At the same time that the Russian land forces occupied Heilongjiang, the main forces of the Russian Far East Navy also dispatched from Vladivostok and Ulsan one after another, bypassing the Korean Strait and entering the Yellow Sea, cruising in the Yellow Sea to deter the Qing Empire's Beiyang naval division.

At the same time, some French and German warships also cruised in the Yellow Sea under the pretext of maintaining stability, but in fact they secretly supported the Russian Navy.

Li Hongzhang received a strict order from the Qing Premier Yamen not to go to war, so the Beiyang Naval Division retreated to the two naval bases of Lushun and Weihaiwei to avoid the war. The eight towns of the Beiyang Army also asked for orders to fight, but Li Hongzhang refused on the grounds that the situation was unclear and the army's combat strength had not been established.

On 9 May, the Russian Navy easily blockaded the ports of Arthur and Weihaiwei, encircled the ships of the Beiyang Naval Division in the base and could not come out, and the control of the Yellow Sea fell into the hands of the Russian army.

The main battle faction and the main peace faction in the central government of the Qing court have been chattering endlessly.

With Guangxu, Weng Tongyi, Li Hongzao and other Yushi Qingliu cliques advocating the war, Guangxu thought that only by starting a war could he have the opportunity to hold the military and political power in his hands, which was exactly the same as the plan to seize power during the First Sino-Japanese War.

The main peace faction is dominated by Prince Li Shiduo and Prince Gong Yi, including Li Hongzhang, Zhang Zhidong, Liu Kunyi and other feudal officials do not think that the Qing army has the ability to defeat the Russian army, after all, there is a huge disparity between the forces of Qing and Russia. The Qing Empire despised Yueben and dared to declare war on Yueben, but did not dare to declare war on Russia. In the past half century, Tsarist Russia has successively occupied more than 1.5 million square kilometers of land in the Qing Empire, and the Qing court has never dared to say a word, and this time it also hopes to cede some land to appease Russia.

When the Jiangdong conflict broke out, the main peace faction had the upper hand. Prime Minister Yamen sought diplomatic channels to solve the problem, and even planned to sacrifice Shoushan to appease Tsarist Russia. Prime Minister Yamen asked the powers of various countries to mediate, but France and Germany were biased towards Russia, and Britain expressed its support for the Qing Empire and sent warships into the Yellow Sea to deter the Tsarist Russian Navy, but unfortunately Britain could not stop the Tsarist Russian Army, and Germany, France and Russia grouped together so that Tsarist Russia ignored Britain's protests. Prime Minister Yamen then sought the support of the United States, but the United States was in an election year, and the Cleveland political axe of the Ming Cook Party was strongly challenged by Republican candidate William McKinley, so he had no time to look to the Far East.

Tsarist Russia simply ignored the request for peace from the lord and faction, and sent troops to capture the cities of Aihui and Bukui. In the face of the loss of the country, Kang Youwei, Liang Qichao and others launched a large-scale bus lettering operation, and tens of thousands of people jointly petitioned for orders to resist the invasion of Tsarist Russia and support Guangxu, which made the main peace faction lose its strategy and the main war faction gained the upper hand.

Cixi has never expressed her position. However, after the fall of Heilongjiang, Cixi was forced by the pressure of the clan and could not lose the ancestral land of the banner people, so she agreed to Guangxu's main battle strategy, and issued an edict asking Li Hongzhang to organize the Beiyang Army and Navy to prepare for war.

The Beiyang Army had already been trained into the first and second towns, and Li Hongzhang was ready to order it to fight outside the pass, but before it could be drawn, he learned that the Russian army had stopped military operations, and the Qing court saw that Russia had the intention of negotiating, so he once again ordered the Beiyang Army to stand by.

It turned out that this was because the commander of the Russian army, Kurbertkin, believed that the current strength of the Russian army in the Far East was not enough to fight on a long-term basis, so he was ready to negotiate with Qing Zhengaxe to win the next step of preparation. However, Qing Zhengaxe did not know about the conspiracy of the Russian army, and actively sent people to negotiate with the Russian representatives to strive for a peaceful settlement of the Heilongjiang issue.

On May 11, General Kurbertkin, commander of the Russian Far East Military District, reported to St. Petersburg that an infantry division of the Far East Military Region had occupied the entire province of Heilongjiang, and the Qing court was extremely cowardly and did not dare to start a war with Russia. Based on this, Kurbertkin judged that if St. Petersburg increased its troops to the Far Eastern Military District by 100,000, it would be able to occupy the three northeastern provinces of the Qing Empire.

On the St. Petersburg side, Tsar Nicholas II was very pleased to receive Kurbertkin's report, and convened the ministers of the army and navy for a discussion, and then the Russian War Department sent five more armies to the Far East to prepare for the expansion of the scale of the local war, and if it went well, it would launch a full-scale war ahead of schedule.

However, the Trans-Siberian Railway connecting St. Petersburg in the Far East has not yet been built. The Russian War Department decided to transfer three corps from Central Asia and one Cossack cavalry corps from Novosibirsk to quickly reinforce the Far East. Despite this, it would take five months for Russian reinforcements to reach the Far East, and at least a month's rest would be required to arrive in the Far East, so that it would be the middle of winter in 1896, which was not suitable for war. Therefore, after all considerations, Russia decided to enter into a long-term negotiation with Qing Zhengaxe in order to gain time to prepare for war.

