As soon as he returned to Tianjin, Qin Zheng attended the meeting Chinese of the whole executive committee before he had time to go home to rest. ?? (8).?8 (1)1?Z?(1).?COM Of course, the topic discussed at this meeting is not only about this negotiation, although this negotiation is very important to the crossing group, but the situation has reached this point, there will be basically no major variables, after all, the conditions set by the negotiation cattle crosser, the bottom line that each country can accept, and their respective goals are at least seventy or eighty percent clear to each other, so as long as the two sides are not too high, then the success of the negotiation will not be too much of a problem. All that was to be discussed at the meeting were some details related to the negotiations.

In fact, the real focus of this meeting is to discuss the next exhibition plan of the entire crossing group. Therefore, not only Qin Zheng, but also Li Songchen in Beijing, Wang Yunpeng in Qingdao, and other permanent executive committee members stationed abroad, executive members, and alternate executive members, except for Li Sanjie, who remained in Shanghai, all returned to Tianjin to attend the meeting.

Due to the reasons of the Battle of Beijing and the Battle of Shanhaiguan, it had a great impact on the exhibition of the Crossing Group, although during the war, some engineering projects were still continuing, but there were still many exhibition plans that were temporarily suspended, such as the plan to move the administrative center of the Crossing Group to Qingdao, which had been determined for a long time, basically came to a standstill.

In addition, according to the decision of the last meeting of the Executive Committee, the current Executive Committee and the Administration Department are all temporary institutions, and this year is a transitional period, and before the end of the year, it is necessary to determine the rules for the formation of the leaders, administrative bodies, and legislative bodies of the Crossing Group, and to produce the formal leadership team and administrative body of the Crossing Group. It can be said that these things are more important than the ongoing engineering projects.

Now the war is basically certain to be over, although negotiations have not yet begun, but these things cannot be delayed any longer, after all, 1/4 of the year has passed, if you don't hurry up, it will be too late. Moreover, the Executive Committee has also officially confirmed that negotiations are negotiations and exhibitions are exhibitions, and there will be no delay on both sides. Therefore, how these things will proceed will be discussed and determined at this meeting.

Of course, the first topic of the meeting is still the Shanghai talks. The principles of this negotiation were laid down long before the war, which was to end the war in China and force the countries to recognize the status quo and to have completely independent sovereignty, administrative power, customs duties, etc., in the area controlled by the crossing bloc.

Although it has also been suggested that these principles were established before the war, and now that the two wars have been won, it is necessary to raise the price, such as demanding reparations from the countries.

It should be said that such a demand has a considerable market in the current crossing group, and in the old time and space, many people who wear it are tired of the government's moderate foreign policy, hoping to feel the feeling of being an imperialist in this era, and with the successive victories of the People's Army on the battlefield, as the victors, it is natural to enjoy the fruits of the victors, and asking for compensation is only the most basic condition; many of the travelers are even bursting with self-confidence, believing that with the strength of the current crossing group, it is enough to sweep the world, and the goal is to the sea of stars. Not only do they demand reparations from all countries, but they also want to cede land, or at least all the land ceded from China in this era.

Fortunately, they are members of the executive committee, and they are permanent executive members, and the executive members still keep a clear mind, firstly, they are in the old time and space, at least they are also middle-level managers, or members of the system, and their social experience, experience, and insight are much stronger than ordinary otaku, keyboard warriors, and angry youth;

Although the cross-border group has won a major military victory at present, in terms of overall strength, it is far inferior to any of the countries in the eight-nation coalition, and it is only because the interests of various countries are entangled and mutually contained that the countries cannot fully devote themselves to China and expand the scale of the war, but are willing to negotiate with the cross-border group to settle the matter, of course, the premise of the negotiations is that the interests of all countries will not suffer too much loss. However, if the price of the crossing group is too high, insisting on the reparations paid by various countries for land cession, or spitting out the occupied Chinese land, this will obviously seriously damage the interests of all countries, and can only force all countries to expand the war and devote their main forces to the Chinese battlefield.

Just as Britain could not spit out Hong Kong and Japan could not spit out Taiwan, Russia could not spit out the vast land north of the Heilongjiang River, and the crossing group did not have enough strength to recover these lands at present. At this stage, therefore, the recognition of the status of the Crossing Group by States is the most appropriate objective. Of course, the captured soldiers of various countries will not be let go so easily, and they must pay a ransom fee, which is also what the crossing group can do at present.

