Li Xian's purpose in coming this time was not to fight, but to negotiate with the British to see if he could sign an armistice agreement, and by the way, he wanted benefits or something.

From the perspective of the leader of the British Expeditionary Force led by Pu Ding Cha, it made no sense to continue to fight against the Huaxia Liberation Army led by Li Xian.

Not to mention the victory or defeat of the war, even if the British army won the war, as long as the Huaxia army abandoned Guangzhou and went north into the depths of the interior, the British army was bound to not be able to pursue, otherwise there was a danger of being brought into an ambush circle and annihilated.

Moreover, with the current foundation of the Huaxia Army, it is impossible to pay any compensation fees and preferential terms to the British.

This was still the situation when the British army had the upper hand, and in fact the British army did not necessarily have the upper hand if it really started.

The battle was fought to this extent, and even the most stubborn and arrogant British officers had to admit that the combat effectiveness of the Huaxia Army was extremely extraordinary, and it could be equal to the British army of the same strength under the condition of fair combat.

Of course, every British officer will subconsciously refuse to admit that in the previous battles, the Huaxia Army has won a big victory every time with a disadvantage in strength, dealing a heavy blow to the British army, and the battle loss ratio is even less than one to three.

To deal with 25,000 Chinese troops, the British army must have at least 50,000 troops, which is only a slight advantage, and may not necessarily have an absolute upper hand.

Considering that the number of British troops was less than 150,000, and considering the huge financial and logistical pressure required to send more than 50,000 troops to fight in the Qing Kingdom, every British officer with a little sense understood that the only way for Britain to solve the problem was through negotiation and peaceful means.

Of course, from the perspective of the Huaxia Army, it was very unwise to maintain a military conflict with Britain, the number one power at that time, when it was necessary to fight against the Qing government.

After the Huaxia army occupied Guangzhou, the British side secretly sent people to contact Li Xian and other military elites on many occasions to express their willingness to end the war and properly settle post-war matters.

Of course, according to the situation of both sides, they were neither willing to negotiate in Guangzhou nor sign an agreement in Hong Kong, so Li Xian was required to lead troops to Bao'an, and then discuss the armistice with the British envoys.

After the negotiators of the two sides met, they first exchanged words for a while, and then entered into a concrete negotiation process, and concluded an agreement clause by clause.

In most cases, Qing officials would not carefully read the terms of similar agreements, nor would they try to bargain, and even the British would make rude demands that the agreement should not be changed at all, but when it came to the Huaxia army, they naturally could not act like this.

The discussion between the two sides was quite intense, and the Huaxia Army proposed that Britain should not sell any opium in China, and the British side pointed out that the opium trade was a legally traded trade recognized by the international community, and this opposition of the Huaxia Army was very unnecessary, but after the Huaxia Army stubbornly expressed its opposition, it could only agree that the British Government would restrain its own merchants from selling opium commodities within the jurisdiction of the Huaxia Army.

The Huaxia Army captured more than 5,000 British soldiers and officers in many battles, and Britain proposed to release all of them in accordance with international practice, but the Huaxia Army pointed out that according to international practice, the same number of prisoners should be released from each other, and the excess should be paid an appropriate ransom fee.

After holding out for a while, the British also knew that the Huaxia army would not accept such a clause, so they agreed to pay the ransom fee for redemption, and Li Xian agreed to do so in principle, but the demand for the release of the prisoners could not be carried out immediately, and could only be carried out after two years, or at least after the British army had fully withdrawn from China.

The number of these prisoners reached more than 5,000, and once released immediately, the number of British troops would immediately exceed 20,000, greatly changing the balance of strength between the two armies, so it was impossible to release them now.

The British side, after careful consideration, also had to agree.

With regard to the commercial trade between the two sides, Hua Xia Jun promised not to interfere in the commercial trade of the merchants of the two sides, that is, not to interfere with the activities of British merchants to buy tea and other commodities in Guangzhou, nor to prohibit the merchants of Guangzhou from carrying out such commercial activities.

However, Li Xian also demanded that the British side give the merchants under the jurisdiction of the Huaxia Army the same free trade rights, that is, not to interfere with the trade activities of merchants from Guangzhou or Leizhou to the countries of the South Seas.

Britain advocated the concept of free trade in this era, but it was not willing to give such free trade rights to the merchants under the rule of the Huaxia Army, that is, it only hoped that British merchants would trade in Guangzhou, but did not want Guangzhou merchants to go to the South Seas.

The two sides had a fierce argument over this, and the two sides talked a lot about international law and politics, culture, and philosophy, and finally Li Xian proposed that if the British government did not agree to such a clause, then the Huaxia Army would not be able to protect the safety of British businessmen who came to China to do business.

Pudingcha scoffed at China's naval strength, that is, he was in awe of the Huaxia Army's land combat strength, and he was not very worried about its naval combat capabilities.

It wasn't until people who had been in China before secretly told the Governor that the navy of the Huaxia Army was not very good, and could not compete with the powerful British Navy, but it was still possible to plunder ordinary British merchant ships, and there were even cases of sinking warships, that Pu Dingcha was surprised.

When the investigation was clear, it was found that the Huaxia Army did not have the ability of regular naval warfare, but it had a strong pirate warfare ability, and it was really capable of dealing with any single or even swarms of ocean-going merchant ships.

In the middle of the nineteenth century, the stories of Caribbean pirates became legends, and there were still people who used backward naval warfare methods such as gang jumping, and they could still rely on this kind of combat to achieve great results.

So far, there are still seven or eight relatively intact British merchant ships in Li Xian's Leizhou base, and they are really in a hurry, and more than half of the British merchant ships who come to China to do business cannot escape the plundering of the Chinese army.

In view of this actual situation, and thinking that Britain withdrew its troops this time, most of the naval ships would also have to leave China, and in order to save military spending, the number of British warships remaining in China might not exceed six, and they would have to guard a number of treaty ports.

In the end, the two sides agreed to give each other the same free trade rights, of course, how to discount each other in the specific implementation is a matter of later.

After talking about opium, captives, trade, etc., there are some trivial matters, the most important of which is about the belonging of Hong Kong.

According to the agreement between the British government and the Qing government, Hong Kong should be owned by the British, and it was not even an agreement for a certain period of time to lease it in later generations.

Li Xian vehemently stated that he wanted to safeguard China's territorial integrity and demanded that Britain immediately return Hong Kong to the Huaxia Army, but it was really not possible for the Qing government to do so, that is, Britain was not allowed to take it directly.

Pu Ding Cha pointed out that Hua Xia Jun did not have any ownership or jurisdiction over Hong Kong, but he could not get Li Xian to agree.