Many people like to refer to the French by the Gallic chicken, and from the ancient name of Gaul, there may be some truth to this name. But by blood, the Gauls and the French are not the same thing. The brothers of the French were Germans, and the Gauls of the Roman era were not directly related to the Franks who later entered France.

Foreign Minister Li Xin did not experience the Chinese experience of referring to the French as Gauls, but he took this knowledge to heart as one of the lessons of his visit to France.

Like the Ottoman Empire, Italy was dominated by the aristocracy, with the aristocracy wielding the vast majority of power. Unlike the Ottomans, Italy had a little bit of industry. In order for the industrial system to work, feudalism had to make concessions. The better the industrial system operated, the weaker the feudal system became. Foreign Minister Li Xin is more concerned about the problem that Italy does not need Chinese industrial products. Industrial products from Britain, France, and Germany are ready to meet the needs of Italy, and it is very difficult to break into the Italian market.

The Chinese passenger ship in which the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was traveling stopped in Marseille, and according to the arrangements of the French, the Chinese foreign minister and his entourage arrived in Paris by train to meet with a group of people from the French Foreign Affairs Committee. Discuss the issue of the resumption of the exchange of ambassadors between China and France. In fact, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs would like to continue to drag it out, and at the current pace of China's development, time is not on France's side.

When France began to build 10,000-ton ironclad ships, China had just begun to install ironclad ships with a thickness of five centimeters on ships of one or two thousand tons. Now the Chinese warships were able to beat the British fleet, but the French lost a lot of money after losing the Franco-Prussian War. Five billion francs in war reparations were paid, and Alsace and Lorraine, which had large iron ore deposits, were ceded. Under such successive blows, the gap between France and China has widened rapidly. Perhaps when China began to build battleships of more than 10,000 tons, France was still engaged in the kind of ironclad ships with wooden bases. From any point of view, there is no possibility that the French fleet will go to the western Pacific on a large scale to challenge China.

Since the French no longer have the strength to deal with China, there is no need for China to take the initiative to restore any friendly relations with France. Waiting for more defeats for France, waiting for the French to come to the door, this response is probably the best option. In fact, Li Xin still very much hopes that the French Foreign Affairs Committee will come up with something to attack or insult the Chinese foreign minister, and China will naturally stop dealing with France. The foreign minister probably shouldn't have such an idea of saving trouble, but Li Xin and the comrades of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs discussed and came up with such a result.

The first time he landed on the land of France, Li Xin suddenly felt very emotional. In a sense, landing on French soil means that you are truly at the heart of Europe. The countries with a decent level of industry in Europe are all on the North Atlantic coast. Western Europe and Northern Europe are the true heart of Europe.

Italy's industrial strength was far inferior to that of these European cores, and the Ottoman Empire, which was only recognized as a European country in 1865, could not be compared with the European countries in the region. More than a decade ago, these countries could decide not only the fate of Europe, but also the fate of the world.

At that time, even China had to make a false compromise with Britain and collude with France to carve up Vietnam. At the beginning of the French invasion of Vietnam, China had tried to monopolize its interests in Vietnam, so it invited Vietnam to join forces against France, and the price for China's expulsion was that Vietnam would hand over de facto control of Cochin County in the north to China. The Vietnamese court feared China more than France. They actually played a small trick to leak China's intelligence to France, hoping to exchange for France's support.

In this era when only the great powers had a real say, France not only did not cooperate with Vietnam, but returned to negotiate with China on the partition of Vietnam. In the end, in the Sino-French secret treaty, China agreed that France would occupy southern Vietnam, and France would guarantee the safety of China's rice routes between Siam and Vietnam, and China would not get the land, but only take actual control of the Hongji area.

At that time, the upper echelons of the Guangfu Army still thought that Wei Zedu was a little weak, but the navy was not strong, and the Guangfu Army was used to fighting prepared battles, and no one dared to really risk an uncontrollable war.

Now the Liberation Army saw a different view, the French opened up territory in southern Vietnam, swallowed Cambodia, and signed treaties with neighboring countries. Now France has raised itself step by step into a big fat sheep, and if China does not eat this fat sheep, it will indeed be sorry for itself. Now the Liberation Army has fully understood why "being calm" is a real virtue. When the balance of power changes drastically, the side that is in the upper position must be particularly calm. The longer the time drags on, the greater the final gain. If China has an early showdown with France, China will swallow Cambodia with its own hands. Li Xin actually believes that with China's internal pressure, China is afraid that it will not exert so much effort.

While the Chinese Foreign Minister was advancing on the capital of the former partner, Britain, which was separated from France by a strait, was not idle, and the British Admiralty held a special meeting at the naval shipyard in Devon Harbour, London. Of course, the discussion at the meeting was not what the Chinese foreign minister was going to do when he went to France. At this meeting, the warships of the Royal Navy of the British Empire were to be determined against the Chinese Navy.

Not long ago, the Chinese Navy proved that it has the strength to defeat the British Royal Navy, and the purpose of this new British battleship is to have the strength to defeat the Chinese Navy. No one is now sure that the British designers' battleship plans will be chosen, but the new battleships have been named the Monarch class in honor of the great Queen Victoria. The first warship of the Sovereign-class battleship was named "Revenge".

