"The Japanese minister asks to see you!" The guards of the British Legation carried the news in. After Japan's defeat at Tsingtao, the Japanese envoy stopped for a few days. The British minister could imagine that Japan was frantically trying to find a way out of its predicament in those days. Subsequently, Japan seemed to have come up with a solution, and the Japanese cabinet met with the British minister to Japan and demanded that the British honor the terms of the Anglo-Japanese alliance and strike at the People's Party.

Britain felt that Japan's request was too ridiculous, and the Anglo-Japanese alliance was a British collar around Japan's neck, and Japan was a British dog with a collar, and it was not the turn of the dog to command the owner in any case. After the defeat of the Japanese at Rizhao to Beiyang, the British combat power of Beiyang was being reassessed. It is also unlikely that the British Minister in China will give Japan any reply until the final assessment is made.

"Tell the Japanese minister that I don't have time to receive a visit recently." The British minister replied crisply.

The Japanese minister was not surprised by the fact that the loser was not qualified to negotiate terms, which is the most basic element of diplomacy. The defeat to the People's Party and then to Beiyang was too great an impact on Japan's diplomacy. In fact, not only the British side, but even the Beiyang side did not hesitate to close the door to Japan. Thinking about it a month ago, when the Japanese minister asked to see the Beiyang side, the Beiyang side greeted him with a smile, and he would never dare to be so rude.

"Those useless army horse manure!" The Japanese minister sat back in his carriage and cursed in his heart.

In the face of this defeat, a huge wave has been set off in Japan, and modern warfare is a very expensive operation. Before the war, Japan was full of confidence, and the People's Party, an organization that had only been established for eight years, could not be an opponent of the Great Japanese Empire in any case. Britain's acquiescence, Beiyang's acquiescence, and diplomatic victory made Japan feel that this was an excellent omen.

Before the war, it was not that no one was worried about the war, for example, the Minister of Finance Takahashi Isaki expressed his opposition quite implicitly, "The People's Party can get Britain and Beiyang to make concessions to Japan in a very short time, will our war with the People's Party be a fire in the fire?" ”

This hero, who had issued bonds for Japan five times in the Russo-Japanese War, cut off Russia's source of funds, forced Russia to suffer a serious defeat in the Russo-Japanese economic war, and fell into the predicament of financial bankruptcy, did not dare to underestimate the People's Party at all. "Although the People's Party is located in the Chinese mainland, it can fight with the United States in raw silk, an important export industry of our country. This shows that the BJP is not alone. ”

But instead of stopping the war, this exhortation stirred up the emotions of its supporters. "If we can't defeat the BJP as soon as possible, when will our raw silk exports resume? China's land and population are not comparable to those of Japan, and the areas controlled by the People's Party alone can meet almost all the needs of the United States, and our silk industry will have no way out unless the United States' illusions about the People's Party are shattered by war. ”

"Shandong's rights and interests were originally owned by Germany, but they were stolen by the People's Party through the war. Only by defeating the People's Party can we seize Shandong's rights and interests. Japanese Prime Minister Shigenobu Okuma's supporter, the Minister of War said with a tough attitude. This time, the army demanded an increase in the strength of two divisions, and all the forces that supported the navy expressed opposition, and the War Department urgently needed a victory to prove its ability.

Some believe that they want to seize Qingdao, an industrialized city in China, to increase Japan's strength, some think that after seizing Qingdao, they can take advantage of the situation to expand their interests in Shandong, and some think that it is necessary to crack down on the people's party's raw silk trade. Japan has been affected by it.

War, war, war. Japan has made great profits through wars one after another, so if you want to solve the current predicament this time, war is already the best choice. In order to be able to successfully fight the Qingdao Campaign, Japan spent nearly 100 million yen and mobilized two divisions of the navy and the army. This cannot but be said that Japan still did not make the mistake of belittling the enemy.

