With Weese's order, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was ready for the trip within ten days. Naturally, it is impossible for foreign ministers to use warships for travel, and China does not have regular passenger ships to Europe. When Li Xin learned that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs had been treated as a special passenger ferry, he was really shocked.

On July 15, more than 40 people from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs met the passenger ship on the overseas visit at the Nanjing wharf. It is a ship with more than 5,000 tons of milky white livery, and it looks very comfortable. High freeboard, tall buildings. After boarding the passenger ship along the gangway, the personnel of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not go straight to the cabin, nor did they go around, but rushed up to the foredeck, where a fleet that was sailing out of the dock was passing through the waters in front of the passenger ship......

The cruisers of the Chinese Navy no longer have to hide their appearance, with slender hulls, gray livery, turrets covered with grass-green canvas gun jackets. Except for some of the personnel responsible for entering and leaving the port, no other servicemen were seen on the warship. The young people of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs waved desperately to the warship, and regardless of the extent to which members of the Military Commission had opinions about the recent work of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the successive victories of the Liberation Army did greatly enhance China's status in the world. In recent years, the political propaganda and the army's performance in disaster relief have indeed made the image of the people's soldiers deeply rooted in the hearts of the people. It was not only the Ministry of Foreign Affairs that greeted the soldiers when they saw them, but also the personnel on other ships who were waving to the troops.

Li Xin carefully looked at the Chinese Navy, which has recently shaken the world. Because of the different purposes of construction, warships of more than 4,000 tons appear to be more slender and narrow, and the passenger ships of more than 5,000 tons carried by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs are almost twice as large as those of more than 4,000 tons. The milky white liner looks more assertive, and the gray livery of the warship gives it an inconspicuous feeling.

Looking at the inconspicuous warship, it was very quiet to sail, but inadvertently, the fleet had already left far away. Looking at the backs of the warships, members of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs began to discuss where they were going. Some said that the fleet was going to Fujian, others said that the fleet was going to the Ryukyus, and others insisted that the fleet was going to Alaska, the new land of China. But no one guessed the real destination of this fleet, Otaru in the Ezo Republic.

At the end of June, 12 newly completed cruisers joined the Navy, the Navy abolished its previous theater designation, and the 24 cruisers were divided into four fleets. Fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, four fleets were formed. Each fleet now has six cruisers each.

The Navy wondered why one to three should be empty. Weeser's answer, "One to three is very reminiscent of one to three after the race, and we didn't have that idea at all when we decided on the numbers. In this case, let's start with four, so that everyone doesn't have to fight, and everyone knows that the number is just a number, and there is no other meaning. ”

Since then, not only the navy, but also the establishment of other branches of the armed forces have followed this directive.

The Fourth Fleet has Cam Ranh Bay as its home port and Java as its secondary port. The Fifth Fleet was based in Luzon and Lanfang was its vice-port. The Sixth Fleet has Vladivostok as its home port and Lushun, Dalian, and Alaska as its secondary ports. The Seventh Fleet has Fuzhou as its home port and Ningbo, Taiwan as its auxiliary port.

Twenty-four cruisers gathered together were quite a lot, but they were actually very few after they were really scattered across the vast sea territory. But this is only China's idea, and in this era of low productivity, it is widely believed that it is necessary to muster at least twice the size of the Chinese navy in order to be able to fight the Chinese navy. In other words, if you want to deal with six Chinese cruisers, you need at least 12 ironclads of comparable tonnage. A country capable of maintaining a navy of this size, for the time being, no country on this planet, except for the United Kingdom, can reach such a level. When six Chinese cruisers were dispatched together, no country, including the British, would not feel nervous.

From Nanjing, the brand new Sixth Fleet was planned, first to Lushun, then to Juwen Island, and finally to Otaru. Britain no longer has the possibility of sending a fleet to Japan in the short term, and more importantly, it is impossible for Britain to send warships to attack China in the short term, and the pressure on China's coastal defense has been greatly reduced, so it has time to send a fleet to escort a large number of supplies to the Ezo Republic.

The Navy had already notified the Chinese Dispatch Force Command in Sapporo, the capital of the Ezo Republic, by telegram, and Commander Zhou Xinhua simply replied, "I have received it, and we will send someone to meet it." But he didn't say much.

Weapons and ammunition are important, but the Republic of Ezo has already passed this stage. What the Ezo Republic needs most now is no longer military strength, but institutional strength.

At the military meeting on July 16, Zhou Xinhua once again put forward his own proposal, "Establish a complete political staff in the army and implement the political commissar responsibility system, this matter cannot be delayed any longer!" ”

The Japanese upper echelons attending the meeting did not immediately react to Zhou Xinhua's suggestion, and were silent for a while, before Takehiro Enomoto, president of the Ezo Republic, finally spoke, "Zhou Jun, we are inseparable from the thief army, but we are still the children of the Japanese emperor. If the system of political work you are talking about is established, it will no longer be His Majesty the Emperor who will serve as the Lord. This kind of thing is too big, can it be slowed down. ”

"Nearly 200,000 people have died, how are you going to slow down?" Zhou Xinhua asked in a tough tone.

Enomoto Takeyang was silent for the time being, but Zhou Xinhua had no intention of being silent, he continued: "Ladies and gentlemen, I did not ask you to leave Japan, but the three million people under the banner of the Ezo Republic are also human beings, and the Japanese emperor does have a respected status in the eyes of the Japanese people, but I don't think that when it comes to the lives of the people, this factor should be put at the forefront. ”

At this time, the personnel of the Ministry of Defense changed a lot, and in addition to the original personnel who originally established the Ezo Republic, many young new faces also appeared at the meeting. Listening to Zhou Xinhua's words, these young recruits couldn't help but have a sad and indignant look on their faces.

