The negotiations were initiated by France's new cabinet, interim President Hubnel. Li Hongzhang was specially invited to France for negotiations.

"Welcome, Your Excellency, the journey at sea has been hard for you...... Hopefully, those Navy lads didn't do anything rude to you. As soon as Li Hongzhang's passenger ship entered the Mediterranean, it was "protected" by the French ** ship, and then escorted all the way to the port of Nantes.

At this time, it was a slightly thin-looking French official in his fifties, who had a two-handful mustache, and although he could barely squeeze out some smiles, the arrogance in his bones could not be concealed.

Accompanying Li Hongzhang were Wu Tingfang and Guo Songtao, who had been a British minister, Wu Tingfang translated the words of the French in Li Hongzhang's ear at this time, Li Hongzhang smiled and said: "It's okay, although my Qing Dynasty is a big country and a country of etiquette, but we will not make it difficult for your country to have habits that have not existed for a long time." ”

The French official's face suddenly turned pale, and he bowed his head and said, "Your Excellency, the political officer has been waiting for a long time, let's go in." In Li Hongzhang's opinion, it was okay to inflict on the arrogance of foreigners, and Fan couldn't let them get off the stage, so he nodded and walked in.

France presided over the negotiations by Mi Le, a political official at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, who was on the same level as Li Hongzhang. Before the negotiations, the two sides first said a bunch of nonsensical words, which was really not difficult for Li Hongzhang, who had been in the officialdom for many years, but the French were eager to know whether the Chinese had signed an alliance with the Germans.

"Your Excellency, we all know that there was some misunderstanding between the two countries some time ago, and I am very sorry for that. Now there is no point in arguing about who is right and who is wrong, those loyal and brave soldiers of both countries have already died, what we have to do is not to let more people die, and our government is very sincere in holding peace talks with your country,"

Li Hongzhang sneered secretly, he has dealt with these foreigners for decades, and he knows their faces best, and in their eyes, as long as there is interest, he can let go of anything. When you see that you have lost, you don't pursue what is right or wrong, and you can't do it if you think you're a fool. Li Hongzhang immediately pointed out that the reason for the current exchange of troops between the two countries was France's invasion of Vietnam, a vassal country of the Qing Dynasty, and that the fault lay with the legal person, and then Li Hongzhang put forward China's conditions.

"Your Excellency Mi Le, I, the Emperor of the Qing Dynasty, have been very clear about the conditions for negotiation. 1. The captured French must be redeemed with silver; Second, I must pay compensation to the Qing Dynasty, and I must return all the indemnities in the year of Gengzi and Xinyou to the Qing Dynasty; 3. Vietnam must belong to our Great Qing Dynasty; 4. The terms and conditions previously signed between France and China before the Qing Dynasty shall be null and void. These four are indispensable. Li Hongzhang said solemnly.

"The strength of your country is far from being our opponent of France at this time, and as long as we really make up our minds, it is impossible for your country's army and navy to stop the footsteps of the republic. It's not that France doesn't have the strength to defeat you, China, but hopes that it won't cause more casualties to the two countries because of some misunderstandings. Please don't take this good intentions as a sign of cowardice! If you really want to live in peace with the Republic, show your sincerity, otherwise you will be the Republic of China to destroy you at all costs. ”

Li Hongzhang laughed when he heard it this time, he stood up, looked at Mi Le with a panicked face and said: "In this way, there is no need to talk about it anymore, with me Li Hongzhang here, I want to see how you kill me in the Qing Dynasty." Saying that, he walked out first, and Guo Songtao and Wu Tingfang hurriedly followed out when they saw it.

"Lord Zhongtang, are the conditions we are proposing too harsh? After all, the strength of the legal person is still above me. Wu Tingfang walked a few steps and chased after Li Hongzhang.

