After listening to what Yuan Shikai said about the way to deal with the Qing court, Li Songchen couldn't help but really admire him, this guy not only has a complete understanding of the various rules of the Qing court officialdom, but also will never back down when he should take a bold risk, and when he needs to make a decision, he can always make the most beneficial choice for himself. Therefore, in the old time and space, it is not unreasonable that Yuan Shikai can play the Qing court and revolutionaries around.

If the traversers did not have a clear understanding of the development process of history, and they were guaranteed by modern weapons, science and technology, they could establish a strong political force, and under the same conditions, they really couldn't play Yuan Shikai.

So Li Songchen said: "Okay, we still need to discuss this matter again before we can decide." ”

Yuan Shikai nodded and said, "Of course, of course." After a pause, he said: "Brother, when I came, Swire and Jardine asked me to come to you to intercede, hoping to restore their Yangtze River shipping, I don't know if it is convenient for you to do this, if it is convenient, just sell my brother a face, of course, what conditions do you mention, if it is inconvenient, just when I didn't mention this matter, what do you think?"

Li Songchen pondered for a while, and then said: "Originally, we would not allow the two foreign companies of Taikoo and Jardine to participate in the shipping rights of the Yangtze River, all of them are controlled by us, and we can sit on the ground and raise the price, how good is that, Brother Weiting, don't you say?"

Yuan Shikai nodded again and again, and said, "That's nature, that's nature." ”

Li Songchen said again: "But even if it is Brother Weiting's intercession, we always have to give Brother Weiting a face, and Brother Weiting can be regarded as our old friend in East China." ”

Yuan Shikai was a little flattered, and said: "Thank you, thank you, thanks to all the friends of East China, you can afford my old Yuan." ”

Li Songchen said: "However, the original shipping agreement has been abolished, and it is certainly impossible to restore it, if Swire and Jardine Matheson still want to operate the Yangtze River shipping business, we can renegotiate with them and reformulate a new shipping agreement." ”

In fact, without Yuan Shikaiti, East China also intends to renegotiate a new shipping agreement with Swire and Jardine Matheson, because with the economic development of East China, and now basically all the territory of Jiangbei, the demand for Yangtze River shipping will inevitably increase significantly, and with the current capacity of East China, it is difficult to meet the demand for Yangtze River shipping in a short period of time. Jardine Matheson two foreign banks re-into the Yangtze River shipping industry, the use of the shipping power of these two foreign banks, to meet the demand for shipping in East China, although will give up part of the interests of shipping, but can speed up the flow of materials, promote the economic development of the entire Yangtze River Basin, on the whole, the benefits outweigh the disadvantages.

Of course, East China does not plan to cede the shipping rights of the Yangtze River to Swire and Jardine Matheson, as in the past, but to bring Swire and Jardine into the management of East China, that is, to let Swire and Jardine Matheson register and establish shipping companies in East China, obey the management of East China, abide by the rules and systems formulated by East China, pay taxes to East China, and increase employment opportunities for East China. In this way, the interests of East China will be maximized.

Although Yuan Shikai is good at playing with power, he is very good at playing the rules of Qing court officialdom and the effective use of rules, but he doesn't know much about the economy, of course, he doesn't know that there are so many routines in a shipping right, and he doesn't want to understand that East China ** can sell him this favor, it is already very face-saving, as for how East China ** and Swire and Jardine two foreign companies talked in the end, it is not Yuan Shikai's business.

Then Li Songchen and Yuan Shikai talked about many other things, is how Yuan Shikai and East China get along, because after the replacement of land, the two sides are basically bounded by the Yangtze River, but there is also a small amount of land connection, because Anhui and Jiangsu are divided into two by the Yangtze River, before the Jiangbei and Jiangnan ties are very close, but now they belong to two places, how to deal with the personnel exchanges between various places; at the same time, the economy of the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River is also very close, and the economic exchanges between each other, checkpoint taxes, etc., also need to have a clear definition. There is also the military garrison of both sides, public security management, and so on. In addition, there is also how to deal with the resettlement camps set up by East China on the south bank of the Yangtze River, etc.

Although Li Songchen and Yuan Shikai didn't want to deliberately make trouble for each other, Bi Jing had too many things to do, and some things, such as checkpoint taxes, also involved their respective interests, so the two negotiated for almost a morning, and lunch was also eaten in Li Songchen's reception room, so they roughly negotiated a basic summary. The specific details need to be discussed in detail by the subordinates of both sides.

After lunch, Li Songchen immediately went to Luo Yue to discuss. At this time, the situation in Anhui had stabilized and was handed over to the army garrison, and there was no fighting, so Luo Yue also led the marines back to Shanghai to garrison, after all, Shanghai is also one of the garrisons of the marines.

