In fact, trade negotiations often go back and forth for many rounds, sometimes for years to reach a final result, so it is not uncommon for negotiations to reach an impasse in the early stages of negotiations. Sometimes, in the first or second round of negotiations, the two sides will even deliberately raise the asking price to bring the negotiations to an impasse in order to show their toughness and leave enough room for themselves to make concessions in the subsequent negotiations. As the negotiations progress, the conditions will be gradually lowered, each side will make concessions, and the final agreement may be almost completely different from the conditions previously offered, and the two sides of the negotiation will not achieve their most ideal goals, but they are also acceptable.

And now the trade negotiations between East China ** and Japan have reached an impasse, which is actually a normal operation. However, in order to maximize their own interests, East China can slowly grind time, but now Japan can't afford it, because on the second day of Qin Zheng's return to China, Britain, France and Russia officially notified Japan that the three countries will completely stop all cooperation with Japan from now on, and require Japan to correct its mistakes as soon as possible and not to damage the interests of the [Quadrilateral Alliance].

It turned out that the visit of East China ** to Japan, the embassies of Britain, France and Russia in Japan were all sent back to China in detail, although the three countries knew that Japan was pretending to be a gesture, the intention was to put pressure on Britain, so they made a payment to make peace with East China**, but after learning that the Japanese emperor had received Qin Zheng, Britain, France and Russia were a little uncontrollable. Russia is a monarchy, and although France is now a republic, it was also a country with a long history of monarchy, and it has been less than 40 years since the abolition of the monarchy, and we all know that the significance of the monarch's meeting with envoys is quite significant, and it can only be between countries with very good relations.

At this time, it is also said that Japan is pretending to be a gesture, I am afraid it is a little inconsistent with the facts, Bi Jing has reached this point, it seems that Japan is really interested in improving relations with East China. Therefore, Britain, France and Russia could no longer remain indifferent, and although the trade negotiations between East China and Japan had not yet ended at this time, the three countries decided to immediately start imposing sanctions on Japan. Of course, at this time, East China ** and Japan have signed a peace agreement, which has actually damaged the interests of the [Quad Alliance], and it is reasonable to sanction Japan now.

Of course, the politicians of Britain, France and Russia also know that in fact, at this point, even if sanctions against Japan are imposed, it will be difficult to prevent Japan from improving relations with East China, but when the trade negotiations between East China and Japan have not ended, the implementation of sanctions against Japan can interfere with Japan's negotiation work, so that Japan will fall into a passive position in this negotiation, and it will be difficult to achieve its expected goals, so that Japan will be in a disadvantageous position in the future trade relations with East China, and Japan and East China will be in a disadvantageous position in the future trade relations with East China. A wedge was driven into the relationship, and then the relationship between Japan and East China was slowly divided, and finally Japan was still pulled back into the framework of the [Quadruple Alliance]. It has to be said that Britain, France, and Russia, as old imperialist countries, have indeed reached a very high level in their use of power and conspiracy.

Sure enough, Britain, France and Russia imposed sanctions on Japan in advance, which did cause huge pressure on Japan, and now only by reaching a trade agreement with East China as soon as possible can we make up for the losses caused by the sanctions imposed on Japan by Britain, France and Russia. But now the negotiations between the two sides have reached an impasse, it is the time to compete with each other for patience and positioning, if Japan is eager to reach a trade agreement with East China, it will undoubtedly make Japan fall into a passive situation in the negotiations, and it is necessary to make concessions to East China. In this way, even if the two parties succeed in signing the contract, Japan will not be satisfied.

But the current situation does not allow Japan and East China to grind slowly, even if it is to sign a trade agreement that is not very favorable to Japan, but it is better than not signing a trade agreement, after all, the trade between Britain, France and Russia has been temporarily stopped, although Japan also intends to pull the relationship with the United States and Germany, but now there is no East China between the United States and Germany, after all, and East China has begun to talk.

Therefore, in the following negotiations, Japan obviously lowered its posture and lowered its demands, giving up some unreasonable demands, such as the requirement that trade between the two sides be settled in yen and the demand for the Korean Peninsula, and no longer insisting that the tariff requirements must be reduced to a minimum, as long as they can reach a level that Japan can bear.

The two sides soon negotiated a number of agreements, first of all, in terms of settlement, Japan agreed with East China's conditions, in addition to the currencies of both sides, with pounds, dollars, and silver as the settlement currencies agreed by both sides; at the same time, East China will also increase the share of mineral resources and production raw materials exported to Japan to a quantity that Japan can accept, and reduce export tariffs to the lowest level stipulated by East China; moreover, East China** Japan also agreed to import as much machinery and equipment as possible from Japan, iron and steel products, etc., and figuratively determined a purchase quantity, but the part beyond this amount can only be determined by the market, and Japan also agreed to reduce export tariffs on these goods to a minimum in order to increase its competitiveness.

