Indeed, it is not appropriate for the East China Government to accept or not accept Japan's proposal for an alliance. Because according to the experience of the old time and space, although Russia at this time was not as corrupt and incompetent as the Qing court, it was actually a foreign power and a cadre in the middle, and its real strength was far from being as strong as it seemed on the surface, so if the East China government joined forces with Japan, it could basically defeat Russia relatively easily.

But the Russo-Japanese War was carried out in the northeast of China, in the old time and space, although it was Japan's victory over Russia, but it was only a crushing victory, so under the intervention of other countries, Japan only obtained the right to garrison troops and do business in the northeast, and the sovereignty of the northeast was still transferred to the Qing court, which can be said to have made the Qing court pick up a big bargain, although Japan has been infiltrating the northeast region since then, but it was not until 16 years later, the 918 incident in 1931, that the northeast of China was fully occupied.

In this time and space, if the East China Government and Japan join forces, they will basically be able to defeat Russia more easily, and Japan's national strength will not suffer a major loss, will Japan honestly hand over sovereignty over Northeast China at that time? It is almost certainly not, so when the East China Government and Japan join hands to defeat Russia, that is, the day when the two sides turn their faces, but can the East China Government defeat Japan again? It is difficult to say the outcome, although the East China government has the bonus of five modern warships, and it is stronger than Japan in the navy, but compared to the overall national strength, after more than 30 years of Meiji Restoration, Japan is indeed much stronger than the East China government. Even if Japan succeeds, it will be a disastrous victory that exhausts its national strength, and if any other country takes the opportunity to intervene, the Qing court may even fish in troubled waters, which will be quite unfavorable to the East China government.

If Japan refuses Japan's demand, it will be easy for Japan to be vigilant, and if Japan is prepared, then it will probably not be so easy for the East China Government to take advantage of the fishermen's profits, and in terms of overall strength, the East China Government will be much worse than Japan and Russia, and if it does not take advantage of the fact that Japan and Russia are both defeated, and concentrate their forces on inflicting heavy losses on the two countries in a short period of time, the longer the time drags on, the more unfavorable it will be to the East China Government. Moreover, Japan has the British alliance as its backer, and Russia also has the Russian-French alliance to rely on, so it is not clear that the East China government will face Russia, Britain, and France at the same time.

At the executive meeting, everyone was automatically divided into two factions, one faction believed that the binding force of the treaty was maintained by strength, so as long as its own strength was enough, any treaty could be torn up, and in the old time and space, as soon as the new China was founded, it abolished the vast majority of the unequal treaties signed with various countries before, except for a very small number of which had become an established fact. In the old time and space, it was not uncommon to break the treaty, that is, in the era of the time-traveler, the United States was a champion of the break, and it had withdrawn from PPT, the Paris Agreement, UNESCO, and the World Organization for Migration. Therefore, it is better to sign an alliance treaty with Japan to fool Japan, so that Japan can fight with Russia with peace of mind, and then make a move when both sides are defeated.

The other faction believes that it should not sign a treaty with Japan, because the political cost of breaking the treaty is too high; after all, although international relations are essentially the law of the jungle, they still have to put on a legal and legitimate moral cloak on the outside, and what was abolished after the founding of New China in the old time and space was an unequal treaty, which has a certain international moral basis, and in addition, New China, as a new government that has changed the dynasty, refuses to recognize the treaties signed by the previous DPRK, which is also quite reasonable; while the United States has withdrawn from some international organizations, this is not considered a breach of the treaty. If the East China Government and Japan sign an alliance treaty, it will be a treaty based on basic equal interests, which is fundamentally different from the unequal treaty signed by the Qing court, and if the East China Government takes the liberty of breaking the treaty, it will inevitably lead to a bad reputation in the international community, which will be detrimental to the East China Government's future development of international relations.

Moreover, a war between Japan and Russia was inevitable, and it was impossible to avoid it whether Japan and the East China government signed an alliance treaty or not, so there was no need for the East China government to bear the bad reputation of breaking the treaty.

However, the signatories accused the signatories of being too naïve and taking the treaty too seriously, that international relations are the law of the jungle of the jungle, that international morality is worth a few dollars, that truth is within the range of the cannon, and that everything is in the first place in the interests of their own countries; while the signatories reproached the signatories for stirring up nonsense and acting recklessly, citing the consequences of Japan and Germany easily breaking treaties in the old time and space, which led to their own isolation in the international community. The two factions quarreled and blamed each other, and quarreled fiercely.