However, the war ended with victory and defeat, and Japan won every war in the past. But the war ended in a humiliating situation. More than 17,000 people were killed and captured in the Kyushu Division, and the combat unit can be said to be almost completely wiped out. More than 5,000 people were killed in the battle, but fortunately, with the cover of the navy, they finally retreated, instead of being surrounded and annihilated in one fell swoop like the Kyushu Division. The defeat to the People's Party may be said to have a deep understanding of the enemy, and the defeat to Beiyang is completely unacceptable to the Japanese people. Beiyang was the successor of the Manchu Qing Dynasty, and the Beiyang Army was an out-and-out "Chinese army", so how could the army of the Great Japanese Empire be defeated by the Chinese army?

The wheels of the carriage sparkled, and the Japanese minister's heart ached as if pinched at the thought of this defeat. The army's horse manure was able to wipe out the entire division, and the minister thought that it was nothing to kill people, but the equipment of the entire division and regiment was completely lost. In Rizhao, the Japanese army also looted, but the People's Party had already brought all the people and materials clean. It is said that the Japanese army carried out a large-scale bad operation to break all the glass windows of Rizhao with the butts of their guns. Dozens of tons of steel bars and hundreds of tons of cement were also transported. Within a few days of the looting operation, the Japanese army left thousands of corpses in Rizhao and fled onto the ship in disgrace, and the artillery belonging to the division blew up the artillery to escape.

The navy felt even more aggrieved, the hundreds of casualties were nothing compared to the army, and the shells fired were already worth a lot. However, these losses were related to the fact that two battleships were shot, and more than 10 warships were sunk or damaged, and the repair cost alone required at least a few million yen, and the entire loss was only more than 10 million. The losses of the Navy are not necessarily much less than those of the Army.

In order to shirk responsibility, the navy and the army blamed each other, and even shifted the blame to the minister stationed in China. The Admiralty and the War Department came to a rare agreement that the intelligence services led by the Minister in China were operating unfavorably and that there were major errors in the information provided, which was one of the major reasons for the defeat of the war. The minister stationed in China is a member of the navy, and he can understand the army's horse manure nonsense, but the admiralty's nonsense is too sad.

Because of this defeat, the cabinet of Shigenobu Okuma, who had just been in power for a year, collapsed, and no one was willing to take over the next prime minister. The 1911 Saionji Konobu Cabinet, the 1912 Katsura Taro Cabinet, the Yamamoto Gonbei Cabinet in 1913, the Okuma Shigenobu Cabinet in 1914, and the Four Cabinets of Japan in four years, even to the point where no one is willing to take over the Cabinet.

Thinking about the situation at home, the Japanese minister felt that his heart ached even more. Relying on wars that gambled on the fortunes of the country again and again, Japan finally came to the point where it is today in an era full of crises, but after only one defeat in the war, Japan was facing a great crisis. Could this be the end of Japan's luck?

The feeling of heartache and chest tightness became more and more intense, and the Japanese minister took out the compound salvia dripping pills, got a few pills and swallowed them in his mouth, and in less than two minutes, the pain in his heart was greatly eliminated. Compound Danshen Dripping Pill is also a Chinese product, more precisely, a product of the People's Party. This new political power is rising at a terrible rate, not only in the military, but also in technology, culture, and medicine. Now everyone knows that Chen Ke is a chemist and pharmacologist. Even now, the 914 produced by the BJP has a good reputation in Asia. Even in the Indian market, it sells well. Therefore, several new drugs that Chen Ke withdrew from are also selling well in the world market. Under the leadership of such a genius, the power of the People's Party has become stronger and stronger at an unprecedented speed, to the extent that even Japan has no way to defeat the People's Party.

