"The foreigner is coming......"

Everyone's eyes followed the sound to look in the direction of Zhengyangmen, and found that there were about 100 troops in size, escorting hundreds of foreigners, and the foreigners were obviously more numerous than the soldiers protecting them.

After seeing this scene, Yixuan's face immediately fell, and he glanced at Wang Sirui thoughtfully.

And Zhang Fuhua, who was deflated by Wang Sirui before, looked at Wang Sirui with bad intentions.

As for Wang Sirui himself, he naturally kept all the faces of Yixuan and those ministers in mind. Wang Sirui doesn't know how important it is for them to protect the safety of these foreigners?

When Li Hongzhang went to Japan to negotiate, it was precisely because of the Japanese government's carelessness and arrogance that their protection of Li Hongzhang was not perfect.

In the end, Li Hongzhang was assassinated by Japanese right-wingers, but fortunately, Li Hongzhang was more fatal, and the bullet was not able to directly take Li Hongzhang's life.

Since then, Li Hongzhang's physical condition has been deteriorating day by day, and various diseases have come to his door one after another.

And his killer also hid directly in a store at the time, and then was able to escape. Although the Japanese government eventually succeeded in arresting the assassins, this could no longer compensate for the impact of this incident on the entire negotiations.

And the matter has entered the negotiation stage, the Qing government can drag on indefinitely, anyway, the land that should be lost has been lost, the Japanese have no money to continue to fight, and the lost land will not come back, is it a day to drag it out?

However, the Japanese could not afford to delay, in order to win this battle, they could be said to have sold even pots and pans, and only by ending the war as soon as possible and then getting the reparations from the Qing court, so that they could get through the current crisis and get greater development.

And Li Hongzhang took advantage of the impact of this assassination incident to forcibly let the Japanese remove 100 million yuan in compensation.

Giving money to foreigners and letting them withdraw their troops was a consensus that had long been reached within the Manchu government.

If any of these delegates from the eleven countries who came to negotiate had a problem, it would not be just a matter of money for the Qing court.

Of course, the main thing is money. After all, there were also Japanese people among the negotiators this time, and they knew the inside story of what happened five years ago.

If someone is assassinated during the negotiations, the foreigner will inevitably turn around and open his mouth.

The Qing court, where the capital has been lost and all the finances in the city have been moved away by foreigners, now have no more money left to pay to foreigners.

Therefore, protecting foreigners and avoiding extraneous branches is the most important thing under the Qing court.

But Wang Sirui only sent a force that didn't even arrive to protect them, which made Yixuan very angry when he saw it.

The troops stationed at the inn are obviously a battalion, which shows that Wang Sirui has the ability to send more troops.

And the foreigners are also sullen, not because they feel that Wang Sirui does not protect them enough.

Their depression mainly comes from Wang Sirui's blockade of the capital.

Everywhere the foreigners passed, let alone soldiers, even ordinary civilians did not see a single one.

This made the foreigners very entangled, and they could not judge the specific strength in Wang Sirui's hands more accurately. But in this way, it also gave them an illusion, that is, Wang Sirui definitely has a lot of troops in his hands.

After entering the capital, the foreigners became completely blind, and they could only stay in the inn and the area between several inns every day, and other places were not allowed to go.

It was not that they did not protest, but the soldiers obviously did not accept this set, and even if they took out money to bribe them, the foreigners did not get the information they wanted.

And this journey has made foreigners a little helpless.

"Your Excellency, we meet again." Li Hongzhang, who was still a little weak before, immediately radiated his face after seeing the foreigner, and his feet took sonorous and powerful steps, took two steps forward, and greeted the Englishman Sa Daoyi with a smile.

"Yes, we met again, and a year or two has passed in the blink of an eye." Sa Daoyi smiled and replied.

When Li Hongzhang visited the United Kingdom last year, Sa Daoyi met with him and had a brief meeting. But no one thought that when we met again, it would be here, and it would be on this occasion.

"Yes, I didn't expect our new army to bring us such a big surprise, otherwise, I'm afraid we wouldn't have sat together so quickly." Li Hongzhang had something to say.

Sa Daoyi frowned, but did not answer.

It's not that he doesn't want to answer, it's that he can't answer it, and how can this question about the faces of the great powers be so easy to answer?

Then, Yixuan came forward to beckon everyone to start entering the Ministry of Rites.

As the host, Yixuan took his eloquence to the extreme, and explained the origin and function of the Ministry of Rites to the foreigners.

At the beginning, the accompanying translators were still translating into various Chinese languages, but in the end, there were no translators to translate.

How can these foreigners have the heart to listen to Yixuan's explanation? They're here to negotiate, not to tourist.

