In the blink of an eye, 10 days have passed since the battle in the Taiwan Strait, and although the war has stopped at this time, the actions of the parties involved in the war have not stopped, and the struggle has never been limited to the battlefield, so during this time, a lot of things have happened in a row.

First of all, of course, the British and French Qing courts completely cut off trade with the East China government, in an attempt to completely cut off the source of materials for the East China government. However, after serious discussions, the Qing court politely rejected the proposal of Britain and France. Yuan Shikai, who was in charge of negotiating this matter with Britain and France, directly told the envoys of the two countries that the Qing court was now unable to complete the trade blockade against the East China government, and that the East China government's "Seven Days Talks" series of articles had already aroused public opinion against the Qing court, and if the Qing court had to forcibly terminate trade with the East China government, it would only make the Qing court more passive in public opinion and even affect the rule of the Qing court, so it could only reject the proposal of Britain and France.

Of course, Britain and France were quite disappointed in the attitude of the Qing court, but there was no other way, the Qing court was still an independent government and had its own decision-making ability, and Britain and France could not force the Qing court to do it, so they could only admit defeat.

However, Britain and France soon came back to the game, and the Netherlands rejected Germany's offer of mediation.

This result surprised Germany, because Germany thought that the Netherlands had no cards to play at all, and Germany was willing to mediate, and the Netherlands should be unable to ask for it, and it would be grateful to Germany. After the Dutch government consulted, it told Germany that it had no plan to negotiate peace with the East China government for the time being, and politely rejected Germany's mediation proposal. On the contrary, three days later, Britain, France, Japan, Russia, and the Netherlands issued a joint statement, indicating that although the expeditionary force had failed, the five countries participating in the expeditionary force did not intend to compromise with the East China government, and would take all means to confront the East China government to the end, and did not rule out the formation of an expeditionary force again and the resumption of war.

It turns out that although the relationship between the Netherlands and Germany is relatively good, it has always had a deep defensive psychology against Germany, because Germany and the Netherlands are adjacent to each other, but there is a huge difference in national strength, and the Netherlands naturally wants to improve relations with Germany, and at the same time, it will also guard against it. This time, the Netherlands knew very well that Germany would not be able to mediate at this time, and not only would it pay a huge price to negotiate with the East China government now, but it would also be difficult for Germany to deal with it.

Of course, now the Netherlands really has no cards to play, and the government is also under tremendous pressure, so although they know that Germany's mediation is a pit, they have to jump into it, but at this moment, Britain and France proposed to the Netherlands that at this time, the five countries participating in the expeditionary force should unite and deal with the East China Government as a whole, and no one country should act alone, only in this way can we win better conditions for the negotiations between the five countries and the East China Government.

So the Dutch government had a hint of luck, thinking that since Britain and France took the lead, they might as well give it a try, maybe they could really make themselves pay a little less price, so they politely declined Germany, and then jointly issued an uncompromising statement with Britain, France, Japan and Russia, of course, this is mainly to express the tough attitude of the five countries, in the later game, to strive for a little initiative, but also to increase the bargaining chips for themselves in the next negotiation. In fact, everyone knows that it is simply impossible to form an expeditionary force.

Seeing the statement issued by the five countries, the East China government was not surprised, because the experience of the old time and space told the travelers that imperialism is the master who does not see the coffin and does not shed blood, and it will never be easy and easy to be able to do so at a moment's notice, and of course the East China government has already had a countermeasure, so on the one hand, it communicates with Germany, asking Germany to calm down, sooner or later it still needs Germany's mediation, and on the other hand, it has also begun to prepare for another war.

Not two days after that, the United States conveyed to the East China Government the idea that Britain and France hoped to negotiate, and the conditions put forward by Britain and France to the East China Government were that they would recognize the East China Government as a formal state and establish diplomatic relations between countries; recognize the fact that the East China Government occupied the three eastern provinces; recognize the fact that the East China Government occupied Shanghai, and not pursue the confiscated British and French assets; no longer support Japan and Russia in continuing the war, and urge Japan and Russia to negotiate with the East China Government and accept the East China Government's conditions for compensation; the East China Government would not demand compensation from Britain and France and should colonize; and the East China Government would open the Yangtze River blockade and protect the interests of Britain and France。

It turned out that although Britain and France were tough on the surface, in fact, the governments of the two countries were under considerable pressure, because it was Britain, which lost 14 battleships at once, plus the naval battle of the Natuna Islands, a total of 18 battleships were lost, accounting for more than 1/3 of the total number of British battleships. In Liverpool and other places, there were more than 10 demonstrations against the government and the navy, and the opposition parties also took the opportunity to fall into the trap and strongly criticize the current government in parliament almost every day.

