It turned out that the People's Army fleet attacked the port of Saigon, which caused a great shock to France, because after the statistics after dawn, the attack caused great losses to Saigon, a total of 83 merchant ships were sunk, 16 were wounded, and 5 warships were sunk, and the setting of Saigon port was basically completely destroyed, and the entire port was almost razed to the ground; in addition, more than 100 houses were destroyed on the shore, more than 150 were damaged, more than 700 people were killed, and more than 2,500 people were injured. The direct losses were in the hundreds of millions of francs

Moreover, the port of Saigon will be unusable and will take at least two years to restart, and it will take at least five years to rebuild and return to pre-attack levels, during which the total losses can reach more than 2 billion francs.

Guan Jian is loss is not yet endless, not to mention that at this time, East China ** is still intercepting French merchant ships at sea, and the Indochinese Federation is not only the port of Saigon, but also Da Nang, Hongji, Cam Ranh and other port cities, and now France simply does not have enough strength to protect these areas, that is to say, if the People's Army launches an attack on these port cities, the hope of these port cities will only be the same as the port of Saigon.

The Indochinese Confederation is France's most important overseas colony, and most of the capitalists and consortium owners behind the French parliamentarians have major interests in the Indochinese Confederation, so the port of Saigon was hit by the People's Army, and these people were the first to bear it, after all, their property will suffer major losses, so under the instigation of the financiers behind them, many parliamentarians have strongly criticized France in the Congress, demanding that effective measures be taken to end the war as soon as possible.

Some parliamentarians directly proposed to the National Assembly that they should immediately negotiate with East China to end the war and restore peace to the Far East; some people even calculated that in the Portsmouth negotiations, East China proposed a reparation of 50 million pounds sterling, or about 1.1 billion francs, to Russia and Japan, while the losses caused by the People's Army's attack on the port of Saigon had already reached 2 billion francs, and now that France's losses have not ended, why not choose a smaller price to end the war.

In short, the attack on Saigon Port has indeed hit the sore point of France, and the parliamentarians, under the instigation of the financiers behind them, are no longer as impassioned as they were a few days ago, demanding to fight to the end, and have begun to accept the conditions for paying compensation to East China. Under such pressure, the French president immediately convened a cabinet meeting, and after more than 6 hours of negotiations, France finally decided to accept the conditions for the payment of compensation and negotiate with East China.

However, now France and Britain are also allies, so France's decision-making has undergone a major change, and it is natural to inform Britain, of course, now that France's decision has been decided, it will not be changed by Britain's opinion, this is just out of respect for the allied countries, and first inform Britain.

Therefore, France, through its ambassador to the United Kingdom, informed Britain that due to its own national interests, France ** was ready to hold negotiations with East China ** to settle the dispute between the two countries.

The British reaction was somewhat unexpected by France, and did not appear to be angry at the betrayal, but only asked France to suspend for a day so that Britain could discuss countermeasures, and also nullified a large set of explanations prepared by the French ambassador. And as an Allied country, this point of course has to be given face, after all, there is only one day, so France ** quickly agreed to this request of Britain.

A day later, Britain** replied to France, and Britain** also planned to hold negotiations with East China**, so it was suggested that the two countries negotiate with East China** together, so that they could also take care of each other.

It turned out that France was under tremendous pressure, and Britain was no better off there. Although East China did not look down on the British colonies in Southeast Asia and did not attack the British colonial ports, the maritime interception of East China also caused huge losses to the British. Since Britain's maritime power was much greater than that of France, the loss to Britain from the maritime interception of East China was more than twice that of France.

Of course, if East China only intercepted British merchant ships in East Asia and Southeast Asia, Britain would be able to hold out for a while, after all, Britain's colonies in Southeast Asia did not occupy a major position in the entire British colonial system, so only the Asian colonies were affected, and the loss to Britain as a whole was not large. Although the United States, Germany, Italy, and Austria-Hungary took advantage of the setbacks of Britain and France in East and Southeast Asia and tried their best to expand their influence and influence in these regions, Britain and France have been deeply rooted for many years after all, but in a short period of time, it is difficult for other countries to tap the foundation of the two countries in East and Southeast Asia.

But just a few days ago, the British** received reports that five merchant ships had been intercepted by the KPA fleet in the Andaman Seas. This news shocked Britain quite a lot, because the Andaman Sea is already within the scope of the Indian Ocean, which shows that East China has expanded the scope of maritime interception from the Pacific Ocean to the Indian Ocean, which means that the route from India to Britain will be endangered by the People's Army fleet, and India is Britain's most important overseas colony and an important resource for Britain. Should the supply of raw materials and the export of goods be affected, the impact on the British economy will be significant, so the UK cannot remain indifferent.

