ps: Two-in-one chapter, make up for yesterday's break

Holding joint military exercises of the army and navy is an effective way to test the combat effectiveness of the troops in peacetime, but the navy is different from the army in that the navy's warships are scattered and deployed in the Atlantic, Pacific, South Pacific, Caribbean, South Sea, and the mouth of the Congo River.

In order to take precautions and prepare in advance to deal with the changes in South America, Li Mingyuan decided to change the deployment plan of the navy ships and regroup the overly scattered naval warships.

"Once the war starts, the Caribbean Sea Fleet, the South Ocean Fleet, the South Pacific Fleet, and the Congolese Dispatch Fleet will all face the crisis of being blocked, and among them, the overall strength of the Caribbean Fleet is relatively weak, and the station is only Tolti Island, which covers an area of more than 100 square kilometers, while the US Navy's Atlantic Fleet on the other side of the Caribbean Sea has dozens of ironclad ships of various types, and if the US Government intends to intervene in the Paraguay crisis, the Caribbean Fleet will become the first target of the US Navy's Atlantic Fleet."

Li Mingyuan stood up, looked at the huge map on the table with a heavy face, and analyzed: "The surrounding waters of the Caribbean are all colonies of Western powers such as Britain, France, and the Netherlands, and the station of the Atlantic Fleet of the US Navy is located in the northern Caribbean Sea. ”

"Since 1869, Tolti Island has been under national rule for nearly 20 years, and there are more than 30,000 Chinese people on Tolti Island and the Haitian island behind it. Fight the U.S. Navy to the last ship, the last man! ”

In the spacious, simple hall, a young officer in a navy white dress stood up and said as a navy.

"Xu Zhixuan, I have heard of your deeds, a student of the Navy Study Class for young children studying in the United States, and the current captain of the No. 5 ship of the Yongxing-class (1,350-ton light cruiser) of the Atlantic Fleet, once organized and participated in the protest against the US government's Chinese exclusion bill."

"The Meiyi foreigners deceived me into a big man, and I was born as a man of the Han family, and I hated to be ashamed of the country immediately, so I had to put my blood into it, and I changed my career with ten years of hard study, joined the navy, served the country, and was ashamed of the past!"

Xu Zhixuan stood up and said loudly.

"The courage of the men of the Han family is still there, and their enthusiasm is excited, which is a good example, but the country is just starting a business, and every officer and soldier who has the passion to serve the country is a very valuable asset, and he cannot be sacrificed in vain."

Li Mingyuan waved his hand, motioned for the other party to sit down, and then explained: "Torti Island is located in the center of the Caribbean Sea, and the imperial court is unwilling to give up until the last resort crisis, but in the face of the absolute strength gap between the two sides, the only reasonable solution under the current situation is to evacuate the Caribbean Detachment and temporarily evacuate the people on the island to Haiti to survive." ”

"Your Majesty, do you really want to give up the plan to attack the island of Haiti?"

"It's just a temporary shelf, the temporary return of Tolti to the Haitian warlords is a stopgap measure, and when the situation in the Caribbean becomes clear, the Haitian island strategy plan will be resumed."

Li Mingyuan answered the questions of the officers and generals of the navy and continued to arrange: "After the withdrawal of the Caribbean detachment, the safety of the Chinese people who have been transferred to the main island of Haiti will still be the responsibility of the militia forces stationed there and some marines.

As for the Nanyang Detachment, by July next year, all its ships will be evacuated to the Yizhou Islands via the Pacific route, and then join the Nanyang Detachment Fleet in the operational sequence to assist the local marines and officers and men stationed on the islands in defending Samoa, Pahiti, and other core islands. ”

Li Mingyuan successively arranged the deployment plans of the South Pacific Squadron, the Caribbean Squadron, and the South Sea Squadron, and finally gave instructions on the deployment of the Congolese dispatch detachment: "The coastal area of the Congolese colony is narrow, and the left and right sides are held hostage by Portuguese Angola and the French Congo colonies, and the space for the local naval detachment to operate is extremely limited, but in recent years, the Congolese colonies have imported a large amount of precious metals and ores to the mainland. If the war on its own soil spreads to Africa, the Congolese dispatch detachment should preserve its strength, pass all naval officers and soldiers and its warships through the estuary, retreat against the current to the inland basin of the Congo River, and then cooperate with the Congolese dispatch to meet the invading Western colonial forces step by step. ”

"The armed forces of the Congolese Dispatch Army have a total of 10,000 people, and the post assures Your Majesty that if war breaks out on the mainland, the Congolese colony will definitely not be lost!"