Of course, the Japanese minister did not know the truth about the People's Party, so he overestimated Chen Ke. Returning to Danshen Dripping Pill is actually an old Chinese medicine, Chen Ke was born in chemistry, and many of his classmates and brothers are engaged in medicine. When everyone drank and bragged, they heard the brothers talk about the knowledge of the so-called Chinese patent medicine. Traditional Chinese medicine is practice-oriented, and it talks about medicinal efficacy. After the liberation, the development of Chinese patent medicine has gone through a series of processes: decoction (boiling medicine), large honey pill (mixing various pharmaceutical ingredients and mixing with honey and kneading it, and sealing it with wax on the outside), granule (removing water after distillation under reduced pressure after boiling traditional Chinese medicine, and making granules after adding sugar), sugar-free powder (further purification of decoction), and drop pills. The core point is to concentrate the active ingredients step by step.

The main ingredients of Salvia dripping pills are salvia, notoginseng, and borneol, Chen Ke is engaged in the pharmaceutical industry of the People's Party, and he hopes to have a fist product, and after seeing this formula, he feels very familiar, so he directly boils and concentrates, and then adds glycerin. Glycerin is a commonly used medicine for cardiovascular relief. The People's Party's oleochemical industry is by no means short of glycerin, the original salvia, notoginseng, and borneol boiled drugs. These three flavors of medicine need to be planted in large quantities, and borneol needs camphor trees, so the People's Party handed over this project to the forestry school to be responsible for research. The last thing that the broad masses of laborers lack is practice, and camphor tree planting is relatively successful. Not only is the supply of borneol guaranteed, but also the production of wind oil essence and cooling oil using camphor is guaranteed.

The BJP's medical system for the masses has countless users and experimenters, and drug experiments are guaranteed. After a lot of experiments and repeated improvements, in 1912, the compound Danshen Dripping Pill caused a great sensation in the world. It is claimed to be a special medicine for the treatment of heart disease. 914. Compound Salvia Dripping Pills, Wind Oil Essence, and Cool Oil are selling well in industrial countries all over the world. There are also millions of pounds in profit a year. Compound Danshen Dripping Pill is a product of the military pharmaceutical factory, and the composition of traditional Chinese medicine is complex, and it is not easy to analyze, and the People's Party dares to sell it in large quantities without fear of others copying it.

This kind of behavior can almost be described as cheating, because the efficacy of the drug has become the admiration of foreign countries for traditional Chinese medicine. And there has always been a reverence for herbal medicine in foreign countries, even in the 21st century. Chen's deception was a great success. Taking the medicine of the People's Party, he temporarily cured the physical pain of the Japanese minister, but aggravated his spiritual pain. Japan just lacks the products that can be sold in large quantities by the People's Party, so the speed of industrialization has never been able to keep up. The Japanese minister was an insightful person, and he had clearly felt the trend of China's re-emergence, and the Japanese minister knew very well that China's re-emergence meant Japan's decline. He managed to reach where he is today and became a British collaborator in the Far East. If it is overwhelmed by China again, Japan will never turn over.

Or suggest to Japan that you try to get rid of Chen Ke physically. The Japanese minister could only come up with such a solution. In the view of the Japanese minister, the rise of the People's Party depends entirely on Chen Ke's outstanding qualifications and abilities, and if Chen Ke is eliminated, the People's Party will lose at least half of its overall strength. Since the Japanese navy has absolute superiority in the Far East, it is impossible for Japan to suffer a blow from the People's Party even if the matter is revealed. The People's Party, which had suffered a great loss in strength, was bound to collapse under the blows of Britain, Beiyang, and Japan. At that time, Japan will still be able to reap great benefits. Having this idea in mind, the Japanese minister began to prepare a report to the country.

The Beiyang government was complacent at this time, and Wu Peifu's Beiyang Fourth Army suffered more than half of the casualties, but the Japanese army was repulsed at Rizhao. It was proved that in terms of land warfare, the Beiyang Army was above Japan. The attitude of the British changed immediately. Although Wu Peifu withdrew to the fleet before the siege of the People's Party, he ran away. However, Beiyang knew that such a retreat was not enough to reduce its weight in the eyes of the British, and the British would not think that the current Beiyang could really defeat the People's Party.

