In fact, before coming, these Japanese representatives knew that they would not end well, and as members of the Yamato nation, they were well aware of the character of their own people, extreme, paranoid, and irrational.

But they still did not hesitate, this was completely out of loyalty to the emperor, especially the head of the regiment, Iwakura Gushi, who had already saved the heart of death, he knew that he would bear the notoriety of "traitor" in the future, which is also the purpose of not letting Ito Hirobumi come, "If I don't go to hell, who will go to hell". Ito Hirobumi is calm, composed, and resourceful, and he is optimistic that Ito is the one who can save Japan's future and cannot be sacrificed in vain.

Seeing the Japanese side signing, Zeng Jize smiled, he was not just for the sake of morale. First of all, this will dampen the morale of the Japanese and put them in the right position: you are not here to bargain, you are here to make peace!

Moreover, this is tantamount to Japan's recognition of aggression, and China has taken advantage of the legitimacy first, which is very beneficial in formal negotiations.

Then the negotiations officially began, and the first condition put forward by Zeng Jize made the Japanese representatives collapse: compensation of 200 million taels of silver!

You must know that in 1883, Japan's budget revenue was 74 million yen, and the actual income was 82.5 million yen, which is equivalent to 55 million taels of silver, and 200 million taels is equivalent to Japan's fiscal revenue for three and a half years!

Iwakura Gushi and the others were all stupid.

Although they knew that it would be difficult to pay compensation, and their expectations were only a few million taels, they never imagined such an amount, which was completely beyond their psychological tolerance. The negotiations went on for several days, and the two sides were always entangled in the amount, and after China dropped it to 150 million taels, it refused to lower it again. And when the Japanese side rises to 20 million, it has reached the psychological limit, and the two sides are deadlocked, and no threat can make the Japanese give in.

Seeing that the negotiations had reached an impasse, Ding Yuntong decided to continue to exert pressure militarily. At this time, the Chinese Navy ended its maritime interception mission, and except for the few warships that were still repaired in the port, the rest of the ships had been reorganized.

It is divided into three fleets, the first is the main fleet, the task is mainly combat, with six powerful warships of Suzaku, Xuanwu, Bai Zhen, Bai Ze, Qilin, and Teng Snake as the core, plus six gunboats with large tonnage, the same 2,800-ton "Zhen'an", "Yuyuan", and "Hai'an" three ships, and more than 1,200 tons of "Chengqing", "Henghai", "Dengyingzhou" three ships, the flagship is still the Suzaku.

The second is the auxiliary fleet, which is mainly responsible for patrolling, covering, reconnaissance, etc., and is composed of ten gunboats, including Ji'an, Feiyun, Fuxing, Zhenwei, Yixin, Tianji, Jinou, Junhe, Anlan, and Zhenhai, of which the 1,258-ton Anlan is the largest and has become the flagship.

Zuihou is an inland river fleet, mainly controlling the Chao Phraya River Valley, with the pocket ironclad ship Longwei as the core, plus the four ships Chaowu, Fubo, Wannianqing, and Mae Yun, although the number has been greatly reduced, but in view of the strength of the Longwei, the combat power of the fleet has not decreased much.

After the fleet was organized, the main fleet had been cruising around Japan, waiting for the next move, and at this moment received an order from Ding Yuntong to immediately go to the coastal waters of Japan.

At this time, the fleet was already equipped with a large number of thermite incendiary bombs, which were made by adding iron oxide and aluminum powder to thickened oil, and then pouring potassium chlorate, glucose or white sand sugar, and mixing them thoroughly. This incendiary bomb can cause large-scale fires and can reach temperatures of thousands of degrees Celsius in an instant. Three transport ships, loaded with a large number of incendiary bombs, followed behind the fleet and served as ammunition depots.

On April 27, the fleet arrived at Tokyo Bay, but there were many batteries in the bay, and Liu Buyun was more cautious and chose the port of Yokohama, which was relatively outer, as the target of attack.

Yokohama became a free trade port in 1859, and by 1873 it had grown to become the largest port in Japan, the third largest city in Japan after Tokyo and Osaka, with a population of more than 100,000. It is Japan's main exporter of raw silk, tea, and seafood, as well as the importer of silk and woolen fabrics, and the city is thriving with a large number of towns (residential areas), naya (warehouses), and factories (factories).