"Your Majesty, rest assured, the Navy has the confidence to assist the Army in holding the Congo!" …………

"It's good to have faith, but you can't take it lightly."

The Congolese colony was relatively close to the South American mainland, and the large transport ships that were transported from Africa to the South American mainland every year not only increased the government's fiscal revenue, but also brought in a variety of much-needed metal deposits.

The Congolese colony is rich in natural resources and is known as the "world's raw material storehouse", "the gem of Central Africa" and "a geological miracle".

The country contains a variety of non-ferrous metals, rare metals and non-metallic minerals, among which copper, cobalt, industrial diamonds, zinc, manganese, tin, tantalum, germanium, tungsten, cadmium, nickel, chromium reserves are considerable, and occupy an important position in the world. Iron, coal, gold, silver, etc., are also abundant, as well as platinum, lead, phosphate, silicate, etc. The main mineral reserves are: 75 million tons of copper (15% of the world), 4.5 million tons of cobalt (1/2 of the world), 30 million tons of niobium and tantalum (80% of the world), 206 million carats of diamonds (23% of the world), 450,000 tons of tin, 600 tons of gold, 1 billion tons of iron, 31 million tons of lithium, 22.5 million tons of chromium and nickel, 7 million tons of manganese, 7 million tons of zinc and 2 million tons of aluminum. There are 10,000,000 barrels of proven offshore oil reserves, 20 million barrels of onshore reserves, 20 billion cubic meters of natural gas offshore reserves, and 10 billion cubic meters of onshore reserves. In addition, the deep waters of Lake Kivu, located on the border between the DRC and Rwanda, contain abundant natural gas resources.

With the help of the mineral resources of the Congo colony, more than ten state-owned enterprises such as Xinjing Mining Company and Royal Mining Consortium have become important large-scale metal mining and smelting companies in South America.

In the original history, the mineral resources from the Congo colonies fed dozens of giant international mining enterprises such as Belgium, Britain and France, and now, the Congolese colonies, which are like virgin lands, are playing a more important role than the original history under the supervision and command of the Chinese army and armed militia.

Adhering to the principle of digging three feet into the ground and not letting go of a ton of resources,

The Congolese dispatch army and the more than 100,000 Chinese people who have been resettled there have not only carried out exploration and exploitation one by one in strict accordance with the mineral resource distribution map provided by Li Mingyuan, but also have a great interest in high-quality anthracite and other non-metallic mineral resources that are slightly inferior in economic value but have insufficient local reserves.

Ignoring the negligible cost of manpower extraction, and taking into account the cost of relocation and ocean transportation, the price of high-quality anthracite imported from the Congolese colony is 20 percent higher than that of high-quality anthracite mined locally in the United States during the same period, and at the same time 3 to 40 percent lower than the cost of direct purchases from Canada, Australia, Mexico, Venezuela and other countries.

Anthracite is the main raw material for making crude steel, although the local coal reserves in Yangzhou and Luozhou are considerable, enough to complete the consumption of the second industrial revolution, but the coal in Yangzhou and Luozhou is mainly bituminous coal, which can be used as a raw material for smelting pig iron, but not for smelting crude steel.

In view of the surrounding environment faced by the Han State, in April 1883, the Han government announced that the first two anthracite mining areas that were in operation were allowed to be mined, and the other seven newly discovered anthracite mining areas, including those discovered in the future, were all mothballed, and local governments and private mining were prohibited.

