Although under Han Quanming's gracious stay, Qin Zheng and others stayed at Han's house for dinner, they did not stay overnight at Han's house at night, but returned to the 318 boat to rest and spend the night. At the same time, Qin Zheng also told Han Quanming that under the rule of the People's Army, it is absolutely forbidden to accept gifts, which is equivalent to bribery. Therefore, he was asked to refrain from giving gifts to other people in the future.

This is the second time that a gift to a traveler has been refused, Han Quanming only then discovered that this group of people is indeed a little different from the Qing court and Germany, the officials of the Qing court naturally do not refuse to send gifts, but they do not do anything after receiving gifts, and if they do not give gifts, they will not let you do anything; although the Germans also accept gifts, they are very serious after receiving gifts. This group of overseas Chinese will not take a penny, it only depends on whether they can do anything or not.

Before leaving, Qin Zheng also asked Han Quanming to call the village chiefs of each village in Yindao and the directors of each salt field tomorrow morning, saying that he wanted to listen to everyone's opinions and use them as a reference for formulating the Yindao system.

It turned out that all the arrangements for things today were canceled, Qin Zheng and others wanted to rush back to Qingdao immediately to deal with urgent matters, Qin Zheng expressed his gratitude to Han Quanming, and also explained that after he returned to Qingdao, he would immediately send a team to Yindao and ask Han Quanming to fully cooperate with the work of the team.

After Han Quanming agreed, Qin Zheng got on the boat and set sail and left Yin Island.

In fact, the reason why Qin Zheng and the others left Yindao in a hurry was not that there was an urgent matter in Qingdao, but that the Tianjin Executive Committee issued an order to Qingdao that all the main members of the Qingdao Headquarters should rush back to Tianjin as soon as possible, and that there were important matters that needed to be negotiated immediately.

It turned out that Zhang Peilun had arrived in Tianjin for the second time, and this time Zhang Peilun brought a clear statement from various countries, that they were willing to negotiate with the traveler on the basis of the current situation and in accordance with the principle of fairness, hoping that the traveler could give a reply as soon as possible. Such a result is exactly what the traverser wants, but now only Xia Bohai and Xu Jichao are left behind in Tianjin, so the two also urgently issued an order to Qingdao, asking Qin Zheng, Xiao Jianjun, Wang Yunpeng and others to return to Tianjin immediately to negotiate with other countries.

During this period, the situation in the entire Far East underwent major changes, and Russia originally planned to take advantage of the pressure of overseas Chinese on various countries to squeeze the forces of the Korean Peninsula out of the Korean Peninsula, so it suddenly dispatched a fleet to the port of Inchon on the Korean Peninsula, which immediately broke the balance between Russia and Japan on the Korean Peninsula.

However, Russia's move not only aroused the anger of Japan, but also aroused strong dissatisfaction among Britain, France, the United States, and other countries, which reprimanded Russia one after another, demanding that Russia exercise restraint, not change the situation on the Korean Peninsula, and immediately withdraw its fleet from the Korean Peninsula.

Originally, Russia wanted to use the fleet's stop at Inchon as an excuse to sweep away Japan's influence on the Korean Peninsula in one fell swoop and monopolize the Korean Peninsula with lightning speed, but the strong pressure exerted by various countries also made Russia feel tremendous pressure, so Russia did not dare to act rashly, but it was not willing to withdraw from the Korean Peninsula like this, so it had to hold its troops for the time being and wait and see how the situation changed.

Just three days later, Japan dispatched the battleships Shikishima, Fuji, and Yashima, the armored cruisers Asama, Tokiwa, and Yakumo, the protective cruisers Takasago, Kasasaki, Chitose, and Yoshino, and the torpedo boat destroyers Mine, Akeno, Hatsu, and Yukiri. Cong Yun and a total of 22 warships and auxiliary ships of various kinds were stationed in the waters off Incheon to closely monitor the Russian fleet, and at the same time, they also transported about 30,000 troops from two divisions to land at the port of Pusan, and rushed to Seoul, the capital of South Korea, day and night.

The Russian fleet stationed in Incheon Harbor had only 8 warships, including only one old battleship, two armored cruisers, two large protective cruisers, and only more than 3,000 people on the army. However, after all, the Russian army seized the opportunity on the Korean Peninsula, so it sent troops to the South Korean royal palace Gyeongun Palace to control the South Korean royal family in their own hands, intending to repeat the "Russian Pavilion Relocation" incident three years ago.

After the Japanese army entered Seoul, they immediately surrounded the Gyeongyun Palace and took full control of all the Seoul areas except for the Gyeongwyun Palace. However, Japan did not launch an attack on Qingyun Palace, on the one hand, because at this time Japan still had a deep fear of Russia and did not dare to easily provoke a war against Russia, and on the other hand, Britain also repeatedly asked Japan not to take the initiative to start a war against Russia, but to wait for diplomatic mediation among various countries. Therefore, Japan and Russia are facing each other with Seoul as the core.

