Huo Bilan said: "Our British government also believes that it is not appropriate to restart the war at this time, or to restart negotiations with overseas Chinese." He paused and said: "We think the negotiation requirements put forward by overseas Chinese are acceptable, and we can restart negotiations based on this. So I don't know your opinions."

Before others made a statement, Dmitryev immediately said: "I oppose restarting the negotiations based on the negotiation requirements put forward by overseas Chinese. If the negotiations are to be restarted, overseas Chinese must withdraw from Tongzhou and restore to the pre-war situation. Moreover, the negotiations cannot set any prerequisites, otherwise our Russian government will never participate in any negotiations with overseas Chinese."

Huo Bilan frowned. Of course he could see that Dmitryev was deliberately disrupting the situation, because according to the conditions proposed by Dmitryev, overseas Chinese could not agree. Now overseas Chinese have captured Tongzhou, and the troops are approaching Beijing, and the momentum is in full swing. It is possible unless overseas Chinese attacks Beijing due to setbacks.

However, Russia's attitude is obviously unacceptable to Huo Bilan, which will only worsen the situation. But Huo Bilan is an experienced diplomat after all, and the Russian consul's purpose is nothing more than to threaten countries for the affairs of the Korean Peninsula, so that Russia can do its best to deal with Japan. Therefore, Huo Bilan said: "Okay, the Russian consul has expressed their attitude, so what about the attitudes of other countries?"

The United States, France, Japan, and Italy also immediately expressed their views, supporting Huo Bilan's opinion and agreed to restart the negotiations based on the negotiation requirements put forward by overseas Chinese. Only Germany and Austria did not express their views.

But in this way, the situation is very clear. Even if Germany and Austria ultimately support Russia's proposition, they are still minorities. Moreover, Germany and Austria have no say in China, only Russia has weight. On the other hand, Britain, France, the United States and Japan have greater interests in China, and only Italy is following it. Therefore, in terms of strength comparison, peace parties have a clear advantage.

This is exactly the goal Huo Bilan hopes to achieve. This can put huge pressure on Russia and ultimately force Russia to agree to reopen the negotiations. Of course, it will also make some symbolic concessions to Russia, such as recognizing some of Russia's interests on the Korean Peninsula, giving Russia a step to go; for Japan, it will be easier to handle it, and only promise to help Japan defend Russia. Then it is not difficult to make some concessions on the Korean Peninsula, because without the support of Britain, Japan will not be able to unilaterally fight against Russia.

Of course, the ultimate goal of Britain is to curb Russia's expansion in the Far East, but this can be discussed after negotiations with overseas Chinese. In this sense, the rise of overseas Chinese is not a bad thing. It turned out that Britain planned to support Japan to fight against Russia, but now that there are more overseas Chinese, Britain has a greater choice. In this way, Russia, Japan and overseas Chinese fight in the Far East, Britain can calmly play the extraterritorial balance trick and successfully play an offshore balance role. It should be said that after putting down the burden in his heart, Huo Bilan's mind became flexible, countering the moves and breaking the styles, and wielding the British diplomatic methods to the fullest.

However, Russia's attitude was somewhat beyond Huo Bilan's expectations. Dmitryev's attitude was actually very tough, insisting that he would never give in. Even if other countries agreed to restart negotiations with overseas Chinese, Russia would never participate, and would rely on its own strength to fight overseas Chinese alone.

Huo Bilan was quite surprised. Although in the eyes of Europeans, the Russians are still synonymous with barbarism, Huo Bilan knew very well that although the Russians were barbaric, they were never stupid. They should be hard when they should be hard, and should be soft when they should be hard. On the contrary, both strategic and diplomatic methods were very clever, otherwise they would not become the most powerful opponent in Britain at present. Therefore, Russia's attitude must be of other reasons.

Of course, when talking about this step, I will definitely not be able to continue today. Therefore, Huo Bilan decided to temporarily revisit the meeting and let the consulates go back to negotiate with the country and continue the discussion tomorrow. In this way, the consuls of various countries left.

After lunch, Huo Bilan quietly pondered in his study about tomorrow's agreement, how to convince Russia to agree to the negotiations. To convince Russia, one must first understand Russia's intentions. Today, Russia's attitude is nothing more than two explanations. One is to act pretentiously to raise the asking price. So where is Russia's psychological price, and Britain and Japan's bottom line for concessions to be there; the other is that Russia does have other plans, and it really doesn't want to negotiate with overseas Chinese. So what is Russia's intention? Are they really planning to go to war with overseas Chinese?