Even with its determination for revenge, the Royal Navy did not lose its mind. This special meeting was only the first meeting, and the Admiralty was ready for a year or two. Over the past year, all members of the Royal Naval Designers Association have been desperately studying various materials on the cruisers of the Chinese Navy. At the meeting of the Designers Guild, those who participated in three naval battles spoke earnestly about their experiences in the three naval battles and their personal observations of the Chinese Navy during the naval battles.

The biggest gain for the time being was not the shipbuilders, but the British artillery. The Chinese 150 guns fired several thousand shells at the British warship, and the shells that fell into the hull without exploding were also more than two dozen rounds. When these shells were dismantled, several exploded, killing and injuring more than a dozen order splitters and other personnel. But the reason why the Chinese naval shells were so good was also mastered by the British.

The fuse of dry cell battery and heating wire was far more advanced than other fuzes of the era, and this epoch-making chemical technology amazed the British artillery community. Electric fuses solved the fuse problem that had plagued British artillery for many years, and also allowed the British Navy to regain confidence in its warships.

Although the Chinese warships are flexible, the tonnage is not large, and the safety explosives of the LEI tube and Nobel are not products that the UK cannot produce or obtain in large quantities. British 7-inch, 8-inch, 9-inch, and even 12-inch guns, after using new shells, any kind of artillery can easily pose a huge threat to Chinese warships.

Moreover, the Chinese double bullet belt, as well as the lines and wear on the belt, also made the British understand some of the technical parameters of the Chinese artillery. That's 12 rifled guns. The lines on the copper elastic belt conform to the rifling, increasing the airtightness and rotational stability. After imitation, the penetration of British artillery was greatly reduced, and it was completely substandard in terms of armor-piercing shells. And China did not use armor-piercing shells in naval battles, but used explosive shells, which shows that China also has this problem. It's just that the Chinese Navy did not force an immediate breakthrough at all, and used this technology on explosive bombs.

In terms of artillery, what Britain has not yet figured out is the principle of Chinese super-high-speed artillery. But the British Artillery Design Society was confident in this, believing that it was only a matter of time.

The three-rise steam engine was also available in the United Kingdom, but China was the first to use it in the navy. That kind of solid armor, the British considered themselves not bad. The tonnage of warships in the Chinese fleet is only more than 4,000 tons, while the British warships are already in the 10,000-ton class. Compared to armor, Britain will never be weaker than China.

The Royal Navy of the British Empire is a navy with a long history of more than 300 years, and they did not look down on China because of the large tonnage of their warships, thick armor, thick artillery, and their understanding of some of the equipment and technology of the Chinese Navy, thinking that they could take revenge immediately.

The Royal Navy fully acknowledges that the Chinese Navy has demonstrated a comprehensive superiority in weapons systems over the British, and that the 4,000-ton cruiser is the perfect result of many genius designs. Armor, power, artillery, each of them is designed with clear ideas and clear purposes, and they work together perfectly. China must have an excellent ship design team and artillery design team.

This perception puzzled the British Naval Designers Association and the Artillery Design Association, which had taken hundreds of years to accumulate a contingent of engineers, while China had surpassed Britain in just over 20 years. Thinking of China's thousands of years of history, British designers have to wonder if the Chinese are really better and smarter than the Europeans. Otherwise, there is no way to explain why China has been able to overtake Britain in 20 years.

Of course, the discussion of ethnography is a matter of private discussion. The open discussion was about how to absorb these experiences and lessons learned and build a new invincible battleship. In three naval battles with China, the Royal Navy paid for thousands of lives, most of them very good artillerymen. In addition to the loss of personnel and the damage to warships, the British Empire also lost its national prestige and was forced to recognize China's hegemony in the western Pacific. This revenge must be avenged, and it must be carried out very safely.

Judging from the industrial and design capabilities that China has already demonstrated, they will never stop there, and while the British are working hard to design new battleships, the Chinese must also be trying to design new warships, and these new warships have already begun to be built on the slipway.

In any case, Britain is now only a truce with China, not a peace agreement, and the neutrality treaty is still in force. It takes a year or two to design, another two or three years to build and train. Five or six years later, when the new British Grand Fleet has completed its construction and training, it is good to make a judgment on the next move based on the situation at that time. In the interim, Britain would have to let the whole world isolate and blockade China.

The British naval artillery has a new idea, even if it may not be able to win an overwhelming victory in a naval battle with China, but after adopting the new naval artillery, those navies outside China are already ant-like in front of the British Royal Navy, and they can definitely be easily crushed.

To the surprise of the British Admiralty and the Royal Naval Designers Society, at this meeting, a 30-year-old designer named William 61 Henry 61 White came up with a high-freeboard battleship of about 14,000 tons according to the parameters proposed by the Royal Navy. The combination of robustness, uniformity, reliability and efficiency was highly praised by the attendees.

After a long discussion, the design of William 61 Henry 61 White passed the first round of selection and began to enter the more detailed verification stage.