Although the British were in a bit of a dilemma, they still preferred to negotiate with overseas Chinese. Because war is in the service of politics, the empire that has dominated the world for more than 100 years is naturally well aware of its implications, and the current Britain really does not have the strength to launch another large-scale military operation. Moreover, Britain is currently the country with the greatest interests in China among all countries, accounting for about 60% of China's entire foreign trade, and has no ambitions for China's territory, so it is enough for Britain to only want to maintain the current situation in China.

Continuing to expand the war in China would hardly add much benefit to Britain, and would only make it easy for Russia, which had huge ambitions for Chinese territory, to occupy China's territory, and now Russia had taken the opportunity to send troops to occupy China's northeast region, which had aroused Britain's vigilance, and if Russia really annexed China's northeast region, it would pose a major threat to British interests in China.

Originally, Britain was caught in the quagmire of the Boer War, which had already put the ruling Conservative Party under tremendous pressure, and some time ago, the successive defeats of the Eight-Nation Coalition in the Chinese battlefield caused a huge reaction in Britain, because Britain was one of the initiators of the Eight-Nation Alliance, so the defeat of the Eight-Nation Coalition was naturally the defeat of Britain.

As a result, opposition parties such as the Liberal Profit Party and the Labor Party seized the opportunity to attack the incompetence of the ruling Conservative Party, which led to disadvantages in both South Africa and China, and demanded the resignation of Prime Minister Marquis Salisbury.

The current Prime Minister, the Marquess of Salisbury, has served as the British Prime Minister for the third time, and he would have concurrently served as the Foreign Secretary every time he became the British Prime Minister, but now due to domestic pressure, he had to resign as the Foreign Secretary and be replaced by the Marquis of Lansdowne. Therefore, if the risk of increasing troops on the Chinese battlefield is extremely high, and the initiative is still not obtained, then the Conservative Party will really lose its ruling position. The lesser of two evils is indeed better than war in the present situation.

In addition, the three bidding projects of overseas Chinese are also very attractive to the UK, because the UK is currently the most developed country in the world, with strong industrial strength, and it has a leading edge of more than ten years in the shipbuilding industry and other countries, so these three bidding projects, British enterprises have strong competitiveness, and once an enterprise wins the bid, how many benefits will be brought to the UK, and how many people in the country will be employed, so as to relieve the pressure of the Conservative Party, I believe that those politicians in Downing Street understand. As for the tariff issue in Tianjin, of course, it can also be negotiated.

As a result, the meeting was held in such constant quarrels, and naturally no one could convince anyone, because each country has its own position and will not easily make changes, and the consuls are only representatives of the state, acting at the orders of the country, and have no right to make changes to the country's strategic policy on their own.

In the final analysis, it is necessary to wait for the domestic evaluation of the overseas Chinese's bidding and the signals they are willing to negotiate, and then formulate the next plan, which will be implemented by the consuls, and this meeting is only to let the countries understand each other's attitudes and serve as a reference for domestic decision-making on the next step.

So after the consuls had been arguing for about an hour, Huo Bilan suggested that the meeting should be ended, and that the consuls of each country should contact their respective countries to determine their next steps, and that the consuls should meet again in three days to determine the next steps. In fact, in the quarrel just now, most of the consuls of various countries also knew how to report to the country, so they all followed Huo Bilan's advice, ended the meeting, and went back to the consulate.

After the consuls of various countries left, Huo Bilan immediately sent someone to inform Li Hongzhang, asking that Zhang Peilun's plan to go to Tianjin be postponed for the time being tomorrow, and when he left, he would be informed again.

Originally, after Zhao Weizhong's telegram was sent to Tianjin, he soon received a response from the provisional government of Tianjin New Area, saying that overseas Chinese welcomed Zhang Peilun's visit to Tianjin. After the tariffs were reformulated, Li Hongzhang had no hope for Zhang Peilun's trip to Tianjin, because Li Hongzhang had already determined that all countries would definitely increase their armies and expand the war, so he was also worried about it。

It's just that although Li Hongzhang can't stop the progress of this war, he still has to try to do something, so let Zhang Peilun go to Tianjin, at least he can get to know the overseas Chinese, and establish a relationship with them, in case the overseas Chinese really win, then Li Hongzhang's next negotiation opponent is this group of overseas Chinese, and it is always good to prepare early.

So after a few days of preparation, Zhang Peilun decided to take the passenger ship of China Merchants tomorrow and set off for Tianjin, while Zhao Weizhong still traveled on the torpedo boat Hailong.

