Just as Zhan Tianyou and the students boarded the ship and headed for Qingdao, the main leaders of the East China government were gathering together to discuss dealing with the British-Japanese alliance.

The signing of the British-Japanese alliance was certainly not a whim or a flash of inspiration from these two countries, but the result of both countries' careful consideration and real evaluation of the gains and losses of interests.

The first thing to consider the British-Japanese alliance was Britain. As early as early 1901, Britain was deeply involved in the Boer War in South Africa, and on the other hand, the situation in China reversed due to the arrival of time travelers. Therefore, Britain felt the urgent need to support an agent in the Far East, which not only curbed Russia's expansion in the Far East, but also blocked the rise of overseas Chinese. This agent was Japan.

In fact, Britain's support for Japan began as early as the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895. The Yoshino, the main warship of the Japanese Navy in the Sino-Japanese War of 1895, was purchased from Britain. Before the Sino-Japanese War of 1895, Japan ordered two 12,000-ton battleships from Britain to deal with the two ships of Dingyuan and Zhenyuan of the Beiyang Navy. Although these two battleships did not participate in the Sino-Japanese War of 1895, they became the beginning of the "Six Six Fleet".

However, this is just a general nature of support and is still far from the real alliance. However, by May 1901, the situation in China was irreversible, and Britain also conducted a comprehensive assessment of the alliance with Japan, including the time travelers.

The assessment of Japan is: In the Far East, there is a high chance of conflict between Japan and Russia. Without the full support of Britain, Japan will not be able to defeat Russia. Without the joint efforts of France, Germany is likely to intervene again. In this way, the situation of the intervention of the three countries to return Liao will reappear, and Britain will face pressure from Germany, Russia and France in the Far East, and will inevitably be excluded, thus losing huge benefits. If Britain and Japan join forces to fight with Russia and France, even if they win, they will become a feud with Russia and France, and fall into greater consumption than the Boer War, thus losing the status of world hegemony. Therefore, Britain's best plan is to form some form of alliance with Japan to prevent France from intervening in the war. In this way, the war will only occur between Russia and Japan, and then use all non-war means to support Japan in defeating Russia.

Since Russia is a major army and naval power with infinitely rich natural resources and a large population, it will be reorganized even if it fails and will compete for strength in the future. This will prevent Japan and Russia from reconciling. This situation is beneficial to Britain. On the one hand, it will restrain Russia's power in the Far East and reduce the pressure on Britain in Europe and the Middle East; on the other hand, Japan has to continue to rely on Britain and help Britain maintain the order in the Far East.

Of course, this result may be that Russia seeks Germany's support, but Britain can take the opportunity to win over France. Moreover, due to the structural contradictions between Russia and the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Italy, it is difficult for Germany and Russia to form a relatively close alliance.

The conclusion of the assessment is that Japan should be fully supported and an alliance with Japan should be formed as soon as possible, tied Japan to the British chariot and acted as the British agent in the Far East.

The assessment of time travelers is: Although the emergence of overseas Chinese changed the course of the Chinese war, the goal they are pursuing at this stage is to gain a region with a foothold in China, and they have no intention of changing China's overall situation for the time being. At the same time, they are willing to accept the current international order, which will not have a great impact on Britain's interests in China. Although Britain lost Weihaiwei, this is an acceptable loss, because overseas Chinese have a natural hostile relationship with Russia, which can completely make up for the loss of Weihaiwei. Therefore, overseas Chinese are a force that can be used to fight against Russia's expansion in the Far East, and they cannot push overseas Chinese to the side of Russia.

But in the long run, overseas Chinese will be a potentially powerful opponent, because from all the signs, overseas Chinese are by no means satisfied with occupying only one place in Shandong. Their ultimate goal is to gain the entire Chinese regime. Once they have established a stable foothold in Shandong, they will inevitably achieve this goal and act. Once overseas Chinese acquire the entire Chinese regime, since all their territory is in the Far East, this may be a stronger opponent than Russia. They will never allow the UK to continue to occupy significant economic and commercial interests in China, so this is by no means a good thing for the UK.

The conclusion of the assessment of overseas Chinese is: At this stage, we can maintain friendship with overseas Chinese and cooperate with them in confronting Russia, but we must also strengthen the prevention of overseas Chinese. If the UK supports Japan to defeat Russia, the next target of containment is overseas Chinese. Due to the rise of overseas Chinese, it is also a huge threat to Japan. At the same time, the Qing government is also threatened by overseas Chinese. These are favorable conditions that Britain can rely on to exploit.

So in the spirit of these two assessment reports, the British government immediately initiated an alliance with Japan. After several temptations, the British Prime Minister Saltsbury formally proposed to the Japanese ambassador to the United Kingdom on July 15, 1901, that the British government was willing to establish an alliance with Japan. On July 31, British Foreign Secretary Langston told Director Lin again: It is the most appropriate time to negotiate on the conclusion of a long-term alliance.

However, contrary to Britain's estimate, Japan did not immediately accept the alliance proposal of Britain with gratitude, but launched an unprecedented debate at home. Yama Prefecture, which advocated a tough opponent of Russia, and Katsurachiro naturally praised it for forming an alliance with Britain to fight against Russia, and even went to war with Russia. However, veterans such as Hirofumi Ito and Kinou Inoue believed that Russia's strength was not comparable to that of the Qing Dynasty. Even with the support of Britain, it would be unpredictable. He advocated to recognize Russia's sphere of influence in Northeast China in exchange for Russia's recognition of Japan's power on the Korean Peninsula, which is the famous "Manchuria-Korea Exchange Theory". This can fight against Britain or overseas Chinese to the front line of the fight against Russia, and he has been hiding behind and taking advantage of his opportunity.

