Li Hongzhang thought about it seriously again, and finally agreed to Qin Zheng's request, after all, no matter what the purpose of the overseas Chinese, this request was ultimately beneficial to the Qing court.

After finishing the conversation with Qin Zheng, Li Hongzhang immediately found Sa Zhenbing, the acting admiral of the Beiyang Naval Division, and explained to him the requirements of the overseas Chinese. Ye Zugui, who is currently the commander of the Beiyang Naval Division, has always been ill, so now the affairs of the Beiyang Naval Division are managed by Sa Zhenbing.

After listening to Li Hongzhang's words, Sa Zhenbing immediately expressed his willingness to take part in this joint naval military exercise, first, because this was supposed to be an action to enhance the prestige of the Beiyang naval division; second, Sa Zhenbing did have a very good impression of overseas Chinese, and he visited Tianjin with Li Hongzhang, and left a very deep impression on the military appearance of overseas Chinese and their unique warships, and he also hoped that through this joint naval military exercise, he would establish good relations with overseas Chinese and deal with foreign hostile forces in the future.

Seeing that Sa Zhenbing agreed to participate in this operation, Li Hongzhang was also very satisfied, and after consulting with Sa Zhenbing, it was decided that Sa Zhenbing would personally lead the team and lead the three warships of Haiqi, Hairong, and Haichou to Tianjin to join the fleet of overseas Chinese.

It turned out that Li Hongzhang was also a little unsure of what attitude the Qing court would have towards this joint military exercise at sea, although this matter was beneficial to the Qing court, but now among those people in Xi'an, there are few knowledgeable people, and there are many ignorant people, and Cixi is also half-ignorant in this regard, so this news reached Xi'an, who knows what they will think, and now Li Hongzhang is too lazy to patiently explain, so he simply comes to a prelude, let Sa Zhenbing take the fleet to Tianjin first, and then tell the Qing court, so that even if the Qing court is unwilling, it will not let the fleet withdraw again.

And the next day, Qin Zheng left Shanghai and returned to Tianjin. After all, Qin Zheng is the main leader of the crossing group, one of the main military leaders, there are still many things waiting for Qin Zheng to go back in Tianjin to be determined, and now the affairs in Shanghai are basically over, although the exhibition and concert are still being held, but there is no need for Qin Zheng to stare here. And even if you want to negotiate with Russia in the future, you don't need Qin Zheng to come forward, just have Li Sanjie in charge.

Now all the focus has shifted to Russia, after all, Russia is the only one in the Eight-Nation Coalition that has not yet joined the treaty, and now Russia still occupies the northeast of China, so the next step is to see how to force Russia to make concessions.

Although Russia did not participate in the Shanghai negotiations, the government of Tsar Nicholas II of Russia knew very well that the current situation was quite unfavorable for Russia, and once the overseas Chinese successfully negotiated with the other seven countries, Russia was in danger of being isolated and fell into great diplomatic passivity. And judging by the current situation, this is very likely. Of course, Russia was not willing to be in such a diplomatic predicament, but the previous words were too full, and the battle of Shanhaiguan was also lost too badly, which made it difficult for Russia to take the initiative to join the Shanghai negotiations, so during the Shanghai negotiations, Russia also carried out frequent activities, hoping to break the diplomatic isolation.

First of all, Russia has two other countries with which we can communicate, France and Germany. France was an ally of Russia, and the German royal family had a very close relationship with the Russian imperial family. Therefore, Russia successively asked France and Germany to hold low control of the Shanghai negotiations and redefine its policy toward China through diplomatic channels, but France's response was that the Shanghai negotiations were in France's interests and urged Russia to join the Shanghai negotiations as a matter of ideal; while the German imperial family expressed its understanding of Russia's decision and would fully support Russia's expansion in the Far East, but Germany did not intend to withdraw from the Shanghai negotiations.

Seeing that France and Germany could not be moved, Russia turned to Japan and expressed its willingness to hold talks with Japan on the Korean Peninsula issue and to thoroughly demarcate and determine the scope of interests of both sides on the Korean Peninsula, but Japan must withdraw from the Shanghai talks.

On the contrary, the Japanese Government demanded that unless Russia completely withdrew from the Korean Peninsula, it would not accept any of the conditions put forward by Russia, because after the First Sino-Japanese War, Japan regarded Korea as its sphere of influence and was unwilling to let Russia get involved. Moreover, now that Japan has the support of Britain behind it, and the overseas Chinese are also interested in joining forces with Japan to fight against Russia, with these confidences, Japan also dares to forcefully demand that Russia completely withdraw from the Korean Peninsula.

It's just that now Russia wants to keep Northeast China and is unwilling to give up the Korean Peninsula, and of course it is impossible to accept Japan's conditions, so the road of Lalong Japan will not work.