More than 99 percent of the forests in the northern part of the Han Kingdom belong to undeveloped primeval forests, and during the year, the newly relocated Chinese people chose to set fire to the forests in order to pioneer the land, burning all the tens of kilometers of primeval forests at a time, and then carrying out reclamation work on the bare land.

It is true that the Han Kingdom is rich in forests, but it is a pity that tens of millions of trees were wasted in the process of land reclamation, so in August 1886, the government issued a decree prohibiting large-scale forest burning and encouraging the people to use the cut trees to make coke, and then sell the coke to the government.

After learning that coal refining would not only be financially compensated, but also promised by the government to reduce part of the debt, the phenomenon of setting fire to the forest was quickly stopped, and the number of people who used industrial methods to cut down the forest and concentrate on coke refining was increasing.

The experience of using trees as raw materials and obtaining coke through simple firing was transmitted to the Congolese colony in less than a year, and the governor of the Congolese colony checked some information and found that the Congo has a forest coverage rate of more than 53%, about 125 million hectares, accounting for 47% of the forest area of the whole Africa, accounting for 6.5% of the world's forests, but only 60,000 hectares are currently mined, which has a very huge mining potential.

Therefore, in order to share the worries of the local government, Huang Naishang issued an order to each Tuwang chief in the Congo colony who was administered by the Han State, requiring each tribe to hand over coke of different weights as a tax substitute according to their numbers.

Under the deliberate governance of the Han side in the Congo colony, the population has been controlled within a reasonable range, the number of indigenous blacks is not large, the pressure to survive is not great, and it is not good for the indigenous blacks who are idle and have nothing to do every day, so finding them a job to mine mineral resources and burn coke can also make their lives more fulfilling, right?

Under the propaganda of the Han side for your good, more than 100 indigenous chiefs and earth kings successively expressed their willingness to accept the orders of the governor and regularly hand over the prescribed amount of coke every month.

And those tribes who were unruly and did not accept Huang Naishang's kindness, after being taught a lesson, either reformed themselves, or were divided by Huang Naishang to other tribes and integrated into another indigenous family.

The Congolese colony is becoming more and more irreplaceable in the overall grand strategy of the Han State, and Huang Naishang has done more and more excellent work as the governor of the Congo.

Li Mingyuan decided to increase support for the Congolese colony.

"More than ten years ago, the Western powers did not discover the huge economic interests hidden in the Congolese colonies, so we were able to defeat the small Belgian country and gain control of the Congolese colonies, and now, every year, batches of transport ships rushing to the mainland cannot hide the eyes of Western countries, in order to guard against the Western powers, especially the French Congolese colonial army and the Portuguese Angolan colonial army near the Congo colonies, it is necessary to strengthen the strength of the native Congo colonies."

Li Mingyuan pointed to the location of the Congolese colony on the map, and ordered: "The fortified fortification project of the Congolese colony should be intensified, and the defensive fortress system of the five core strongholds of Cabinda, Kinshasa, Sankigani Ilebo, and Kananga should be expanded, with the five fortresses as the main body and the tributaries of the Congo River as the link, the entire Congolese colony will be connected as a whole, and each fortress group will deploy troops and militia armed forces ranging from two to five thousand people. Gunboats and gunboats are tentacles, relying on and cooperating with each other to firmly grasp the control of various regions. ”

"Yes, Your Majesty, I promise to complete the expansion of the fortress in the Congolese colony within one year."

Rushing back from Africa, Huang Naishang, whose face was tanned, stood up and said.

"The armed forces of 10,000 people in the Congolese colony are not enough to deal with future threats in all aspects, so before July next year, the central government will transfer two large-scale infantry regiments, an artillery regiment, an engineer battalion, an independent heavy machine gun battalion, and a field logistics hospital from the mainland area, with a total of more than 10,000 people to support the Congolese colony.

At that time, two foreign infantry battalions, four field infantry battalions, Gatling hand-cranked machine gun companies and other regular army units under the jurisdiction of the Congolese Governor's Office will be mixed with local support forces to form the Congolese Legion, with an establishment of 14,000 people.