Li Songchen told Luo Yue about Yuan Shikai's plan requirements, Bi Jing Li Songchen was not proficient in military affairs, and needed to find professionals for consultation. And after listening to Li Songchen's words, Luo Yue also smiled and told Li Songchen that this request could be agreed, because even if it is a normal place to receive Jiangbei, it is necessary to send troops to station first, control the place, and then send administrative personnel to move in, so sending troops is always needed, it is nothing more than spending a little more time, waiting for the local officials of the Qing court to abandon the city and flee, in addition, the local officials of the Qing court do not have a strong will to resist, mainly because losing land in the Qing court is a felony, if Yuan Shikai ordered the withdrawal of troops, then the loss of land is not the responsibility of local officials, and naturally no local officials will resist to the deathOf course, even if there is an occasional local official who is not sober and swears to resist to the death, with the ability of the People's Army to attack fortifications, it can be easily captured.

With Luo Yue's guarantee, Li Songchen also had a bottom in his heart, so on the second day, Li Songchen and Yuan Shikai ordered their respective subordinates to start formal negotiations. However, because the general framework Li Songchen and Yuan Shikai have been determined, the negotiations still went very smoothly, and it took 3 days to finally reach an agreement acceptable to both parties, of course, Yuan Shikai was still signed by his staff.

After signing the agreement, Yuan Shikai said goodbye and left Shanghai and returned to Nanjing. Luo Yue ordered the People's Army to cross the Yangtze River and march to the north of the Yangtze River in Jiangsu Province.

Sure enough, after the People's Army sent troops, the Qing court magistrates in Jiangbei immediately appealed to Yuan Shikai for help, and Yuan Shikai also replied to local officials in various places for help in accordance with the established plan, saying that the Yangtze River was separated and the rescue was inconvenient, and asked them to abandon the city and retreat to Jiangnan, and all the consequences should be borne by themselves. Originally, the local officials had no intention of sticking to the localities, but they were forced to avoid the pressure of defending the territory, and now that they had Yuan Shikai's order, they naturally did not have to bear their own responsibility, who would still be willing to defend the state city, not to mention the strong combat power of the People's Army, which was already a well-known thing, and resisting the People's Army was completely self-defeating.

As a result, local officials in Jiangbei abandoned the city and fled to the south of the Yangtze River. However, at this time, some nimble Qing court officials saw a little way, because although the People's Army was close to the city, it did not immediately attack the city, nor did it mean to encircle the city, but it was an open net, and when the local officials abandoned the city and fled, the People's Army did not pursue, it seemed to be waiting for the local officials to abandon the city, and then thought of Yuan Shikai and East China**The relationship has always been close, and this time he went south to Nanjing to take office, which is to smoothly go from East China ** and now they have ordered the local officials to abandon the city and leave, and if there is no such thing as a bad deal, I am afraid no one will believe it. Some people even thought that Yuan Shikai was planning to take refuge in East China** and take the land of the two rivers as his own gift.

Some officials think that they have seen through the joints, and simply surrender to the People's Army, anyway, now the general trend of the world has been decided, and East China will sooner or later enter the Beijing Division, build a foundation and establish a career, and it is inevitable to change the dynasty.

As a result, a considerable number of local officials surrendered to East China**, and even some officials had already abandoned the city and fled, but after a few days of walking, they understood the taste and turned back to surrender to the People's Army.

At the same time that the People's Army marched into Jiangbei, it also handed over the Jiangnan land in Anhui Province to Yuan Shikai's army to garrison, fortunately, East China ** has not yet sent administrative personnel to these areas, or is it managed by the army, so the transfer has not encountered any trouble, and East China ** did not set up a resettlement camp for disaster victims in the Jiangnan area of Anhui Province, but set up one in Changzhou Prefecture, Jiangsu Province, and also canceled the resettlement camp in accordance with the agreement between the two parties, East China ** All the people were evacuated and handed over to Yuan Shikai for resettlement, and Yuan Shikai gave a one-time compensation of 150,000 taels of silver to East China, and some of the victims were willing to follow East China, and they were all sent by East China to Jiangbei for resettlement.

It took about half a month before and after, the two sides completed the exchange of land, and Yuan Shikai after taking over the land in the south of the Yangtze River, also invested a lot of manpower and material resources to resettle the victims, and pay close attention to post-disaster reconstruction, because Yuan Shikai also understands the importance of people's hearts and minds, and if he wants to gain a foothold in the south and re-establish a career, he must collect the hearts of the people under the rule of Long, and at this time, the first funds provided by various countries to Yuan Shikai, 800,000 taels of silver, have also been received, although there are still many restrictions on the use of this money, but it still makes Yuan Shikai's financial resources greatly abundant, so he also has enough financial resources to treat the victims。 And this operation has indeed won a lot of praise for Yuan Shikai.