In a large conference room of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Nanjing, there were more than a dozen imperial officials dressed in Chinese costumes and more than a dozen foreigners, but wearing tuxedos, with blond hair and blue eyes.

The men sat on either side of the rectangular table, and several of them, led by the two sides, were engaged in a heated argument.

A bearded middle-aged foreigner was shouting: "Absolutely impossible, Alaska is a precious territory of my Russian Empire, not only producing a lot of fur and fish, but also a lot of gold, and it is absolutely impossible for your country to take it for a mere 200,000 pounds!" ”

This person's voice fell, but the person on the other side, who was about thirty years old, wearing a Chinese costume and a peony badge like everyone else, and sitting in the deputy position in front of Song Guan, snorted coldly: "Alaska is a piece of frozen soil, how much can a little fur specialty be worth, even if there are some, it has also made your American company clean over the years, as for gold minerals, how can this kind of thing that is only rumored and has not yet been confirmed be taken out to say."

Besides, our Imperial Navy has already controlled the Aleutian Seas, and as long as we want, we can land in Alaska at any time, let alone 200,000 pounds, even if it is a pound, you will not get it! ”

However, Russia on the other side is not to be outdone: "Direct landing? If you dare to land directly, you landed ten years ago, why wait until now! ”

These words were heard in the ears of several imperial diplomats on the opposite side, although their faces remained unchanged, but they could not secretly sigh, in the past two days, their negotiations with the Russians were extremely divided, and most of the things could not be reached at all, and finally they bypassed most of the difficult conditions to negotiate, and turned to talk about Alaska.

The Russians were more relaxed about Alaska, which had been trying to sell to the United States since the sixties, but it was not possible for the Empire to intervene in it, but the British and Americans were also very opposed to the Empire's attempt to get their hands on Alaska.

In other directions, the British were looking for trouble for Russia everywhere, but only in the case of Alaska were the British on the side of Russia, and they also pulled in the Americans.

Ten years have passed, although the Russians also made a detour to the Americas, and then reinforced some of their forces to Alaska, especially the combat ships of the navy.

The British even gave the Russians a port of rest for their fleets in Canada.

In this case, although the Imperial Navy was able to gain a large advantage in the Aleutian Sea, if it penetrated deep into the Alaskan coast, it would be met with fierce resistance from the Russians.

What's more, the British and Americans have come to the aid of Russia in Alaska more than once under various guises, and have even directly sent warships, disguised as Russian warships, to help the Russians resist the constant incursions of the Imperial Navy.

In this case, Alaska seems to be within reach, but in fact the difficulty of operation is very large, and this difficulty is not to say military difficulty, even if the Russians still have a certain military resistance force in Alaska, even if the British and Americans secretly give support to the Russians, but as long as the empire is determined, send a few capital ships to the north, and then go to Alaska, it will be able to completely control the sea control in the place.

But in this way, there is a great possibility of a complete fall out with the British and the Americans, and in the last decade, avoiding a large-scale conflict with the British has been the basic foreign policy of the Empire, so the cabinet has been forcibly pressuring the Navy not to take drastic actions in Alaska.

So don't look at the empire militarily, it can already take Alaska directly, but because of diplomatic problems, it has never dared to do it.

After all, for the current empire, a mere Alaska is far less important than maintaining a state of peaceful trade with Britain.

So this time, they want to take it directly from the Russians, through diplomatic negotiations, preferably for the Russians to hand over Alaska mainly to the Reich, in order to completely shut the mouths of the British and Americans.

However, although the Russians have long wanted to take Alaska, they are also a lion's mouth, and the opening of the mouth is a million pounds.

He also said that the Alaska question could be discussed separately from the Central Asian and Siberian questions, and that as long as the empire could come up with a million pounds, Alaska would be sold directly to the empire.

The empire also made a counteroffer, and directly cut the price to one-tenth, that is, 100,000 pounds.

To be honest, the price of a million pounds that Russia wants is not too expensive, you must know that the price they gave the Americans back then was seven million dollars.

And for a country's territory, a few million pounds is a fart, and in the future, a small broken island will not cost more than this price, and no country will dare to sell its territory directly.

Alaska, this is a territory of more than 1.7 million square kilometers, although this territory is barren in the eyes of most people, but the empire can expand its territory by more than 1.7 million square kilometers, which is a great thing.

Under these circumstances, while the Russian army and the Chinese army were engaged in fierce fighting in the Siberian region, and a large number of soldiers on both sides were killed and wounded every day, the delegations of the two countries did not conduct in-depth negotiations on the Central Asian and Siberian issues, but talked about Alaska.

I have to say that this is also a very funny thing.