At present, more than 37,000 soldiers from various countries have been captured by the People's Army, including 22,134 Russians, 8,934 Germans, 2,217 British, 1,847 French, 1,215 Japanese, 735 American, 73 Italian, and 47 Austro-Hungarian. The Russians and Germans alone took more than 30,000 prisoners, due to the capture of nearly 18,000 Russian soldiers in the Battle of Shanhaiguan, and the Germans were mainly the heads of the Far Eastern Fleet. These captives have now become free labor through the group, and they are also the most important bargaining chips in this negotiation, and they must be fully used to squeeze out the value of these captives as much as possible.

Of course, the ransom fee can be paid in cash, or it can be deducted with the items specified by the traverser, which is very flexible. However, Finance Minister Jia Zhenzhao raised the issue of currency.

Previously, the traverser seized the currency of many countries, but this era is the gold standard, there is no recognized international trade settlement currency, theoretically speaking, the currency of each country can only circulate in the national market, and international trade is settled with gold, but some countries with strong economic strength and large scale of international trade can use the currency of the whole world, and actually act as the function of international trade settlement currency. In this era, the largest international currency is the British pound, the second is the franc, the third is the US dollar, and the fourth is the German mark, and these four countries are also the four largest economies in the world, after the First Sino-Japanese War, the Qing court compensated Japan 230 million silver, and finally all of them were converted into francs to pay.

And despite Russia's strength, its economic strength is modest, so the currency is not very competitive. In the old time and space, when the Soviet Union later supported the Chinese revolution, it used gold rubles, not paper rubles.

Jia Zhenzhao suggested that if non-metallic currencies are collected, then the crossing group should only accept British pounds, francs, US dollars, and German marks, and other currencies such as yen, lira, ruble, etc., which are not in circulation, so there is no need for these currencies.

This proposal was unanimously endorsed by the Executive Committee. In addition to the monetary factor, another important reason is that Russia, although the Russian soldiers are the largest among the current prisoners, more than half of the prisoners, but in the document jointly requested by various countries to reopen the peace with the crossing group, there is no signature of the Russian consul, that is to say, there is no Russia in the negotiations with other countries. Therefore, it was not necessary for the traverser to include the Russian ruble in the currency of the ransom fee.

In fact, such a result is still a good thing for the traverser, because now Russia still occupies the three eastern provinces of China, posing a huge threat to Britain and Japan, so as long as Russia's power exists for a day, the traverser can make full use of it, pull Britain and Japan, and jointly fight against Russia, so that they can also obtain a stable period.

Of course, if they finally negotiate with Russia, then they will have to exchange other currencies to redeem the Russian prisoners, or pay with real money, and Britain and Russia are at hostility, and the United States has always wanted to enter the northeast market of China, so it is impossible for Russia to exchange pounds or dollars, and can only choose between francs and marks. In this way, Germany has a great opportunity.

Although the Anglo-Russian alliance was a hostile rival to Germany, there were still a large number of pro-German forces in Russia, hoping to restore the old Three Emperors Alliance, and the Russian Chancellor of the Exchequer Sergei Vitte was a staunch pro-German faction, Tsar Nicholas II and German Kaiser Wilhelm II were cousins, and the two had an excellent personal relationship as a teenager. Kaiser Wilhelm II had always been confident in breaking up the Franco-Russian alliance, and apart from Wilhelm II's always feeling good about himself, he was not completely unfounded. If Germany could lower the interest rate to Russia, or even the non-interest-bearing mark, it could indeed have an impact on the Franco-Russian alliance. And this is tantamount to a favor sent to Germany by crossing the group.

As for the machinery and equipment needed, many departments have now issued orders, applying for the purchase of various kinds of machinery and equipment as many as more than 3,000 units, to the point that all departments are not counting on the compensation or ransom money from this negotiation, but because the group has obtained a large amount of silver in Beijing, and the treasury is abundant, it will naturally not be polite, and they have written applications and reports, and applied for funds and projects for their own departments, so as to improve their own right to speak.

In fact, most of the machinery and equipment purchased by the application are not currently urgently needed by the group, and even a considerable part is not reliable at all, although the financial wealth of the group is abundant, but it can not be spent indiscriminately, and all project equipment applications must go through the process and conduct strict hearing audits. At present, there are only two projects that can be determined, one is that the textile factory should expand its business scale and apply for the purchase of 5oo textile machines. After nearly 4 months of production, the production and operation of the textile mill has been completely on the right track, but now the scale of the textile mill is too small, only the expansion of the People's Army, the demand for various fabrics has exceeded the capacity of the textile mill, so it is natural for the textile mill to expand its scale.

The other is Qingdao Shipbuilding's proposal to purchase a batch of shipboard weapons and shipbuilding equipment, and to restore and put all the salvaged warships into active service, so that the People's Army can immediately have a navy of considerable size, which is very important for maintaining coastal defense and cultivating naval construction.