This time, Qin Zheng made a special trip from Tianjin to Dagukou, of course, it was not for the matter of the cavalry company, in fact, going to the cavalry company was only an incidental matter of Qin Zheng's visit to Dagukou this time, and Qin Zheng's main task when he came to Dagukou was to welcome Li Hongzhang's arrival. Pen % fun % Pavilion www.biquge.info

Originally, Li Hongzhang had long wanted to visit Tianjin, after Zhang Peilun returned to Shanghai from Tianjin, and at this time, the imperial court that had fled to Xi'an finally issued an edict and rewarded the overseas Chinese, so Li Hongzhang immediately began to prepare for a visit to Tianjin, and according to Li Hongzhang's plan, he would strive to promote the start of negotiations before China's Lunar New Year, even if he could not negotiate a result, at least he could make a good start, and the general tone of the negotiations could be determined, and the queen mother and the emperor who fled to Xi'an could have a good year.

At this time, various countries launched a big tear over Li Hongzhang's visit to Tianjin. First of all, Britain proposed to Li Hongzhang that they would send an observer group to visit Tianjin with Li Hongzhang, and hoped to meet with overseas Chinese in Tianjin.

It turned out that although the British had a consulate in Tianjin, and the overseas Chinese also allowed the British consulate in Tianjin to continue to maintain and perform its diplomatic affairs, and even sent a telegram to the outside world to report the situation in Tianjin to the Shanghai side, the behavior and activities of the consulate were greatly restricted compared with the era of the Qing court, and the information collected was limited, and the military attaché in the consulate was not of high rank, just a captain, and had limited knowledge, so the Shanghai side always lacked an intuitive understanding of the behavior, style, and military strength of the overseas Chinese. The British side hoped to take advantage of Li Hongzhang's visit to Tianjin to send an observation group to accompany him, and planned to include a few officers in it to observe the overseas Chinese at close range, and through meetings with the overseas Chinese, they would be able to understand the attitude of the overseas Chinese toward the talks, so that they could be prepared.

From Li Hongzhang's heart, of course, he didn't want to take the British observation team to Tianjin, didn't he find himself a supervisor, and it would be inconvenient to get to Tianjin, so he recruited Zhou Fu, Sheng Xuanhuai, Zhang Peilun, Li Jingfang and others to discuss, and thought of a way to politely refuse the British?

Before Li Hongzhang and others could come up with an excuse to push it, other countries such as France, Russia, the United States, Japan, and Germany had already heard the rumors, and naturally they were not far behind, and they were also worried that Britain would take advantage of this visit to Tianjin to make some deal with overseas Chinese in private and sell itself, so on the one hand, various countries expressed their condemnation for Britain's unilateral act, accusing Britain of violating the principle of unanimous action reached by various countries; on the other hand, they demanded from Li Hongzhang that they should also send an observation delegation to visit Tianjin with Li Hongzhang, and at the same time asked for a meeting with overseas Chinese。 Even Japan and Russia, which were on the verge of fighting on the Korean Peninsula, maintained a high degree of unanimity at this time.

Seeing that all countries were protesting to themselves, the British were a little unable to hang up, after all, they were not doing what they were doing, so they proposed to all countries that they should simply send several representatives to form an observation group to accompany Li Hongzhang to Tianjin and jointly meet with overseas Chinese. Naturally, this proposal was unanimously approved by all countries, so they jointly submitted a request to Li Hongzhang.

Originally, it was a British country, which had already made Li Hongzhang feel a lot of pressure, but now that other countries were coming together, Li Hongzhang suddenly couldn't resist it, and at this time, Shanghai's press circles actually came to join in the fun, asking Li Hongzhang to send reporters to accompany him, and even proposed to visit overseas Chinese.

Shanghai is one of the earliest treaty ports in China to open to the outside world, and has superior geographical conditions, coupled with the influence of a large number of concessions, Shanghai at this time has been the most developed city in China with the highest degree of modernization. As a sign of modernization, Shanghai's newspaper industry is very developed, there are a total of more than 10 kinds of Chinese and foreign newspapers, such as [Declaration], [Shanghai Xinbao], [Zilin Xibao], [Damei Evening News], [Shanghai Times], etc., because the vast majority of newspapers are published in the concession area, and the Qing court is also at the end of the day, so Shanghai at this time can be said to be a place with a very high degree of press freedom, and the newspapers dare to say almost anything, and anyone dares to scold, and they will naturally not miss such an opportunity.

In desperation, Li Hongzhang had no choice but to let Zhang Peilun send electricity in the direction of Tianjin, which showed that various countries wanted to send an observation team to Tianjin, and there was also a request from the poster circles.

After a brief discussion, the Executive Committee held that the Observation Mission was nothing at all, so it was a matter of course, and that it was still afraid that they would turn the sky upside down on its own turf, and that if it refused, it would be a sign that it would be timid, and that the press would be even more welcome to send reporters to accompany them, because the old time and space was an era of extremely developed resources, and how to deal with reporters was a compulsory course for every captain of the Navy, not to mention Xia Bohai, Qin Zheng, and Xiao Jianjun and the others are already detachment-level officers, and they have some experience in dealing with reporters, and this is also a great opportunity to announce the traverser.

The Executive Committee immediately replied to Shanghai, agreeing to the request of various countries to send an observer mission to Tianjin, and also agreed to meet with the observer delegation, but each country could only send a maximum of five people, the military attaché could only carry weapons for self-defense, and it was forbidden to carry weapons during the meeting, and the observer group must obey the arrangements of the Tianjin Government when it arrived in Tianjin. At the same time, Tianjin also welcomes the visit of the poster community, but only three newspapers, and each newspaper is limited to three people.

