The resumption of customs is only one of them, and for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Beiyang Political Axe, the most important thing is to negotiate with the powers of various countries and abolish all unequal treaties.

Since Wang Chenhao formed a cabinet, Beiyang Political Axe has been negotiating with the powers of various countries. The unequal treaties of some small countries have been abolished one after another, but negotiations with Britain, France, the United States, Russia, Germany, Italy and Austria have been quite difficult.

Italy and Austria-Hungary were weak and far from China, but they had the backing of Germany. The German-Italian-Austrian Triple Alliance is currently the largest military alliance in the world, and the Beiyang political axe has to consider their influence. Similarly, France and Russia are military signatories. Although the two military blocs are opposed in Europe, they share common interests in Asia, so the Beiyang political axe needs to be cautious to prevent Germany, Italy, Austria, and France and Russia from forming an alliance against China.

Britain and the United States are slightly better, although Britain does not agree to abolish all Sino-British treaties, but it does not want to directly turn the other cheek with China, so the Sino-British negotiations have been dragging on, the British deliberately delayed, and the negotiations have become a long tug-of-war. The United States has six unequal treaties with China, but basically they were signed with Britain taking advantage of the fire, and the United States acted in the eyes of Britain, Britain deliberately delayed, and the United States also learned to delay time.

In the end, Wang Chenhao believed that the clauses that seriously infringed on China's sovereignty were consular jurisdiction, concession rights, and one-sided most-favored-nation treatment, and the first two paragraphs were the core issues.

The pressure on the United States is relatively high. The United States was far less of a military threat to China than Britain, and the United States hoped that China would give more support in the war between the United States and the Philippines, so in the end the United States took the lead in compromising.

On February 2, 1899, Charles, the representative of the U.S. political axe, signed the Sino-US Treaty of Yanjing with Li Hongzhang, the Chinese Foreign Ministry. The treaty stipulates that the United States will voluntarily renounce a series of unequal treaties signed with China since 1841 and abolish the consular jurisdiction over China, one-sided most-favored-nation treatment, the right of lend-lease, and other clauses that infringe on China's sovereignty and territorial integrity. China's Beiyang political axe promised to protect the property and personal safety of US citizens in China after recovering the concession area, and China and the United States will give each other the most favored nation status.

The annex to the treaty stipulates that China supports the US position on the Philippine issue and continues to provide supplies to US troops in the Philippines. China will send three hospital ships to the Philippines to help the US military treat the wounded. China has canceled "humanitarian" assistance to the Republic of the Philippines and banned Chinese companies from providing arms to the Philippine military.

The annex is a secret agreement between China and the United States, which is not open to the public. The U.S. political axe has sensed that the Revolutionary Army of the Philippines is equipped with a large number of Chinese-style weapons, which has inflicted heavy losses on the U.S. military. In order to end the war between the United States and the Philippines as soon as possible, the US political axe had to make concessions on the abolition of unequal treaties.

After the United States abrogated all unequal treaties with China, China and the United States formally established a strategic cooperative partnership of equality and mutual benefit, and the diplomatic rank of the two sides was raised from the current minister level to the ambassador level.

Britain saw that the United States was relieved, and it had no choice but to express its stance out of order to safeguard Sino-British relations. The contradictions between Britain and China are far greater than those of the United States, and in addition to the entanglements between China and Britain over consular jurisdiction, one-sided most-favored-nation status, and concession areas, there are also territorial disputes over Hong Kong Island, the border areas of Yunnan, and the border areas of Tibet Province. In the end, the British government only announced the abolition of consular jurisdiction over China and the upgrading of one-sided most-favored-nation status to the same most-favored-nation treatment for both countries. However, there was no relenting on the issue of concessions and ceded territories.

For Britain, this level of concession is already considered a huge diplomatic victory for the Chinese side. Therefore, Wang Chenhao instructed the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to first reach an agreement with Britain to abolish the treaty, and as for the issue of the concession area and the resumption of the ceded land, it can be put aside for a while. At present, Britain has more advantages than disadvantages to China, and China's main target is Russia, and after dealing with the Russian issue, it will return to negotiate with Britain.

On February 15, China and Britain signed the Treaty of Yenching, in which Britain and the United States pledged to abrogate all unequal treaties signed with China. However, in the annex, China and Britain chose to put aside the dispute over the concession area and the cession of land for the time being, which needs to be resolved urgently at a later date.

The concessions of Britain and the United States have caused the political axes of Germany, Italy, Austria and France and Russia to fall into contemplation.

Italy and Austria-Hungary were looking to Germany, and Germany saw that Britain and the United States had already compromised with China, and they did not want to offend China. As a result, the German political axe began to actively respond to China's diplomatic negotiations, and proposed their compromise conditions to the Chinese political axe.

Germany wants to obtain the technical specifications of the hunting destroyer jointly developed by China and the United Kingdom, and the high-speed steam turbine project is of great interest to Germany, as well as China's radio technology.

The Ministry of Defense objected to Germany's request, but in the end Wang Chenhao agreed. Because Wang Chenhao hoped to have a strong Germany in Europe to contain Russia and Britain. Naturally, the Ministry of Defense did not dare to go against Wang Chenhao's intentions, so it secretly revealed the British C-class destroyer project plan to the German side, and at the same time transferred high-speed steam turbines and the latest radio technology to Germany.

After obtaining these technical materials, Germany immediately announced that it would unconditionally renounce all unequal treaties with China, renounce its concessions in China, and establish an equal partnership with China.

Germany relented, Italy and Austria-Hungary had no backers, so they also announced that they would unconditionally renounce all unequal treaties and concessions with China.

After the Allies abrogated all unequal treaties with China, France and Russia became nervous.

All countries have improved relations with China, but France has offended China because of Russia's coercion. France's national power is already much weaker, and at this time France is in the midst of a serious internal crisis.

In France, there are many factions, fierce struggles, frequent cabinet changes, scandals, and a serious crisis in the republican system.

The Panama scandal of 1898 and the Dreyfus case discredited the moderate republicans in power, and the radical republicans were quickly replaced by the radicals because of their extensive involvement in the retrial of the Dreyfusians.

The French Dibi cabinet is on the verge of collapse, so at this time, France has no time to take a hard line with China. In particular, the French army in Vietnam could not be maintained on a large scale due to political [***], and now it has been reduced to less than 20,000 troops. France did not want to offend China and give China an excuse to attack Vietnam, so the French political axe also announced the conditional abolition of the unequal treaty after Germany.

The condition of the French political axe was that France could give up its consular jurisdiction and lease rights in China, but the French army had already built a naval base in Guangzhou Bay, and the Chinese political axe needed to pay to buy Guangzhou Bay back. The French political axe attached a condition to the Guangzhou Bay issue, that is, to ask the Chinese side to exchange steam turbine technology and radio technology.

It was clear that France had spies inside Germany, and therefore made the same demands as Germany. In this regard, Wang Chenhao generously agreed.

As a result, the French government signed an agreement with China in Germany to abrogate all unequal treaties with China.

(To be continued)