While the Russian land troops occupied Heilongjiang, the main forces of the Russian Far East Navy also dispatched from Vladivostok and Ulsan, bypassing the Korean Strait and entering the Yellow Sea, cruising in the Yellow Sea to intimidate the Beiyang Navy of the Qing Empire.

At the same time, some French and German warships also cruised in the Yellow Sea under the pretext of maintaining stability in the Yellow Sea, but in fact they were secretly supporting the Russian Navy.

Li Hongzhang received a strict order from the Qing Dynasty Zongli Yamen that he was not allowed to fight, so the Beiyang Navy retreated to the two naval bases of Lushun and Weihaiwei, and could not escape the battle. The eight towns of the Beiyang Army also asked for orders to fight, but Li Hongzhang was not sure about the situation and the army's combat power was rejected.

On May 9, the Tsarist Russian Navy easily blocked the ports of Lushun and Weihaiwei, and circled the Beiyang Navy's ships within the base and could not come out. The Yellow Sea's sea control power fell into the hands of the Russian army.

The Qing court's pro-war and peaceful factions kept chatting.

The Qingliu Group, the Censors of Guangxu, Weng Tonghe, Li Hongzao and other censors, insisted on going to war. Guangxu believed that only by starting a war would he have the opportunity to hold the military and political power in his hands, which was exactly the same as the plan to seize power during the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895.

The peace faction was dominated by Prince Li Shiduo and Prince Gong Yi, including Li Hongzhang, Zhang Zhidong, and Liu Kunyi, and other territorial officials did not think that the Qing army was able to defeat the Russian army. After all, the military strength of the Qing Dynasty and Russia was very different. The Qing Empire looked down on Japan and dared to declare war on Japan, but did not dare to declare war on Russia. For nearly half a century, Tsarist Russia has successively seized more than 1.5 million square kilometers of the Qing Empire. The Qing court never dared to say no. This time, it also hoped to cut some land to appease Russia.

When the conflict broke out in Jiangdong, the peace faction remained firmly in the upper hand. The Zongli Yamen sought diplomatic channels to solve the problem, and even planned to sacrifice Shoushan to appease Tsarist Russia. The Zongli Yamen asked the great powers of various countries to mediate, but France and Germany were biased towards Russia. The British expressed their support for the Qing Empire and sent warships into the Yellow Sea to deter the Tsarist Russian navy. Unfortunately, Britain could not stop the Tsarist Russian army, and Germany, France and Russia joined forces to make Tsarist Russia ignore the protests of Britain. The Zongli Yamen sought support from the United States, but the United States was in the election year. The Democratic Cleveland government was strongly challenged by Republican candidate William McKinley, so it had no time to take care of the Far East.

Tsarist Russia ignored the peacekeeping requests from the peacekeeping faction and sent troops to capture Aihui and Bukui City. Faced with the decline of its territory, Kang Youwei, Liang Qichao and others launched a large-scale public bus letter operation, and tens of thousands of people jointly requested to fight the Tsarist Russian invasion and support Guangxu. This made the peacekeeping faction wrong and the war faction gained the upper hand.

Cixi never made any statement. However, when Heilongjiang fell, Cixi was forced to under the pressure of the royal family and could not lose the land of the bannermen's ancestors. Therefore, she agreed to Guangxu's main battle strategy and issued an imperial edict to ask Li Hongzhang to organize the Beiyang Army and Navy to prepare for war.

The Beiyang Army had already become the first and second towns. Li Hongzhang was preparing to order him to go out of the pass to fight, but before he could set off, he learned that the Russian army had stopped military operations. Seeing that Russia had the intention of negotiations, the Qing court ordered the Beiyang Army to stand by on site again.

It turned out that this was because Russian commander Kulbert King believed that the current Russian army's strength in the Far East was not enough to fight for a long-term basis, so he was preparing to negotiate with the Qing government to win the next preparation time. However, the Qing government did not know about the Russian army's conspiracy and actively sent people to negotiate with the Russian representatives to strive for a peaceful resolution of the Heilongjiang issue.

On May 11, General Kulbert King, commander of the Russian Far East Military Region, said in his report to St. Petersburg that an infantry division of the Far East Military Region occupied the entire province of Heilongjiang, and the Qing court was extremely cowardly and dared not to go to war with Russia. The morale of the Qing Empire's army was low, and the Russian army voluntarily surrendered wherever the Russian army went. The Qing court's Beiyang Navy was blocked in the base and did not dare to fight. Based on this, Kulbert King judged that if St. Petersburg added 100,000 troops to the Far East Military Region, it would definitely occupy the three northeastern provinces of the Qing Empire.

In St. Petersburg, Tsar Nicholas II was very happy after receiving the report from Kulbert King. He summoned the ministers of the Army and Navy to discuss it, and then the Russian Army Department sent five additional troops to the Far East, preparing to expand the scale of local wars. If the progress goes well, a full-scale war will be launched in advance.

However, the Siberian Railway connecting St. Petersburg, which has not yet been completed, has not yet been completed. The Russian Army Department decided to draw three armies from Central Asia and then a Cossack cavalry legion from Novosibirsk to quickly reinforce the Far East. Despite this, it would take five months for the Russian reinforcements to arrive in the Far East, and it would take at least one month to rest in the Far East. This was the middle of winter in 1896 and was not suitable for war. Therefore, after comprehensive consideration, Russia decided to hold a long-term negotiation with the Qing government to win the war preparation time.