Although Russia had no navy to send in the Far East, Russia had deployed about 150,000 troops in northeast China at this time, so Russia immediately mobilized 20,000 Russian troops stationed in Mukden (Shenyang) to immediately march, crossed the Yalu River, and marched along the Qingchuan River, all the way to Pingcheng. At the same time, troops from other parts of northeastern China were mobilized into the Korean Peninsula, and Tsar Nicholas II even went so far as to "drive the Japanese out to sea."

Japan also urgently dispatched a corps from Seoul to the north to arrange a defensive line with Pyongyang as the core to block the advance of the Russian army, so the two sides held each other on the line from Pyongyang to Pyongseong, and at the same time Japan also announced that it would send three more divisions to the Korean Peninsula within five days, and Toru Oda, the Japanese consul general in Shanghai, resolutely stated in front of the consuls of various countries that Japan would never take a step back on the Korean Peninsula.

In just a few days, the Korean Peninsula was like a huge powder keg, and the situation was very tense, and Japan and Russia were tense and refused to give in to each other, and war seemed to be on the verge of breaking out.

However, while the militaries of the two sides are fighting each other strongly, they are engaged in more intense and intensive communication, consultation, and maneuvering on the diplomatic front.

In fact, at this time, neither Japan nor Russia was ready for war, and Japanese Prime Minister Hirobumi Ito has been fighting like a lot in the past few days, on the one hand, worrying about the changes in the situation on the Korean Peninsula and the results of the maneuvering of various countries, and on the other hand, trying his best to appease the hardliners at home. In the past few days, the advocacy of the Russian hardliner army against Ito Hirobumi's strong advocacy of maintaining restraint on the Korean Peninsula has been quite dissatisfied with the advocacy of the hardliner army in the past few days, and now that even the fleet and army have been dispatched, they have not dared to take the initiative to start a war against Russia, and as a result, Russia has been given a chance to breathe and Russia has been able to increase its troops on the Korean Peninsula. At a meeting of the War Department, some young officers and soldiers publicly accused Ito of being a national thief and declared that he would punish Ito Hirobumi.

Of course, Ito Hirobumi tried his best to exert pressure on Russia through diplomatic maneuvering, so that Russia did not dare to act rashly when its warships first arrived on the Korean Peninsula and had an absolute advantage, so that Japan had the opportunity to increase troops on the Korean Peninsula and gained a short-term advantage, which was ignored by the Japanese Army.

Ito, of course, knows that the world situation is not as easy as the simple-minded red deer in the Army think. Russia is not comparable to the decadent and incompetent Qing Dynasty, this is one of the most powerful empires in the world today, with a vast territory, a large population, and a brave and warlike people, even ten Japan cannot compete with Russia in terms of national strength. In terms of the army, Russia now has a standing army of 1.5 million and a reserve army of 2 million, while Japan does not even have a standing army of 300,000; while in the navy, the Russian navy has a total of 17 battleships of various kinds and 8 armored cruisers, and the "66 Fleet" plan, which Japan has only built with all its might, will not be completed until 1903. Therefore, Japan simply did not have the capital to start an all-out war with Russia.

Japan is now able to gain a slight advantage on the Korean Peninsula because Russia has invested only a very small part of its forces in the Far East, while Japan has already exhausted its national strength. In the event of an all-out war with Russia, Japan had almost no chance of winning. Hirobumi Ito is a visionary, strategic, and responsible politician for the country, and he must not let the simple-minded red deer of the Army come to this time.

However, although Ito Hirobumi was the prime minister of Japan, one of the veterans of the Meiji Restoration, a member of the Choshu domain, and an artilleryman when he was young, he was still a civilian at heart, so he had little control over the army. is also very clear about his own orders, which is a piece of waste paper to the army's gang of red deer.

Ito Hirobumi did not forget that five years ago, when he and Li Hongzhang were negotiating in Shimonoseki, an unemployed young man named Toyotaro Koyama resolutely opposed the Sino-Japanese peace talks, believing that it was in Japan's interests to fully occupy China, so he decided to assassinate Li Hongzhang for the sake of his own future in Japan, sabotage the peace talks between the two sides, and carry out the Sino-Japanese war to the end. As a result, Koyama Toyotaro's assassination of Li Hongzhang caused great passivity to Japan, but fortunately, it was the Qing court at that time who was eager to make peace and did not seize the matter to make a big fuss, so that Japan's requirements were basically met, but the Japanese side originally planned to ask the Qing court to compensate 300 million taels of silver, but it could only be forced to reduce it to 200 million, which has always made Ito Hirobumi angry. Because since Ito Hirobumi became Japan's prime minister again, whenever he encountered financial difficulties, Ito immediately thought about how good it would have been if the 100 million taels of silver had not been reduced at that time.

If an unemployed young man can choose to act differently from the government's decision-making in the name of patriotism, but in the way he thinks is right, then the army's red deer can't do anything. They are on the front line against the Russian army, and it is really easy to make something happen and cause the two countries to officially start a war.

Of course, Ito Hirobumi knew that he couldn't control the red deer in the army, but he knew that there was still one person who could control them, and that was the former prime minister and current war minister, Yama Yama Aritome.