In the end, it was Xia Bohai who expressed his opinion, holding that the views of both factions are not advisable, and that international treaties cannot be thrown away or destroyed like handwritten paper; it is still necessary to talk about international morality; but we should not be too rigid about treaties, completely bound by treaties, and national interests are the most important. Instead of arguing over whether or not to sign a treaty and making it difficult to reach a unified opinion, it is better to focus on the content of the treaty, and if it deliberately raises the asking price so that Japan will retreat in the face of difficulties, the East China Government will not only not bear the responsibility, but will also be able to shift the responsibility for failing to sign the treaty to Japan.

Or find a way to manipulate the terms of the treaty, so that you have a loophole to exploit, so that you don't have to bear the notoriety of breaking the treaty. For example, Article 3 of the Anglo-Japanese Treaty of Alliance: If one of the Central Powers fights against two or more other countries, the other side shall provide military assistance, and the Allies shall also be consulted in the event of peace. successfully excluded itself from the Russo-Japanese War, and at the same time was able to suppress France, so that France did not dare to enter the war easily. This is the way old drivers play

Xia Bohai's idea really inspired many people, and finally eliminated the dispute between the two factions, so that everyone drew attention to the content of the treaty. There was a discussion about what conditions Japan would put forward and how the travelers could refute them, and the travelers could make demands that would be difficult for Japan to accept, but could not justify refusal, and so on.

At this point, the people discovered that at this time, the East China Government was actually the one that took the initiative in the negotiations, because the East China Government and Northeast China did not have a direct border zone, but were across the sea, and it was obviously impossible for Russia to cross the sea to attack the East China Government; it can be said that apart from the factor of national feelings, there was no direct contradiction between the Russian Government and the East China Government; however, Northeast China and the Korean Peninsula were directly connected, so the contradictions between Japan and Russia were basically irreconcilable, and it can be said that Japan directly felt the pressure of the war from Russia, and Japan's demand for the East China Government was far greater than the East China Government's demand for Japan。

Five days later, however, the East China Government finally replied to Japan and at the same time held alliance talks to jointly confront Russia, but at the same time put forward four bases for negotiations: First, Japan must respect China's territory and sovereignty; second, the two sides of the alliance must cooperate on an equal footing and must not act on their own; third, the two sides of the alliance must not contact, negotiate, or sign contracts with Russia without permission; and fourth, they must share information with each other.

Although the content of these four points is not much, each of them is difficult for Japan to accept, but the East China Government can say that it is difficult to refute. Needless to say, the first article will completely cut off Japan's ambition to invade and occupy China's northeast region, but what Japan can hardly refute is that the northeast region is originally China's territory, and Japan cannot say that the purpose of going to war with Russia is to invade and occupy China's northeast region.

Articles 2 and 3 restrict Japan's actions, which means that any action of Japan requires the consent of the East China government, of course, from the principle of reciprocity, the actions of the East China government also need the consent of the Japanese government, but now it is Japan that faces the threat of war and not the East China government, so it is actually natural to mainly restrict Japan. However, since the two sides are in an alliance relationship, and since the two sides are reciprocal, the East China government can even say with confidence that we are also going to fight Russia and recover Northeast China, so what reason can Japan have to oppose it?

Article 4 is completely taking advantage of Japan, because Japan's intelligence work against Russia has been more than 10 years, and Fukushima Yasumasa, who is currently the director of the Second Department of the General Staff Headquarters in charge of Japanese intelligence work and the chief of staff of the Western Governor's Department, traveled through Siberia alone from 1892 to 1893 to examine Russia's people's feelings, geography, environment, and intelligence. Even Vladivostok and so on, and the East China government has only just begun to deploy in the northeast, so the realization of mutual sharing of information is naturally beneficial to the East China government, but as an alliance, it is understandable to make this request.

After receiving the reply from the East China Government, Keishiro Matsui did not dare to slack off, and immediately transmitted the basis for the four-point negotiations proposed by the East China Government back to Japan, which decided whether or not to negotiate with overseas Chinese.

The basis for the negotiation of these four articles has caused great controversy within the Japanese government, but the focus of the controversy is mainly on the first article. Although the goal of Japan's war against Russia is to protect its own interests on the Korean Peninsula, if Japan really defeats Russia, it will certainly not be willing to stop at the Korean Peninsula, and many people in the military department are already planning; if Russia is defeated once it is defeated, the lowest goal will be to pocket the Liaodong Peninsula, and the highest goal will naturally be to replace Russia and occupy northeast China in an all-round way.

The East China Government took "respecting China's territory and sovereignty" as the basis for its negotiations, and of course forbade Japan to take advantage of the opportunity of the dispute to invade and occupy China's northeastern region, but this was naturally unacceptable to the Japanese Government. Therefore, at the Cabinet meeting in Japan, the ministers unanimously opposed "respect for China's territory and sovereignty" as the basis for negotiations. In particular, Oyama Iwa shouted at the cabinet meeting: "If it is not for China's northeast region, then what is the significance of this war? It also won the unanimous approval of the cabinet members.