The course of the war was far more tragic than imagined, and although the Republic of Ezo claimed to be a million-strong army, these armies were more called reclamation militias than armies. The reason why the people fled to the Ezo Republic was that they could no longer survive under the Meiji government, and after arriving in the Ezo Republic, they had food and land to grow, and they were able to continue their lives. In the Ezo Republic, where all the people are soldiers, personnel do participate in military training, but participating in military training is not necessarily related to becoming soldiers. Military training improves military technology and combat capability, while becoming a soldier is a kind of self-awareness.

The attack on the Ezo Republic was led by an army of nobles under the Meiji government. In the old shogunate era, the family was associated with "boongong", which was to fulfill feudal obligations to the lord and undertake certain work, while the ieroku was the right given by the lord to this, and the two were interdependent. The family is inherited from generation to generation, and the job position is also inherited from generation to generation.

The Meiji government attempted to establish a new centralized government, and after the abolition of the old feudal system, the loyalty of the nobles changed from feudal lords to emperors, and the government paid the household roku. In the sixth year of the Meiji era in 1873, for example, the government's land rent revenue was 60 million yen, and the household expenditure amounted to 18.04 million yen, which was the largest part of the government expenditure, making the government obviously ineffective. The Meiji government had a great deal of opinion about the family, who spent nearly 20 million yen a year, so they simply brought trouble to the north, gave the nobles a large pie of land granting orders, and sent them to the land of the Ezo Republic.

The wishful thinking of the Meiji government was simple: since the nobles wanted to play the feudal game, let them play it in Hokkaido, which was getting richer. The family paid by the government was converted into land and sent to Hokkaido. First, it is possible to eliminate the rebellious Republic of Ezo that occupies Hokkaido, and secondly, it is possible to throw away the heavy financial burden of the government.

Soldiers were an ancestral profession and began to learn the art of warfare from an early age. Now that the technology of warfare is developing rapidly, their ancestral technology is somewhat outdated, but the military education that these people have received since childhood has not fallen behind. Before they became proficient in the use of weapons, they received an education in killing the enemy and making meritorious contributions. Including the beautification of the battlefield of the dead, including the edification of the best means to save oneself by destroying the enemy. Compared to the Wehrmacht of the Ezo Republic of China, the army of the warriors who landed in Hokkaido was an army of soldiers.

The number of veteran troops in the Republic of Ezo is no more than 5,000, and the number of troops sent by China is no more than 10,000. These core forces suffered heavy casualties in the Battle of Hakodate in 1874. In 1875, the noble army landed in the flat terrain of eastern Hokkaido, and the strongest resistance taken by these submissive civilians was simply to flee. The 100,000-strong army with the Shi clan as the core raged like a flood in the Ezo Republic.

The line from Otaru to Muroran could withstand the army from Hakodate, and there was nothing to do with the Shizu army that landed on the east coast. The Chinese Navy was in a heated battle with the British Royal Navy at the time, and it was impossible to send any warships to support the Ezo Republic. The Shizu army became more and more courageous, and the Meiji army spies hidden in the army of the Ezo Republic also used the name of the Japanese emperor to carry out various incitement activities, and a large number of civilians surrendered to the Meiji government army.

The reason for the reversal is ridiculous: when the old officers were killed or fled, the Chinese dispatch army officially took over the Ezo Defense Force, and began to establish a political and industrial system within the Ezo army. The government officials informed the Wehrmacht that the enemy on the other side was not aiming to occupy the Republic of Ezo, but to kill all the people in Hokkaido.

Many members of the Wehrmacht were skeptical, and some of them were inspired to fight by the sight of their relatives and friends being killed by the noble army. They began to fight under the command of the Chinese sending army and began to counterattack. It wasn't until the dozen or so mass graves created by the Shi Clan Raiders during the mass massacre of the local people were discovered that the desperate people finally recognized the situation.

The two sides fought fiercely for more than two months, and the warriors went from being invincible to evenly matched, and then besieged by the superior forces of the Ezo Defense Army. At present, the army of the nobles has been encircled in two large encirclements on the east coast of Hokkaido and around Hakodate.

Just when the Ministry of Defense of the Republic of Ezo could issue an order to "give the thief army the last blow" at any time, Zhou Xinhua put forward a request to improve the political work system. This requirement has been discussed several times, and the basis of the political work system is the political party system. Although the political parties in the Republic of Ezo have not yet developed, the electoral system has been in place for several years.

Now the attitude of the people is relatively simple and unified, and since the emperor has ordered the killing of all the people of Hokkaido, there is no reason for everyone to be the emperor's subjects again. A recent referendum was quite unanimous in its conclusion that the Republic of Ezo would become completely independent, and that Japan would do whatever it wanted, and that the Republic of Ezo would no longer be a part of Japan.

This attitude is completely different from the philosophy of the people who founded the country in the first place. Takehiro Enomoto and Toshizo Hijikata were at odds with the Meiji government, and they had no intention of seceding from Japan. Zhou Xinhua openly singled out the problem this time, and the old upper class was neither willing to support it nor have the courage to oppose it. These new faces in the Wehrmacht are the young, middle- and high-ranking officers who have gradually emerged during these months of war. They had been fighting with the instructors of the Chinese Dispatch Army, and now the representatives of the Chinese Dispatch Army had spoken out to the hearts of these people, and they had no other idea than to agree.