The two factions were quarrels, and the negotiations in Shanghai were successful and the Chinese war was completely over. Ito Hirofumi resigned from the position of prime minister and Katsutaro, the Aritoi faction of Yama Prefecture, took over as prime minister. At this point, Yama Prefecture Aritoi and Ito Hirofumi, two elders who led the establishment of the Meiji Restoration, completely withdrew from the front-line political stage and moved to the regime that lived in seclusion behind the scenes to manipulate Japan. Ito Hirofumi decided to visit Russia in person to make the last effort to restore the relationship between the two countries.

However, Hiromori Ito's visit was not successful. In St. Petersburg, Hiromori Ito and Russian Foreign Minister Domsdorf and Finance Minister Vette held talks respectively. Both of them opposed Japan's absolute power in South Korea, but at the same time required Russia to enjoy absolute power in Manchuria. Domsdorf even threatened Japan with war: If Japan does not agree with this, we will make military sacrifices at sea and on land. The war may be detrimental to us at the beginning, but it will eventually end with Japan's failure.

After meeting with Domsdorf and Witt, Hirofumi Ito immediately decided to terminate his visit to Russia and return to China, and support Japan to form an alliance with Britain. The two sides resumed formal negotiations on October 16, 1901 and quickly reached a treaty of agreement. On November 6, the United Kingdom proposed the first draft agreement. On November 28, the Japanese government passed the Japanese amendment and was approved by the emperor on December 7.

On January 30, 1902, Japanese representative Dong-Lin and British representative Langston signed the "British-Japan Alliance Agreement" in London. The main contents of the agreement were:

(1) Japan has special interests in China and South Korea, and the United Kingdom has special interests in China. When their respective interests are infringed, they will take necessary measures.

(2) When Japan and the UK go to war with a third country in order to protect the above interests, the other country will remain neutral.

(3) In the above situation, if the third country in the war and one other country or several countries form an alliance to participate in the war, Japan and Britain will fight together, and peace will also be carried out according to the agreement between the allied countries.

(4) Japan and the UK do not enter into other treaties that are harmful to the interests of the preface.

(5) When the interests of both countries are endangered, we must inform each other.

(6) The validity period of the alliance is 5 years. In addition, according to the documents exchanged at the same time, the two sides agreed that the navies of Japan and Britain should strengthen cooperation in daily life and provide mutual convenience in docking, repairing ships, supplying coal, etc.; and it was also clearly stated that Japan and Britain should strive to maintain a naval force better than third countries in the Far East waters.

The East China government received news from the British-Japanese alliance, and there were two channels. One was a formal note sent by Britain and Japan to the East China government. The goal of the British-Japanese alliance was to deal with Russia's expansion in the Far East, and the East China government was also Britain. Japan needed to fight to cope with Russia's companions. After all, the East China government was also a force that cannot be underestimated in the Far East, and at least it could not push the East China government to the other side of Russia. Therefore, Britain and Japan officially sent diplomatic notes to the East China government through the Tianjin Consulate at the same time, officially notifying the East China government that Britain and Japan formed an alliance in order to cope with Russia's expansion in the Far East and did not target other countries. They hoped that the East China government would not make too many interpretations, and both expressed their willingness to strengthen cooperation with the East China government.

Another channel was notified by Germany. Just two days after the East China government received diplomatic notes from Britain and Japan, Prince Heinrich, who stayed in Qingdao, received a telegram from William II to inform the East China government of the fact that Britain and Japan had formed an alliance, and said that the alliance between Britain and Japan was not only aimed at Russia, but also a huge threat to the East China government. Germany is willing to provide support to the East China government to deal with Russia, Britain and Japan.

It turned out that after learning that the British-Japanese alliance was formed, Germany immediately evaluated the alliance and concluded that this alliance was beneficial to Germany, because the biggest goal of German diplomacy is to break up the Russian-French alliance, and the method of implementation was to encourage Russia to turn its attention to the Far East. The establishment of the British-Japanese alliance undoubtedly created a powerful opponent for Russia in the Far East, which would inevitably force Russia to invest more power in the Far East, so that European affairs would be flawless, and the French-Russian alliance would be in name only.

If Russia defeats Japan, it will force Britain to go to the front and fight against Russia in person. In this way, both Britain and Russia will have to seek help from Germany, because no matter which side Germany supports, it will inevitably increase its chance of victory, so Germany will occupy a very favorable diplomatic position; and if Japan defeats Russia, Germany can take the opportunity to help Russia, break up the French-Russian alliance, and even pull Russia back to the Three Emperors Alliance. In the words of William II, it means: a blood-flowing bear is not so terrible, and it can even pluck its claws for its own control. As long as the Tsar is given a few diplomatic ecstasy, it can be turned into a tame anti-British tool.

William II believed that it could be used for the East China government. William II's idea was that Germany could form some kind of alliance with the East China government, and then use the East China government as a springboard to intervene in the Far East and strive for the greatest benefit for itself in this war. Therefore, William II generated electricity to Heinrich to convey Germany's attitude to the East China government.
Chapter completed!