In addition, East China also plans to import a certain amount of agricultural products, seafood, and some handicrafts from Japan every year, but requires Japan to lower the export tariffs on these goods.

Agricultural products and seafood belong to the food category, which is the material that East China needs at present, because East China is preparing for the war to overthrow the Qing court, agricultural products and seafood are strategic materials, and the more the better. And Japanese handicrafts such as ***, folding fans, and umbrellas, prints, ukiyo-e, dolls, etc. are very popular in East China, Bi Jing now the elders basically have a certain political and economic status, living conditions are also improved, naturally there is a higher pursuit, not only Japanese handicrafts, handicrafts of European countries are also very popular among the elders. And the so-called upward and downward effect, the living habits of the elders also affect other naturalized people, so the demand for handicrafts is also increasing day by day, of course, compared with the total foreign trade of East China, it is only a very small part, and the foreign trade pattern of East China will not have any impact on the pattern of foreign trade, and the Executive Yuan has not interfered.

And seafood and handicrafts to do well, this is also the main items of Japan's exports, seafood is to the sea to produce, handicrafts are to cost some labor, East China ** to import, for Japan is actually no better, reducing tariffs is nothing more than to make a little less, or acceptable, but the requirement to import agricultural products, it makes Japan's negotiation delegation a little difficult, because Japan is not a big agricultural country, agricultural products themselves may not be enough, that can be exported to East China in large quantities , but now Japan is in a weak position, it is difficult to refuse East China, and if it is not good, there are no seafood, handicrafts, then the gains outweigh the losses.

After Japan's first consultation, it finally accepted this condition, after all, it is still important to make money, because it is Japan's vitality is now greatly damaged, and it needs to export more to make money, as for Japan's production is not enough, it can also be collected from the Korean Peninsula, Ryukyu, Taiwan, anyway, just raise taxes, as for the life and death of the people in those areas, of course, it will not be put on the heart of Japan.

But in the end, when it comes to light industrial products such as cloth, cotton yarn, textiles, paper products, and other light industrial products exported to China by Japan, East China will insist on not reducing tariffs, because these products have a great overlap with the current industries in East China, so East China will protect its own industries and will naturally not reduce tariffs on these goods.

The two sides were at a stalemate on this issue, and there was no progress for several days, and finally decided to put aside the issue of import tariffs on 32 kinds of goods in East China for the time being, and first sign the negotiated part into a trade agreement, and then discuss these issues in the next negotiations. Negotiate in stages and sign an agreement, which is also a common thing in trade negotiations, so East China and Japan signed the first round of trade agreements, and agreed to conduct the second round of trade negotiations in Qingdao within three months.

Although this trade agreement is far from Japan's expectations, in any case, Japan can import mineral resources and production raw materials from East China at a lower price, and can export some machinery and equipment, iron and steel products, agricultural products, seafood, and some handicrafts to East China.

The day after the trade negotiation delegation from East China left Japan, Ito announced his resignation as prime minister, dissolved the cabinet, and reselected the prime minister to form a cabinet.

According to the agreement reached between Ito Hirobumi and Yamaguchi Aritomo, after Ito Hirobumi resigned, a representative of the military was appointed as the prime minister to form a cabinet, but what made Yamaguchi Aritomo difficult was that now the Japanese Army could not find a suitable candidate, because in the Far East War, the Army lost many high-level personnel, which led to a fault in the high-level personnel. Katsura Taro was the first to be qualified to be prime minister, but he stepped down due to the defeat in the Far East War, so he couldn't immediately enter the palace for the second time; followed by Kodama Gentaro, but now Kodama Gentaro is the only remaining general of the Japanese Army, and he is responsible for the heavy task of rebuilding the Japanese Army, and it is a huge loss to the Japanese Army to let him quit the military and join politics.

In fact, Terauchi Masahiro is not the most suitable person, and his qualifications are enough to avoid being strong, but Terauchi Masahiro resigned due to the defeat in the Far East War, and now let him be the prime minister, isn't it not going to rise instead of falling? But apart from Terauchi Matsui, there is really no one to find, so he can only avoid being strong.

However, the Navy's proposal was strongly opposed by the Navy, and the Admiralty held that Terauchi Masatakeshi had an unshirkable responsibility for the fact that the Army's intelligence personnel had left alone, and that this incident had caused huge losses to Japan, and that the entire Army should be held responsible for this, and that it was not appropriate to choose a prime minister from the Army. The opinion of the Admiralty was also supported by a large number of ** officials, all of whom were opposed to the Army being prime minister, and if they had to be selected from the military, they should also be found from the Navy.

At this time, he still didn't understand that he was originally calculated by Ito Hirobumi, but now the general trend has been decided, and the army is powerless to return to the sky, even if he does not grab the position of prime minister, it will be difficult to last long, so he can only push the boat down the river and give up the position of prime minister to the navy. As a result, the Minister of the Navy, Gonbei Yamamoto, was appointed prime minister and the cabinet was reorganized.