With the formation of the national government, negotiations on the garrison and tariffs can finally begin.

At the same time, the telegraphic support of the provincial governors, as well as the victories in Fujian, Hunan, Guangdong, and other places, convinced the great powers that Yan Shao was indeed capable of controlling the situation in China, and restored order to this already chaotic country...

As a result, Britain and the United States and other countries also became interested in peace talks, but Japan was still a little reluctant, but because of the boycott of Japanese products in China at this time, they did not dare to speak as wildly as before.

While popular protests are usually of little use, they can be used to promote mutual interest.

“……… The negotiations will be divided into two parts, one is the garrison, the other is the tariff, according to the original plan, these two parts of the negotiations will be carried out at the same time, as for the negotiation of the head of delegation will be the current foreign minister Lu Zhengxiang and vice minister Gu Weijun, in addition to the Ministry of Industry, the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of National Defense will also send commissioners to participate in the negotiations..."

Poured a glass of juice for Yan Shao, Wu Qianqiu explained beside him.

"The meeting will begin on 1 September, with the morning on the garrison and the afternoon on tariffs..."

At this time, Yan Shao's presidential palace had not yet been built, and Yan Shao was reluctant to go to the place where Yuan Shikai once lived, so his manor outside the city became a temporary presidential palace. In particular, the conference room in the mansion is no different from the entire presidential palace.

As for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, to be honest, Yan Shao really doesn't have a few talents in this area in his pocket, so the position of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs can only be continued by the former Beiyang people. However, the vice minister was directly nominated by Yan Shao. That is that Gu Weijun...

Although Gu Weijun was only in his 20s at this time, he was only in his early 30s when he participated in the Paris Peace Conference, only six years ago. Yan Shao was naturally looking forward to him.

Regarding Yan Shao's promotion of Gu Weijun to deputy minister, there is no dissatisfaction within the government.

To be honest, Chinese diplomats in this era are not easy jobs. There is no way, who calls China's national strength weak, at least 9 of the 10 treaties signed by those diplomats are humiliating and humiliating, and they will be accused and scolded when they walk on the street, and naturally few people in the government are willing to do this.

Yan Shaozhi understands this very well. After all, the most important reason for diplomats is the government behind them. If the government gives strength, they will naturally follow suit, but if the government has a pocket......... What's the use of you blaming them?

At this time, China's national strength was weak. There is no capital to be tough, so naturally don't expect them to be tough as diplomats.

However, because of this, many diplomatic officials, including Lu Zhengxiang and Gu Weijun, held their breath for this negotiation, after all, this time it is not about losing the country and humiliating power, but about recovering rights and interests. Everyone is extremely serious. I just want to get more back when I negotiate, so that I can straighten my back when I walk on the street in the future...

"That's it..."Yan Shao smiled. It doesn't matter how long we can talk, it's a good start to start talking, by the way, is there any news..."

"The Fujian side called, the local situation has been controlled, and Division Commander Xiao hopes to select candidates as soon as possible to send them over to form a new provincial government, and Xu Chongzhi's whereabouts have also been ascertained. It seems that he took a boat to Japan with his subordinates in Fuzhou. There is also news from Henan, Hunan and Guangdong, all of which are good news. Division Commander Liu, who was in charge of the war in Henan, called and said that the White Wolf Army had been cornered and could not escape, and that the battle could be resolved in three days at the latest, and that the war in Hunan and Guangdong could be ended in a week at the earliest, and within half a month at the latest..."

"It's all good news..."Touching his chin, Yan Shao looked at the plan in his hand. In that case, the one I have in my hand is at best the icing on the cake..."

Although he was very interested in the planning map in Yan Shao's hand, Wu Qianqiu still held back his thoughts. After following Yan Shao for a long time, he also knows many things, for example, some things are better to know less...

Otherwise, even if there is no worry about life, I am afraid that there is no future at all...

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I don't know what Wu Qianqiu thinks, Yan Shao is still looking at the planning map in his hand, this aspect is his hard work in the past month or so, although it is only a preliminary plan, but it is the foundation of the whole of China in the future...

On 2 September, after the situation in Fujian began to stabilize, the Nationalist government announced that the post of governor of Fujian would be abolished and replaced by the post of provincial governor.

The new governor of Fujian Province is Gao Dengli, 47 years old former director of the Fujian Provincial Consultative Bureau and minister of civil affairs of the Fujian Military Government. And Gao Dengli himself was originally engaged in education, so naturally he didn't care that he, the governor of the province, couldn't even command a single soldier, and the National Social Army that entered Fujian did not commit any offence against the people, and the military discipline was better than that of the original Fujian army, and the local gentry and people were not very resistant to it, so the situation in Fujian quickly stabilized.

In addition, the progress of Hunan and Guangdong is also faster than expected, on the second day of Gao Dengli's inauguration, the Nationalist Army captured Changsha, the former Hunan Governor Tan Yanmin fled, the direction is also Japan, but there are still a lot of remnants in Changsha and the surrounding areas, so now the situation is being cleaned up.

Compared with Hunan and Fujian, Guangdong is more difficult to bite.