Liu Buyun observed it with a telescope and ordered to open fire on the most densely populated residential area, and at noon, dozens of naval guns of the Chinese main fleet let out a roar of death at the same time, and large and small shells rained down on Yokohama.

The shells, all of which were incendiary, ignited a skyrocketing fire as soon as they landed in a residential area, and the fire spread quickly because most of the buildings in Japan were made of wood, and the houses made of wood, paper, and bamboo were crowded together. In particular, some of the heavy guns on the Chinese warships had an extremely long range, and the whole city was within attack range, in fact, after half an hour of bombing, the whole of Yokohama had already fallen into a terrible fire, the fire borrowed the wind, the wind helped the fire, and the fire set almost everything on fire.

The flames were so fierce that the thermite in the fire caused the temperature to rise so sharply that the Japanese civilians fleeing everywhere were already on fire before their clothes were set on fire by the hot heat. The scorching heat caused by the fire even combined with the cold air blowing from the sea, forming a strong convective cyclone.

Some metals are melted by the heat, and both people and wood spontaneously combust in the suffocating heat! Many of the people hiding in the burrows were roasted alive, and the crowd of people running in all directions was almost crazy, and there were floundering flames everywhere, screams of terror everywhere, and many people jumped into the nearby ponds and rivers believing that water could overcome fire, but the heat of the scorching fire boiled the water in the ponds! The pond was almost a cauldron, and the people who had taken refuge in the water were boiled alive in the boiling water!

Bodies were everywhere: piled up on top of each other, piled up by neighboring residents, stacked on top of each other, even piled up like a hill around schools and hospitals.

Husbands and wives hug their burnt-and-burned, charred babies clinging to their mothers, sisters or grandmothers.

There were also corpses in an upright position, legs tense and arms outstretched, as if trying to escape from the fire. Countless corpses floated in the river, some clothed and some naked, all as black as charcoal.

These were dead people, and it was impossible to tell if they were men or women, or even whether the floaters were arms or legs, or just charred wood

The fire burned for two whole days, almost leveling Yokohama, more than 25,000 people were burned to death, and more than 20,000 were burned to varying degrees.

Subsequently, the Chinese fleet "attacked" all the way along the coastline of Japan, and in a few days, successively attacked Yokosuka, Shizuoka, Hamanaka, Toyohashi and other port cities.

China's "atrocities" have put tremendous pressure on the emperor's clique, and Japanese public opinion has accused the government of incompetence, and the shaky prestige has been completely wiped out. On 2 May, a large number of Japanese people even surrounded the apartments of the new Army Secretary Junyoshi Kawamura and the new Navy Secretary Inoue Yoshishin and set them on fire.

At the same time, small-scale riots began to emerge in various parts of Japan, and one of the most terrible trends began to emerge: organization.

Riots, often caused by a few fortuitous events, were followed by a steady stream of disgruntled people, who violently rebelled against the government. But if there is "organization", there is a leading collective, there is a program, there is an organization, it is not just an insurrection, but a "revolution".

On May 3, in Fukushima, northeast of Tokyo, a man named Seiichi Uda officially established the "Fukushima Freedom Party" and promulgated a party program "Reform the way of the world and overthrow the emperor" to mobilize and direct the peasants and craftsmen to rise up in revolution.

Almost at the same time, Kenkichi Kataoka and others founded the Rishisha in Kochi, on the island of Shikoku;

Eto Shinpei and former Akita Prefecture Yoshiyoshi Reijima established the Worry Nation Party in Saga in preparation for a rebellion;

Kono Hirota and others collected guns and ammunition in Tochigi and Ibaraki prefectures, made bombs, and prepared to launch attacks on government offices;

In Saitama Prefecture, Yoshiyoshi Takaishi, Kentaro Oi, Eisuke Tashiro and others established the "Trapped People's Party", contacted the Liberals in Kamishu and Shinshu, and began to organize armed liliang, and a large number of desperate bankrupt peasants joined around, and the number increased dramatically to tens of thousands. The Poor People's Party organized these peasants into two teams, A and B, with Tashiro Eisuke as the commander-in-chief, and searched everywhere for weapons, including hoes, kitchen knives, and sticks, and prepared to choose the right time to carry out a large-scale uprising on an unprecedented scale

For a time, the mountain rain was about to come, and the rule of the emperor's regime was already in jeopardy.