But will the foreigners honestly follow the path envisaged by the overseas Chinese? Li Hongzhang knows that the foreigners do have the intention of negotiating with the overseas Chinese, but this does not mean that the foreigners will admit defeat like the overseas Chinese.

Of course, Li Hongzhang knows very well that the Eight-Nation Coalition has fought several defeats, and even the German fleet has been defeated by overseas Chinese, but the so-called Eight-Nation Alliance, in fact, has only dispatched less than one percent of its strength to various countries, and the strength of the German fleet is not weak, but it is only one country, and the Eight Nations really want to move in earnest, and their strength will increase more than a hundredfold. Therefore, if the foreigners want to negotiate with overseas Chinese, it does not mean that they want to admit defeat, but they do not want to spend a huge amount of money, so they will transfer troops from China to China and stop there.

Moreover, through the news that came to Shanghai from Tianjin some time ago, Li Hongzhang also knew that after the overseas Chinese captured Tianjin, they recruited troops and formed an army in Tianjin, which shows that this group of overseas Chinese may not be able to obtain support and assistance from this group of overseas Chinese in a short period of time for some reason, and it is even possible that this group of overseas Chinese is treason and absconding or acting privately, so they do not dare to ask for help from China, and can only rely on recruiting troops in Tianjin to supplement their own lack of troops.

This also means that the strength of this group of overseas Chinese is limited, and it is not as strong as imagined, and it may have reached the limit of what they can fight. After the end of the Battle of Tianjin, many people in Shanghai had great hopes for this group of overseas Chinese, believing that the Qing court should appease this group of overseas Chinese and rely on their military strength to fight against other countries.

After all, the previous battle proved that the combat effectiveness of this group of overseas Chinese was indeed far above the army of the Qing court, and it was rare that they also had a powerful navy of sailors, which could defeat the German fleet, indicating that the strength of this fleet was far above that of the Beiyang Navy.

But the imperial court could not hope too much for this group of overseas Chinese. One is that this group of overseas Chinese Bi Jing is not a native of Dachun, whether their hearts are really to China, and whether they will really be loyal to the Qing Dynasty, it is still unknown, but don't get a front door to drive away the tiger, the back door into the wolf, such examples are innumerable; the second is that it is still difficult to rely on this group of overseas Chinese to be the enemy of other countries, so at this time, it should be accepted when it is good, taking advantage of the fact that this group of overseas Chinese has won a few battles, and captured Tianjin, and has achieved obvious strategic advantages, and quickly negotiate peace with other countries, strive to lose less silver, cede less land, in exchange for the withdrawal of troops from China, and let the empress dowager and the emperor return to Beijing as soon as possible。 Of course, overseas Chinese did not have much loss, on the contrary, they were able to gain a foothold in the Qing Dynasty.

Otherwise, if the foreigners are really forced to rush and then transfer troops from the country, Li Hongzhang does not think that this group of overseas Chinese can defeat the armies of various countries again, and then these advantages in front of him will be immediately reversed, and at that time, this group of overseas Chinese may be able to get on the ship and leave and return to their country, but they will throw this mess to the Qing Dynasty, or to be precise, to him Li Zhongtang to clean up.

However, although Li Hongzhang thought very well, this group of overseas Chinese is obviously not following Li Zhongtang's beat now, on the contrary, he still feels good about himself, and now Li Hongzhang also knows that he can't control this group of overseas Chinese, although he is worried and hurried, he can only let it go. But when it comes, you can ask Zhao Weizhong about the situation of this group of overseas Chinese, and then make a decision.

In fact, a large number of messages from Tianjin are received in Shanghai every day, which are collected by the consulates of various countries in Tianjin and sent to Shanghai. However, the consulates of various countries in Tianjin are under the control of this group of overseas Chinese, and the information they can collect is probably limited, and the information that Li Hongzhang obtained was conveyed by the consulates of various countries in Shanghai, and I don't know how much of it was concealed. And Zhao Weizhong has been with overseas Chinese for more than a month, and the relationship is not counted, so he should know a lot of things that Li Hongzhang wants to know.

So Li Hongzhang said: "Wei Zhong, you can tell in detail how you met and how you got along with overseas Chinese, everything is detailed, and everything you remember, tell it." ”

Zhao Weizhong listened to this, and did not dare to slack off, he went to sea by boat, was hit and sunk by a ship of unknown origin, happened to meet the fleet of overseas Chinese, was rescued by them, and so on, and told in detail, from the days when he lived on the Kunming warship of overseas Chinese, Zhao Weizhong saw a lot of things that had never been seen and heard before, which left a very deep impression on him, so he also spoke in great detail.

Li Hongzhang and the others listened to Zhao Weizhong's speech very carefully, but the people present have been doing foreign affairs for a long time and have a basic understanding of the scientific and technological level of this era, but Zhao Weizhong talked about what he saw and heard on the Kunming ship, such as a picture board that looks like a real person, a box that can talk over long distances, a bright but not dazzling electric light, and a machine that can fly in the air, etc., still makes them feel a little unbelievable, because these utensils can't even be made by foreigners, and this group of overseas Chinese can actually make them? Therefore, he also repeatedly interrupted Zhao Weizhong's narration and inquiry.