Some people suggested that another fleet should be sent immediately to escort ships in the Indian Ocean, but after the assessment of the British **, it was believed that the difficulty of escorting ships was too great, first of all, the size of the escort fleet was difficult to determine, and the size of the fleet was too small, and it was difficult to achieve the effect of escort, and if the size of the fleet was too large, then what should be done about the defense in the European direction? Although the scale of the British Royal Navy is huge, but in the first battle of the Taiwan Strait, a total of 14 battleships were lost, plus the naval battle of the Natuna Islands, this number will rise to 19, which has exceeded 1/3 of the number of battleships of the Royal Navy.

Moreover, even if we were to organize a fleet that was not inferior to the size of the expeditionary force, what would it do? Wouldn't the expeditionary force have already been completely annihilated? The Royal Navy could not afford to lose another battle in the Taiwan Strait.

Guan Jian is until now, the British Admiralty does not understand how this battle was lost, although the warship officers and men who escaped from the battlefield through the telegram know some information, but first, the number of warships that escaped is too small, and they are basically destroyers, and the overall knowledge of the battlefield is limited, and the report sent back to Britain is not clear, so to understand the whole situation of this naval battle, only when the war is over, peace is restored, and the prisoners are released in East China, can we fully understand the situation. And in the current situation, blindly organizing another fleet to participate in the war in the Far East is not a rational choice.

Of course, the British Cabinet also made a special trip to consult the Admiralty on this purpose. In fact, the defeat in the battle of the Taiwan Strait, Admiral Fisher and the Admiralty were also under tremendous pressure, Bi Jing This is the most serious defeat in the history of the British Navy, in the days when the news of the defeat was received, the parliament launched a demand for Fisher's resignation, and more than 100,000 British people gathered at the door of the British Admiralty, throwing stones, eggs, etc. at the Admiralty building.

But Fisher is a responsible person after all, he knows that it is not easy to start a war against East China at this time, if he organizes a fleet to go to the Far East at this time, he is desperate, and he is lucky to win a few battles, maybe he can keep his own way, but this approach is too risky, so for the Cabinet's consultation, Fisher only said that if His Excellency orders to send the fleet again, he will obey the resolution of the Cabinet, but victory cannot be guaranteed. As a result, the cabinet also completely gave up the intention of using force again, and began to seriously consider whether it should accept the conditions for the payment of reparations and negotiate with East China.

At this time, France informed Britain that it was ready to negotiate with East China, which also strengthened the determination of the cabinet, as a veteran player of the international **, the British knew very well that if the defeat was a foregone conclusion, and they had a number of allies, the sooner they negotiated with the winner, the smaller the loss, and the more they fell behind, the greater the loss, because the pressure on the victor was reduced at that time, and the higher the asking price.

Now the Netherlands has first negotiated separately with East China, and basically finished the talks, and France can't resist, if France and East China successfully negotiate, then it is not a good situation for Britain, and if it negotiates with France with East China, at least there is at least one companion who can help share the pressure, but to negotiate with East China, you must first convince Congress, so Britain asked France to wait another day.

As a result, Britain immediately held a discussion in the Parliament, and after a heated debate, the Congress voted and finally passed by a majority vote, agreeing to the British to negotiate with East China on the condition of paying reparations. Britain immediately notified France, and France was also very supportive of this result, after all, it is of course a good thing to have one more companion, at least you can bargain together and lose a little less.

After Britain and France unified their opinions, they immediately launched actions, of course, the two countries will not take the initiative to send a request for negotiations to East China, or to find an intermediary to mediate, the Netherlands is looking for Germany to act as this mediator, but Britain and France are now in deep contradiction with Germany, are hostile to each other for the Monaco crisis, naturally it is impossible to find Germany as this mediator, in vain to send a favor, so in the end still found the United States.

This is the third time that the United States has played the role of mediation, and the first two times have not been successful, and this is the first time that the United States has great expectations and hopes to use this mediation to enhance its international status, and it has also held talks in Portsmouth, but the result is still unhappy; the second time it was only a trial and it ended; but this time Britain and France agreed to accept the conditions of reparations, which also solved the biggest obstacle to mediation, so US President Rothford also accepted the task of mediation again, and sent a signal to East China.