Master Yuan, start!

Paul Dume's face suddenly turned cold: "Mr. President, I don't want to joke. No matter how great a victory you think your country has achieved in this war, I hope you can understand what Saigon means to French rule over Indochina.

We also hope that your fleet will leave the Hue area immediately and take back the captured French soldiers from the Germans and hand them over to the Indochina authorities.

In return, France can hand over the sovereignty of Lan Xang and Luang Prabang to your government."

Upon hearing France's conditions, Yuan Xiangcheng's expression instantly became extremely unhappy.

Tens of thousands of National Revolutionary Army soldiers died, and the entire country spent tens of millions of taels of silver, and all they did was to get rid of Laos?

French, don't be so naive!

"The French want to keep Saigon? No, the British need it!"

"U.K!"

Paul Toume became even more angry. When did France become the fat meat to be slaughtered by Britain?

Even after the defeat in the Franco-Prussian War, Britain failed to take advantage of the opportunity to get its hands on France's colonies in Africa.

Moreover, Yuan Shikai brought up Britain at this time, obviously intending to divert the conflict. The British enthusiasm was indeed hateful, but they only provided some assistance.

What really matters is your own army!

"Mr. President, you are joking again." Knowing that his side was at a disadvantage, Paul Dumei did not dare to lose his temper and could only speak softly.

"Mr. President, I wonder if you are aware of the recent series of actions of the British Empire in South Africa?

If you are not clear, I can explain it to you in detail.

Their fully armed troops of more than 4 people were defeated after encountering local African armed forces that were like militia organizations, and they also lost several thousand people!

Can you really protect your country's interests by cooperating with a country that has made a fool of itself on the battlefield?"

"It's okay if I'm not allowed to cooperate with the British." Yuan Xiangcheng nodded and took out a document that had been prepared long ago from behind:

"How about this, if France can do all of the things mentioned above, then I will form an alliance with France and become France's steadfast partner in the Far East!"

"You can take a look first."

Before Paul Dumei could react, Yuan Xiangcheng handed him the document. He quickly flipped through it and before he had even taken a few glances at it, Paul Dumei's face suddenly changed!

This bastard, he asked France to support him in capturing Singapore, and France wanted to send out the navy to confront the British Chinese army!

At the same time, France also had to persuade the Netherlands to cede their Borneo and allow the Chinese to go to Java Island to contract land and grow crops!

"God, if we follow this agreement, what's the point of talking?"

Paul Dumei glanced at Yuan Xiangcheng, grabbed the documents, and left the Guangzhou Governor's Office with his teeth clenched and his face grim.

"Chief Instructor, the French are gone!"

After Paul Dumei left, Xu Shichang and others came out from the side room.

"Did the talks break down?" Tang Shaoyi scratched his head.

Yuan Xiangcheng smiled, grabbed the plum juice and drank it all in one gulp: "There is no such thing as a breakdown in negotiations, Comrade Shaochuan, you are too unconfident about our National Revolutionary Army.

Indochina is now the French's egg, and they will not give up negotiations."

At this point, Yuan Xiangcheng stood up and said to Xu Shichang and others: "Govern the German Minister, the American Minister, the British Minister, and Paul Dume who just ran away.

Three days later, we will discuss the issue of French Indochina again!"

...

Three days later, negotiations on French Indochina finally began in the Governor's Office in Guangzhou.

The French finally could not hold on any longer. Although they claimed to have hundreds of thousands of land forces at home, after losing the support point on the Indochina front, blindly sending local troops to the Far East would be of no avail.

Unless they want to send the entire French naval fleet over.

But if that happens, will the mainland be abandoned, will Africa be abandoned?

At least the revolutionary citizens in the old district of Paris would never agree.

Representatives from Germany, Britain, the United States and a newly established but already world-famous emerging China gathered in Guangzhou at the same time to start negotiations on the so-called Indochina issue.