After all, it was the base camp of the Kuomintang, and there was a large amount of Japanese-style equipment, plus it was trained by Japanese officers for several months, and its combat effectiveness was somewhat improved compared with the original, and it took a week to take Guangzhou to take it.

With the recovery of Guangzhou, the number of provinces directly controlled by the Nationalist government has reached 12.

As for the Kuomintang? After the loss of Guangdong and other provinces, although the power on the mainland cannot be said to have been uprooted, there is not much strength to speak of...

Of course, there is also a white wolf army that cannot be forgotten, but in fact, on the same day that Changsha was recovered, the remnants of the white wolf army had been annihilated in a place called Blind Mountain in Henan, and the bandit leader White Wolf was said to have died of stray bullets. It is also said that he died from a black gun in the back.

However, it is a fact that he is dead anyway.

After exterminating the White Wolf Bandit Army, the generals on the front line also asked for advice on what to do with the corpse of the White Wolf, after all, the White Wolf Army has choked Henan enough during this time.

But for Yan Shao, everyone is dead. There is no need to continue to vent with corpses. What's more, if it wasn't for Yan Shao using the white wolf, Henan would not have become like this, from a certain point of view, if the white wolf is the murderer, then Yan Shao and they are accomplices.

So Yan Shao sent a telegram back to the generals on the front line and asked them to find a place to bury the matter.

As for the White Wolf bandits who have been captured, they were all imprisoned after some interrogation.

In the future, China's infrastructure, especially the construction of transportation facilities such as railways and roads, will be very important, if there is a group of labor force that does not need money. It is undoubtedly possible to increase speed and reduce costs, as for them ...

This labor should be regarded as punishment for their past mistakes...

And as the news of the victory at the front continued to come back, Britain and the United States and other countries had much higher expectations for the national government. Affected by this emotion. There has also been considerable progress in talks on troop garrisons and tariffs.

One of the most advanced is the garrison...

Considering that the situation in China, especially in North China, is becoming more and more stable. On the European side, however, the atmosphere is becoming increasingly tense, and there does not seem to be a need for countries to waste thousands of troops in North China, especially when many countries have only a few dozen troops stationed in China. It's a waste of resources...

So after some negotiations. With the exception of Japan, almost all countries were willing to reduce their garrisons in North China to a symbolic figure in response to the goodwill of the Kokusha government and the abolition of the lijin.

As for the Japanese ...

"I'm sorry, but according to the agreement, if the Japanese government itself does not agree, no one can force them to reduce the number of troops stationed in China" Glancing at the Japanese minister, whose face had not been very good-looking since the beginning of the meeting, the American minister shrugged his shoulders and said to Lu Zhengxiang and Gu Weijun.

The United States is arguably the most wary of Japan among the great powers, and there are many other reasons. Naturally, he was closer to Lu Zhengxiang and others.

"It's okay..."Lu Zhengxiang smiled. As long as your country is willing to express its goodwill to our country, as for Japan......... We weren't expecting much from it..."

As a member of the former Beiyang government. Lu Zhengxiang can be said to know the grievances between the Japanese and Yan Shao very well, and naturally he knows that Lu Dao is unable to persuade the Japanese in this matter. Therefore, during the talks, Lu Zhengxiang, Gu Weijun and others focused all their energy on other countries and directly ignored Japan, which also made the Japanese very annoyed.

In order to hinder the success of the talks, the Japanese minister continued to lobby other countries during the beginning of the talks, hoping that they would maintain their original positions. However, in this matter, the French government has promised Yan Shao that no matter what the final result is, France will reduce the number of troops stationed in China to a symbolic number, and the relationship between the United States and Yan Shao is also very good, so it also agreed, as for the United Kingdom?

The British were somewhat reluctant on the subject, but the situation in Europe had already taken all his attention. In addition, Yan Shao was willing to repay him with a penny of gold, and after a bit of twisting and pinching, the London side nodded and agreed.

There is no way, for them, there is a bit of a gap between them and Yan Shao because of the relationship with Beiyang, although the British Empire does not take the government of the Nationalist Government, which is still a certain warlord nature, in its eyes, but Britain has certain interests in China after all, and does not want to make the relationship between the two sides worse, and finally let the French have an opportunity to take advantage of...

If it weren't for that, it would have been almost impossible for the British to bow their heads on this.

As for the Germans ...

Originally, the attitude of the Germans was very ambiguous, but after Yan Shao talked with the German minister in detail for a while, saying that he would expand the army to more than 600,000 people, and lacked some ordnance, the attitude of the Germans immediately changed...

More than 600,000 people, including spare equipment, this business is very large.

Moreover, Yan Shao only demanded the withdrawal of the garrisons around Beijing, and did not say that the Germans should also withdraw the troops in Qingdao, so the Germans naturally had nothing to be reluctant to...

The Russians seem to be more troublesome, although they are the legendary 'fighting people'. But the cunning and greed of the Russians are also notoriously known. At the very beginning, the lion opened his mouth and asked Yan Shao to withdraw the garrison in Outer Mongolia, otherwise it would be impossible to make concessions in this regard...

