After seeing off Prince Heinrich, Qin Zheng immediately came to Xia Bohai's office and reported the information provided by Heinrich to Xia Bohai.

After hearing Qin Zheng's speech, Xia Bohai's face became solemn. It should be said that before this negotiation, the East China government was full of confidence in the negotiation. After all, Japan and Russia were basically completely defeated in military terms, and there was no capital to bargain with the East China government. The British and French governments and the East China governments were unlikely to actively interfere in their judgments. After all, Asia is too far away, and the two countries still have some trouble in Europe. However, German intelligence shows that the actions of Britain and France were obviously not expected by the East China government.

Xia Bohai pondered for a moment and said, "Old Qin, how likely do you think what Heinrich said is?"

Qin Zheng said: "Old Xia, I think it is meaningless to study the issue of possibility now. It is at least 50%, and how big the difference is there. Of course, I have thought that this cannot be ruled out that this is a set deliberately designed by Britain and France. Some of them pass on Germany to us the information that Britain and France will jointly send troops to intervene in the Far East war, which is to force us to give up the demand for compensation. But now we must regard this information as the decision of Britain and France, and determine whether in this case, whether Japan and Russia still insist on paying war compensation. So I suggest that we hold a working meeting immediately to negotiate the coronary matter."

Xia Bohai nodded and said, "You are right, but Lao Xiao and Zhu Yaping are inspecting the front line now. This matter is of great importance. Once we decide to insist on claiming compensation, we are likely to face a war with Britain and France. Therefore, this meeting must be attended by Lao Xiao and Zhu Yaping."

There are 8 members of the working group, and they usually don’t come to every meeting. There are 1 or 2 people less, but this time the discussion is too important, so all 8 people must gather. Qin Zheng said: “So should I let Lao Xiao and Zhu Yaping give up the inspection itinerary and come back immediately?”

Xia Bohai said: "It's not necessary, it's not bad for the past few days. The negotiating delegation has just set off for a few days, and it's still far from the United States? We don't have to hurry up and let them complete the inspection before talking, so as not to have an impact on the frontline troops."

Qin Zheng also understood that senior officials went to the front line to inspect, which was actually a way to inspire the morale of the army. Sometimes they would give medals to the soldiers who made meritorious service to inspire the entire army. If the inspection is terminated rashly, it will not only cause a blow to the morale of the army, but also cause morale turmoil. After all, termination of the inspection must have a major event, so it is best not to terminate the scheduled inspection operation unless it is absolutely necessary.

As a member of the Military Commission, Xiao Jianjun was only arranged for the front-line inspection itinerary. It was because the East China government had too many things a while ago that he could not leave Qingdao for a long time. It was not until December that the war in the Northeast region was basically over, and there were not so many things in the East China government. Xiao Jianjun arranged for the front-line inspection itinerary, but unexpected events happened again. However, as Xia Bohai said, although this matter is of great importance, it is indeed not a hurry. It is possible to wait until Xiao Jianjun and Zhu Yaping completed the inspection itinerary before discussing it.

Xia Bohai said again: "But they can know about this matter first, and they can take advantage of these days to think about it carefully, so that they can have relatively mature ideas when holding meetings."

Qin Zheng nodded and said, "It's good."

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Xiao Jianjun and Zhu Yaping returned to Qingdao eight days later. At this time, all eight people from the working group were here, so Xia Bohai recruited everyone to hold a formal meeting to discuss the negotiations.

Xia Bohai first said: "Everyone knows the matter, I won't speak much. My opinion is also very simple. If Britain and France jointly send troops to intervene in this war, can we win? If possible, we must of course insist on compensation. If not, then don't hold on and give up compensation honestly."

Xiao Jianjun first said: "If we only talk about it from a military perspective, I think we are completely sure to win, even if Britain and France participate in the war, even if they can dispatch 20 battleships."

Xia Bohai nodded and said, "Old Xiao, can you say it in more detail?"

Xiao Jianjun obviously did enough homework and said: "There is a plan for Britain and France to participate in the war. In fact, before we joined the war, the Military Commission made plans. But at that time, I didn't know how the battlefield in the Northeast would be fighting. Therefore, this plan only has reference value. However, it can be confirmed that Japan and Russia's military forces were basically crippled by us. Now we can confirm that we can only correspond to the troops of Britain and France. Due to distance factors, it is impossible for Britain and France to dispatch large-scale troops to participate in the Far East. It will inevitably be dominated by the navy, and the army can only be part of Russia.