What is shocking and ridiculous is that this country, which has been troubling China in modern history and was later called the biggest stumbling block in the South China Sea, does not even have a chance to come to the table.

They were represented by the colonizers, the French.

Tang Shaoyi, the domestic negotiating representative, liked this feeling. When he saw the representatives of the other four countries taking their seats, he took a deep breath of excitement, because this scene represented that the world pattern had quietly changed because of the appearance of these people.

For the first time, Chinese people sat together with white people and divided the cake!

The cake is not big and is pitifully small. When placed on the big cake of world colonialism, it is not even as good as the small countries in South America and Africa with more abundant resources.

In other words, Indochina was not a high-quality colony, and the cost of ruling was huge. The French were reluctant to give it up, mostly because they wanted to maintain the "face of the empire."

However, due to the emergence of Yuan Shikai and the rise of the National Revolutionary Army, this process was advanced by nearly half a century.

Rather than saying that this was a negotiation about the Indochina issue, it would be more accurate to say that it was a collision of new forces challenging traditional old forces. The National Revolutionary Army behind Yuan Shikai was indeed powerful and had gained a great reputation through one war after another, but the two emerging aristocrats, Germany and the United States, also had a strong desire to take this opportunity to step onto the world stage.

Although there are many conflicts among the countries present, fortunately, they all have one thing in common, that is, they all want to step on the corpses of the French to gain power.

qWhat Yuan Xiangcheng was thinking about was how to use this opportunity to gain the attention of the great powers and truly be included in the category of "European and American countries" rather than a so-called regional power.

uWhat Britain was thinking about was how to continue to maintain its dominant position in the Far East.

As for Germany in the United States, although its mind is much simpler, it also has many interests that need to be satisfied.

: The opening of the meeting caused disputes among Britain, Germany and the United States.

It's very simple. Tang Shaoyi proposed that in order to better reflect the anti-aggression nature of the National Revolutionary Army's war, the entire Vietnamese region outside Tonkin should be turned into a so-called internationally administered autonomous region.

As soon as this proposal was put forward, it was strongly opposed by Germany and France, and Britain suddenly became ambiguous.

The Germans believed that they had come all the way to the Far East not to see any autonomous region established.

In their view, the best outcome would be to tear a piece of flesh from the French to satisfy Germany's needs.

France, of course, would not sit idly by and watch this decision to hand over the Indochina colony completely to other hands.

The talks hit a deadlock as soon as they began.

After learning that Tang Shaoyi had temporarily withdrawn from the negotiations, Yuan Shikai ordered the navy to bombard Vietnamese coastal cities without restriction, and at the same time ordered the National Revolutionary Army, which had arrived in the suburbs of Hue, to launch an attack on Hue.

Three days later, four battleships and three cruisers of the Beiyang Fleet once again concentrated their bombardment of Hue. At the same time, Wang Zhanyuan also concentrated 3 troops and captured a fortress north of Hue.

When the news came, Paul Dumei was the first to get restless.

It is obvious that Yuan Shikai was telling France that he now has the ability to directly destroy France's local rule. If the enemy is allowed to attack everywhere without any countermeasures, and there is no negotiation, Indochina will collapse.

Therefore, he temporarily gave up the idea of ​​relying on the conflicts between Britain, the United States and Germany to retain Indochina, and took the initiative to hold unilateral negotiations with Tang Shaoyi.

The news of the private talks between France and Yuan Shikai reached the ears of Britain, Germany and other countries, which obviously made them somewhat dissatisfied.

The United States was the first to make a statement that they had no major interests in Indochina, so they knew very well that ending the Indochina dispute as soon as possible, calling Spain over, and resolving the Philippine issue were the top priorities.

The U.S. Army's battle on the island of Cuba was not as certain of victory as in the Philippines. Once the three Spanish fleets joined forces, the entire east coast would probably be destroyed.

Therefore, they have no energy or ability to play tricks on Yuan Shikai. They only hope to maintain the economic interests of the United States here and ensure that the loans from American banks can be recovered.

