Huo Bilan said: "Of course this is different, Beijing was captured by our army with great sacrifices, so we will never hand over Beijing to anyone until we have negotiated a treaty with the Qing State." Pen @ fun @ pavilion wWw. ｂｉｑUｇE。 ｉｎｆｏ”

Qin Zheng said-for-tat: "Your war to capture Beijing is a war of aggression, so after the negotiations are over, you should withdraw from Beijing immediately, although we have no subordinate relationship with the Chunguo, but we are Chinese, fully qualified to take over Beijing, we will never back down on this, if you feel that Beijing was captured by your army through war, then we can also take Beijing back through war." ”

Huo Bilan was not to be outdone, and said: "Okay, you go and attack Beijing to see if you can take Beijing." ”

Seeing that the two sides were about to talk about to stalemate again, Li Hongzhang hurriedly said: "In this way, even if it is difficult for the two sides to reach an agreement on the Beijing issue for the time being, then we will put this article aside and discuss the later terms." ”

In fact, it is common for the two sides to enter into a deadlock over a certain clause in the course of negotiations, and the usual solution is to first put down the terms that are difficult to compromise and move on to other clauses, first negotiate the terms that are easy to agree, and then go back to discuss the difficult parts, which is to promote the negotiation to continue; second, to find the common ground between the two sides as much as possible, to reduce differences, and to facilitate the discussion of the difficult parts later. Therefore, neither the traveler nor the other countries had any objection to Li Hongzhang's proposal, but since the second article and the first article were closely related, the two sides skipped the second article and directly discussed the third article.

However, the ensuing discussions still did not go well, and although the two sides did not oppose the latter clauses as much as the first two, there were still huge differences. As for the question of the redemption of prisoners, although the countries agreed to pay for the cost of the prisoners, they proposed a ceiling on the cost, that is, a fixed price, to redeem all the prisoners, and the total cost of the prisoners they were willing to pay was 1 million taels of silver.

Naturally, this was rejected by the traverser, because the fee was too different from the traverser's expectations. In the terms of the negotiations, the traversers did not ask the countries for reparations, but counted on a large profit from the ransom of the prisoners. Therefore, the traverser advocates that the cost of ransom should be determined according to the corresponding calculation formula, and the cost of ransom should be divided into two parts, one part is the direct cost of redeeming the prisoner, which is different according to the military street of the prisoner, the direct cost is also different, the higher the rank, the higher the cost of the ransom, the cost of a general's ransom is worth nearly 100 ordinary privates, and the other part is the management, life, and The cost of food, which is calculated by time, the longer the captivity, the higher the cost to pay, in addition, the cost will increase by one day for each day that the negotiation drags on.

Although the traveler did not calculate how much it would cost in the end if he followed the plan he proposed, it was expected to be at least about 500-6 million taels of silver, or even more, and this far exceeded the expectations of various countries, and naturally could not be accepted by all countries. As a result, the two sides engaged in fierce arguments and refused to give in to each other, and in the end it was only possible to determine that each country should pay the cost of the prisoner's ransom, but how to determine the cost of the prisoner's ransom will be discussed later.

As for Article 4, the question of the abolition of the concessions of Tianjin, Weihaiwei and Qingdao, there was nothing to dispute in the first place, because all countries understood that they should not think about swallowing up the places that were swallowed up by overseas Chinese, and the real intention of the countries was to obtain compensation from the Qing court, so the terms of negotiation given by the countries to the Qing court included the clause of obtaining new concessions.

However, the countries will not let the crosser pass the customs easily, but to use this article to increase the bargaining chips for other terms of negotiation, so the countries proposed that the concession can be given to the crosser, but the crosser must pay a certain fee to the countries to make up for the losses of the countries, but this was naturally rejected by the crosser, the concession has been occupied by me, and I still want to pay, there is no door.

The discussion of Article 5 is similar to that of Article 4, which is basically something that countries are ready to give up, but they will be stirred up if they are ignored, so in the end they can only be discussed again.

Only Article 6 and Article 7 are not very different between the two sides, because these two articles take into account the interests of all countries and basically belong to the mutual benefit of both sides, so they can basically be determined.

Generally speaking, two of the seven negotiation clauses put forward by the traverser have huge differences, three have objections but still need to be discussed and negotiated, and two can basically be determined, which is a basically normal situation in the negotiations, after all, this is only the initial discussion, and of course it is impossible to determine all of them at once. And this also shows that the negotiation terms proposed by the traverser are generally reliable, and they do not arbitrarily offer high prices to other countries.

At this time, the morning time ended, and the preliminary discussion of the terms of negotiation proposed by the traverser also ended, and after the three parties had lunch in the Jing'an Temple, the negotiations began at 2 p.m. to continue the afternoon negotiations, and in the afternoon the discussion of the terms proposed by the various countries to the Qing court.

However, in the morning, the traversers, who had had had enough of the wanton troubles of various countries, finally waited for the time to raise their eyebrows, and vetoed all the eight articles proposed by various countries, and their attitude was quite firm, and there was no room for discussion at all.