On May 13, the lengthy negotiations between the Qing and Russia began. Russia was insidious and deceitful, taking a fancy to the political weakness of the Qing political axe, and used negotiations as an excuse to maintain the status quo with the Qing political axe, that is, the Russian army actually controlled Heilongjiang Province, but the Qing army could not take action against the Russian army during the negotiations. Qing Zhengaxe was ignorant and even more disillusioned about the negotiations, thinking that the foreign powers would help, so he even agreed to the unreasonable demands of the Russians.

On May 15, Wang Chenhao and his fleet arrived in St. Petersburg, the capital of Tsarist Russia, at the end of the Gulf of Finland. Xu Jingcheng, the Qing envoy to Russia, and other embassy personnel greeted him at the Neva River wharf, but the Russian side only sent a small third-class vice minister of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, who was three levels lower than Wang Chenhao, to greet him.

Wang Chenhao was a little dissatisfied with the Russian diplomatic faux pas, but he soon learned the reason from Xu Jingcheng.

"How did it come to this?"

Wang Chenhao was shocked to learn of the outbreak of war between Qing and Russia, and when he left Britain, Wang Shizhen still sent him a telegram saying that the contradictions between Russia and Russia were tending to worsen, and he was particularly happy at that time, thinking that the dog-eat-dog relationship between Russia and Russia was in China's interests. I didn't expect to learn that the situation had changed abruptly just after arriving in St. Petersburg, and that the withdrawal from Korea had caused Russia to shift its target to the Qing Empire, and Russia's move to turn its guns was very fast, and it was so fast that people were caught off guard.

"Lord Wang, this is your telegram from a week ago."

Xu Jingcheng presented Wang Chenhao with a dozen telegrams, including those sent to him by the imperial court, Li Hongzhang and Wang Shizhen, and the other was a telegram from Li Youyi to him.

After Wang Chenhao left England, he did not stop along the way, so all the telegrams sent to him were sent to Xu Jingcheng in St. Petersburg.

The main purpose of the imperial court's telegrams to Wang Chenhao was to persuade the Russian tsar and high-ranking Russian officials with Xu Jingcheng in order to facilitate a peaceful settlement of the Heilongjiang issue through negotiations. Li Hongzhang's telegram was mainly for Wang Chenhao to purchase a batch of military supplies and transport them back to China as soon as possible, so as to deal with the next military invasion of the Russian army. Since neither Qing nor Russia has declared war, Li Hongzhang believes that the European and American countries that had purchased arms earlier and returned to their provinces would impose an arms embargo on China when they declared neutrality. Wang Shizhen's telegram mainly reported on various tasks, and of course also included some news on the situation in Northeast China. Li Youyi's telegram is purely a family letter, which is full of thoughts and care for Wang Chenhao, and never mentions any political affairs, not even a word will appear in the telegram.

Wang Chenhao roughly read the content of the telegram, except for Wang Shizhen's telegram, which was specially encrypted, and only Wang Chenhao himself could understand the meaning, the others were all plain codes, and Xu Jingcheng had translated them.

"What does Lord Xu think the Russians want to do?"

Xu Jingcheng thought for a while and replied: "Judging from the temptation of the lower officials during this time, it seems that the Russians have no intention of continuing to use force, and their foreign affairs department is making every effort to prepare for negotiations. However, the Russians have a great appetite this time, and they want Heilongjiang Province and Northeast Mongolia, and the imperial court naturally does not agree, and they are currently negotiating for three days of fishing and two days of drying nets. ”

Wang Chenhao snorted coldly and said, "Damn Xiao Yueben has pitted us this time, and it is extremely disadvantageous for us to cede North Korea to Russia." ”

Xu Jingcheng nodded in agreement and said, "What the adults said is very true. At present, Russia has surrounded the three northeastern provinces from three sides, and the Russian ships have controlled the sea control in the Yellow Sea. ”

Wang Chenhao frowned and said, "With the current Russian forces in the Far East, it is not enough to swallow the entire three northeastern provinces. Do you have any news about the transfer of Russian troops here? ”

Xu Jingcheng shook his head and said: "The Russians strictly control our legation, and it is estimated that our phone calls and telegrams here have been monitored, so the lower officials dare not ask about this matter easily." ”

"Lord Xu is doing a great job!" Wang Chenhao nodded and continued: "If you want to know whether the Russians are sincere in negotiating, it depends on whether they have sent troops to the Far East. From what I know of them, they have always liked to take advantage of the opportunity of negotiation to secretly make small moves, and they can be said to have tried and tested this cheap trick many times. ”

Xu Jingcheng said approvingly: "What adults are worried about. Throughout the wars, the imperial court has always pinned its hopes on negotiation and mediation, and has suffered a lot of losses, but it does not remember its surname for a long time. ”

Wang Chenhao said: "You have to find out the bottom of the Russians!" Does Lord Xu know which country is currently on the side of the imperial court? ”

Xu Jingcheng replied: "The British seem to support the position of the imperial court!" And the Russians have been warned many times! ”

Wang Chenhao sighed and said: "Germany, France and Russia are united, and the British are just shouting slogans, and it is impossible to have actual actions, so we must not rely on them." However, you can get some information from them. ”

Xu Jingcheng said: "If your Excellency needs it, the lower official can help contact the British Minister Plenipotentiary in Russia, Sir Sirernestm Satow!" ”

Wang Chenhao knew that Sa Daoyi was the British plenipotentiary who had presided over the "Xinchou Treaty", but he didn't expect it to appear here, so he nodded in agreement. Xu Jingcheng then called the British Embassy in Russia and made an appointment to meet with Sadaoyi.