Li Hongzhang turned his head and glanced at Wu Tingfang lightly: "Tingfang, when dealing with foreigners, we must not only guard against arrogance and rashness, but also be neither humble nor arrogant, and judge the situation. The emperor worked hard to win this unprecedented victory for the Qing Dynasty in a hundred years, if we were easily intimidated by a few false words from a legal person, how could we be worthy of the emperor? Besides, these conditions are all prescribed by the emperor, how can the emperor Chrysostom and others change them without authorization? You should think carefully about how to get the French to agree to our terms. ”

When Wu Tingfang heard this, he immediately used his brain, and replied after a while: "Tingfang thinks that if you want the legal person to agree to the conditions, you need to start from within. If we poke out the news that tens of thousands of French troops were besieged, the families of those French soldiers would inevitably demand that the French government try to reach a peace treaty. ”

Li Hongzhang nodded after hearing this, then looked at Guo Songtao and said, "Songtao, what do you see?" ”

Guo Songtao also nodded and said: "Tingfang's plan is very clever, in addition, I heard that the Ministry of Rites has selected a group of officers to study the army in Germany, and the Ministry of War has also bought a large number of machines for the production of guns and cannons from Germany. ”

"Just do as you two say." Li Hongzhang made a decision and set a policy for peace talks.

On the other side, the besieged French soldiers had run out of dry rations. This is already the seventh day of the siege, and we are running out of ammunition and food. Suddenly, he saw behemoths on the sea heading towards him. They all thought it was a warship sent by their own republic.

But when I got closer, I realized that it was the Great Shimizu Master. Three ironclad ships, "Triumph", "Changsheng", and "Juin", two cruisers "Nanji" and "Nanxiang", and several gunboats.

These dozens of warships drove in front of the French devils who were trapped on the beach, and the frightened French people all lay on the ground and held their heads, for fear that the large-caliber naval guns would greet them on their heads.

At the same time, the French daily newspaper Paris published an explosive news on the front page that the French expeditionary force was surrounded by more than 100,000 Chinese troops, and China had sent a minister to negotiate with the government, but the government refused the Chinese's request. The newspapers also briefly published some demands made by the Chinese, such as the recovery of Vietnam, the abrogation of the previous peace treaty, and the ransom of the soldiers with money.

Suddenly, countless French residents took to the streets, in their opinion, these demands of the Chinese have little to do with them, Vietnam will take it back, it is not the land of France, and it has not brought any huge benefits to France, and there is nothing to say about the redemption of soldiers with money, which is a European tradition, as for the abolition of those treaties and the return of reparations, although some are unwilling, but who called themselves defeated? It is understandable for people to take back those rights and interests, and what really matters to them is the lives of those captured relatives and friends.

The turmoil was particularly fierce in Paris, the epicenter of the French political storm, where people held signs and gathered in front of the government asking them to accede to the demands of the Chinese, and if it were not for the police with batons to stop the crowd, they would have rushed into the government building.

"How did Miller do it, how could he let such news go out." France's interim cabinet president, Hubnel, roared with a copy of the day's Paris daily newspaper in his hand.

Hubnel's private secretary, Sarich, said on the side: "This time I am afraid that the Chinese are ghosts, and the foreign minister has already greeted some newspapers beforehand, but you also know our news control, this kind of thing may not be prevented." What is important now is that many opposition parties have begun to speak out and criticize the government for its recklessness in the lives of its soldiers, and many of our people agree with them, which is very bad for us in the upcoming general elections. ”

Hubneri had a burst of fire, but he quickly calmed down.

"Do you think that if we agreed to the demands of the Chinese, they would have no excuse to attack?"

Saric pondered for a moment and said, "It was the fault of the previous cabinet that lost Vietnam, and it seems that this should not be counted on us, as for other things, we can think of some other ways." ”

"What's the solution, those guys in the council are very sensitive to reparations, and I dare say that if we sign the reparations agreement, then distrust is not far away."

