In fact, the time travelers did not ask the Qing court to be appointed as the king of Jianfan in Shandong like the Qing court. It was just that Li Hongzhang deliberately called high prices in order to scare the Qing court. This was not only to fight for his own interests, but also to call the price higher for the time travelers. Anyway, the Qing court and the time travelers did not directly contact each other and were not afraid of being missed. Tianlai novel Time Travelers only asked to obtain Shandong, but did not explain what form to occupy Shandong. Li Hongzhang's plan was to persuade overseas Chinese to accept the position of Shandong Governor. If overseas Chinese were not satisfied and thought that the governor's official position was small, the court could set up a governor in Shandong. Li Hongzhang estimated that overseas Chinese would accept this condition. In this way, the court would also have face, and the requirements of overseas Chinese were met, and everyone was happy.

After Li Hongzhang arrived in Tianjin, he immediately started negotiations with Qin Zheng and made his own proposal. In addition to persuading overseas Chinese to accept the position of Shandong Governor, he also required overseas Chinese to ensure that they would not intervene in the struggle between the empress dowager and the emperor. After overseas Chinese acquired Shandong, they would immediately withdraw troops from Beijing and not leave one person in Beijing.

Qin Zheng immediately reported Li Hongzhang's proposal to the Executive Committee. After discussion, the Executive Committee believed that the time traveler could accept the position of Shandong Governor. After all, the time travel group only needs the Qing court. In fact, with the current strength and power of the time travel group, it is not difficult to capture Shandong by force, but in this way, it will completely break the face with the Qing court. Although the Qing court may not dare to use troops to Shandong, the time travel group wants to engage in other regions of China, such as publicity and business activities in Shanghai, it can only be carried out in secret. This result is naturally quite unfavorable to the time travel group, and the position of Shandong Governor is this skin. With this skin, the entire time travel group will obtain a legal identity in China and can act freely in China. As for the operation below this skin, the time travel group can do whatever it wants, so there is no need to care about how much power the Shandong Governor has.

The Time Travel Group can also agree to withdraw troops from Beijing. After all, it is useless to occupy Beijing now, but it is a bit too absolute. At least one office must be left in Beijing so that information can be collected. Beijing is the capital of the Qing court. Understanding the dynamics of the Qing court is very important for the interests of the Time Travel Group, but it can ensure that all the troops are withdrawn from Beijing. The Time Travel Group is not interested in the fight between Cixi and Guangxu, and this is completely acceptable.

After receiving the reply from the time traveler, Li Hongzhang was also very happy and didn't even need a governor. As for overseas Chinese to open an office in Beijing and leave some staff, Li Hongzhang thought about it and thought it was fine. There were only a few people, even the embassies of various countries, and did he care about one office? If the court did not even agree to such a request, then he would have no choice.

Sure enough, after receiving the telegram from Li Hongzhang, Cixi was extremely happy. Of course, what made Cixi happy was that first, the overseas Chinese promised not to interfere in the Qing court's affairs, so they naturally would not support Guangxu, and Lord Lafayette was completely relieved. Secondly, the overseas Chinese originally intended to accept the official position of Shandong Governor, which really saved Lord Lafayette a lot of trouble.

Although Cixi also knew that with the strength of overseas Chinese, a Shandong governor could completely make a change of independence, after all, the Shandong governor was an official position controlled by the court, not to mention that the local officials in Shandong were appointed and removed by the court. In this way, Lao Fu could use this to seep sand into Shandong and divide and promote overseas Chinese without worrying about them taking the opportunity to grow. Therefore, in Cixi's view, the Qing court actually took a big advantage in order to negotiate such a result, and Li Hongzhang deserved to be Li Hongzhang. As for setting up an office in Beijing, it was not a big deal. Cixi had already thought about everything, so she simply set up the overseas Chinese office in Dongjiaomin Lane to let them be companionship with foreign devils.

However, Cixi was a serene person after all. After the joy was over, she did not make a decision immediately. Instead, she asked Ronglu to secretly negotiate. Ronglu proposed to Cixi that although Beijing had solved the problem, Tianjin was still in the hands of overseas Chinese. Tianjin was Beijing's maritime gateway, and from Tianjin to Beijing was basically flat, with almost no danger to defend. The foreigners captured Beijing twice, and they first conquered Tianjin by sea, and then marched to Beijing with Tianjin as a base, and then changed to the canal and sea route. From then on, the southern financial resources were all on the sea route and then transported to Beijing. Therefore, overseas Chinese controlled Tianjin, which was equivalent to jamming Beijing's throat. Not to mention sending troops from Tianjin to attack Beijing, as long as the supplies transported to Beijing were pinched, Beijing would be in chaos within three months. Since the official positions of overseas Chinese have been solved and Beijing has also been solved, it would be better to solve Tianjin together. If it really doesn't work, just give more places to overseas Chinese in exchange for Tianjin.

So Cixi also immediately sent Li Hongzhang to ask Li Hongzhang to negotiate with overseas Chinese to join Tianjin.

After receiving the telegram, Li Hongzhang couldn't help but sigh to the sky. Whether it was Cixi or Ronglu, although she was smart, her vision was still too narrow. Li Hongzhang served as the governor of Zhili for many years, and the governor of Zhili was located in Tianjin, and he had handled a lot of Western Affairs in Tianjin. Then would he forget Tianjin? But the court could see the importance of Tianjin, so why would overseas Chinese not be able to see it? But the court used Shandong province to exchange for overseas Chinese back to Beijing. So which province needed to exchange for Tianjin? If overseas Chinese had mastered two provinces, wouldn't it be even more threat to the court?

