The next day, the parties officially began to hold negotiations.

Although yesterday's banquet was unhappily dispersed, today Ito Hirobumi is still a humble and humble appearance, he must bow and nod before speaking, and his face is full of caution, which also makes Qin Zheng secretly admire, the Japanese forbearance skills are really very good.

After Ito Hirobumi returned to his residence yesterday, the entourage of the Japanese negotiating group was quite annoyed by what had happened at the banquet, believing that Huadong ** was deliberately humiliating Japan, and they demanded that they protest to Huadong **, or ask the United States and Germany to uphold justice for Japan.

In fact, yesterday's banquet made Ito Hirobumi quite annoyed, because everyone knew that using food and cooks from Kyoto to entertain the Japanese negotiating team was obviously a deliberate humiliation, but Ito Hirobumi immediately remembered that 12 years ago, when Li Hongzhang went to Maguan to negotiate, he set up a puffer fish banquet in Chunfan Tower to entertain Li Hongzhang, and he had told Li Hongzhang that Weihai's puffer fish were delicious, and he had considered Li Hongzhang's feelings at that time. It's just that the feeling at that time was of course very refreshing, but now that he has changed to Li Hongzhang's position, Ito Hirofumi knows how embarrassing this feeling is, maybe this is called heavenly reincarnation.

However, Ito Hirobumi is a person who takes the overall situation into account after all, although he is angry in his heart, he also knows that it is useless to protest, and the United States and Germany will not stand up for Japan, and it is even more impossible to terminate the negotiations with East China, because Japan now needs to stop the war as soon as possible, so he can only patiently dissuade everyone, and also cited the example of Tokugawa Ieyasu to persuade everyone that at this time, the negotiating team must endure humiliation and complete the negotiations. However, under the persuasion of Ito Hirobumi, the Japanese negotiating team was able to endure this breath and participate in today's negotiations as scheduled.

After the two sides sat down at the negotiating table, Qin Zheng first said: "Does the Japanese side have any drafts of a treaty for this negotiation?"

"We have not prepared a draft of the treaty, but we can negotiate it on the basis of the draft treaty of East China. Because of this negotiation, Japan has been prepared for reparations, and it is naturally not good to formulate a draft treaty, and it is not good for Bi Mian to write more and write less, so he simply did not prepare, and directly negotiated on the basis of the draft treaty in East China, and at the same time he could hide his hole cards. Although it is possible that the lion in East China will open his mouth, it can still bargain slowly.

Qin Zheng didn't care either, and immediately handed the folder containing the draft treaty drafted by East China ** to Ito Hirofumi.

Ito took the folder with both hands, and when he opened it, he saw that there were not many contents, only 4 in total, each written in Chinese and Japanese.

1. Japan admits its mistake in starting the war and formally apologizes to China;

2. Japan compensates East China **1.2 billion yen, and converts it into pounds, francs, Deutsche marks, US dollars, gold and silver

3. The two sides formally establish diplomatic relations, and the level can be tentatively set to the consular level;

4. The two sides shall establish a reciprocal economic and trade relationship, and the content of the agreement may be negotiated separately.

After reading it, Ito Hirofumi frowned slightly, in general, the conditions proposed by East China ** did not exceed his expectations, although 1.2 billion yen was indeed more than expected, but it was still possible to bargain, I believe that East China ** opened this price, which reserved a certain amount of counteroffer space.

It is also normal for East China to demand payment in pounds, francs, German marks, US dollars, gold and silver, because there is no international currency. Now, in addition to gold and silver, which are internationally accepted precious gold, Britain, France, Germany, and the United States are currently the four most economically powerful countries in the world, and their currencies are also the most circulated in the world. Therefore, this is not an exaggeration.

As for the establishment of formal diplomatic relations and reciprocal economic and trade relations, in Ito Hirofumi's view, there is no big problem in principle, after all, East China is actually a country now, and sooner or later it will be replaced by the Qing court, so at most there are some entanglements in some details.

Only the first one surprised Ito Hirobumi, he really didn't expect that East China ** would officially ask Japan to admit its mistakes and apologize. In fact, this article does not have any substantive significance, and in Ito Hirofumi's view, what can be done if he agrees? If he admits his mistake and apologizes, he will not lose a penny more, as if he is pretending to admit it now, as long as he can reduce the compensation a little. But Hirobumi Ito also understands that this article is absolutely impossible in Japan, and the reason is very simple, that is, face.

After the First Sino-Japanese War, Japan generally looked down on China, but culturally it could not get rid of the influence of Chinese culture, and Japan's face culture was basically better than that of China. What's more, if it is to make the state admit its mistakes? Ito Hirobumi can already imagine what kind of waves this draft will cause in China after it is transmitted back to China.