Dmitriev personally came to Li Hongzhang, on the one hand, talking a lot about the personal friendship between Russia and Li Hongzhang, and on the other hand, he said that Russia was willing to negotiate with the Qing court alone, and explicitly promised that Russia would agree to withdraw its troops from northeast China, and Dmitriev also promised Li Hongzhang that as long as Li Hongzhang facilitated a separate negotiation between Russia and the Qing court, he would promise Li Hongzhang a personal remuneration of 1 million rubles.

It should be said that Russia's goal is very clear, because the legitimate government of China is still the Qing court, so as long as it can facilitate separate negotiations between Russia and the Qing court, it can break the deadlock caused by the Shanghai negotiations on Russia, and even throw out the lure of agreeing to withdraw troops from the northeast as a bait. Of course, Russia will not withdraw its troops from the northeast, but as long as the separate negotiations between Russia and the Qing court are held, Russia will break through the diplomatic dilemma, and both overseas Chinese and other countries will take the initiative to come to Russia, so that Russia will have the capital to sit on the ground and raise prices. As for negotiations with the Qing court, backtracking has always been Russia's forte.

Li Hongzhang was indeed a little tempted by the conditions put forward by the Russians, but thinking of the tough methods of the overseas Chinese, Li Hongzhang could also expect that once he agreed to the demands of the Russians, the overseas Chinese would definitely start another war against Russia immediately, and now that Beijing was still in the hands of the overseas Chinese, the imperial court would no longer have to think of returning to Beijing, so Li Hongzhang finally rejected the Russians' request, but said that the Qing court hoped to use the platform of Shanghai negotiations to resolve disputes with other countries, and would not negotiate with other countries alone in addition to the Shanghai negotiations。

Immediately after sending off the Russian consul, Li Hongzhang sent a telegram to Prince Qing in Beijing and the imperial court in Xi'an, demanding that if they received a request for help from Russia for separate negotiations, they must sternly refuse and not agree.

It should be said that Li Hongzhang's worries are very reasonable, after the Russians hit a nail in Li Hongzhang's place, they immediately found other channels to contact the Qing court, but now the Qing court is far away in Xi'an, and it cannot be contacted, so the Russians target Prince Qing in Beijing, and they set the same conditions for Prince Qing as Li Hongzhang, as long as they can promote separate negotiations between Russia and the Qing court, they will give Prince Qing a reward of 1 million rubles.

If there was no telegram from Li Hongzhang, Prince Qing would have really accepted the money, after all, 1 million rubles is equivalent to about 4 million taels of silver, which is a huge amount of income.

However, Prince Qing is not stupid, he knows what money can be taken, what money cannot be taken, when he can be greedy, when he can't be greedy, and when not only can't he be greedy, but he also has to send money out. After receiving Li Hongzhang's telegram, Prince Qing understood that the money was nothing that could not be taken, so Prince Qing could only grit his teeth and refuse the request of the Russians, for which Prince Qing was so sad that he could not eat for three days, and the whole person was tired.

As a result, the Russians were busy for a long time, but all of them worked in vain and achieved nothing, and then the Shanghai negotiations had ended, and then Britain, France, the United States, Germany, Japan, Italy, and Austria jointly sent a diplomatic letter to the Russian government, demanding that Russia accept the results of the Shanghai negotiations and negotiate with the Qing as soon as possible about withdrawing troops from Northeast China and restoring peace in China. On behalf of the Qing court, Li Hongzhang also officially issued a document to Russia, demanding that Russia withdraw from Northeast China. The crossing group also issued a statement saying that Russia would never be allowed to move around in northeast China. All of a sudden, all the pressure was piling up on Russia.

Tsar Nicholas II issued a very strong statement, saying that Russia would never succumb to pressure, accept the results of the Shanghai negotiations, and would go all out to defend Russia's national interests.

This was almost tantamount to a naked declaration of battle, and it also shocked the whole world, as if it had already smelled the strong smell of gunpowder, and it was difficult to understand whether Russia really planned to launch a large-scale war in the Far East? However, at this time, the Russian Government made a slightly more conciliatory statement: The Russian Government would not accept the results of the Shanghai talks, but could accept holding separate negotiations with the Qing court to resolve the issue of northeast China through consultations, but the venue of the negotiations must be set in Shenyang, not Shanghai.

However, Li Hongzhang then issued a reply on behalf of the Qing court: The Chun court would not hold separate negotiations with Russia, and Russia must accept the results of the Shanghai negotiations.

The crossing group issued a tougher statement, saying that if the Russian government does not accept the results of the Shanghai negotiations and continues to distance itself from Northeast China, then what awaits them will be the guns of the People's Army, and the Russian ** team will definitely be completely driven out of the northeast.

In such an escalating war of words and cannons, Qin Zheng returned to Tianjin.