In the blink of an eye, 10 days have passed since the battle in the Taiwan Strait, and although the war has stopped at this time, the actions of the parties involved in the war have not stopped, and the struggle has never been limited to the battlefield, so during this time, a lot of things have happened in a row.

First of all, of course, the British and French Qing courts completely cut off trade with East China, in an attempt to completely cut off the source of materials in East China. However, after serious discussions, the Qing court politely rejected the proposal of Britain and France. Yuan Shikai, who was in charge of negotiating this matter with Britain and France, directly told the envoys of the two countries that the Qing court was now unable to complete the trade blockade of East China, and that the series of articles on East China's [Seven Days Talks] had already triggered public opinion to be unfavorable to the Qing court.

Of course, Britain and France were quite disappointed in the attitude of the Qing court, but there was no other way, Bi Jing Qing court was still an independent **, with its own decision-making ability, Britain and France could not force the Qing court to do it, they could only admit defeat.

However, Britain and France soon came back to the game, and the Netherlands rejected Germany's offer of mediation.

This result surprised Germany, because Germany thought that the Netherlands had no cards to play at all, and Germany was willing to mediate, and the Netherlands should be unable to ask for it, and it would be grateful to Germany. After the Dutch ** consultation, he told Germany that he had no plan to negotiate peace with East China ** for the time being, and politely declined Germany's mediation proposal. On the contrary, three days later, Britain, France, Japan, Russia, and the Netherlands issued a joint statement, indicating that although the expeditionary force failed, the five countries participating in the expeditionary force did not intend to compromise with East China, and would take all means to confront East China to the end, and did not rule out the formation of an expeditionary force again and re-launching the war.

It turns out that although the relationship between the Netherlands and Germany is relatively good, it has always had a deep defensive psychology against Germany, because Germany and the Netherlands are adjacent to each other, but there is a huge difference in national strength, and the Netherlands naturally wants to improve relations with Germany, and at the same time, it will also guard against it. This time, the Netherlands is very clear that Germany is not at ease when it comes forward to mediate at this time, not only will it pay a huge price for negotiating with East China now, but I am afraid that even Germany will not be able to send it away.

Of course, now the Netherlands does not have any cards to play, and it is also under tremendous pressure, so although it knows that Germany's mediation is a pit, it has to jump in, but at this time, Britain and France proposed to the Netherlands that at this time, the five countries participating in the expeditionary force should unite and deal with East China as a whole, and no country should act alone, only in this way can we win better conditions for the negotiations between the five countries and East China.

So the Netherlands ** gave birth to a bit of luck, thinking that since Britain and France took the lead, they might as well give it a try, maybe they could really make themselves pay a little less price, so they politely declined Germany, and then jointly issued an uncompromising statement with Britain, France, Japan and Russia, of course, this is mainly to express the tough attitude of the five countries, in the later game, strive for a little initiative, but also increase the bargaining chips for themselves in the next negotiation. In fact, everyone knows that it is simply impossible to form an expeditionary force.

Seeing the statement issued by the five countries, East China was not surprised, because the experience of the old time and space told the traveler that imperialism is the master who does not see the coffin and does not shed blood, and it will never be easy and easy to be able to sudden, of course, East China has already had a countermeasure, so on the one hand, communicate with Germany, please be calm and not dry, sooner or later Germany still needs Germany's mediation, and on the other hand, it also begins to prepare for another war.

Within two days of that, the United States conveyed to East China ** the idea that Britain and France hoped to negotiate, and the conditions put forward by Britain and France to East China ** were to recognize East China ** as a formal state and establish diplomatic relations between countries; to recognize the fact that East China ** occupied the three eastern provinces; to recognize the fact that East China ** occupied Shanghai, and not to pursue the confiscated British and French assets; to no longer support Japan and Russia to continue the war, and to urge Japan and Russia to negotiate with East China ** and accept East China**'s terms of reparations; East China** Do not ask for reparations from Britain and France, colonies, open the Yangtze River blockade to East China, and protect the interests of Britain and France.

It turns out that although Britain and France are tough on the surface, in fact, both countries are under considerable pressure, because it is Britain, lost 14 battleships at once, plus the naval battle of the Natuna Islands, a total of 18 battleships were lost, accounting for more than 1/3 of the total number of British battleships, although Britain is not considered a big injury, but this is enough to make Britain hurt for several years, so the British media almost without exception to the **, Congress, Admiralty, etc., in Lunguo, Manchester, In Liverpool and other places, there have been more than 10 protests** and demonstrations against the navy, and the opposition parties have also taken the opportunity to fall into the ground, and almost every day they strongly criticize the present in Congress**.

