In order to gain more time, the negotiation team led by Song Guanqian made major concessions in the negotiations in February, and in order to show the sincerity of the negotiations, they also signed several treaties of intent one after another.

However, the biggest task of Song Guanqian was not to succeed in negotiations, but to delay time, so unless Britain and France were pressed too tightly, they could generally delay it, for example, after a few hours of discussion in the morning, they would say that they had no power to decide on a certain issue, and they needed to report it to the Nanjing side and ask for a delay in the negotiations.

The Nanjing side was also very cooperative, and after three or four days, Song Guan was able to get an answer, and this reply was often approved, so as not to disappoint Bao Ling and others and doubt the sincerity of the negotiations on the part of the Chinese Empire.

Just when Song Guanqian used all his resources to delay the negotiations in Shanghai, the fighting in Guangzhou also subsided.

Since the Count Ergin failed in the first general attack, although his troops are still intact and still have the strength to attack Guangzhou, since the first general attack failed, the Count Ergin also maintained a cautious attitude towards the Chinese army in Guangzhou, trying to wait for reinforcements from South Asia to arrive before launching a second general attack.

From this point of view, it is true that the Chinese military empire wants to use the negotiations to delay time, but on the other hand, the British and French forces are not increasing troops while negotiating, they have never said that they will stop increasing troops because the negotiations are going well, on the contrary, the speed of their increase is still accelerating.

However, in any case, since the first Battle of Guangzhou, the large-scale fighting between the British and French forces and the Chinese army has stopped, and there are still many foreign merchant ships coming and going in the trade area and several other treaty ports, and the impact of the war is not visible at all.

And behind this seemingly calm, the Chinese military is making all-out preparations for war.

At the beginning of March, after a long journey. The Fifth Army returned to Yangzhou smoothly, and within a few days, the Second Army also returned to Nanjing smoothly, but the Second Army did not stop in Nanjing, but continued to advance eastward until it reached Zhenjiang before stopping the long journey to rest.

As soon as these two armies returned, the Military Training Department under the General Headquarters supplemented the main forces of these two armies with a large number of recruits prepared in advance. That is, in the second and fifth divisions, strive to restore the two main infantry divisions.

At the same time, Lin Zhe personally made a decision to assign the 11th Infantry Division, which had just established a preliminary organization on paper, to the Second Army, and then assigned the newly formed 12th Infantry Division, which had just established a command structure and had not yet yet had new recruits, to the Fifth Army.

By March, the command structure of the headquarters in southern Jiangsu had been put in place, including the Seventh Army stationed in Shanghai, and the Sixth Infantry Division and the Seventh Infantry Division under its jurisdiction. The Seventh Infantry Division is an old unit of the Chinese Army, and although the Sixth Division is a new unit that was formed only last year, it is a unit that has already been formed and has complete personnel and weapons.

There is the Sixth Army stationed in Jiangyin, and the Eighth Infantry Division and the Ninth Infantry Division are under training, although in the future planning, this Sixth Army is expected to be equipped with rear-loading rifles and rifled artillery. But now that they have only been trained for a few months, there are only seven or eight percent of the soldiers. Although the Linde Machinery Factory has been working overtime in the past few months, desperately producing rifles and artillery, the Sixth Army still has only more than 5,000 new 1858 rear-loading rifles, and it is difficult for even regular infantry to obtain the ration of new rifles, and it is even more impossible for the baggage soldiers who are also equipped with rifles in other Chinese armies to obtain the ration of new breech-loading rifles in a short time.

This Sixth Army looks pretty good on paper. The new breech-loading rifles and rifled artillery have been ahead of other Chinese armies, but in fact the quality of personnel is still relatively poor, and so far the Sixth Army has not perfected the new tactics needed to use new weapons.

Over there are the Second and Fifth Armies. These two units were urgently reinforced, and they did not bring the original auxiliary defense troops with them before returning to help, because according to past combat examples, the auxiliary defense troops equipped with cold weapons, the quality of the soldiers, and the will to fight were very poor, and they were of no use at all in the face of the new-style army, and they performed poorly when they fought the Jianghuai New Army and the Qing court when they were training the army, and if they encountered the Anglo-French alliance again, there would be a 100% situation in the battle of Guangzhou, and they would be defeated before fighting when their own side had an absolute superiority in troops.

It is better to leave them to fight against the Taiping Army and the Qing Army, so that they can still give full play to their surplus value.

Therefore, the plan of the Chinese Army to transfer troops to return to the aid did not involve the troops of the Auxiliary Defense Army, and before the Second Army and the Fifth Army returned to help, the units of the Auxiliary Defense Army under their original command were allocated to the First Army and the Second Army respectively.

Both the Second Army and the Fifth Army only brought one main infantry division and one cavalry regiment back to help, but after returning, Lin Zhe assigned the new infantry divisions that still existed only on paper to the Second Army and the Fifth Army, and if everything went well, they would all become corps-level troops with two infantry divisions, a cavalry regiment and other relevant auxiliary units in three or four months.

The above four armies are the core of the Chinese army's empire in southern Jiangsu to resist the Anglo-French coalition, and in addition to these troops, there is also a guard division that is more special.

Although the General Staff has repeatedly suggested that the Guards Division be included in the unified command to participate in the defense of southern Jiangsu, the commander of the Guards Division, Liang Qiushi, has sternly refused, and has repeatedly reiterated that the Guards Division does not belong to the army system, and its mission is not to go to the front line to fight the enemy, and the Guards Division has only one task from beginning to end, that is, to guard the safety of the royal family and defend Lin Zhe's throne.