The traverser was very happy, but it made the countries feel very annoyed, and they were here to negotiate, and they were clearly here to stir up the situation. Therefore, when it came to the future, Huo Bilan was also a little breathless, and said: "Political Commissar Qin, your attitude doesn't look like you're here to negotiate at all, I doubt the sincerity of your negotiations." ”

Qin Zheng said: "We came to negotiate very sincerely, so we came to Shanghai from Tianjin? Mr. Consul said this, which is the biggest insult to us, so I hope Mr. Consul will give me a reasonable explanation." ”

Huo Bilan said: "Since it is a negotiation, then it is necessary to allow the discussion of the plan proposed by both sides, and you not only rejected all the negotiation terms we proposed, but also insisted on not discussing them again, so I doubt that your negotiation sincerity is absolutely grounded." ”

Qin Zheng sneered and said, "Mr. Consul, I think as a diplomat, you should know very well that negotiation is not a deal, you ask for a price, I will pay back the money on the spot, and finally both sides will give in one step, hello, I am good, everyone is good." The reason why you put forward the eight negotiation clauses are all unreasonable clauses, and all of them exceed our bottom line, because we have already said them when we discussed them one by one, so we will not repeat them. But we want to deny it all, and that is a hasty question. “

Seeing that the two sides were about to talk about to be deadlocked again, Bai Zaotai said: "We talked for a long time just now, but we didn't ask for the opinion of the Qing State, which is also a bit rude, so I think it is necessary to listen to the opinions of the Qing State." ”

When Huo Bilan heard this, he immediately understood Bai Zaotai's intention, which was to find a breakthrough from the Qing court without touching the overseas Chinese, so he didn't ask the traverser, turned to the side of the Qing court, and said: "Li Zhongtang, the discussion we just had was related to the Qing court, so we want to hear your attitude?"

From the beginning of the negotiations until now, the Qing court has only spoken and eased up when the talks between the traverser and the various countries were about to stalemate, but it did not express any opinion on the substance of the discussions between the two sides, but listened to them from the side. If people who don't know see it, they still think that the Qing court is the mediator in this negotiation, not a participant. Li Jingfang has been engaged in diplomacy with Li Hongzhang for more than ten years, and he has never encountered such a situation, and listening to the two sides discussing the affairs of the Qing court, they have even quarreled fiercely, and the negotiators of the Qing court are also uncomfortable, and on two occasions Li Jingfang wanted to express his opinion, but Li Hongzhang stopped him.

Now that Huo Bilan took the initiative to inquire about the attitude of the Qing court, Li Jingfang and the others couldn't help but feel refreshed, and it was finally their turn to speak. At this time, Li Hongzhang said: "The old man told the truth, although we are also on one side of this negotiation, but it is dominated by the two of you, we are inconvenient to take the lead, there is nothing to say at this moment, just wait for the results of the negotiation between the two of you, and the old man will report the results to the court, and the court will decide." After a pause, he said: "It's late today, and you have talked a lot, according to the old man's opinion, it is better to stop today, everyone go back and rest for the night, and then talk about it tomorrow." ”

Li Hongzhang knew in his heart that Huo Bilan was respecting the Qing court on the surface, but in fact he wanted to put himself on the fire to roast, nothing more than hoping to let himself accept the conditions of various countries to suppress overseas Chinese, but Li Hongzhang also understood that overseas Chinese were not fooled, so he must not go to this muddy water, so Li Hongzhang came and pretended to be a grandson.

Huo Bilan was obviously very dissatisfied with Li Hongzhang's attitude, but he couldn't say anything at this time, and when he talked about this step today, he really couldn't talk about anything, so Huo Bilan also nodded and said, "That's fine, let's talk about it here today, and we'll continue to talk about it tomorrow, what does Political Commissar Qin think?"

Qin Zheng smiled: "I have no opinion, so let's talk about it tomorrow." ”

All three parties agreed that today's negotiations would be over, so they packed up their things and left the negotiation room.

Qin Zheng and the others came outside, and were about to get in the car to return to the Licha Hotel, only to hear Li Hongzhang say behind him: "Political Commissar Qin, please stay." ”

Qin Zheng turned around and said, "Is there something wrong with Li Zhongtang?"

Li Hongzhang said: "Thank you today for fighting for the interests of the imperial court. ”

Although it is said that the traverser did not take the Qing court seriously, in today's negotiations, objectively it is indeed to help the Qing court safeguard its interests, so whether Li Hongzhang is sincere or not, he must first thank the traverser.

Qin Zheng said: "Li Zhongtang is too polite, we are also the descendants of Yan and Huang, so we naturally want to protect China's interests." ”

Li Hongzhang said again: "However, the content of today's negotiation, the old man must truthfully report to the imperial court, so I also ask the political commissar Qin to bear with me." ”

Qin Zheng understood that the content of the so-called negotiations included the terms of negotiation proposed by various countries to the Qing court, and that the Qing court might not attach importance to these interests and might give up some of them in order to reach an early conclusion. But Li Hongzhang is understandable to do this, and Qin Zheng has no reason to stop it, so he said: "This is a matter within the Zhongtang, but please also ask the Zhongtang to report our attitude to the court in detail." ”

Li Hongzhang said: "This is nature. ”