Seeing that the translator stopped translating, how could Yixuan not understand the meaning of the foreigner? The explanation was stopped at the moment, anyway, the purpose has been achieved, and the foreigners also know that this is the Ministry of Rites, which is enough.

The meeting took place in the hall of the Ministry of Rites, and it was the only place that was large enough for so many of them to sit down at the same time.

In the lobby, Wang Sirui had already ordered people to arrange the tables and chairs, which were arranged according to the rectangle.

On the left is the seat of the Qing court, on the right side is the seat of the foreigner, and then there is only a chair, which is the position arranged for the entourage of various countries, and as for the interpreter, he can only stand next to it.

There is a special person in charge of the tea, and when they enter the lobby, the tea is just lukewarm, this kind of seemingly troublesome thing, for the Qing court, it is a very common thing, not to mention the court etiquette, that is, some big families, their subordinates will do the same thing.

After the two sides were seated, Yixuan, as the one with the highest status in the Qing court present, naturally sat in the middle, corresponding to the Englishman Sa Daoyi.

On either side sat Li Hongzhang and Zhang Fuhua, respectively, and Wang Sirui's seat was the last one on the right hand side of Yixiao.

According to Chinese etiquette, the left is big and the right is small, and the last one on the right hand also means that it is the one with the lowest status in the field.

For this scene, Sa Daoyi and others saw it even more clearly. At the same time, he was slightly stunned, it was not surprising that a man who had defeated them had entered the ranks of negotiators, but he was the one with the lowest status among these representatives.

Sa Daoyi also has a lot of understanding of some situations in the Qing court, and he understands the meaning of the Qing court at the moment, and it seems that they don't seem to have much river crabs inside.

Everyone chatted casually at first, and no one cared about today's occasion, but Sa Daoyi was always playing Xiao Jiujiu in his heart.

"You have now been defeated, and my Qing Dynasty is a state of etiquette, in order to demonstrate the national prestige of my Qing Dynasty, the Holy Lord has decided that we don't need to ask you for compensation." Seeing that the scene was almost hot, Zhang Fuhua first spoke.

Negotiation is also skillful, if this opening is Yixuan or Li Hongzhang, it means that there is no way out.

Even if there is a way out, they can only push it on the emperor, and in this way, they will inevitably have to adjourn for two days, at least they have to make an appearance.

Now Zhang Fuhua has stepped forward as a pawn, in case the foreigners disagree, Li Hongzhang and Yixuan can also turn around a little later.

In other words, in fact, these are routines, routines that have been arranged a long time ago.

"Defeated? No! No! No! Sa Daoyi was puzzled at first, and then shook his head one after another and said: "I think Your Excellency has entered a misunderstanding, we have not been defeated, on the contrary, our troops are now advancing in a high spirit, but your army is retreating one after another, I don't know, when the defeated side is called the victor?" And the victor became the loser? ”

"That's right, the situation on the battlefield was indeed like this before, but now it's different, most of the previous lost territory has been recovered by our army, and your army can only retreat in Tianjin. What's more, the headquarters of your army was captured by our army, isn't this a failure? Zhang Fuhua then retorted.

He knew that today's meeting would not be too smooth, and he had already made a plan beforehand, and it was a proposal that several people had discussed.

No matter how difficult the foreigners are, he only needs to make a fuss about the capture of the coalition headquarters. Therefore, as soon as the talks began, Zhang Fuhua moved out of the theme idea, hoping to rub the spirit of foreigners.

“NO！ Your Excellency needs to understand that our army is full of talent, and the capture of a command does not mean the defeat of the war, and what you have captured is only our nominal headquarters, and the coalition forces are still functioning normally, and they have the ability to continue fighting. German Chancellor Mümmer said.

"Hmph, if that being the case, can I assume that Your Excellency doesn't care if these people are captured or not? Can the Qing Dynasty dispose of these coalition headquarters at will? Li Hongzhang snorted coldly and asked.

Li Hongzhang had already heard the meaning of the Germans' voice very clearly, that is, he was telling the Qing court that they did not care about the capture of a command, because they still had countless headquarters that could take over the command of the troops in an instant, and they could continue to fight, while the captured headquarters would not play the slightest role for them.

And Li Hongzhang naturally knew that what the Germans said was right, the allied army headquarters was like their imperial court, and they only needed to give orders where to fight, when to stop the attack, and how to fight next, completely under the responsibility of the front-line commander.

The Germans are threatening them, don't think that the capture of the command is a victory, we still have troops.

And the well-informed Li Hongzhang was afraid that Zhang Fuhua would enter the trap of foreigners if he was not careful, so he asked first. (To be continued.) )