That night, Guangxu issued an order to announce that Li Hongzhang entered the palace. Because at this time, only Li Hongzhang is reliable, and only Li Hongzhang is recruited into the palace alone, so as not to quarrel again.

In fact, although Li Hongzhang has been sick at home, he knows everything that is happening outside, to be honest, when he first heard about it, Li Hongzhang was also shocked, he didn't expect overseas Chinese to quietly occupy such a large area in Henan. Originally, Li Hongzhang estimated that it would take at least 20 years for overseas Chinese to seize the world, because Shandong was too small, and overseas Chinese needed at least two stages of expansion to unify the whole country with the strength of Shandong Province. Hebei and others also expanded their strength, the second is to occupy the south or the north, and then unify the whole country, and each of these stages will take about 2-3 years to complete, and after the completion of these two stages, it will take at least 4-5 years to stabilize, plus other time, Li Hongzhang only got the time period of 20 years.

But the overseas Chinese obviously saw this, so just after settling down in Shandong, they immediately expanded to the surrounding areas, and silently, and when the imperial court found out, it had become the climate, it seems that their estimated time is too much, overseas Chinese at most 15 years, at least 10 years, probably can reign in the world, of course, even if it is 10 years, Li Hongzhang also estimates that he will not live at that time.

And Li Hongzhang also calculated that the imperial court would ask him for a plan, after all, now those few people in the military aircraft department have a few catties and a few taels, Li Hongzhang couldn't be clearer, expecting them to take an idea, it is tantamount to begging for a fish from the wood, when Rong Lu was in the past, maybe he could still hold it for a while, but now that Rong Lu is gone, who else can the court count on? Prince Qing is a good hand at collecting money, but unfortunately everything else is useless, Zhang Zhidong's eyes are low, and he is exaggerated; Zhao Shuqiao will only see the wind and make the rudder, as for Rong Qing, Tie Liang is completely ignorant of the height of the sky, so in the end, he still has to find himself.

After meeting Cixi and Guangxu, Li Hongzhang was confident, and he gave Cixi two ideas: First, he immediately sent people to negotiate with the overseas Chinese, asking them what their intentions were? If they needed territory, they could give them one or two more provinces, and although this could not completely satisfy the ambitions of the overseas Chinese, it would at least allow the overseas Chinese to stabilize for a few years, so as to allow time for the imperial court to implement the new policy and organize and train the new army.

In fact, Li Hongzhang's suggestion was to ask the Qing court to continue to pretend ostriches, cut meat and feed tigers, but Cixi was a little tempted, the reason is very simple, Cixi is also almost 70 years old, and she feels that she has no days to live, and she can delay it for a day, and wait until she closes her eyes and cares how overseas Chinese make trouble. Of course, Li Hongzhang also calculated Cixi's mentality before making such a suggestion.

But Cixi also knew that this method was not easy to implement, Bi Jing was now very resentful of overseas Chinese among the Manchus, and the imperial court not only did not punish them, but wanted to give them a sealed region, which was not overturned, although Cixi now controls the government and covers the sky with one hand, but it cannot confront the entire Manchu class.

Another suggestion of Li Hongzhang is that if the imperial court insists on using troops against overseas Chinese, it must not invite other countries to send troops, otherwise there will be endless troubles. Because countries may not be willing to send troops sincerely, most of the countries are now friendly with overseas Chinese, such as Japan, Germany, and even established official relations with overseas Chinese, so it is difficult for the imperial court to invite countries to pay a heavy price.

In fact, there is no need for Li Hongzhang to say, Cixi also knows the harm of inviting countries to send troops, which will make the Qing court completely lose the hearts of the people morally, although Cixi does not want to care about the affairs of overseas Chinese, but what overseas Chinese have done over the years, Cixi is very clear, in fact, the biggest threat of overseas Chinese to the Qing court is not their military strength, but since the landing of overseas Chinese, they have dressed themselves up as the role of resisting various countries and maintaining China's rights and interests. Incidents such as Qingdao and Guawa's protection of overseas Chinese also gave them this confidence, and if the Qing court introduced other countries to deal with overseas Chinese at this time, it would only make the Qing court completely lose its righteous reputation, and the overseas Chinese could call on the people of the entire Chinese region to oppose the Qing court. Rong Qing and Tie Liang are still a little too young, and they think things too simply.