And Zhao Weizhong didn't dare to be impatient, and patiently explained them one by one, of course, there were some things he couldn't figure out himself, he could only say that what he saw was like this, but he didn't know the details.

Li Hongzhang didn't care about what strange and new things Zhao Weizhong saw on the Kunming ship, in Li Hongzhang's view, this is just a kind of mechanical artifact, nothing more than Westerners to do more elaborately, Li Hongzhang pays more attention to understanding the personnel, organization, power distribution, official position, and style of action of overseas Chinese, etc., this is the key to understanding overseas Chinese, and other things are just superficial.

Zhao Weizhong upheld what Qin Zheng said, and everything he knew was explained in detail like Li Hongzhang. Zhao Weizhong stayed in the crossing group for more than a month, although he didn't dare to inquire in detail, but he usually paid attention to understanding and observing carefully, so that he touched the relationship between the upper and lower levels and the official position of the traverser, so he also told Li Hongzhang one by one.

After listening to Zhao Weizhong's speech, Li Hongzhang was silent for a long time, and it was confirmed by what he learned from the consuls of various countries, Li Hongzhang could basically be sure that most of what Zhao Weizhong said was true, but because of this, Li Hongzhang was also confused in his heart, because the composition of this group of overseas Chinese was too strange, so Li Hongzhang could not be sure what was going on with this group of overseas Chinese.

According to Zhao Weizhong's account, this group of overseas Chinese should first and foremost be a fleet, with a total of seven warships, and Commander Xia Bohai, Political Commissar Qin Zheng, and Chief of Staff Xiao Jianjun are the main generals of this fleet. Although the official titles of overseas Chinese are somewhat strange, Li Hongzhang can generally guess the meaning and responsibilities of them, and the name "commander" is therefore the meaning of "commander," that is, "the commander of the department and the commander of the order," so it should be equivalent to the commander of the Qing Dynasty; although "political commissar" does not know the literal meaning, Li Hongzhang can also estimate that it should be a post such as supervising the army and supervising the army; and the chief of staff can better understand that China originally had this official title. The names of the seven warships are all named after Chinese place names, which also indirectly proves that this group of overseas Chinese is indeed descendants of China.

However, in addition to the seven warships, there were also three large passenger ships, all of which were loaded with ordinary people, numbering in the thousands, and there were men and women, and according to Zhao Weizhong's observation, they were not family members of the army, and this made Li Hongzhang very puzzled, no matter whether this group of overseas Chinese returned to China or defected from China, it was understandable to bring their families with them, but in any case, they should not bring so many unrelated civilians, and what was the purpose of this? Of course, Li Hongzhang would not have thought that what he encountered was a group of traversers.

After this group of overseas Chinese captured Tianjin, a temporary executive committee was set up, with three chief generals and two civilians serving as permanent executive members, that is to say, these five people were the supreme leaders of this group of overseas Chinese, which illustrates two problems: First, this group of overseas Chinese suddenly came to the Qing Dynasty, and it was not a fully prepared action, because they did not have a recognized supreme leader, and a temporary administrative body was only established after arriving in Tianjin, so the so-called return to the Qing Dynasty and their admiration for China must be false; second, the three passenger ships were not all civilians, and it is estimated that there were also high-ranking domestic officials among them, and there were also quite powerful people, so even the army had to divide them into three parts, and in the formation of the administrative body, they had to share power with them. From this point of view, it is likely that most of these overseas Chinese have defected from China, or for other reasons.

And this also proves that Li Hongzhang's previous judgment was not wrong, and he can't place too much hope on this group of overseas Chinese. Therefore, although there are still many joints that Li Hongzhang can't figure out, Zhao Weizhong's remarks still make Li Hongzhang feel very rewarded, after all, he does know many things from Zhao Weizhong that Li Hongzhang didn't know before. There are some things that the consuls of various countries in Shanghai do not know, but there are also some things that are deliberately hidden from Li Hongzhang. And now Li Hongzhang has also consciously negotiated with the consuls of various countries in Shanghai, and he also has some confidence.

Seeing that Li Hongzhang was silent in thought, everyone didn't dare to disturb his train of thought, and waited quietly on the side. After a while, Li Hongzhang came back to his senses and said, "Okay, it's not too early now, let's have dinner, let's have a meal together today." He turned his head to Li Jingfang and said, "It's rare that everyone gets together and asks the kitchen to make a few more lai." ”

Li Jingfang agreed, and hurried to the kitchen to make arrangements.

Sheng Xuanhuai and Zhou Fu often eat with Li Hongzhang, so they look normal, while Zhao Weizhong is quite excited, not to mention eating at the same table with Li Hongzhang before, it is unimaginable to sit at the same table with Sheng Xuanhuai and Zhou Fu. You must know that the four people present are either Li Hongzhang's henchmen or Li Hongzhang's son-in-law, only one of them is an outsider, and today he is actually fortunate to sit with them, what a big face, if it was before, it would be enough for Zhao Weizhong to boast for more than half a year. It seems that this trip to Shanghai was not in vain.