that those criminals were too fragile and completely vulnerable. What do you think? There is no need for us to hurt the relationship between our two countries for a few "freemen"!"

Just a few "freemen"!

After learning the news, the thing that Li Yunhao was most grateful for was probably that those who died were "freemen". Maybe they were Brazilian soldiers, but they were just cannon fodder of the Brazilian army.

"We need corresponding compensation!"

Prince Gaston thought for a moment and said.

"After all, I need to report to the army. Maybe "freeman" is not worth mentioning, but the officers are very dissatisfied with the problem of your military police overstepping their authority in law enforcement. You know, those officers..."

Many of those officers are hostile to the royal family. They are supporters of the Republican Party, so we must give them some explanation!

Shrugging his shoulders helplessly, Prince Gaston sighed.

"We always need to take their emotions into consideration, otherwise, it will be difficult for me to control the discontent among the troops once it is aroused."

This is Brazil!

Li Yunhao thought to himself, what does Brazil look like?

Although it was an empire on the surface, there were a large number of republican officers in the officer corps. In this war, the power of the military was further strengthened. This is why the Brazilian emperor wanted to end the war. If the war continued, would it cause turmoil in Brazil?

"As law enforcement officers, we certainly cannot compensate for our law-abiding behavior. At most, we are over-enforcing the law."

Li Yunhao said directly.

"In this case, the Paraguayan government will provide compensation."

"Yes, sure."

After Prince Gaston agreed, Li Yunhao said again.

"In order to prevent this from happening again, I think we can discuss the issue of the military police's law enforcement powers. After all, we are all civilized people and we can't just turn a blind eye to the atrocities of the army!"

What is civilization?

The so-called civilization has always been defined by the strong.

But civilization can be disguised, and Nanhua is a pretender. From the beginning, it carefully put on a layer of "civilized country" shell for itself. The reason for putting on this shell is to grab the right to speak in the international community.

For Zhu Xianhai, who lives in the 21st century, he has witnessed time and again how the United States "practices" the arrogance of the principle that might is right, and of course he has also seen how they distort facts and seize international discourse power.

What is international discourse power?

"If you don't take it away, the enemy will take it away. Our skin color and our civilization have determined that we are destined to be at odds with Westerners. But this does not prevent us from striving for control of public opinion. We can report the facts truthfully or distort the facts. As long as we can turn them into a group of barbarians..."

After thinking about it, Zhu Xianhai said.

"Take the Turks, for example. Originally, the Turks were synonymous with barbarians in Europe, but the Russians never thought of using public opinion to gain a more favorable situation for themselves. What was the result?"

When talking about Russia's stupid behavior in the "Russo-Turkish War", Zhu Xianhai's tone was full of sarcasm.

"Their attack on Turkey by the Orthodox Christians was actually repelled by Britain and France. Although this was due to the international situation, Russia lost control of public opinion from the very beginning. The British and French governments called them "barbaric invaders", and Turkey was forced to fight. This is public opinion! If the Russians had portrayed themselves as "the savior of Christians under Turkey's cruel rule" from the beginning, the two countries would have had to consider the overwhelming public opinion even if they wanted to intervene."

What is the control over public opinion?

It may even directly influence the victory of the war. This is why Zhu Xianhai planned public opinion in advance and cleverly disguised himself in this war. To put it bluntly, it is to fight for the moral high ground.

The Japanese did a very good job in this regard during the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895. They even used bribery and other means to get the Times to publish an article to prove that Japan's sneak attack on the British-owned Qing Dynasty troop transport ship was correct and reasonable, and not a pirate act. Even the Port Arthur Massacre was directly disrespected by European and American public opinion.

As a Chinese, Zhu Xianhai certainly hated this and wanted to eat their bones, but on the other hand, he did not deny that their public opinion offensive was effective. On the contrary, the international public opinion participation of "our Tartar Qing" was a capital "0".

"Marshal, public opinion is now in our favor. The conflict in Yapesong further proves Nanhua's identity as the "protector of civilization", but..."

Zuo Zongtang looked at the Marshal and said.

"We started out occupying the moral high ground, but now it is very likely to become a burden to us. After all, we will eventually annex the whole of Argentina. How do we explain this annexation?"

Faced with Zuo Zongtang's question, Zhu Xianhai was stunned at first, then burst into laughter.

"Explain? Explain what?"

"That's a reason to annex Argentina!"

"reason?"

Looking at Zuo Zongtang, Zhu Xianhai said with a bit of disappointment.

"Ji Gao, what can I say about you? Not to mention that you have been investigating in Europe for such a long time, how do they define "civilization" and "barbarism", let's just look at what is written in the history books, the history books written by the Qing Dynasty themselves. When the Qing Dynasty entered the Pass, how did they explain their entry? They certainly didn't say, "My Great Qing conquered civilization with barbarism", what did they say? It wasn't "to avenge the previous emperor", it wasn't to follow the will of heaven! We..."

After a pause, he walked to the window and looked at Putrajaya outside. Zhu Xianhai's voice became low and powerful.

"We came here not to occupy this land, but to let the people of this land bathe in the light of civilization!"

"Of course, in order to prove that we are the "light of civilization", we still have to explain it. Well, we have to follow the will of the people!"

(End of this chapter)