However, Li Hongzhang's suggestion is not only not to invite countries to send troops, but also not to directly make enemies with overseas Chinese, after all, on the surface, overseas Chinese do not admit the relationship with the Henan bandits, so the imperial court may as well deliberately pretend to be confused, concentrate on the conquest and suppression of the Henan bandits, and still maintain relations with the overseas Chinese on the surface, although the overseas Chinese will secretly support the Henan bandits, but Bi Jing is limited, and if the Qing court succeeds in the conquest, it is also equivalent to indirectly slapping the overseas Chinese in the face, so that they will have to restrain themselves in the future, if the conquest fails, and there is no tearing up with the overseas Chinese, there is still room for relaxation between the two sides。

At this time, Guangxu interjected, if you want to conquer the bandits in Henan, who should be enabled, Li Hongzhang's reply was Yuan Shikai, Guangxu was silent when he heard it, and Cixi let go and let Li Hongzhang retreat.

At this time, the base area had completed the initial recovery after the war, and the two newly formed regiments were basically fully equipped, so they immediately began to implement the expansion plan of the East China government, and the first goal to be completed was to completely occupy the four prefectures of Guidefu, Chenzhou, Xuzhou, and Weihui. As a matter of fact, the base areas have now formed a basic control over these four state capitals, but the cities have not been moved, and the rural areas are all under the control of the base areas, so it is not difficult to fully occupy these four state capitals at present, and in less than a month, all the cities in these four state capitals have been captured. Local officials of the Qing court either fled or were captured.

After the news reached Beijing, the Qing court shook again, in the eyes of the Qing court, this was the loss of 4 state capitals in a row, Cixi was still a little hesitant, and at this time there was no way, so he had to recruit Yuan Shikai into Beijing to discuss the matter of sending troops to quell the chaos.

At this time, it was already in December 1903, in the East China government, also completed a number of events that had a significant impact on the future generations, first of all, after several months of preparation, and imported a large number of machinery and equipment from Germany, Gao Liu Automobile Company finally officially began production, and planned to produce a prototype car in 1904, which is also a few years later, one of the world's most famous car brands; and before that, Shanghai held the first fashion show in this time and space, almost all the well-known people in Shanghai were invited to attend, because the form of the fashion show is peculiar and novel, and the use of a large number of sound and light effects, so it has achieved a very successful effectIn less than a month, not only were more than 6 0 0 pieces of clothing sold out, but also more than 5 0 0 orders were signed, and soon became a benchmark in Shanghai's fashion industry.

In addition, a large number of Nanyang businessmen invested in Shandong, Shanghai, Tianjin, and other places, which also greatly promoted the economic development of the East China government, and the fiscal revenue in 1 9 0 3 was 8 6 1 30 million silver dollars, exceeding the 8 0 0 0 silver dollars expected in the middle of the year, and an astonishing increase of 3 2 percent compared with last year.

And in January and February, the East China government's financing plan was also a great success, and the contracts were signed with Germany and the United States respectively to issue bonds worth 3 0 0 0 million pounds in two tranches in 1 9 0 4 and 1 9 0 5 years, for a period of four years, at an interest rate of 10 percent, with interest paid in the current year, and at the end of the bond time, the principal was paid in one lump sum. This means that over the next two years, the East China government will receive a huge amount of £60 million to prepare for and conduct the war, first of all, to ensure that the bonds issued are sold in full.

However, the East China government is also full of confidence in this, because one is the high interest rate of bonds, generally the bond interest rate at this time is between 6-8%, and the interest rate of 10% is quite considerable, and the second is that the bonds are issued in response to the war with Russia, and the war will start in early 1904, according to the experience of the old time and space, Japan fought quite smoothly at the beginning of the war, although the East China government will not enter the war in early 1904, but now the East China government and Japan are cooperative relations after all, Therefore, it is certain that even the market of the East China government is also optimistic, and the issuance of bonds should not be too problematic.

Originally, the East China government wanted to issue a bond in the United Kingdom, but the British government could not issue any more bonds in 1904 on the grounds of lack of time and the current economic recession in Britain, and if it wanted to issue bonds in the United Kingdom, it could only be postponed until 1905. Originally, the British government's wishful thinking was determined by the results of Japan's war against Russia in 1904, and Japan fought well on the battlefield and did not need the help of the East China government, so even in 1905, it would find other ways to reject the East China government, so as to prevent the East China government from taking advantage of the war to gain momentum; but if the war was unfavorable to Japan and the East China government needed to send troops, then Britain would give full support to the East China government to raise funds.

Of course, the price paid by the East China government is not small, in the three years from 1906 to 1908, it will pay a huge interest of 6 million pounds per year, and in 1905 and 1909, it will also pay 3 million pounds, with a total of 84 million pounds, and this money can only be recovered from the war reparations.

The year 1903 passed like this, and although the undercurrents of the year were surging, the contradictions were intertwined, and the forces of all sides were crisscrossing and showing their abilities, but on the surface it was a stable and peaceful atmosphere, but since the year 1904 came, the contradictions would finally become superficial, and they would have a very far-reaching impact on the development of the general trend of the world.