Ito Hirofumi pondered for a while before he said: "Speaker Qin, Articles 2, 3, and 4, except for some discussions on the details, we can basically accept it, but the first one is absolutely unacceptable to us." ”

Qin Zheng said, "Why?"

Ito Hirobumi said: "The cause of this war is that Japan wants to prevent Russia's expansion in Asia, which is to safeguard Japan's interests and China's interests, but it is Japan's poor consideration and failure to take into account the feelings of the Chinese, so that there is a war with East China **, but this is Japan's mistake, not a mistake, we can compensate for the losses caused by China, but we cannot admit that Japan is at fault." ”

Qin Zheng sneered and said, "Starting a war on the territory of a third country at will, can this be explained by mistakes?"

Komura Shoutaro couldn't help but say: "This has been recognized by the Qing country." The Qing State also set aside a war zone for this purpose. After a pause, he said: "I have no intention of questioning the power of East China ** over the Northeast region, and I also agree with the jurisdiction of East China ** over the Northeast region, but when Japan launched the war, the Northeast region was nominally a territory belonging to the Qing Dynasty, but in fact it was occupied by Russia." ”

Qin Zheng said: "Did the Qing State's demarcation of the war zone take place before or after the war?"

Komura Shoutaro was stunned, but could only say: "It's after the war." ”

Qin Zheng smiled and said: "Isn't that very clear? You have already started fighting, what can the Qing State do? This is obviously forced, and they have no ability to drive you all out, what can be done except to set up a war zone, but the Qing State does not have the ability to us, so we entered the war, but this does not mean that Japan is not at fault." If there's a mistake, you should apologize, shouldn't you?"

Komura Shoutaro still wanted to argue a few words, but was stopped by Ito Hirobumi and said: "We need to carefully study the draft treaty of East China, and we also need to ask for instructions from home, so I hope to give us a few days of grace." ”

Qin Zheng said: "Yes." I wonder how many days it will take for the Japanese side?"

Ito Hirobumi thought for a moment and said, "Three days." ”

Qin Zheng nodded and said, "Okay, let's talk again in three days, and that's all for today." ”

After saying that, both sides got up and left.

After leaving the negotiation venue, Li Songchen smiled and said: "Political commissar, this time is estimated to be enough for the Japanese to have a headache." ”

In fact, East China will ask Japan to apologize and admit its mistakes in the first place, of course, it is intentional, because from the experience of the old time and space, we know that the Japanese will never admit their mistakes unless they have to, and the more they refuse to admit their mistakes, the more East China will ask Japan to admit their mistakes and use this as a bargaining chip for negotiations, and if Japan wants to make East China back down on this article, it can only make concessions on other terms; of course, if Japan accepts this article and is willing to admit its mistakes to East China, then East China will You can justifiably oppress Japan on other terms, and you have already admitted that you were wrong, so what else is there to say.

Sure enough, after Ito Hirobumi sent the draft of the treaty of East China ** back to China, it immediately caused an uproar in Japan, and Japanese officials said that they must not admit that it was a mistake to start a war, let alone apologize to East China**, otherwise not only will Japan lose face, but even the emperor will be disgraced, although there are a few sober-minded people who think that if East China ** If Japan is willing to make concessions on the amount of reparations, then it is acceptable for Japan to admit its mistake and apologize, but these voices are too small, and they are quickly silenced by the voices that refuse to apologize.

So the Japanese cabinet replied to Ito Hirobumi with instructions that the first article must not be accepted. Hirofumi Ito could only sigh and be speechless, and suddenly remembered a sentence he had just learned from Naoto Miyamoto: "If you are not afraid of god-like opponents, you are afraid of teammates like dolphins."

Three days passed quickly, negotiations resumed, and the two sides quarreled for another day over the issue of apologies and confessions, but neither of them was willing to take a step back on the issue, and the negotiations reached an impasse on the first article.

Ito Hirobumi also knew that this was not the solution, because Japan could not afford it, although the two sides have now ceased war, but the People's Army still occupies Kyoto, Osaka, and Kobe, and continues to transport the population and wealth of these three places back to Qingdao, Japan is still losing blood. Therefore, before the end of the day's negotiations, Ito proposed that even if the two sides were at loggerheads over the first article, it would be better to put this article aside and negotiate the other terms, and then come back to the negotiations after the other terms were negotiated.

This practice of temporarily setting aside the disputed clause is a common way to deal with it in negotiations, after all, negotiations cannot be deadlocked on one clause for a long time, and perhaps after all other clauses are negotiated, the two sides will change the deadlocked clause. Therefore, Qin Zheng also agreed to Ito's proposal and decided to discuss Article 2 starting tomorrow.