Li Hongzhang smiled faintly and said: "It has been more than half a year since the nobles returned to Middle-earth, and the imperial court has long had the intention of appeasing, but the current situation is not coincidental, the two palaces are touring the west, and the Beijing division has fallen, so it has been delayed, but this is not the case, how can the nobles have the opportunity to show their talents and make meritorious contributions? Now that the nobles have recovered Beijing and defeated the Russian army, the situation has been initially decided, and they will officially be attached to the imperial court as soon as possible. Eight?? 1. Chinese ??? .?8?1(1)Z?(8).(1)C(1)O(1)M"

Qin Zheng thought about it for a while, and also felt that Li Hongzhang was reasonable, although it was said that the crossing group now has territory, an army, and prestige, but after all, the time is short, the prestige is not long, and the foundation is not deep, so at this time, the banner of the Qing court is still needed, so he nodded and said: "Okay, but may I ask Zhongtang, if we want to officially annex, what processes do we need to go through?"

Li Hongzhang was stunned for a while before he figured out the meaning of the word "process", so he also explained it to Qin Zheng. In fact, the Qing court did not have a clear procedure for the annexation of foreign tribes, but after several cases of foreign annexation, a set of customary procedures was formed.

First of all, the attached party will submit to the imperial court, expressing its willingness to submit to the court, which is equivalent to an application; and also find a minister to pass on to the imperial court, and this minister is equivalent to the introducer; and after the imperial court receives the attached table, if it decides to accept it, it will send a messenger to issue an order to reward and appease, and place the attached personnel, and the officials of the times will also serve as the appeasement of the envoy; of course, if there are many people attached, or there are important figures, the imperial court will also recruit the brain figures of the attached personnel to the capital, personally receive them, and give rewards, and then resettle。

Now Li Hongzhang is equivalent to the introducer of the traverser, and the traverser needs to be officially returned to the Qing court. Although the Qing court can only be regarded as a government-in-exile now, it still needs the face of the Celestial Empire.

Qin Zheng has no objection to this set of procedures, the Qing court is nothing more than to save face, and the current crossing group pays more attention to actual interests and attaches itself to the Qing court, firstly, there is the banner of the Qing court, and secondly, the Qing court needs to officially confirm that the crossing group occupies Shandong. The rest of the things are easy to discuss, but according to the plan of the traverser, it should be negotiated with the countries first, and then negotiate the terms with the Qing court after the countries are settled. Therefore, Qin Zheng said: "Zhongtang, the annexation to the imperial court was originally the goal of our return to China this time, but I think that various countries will inevitably come to us in the near future to reopen the matter of peace talks, which is still a major matter related to national sovereignty and cannot be easily dealt with, so I think it is better to deal with the matter of peace talks with various countries first, and then discuss the matter of our annexation." ”

Li Hongzhang nodded, this is the same as his thoughts, from Li Hongzhang's heart, he also hopes to be able to deal with the affairs of peace talks with various countries first, and then talk about the affairs of overseas Chinese, after all, handle the affairs of various countries first, so as not to cause any trouble, and now that the overseas Chinese have actually gained a firm foothold on the land of China, can the imperial court still drive them away? However, that is a matter for overseas Chinese, and the imperial court cannot be indifferent to overseas Chinese, and the gesture of appeasement must be made, otherwise it may not be easy to negotiate with overseas Chinese in the future. This is also the reason why Li Hongzhang strongly suggested that the imperial court issue an order to appease overseas Chinese as soon as possible.

As for the Empress Dowager Cixi's careful thinking, even if there is no hint, Li Hongzhang understands, but with Li Hongzhang's understanding of overseas Chinese, their main goal is to gain a foothold in a place, and they will not easily intervene in the mother-son dispute between the emperor and the empress dowager, and this is also where the empress dowager and overseas Chinese can trade.

So Li Hongzhang said: " That's fine, but peace talks with various countries, the court appeases, can also be carried out at the same time, you may wish to go to the table first to ask for help and attached, and such a major event, the court to make instructions, it will take some time, and then will send the Qin to appease the nobles, and with the merits of the nobles, the court will meet the nobles, face to face to reward, and then resettle, so repeatedly, it takes a lot of time, the nobles can also negotiate with the countries, if the time is not agreed, then the old man can play the court on behalf of the court, and the diligent line can also be postponed. ”

Qin Zheng thought about it for a while, and felt that Li Hongzhang's arrangement was good, after all, the two things of peace talks with various countries and attaching to the Qing court were negotiated as soon as possible, and for the crossing group, what was needed most now was a stable exhibition time, but some things had to be explained to Li Hongzhang and let him convey them to the Qing court, so Qin Zheng nodded and said: "This arrangement is good, Zhongtang is really honest, but some things still need to be talked about too face-to-face, I hope Zhongtang can convey it to the court on our behalf." ”

Li Hongzhang understood in his heart that overseas Chinese were going to open conditions, but he just hoped that overseas Chinese would not ask for a price, so he said: "What do you want, please say that it is okay, the old man will convey it to the court on his behalf." ”