The country and Japan are responsible, and I will talk about it later, but this requires that the navies of Britain and France must defeat our navies and seize the power of sea control. Then the navies of Britain and France must have an overwhelming advantage. The intelligence provided by Germany, Britain and France will dispatch more than 20 battleships, which I think is credible. After all, the total number of battleships between Britain and France is more than 60, and the 20 battleships in this era does exceed the number of battleships in any country except Britain. If I were the maker of this war, I would make the same decision."

"But Britain and France obviously made a mistake this time, because our navy cannot be measured by the naval standards of this era. Our five crossing warships are in good condition at present, and they can participate in battles, and the number of * and * is about 70%. Therefore, not to mention 20 battleships, even if 40 battleships came, I am confident that they will be wiped out. Once the British and French fleets are annihilated, Japan and Russia have any support, we can even increase the asking price of compensation. However, these five crossing warships are our greatest confidence. After this battle, even if we do not exhaust all * and shells, there will be very little left. In the future, we can only rely on our own fleet to fight."

Xia Bohai said: "It's okay. If we can severely destroy the British and French fleets, then this power will be great. I'm afraid that no country will dare to go to war with us easily."

Qin Zheng said: "This war, we captured a lot of warships, and there were nearly 10 battleships alone. Therefore, after the war, we can build a fleet that is also powerful according to the standards of this era. Moreover, our own shipbuilding industry has made great progress. We can build our own warships and protect ourselves."

Xiao Jianjun said: "That's good. Now I'm talking about my next combat plan against Japan and Russia. Most of the Japanese troops participating in the war are annihilated by us, and the remaining few are stationed on the Korean Peninsula. The sea control power has been controlled by us, so the Japanese army cannot go back at all. According to the news we have obtained, Japan is recruiting soldiers and forming troops in China, but these soldiers have insufficient training ability and practical experience. In addition, Japan's domestic economy is extremely difficult, so I think these new soldiers are

The quality of training is also difficult to guarantee. I suggest that we can consider the next step of landing in Japan after the negotiations break down. There is no need for too many troops. 4-5 divisions are enough. It is enough to only operate in Japan's coastal areas, burning, killing, looting, and doing anything. In this way, we can get the protection of the navy and don't have to be afraid of the Japanese army. Japan's economically developed cities are all located in coastal areas. If we make such a fuss, Japan will definitely not be able to stand it. We can only be honestly at our mercy. Japan can only give as much compensation as we want."

Xu Jichao said: "It is not good to burn, kill, loot locally in Japan."

Xiao Jianjun said: "This is up to the government to choose, and the army will obey the command."

Xia Bohai said: "I won't discuss this for now. Where is Russia? Russia is not Japan. They still have a large number of troops in Europe. Even if they bring 5.6 million troops to the Far East, they will not lose their power."

Xiao Jianjun said: "Russia does have enough troops, but firstly because the distance is too far, and secondly, Russia still needs to maintain enough troops in the direction of Europe. Therefore, 5.6 million is impossible, at most 2.3 million. Of course, this is just a matter of numbers. Russia's biggest problem now is that it has no foothold in the Far East. If hundreds of thousands of troops cannot rely on a big city, the logistics pressure will be quite large. Now Russia's economy is not very good. Once the negotiations break down, we must first recover Shenyang as soon as possible, annihilate the Russian army in Shenyang, and then mobilize the main force to the north and attack Manzhouli.

The Russian army completely drove out of China, and then arranged defense lines in the Manzhouli area to wait for work, and could go out along the railway line in time to fight with armored trains. Moreover, due to the limited transportation capacity of the Siberian railway, Russia could only adopt the tactic of adding fuel. We completely adopted the short-term attack tactic to attack the Russian army. I think it is enough to have two armies, while the other army can start from Vladivostok and attack the Ussuri River Basin. Russia's military strength in this area is very weak and it is impossible for us to be our opponent. After we recover the Ussuri River Basin, we can see if Russia can still stabilize it."

Qin Zheng said: "There are 300,000 Russian troops stationed in Shenyang. If you want to capture Shenyang, it is probably not easy to annihilate the Russian troops."
Chapter completed!