George III recalled his past cooperation with the Ming Dynasty. Listening to the views of the young Prime Minister William Pitt, he subconsciously asked:
"Then shall we refuse Akito's request? Let's cease fire at the current occupation line and start peace talks directly..."
After thinking for a while, Peter nodded and said:
"Akito probably won't accept this, but we can try a 'compromise' plan. We will only withdraw from the Three Kingdoms of Anxi.
"Anyway, it is a nominally independent country. This is what the Anxi Three Kingdoms themselves want."
George III nodded, and Peter immediately asked his secretary to send a telegram in response to Akito's request.
As a result, within a few minutes of sending the telegram, Daming's response came directly.
Pitena handed the new telegram to the king:
"Akito refused directly and demanded that we must withdraw from all occupied areas, otherwise there will be no negotiations.
"Such a quick response shows that Honglu Temple did not ask the Ming Emperor for instructions. The emperor gave instructions in advance."
After King George III read the telegram, he forwarded the document to others with an ugly expression:
“So, we are now back to the starting point and have to re-judge whether to accept Ming’s request.
"Does Ming Dynasty really intend to negotiate peace with us? Is this a 'strategy' or a real request?"
The cabinet ministers looked at each other and quickly read the details of the telegram with complicated expressions.
The places where the Ming Dynasty asked the anti-Ming alliance to withdraw were not all the colonies that the Ming Dynasty had owned for a long time.
There are many lands that the Ming Dynasty seized from the Anti-Ming Alliance at the beginning of the war, occupied them for a short period of time, and were later taken back by the Anti-Ming Alliance.
Although most of them are relatively remote and barren lands, the significance of this request is that everything occupied by the Ming Dynasty belongs to the Ming Dynasty, and anything occupied by the anti-Ming alliance does not count.
If viewed from the standpoint of equal diplomacy, Ming's request must be completely unreasonable.
However, in the current world situation, the British do not feel that it is particularly excessive. After all, most of them are just colonies. They are just worried about being fooled by the Ming Dynasty.
After a long discussion, the second youngest person present stood up.
Forty-seven-year-old James Monroe, from the Northern Virginia Colony, was appointed Secretary of State for the United States only last year.
In another world line, Monroe was the fifth president of the United States and the proposer of the very famous Monroe Doctrine. He is now an important member of the British cabinet.
"Your Majesty, I think the Ming Dynasty royal family also wants peace talks. The logic is the same as our decision to have peace talks with the European royal families.
“They should also not want to over-squeeze the war potential and avoid the collapse of the dynastic ruling order.
"Dynasty changes in the East are more bloody than in Europe, and often end with the death of all family members.
"The Zhu Ming Dynasty accepted the peace talks relatively easily, which should be due to this reason.
“As for withdrawing vassals and lifting bans, these are things that Ming Dynasty will still do even if the war stops, otherwise the Zhu Ming Dynasty will also be unsustainable.
“The large-scale recruitment of servant soldiers to send to distant battlefields is a long-term policy implemented by the Ming Dynasty in vassal states.
"Similar to how we drove and hunted the Yin people in Yinzhou, the purpose was actually to completely occupy the other side's land."
Listening to Monroe's point of view, George III and the ministers thought and discussed for a while, and finally basically expressed their agreement.
Everyone's vigilance against Da Ming was originally just instinctive vigilance, and there was no concrete evidence that Da Ming wanted to deceive people.
However, while George III agreed, he also raised new questions:
"The peace talks will definitely continue, but we cannot accept Ming's request unconditionally, as that will make it impossible for us to explain to our allies."
This time, Prime Minister William Pitt Jr., who responded astutely, spoke directly:
"Your Majesty, if Ming Dynasty is sincere in wanting peace talks, it should be able to understand this and leave the final room for compromise.
“We can agree to hand over colonial lands, but this does not include land that belongs to the mainland, such as the territories that the Ottoman Empire lost and regained.
“At the same time, before a formal armistice agreement is signed, Ming troops are not allowed to enter the areas we ceded.
“And Ming Dynasty must retreat simultaneously with our troops and retreat within the borders before the outbreak of the war, including completely withdrawing from the territory of the Anxi Three Kingdoms.
“After retreating, the troops of both sides must not deploy again and cannot build a large-scale defense system again.