Saric smiled slightly: "We can appropriately raise the money for the redemption of the soldiers and persuade China to cancel the conditions for reparations, I think they will agree." ”

Hubnell frowned and looked at Sarich. After a long time, Fang said slowly: "Do you think that if the war continues, how likely are we to defeat the Chinese in the short term?" ”

Saric shook his head and said: "I'm afraid this is impossible, the Chinese captured those warships of the Far Eastern Fleet, especially the 'Tour', you also know that this warship is almost the best warship of the Republic now, and the four 'Saxony' class battleships ordered by the Chinese in Germany have returned to China, Germany also gave China a cruiser similar to "Tour", now the tonnage of the Chinese Navy exceeds 100,000 tons, unless we use all our naval forces to have a quick victory, but you also know that this is impossible." , they are all scattered all over the world, and it will take a long time to assemble. ”

"What's more, the Chinese have recently become somewhat close to the Germans, and they have received not only military aid from Germany, but also industrial aid, and it is difficult to guess what kind of agreement there is between them." Under such circumstances, it may be difficult for the parliament to approve the demand for more troops from China. ”

"German ......," Hubnel muttered, and then said to himself, "it seems that we will have to accede to Chinese's request." ”

When Mi Le, the political officer of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, appeared in front of him again, Li Hongzhang finally knew that the French could not sit down anymore. Although Wu Tingfang has been talking with the French, some major events cannot be carried out without his nod. These days, the French are also beginning to relent, basically agreeing to abolish the treaties signed between the two opium wars, and China has made some concessions, agreeing to keep the open treaty ports, but the concessions and customs rights must be recovered. Vietnam and the issue of reparations were also agreed between the two sides, Vietnam is owned by China, China protects the property of the French in Vietnam, but the French must withdraw from Vietnam within one year, and in terms of reparations, in addition to the return of the reparations from the two Opium Wars, France compensated another 150 million francs, equivalent to 5 million taels of silver, Wu Tingfang accepted the French method in the payment method, and the compensation was calculated into the ransom and paid together, Guan Xuqing also agreed to this article, he is an absolute utilitarian, in his opinion, it is not important to lose face, the key is the actual interests, although the French indemnity is of great help to boost the morale of the people, but also to give France a step, who called France is still stronger than the Qing Dynasty? * If you are in a hurry to get a legal person, if you really let France mobilize the whole people, the gains of the Qing Dynasty will outweigh the losses.

It was only on the issue of the redemption of the prisoners that there was a great disagreement between the two sides, and France insisted on not counting the more than 30,000 French expeditionary forces surrounded by the French as prisoners, because in that case, the amount of ransom paid by France would be several times greater, and the equipment of the expeditionary force would also fall into the hands of China.

"Your Excellency, the valiant French expeditionary force still has their weapons, and they are still holding their positions, so how can they be counted as your prisoners?" Miller said with a look of disgruntle

Li Hongzhang smiled slightly when he heard this: "I don't know if Mr. Minister is completely aware of the situation of your ** team, more than 30,000 people in your country are besieged by hundreds of thousands of troops of our Qing Dynasty on three sides on the seaside, less than 20 miles from north to south, and there are dozens of warships of our Qing Dynasty on the sea, as long as my Qing artillery bombards together, I don't know how many people can be left of your tens of thousands of troops?" ”

Mi Le's face became even more gloomy when he heard this: "Your Excellency, you should know that since the two countries are negotiating, it is regarded as a truce between the two sides, if your country must do that, it will only anger the holy France, and I am afraid I don't need to say much about the consequences at that time." ”

Li Hongzhang looked at Mi Le expressionlessly, and said, "If your country insists that those soldiers are not prisoners, we might as well continue to talk, and hope that each of the soldiers in your country has brought enough food and can hold out until the day we reach an agreement." ”

Mi Le couldn't help but sweat in his palms when he heard this, if China really did this, he couldn't even find a place to complain, because he didn't recognize those soldiers as prisoners, then the Chinese did not provide them with food, naturally it was not an abuse of prisoners. If you let those tens of thousands of expeditionary troops starve to death, it is estimated that they will be shot without going out.

"Well, we are willing to pay the ransom for the soldiers, but until then, your country must guarantee their food supply." In the end, Bile reluctantly accepted China's demands.

"There's no problem with that." Li Hongzhang smiled proudly.