Obviously, the Russians wanted to get back what they didn't ask for from Yuan Shikai on Yan Shao's body.

The problem is that Yan Shao finally took back Outer Mongolia, so how could he sell Outer Mongolia for the sake of the garrison?

Plus there is really nothing good about Russia. Yan Shao couldn't buy it through trade, so the two sides had a very unpleasant quarrel. Now the only one on the side of the Japanese is Russia, an old enemy of the Russo-Japanese War, but they don't seem to have forgotten the war of '05, so they are a little bit against each other.

As for the rest of the countries where only a few dozen people are stationed ...

Thirty or fifty people is already a symbolic number, and their opinions are really not very useful...

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Compared with the garrison, tariffs are much more difficult.

After all, no matter how many troops the great powers stationed in China, they would not be able to produce gold, but would waste a lot of resources. But tariffs are different. For the great powers, the lower the tariffs, the greater the profits.

In this regard, except for the Germans, whose trade with China accounts for only 0.6% and whose trade items are mostly concentrated on arms, several other countries are gritting their teeth rather stubbornly.

Lu Zhengxiang, Gu Weijun, and Liang Shiyi of the Ministry of Finance proposed to increase the surtax by 5% on the basis of the existing value of 5%. Up to 30% for luxury goods, with an additional correction every three years...

Britain, the United States, and Japan had the most say on the issue of tariffs (in 1921, when Gu Weijun proposed tariff autonomy at the General Committee for Pacific and Far Eastern Issues, Britain and Japan were the most opposed), while Germany and Russia were slightly worse. France is the least...

And at the talks. Britain, the United States, Japan and other countries have put forward different plans, but generally recognize the principle of adding 2.5% to 5% and adding 5% to luxury goods.

It was also at this time that Lu Zhengxiang, Gu Weijun and others also secretly admired Yan Shao's decision to insist on dismantling the two things and talking about them. Because from the current point of view, the tariff issue is undoubtedly the most difficult one to discuss, and if we really want to tie the two issues together, I am afraid that both issues will be dragged on for a long time...

However, the issue of tariffs is high. It is also the most important opportunity for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to raise its eyebrows, so during the talks, Lu Zhengxiang and Gu Weijun and others also fought on the basis of reason.

Fortunately, China's external environment at this time was much better than it was historically. Not to mention France and the United States, Germany is now coveting large arms purchases, and most of the arms exported to China are duty-free, so its attitude is not tough...

Only Japan, Britain and Russia are more difficult to do...

Japan was the most resolute of these, and after the defeat of the Outer Mongolian attempts, Russia's share of trade was smaller than that of Germany, but it became difficult. In contrast, although Britain has a larger share of trade than the rest of the country combined, because the abolition of the centigold is also good for the UK, the attitude is the most vacillating of the three countries...

In addition, with the beginning of the talks, the public is also very concerned about this, those newspaper reporters are guarding the gate of the venue every day, hoping to grab the latest reports, and even some people protest outside the venue, the whole scene can be said to be lively...

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After stepping out of the car and looking back at the people who were demonstrating and the reporters who were holding cameras and taking pictures, Lu Zhengxiang and others felt tremendous pressure.

After entering the venue, seeing that most of the representatives of Britain, France and other countries had not yet arrived, Lu Zhengxiang gritted his teeth and said to Gu Weijun and the others. "Ladies and gentlemen, whether it is the Ministry of Foreign Affairs or the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, since its establishment, those of us who engage in diplomacy have been burdened with the infamy of 'betraying the country', but there is no way, who calls the country weak and weak, and the strength is not as good as others, and these black cauldrons can only be carried by those of us who engage in diplomacy..."

Speaking of this, Lu Zhengxiang continued after a pause. "But now we are burdened with the trust of the whole country, and the external environment is unprecedentedly good, if we can't talk about a result that satisfies all the people, then we will all make our own calculations, and let others point to the backbone and scold..."

Hearing Lu Zhengxiang say this, Gu Weijun and the others fell silent, and they all agreed with Lu Zhengxiang's words in their hearts.

Although they have been pointed at and scolded for engaging in diplomacy in the past, they can at least comfort themselves with the country's poverty and powerlessness. After all, it is difficult for a good woman to cook without rice, and she has no cards in her hand, no matter how powerful they are diplomats, it is useless.

But now? The external environment is better than ever, and there are a few decent cards at hand, and if they can't negotiate a result that satisfies everyone, then they really don't even have a fig leaf...

Although they are not from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the officials of the Ministry of Industry and the Ministry of Finance can still feel the grief and indignation on Lu Zhengxiang and others, coupled with the faint sound coming from outside the venue, they are also unconsciously infected...

And just when Lu Zhengxiang and others were planning to fight to the death with the members of the delegations of Britain, France and other countries at the venue, Yan Shao was in his mansion and presidential palace, studying a map of China in his hand with Zongwu and others...

This map is full of marks, and there are nearly a hundred of them...

And at the top of the map are seven big characters...

"The First Five-Year Plan" (to be continued......)