The attitude of the British government also completely ruined Sheng Xuanhuai's last hope. However, what Sheng Xuanhuai couldn't understand was that the foreigners had always attached the most importance to commerce? The Opium War was triggered by the Qing Dynasty's cessation of trade with Britain. This time, the overseas Chinese obviously hurt the interests of the British businessmen, but how could the British put up with it? Could it be that the foreigners were really afraid of the overseas Chinese?

In fact, such a misunderstanding is still Sheng Xuanhuai's pattern is not enough, this is not Sheng Xuanhuai's limitation alone, but the common limitation of knowledgeable Chinese in this era, although many people have dealt with foreigners for many years through foreign affairs, and also have a considerable understanding of foreign countries, they think they can know foreign countries well, but in fact they only look at foreign countries from China's standpoint, rather than from the overall pattern of the whole world, so for the situation and events, even in the judgment of events in China will produce errors。

However, it is precisely from the perspective of the overall situation that the traverser has a sober and accurate judgment of the actions of the British government. At present, Britain's main opponent is Russia, and the primary task is to curb Russia's expansion in the Far East, but Britain is unwilling to personally stand on the front line against Russia, so it can only support its own agents in the Far East. In contrast, this interest of Swire and Jardine Matheson is naturally put on the back burner.

On the contrary, the representatives of Swire and Jardine Matheson were much calmer, and they accepted this reality very calmly, and proposed to Sheng Xuanhuai that the goal of this negotiation should be changed, and it was impossible to stop overseas Chinese in an all-round way, so it was necessary to consider minimizing the benefits distributed to overseas Chinese as much as possible.

It turned out that as soon as the British Legation made a statement, Swire and Jardine Matheson understood that the British government might not support itself, although the reason is unknown, but the result can only be accepted, after all, the strength of these two companies has not yet reached the ability to influence the British government. Even if you can't suppress the overseas Chinese, you can only compromise with the overseas Chinese, after all, the business still has to be done, and the benefits have decreased, but it is better than completely tearing your face and not being able to do business at all.

The British Empire has been dominating the world for more than 200 years, relying not only on powerful force, but also on different situations and different environments, using different means.

After changing his mind, the next negotiation quickly opened up. After a three-day break, the parties resumed negotiations, and the crossers, Swire and Jardine Matheson all gave up their positions in the early negotiations, after all, at this point, it was pointless to deliberately raise the profile, so the parties finally began to negotiate substantive conditions.

On behalf of the East China Government, Chen Jianning first put forward his own requirements for the operation of the shipping route, which will occupy an absolute advantage in the operation of the Shanghai-Tianjin route, and will also obtain the right to operate the Yangtze River waterway and the Shanghai-Guangzhou route.

However, Swire and Jardine Matheson have no objection to the East China government's request to occupy an absolute advantage in the operation of the Shanghai-Tianjin route, after all, this is the territory of the East China government, and since it has decided to formally negotiate with the East China government, then it must recognize the scope of the East China government's authority. However, they disagreed with the latter two routes, and they only agreed that the East China government should operate the Shanghai-Nanjing section of the Yangtze River Channel and the Shanghai-Ningbo section of the Yangtze River Route.

Although there are still considerable differences in the conditions of the two sides on this day, the positions of the two sides are actually quite close to those of the previous stage of the chicken-and-duck talks, and the fact that such results can be achieved on the first day of the resumption of talks can indeed be regarded as a great breakthrough.

The next day, negotiations continued, and Chen Jianning proposed that the East China government could accept the Shanghai-Ningbo route, but in the Yangtze River channel, it was requested to expand the Shanghai-Wuchang section.

In fact, for the East China government, the Shanghai-Tianjin route is definitely not able to run, and the Yangtze River route and the route south of Shanghai compared with the East China government, the East China government attaches more importance to the Yangtze River route, which is the Shanghai-Wuchang section of the route, and the main reason is that the development of the East China government now, the need for a large number of finished steel and iron ore, although Shandong also has iron ore, and the East China government's steelmaking plant is about to be completed and put into operation, but in the five-year plan time, need to rely on a large number of purchases, and although at this time, Hanye Pingchang Mining Company has not yet been established, but the Hanyang Iron Works along the Yangtze RiverDaye Iron Mine has been built, and the early traverser and Huguang Governor Zhang Zhidong have established a good relationship, so the traverser will negotiate with Zhang Zhidong in the next step to buy a large number of finished steel and iron ore transactions.

