In fact, in Qin Zheng's words, he played a word game, because of course the traverser has nothing to do with the Ming Dynasty, and the goal of the traverser is to establish a country of his own, and the system must be a republic, so of course he will not restore the Ming Dynasty on the land of China, let alone call himself the emperor. Pen ~ fun ~ pavilion www.biquge.info but from the perspective of the listener, it is the traveler who completely denies that he has other ambitions to return to China this time, although the issue of the identity of the traveler cannot be completely fooled, but on the surface it is still reasonable, and for the time being, it can maintain the relationship between the traveler and the Qing court.

After Qin Zheng finished answering, there was a lot of applause at the scene, and some people deliberately glared at the Japanese press corps. And Qin Zheng paid close attention to the observation, and saw that the Japanese reporter who asked the question always looked calm, so that he really couldn't see through it.

At this time, Li Sanjie got up and announced that today's press conference and answering reporters' questions were completely over, and that the Licha Hotel had prepared lunch, and invited the reporters present to the restaurant for dinner. However, most of the reporters did not stay to enjoy their free lunch, but hurried back to the museum with today's manuscript to arrange for printing and prepare for tomorrow's issue.

The reporters who stayed behind are basically foreign correspondents, only they are not in a hurry to publish today's news, and today's harvest is quite rich, enough for them to return to China to do a special report, maybe they will become famous in one fell swoop, so foreign reporters are in a good mood, of course, they will not give up the opportunity to have a free lunch.

However, the contents of the press conference will be reported tomorrow at the earliest, and in the afternoon of the same day, the relevant contents have already been transmitted to the consulates of various countries, the Ministry of Industry and the Bureau of Industry in the concession, and the Shanghai government. All of them are carefully studying the content of the traverser's answers to the reporter's questions, hoping to find out the traverser's political views and goals. Since he is the consul of various countries, because tomorrow is the time for formal negotiations, he also hopes to understand the attitude of the travelers towards this negotiation through these studies, and at the same time adjust their own negotiation plans.

And when the traverser held a press conference, in the suburbs of Shanghai, in the lilac garden of Li Hongzhang's villa, Li Hongzhang, Sheng Xuanhuai, Zhou Fu, Zhang Peilun, Li Jingfang and others were also gathering together.

It turned out that early this morning, Li Hongzhang received a letter from the British consul Huo Bilan, to the effect that if the Qing court could promise to compensate the losses of various countries and accept other conditions put forward by the countries, Britain would make a maneuver to urge other countries to abandon the responsibility of the Qing court for starting the war, and support the Empress Dowager Cixi to continue to rule, and at the same time recognize the status of the heir to the throne of the eldest brother.

After receiving this letter, Li Hongzhang was also quite interested, because he knew very well that the Empress Dowager Cixi and the Qing court ministers were most worried about the countries that would hold them accountable for starting the war, and they did not care about other indemnities and land cedes, so in this negotiation, the goal of the Qing court represented by Li Hongzhang was to use the strength of overseas Chinese to strive to make all countries not pursue the Empress Dowager Cixi and the Qing court ministers, and the second thing was to pay as little compensation and land as possible. Since it was the United Kingdom, it also said that it could recognize the status of the heir to the throne of the eldest brother, and such a condition was almost impossible for the Qing court to refuse.

The reasons for the Gengzi change are extremely complex, and the dispute between the emperor and the queen is certainly the main reason, and the rise of xenophobia in China is also one of the main reasons, but the eldest brother is also an important driving factor.

The eldest brother is Fu Jun, the eldest son of Prince Duan Zaiyi. It turned out that due to the interference of foreigners, the Empress Dowager Cixi did not dare to abolish Guangxu's throne, so she changed her means, using Guangxu's no heirs as an excuse to set up her niece and son-in-law, Fu Jun, the eldest son of Prince Duan Zaiyi, as the "eldest brother", which is equivalent to the crown prince. In this way, if Guangxu has three long and two short, Fu Jun can succeed him as emperor.

However, foreigners are all good at playing conspiracy, and the little trick of the Empress Dowager Cixi can deceive foreigners, so the foreigners did not recognize the big brother. It is said that on the day of the eldest brother, Prince Duan Zaiyi arranged a feast in the mansion, waiting for the ministers of various countries to congratulate him. So Zaiyi hated foreigners from then on. After the outbreak of the Boxer Rebellion, Zai Yi not only strongly recommended the Boxers in front of the Empress Dowager Cixi to help clear and destroy the foreigners, but also gathered a group of clans and ministers to advocate war against various countries, and even created a fake document to provoke the Empress Dowager Cixi and declare war on various countries, which finally triggered the Geng Yu National Revolution.

And now the British have sent such a letter to Li Hongzhang, which also shows that Li Hongzhang's goal of using overseas Chinese to put pressure on foreigners has been initially achieved, although this is only a proposal put forward by the British, it can also be seen that the foreigners have made concessions to the Qing court. However, Li Hongzhang also knew that foreigners would not suffer losses, and they would never give in so easily, because the British also mentioned that the Qing court must promise to compensate for the losses of various countries and accept other conditions put forward by various countries. Although the letter did not mention the amount of compensation, Li Hongzhang knew that this would by no means be a small amount, at least not less than the compensation provided in the [Treaty of Shimonoseki], and as for other conditions, he did not know how much land he would cede and how much national sovereignty he would have to transfer.

