Intelligence has always been the most crucial link in military struggles. "The Art of War" cloud: know yourself and know your opponent, and you will not be defeated in a hundred battles. It's about intelligence.

Since I'm in charge of this, I'm naturally in charge. Being able to stand at the convergence point of information and on the cusp of the storm will not suffer in any case. Just like in the modern stock market, whoever has the real inside information will be invincible, which is a truth.

But I know very well that if you want to do a good job, you must first sharpen your tools, and before I start working, I want to pass a person, to be precise - a team.

That is Ulsingham with his confidant Thomas Phillips.

For the intelligence industry, an expert who is proficient in fighting is better than a hundred laymen who do not know how to do it, this is a delicate job, and those people who are messy cannot be allowed to spoil the way. If I had to make an analogy, well...... One Qiu Xiang sister or a hundred pomegranate sisters, which one do you choose?

I was given a huge manor house in Fulham, west London, as the location of the "headquarters", and of course it was more appropriate to call it a castle than a manor.

As far as I can see, the estate is more than the size of two football fields, and the interior is entirely composed of blue-black slate and stones, and the cold walls and floors give it a solid and heavy feel, but in fact, it is much more solid and heavy than it looks.

We have many mission objectives, camouflage, feints, inducements, rumors, as long as they are related to the war and do not involve specific battles.

For example, the first thing we did was camouflage, the various renovation work that we were already working on and about to carry out.

As I said before, the modification of artillery with the modification of the sailor's cabin is one of our jobs. In the process, we used some unimportant boats as props, and loaded and unloaded them back and forth several times, in order to cover up the real points.

For example, in order to undermine the alliance between Spain and Portugal, I set up a special group to spread rumors, with the aim of inserting a nail in the coffin on the basis of the relationship between Spain and Portugal that was still passable.

Our program proved to be successful. For example, I let people spread that the reason why Spain demanded that Portugal must send troops to attack England at the same time was to weaken Portugal's own naval strength, and the purpose of King Philip II of Spain was naturally not to drink, but to Portugal itself.

This myth is very popular among the Portuguese aristocracy. They were already very dissatisfied with the Spanish taking the royal power of their country through marriage, and this message of mine hit the ignition point in their hearts, and caused a large number of Portuguese to take the opportunity to express their dissatisfaction with the Spanish king's unauthorized requisition of their own navy, and said that they reserved the right to send troops for Spain.

At this juncture, first France, then Germany, and now Portugal! Philip II's heart can be described as furious, France and Germany are hard bones, they can't eat a bite, what are you Portugal?

was originally a subject country under his own name, but now he is still jumping out at a critical moment to trumpet crookedly, damage his own good deeds, and add to his own blockage! It's tolerable, it's unbearable! You have to make an example!

The Portuguese nobles, who were the first to take the lead in refusing to requisition ships, were imprisoned, and Philip II was satisfied.

But who knows, on the second day of this nobleman's imprisonment, I don't know where new rumors came out!

This rumor has a nose and eyes - it is said that Philip II intends to deprive the Portuguese nobles of real power by various means, gradually return the actual power to Spain, and completely swallow up the Portuguese territory.

As a result, Portugal's up and down suddenly exploded! I was already suspicious of Philip II, but I didn't expect him to really plan to do it!

It seems that the fight against Britain is fake, and the purpose of annexing Portugal is the most real! A massive revolt broke out, demanding that Philip II immediately release the imprisoned nobles, or they would collectively take any unpredictable action until there was an outcome.

Philip II is said to have smashed things in a fit of rage when he heard the news, smashed the huge palace to pieces, and killed two of his attendants who disobeyed him in the details, so that everyone knew that the emperor was not in a good mood and hid far away.

After thinking about it, Philip II felt that he couldn't just bow his head like that, and that he had to teach these guys a lesson, maybe they would be honest. So he ordered that instead of releasing the nobles who had been caught, he also issued a hunt warrant for the two nobles who took the lead in making trouble! He just wants to make an example of him in this way.

But what made Philip II vomit blood was that the news somehow leaked again! The two nobles packed up all their belongings before his order arrived, and even sold some of their possessions and moved to England with their families with gold, silver, and ships!