In addition, men of appropriate age were recruited from among the Congolese Chinese to form two Congolese garrison brigades with an establishment of 4,500 personnel and four militia regiments with an establishment of 2,000 people, which were named the Congolese First and Second Garrison Brigades and the Congolese First, Second, Third and Fourth Militia Regiments respectively.

The Congolese Legion, the garrison brigade, and the militia group have been formed, and the Congolese colony has more than 30,000 armed forces of various kinds. ”

"30,000 men of weapons and equipment is not a small number, and my subordinates are worried that before the outbreak of war, it will be difficult for the Congolese army to equip every soldier with weapons and ammunition according to the predetermined schedule."

"Don't worry about the problem of weapons, the expansion of the various units of the local field army is imminent, and the number of Hanhua 1875 rifles that have been eliminated is nearly 100,000, excluding the 60,000 that were delivered to the local garrison and militia units, and the 15,000 that were sold to Songkhla and Lanfang, the remaining 24,000 rifles, auxiliary ammunition and 40 Gatling hand-cranked machine guns, all of which were allocated to the Congolese colony.

The total strength of the Congolese colony is 30,000, and the Congolese Legion is a regular army, and like the local regular army, it is equipped with Jianye six-year smokeless rifles, and the remaining 160,000 people are equipped with a maximum of 13,000 Hanhua 1875 rifles, and 11,000 rifles are reserved as reserve weapons for subsequent troop expansion and weapon consumption replenishment. ”

"Your Majesty, there are only three old-fashioned ammunition production lines in the Congolese colony, and my subordinate has asked the local side to support several more rifle and artillery shell production lines to supplement the army's combat consumption."

"The local government has successively established a primary smelter, a textile factory, and a gun repair factory in the Congo, and it will not care about adding a few more ammunition production lines."

The rapid development of the Congolese colony also benefited from the continuous investment of the local people, and batches of practical machinery and equipment were transported to the Congolese colony, and then under the guidance of Chinese technicians, all kinds of necessary industrial products were produced from one factory after another, and then supplied to the Han army, the people, and as a reward, to the army kings and chiefs.

The Congolese colonial governor's palace was very strict in its control of the factory equipment, and the kilometers around the factory, including ordinary workers and guards, were all performed by Chinese, and not a single black aborigine was employed.

Tight defenses, coupled with the presence of tens of thousands of armed forces and more than 100,000 Chinese, made the local government dare to ship some obsolete industrial equipment to the Congolese colony.

The Congolese colony has always been clear in its native positioning, that is, as a raw material source, it does its best to provide various raw materials for the development of local industry, and as for imitating the Western powers, guiding the local black indigenous civilization, teaching them the suzerain's Chinese language, and cultivating the Congo as an economic market for the suzerain, it was abandoned at the beginning.

Congolese blacks live according to their inherent traditions, carefree, except for accepting the tasks assigned by the Han State, there are no worries every day, if they learn the Han Chinese language and understand the outside world, it will disrupt their lives and increase their troubles, it is better to keep it in a primitive state all the time,

Moreover, after the civilization of the indigenous blacks, the little economic market provided was better than nothing, and Li Mingyuan couldn't look down on it at all.

Therefore, the Congolese colony developed in the direction of primary industrialization under the governance of the Han State, but the local blacks still maintained the traditional custom life, and the two sides respected each other, each took what he needed, and got along very well.

Huang Naishang and the Han government said this every time they introduced the Congolese colony to the outside world, and whether other countries believed it or not, the local people and officials recognized this model.

"It is not appropriate to put relatively new machinery and equipment in the Congolese colony, so let's dismantle three Hanhua 1875 rifle ammunition production lines, two 75 mm old field gun ammunition production lines, two Gatling hand-cranked machine gun ammunition production lines, plus a complete set of old-fashioned pharmaceutical factory equipment for the production and treatment of tropical diseases, all of which are shipped to the Congolese colony for installation. Then report for approval. ”

"Thank you, Your Majesty." …………