On May 13, a long negotiation between the Qing and Russia began. Russia was insidious and treacherous, and took the political weakness of the Qing government. He maintained the status quo with the Qing government under the pretext of negotiation, that is, the Russian army actually controlled Heilongjiang Province, but the Qing army could not take action against the Russian army during the negotiation. The Qing government was ignorant and had fantasies about the negotiations, thinking that the great powers would help, so he actually agreed to the unreasonable demands of the Russians.

On May 15, Wang Chenhao and his fleet arrived in St. Petersburg, the capital of Tsarist Russia at the end of the Gulf of Finland. Embassy Xu Jingcheng and other embassy personnel greeted the Neva River Wharf, while Russia only sent a small third-class secondary official of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, who was three levels lower than Wang Chenhao, to greet him.

Wang Chenhao was a little dissatisfied with the Russian diplomatic frustration, but he soon learned the reason from Xu Jingcheng.

"How did things turn out like this?"

Wang Chenhao was shocked to learn that the war broke out in the Qing Dynasty and Russia. When he left Britain, Wang Shizhen sent him a telegram that Japan and Russia had worsened on the North Korean issue. At that time, he was particularly happy that dog biting dogs between Japan and Russia was in line with China's interests. He had never thought that the situation had changed suddenly as soon as he arrived in St. Petersburg, and that Japan withdrew from North Korea, causing Russia to shift its target to the Qing Empire. Moreover, Russia's move to turn the guns was very fast, so fast that it caught people off guard.

"Mr. Wang, this is your telegram a week ago."

Xu Jingcheng submitted a telegram to Wang Chenhao, including those sent by the imperial court, those sent by Li Hongzhang and Wang Shizhen, and the other was the telegram to him by Li Youyi.

After Wang Chenhao left Britain, he did not stop along the way, so all the telegrams he sent to him were sent to Xu Jingcheng in St. Petersburg.

The imperial court's telegrams to Wang Chenhao were mainly asked to lobby the Russian Tsar and senior Russian officials with Xu Jingcheng to promote negotiations between the two sides to peacefully resolve the Heilongjiang issue. Li Hongzhang's telegrams were mainly asked Wang Chenhao to purchase a batch of military supplies as soon as possible to transport them back to the country in order to deal with the next military invasion of the Russian army. Since neither Qing nor Russia declared war, Li Hongzhang believed that European and American countries that purchased arms earlier would be banned from China when they announced neutrality. Wang Shizhen's telegrams were mainly to report on various work, and of course some news about the situation in the Northeast. Li Youyi's telegrams were purely letters from home, and they were full of longing and caring for Wang Chenhao. They never mentioned any political affairs, and even a word would not appear in the telegram.

Wang Chenhao roughly read the content of the telegram. Except for Wang Shizhen's telegram, which was particularly encrypted and only Wang Chenhao could understand the meaning, the others were all clear codes and Xu Jingcheng translated them all.

"What does Lord Xu think the Russians want to do?"

Xu Jingcheng thought for a while and replied: "From the temptations of Xiaguan during this period, the Russians do not seem to be willing to continue using force. Their Foreign Affairs Department is all preparing for negotiations. However, the Russians have a great appetite this time and ask for Heilongjiang Province and Northeast Mongolia. The court naturally disagrees. At present, the negotiations are currently under negotiation for three days and two days of drying the net."

Wang Chenhao snorted coldly and said, "Damn Japan has cheated us this time. It is extremely unfavorable for us to give North Korea to Russia."

Xu Jingcheng nodded in agreement and said, "What the lord said is very much. Now Russia has surrounded the three northeastern provinces from three sides. Russian ships have controlled the Yellow Sea to control the sea power. Just one elite soldier needs to cut off Jinzhou, which is enough to break the connection between inside and outside the pass."

Wang Chenhao frowned and said, "At present, Russia's troops in the Far East are not enough to swallow up the entire three northeastern provinces. Is there any news of Russian troops being mobilized here?"

Xu Jingcheng shook his head and said, "The Russians strictly control our embassy. I guess our phones and telegrams are being monitored, so the officials dare not ask about this easily."

"Mr. Xu did a good job!" Wang Chenhao nodded and continued: "If you want to know whether the Russians have sincere negotiations, it depends on whether they have drawn troops to the Far East. Based on my understanding of them, they have always liked to use negotiation opportunities to secretly make small moves. This trick can be said to be very successful when they use it."

Xu Jingcheng agreed and said: "What I am worried about is that throughout the wars, the court always pinned its hopes on negotiations and mediation, and has suffered a lot of losses but has not had a memory."

Wang Chenhao said: "You have to find out the Russians' background! Does Lord Xu know which country is currently standing on the side of the court?"

Xu Jingcheng replied: "The British seem to support the position of the court! And they have warned the Russians many times!"

Wang Chenhao sighed and said, "Germany, France and Russia are joining together, and the British are just shouting slogans. It is impossible to take actual actions and must not rely on them. However, you can get some information from them."

Xu Jingcheng said: "If you need it, the subordinate can help contact Sirernestm.satow, the British ambassador to Russia!"
Chapter completed!