Yamaguchi Aritomo's attitude has been approved by most people, and of course it has something to do with his identity, he is one of the few important ministers since the beginning of the Meiji Restoration.

Later, Japan held negotiations with Britain, and Britain also assured Japan again that it would definitely put pressure on the East China government to prevent the East China government from entering the war, and if the East China government really joined forces with Russia to deal with Japan, then Britain would fulfill the treaty of the [Anglo-Japanese Alliance] and send troops to the war to help Japan.

After receiving the British promise, the Japanese government finally reassured itself, and set the tone for this negotiation, which was neither a consultation nor a proposal, but a formal request. Of course, Japan still does not want to completely turn its face with the East China Government right now, so it is still like making a final effort and is willing to promise the East China Government that it will protect China's interests after the end of the war, and even sign an agreement with the East China Government to guarantee that it will withdraw from Northeast China and hand over the occupied areas to the East China Government within six months after the end of the war.

Of course, Japan's goal is only to stabilize the East China government, and anyway, after the war, after the war, there is a reason why the places occupied by Japan can be handed over so easily, and they can rely on it for any reason.

But of course, this kind of trick can't deceive the travelers, in the old time and space, they have seen too many times faster than turning the book, what treaties, agreements, tear up, say retreat, the so-called "spirit of contract" is essentially the "spirit of abandonment", their own strength is the best way to maintain the treaty, and a treaty without strength is a piece of paper. Therefore, the East China Government immediately rejected Japan's request and insisted that whether or not to enter the war would be decided by the East China Government on the basis of its own judgment of the situation, and would not change because of Japan's attitude. As for Japan's commitment and the signing of the agreement, the East China Government replied that the East China Government could not trust Japan unless Japan now handed over Lushun to the East China Government to manage and expressed its sincerity.

This requirement is obviously unacceptable to Japan, not only because Lushun is the Japanese lost troops and dismantled generals, almost by using human lives to capture it, and in the future war, Lushun is also an important transportation node of Japan, although Japan can transport materials through the Korean Peninsula, but at this time the Korean transportation is very backward, the materials across the Korean Peninsula, all rely on people and horses, and Lushun is the end of the southern line of the Middle East Railway, after the materials can be directly transported to Liaoyang, Shenyang and other places, you can save a lot of manpower, Material resources, so such an important strategy of course Japan is of course impossible to cede to the East China government, by which it is at this time.

Of course, this result was also expected by the Japanese cabinet, so the Japanese government did not care about the rupture of the two sides, and of course, the lack of supplies provided by the East China government did bring some trouble to Japan, but it would not affect the situation in the entire northeast region, and the British guarantee also made Japan quite fearless, believing that the East China government was only verbally saying a few words at most, and might not dare to really send troops to participate in the war.

Sure enough, when Komura Shotaro left Qingdao, the British consul in Qingdao, Owen, immediately made an appointment with Li Sanjie to express the British Government's concern about the situation in the Far East, holding that the war between Japan and Russia had come to an end, and that peace would be restored in the Far East. Of course, Britain also promised to protect China's interests after the end of the war, and said very frankly that Britain would not want Japan to become strong after the war.

However, Britain's attitude was also not acceptable to the East China government, so the words against Japan were sent to Britain as they were. But Britain, like Japan, was not surprised by the attitude of the East China government, and firmly believed that the East China government would act cautiously after British pressure.

It was just that Japan and Britain did not meet, and just three days later, the East China Government and Russia formally signed the [Agreement on the Delivery of Jinzhou], and Russia officially handed over Jinzhou to the East China Government.

In fact, when it was entangled with Japan and Britain, the East China government had been maintaining consultations with Russia, but Russia seemed to be more anxious than the East China government, and there were almost no obstacles set up in the negotiations, the only condition was that the East China government could only station 3,000 soldiers in Jinzhou, and after the East China government accepted this request, the two sides reached a consensus.

There is no way for Russia to rush the East China government into the chess game of the northeast, because at this time there is already chaos in Russia.

The Russo-Japanese War lasted for a year, Russia lost its troops and demolishes its generals, lost its cities and lost its land, although the upper class of society in Russia is still living a drunken life, but for the middle and lower classes, it has caused a great impact, some intellectuals, the petty bourgeoisie have lost confidence in the tsarist government, and the war has also had a great impact on Russia's social economy, prices have risen, a large number of small and medium-sized factories have closed down, people are unemployed or their real incomes have dropped sharply, and a huge social crisis is brewing.

In December 1904, a priest named Gabang organized a strike by the workers of the Putilov Iron and Steel Works in St. Petersburg, demanding that the dismissal be reversed, that the eight-hour work day be introduced, that trade unions be established, that nurseries be established, that a minimum wage be paid, and that sanitary conditions be improved. But these demands were strongly rejected by the factory and threatened to recruit new workers if they did not return to work.