Why talk about Alaska first, and not about Siberia and Central Asia, because in these two directions, the Russian side is not willing to make concessions at the negotiating table before complete defeat, if the war is defeated, there is nothing to say about ceding land, but if the front-line generals are still fighting hard, these diplomats will buy the territory, even if they can already predict now that Russia will not be able to keep the territory east of Lake Baikal, but they still can't do it.

The Reich side was also not in a hurry, because the balance of victory was on their side, and according to information from the military side, the front-line troops were fighting very smoothly and had successively conquered a large number of Russian-controlled towns in the area east of Lake Baikal.

Now the 20,000 remnants of the Russians are retreating to the periphery of Chita, and other cities have basically been conquered by the Chinese army, and as the main force of the Chinese army gradually arrives in Chita, this Chita cannot be defended.

In this case, the diplomats of the empire were also willing to postpone the negotiations, and when the front line completely controlled the area east of Lake Baikal, it would be much easier to negotiate with the Russians.

Therefore, the current negotiations between the two sides are mainly focused on Alaska and some other small issues, such as the imperial side imposing that in the Chinese version of the treaty document, the Russian tsar is not allowed to use the title of emperor, great emperor and so on, and can only use the title of tsar or caesar.

Because in the eyes of the empire, there can only be one 'great emperor' under the whole world, and that is the great emperor of the Great Chinese Empire.

Other than that, the empire does not recognize anything.

For example, the monarch of the German Empire, Wilhelm I, was crowned as the Emperor of Germany, and after the letter presented to the Empire used the title of 'Emperor of the German Empire', it was resolutely rejected by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Empire, and even threatened to sever diplomatic relations for a time, and later the Germans had to use other translations after seeing the stubbornness of these people in the Empire, so later in the Chinese text, another translation was used, which was translated as' German Caesar', although they all have the same meaning in German, and even after being translated into Chinese, these two words have roughly the same meaning, but in the eyes of the empire that chews the words, no matter what words you use to translate, it can't be translated as emperor, especially 'great emperor'.

Even this year, Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom announced that she would accept the title of 'EmpressofIndia', but the Empire firmly refused to recognize this title as 'Empress', and when translated into Chinese, it would not be translated as Emperor of India or Empress of India, but as Caesar of India.

There can only be one emperor in the whole world!

In addition, the empire cannot be called an emperor regardless of whether the ruler of other countries is called a king or a tsar, or Caesar or a caliph or the like.

Of course, this is only limited to the Chinese text, as for Latin, French, English and other foreign languages, how people translate the words of the Great Emperor and Emperor, that is someone else's business, and the imperial side has not pursued too much, generally all countries are more uniform use of Latin 'Imperator', and then translate it into various languages.

The diplomats of the empire pay special attention to these details, especially the things that seem dispensable to people from many countries, for example, when talking about foreign envoys who want to face the saints in China, whether to kneel or not often requires some negotiations, even if they do not kneel, if they bow, how many times they bow, how much, and then they can't turn around directly in front of Lin Zhe and retreat, and they have to take several steps backwards before they can turn around and retreat.

These etiquette may seem complicated, but on the other hand, the etiquette requirements imposed by the officials of these empires are to maintain the legitimacy of the empire's rule.

While the diplomats continued to argue, the war was still going on, and by the time it was November, Siberia had entered winter, and universities were beginning to flutter.

At this time, the remnants of the Russian army trapped in Chita were also exhausted because of the exhaustion of ammunition, the exhaustion of food, and the collapse of battlefield diseases such as severe beriberi.

The conquest of Chita meant that the empire's Siberian campaign had come to a successful conclusion, and preparations for war began in April, and a full-scale offensive was officially launched in September, taking advantage of the geographical advantages of the vast plains of Siberia, and a large number of cavalry battles were put in, so that the mobility of the troops was greatly improved.

At the same time, the heavy firepower made the Chinese army's strategy of quick victory successful, and in two months, the Chinese army attacked on multiple fronts and conquered all the important cities controlled by the Russian army.

Although Siberia east of Lake Baikal is so vast that theoretically the hundreds of thousands of troops invested by both sides would not be able to fill the area, the sparse population also has another consequence, that is, a limited number of urban strongholds are very important for both sides.

After conquering a certain city, it can basically be declared that you have conquered the land of hundreds of kilometers or even hundreds of companies, because in this area, except for this city, everything else is a wilderness, and there are no other enemies at all.

The loss of the area east of Lake Baikal has brought great panic to the Russian side, and they are afraid that the Chinese army will continue to advance westward, so on the one hand, they will increase the garrison of the area west of Lake Baikal, and on the other hand, they will also send the latest instructions to the negotiating team to end the war on the Eastern Front as soon as possible with minimal losses. (To be continued.) )