Of course, Li Hongzhang could not easily decide such an important matter, so he immediately gathered his cronies to discuss how to respond to this suggestion of the British. Everyone expressed their opinions and had different opinions, and at this moment, someone also sent the content of the press conference to Lilac Villa, and Li Hongzhang also paused the discussion, first looking at the content of the press conference, after all, this is also what Li Hongzhang is concerned about.

Li Hongzhang read it first, and was silent for a while before he said: "You also take a look, what did the overseas Chinese say today?"

Li Jingfang stepped forward and took the manuscript from Li Hongzhang's hand, and the others watched it together in his hand, while Li Hongzhang was silent all the time.

Zhou Fu first said: "Zhongtang, since this period of time, this group of overseas Chinese has been vigorously propagating that the Qing Dynasty must change the law and become strong on various occasions in Shanghai, and now they are using various newspapers in Shanghai to speak out and advocate changing the law. ”

Sheng Xuanhuai also immediately agreed: "Yes, Zhongtang." I see that overseas Chinese have hijacked the power of the military revolution, and used clever words to make appearances, arbitrarily discuss the government and bewitch people's minds, while the ignorant grass people do not know right and wrong, and listen to their false words, so that some people even claim that the imperial court should let overseas Chinese enter the military aircraft to take charge of the government and the central hall is the important minister of the country, but they cannot sit idly by, if they really let the overseas Chinese take charge of the government, the harm is far greater than that of Kang Liang. ”

Since the appearance of the traverser, Sheng Xuanhuai basically has no good impression of the traverser. The reason is that after the traverser occupied Tianjin, they cut off a financial route for Sheng Xuanhuai.

Among the many industries of Sheng Xuanhuai, the shipping industry of China Merchants Steamship is one of the main financial routes, and there are mainly three routes operated by China Merchants Steamship, one is the Yangtze River waterway, the other is the Shanghai-Guangzhou waterway, and the third is the Shanghai-Tianjin waterway. Despite the invasion of China by the Eight-Nation Alliance, because of the protection of the [Southeast Mutual Insurance Regulations], the business of the Shanghai-Tianjin waterway of the China Merchants Steamship not only did not decrease, but increased by two or three percent, because the Eight-Nation Alliance needed a large amount of military supplies, and naturally most of them were purchased from Shanghai nearby and transported by the steamship China Merchants. However, after the traverser occupied Tianjin, the business of the Shanghai-Tianjin waterway was greatly reduced, and the crosser took over the Tianjin Customs and set its own customs tax rate, which greatly increased the cost of the Shanghai-Tianjin waterway, and at the same time also engaged in shipping, which made Sheng Xuanhuai suffer a lot of losses.

At the same time, the traverser not only fully controlled the economy of Tianjin, but also formulated a series of economic systems, and also vigorously set up industries, although Sheng Xuanhuai is still a businessman in essence, and has considerable practical ability, but he is good at organization, planning, and in business operations, mainly dependent on the Qing court, take the old road of combining government and business, monopoly management, and at the same time cooperate with foreign businessmen, rather than relying on market competition, improve efficiency, so he has an instinctive resistance to the economic system of the traverser, and naturally has a lot of reproach for the traverser.

At this time, Zhang Peilun said: "I think that although the rhetoric of overseas Chinese is a little too radical, but it is not unreasonable, if the old law is useful, I will never fall to this point in the Qing Dynasty, if I don't think about change, I am afraid that the national fortune will not last long, the words of overseas Chinese are not wrong, and overseas Chinese are proficient in Western studies, and they also have a history of governing the country overseas. ”

Sheng Xuanhuai glanced at Zhang Peilun and said, "Youqiao, you are a gentleman's heart, and overseas Chinese are probably not as frank as you." ”

Zhang Peilun wanted to say something more, and then Li Hongzhang said: "The affairs of overseas Chinese, ignore it for the time being, the top priority is still this letter from the British, I don't know what you think?"

Sheng Xuanhuai said: "Zhongtang, I think the proposal of the British is very good, the two palaces have been touring the west for more than eight months, there is no one in Beijing, and the country is in trouble, we should negotiate with the British as soon as possible, determine the conditions of each country, negotiate peace as soon as possible, stop the war, and let the two palaces return to Beijing, in case there will be changes later." ”

Zhou Fu said: "But Britain is only a proposal, and it does not mention the attitude of other countries, and it is not yet known whether the countries agree, nor does it mention what conditions each country has, how to talk about it? Not to mention what kind of attitude the overseas Chinese have." ”

Sheng Xuanhuai said confidently: "Britain is the head of the great powers, if Britain comes forward, other countries will definitely obey, and the conditions of other countries can be negotiated together." This consultation is still a matter between the Qing Dynasty and other countries, what is the matter with the overseas Chinese, and what is he doing?"

Zhang Peilun also said: "When Zhongtang visited Tianjin before, it was already said that it was a tripartite meeting, but now if we leave aside the overseas Chinese and negotiate with other countries alone, I am afraid it will be inappropriate." ”