After the Executive Meeting at the end of the year, East China ** established a mission to visit Japan and set out to Japan.

The mission is actually composed of two parts. One part is responsible for signing a contract with Japan, then holding a meeting with Japan, and publishing a document such as a declaration of peace. In fact, it is just a matter of going through the motions. The other part is to negotiate with Japan on a trade agreement between the two sides at the request of Japan. Although signing a trade agreement with Japan is also beneficial to East China, the content of the agreement should still be considered seriously and must not be dealt with easily. Therefore, this is likely to be a difficult negotiation.

Therefore, East China ** finally decided that Qin Zheng would serve as the leader of the regiment and lead the team to visit Japan. Because the Prime Minister Hirofumi Ito, who represented Japan to visit East China **, according to the principle of diplomatic reciprocity, only the "Big5" on the East China *** side were qualified, but among the five giants, Xiao Jianjun was a military member and was one level lower in administrative level. Xu Jichao had already visited Germany. As the head of state of **, Xia Bohai, of course, could not visit easily. Wang Yunpeng had to preside over the affairs of the Executive Yuan, so Qin Zheng could only visit Japan.

In fact, Qin Zheng's task is also very heavy now. In addition to the matters in the Senate, after Xu Jichao visited Germany, most of the things he had in his hands were taken over by Qin Zheng. Fortunately, the visit to Japan this time will not be long, probably only about one week, at most two weeks. And after the end of the Senate's annual meeting, the work will be a small period, so Qin Zheng can leave for one or two weeks at this time, and it is still possible to take care of it.

The deputy head of the group is Ye Yanfu, a business committee member. His main job is to negotiate trade with Japan. If the negotiations are deadlocked or exceed the expected time, Qin Zheng will return first and leave Ye Yanfu to continue negotiations in Japan.

In addition, another important task for this visit to Japan is to prepare for the East China Consulate in Japan. Zhu Ziping, the veteran of the East China Consulate in Japan, is named Zhu Ziping, a director of the Foreign Affairs Committee. He was elected as the Consulate in Japan through public recruitment. At the same time, 15 other consulate members, including the deputy consulate, the counselors are all veterans, the others are local naturalized citizens, and there are 4 soldiers. This time, the mission also followed up to Japan together. During this visit, the East China Consulate in Japan will be officially established.

However, although it is called a consulate now, it is actually built according to the standards of the embassy. Once the East China ** overthrew the Qing court and officially established the country, it will be upgraded to an embassy. Moreover, this time will not be too long. Therefore, it is better to be in place at one time and directly build according to the standards of the embassy. Of course, when we first arrived in Japan, Japan temporarily provided rooms for the consulate staff to live and work.

After the visit, Zhu Ziping and other relevant personnel will stay in Japan as the first batch of personnel stationed in Japan, and will run the power and tasks of consulates. He will also choose the address to build the consulate in Tokyo, and then Qingdao will send construction personnel and construction materials to Japan for construction, and then officially open the building after completion.

The delegation from East China ** arrived in Japan by boat and docked in Tokyo Bay. They saw a crowd of welcomes on the dock. However, they looked carefully and were all children in their 10s, wearing neatly-equipped clothing and holding flowers in their hands, waving enthusiastically. This also surprised Qin Zheng and others. It was not new to use children to welcome foreign guests to visit. However, so many children and only children were used. There were basically no adults to welcome foreign guests. I don’t understand how Japanese ** considered it.

Originally, Japan's ** was racking its brains to welcome the arrival of the mission of the East China **. On the one hand, Japan hoped to hold a grand welcome ceremony, which not only expressed goodwill to the East China **, but also further put pressure on the UK; on the other hand, Japan was afraid of something. Although the public opinion was suppressed by the Japanese **, the resentment was not calmed down. When we welcomed, there were many people and mixed things, and there were inevitably some things that were not well-received. If an incident similar to the assassination of Li Hongzhang happened again, it would be troublesome.

The envoys who hurt foreign countries are unreasonable in the international arena. What is even more terrifying is the anger of East China. You should know that East China is not comparable to the Qing court, and the current situation is not comparable to that of negotiations in Shimonoseki. Once an accident really happens, East China will never give up like Li Hongzhang, but will definitely launch fierce revenge on Japan, which is definitely not a consequence that Japan can afford.