Although the losses of France were smaller than those of the British, the size of the French navy was also much smaller than that of the British navy, so the pressure on the present French government was no less than that of the British.

Of course, the most important thing is to clean up the current mess, and the most important thing at the moment is, of course, to negotiate with the East China government to end the war as soon as possible. It's just that now is not a good time to negotiate with the East China government, because at this time the East China government is in the limelight, and the negotiations will inevitably cost Britain and France a heavy price, so they must find some bargaining chips for themselves.

However, Britain and France were not vegetarians, and soon found that the East China government was facing a difficult situation of supplies, so it decided to make economic trouble for the East China government, first instigating the Qing court to break off all trade with the East China government, but the Qing court did not have the ability or the courage to reject the British and French agitation.

However, Britain and France did not think that this was a complete failure, because Britain and France also understood that the Qing court could not control the situation in China at all, and even if they really wanted to interrupt all trade exchanges with the East China government, they would not be able to do so, and the fundamental purpose of Britain and France was not to trap the East China government, but only to increase their bargaining chips in future negotiations, at least this time to let the East China government know that Britain and France also found the weakness of the East China government.

Subsequently, Britain and France encouraged the other three countries of the expeditionary force to establish an offensive and defensive alliance, advance and retreat together, and did not negotiate with the East China government alone, and issued a tough statement, in fact, they were all creating momentum for themselves and putting pressure on the East China government.

At this time, Britain and France also felt that they could negotiate with the East China Government, but the two countries could not take the initiative to negotiate with the East China Government on their own, so they asked the United States to intermediate, of course, only between the East China Government and Britain and France. Although the statement of the five countries of the expeditionary force announced that none of them would negotiate with the East China government alone, the statement was not an informal legal document, and this statement was essentially only to create momentum for Britain and France, and even if it was a formal legal document, Britain and France would not be offered as a holy decree.

Of course, now Britain and France have always been together, this is not how good the relationship between Britain and France is, in fact, just a few years ago, Britain and France are still on the same footing, although in recent years for the common enemy Germany and approach, but not good to the point of heart-to-heart, but now in the face of the East China government, both countries are in a disadvantaged position, so they can only join forces against the East China government, in fact, if one of them can obtain benefits, will not hesitate to sell the other party.

However, US President Roosevelt also knew that now was not the time for the Portsmouth talks, and that the work of mediation was not easy to do; not to mention the fact that during the last Portsmouth talks, the East China Government was already somewhat dissatisfied with the United States, believing that during the Portsmouth talks, the United States was too biased toward Japan and Russia, and if this time the mediation failed, the US Government would be embarrassed or trivial, and it would be troublesome if it affected relations with the East China Government. Although the United States was also very wary of the East China government at this time, on the surface, the relations between the two sides were not bad, economic and trade contacts were very frequent, and because of the war in the Far East, the scale of US commerce in Asia had been quite expanded, so the US Government did not want to destroy this superficially friendly relationship for the time being. Moreover, it is really not cost-effective to spoil relations with the East China government only for the sake of Britain and France.

Roosevelt replied to Britain and France, hoping that the two countries could preliminarily determine acceptable conditions for mediation, so that the United States could carry out maneuvering activities, otherwise it would be very difficult to succeed in just empty mediation, and the United States would at most be able to send a message to the East China government on behalf of Britain and France, expressing the intention of the two countries to negotiate, but would not appear as a mediator.

If the United States is only allowed to help spread the word, it means that Britain and France will first give in to the East China government, which is of course unacceptable to Britain and France. The United States must intervene as a mediator and issue mediation proposals to all parties, so that Britain and France and the East China government can be reciprocal. However, the United States demanded that the two countries must determine acceptable mediation conditions before they were willing to come forward, so Britain and France discussed again, and finally worked out the conditions for negotiations, and the bottom line was very clear, that is, they could not pay reparations and could not cede their Asian colonies, and the East China Government had basically recognized the results that the East China Government had achieved, and they no longer supported Japan, Russia, and the Netherlands as a concession to the East China Government. To put it bluntly, he planned to sell the Qing court and Japan, Russia and the Netherlands in exchange for his own interests not to be lost.

After obtaining the mediation conditions between Britain and France, Roosevelt consulted with his aides, and everyone thought that they could give it a try, and it did not matter whether it succeeded or not, and Guan Jian could use the trick to test the attitude of the East China Government; if the East China Government accepted this condition, it would mean that the East China Government had no ambition to change the regional situation, and the United States could rest assured a little; if the East China Government refused, it would mean that the East China Government was pursuing a policy of foreign expansion, and then the United States would need to be more vigilant.