Although Zhang Zhidong had left Huguang at this time and entered Beijing to serve as the Minister of Military Aircraft, after all, he had been operating in Huguang for many years, and the Hanyang Iron Works and Daye Iron Mine were founded by him, so Zhang Zhidong still had a huge influence on the Huguang area. Then the route of the Shanghai-Wuhan section of the Yangtze River route must be controlled by the traverser, not only to reduce costs, but also to ensure that the supply of their own strategic materials is in their own hands.

In contrast, the shipping route south of Shanghai is actually dispensable, and Chen Jianning is even ready to completely abandon the shipping route south of Shanghai, and also ensure the Shanghai-Wuhan section of the Yangtze River route.

After negotiating with Swire and Jardine Matheson, China Merchants also decided to accept the demands of the East China government, after all, the overseas Chinese had already made a concession, and they could not push too hard, and negotiation was originally an art of mutual compromise. What's more, this is to determine the route, and there is also the proportion of each party in the route, which is the most important part.

However, at this time, Chen Jianning proposed that he hoped that the four companies would work together to avoid another Qingdao-Lushun route. This suggestion also aroused great interest from Swire and Jardine Matheson, after all, adding a route would mean more revenue, and it would also make up for the losses caused by the involvement of overseas Chinese. Although Lushun is now controlled by Russia, Russia also needs economic development, so it is quite certain to open up this joint and avoid this new route, so China Merchants and Swire and Jardine Matheson agreed to negotiate with the Russian side immediately after the negotiation is over, and open up the Qingdao-Lushun route.

In Chen Jianning's heart, he also despised China Merchants, Swire, and Jardine Matheson, because this vision was too short-sighted, although a piece of cake was divided into more people, and each person was given less, but this was not to hold on to the cake and desperately squeeze out other people who came to share the cake, but everyone should work together to make the cake bigger, so that even if someone joins, they can also share more.

On the other hand, 12 years have passed since the last pricing allocation, and a lot of changes have taken place in the steamship China Merchants, Swire and Jardine Matheson, and Swire and Jardine are very dissatisfied with the majority of the steamship China Merchants in the last distribution plan, and they all hope to use this negotiation to redistribute the proportion of the plan. As a result, the ensuing negotiations were fiercely contested by all parties.

The negotiations lasted another six days, and finally the parties finally reached an agreement on the Shanghai-Tianjin route at 20:14:14:52, the Shanghai-Ningbo section at 36:30:26:18, the Shanghai-Wuhan section of the Yangtze River channel at 35:25:25:25:20, and the Qingdao-Lushun route at 20:12:12:56 for the Qingdao-Lushun route. Several other routes that did not have the participation of crossers were also renegotiated to determine the new proportional distribution. At the same time, the four parties also determined that all parties will use a unified price in the shipping of various routes, and shall not increase or decrease prices without reason, and can share resources such as terminals, ports, and warehouses. This time, the contract is for a period of 8 years, after which the parties will negotiate a redistribution plan. It is known as the fourth parity contract.

On the whole, the signing of the fourth contract at the same price, China Merchants Steamship suffered the greatest loss, from the previous proportion of 42% of the total shipping share to 31%, while Swire and Jardine Matheson accounted for 26% and 25% respectively, down 4% and 3% respectively, while the East China government accounted for a total of 18% of the shipping share from nothing, and occupied an absolutely dominant position in the Shanghai-Tianjin, Qingdao-Lushun routes, so it became the biggest winner.

However, from the standpoint of the country and the nation, the proportion of shipping shares between China and Britain has risen from 42:58 to 49:51, which is basically leveled, so from the overall point of view, this can be regarded as a victory for China's national bourgeoisie in the competition with foreign capital.

But for all parties, signed a contract at the same price, you can operate with peace of mind, and pull in a helper to deal with other foreign forces, because the interests of the shipping industry are great, because there are many countries shipping companies want to squeeze into this market, such as France, Japan and other shipping companies, some have been engaged in small-scale operations, these are potential opponents of the Quartet, and now the Quartet is also considered to have formed a unified interest group, for other foreign shipping companies naturally to be consistent with the outside world.