Qin Zheng nodded and said: "Okay, we will return Beijing to the imperial court, and withdraw all the troops, but ask the imperial court to hand over Tianjin and Shandong to us to garrison and self-government, and have absolutely independent administrative, financial, tax, and military powers, the imperial court cannot interfere, of course, in the name of the discussion, we still belong to the imperial court, and the relevant details can be negotiated in detail in the future." ”

Li Hongzhang was not only taken aback, although he expected that the overseas Chinese would open their mouths, but they did not expect that this mouth would also be too big, and the overseas Chinese demanded that one side be autonomous, and Li Hongzhang ignored it, but he thought that it was enough to give the overseas Chinese a state capital, and now the overseas Chinese have already occupied Qingdao and Weihaiwei. It is just right to divide Laizhou Mansion or Dengzhou Mansion to overseas Chinese, but I did not expect that overseas Chinese would want the entire Shandong Province as soon as they opened their mouths, and in the history of the Qing Dynasty, that is, at the beginning of the entry into the customs, when the three feudatories were canonized, there would be an old example of dividing a province into a fief of one person or a certain power.

However, the overseas Chinese are quite similar to the three feudal clans of that year, they all made great contributions to the Qing court, and they also held heavy troops to make the dynasty jealous, so not sealing the king and setting up a vassal is not enough to reward their merits and appease their hearts. It's just that the original feudal lords and feudal domains were all expedient measures, because the Qing court could not forever ignore the existence of local forces that were not bound by the imperial court and were like independent kingdoms, and the three feudal feudatories would not be willing to give up their power, and there was even no lack of ambition to go further on the basis of this power, so it was already doomed when the feudal domain was established, and it was impossible for the Qing court and the three feudal domains to coexist for a long time. At present, the demands of overseas Chinese are almost the same as the establishment of vassals, which actually dooms overseas Chinese and the Qing court to not coexist for a long time.

Of course, this has long been expected by Li Hongzhang, in fact, he has long expected that overseas Chinese will not be willing to lie dormant under the rule of the Qing court, and sooner or later they will take their place, of course, this will be a relatively long process, Li Hongzhang thinks that it will take at least 2 or 3o years, and at that time Li Hongzhang has already become ancient, out of sight and out of mind, how to care about the Qing court.

And now the Qing court has no capital to bargain with overseas Chinese, but the three feudatories set up by the Qing court back then were not in southern China, far away from Beijing, and there was no direct threat to the Qing court, and the fief demanded by overseas Chinese was Shandong, which was almost close to Beijing, and overseas Chinese also demanded to occupy Tianjin, which was closer to Beijing, almost day and night, so for the Qing court, it was tantamount to putting themselves under the danger of the city. However, it is not possible to seal the overseas Chinese to the south now, because the overseas Chinese will definitely not go; second, the foreigners in the south are now extremely powerful, and they probably do not want the overseas Chinese to be autonomous in the south.

Seeing Li Hongzhang's embarrassed face, Qin Zheng said, "What's the matter?

Li Hongzhang smiled bitterly and said: "The old man will truthfully play the court as you ask, but whether the court will agree or not is not known to the old man." After a pause, Li Hongzhang said again: "However, it may be difficult for the nobles to ask for autonomy according to the whole province of Shandong, so it is better to only seek the autonomy of the four prefectures of Denglai and Qingyi, and the old man is somewhat sure that he can convince the imperial court." ”

Qin Zheng glanced at Li Hongzhang and said: "Then Zhongtang had better tell the imperial court again, what we are asking for is the whole province of Shandong, not a part, the imperial court must agree to this, there is no unwrapping at all, if the imperial court does not agree to our conditions, the consequences will be borne by the imperial court." ”

Although in terms of land area, it is equivalent to about half of the whole province of Shandong, and basically includes most of the coastline of Shandong, but in this era, the population, mineral resources, and social and economic development level of some areas of the peninsula in Shandong are far inferior to those of the six inner regions, so Li Hongzhang feels that it is better to hand over these four prefectures to overseas Chinese than to hand over the entire Shandong Province to overseas Chinese, and it can also restrict the expansion of overseas Chinese's power.

However, for the crossing group, it is necessary to control Shandong Province in its entirety in order to ensure that it has enough population and mineral resources to develop modern industry, so it is absolutely impossible to accept Li Hongzhang's suggestion.

After Li Hongzhang listened to Qin Zheng's words, he couldn't help but break out in a cold sweat, he and Qin Zheng have been friends for several months, Qin Zheng's impression of Li Hongzhang is neither humble nor arrogant, although the words are gentle, but the organization is clear, the intention is clear, of course, sometimes it is frank and embarrassing, but in general it is not a difficult person to deal with. And Qin Zheng's vigorous appearance was only revealed once when the last Shanghai negotiations broke down, and after the Shanghai negotiations broke down, the result obtained by various countries was that overseas Chinese sent troops to capture Beijing and defeated the Russian army advancing south, the Eight-Nation Coalition Army was completely annihilated, and the last bit of negotiation capital of various countries also disappeared, so Li Hongzhang did not dare to take Qin Zheng's warning lightly. I had to smile bitterly and said, "Okay, what your people mean, the old man will definitely tell the court truthfully." ”