At this moment, a telegram was coming in. After receiving the telegram, Huo Bilan couldn't help but feel nervous again. He didn't know what happened to the telegram in China at this time. Do you want to dismiss himself on the spot?

While thinking about it, Huo Bilan opened the folder and read the telegram. He was shocked. After thinking about it, a sudden flash of inspiration in his mind came up with a bold solution. If his method was successful, he might be able to make up for his mistakes and restore his political future. Once he failed, he would definitely be doomed and would be prepared to go back to the UK for trial. However, if he did not do this, he would probably not be able to do so. Therefore, it would be better to bet this time.

After thinking it through, Huo Bilan immediately took action and immediately ordered his servants to prepare a carriage for him and to visit Li Hongzhang.

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When Qin Zheng and his group returned to Tianjin, it was the second day after the People's Army captured Tongzhou Railway Station. At this time, not only Tongzhou Railway Station, but also Tongzhou County Town, were occupied by the People's Army. At the same time, the People's Army had established a front-line command headquarters in a small village around Beijing, and the troops were directly aimed at Beijing. The Eight-Nation Alliance all retreated back to Beijing to guard it.

Qin Zheng received the news on his way back, but he didn't react much. After all, he had known the action plan of the time travel group for a long time. Of course, the People's Army's actions were so fast that Qin Zheng and others were a little surprised.

However, when Qin Zheng and his group arrived at Dagukou Wharf, a warrior car was waiting for him at the wharf. It turned out that the Executive Committee sent to pick up Qin Zheng and the commander of the Navy, Shang Jinfeng, and immediately rushed to Tianjin to attend an important military meeting.

The two of them took a bus to the conference room of the Tianjin Administrative Building and only saw them awaiting them was Xia Bohai, Xiao Jianjun and Xu Ji, but also Zhu Yaping, the commander of the 6th Army who rushed back to Tianjin from the front line. Only another permanent executive member, Wang Yunpeng, was in Qingdao at this time, so he did not attend the meeting.

After Qin Zheng and Jin Feng sat down, Xia Bohai said: "All people are here, so let's start now."

Monk Qin Zheng and Jin Feng looked at each other. Although there were not many people attending the meeting, the number of people participating was very large, so there was obviously a major event, and it must be a military-related matter.

Xia Bohai said: "Just this morning, we received a piece of information. You can take a look first, and then we will have a formal meeting."

As he said that, Xia Bohai took out two documents from the folder in front of him and handed them to the two. After taking the documents, the two did not dare to neglect them and hurriedly opened them to watch.

The content of the file was not complicated. The two of them read it quickly, but they were obviously shocked, because the content of the file was indeed beyond their expectations. If the content was real, it would be a huge threat to the time traveler. Therefore, Qin Zheng closed the file and asked: "Where did this news come from? Is it reliable?"

Xu Jidao: "There are two sources of this news. One is that Qin Moman, the German Consul in Tianjin, passed it to us under the order of the German government; the other source is provided to us by Li Hongzhang."

Qin Zheng couldn't help but be surprised. The information provided by the German government to the time travelers was not surprising, but Li Hongzhang actually provided this information to the time travelers, which was a bit incredible. Did Li Hongzhang get this information from there? Does this old man have such an intelligence channel?

Obviously seeing Qin Zheng's doubts, Xia Bohai smiled and said, "Actually, Li Hongzhang is just a person who is passing the message. This news was told by Huo Bilan, the British Consul in Shanghai. Huo Bilan told Li Hongzhang this news, which was conveyed to us through Li Hongzhang. Therefore, it can be regarded as the information provided by the UK to us. As for whether this information is reliable, we have just received it not long ago and are discussing it. There is no result yet. It just happened that Lao Qin returned to Tianjin at this time and wanted to hear your opinions."

After hearing this, Qin Zheng nodded and understood what Xia Bohai meant. Because he was the person who was most familiar with the history and international relations of this era, his judgment was the most important. So he opened the folder again and read the content of the file carefully. At the same time, he took his document from Shang Jinfeng and read it. Although these two documents were about the same thing, the wording and content were different. Qin Zheng also hoped to find some evidence to prove the authenticity of the content.
Chapter completed!