"The troops in different areas gradually withdrew in batches, and both sides arranged personnel to supervise the other side's withdrawal operations.
"If Ming Dynasty cannot accept this kind of mutual supervision and retreat, then whether the other party is arrogant or for any other reason, we can only deal with it as deception.
“Then we don’t have to think about peace talks and just start planning for a long-term war.
"We can make this clear to the other side. To have peace talks, both sides must withdraw from the battlefield."
Monroe and other ministers pondered for a moment, then nodded in agreement.
George III also nodded, approved of Peter's idea, and motioned for him to make arrangements directly.
Peter wrote the telegram himself this time, wrote it on paper and gave it to his secretary to send.
This time the secretary took a little longer to go, but everyone's anxious mood calmed down a little.
Because the waiting time is long, it means that the other party is thinking or discussing without directly rejecting.
After more than thirty troubling minutes, Peter's secretary came back with a reply.
The king and the ministers looked over together. Peter first took the telegraph newspaper and read it as quickly as possible.
While beaming with joy, he handed the telegram to the king:
"Your Majesty, the Ming people agree to withdraw their troops at the same time, but they require that we and the French Yinzhou troops must completely retreat to the east of the Honey River.
The king and ministers at the scene immediately breathed a sigh of relief. Ming Dynasty was willing to accept this method of withdrawal, which showed that it was indeed willing to negotiate peace.
As for the last additional condition, it’s not a big deal.
Honey River is the Mississippi River.
East of the lower Honey River, east and south of the Ohio River, from Boston to Florida to New Orleans, including the Greater Antilles, were the British American colonies.
The area east of the middle and upper reaches of the Honey River, north of the Ohio River, the entire Great Lakes region and both sides of the St. Lawrence River, and north of Boston, belongs to France's New France colony.
The lowest reaches of the Honey River, west and south of the river bank, later Mexico and southern Texas in the United States, belonged to Spain's New Spanish Colony.
To the west of the ridge of the Rocky Mountains, and to the north of what would become the northern border of Mexico, were the Beiyinzhou vassal states of the Ming Dynasty.
The clear colonial center owned by these four countries is the area west of the middle and upper reaches of the Honey River mentioned in the Ming Dynasty, including the original historical Louisiana area and central Canada.
The Ming Dynasty, Britain, France and Spain all claimed these areas, but neither France nor Spain established colonies here.
Only the British Hudson's Bay Company built some strongholds around the Hudson Bay.
The Ming Dynasty established several colonial sites in the upper reaches of the Su River (Missouri River), which are the Rocky Mountain Eastern strongholds of the North American vassals mentioned in the news.
The troops of Britain, France, and Spain here were specially sent to harass the Ming Dynasty's colonial points.
Withdrawing the troops now will actually only restore the status quo before the war. The specific ownership rights will definitely be discussed during peace talks.
So, King George III coughed lightly and made a decision to the ministers:
"Notify other allies and convince all allies as soon as possible to start formal peace talks based on these conditions as soon as possible!"
William Pitt immediately contacted other allies. Most of the allies quickly accepted the proposal, except for the Ottoman Empire, which had a slight problem.
Before the establishment of the Anti-Ming Alliance, the war between the Ming Dynasty and the Ottoman Empire was already underway. The Ming Dynasty successively captured the Mesopotamia and the Sinai Peninsula.
If the British had not intervened, Ming Dynasty would definitely have taken over the entire Egypt and opened up the Great Qin Sea (Mediterranean Sea) from the two river basins.
But Osman seemed unaware of this.
What the Ottomans see now is that the Ming Dynasty occupied the Sinai Peninsula, the Ottoman mainland was separated from Egypt, and Egypt entered a state of separatism under British protection.
So the Ottomans believed that they had been deceived and betrayed, and believed that the British were still on the same side as the Ming Dynasty.
William Pitt was quite helpless, so he replied more bluntly:
“Without the anti-Ming alliance, the Ottomans would have fought against the Ming Dynasty alone for more than ten years, and the result would be that the entire Ottoman Empire would cease to exist!
"Ottoman joined the Anti-Ming Alliance. As a member of the Anti-Ming Alliance, armistice and peace talks with the Ming Dynasty are already the most beneficial results!"
The Ottomans finally realized that they were not qualified to negotiate peace with the Ming Dynasty alone. Without the alliance, the Ottomans would be gone.