In the end, Japan really came up with a solution, which was to replace adults with children and select more than 1,000 children aged 10-13 from Tokyo's primary and secondary schools, and concentrate these children to train to avoid being instructed by adults. Because children are easier to control, and using children as welcome personnel is a bit strange, it is not rude.

At the same time, Japan also prepared more than 5,000 police officers in Tokyo, fully controlling Tokyo and surrounding areas, guarding them strictly, and never allowing marches and protests. More than 6,000 soldiers were arranged to serve as reserves to prevent accidents.

Of course, the delegation from East China ** did not know the good intentions of Japan **. Although it was strange that they were welcomed by children, it was not a big deal. Therefore, Qin Zheng and others did not care. After getting off the ship, Japanese Foreign Minister Sutaro Komura welcomed the delegation from East China ** on behalf of Japan **, and also arranged 20 young men and women dressed up to present flowers to the main members of Qin Zheng and other mission members. The welcome atmosphere on site was quite good.

Komura Sutaro kept sending the delegation from East China ** to the hotel to check in, checked the security situation of the entire hotel, and instructed the personnel in charge of the security before going back.

The next day, Hiromitsu Ito met with Qin Zheng, and the two sides held formal talks. During this talk, the two sides reiterated Japan's willingness to establish peaceful and friendly relations between the two countries, no longer wars, and enhance mutual trust, and jointly promote the prosperity, progress, civilization, science and technology in the Asian region. Finally, the two sides officially signed a friendly agreement based on the consensus reached by Hiromitsu Ito's visit to Qingdao. The talks were also successfully completed.

After the talks, Hirofumi Ito set up a state banquet to entertain the delegation, and arranged many traditional Japanese art performances, such as flower arrangement, tea ceremony, No drama and Kabuki. However, frankly speaking, Qin Zheng and others were not very interested in these traditional Japanese arts, mainly because there was a difference in culture. Although Japanese traditional culture is closer to Chinese traditional culture than European culture, there is still a big difference. Moreover, Qin Zheng and others come from modern society. In modern society, both Chinese culture and Japanese culture actually absorb a considerable amount of European culture.

The elements of the country have also lost a lot of their own traditions. Although before the time travel, both China and Japan were rediscovering and cognizing their own traditional culture, there was little exchange between China and Japan. Because the Chinese people's understanding of Japan is mainly animation, Japanese drama, cuisine, and small movies, while only Yamato drama and Go are slightly related to traditional culture. Therefore, Qin Zheng and others are acceptable to the Chinese culture of this era and European culture also have considerable recognition, but lack of understanding and understanding of the Japanese culture of this era, so naturally they cannot appreciate traditional art performances that come to Japan.

On the other hand, the appearance of the Japanese artists performing is really not satisfactory. For example, the Japanese woman performing flower arrangements and tea ceremony is originally of average appearance and has a unique charm in her kimono, but everyone has shaved her eyebrows and feels awkward no matter how she looks. The performers of Kabuki are even more full of faces, and the white seep is so thorny that it makes people feel thorny. As for the performance of Nok Opera, it is actually the art form that is closest to Chinese Peking Opera. Although the costumes, movements, and tone are exaggerated, this is a stage performance, and it is still easy to attract attention. However, everyone appears with a face, which seems a bit out of character. Although Chinese Peking Opera also has a facial expression, it is painted directly on the face. When performing, it pays great attention to changes in facial expressions, which makes people feel much more comfortable.

Although dramatic performances are sacrificial rituals that are born from religion, Chinese Peking Opera, including other dramas, have basically completely separated from sacrificial rituals, and the content is mainly based on historical legends. However, Japanese Nokong Opera is deeply influenced by Japanese Shintoism, mostly ghosts, gods, etc., so it retains a certain sacrificial ritual. Therefore, it sounds a bit shocking and deceitful, and some tone and singing is similar to ghost crying. In fact, in Japanese Nokong Opera, there is a singing mode called ghost sound, which makes people feel creepy. It can't raise any appetite at all. Of course, although it is a state banquet in Japan, it is actually just sushi, rice, raw stings, etc. Therefore, Qin Zheng and others did not have a good appetite. They were just out of diplomatic etiquette, so they could only watch all these traditional Japanese art performances, and they could only go back to the hotel in the evening and eat together to save the night.

In the following days, Qin Zheng held talks with some Japanese officials and participated in two public welfare activities, basically talking about friendship, peace, cooperation, etc., and was also received by Emperor Meiji.
Chapter completed!