As a decision, Gu Weijun naturally became a new upstart in Beiyang, and Yuan Shikai appointed Gu Weijun as vice minister of foreign affairs, and also served as a senior adviser to the presidential secretariat. This arrangement is to reward Gu Weijun's achievements, and secondly, it also has the meaning of protecting Gu Weijun. Mu Xiu will be destroyed by the forest wind, and if a 26-year-old young man suddenly gains real power in a short period of time, the result is destined to be tragic. How many people have to pull Gu Weijun off the horse in actual work no matter what. Yuan Shikai has not only been attacked like this countless times, but he himself is also very proficient in playing with these methods. As a senior adviser to the presidential secretariat, Gu Weijun often has to accompany Yuan Shikai to various meetings and experience various talks. It is also an important step in gradual cultivation.

For the next direction, Gu Weijun's suggestion is very simple. "Join the Entente and assume obligations within the limits of your ability."

The military victory in Rizhao does not mean that Beiyang can really completely overwhelm Japan, Beiyang knows, and the British also know. After Japan recovers, it will definitely continue to fight against Beiyang. After proving the strength of Beiyang, if you want to maintain this image of victory against Japan, it is better not to participate in the war again. The best way not to get involved in the war was to join the Entente. At a time when the war in Europe is fierce, once it joins the Entente, it is absolutely impossible for Britain to let the countries under the Entente flag fight. At that time, the power of the British could be borrowed to avoid a new Sino-Japanese war.

Wu Peifu's Fourth Army, 40,000 casualties, nearly 20,000. That is to say, Wu Peifu trained the troops strictly and controlled effectively, and the Fourth Army persevered to the end. As far as the internal battle report is concerned, the Beiyang Army also almost collapsed twice, and it was Wu Peifu himself who personally commanded the supervision team to hold down the position. Even so, under the heavy shelling of the Japanese Navy, the Beiyang Army was unable to continue fighting. This allowed the Sendai Division to calmly board the ship and retreat. So Beiyang actually didn't want to continue to fight. When he could get off the donkey, Yuan Shikai naturally agreed.

That's when the title of "Senior Advisor" comes into play. There are also senior officials in Beiyang who try to tease Gu Weijun, hoping that this ignorant doll can be willful. Gu Weijun was smart enough, and his father-in-law Tang Shaoyi repeatedly explained, "The president has to call the shots in everything." Gu Weijun said, "I'm just an adviser, responsible for making suggestions, and the president still has to make the decision." "Those flirters also have nothing to do with Gu Weijun.

Yuan Shikai of course agreed to join the Entente, but he was not in a hurry. "What about the obligation?" He asked.

"To undertake an obligation is to bargain, what we can and cannot bear, openly talk to the British. If you can do it, you can do it, and if you can't do it, we can't help it. Gu Weijun replied very simply.

"What's in it for us?" Yuan Shikai continued to ask.

Gu Weijun replied very seriously, "Our products have a market. The reason why the BJP has developed rapidly in recent years is because they have done a great deal in foreign trade. When the People's Party talks about the economy, it clearly points out that with trade there is a market. It's not that we don't have factories in Beiyang, but we don't have sales. Among the obligations undertaken was to sell the goods necessary to the Entente Powers. If each factory has a business, it can prosper and develop. Naturally, government revenues can also be raised. ”

As soon as they heard that they could make money, the important ministers of Beiyang were all bright-eyed. These people have long wanted to make a fortune, if the situation is as Gu Weijun said, they can reach a sales agreement with the British, it is really a good opportunity to make a big profit. It's rare, this time no one is going to make it difficult for Gu Weijun with a gun and a stick.

"Then Shaochuan might as well be responsible for joining the Entente." Yuan Shikai said to Tang Shaoyi. Tang Shaoyi and Gu Weijun are both Shaochuan. But Gu Weijun would never be stupid enough to think that Yuan Shikai would leave this matter to himself. So he didn't say a word.