As early as 1844, the U.S. Minister to China, Gu Sheng, sent Fei Xindeng, the owner of McVik & Co. in Guangzhou, to serve as the consul in Shanghai, but Fei Xindeng was busy with business and had a lot of entertainment, so he delayed taking up his post, so the United States never had a consul in Shanghai.

Later, Wu Liguo, a senior manager of a U.S. company in Shanghai, named Qichang & Co., wrote a letter to Gu Sheng, suggesting that Gu Sheng make him consul in Shanghai so that he could "take care of his own business and defend the interests of the United States."

Soon after, Wu Liguo received Gu Sheng's appointment to become the acting consul of the United States in Shanghai.

It is worth mentioning that Qichang was one of the first foreign companies to operate raw silk in China, which was co-founded by seven Americans, and later brought in a Chinese businessman as a shareholder.

This businessman's name is Wu Jianzhang, he made a lot of money through Qichang Foreign Bank, and then spent 420,000 taels of silver to donate a virtual title of Daotai, and then luck came and could not stop it, and after a few years, he turned from a fictitious title to a real job, becoming a real Shanghai Daotai, and leaving footprints that have to be paid attention to in Shanghai Tan and the entire modern history of China.

Of course, it is still 1846, and many things in Li Xian's history have not happened, but combined with the information obtained by Li Xian in Shanghai, it is not difficult to have a more accurate judgment of these four consuls.

That is, these four are either isolated from the upper echelons of their home countries or amateur diplomats who have not been close to the upper echelons from the beginning, and have almost zero influence in political and military circles, and even in business circles is questionable.

Therefore, when the four diplomats visited Li Xian, Li Xian's attitude can be imagined.

Pu Ding Cha gracefully congratulated Li Xian on the occupation of Hangzhou, and expressed a word of praise for the continuous victories of the Chinese revolutionary forces, which Li Xian also politely accepted.

Then, Pu Dingcha began to put forward various demands, such as allowing foreigners to enter Hangzhou for trade, relaxing restrictions on the opium trade, lowering tariffs, and relaxing controls on some goods.

Regarding the entry of foreigners into Hangzhou for trade, Li Xian agreed with a wave of his hand, saying that as long as it was in a place governed by the Huaxia Army, there would be no restrictions on the movement of foreigners, and they were allowed to travel freely.

However, considering that the Huaxia army was still fighting with the Qing court, Li Xian said that he was afraid that he would not be able to allocate too many manpower to protect the safety of foreigners, which means that the safety of foreigners must be their own responsibility.

As for foreigners buying land and buying properties in Hangzhou or other areas, Li Xian said that he would introduce a business management method for foreigners in the near future to manage it, and in general, at least it would not completely ban foreigners from buying land like the Qing Dynasty, so that everyone could only lease land and finally create a bunch of concessions.

Generally speaking, the restrictions on foreigners in the Huaxia Army were not very strict, and they were much more relaxed than those of the Qing court.

As far as the Qing court is concerned, before the Opium War, foreigners were only allowed to live in the designated area of Guangzhou, and were never allowed to go outside the designated area.

Moreover, the Qing court fundamentally did not allow foreigners to buy land and houses, and only allowed to lease land, which is also the origin of the concession, in fact, foreigners can only obtain the right to lease land for 25 to 30 years, but cannot buy it permanently.

In this way, the Huaxia Army is much more open to foreigners, and there are not many restrictions on their business, and there are even incentives for them.

Puding Cha has been in China for several years and has dealt with Huaxia Jun many times, so it is not surprising that Li Xianzai will not be stuck in this regard.

Then, Pu Dingcha put forward the real intention, which was to hope that Li Xian would relax the control of the opium trade.

The Huaxia Army had earlier strictly forbidden the sale of opium in Canton and Guangdong, and although the British had a strong opinion on this, they could not defeat the Huaxia Army's army, so they agreed, after all, Guangdong occupied only a small part of the whole of China, and even without Canton, opium could be sold continuously through Fujian and Shanghai.

However, everything has changed since Li Xian last occupied Dayuan Island and then promoted anti-smoking activities.

At the beginning, Li Xian led the fleet to severely search for ships selling large cigarettes, whether it was foreign ships or Chinese ships, and even captured a number of foreign merchant ships that tried to violently resist France.

At that time, a number of consuls and businessmen protested to the Huaxia Army, warning that if the Huaxia Army did not change this practice, war would be imminent, and many countries in Europe and the Americas would form fleets to crusade against the Huaxia Army.

However, with Li Xian's usual arrogance, he was naturally unwavering, and it was not until recently that after the Huaxia Navy annihilated the Fujian Navy and demonstrated the strength of as many as 80 warships, all foreign merchants related to the opium trade panicked.

The naval strength displayed by the Huaxia Army far exceeded the pre-estimate and could not be suppressed by the warships of Western countries in China alone.

If we really want to deal with the Huaxia Army and Navy, either Britain, France, and the United States will unite several warships in China and all foreign ocean-going armed merchant ships to jointly crusade against the Huaxia Army; or we will contact our own country and summon more than 50 warships from the mainland, otherwise we will not have the upper hand in naval warfare at all.

Both of these are very difficult to do, at least not by a former Indian governor and three unruly diplomats.

Pu Ding Cha was determined to fulfill his responsibilities as an official of the British Empire, and brought out all kinds of coercion and temptation methods, and even took out such big weapons as Britain recognizing the status of the Chinese Army and establishing diplomatic relations.

It's a pity that Li Xian doesn't enter the oil and salt, and he doesn't waver at all, which makes Pu Dingcha feel like he has nowhere to start.

"Mr. General is the wisest Chinese I have ever met, who has studied both China and the West, and knows the Western world very well.

The few people we are here today represent Britain, France, and the United States, and they happen to represent the three most powerful countries in Europe and the Americas.

Although the Huaxia Army fought bravely, after all, it had not unified China and its strength was limited, and even if the Huaxia Army occupied the whole of China, we should maintain friendly cooperation instead of obvious confrontation, right?"

Pu Ding Cha had made great efforts to study the personalities of Li Xian and Xuan Zheng and other leading figures of the Chinese army, and understood that these people were born in the martial arts school, and they could be called the most outstanding martial artists of this era.

Therefore, Pudingcha has always avoided overly direct threats of force, and only hinted at them implicitly, so as not to have the opposite effect.

Today is really a last resort, Pu Ding Cha took out the threat of war so directly, I only hope that this last move can impress Li Xian somewhat.