After the opinion of the crosser reached Shanghai, the countries immediately began to discuss, and the crosser's request was not excessive, so the countries immediately began to select the members of the observation mission, and at this time, the Russian consul in Shanghai, P.A. Dmitriev, proposed that in order to ensure the safety of the observation mission, it was suggested that all countries should send warships to escort the observation mission to Tianjin.

However, after this request was sent to Tianjin, it was naturally rejected by the traversers, and the Executive Committee immediately replied to Shanghai that the Tianjin side was responsible for ensuring the safety of the observation mission, and that Tianjin could even send warships to Shanghai to pick up the observation mission, but it absolutely did not allow any other country to send warships to escort the observation mission. If you are not assured about the safety guarantee of Tianjin, you can not come.

First of all, the Russian consul in Shanghai, P.A. Dmitriev, expressed strong opposition, insisting that if the overseas Chinese refused to send warships to escort the observation mission, Russia would not send people to participate in the observation mission, and at the same time encouraged other countries to negotiate with the overseas Chinese because they had no sincerity in negotiating at all, and should refuse to negotiate with the overseas Chinese.

If the negotiations fall through because of this, overseas Chinese and foreigners may not be very good, but the Qing court will definitely not be able to stand it, the empress dowager and the emperor have issued five edicts in Xi'an, asking Li Hongzhang to do his best to facilitate this negotiation, and if the conditions are met, he can make his own resolution, and the court does not control it remotely, but only seeks to protect the society and return to the palace as soon as possible. Of course, Li Hongzhang understands that this means that you can pay as much money as you want and how much land you will cede, as long as you keep the queen mother and the emperor. This also shows that the Empress Dowager and the Emperor do have great expectations for this negotiation.

However, Li Hongzhang also knew that overseas Chinese would never allow other countries to send warships to escort the observation mission, after all, the overseas Chinese are now strong, so how could they agree to this condition. And the Russians made this request in order to muddy the waters in order to make a profit. Because the Russians did not occupy anything on the Korean Peninsula before, they hoped to provoke the confrontation between various countries and overseas Chinese again, so that the Russians would have the opportunity to make some more trouble on the Korean Peninsula and reap some benefits. In any case, Russia's current target is the northeastern region of China, and there is no interest in the Tianjin-Shanghai line, and Russia will not lose anything if it makes a fuss.

After a night of hard thinking, Li Hongzhang finally came up with a solution, that is, to ask the Beiyang Naval Division to send warships to escort the observation group to Tianjin. On June 17, 1900, after Dagukou was captured by the Eight-Nation Alliance, the main force of the Beiyang Naval Division: Haitian, Haiqi, Haichen, Hairong, and Haichou five warships, under the leadership of Admiral Ye Zuqi, fled to Shanghai to anchor, and has been stationed until now.

But in this way, first of all, the overseas Chinese did not refuse reasonably, because since the overseas Chinese landed, they have always regarded themselves as descendants of China, and claimed to be returning to China, and the Beiyang Naval Division was a warship of the Qing Dynasty, so of course the overseas Chinese could not refuse the escort of the Beiyang Naval Division. And the excuse of various countries is only to protect the safety of the observation mission, although the five warships of the Beiyang Naval Division are not the ironclad ships equipped with heavy armor and huge guns in Dingyuan and Zhenyuan, but the task of escorting is still enough, in fact, there is basically no danger on sea and land from Shanghai to Tianjin, and the escort is redundant, Zhang Peilun has taken a passenger ship back and forth twice, and he is not at all fine, so I am afraid there is nothing to say.

So Li Hongzhang first contacted the traverser and suggested to them that the Beiyang Naval Division should send warships to escort the escort, and sure enough, he got the consent of the traverser. Because the Beiyang Naval Division is, after all, the Chinese navy, and most of the traversers have a favorable impression of the Beiyang Naval Division, it is fair to say that in the Sino-Japanese War, although the Beiyang Naval Division was completely defeated, its performance was much stronger than that of the army; in the Battle of Dadonggou, Deng Shichang drove the ship into the ship Yoshino and was unfortunately sunk; in the Battle of Weihaiwei, Ding Ruchang and Liu Buyun would rather commit suicide than surrender to the Japanese army, which can be regarded as heroic. Therefore, in the old time and space, most of the Beiyang sailors had a sympathetic and regretful attitude. And now in the navy of the People's Army, there are some soldiers of the Beiyang Naval Division. Of course, the traverser would not refuse the warships of the Beiyang Naval Division to sail to Dagukou.

After getting the consent of the traverser, Li Hongzhang also breathed a sigh of relief, and immediately started negotiations with other countries, in fact, the intention of the Russians, all countries are well aware, of course they will not let Russia get their wish, just take this opportunity to take the opportunity to go down the wall, saying that there is a Beiyang naval division to escort the rest assured, so the matter of sending an observation team is still going on as usual. Although the Russians are still unrelenting, it is difficult to stand alone, and Russia has no warships in Shanghai, and all countries are unwilling to send warships and frigates, and the Russians cannot hold out.

In this way, the countries finally reached an agreement, and at the same time, Li Hongzhang chose three more newspapers, namely [Declaration], [Shanghai Xinbao], and [Zilinxi Daily] and finally set off from Shanghai on January 20 and headed north to Tianjin.