Germany was also unable to continue the war. They had captured tens of thousands of French soldiers, and could not find stable German supply support in the short term. The Indochina authorities were unwilling to sell to them.

They agreed to the creation of autonomous regions, but some special interests needed to be preserved for Germany.

The simultaneous transformation of virtue and Germany made Britain a canoe. It was obvious that once all three countries entered Indochina, the French would completely lose Indochina.

This was inconsistent with the British's original idea. They initially wanted to weaken the French, not kill them.

After all, an East Asia with a balanced balance of power is a good East Asia.

No matter how sweet your relationship with Yuan Xiangcheng is, you still have to be on guard.

Of course, compared with its huge colonies, Indochina was not important to Britain. However, if Britain watched Indochina being divided up while it stood aside, it would undoubtedly be a challenge to the British Empire's position as a world leader.

If Britain did not intervene in Indochina, it would be seen as weak by others, especially in the context of its current defeat in the South African War, which would encourage countries that attempted to challenge Britain's hegemony.

After France tastes the bitter fruit of defeat, it may gather its troops at home and head straight for Africa!

Egypt and French Algeria are just one step away!

After consulting with London by telegram, the British envoy agreed to establish the "Indochina Autonomous Region" when he was unable to stop the National Revolutionary Army from continuing its offensive.

When the document was delivered to Yuan Xiangcheng, he immediately ordered the country to begin comprehensive preparations for immigration to Tonkin.

After all, the autonomous region does not include Tonkin!

After the prerequisites were resolved, the remaining steps became much smoother. Yuan Shikai indeed gave up his colonial rights over the Indochina Peninsula and only proposed to restore the country in Laos and have the right to manage these areas.

Yes, not sovereignty, but management rights.

Yuan Xiangcheng knew that in such a complex region as Indochina, it was impossible to build a fully "co-managed autonomous region" like the sparsely populated Outer Northeast.

Therefore, all he could do was to jointly manage the business in name only, but in reality each of them was in charge of their own business.

Britain obtained administrative rights over the Cochinchina area, while the Cambodian region was handed over to Germany for administration in order to comply with the "special interests" previously claimed by the Germans.

The largest city in Indochina was jointly managed by Britain, Germany and the United States, and they required it to be built into a non-military port and no warships would be allowed to dock.

This request was not opposed because the United States was unable to send warships at the moment, and Germany's acquisition of the Cambodian region was not a complete loss. As for Britain, they had no intention of managing the chaotic Indochina at the moment, and wished to have as little territory as possible.

Soon after the negotiations appeared to be going smoothly, another controversy arose.

That is who the French Indochina Army surrendered to.

Who to surrender to seems to be an extremely simple question, but for the French Republic, it is a matter of great importance.

If things go wrong, the collapse of the government will be a small matter. We may have to amend the constitution and establish a new republican legal system!

Germany immediately proposed to lead the surrender ceremony on the grounds that it had captured a large number of French soldiers.

But how could the British allow the Germans to provoke France so much? They immediately stated that the British Far East Fleet was on standby in Singapore and Hong Kong, and could be taken over by Britain to complete a surrender without humiliation.

Yuan Shikai, on the other hand, did not care about this, because what he valued was not false reputation, but real benefits.

Even if the French had not surrendered to the National Revolutionary Army, who can say that Indochina was not conquered domestically?

Paul Toume, the Governor-General of Indochina, sat next to him, feeling like his days were numbered. The haggling at the negotiation table only showed that the mediation negotiations, which were mediated by Britain and Germany, were turning French Indochina into a toy for others.

For a long time to come, France will have to say goodbye to the Far East.

However, at this moment, Indochina had no room for bargaining. The army suffered repeated defeats, the navy was almost completely destroyed, and the support from the mainland was blocked.

Unless the entire territory of Indochina is teleported to the neighboring country of France, how can we win?

So the Paris government also knew that the war could not continue no matter what, because France was once again facing an important choice.