After receiving a notice from the British Consulate asking Zhang Peilun to postpone the trip, Li Hongzhang thought that the foreigners had decided to expand the war, so he didn't sleep well all night, and he rushed to the British Consulate early the next morning to find out the British attitude.

Huo Bilan did not hide it from Li Hongzhang, invited overseas Chinese to tender, and released the intention to negotiate, and now all countries are reassessing how to deal with the consultation, so I hope that Zhang Peilun will wait until the results of the negotiations of various countries come out, and then go to Tianjin, and this trip to Tianjin, he may help countries convey their attitudes to overseas Chinese.

This result greatly surprised Li Hongzhang, and he did not expect that the overseas Chinese would still have such means; although it was not yet possible to completely bring the countries to the negotiating table, it would have been very good to have the countries restart their assessment and consultations; Li Hongzhang certainly remembered that after he learned that the overseas Chinese had announced the establishment of customs and the reformulation of tariffs, all countries had a hard-line attitude and had the tendency to immediately expand the war.

However, Li Hongzhang is also a little puzzled, although he also knows that European countries attach importance to business, but even these bidding projects of overseas Chinese can make changes in various countries, and even ignore the increase in tariffs by overseas Chinese?

Although Li Hongzhang is the Chinese who know the world best in this era, this is only limited to the scope of Chinese cognition, in fact, Li Hongzhang is not clear about the general situation of the world in this era, although he also knows that there are indeed contradictions between countries, but he does not know how deep these contradictions are, nor does he know the root causes of these contradictions, so he cannot use these contradictions to serve himself.

At Li Hongzhang's time, a group of political elites who emerged during the Meiji Restoration had a much deeper understanding of the world situation than Li Hongzhang, so that Japan was able to take advantage of these contradictions to create a good external environment for Japan's Meiji Restoration and the launching of the First Sino-Japanese War, including the Russo-Japanese War five years later in the old time and space. Therefore, although the Meiji Restoration in Japan and the Westernization Movement of the Qing Dynasty began almost at the same time, the development of the two countries in completely different directions was also one of the important reasons.

As far as the current world situation is concerned, there are two main contradictions in the world: one is the contradiction between the sea power countries and the land power countries vying for world hegemony, which is mainly reflected in the worldwide confrontation between Britain and Russia; and the other contradiction is the all-round challenge of the newly rising countries represented by Germany and the United States to the old empires such as Britain, France, and Russia. In addition, although all countries have a major interest in China, China is not the center of conflict in this era, so it is impossible for countries to invest too much force in China.

As the late realizers, the traversers are naturally very aware of the world pattern of this era, so they dare to let go, and the traversers also have backhand preparations, even if the countries really expand the war, they are not afraid. After all, there are still several super-era warships in the hands of the traversers, which is the biggest hole card of the traversers.

In the following time, the telegraph lines of various countries have hardly stopped for a moment, and the governments of various countries have also carried out discussions, consultations, and exchange of opinions, etc., and are also urgently assessing the value of overseas Chinese bidding projects and whether to participate in the bidding.

Three days later, the consuls in Shanghai received instructions from the country to convene another meeting, and this time finally came up with a temporary compromise. First of all, each country can decide for itself whether to participate in the bidding project of overseas Chinese, and at the same time, let Zhang Peilun lead the talk for other countries, and the governments of various countries agree in principle to negotiate with overseas Chinese to end the war, but hope that overseas Chinese can put forward their principles and conditions for negotiation.

Although Zhang Peilun brought the words, this can be regarded as the initiative of various countries to put forward a request for negotiations to overseas Chinese, which can be said to meet the goal of overseas Chinese, but this is not a formal request for negotiation by various countries to overseas Chinese, so countries can also deny it at any time, and still maintain considerable initiative.

In addition, what Zhang Peilun conveyed was only an intention, and the countries did not list the conditions for their own negotiations, but instead asked the overseas Chinese to first put forward their negotiation conditions, and kept a hole card for themselves, so that they could decide whether or not to conduct formal negotiations according to the conditions put forward by the overseas Chinese. This also shows that countries will not make too many concessions in the negotiations.

As long as both sides have the intention to negotiate, he can act as an intermediary between overseas Chinese and foreigners, maneuvering as much as possible to promote the success of the negotiations between the two sides, and try his best to fight for the interests of the Qing Dynasty.