Seeing that the strike could not bear fruit, Father Gabon decided to increase the scale of the strike. Although the priest was a religious person, he was also a social activist, enthusiastic about poverty alleviation and relief, and held a social reformist attitude, and in 1902 also organized the establishment of the Poor Mutual Aid Association, also known as the California Association, at this time the California Association had more than 10,000 members, 11 branches, and had a lot of influence in Russia.

So on January 18, nearly 25,000 people from six factories joined the strike. The number of people from all walks of life in St. Petersburg who agreed with the strike was increasing, and all parties and organizations in Russia were vocal in response to the strike, putting up slogans and making speeches in response to the strike, but by this time the strike action had gradually departed from the track of non-political movements, and Father Gabon further put forward political demands such as convening a constituent assembly, guaranteeing the freedom and equality of the people, life and property, and stopping the war against Japan.

On January 20, 382 factories and 150,000 people participated in the strike, and the law and order in St. Petersburg deteriorated rapidly, and at the same time, a large number of violence, looting, and burning broke out, and the entire city of St. Petersburg was paralyzed. Tsar Nicholas II did not dare to stay in St. Petersburg, and on January 8, 1905, he and his family moved to Tsarskoye Village, south of the city of St. Petersburg, in order to escape from the land of right and wrong. The Russian government, on the other hand, has issued a warning that it will use tough measures if the situation is unstable. In addition, 15,000 troops and 5,000 police officers were quickly deployed in various important places in the city to deal with contingencies.

On January 22, Father Gabon organized a petition procession to the Winter Palace to present a petition to the Tsar, expressing the plight of the working class and the people at the bottom of society, and the oppression they had suffered, asking the Tsar to carry out social reforms and end the Russo-Japanese War, and to hope that there would be no overtime work and reasonable treatment.

In the end, the procession led by Father Gabang was about 30,000 people, and although there were more than a dozen skirmishes with the police along the way, and there were casualties, the overall situation was still manageable. After the procession arrived at the Winter Palace, there were more and more people, and by the afternoon it had reached more than 200,000, and since Nicholas II was still in Tsarskoye at this time, no one came forward to receive the petition, let alone come forward to appease the crowd, and the emotions of the people became more and more excited, and the soldiers guarding the Winter Palace became more and more nervous.

At 1:30 p.m., the army came to the Hermitage Square with the intention of dispersing the crowd, but the crowd refused to leave; at 2 o'clock three bugles sounded, the army opened fire on the crowd, and the cavalry rushed into the crowd, brandishing their sabers to disperse the crowd; at the Toroysky Bridge, the soldiers guarding the Narva Triumphal Arch, the Nikolai Bridge, the Admiralty, etc., also opened fire, and the people fled in panic and scrambled to shove, and a large number of people were killed, trampled or squeezed to death, until 5 p.m., the crowd was completely dispersed. In St. Petersburg, the doors were locked, no one went out, and only university students and workers were helping the wounded and carrying the dead on the streets.

January 22 was a Sunday, hence the fact that the event was called "Bloody Sunday". In the aftermath of the incident, the official death toll was 96 dead and 333 wounded, with some claiming more than 4,000 dead, although general estimates put the number at around 1,000.

Of course, at this point, there is no point in investigating the specific number of people, after all, now that we have entered the modern society, it is certainly not a good thing to use the army to shoot our own people, and it is even worse for Russia, which is in the midst of a war against Japan.

"Bloody Sunday" soon spread from St. Petersburg, causing a major storm that spread across the country. Countless landlords' estates were burned down, countless factories and machines were smashed, and in addition to strikes and demonstrations, national uprisings even broke out in Finland, Poland, the Caucasus, and other regions, and the country was even in danger of being divided.

Moreover, Russia has never had a good reputation in the international community, so after the spread of the "Bloody Sunday," various governments strongly criticized Russia's brutal acts, the media and newspapers even criticized Russia, and the Paris stock exchange even refused to issue Russian bonds, and those that had already purchased were withdrawn one after another, making Russia very passive diplomatically. Germany and Austria-Hungary even began to plan that if civil strife really broke out in Russia, they would be ready to send troops to intervene, of course, to take advantage of the fire to loot.

The Russian government naturally knows the current situation and crisis, and there are only two ways to resolve the crisis, and they are all related to the Far East battlefield, one is to achieve victory on the battlefield as soon as possible, and use victory to enhance the prestige of the government and gain the support of the people, but everyone knows that it is impossible, and the Second Pacific Fleet will not be able to reach the Far East for at least 3 or 4 months, and it would be good for the army to be able to hold Mukden, and it is simply unable to launch an attack on Japan, so it is absolutely impossible to count on victory to resolve the crisis.

The other way is to end the war in a more dignified form, even if it is a temporary truce, but the problem lies in the word "decency", and it is absolutely impossible for Japan to let Russia end the war with dignity. Therefore, at this time, it is very important to pull the East China government into the big chess game of the Far East.