In case the foreigners really broke through a series of defense lines such as Shanghai and Jiangyin and hit Nanjing, the Guards Division would have to flee with Lin Zhe, where they would consume valuable troops in Shanghai or Jiangyin.

In this regard, Lin Zhe, as the emperor, also acquiesced to the approach of the guard division!

Lin Zhe is not a gambler, he will not put all the chips in his hand up, he needs to consider that in case Shanghai and Jiangyin really can't hold on, he must make follow-up plans, such as giving up Nanjing to the north or west, in order to make a comeback.

And the Guards Division is a hole card he keeps in his hand. Even if Shanghai and Jiangyin and even Zhenjiang have fallen, they can't easily use their hole cards.

The Chinese army sent front-line troops back to help, recruited a large number of troops in a short period of time, and carried out a seemingly reckless expansion of the army, spending a huge amount of military money every day.

It was only at the end of March that the first installment allocated by the Ministry of Finance was spent ahead of schedule. When the military came to ask for money again, although Qi Xuanhao, the minister of finance, was eager to dismantle these military generals who spent money lavishly, but as a minister of the imperial cabinet, he also knew that the challenges facing the military now were very huge, and the military expenditure required for the expansion of the army, the purchase of ordnance and the hoarding of military supplies were huge.

In addition, Lin Zhe also personally explained that the Ministry of Finance must give priority to meeting military expenditures, and all other expenditures, even including the construction of the palace. The salaries of state employees, urban construction, water infrastructure, and education funds all have to be relied upon.

Therefore, although there are many complaints in his heart, Qi Xuanhao is not allowed to give the military the second phase of military spending of up to 18 million yuan in advance.

Whether it is to dominate Kyushu or defend against foreign enemies, it needs money as support, and if there is no money, you can't fight.

Now that there is still some time before the summer tax, if the Ministry of Finance does not want to find a way, it is estimated that it will not be able to give the third phase of military funds required by the military in a few more months. Just what to do?

Temporarily increase the proportion of business tax and other commercial taxes? Temporary increase in the proportion of tariffs? Or is it to forcibly promote the issuance of government bonds by other means?

Qi Xuanhao's mind turned one possibility after another, thinking about how to solve the financial gap in recent months.

And when Qi Xuanhao was thinking hard about how to raise money. In the Zhonghua Palace, Lin Zhe, who was standing on the Pingren Hall, looked at the hall outside the window that had been suspended, and sighed in his heart, this time the conflict with the British and French forces and the impact of a potential large-scale war were too great.

In a big way, it completely affected the Empire's Northern Expedition and Western Expedition plans, before the threat of the Anglo-French forces was resolved. The Northern Expedition to conquer Beijing or the westward march to take Hubei is far away, and even if everything goes well, I am afraid it will drag on for a year or two.

On a small scale, Nanjing's municipal construction, which was still vigorously underway, has been completely stopped, many office buildings that have not yet been completed have been suspended due to lack of funds, and the repair of several roads in the city has been forced to be interrupted due to lack of funds.

Don't talk about that. Even the construction of the China Palace was forced to stop, no matter how tight the finances were, the officials of the Ministry of Finance would not cut off the construction funds of the China Palace, but Lin Zhe personally said that it was extremely difficult, and as the Son of Heaven was an example, he personally issued an edict to stop the follow-up construction of the China Palace, and the freed up construction costs were used to fill the military expenses.

At the same time, an edict was issued to return all of the expenses for the current year's imperial household to the national treasury, and the subjects were called upon to contribute their own efforts to raise funds.

Lin Zhe's two actions can be said to have greatly moved the subjects of the empire, in the era of feudal imperial power, even if most of the country was lost, but the royal cost was absolutely indispensable, and even when the army fighting outside had no food, no swords and guns, there were countless cases where the royal family or other nobles were still drunk and dreamed of death.

Cixi, who was the most talked about in later generations, embezzled the funds of the Beiyang Naval Division to build a garden, which is the most famous example.

However, Lin Zhe not only stopped the follow-up construction of the Zhonghua Palace, but also returned the royal living expenses to the national treasury, which was already regarded as benevolent and virtuous in the eyes of many subjects.

Of course, these things are nothing in Lin Zhe's eyes, since last year, he Lin Zhe and even the entire royal family have basically not spent a penny from the treasury, although it is said that every month the treasury will pull out a part of the royal living funds, but it will be handed over to the construction office, the living expenses of the royal family are basically provided by the finance department of the palace affairs department itself, which is not counted, the finance office of the palace affairs department also occasionally subsidizes tens of thousands of yuan to the construction affairs office.

That is to say, from last year to the present, Lin Zhe and the royal family have not spent a penny from the treasury, but have posted a lot of it, and now they are openly saying that the living expenses of returning to the royal family are actually not of much impact.

So don't think that Lin Zhe is really like Meiji, in order to raise the army, he only eats two meals a day, and he can't even see the meat, and the lack of money in the treasury does not mean that the royal family has no money!

The royal industry is very profitable, and you can't let it take millions or tens of millions at once like the national treasury, but it is still barely possible to take out tens of thousands of dollars a month to maintain the lives of the royal family.

As for the impact of the interruption in the construction of the imperial palace, the harem part of the Zhonghua Palace has already been repaired, and as for the huge cost of the former main hall and the square and other buildings, there is not much urgency, with them it will be better, and without these large-scale buildings, it will not affect the operation of the empire.

Because Lin Zhe can still work in the three-story small building of Pingren Hall, it doesn't mean that he has to be in a magnificent palace with an area of tens of thousands of square meters.

In order to prepare for a war with the British and French forces, the Chinese Empire has paid too much, and if it does not take back the benefits that belong to the Empire, then it will be a big loss. (To be continued......)