Although France's losses were smaller than those of Britain, the size of the French navy was also much smaller than that of the British navy, so the pressure on France was not at all less than that of Britain.

However, although he is constantly being scolded, things still have to be done, of course, the most important thing is to clean up the current mess, and the top priority is, of course, to negotiate with East China ** and end the war as soon as possible. It's just that now is not a good time to negotiate with East China, because at this time, East China is in the limelight, and negotiations will definitely make Britain and France pay a heavy price, so they must find some bargaining chips for themselves.

However, Britain and France were not vegetarians, and soon found that East China was facing a difficult situation of materials, so it was decided to make trouble for East China economically, and first encouraged the Qing court to interrupt all trade with East China, but the Qing court did not have the ability or courage to reject the agitation of Britain and France.

But Britain and France do not think that this is a complete failure, because Britain and France also understand that the Qing court can not control the situation in China at all now, even if they really want to interrupt all trade with East China, they can't do it, and the fundamental purpose of Britain and France is not to trap East China, but to increase their bargaining chips in future negotiations, at least this time let East China know that Britain and France have also found the weakness of East China.

Subsequently, Britain and France encouraged the other three countries of the expeditionary force to establish an offensive and defensive alliance, advance and retreat together, and did not negotiate with East China alone, and issued a tough statement, in fact, they were all creating momentum for themselves and putting pressure on East China.

At this time, Britain and France also felt that it was almost the same, and they could negotiate contacts with East China, but the two countries could not take the initiative to negotiate with East China, so they asked the United States to mediate, of course, only East China and Britain and France. Although the statement of the five countries of the expeditionary force announced that no country would negotiate with East China alone, the statement was not an informal legal document, and this statement was essentially only to create momentum for Britain and France, and even if it was a formal legal document, Britain and France would not be offered as a holy decree, as long as it was beneficial to themselves, they would turn their faces, simply put, as long as they could achieve the goal of negotiating with East China ** on better terms, what allies should be sold.

Of course, now Britain and France have always been together, this is not how good the relationship between Britain and France is, in fact, just a few years ago, Britain and France are still on the same footing, although in recent years for the common enemy Germany and approach, but not so good to the point of heart-to-heart, but now in the face of East China, both countries are in a disadvantaged position, so they can only hold together against East China, in fact, if one of them can get benefits, will not hesitate to sell the other.

But U.S. President Roosevelt also knew that now is not the time for the Portsmouth negotiations, and the work of mediation is not easy to do, not to mention the last Portsmouth negotiations, East China has been a little dissatisfied with the United States, thinking that during the Portsmouth negotiations, the United States is too biased towards Japan and Russia, and if this mediation fails, the United States will be embarrassed or a trivial matter, and it will be troublesome if it affects the relationship with East China. Although the United States was also very vigilant against East China at this time, on the surface, the relationship between the two sides was not bad, economic and trade exchanges were very frequent, and because of the war in the Far East, the scale of US commerce in Asia had also been quite expanded, so the United States did not want to destroy this superficial relationship for the time being. And just for the sake of Britain and France, it is really not cost-effective to spoil the relationship with East China.

So Roosevelt replied to Britain and France, hoping that the two countries could preliminarily determine acceptable mediation conditions, so that the United States could carry out maneuvering activities, otherwise it would only be an empty mediation, and I am afraid it would be difficult to succeed, so that the United States could at most send a message to East China on behalf of Britain and France, expressing the intention of the two countries to negotiate, but it would not appear as a mediator.

If it is just to let the United States help spread the word, it means that Britain and France will first give in to East China, which is of course unacceptable to Britain and France. It is necessary to let the United States intervene as a mediator and issue mediation proposals to all parties, so that Britain and France and East China can be reciprocal. However, the United States also demanded that the two countries must determine acceptable mediation conditions before they were willing to come forward, so Britain and France discussed again, and finally worked out the conditions for negotiation, the bottom line is very clear, that is, no reparations, no concessions in Asia, and East China has achieved results, the two basically recognized, and recognized the status of East China, no longer support Japan, Russia and the Netherlands as a concession to East China. To put it bluntly, he planned to sell the Qing court and Japan, Russia and the Netherlands in exchange for his own interests not to be lost.

After getting the mediation conditions between Britain and France, Roosevelt negotiated with his aides again, and everyone thought that they could give it a try, and it didn't matter whether it succeeded or not, Guan Jian could use the trick to test the attitude of East China, and if East China accepted this condition, it means that East China has no ambition to change the regional situation, and the United States can rest assured a little; if East China refuses, it means that East China is pursuing a policy of foreign expansion, and then the United States needs to be more vigilant.