The reason why Li Hongzhang did not mention Tianjin was to slow down the ownership of Tianjin, because he was interested in the issue of Tianjin's ownership was not only the court, but also various countries. After all, all countries used to have colonies in Tianjin, but now they are occupied by overseas Chinese, so they will definitely not be willing to do so. In addition, the customs in Tianjin are also unwilling to be controlled by overseas Chinese. Therefore, Li Hongzhang planned to incite countries to put pressure on overseas Chinese on the issue of Tianjin's ownership during the Shanghai negotiations. When the two sides were in a stalemate, the Qing court came forward to smooth things over. In this way, the price paid to recover Tianjin would be much smaller. Even if it was inciting various countries to fail to work, it would not be too late to talk about Tianjin's ownership with overseas Chinese. But now talking about Tianjin with overseas Chinese is definitely rejected by overseas Chinese, and he would also remind overseas Chinese to tell them that they still have a big card.

However, the relationship here is too complicated and it is difficult to explain it clearly in the telegram. Therefore, Li Hongzhang had no choice but to propose to the travelers according to the requirements of the court and negotiate the ownership of Tianjin. He knew that overseas Chinese did not reject Li Hongzhang's request, but agreed to return the old city of Tianjin to the Qing court, and only controlled the concession areas of various countries, and was willing to use the old city of Tianjin as the boundary to divide the Tianjin area with the Qing court.

But at the same time, overseas Chinese also put forward several conditions to the Qing court. First, both sides could not station troops in Tianjin, and could only send police to manage local security and restrict the weapons used by the police; second, Tianjin customs is still controlled by overseas Chinese, and the customs operations, tariffs, and berth rates are all independently by overseas Chinese, but overseas Chinese also promised that the court's supplies and grain taxes can not pay customs duties, berth fees, etc.; third, Kaiping coal mines and railways are still owned by the crossing group; fourth, overseas Chinese must obtain a piece of land in Shanghai, and their rights are equivalent to concessions, as compensation for the transfer of the old city of Tianjin.

In fact, for time travelers, Tianjin's military value is not too great. Although occupying Tianjin does pose a considerable threat to Beijing, as long as your navy is developed in the future and the delivery capacity of sea transportation can be strengthened, you can conquer Tianjin at any time. After all, it is too close to attacking Tianjin from the Shandong Peninsula. What travelers most value for Tianjin is customs and economy. Tianjin is an important seaport for material exchanges in north and south China and the main distribution center for Beijing's daily necessities supply. Therefore, both customs income and circulation economy are quite considerable. Another is that Tianjin is also connected to Kaiping Coal Mine.

Considering the Qing court's own safety considerations, it is definitely not possible to sit idly by and watch the travelers completely control Tianjin. Therefore, after negotiation, they decided to give up the old city of Tianjin to the Qingting, occupy only the Tianjin Concession area, but they must control Tianjin Customs and Kaiping Coal Mine. In this way, except for losing the old city, the travelers have almost no losses and all the benefits they deserve. Moreover, after more than 20 years of exhibition in the Tianjin Concession area, whether it is urban planning, infrastructure, or public facilities, it is far better than the old city.

Of course, even the old city of Tianjin cannot be given to the Qing court for vain, so the time traveler proposed to ask for a piece of land in Shanghai as compensation. Because Shanghai is the most economical region in China in this era and a large market, in the future, time travelers must develop their own industry and economy, which is definitely inseparable from the Shanghai market. This naturally requires time travelers to have a foothold in Shanghai. Although the time traveler now has an office, the office is too small and the location is too deep into the mainland of Shanghai. It has little effect on time travelers to conduct large-scale commercial transactions in Shanghai, and it is best to have their own docks. It just so happens that they can get a piece of land from Shanghai to solve the opportunity of Tianjin's ownership, so that the time traveler will have his own territory in Shanghai.

After receiving the conditions of the time traveler, Li Hongzhang could only smile bitterly. With his shrewdness, it can be seen that the conditions for overseas Chinese were actually to take advantage of all the advantages except for giving up an old city. However, at this point, the situation was no longer controlled by Li Hongzhang, so he was too lazy to argue with overseas Chinese one by one, and just passed the conditions for overseas Chinese to Xi'an and let Cixi decide.

As a result, Li Hongzhang expected, Cixi quickly called back and agreed to the conditions of overseas Chinese, and at the same time praised Li Hongzhang for his reliable work. It turned out that Cixi's perspective on Tianjin was different from Li Hongzhang. The security issue she considered first. Therefore, being able to return to the old town of Tianjin from overseas Chinese means being able to withstand overseas Chinese on the front line of Tianjin. This is an amazing success. The concession area outside Tianjin's old city was not originally owned by the Qing court. Even if it was back, it would probably be taken back by various countries after turning around. As for customs, Kaiping Coal Mine was not in the eyes of Lao Fu. Daqing Kingdom did not care about the few taels of silver in the customs. Moreover, there were too many coal mines in the Qing Dynasty. Without Kaiping Coal Mine, can't afford coal?
Chapter completed!