Homes that could not be taken away were also burned, and nearly half of Lisbon's residents went to watch the slow destruction of the two century-old houses. In the words of many older generations, the burning of these houses burned people's trust and expectations of the Spanish Empire, and this word was widely circulated in Portugal, so that many people with a heart had other ideas.

Some aristocratic fans who originally had a good impression of Spain turned around, while some nobles who had no feelings turned black, and those nobles who have not been very angry have begun to pack their bags privately!

It is said that the British side has a very good policy of receiving - at this time, taking refuge in the past is considered a wartime meritorious service, and there is the best treatment in all aspects, so why should it be splinted here?

For a time, Portugal, which was regarded as the backyard of Philip II, was panicked, and the slightest stir would cause a large-scale collective action!

The Spanish Supreme was really puzzled, how his thoughts, his angry words, or his sincere words, and his secret orders reached the ears of others.

He even began to wonder if there was something wrong with the people around him, so he used a lot of tricks to tell different people different information, trying to find the intersection or dividing point from the middle.

But what he didn't expect was that no matter who he told the news, it seemed to be like having wings, flying everywhere, and everyone knew it!

Philip II was completely depressed, what was the problem? Now Portugal is in a mess, and many people have even begun to spread this instability to the interior of the Spanish-Portuguese border - I don't know through what channel, but the whole border area is somewhat faintly unstable.

As a last resort, Philip II released the nobles who had been imprisoned, reprimanded them and sent them home. I wanted to calm things down, but unexpectedly, new rumors came into being!

Philip II used a delaying tactic and is currently secretly mobilizing troops, intending to take advantage of the Portuguese nobles to let their guard down!

The result was a normal movement of troops – the mobilization of a fleet from Barcelona to A Coruña – but was interpreted as a preparation for the encirclement of the Portuguese aristocracy centered in Lisbon! As a result, a large number of Portuguese nobles went to sea en masse on that day to confront the Spanish naval fleet on the western side of the Iberian Peninsula!

Philip II suddenly felt a little emaciated, he didn't know what was wrong, but he still had to spend a lot of energy to settle the matter. Proud, he would rather believe that it was a coincidence—many of them linked together—than that someone was behind it.

However, rumors began to circulate in Portugal that Philip II had decided to raise the tax rate drastically, and Philip II did think so, and intended to do so, and the documents were drafted, and he was required to sign a pledge, but now it had to come to an abrupt end.

No more chaos! Philip II said in his heart that if he continued to mess up, he was only afraid of causing trouble, so he had to break his teeth and swallow blood, forcibly abolish all kinds of ideas about Portugal, and put on a lot of money to settle the matter.

According to the news coming back from the border, France suspected that Spain was dissatisfied with its separation and would take action, so it stationed heavy troops on the border between the two sides, nominally conducting exercises!

Damn, don't drill sooner or later, but it's time to drill!

But what can be done? Although the new king of France, Henry IV, had converted to the orthodox sect, it was obvious that he did not belong to the heart, and began to implement a more liberal religious policy in France, which was a very bad sign!

But why this time? Philip II had a million questions in his mind, but he couldn't figure them out.

Of course, these were the result of my private conversations with Henry IV. As France, which aspires to become the largest power on the European continent, it is not a reassuring thing to have a noisy neighbor and strong enemy Spain by its side.

Being able to contain or even drag down Spain will do no harm to the future of France!

So he happily accepted my suggestion - I didn't need his real assistance to help me, as long as I arranged some troops in the south of France and conducted a few exercises, it was enough to give me strong support and help.

During this period of time, under the pervasive infiltration of the intelligence agencies led by me, the rhythm of Spain has been decisively deviated, and their strategic layout has begun to shrink under the influence of several passive aspects, and has been dragged into our rhythm!

At the same time, Britain's warship renovation and new construction plans were proceeding in an orderly manner, and Kennedy was clamping the plan to strengthen the army at full speed in accordance with our established "tall": "small and fast" = 1:3 ratio!

In this way, winter went to spring, and the time quickly passed to 1588, when the breath of spring once again covered the land of England, we deeply felt that the breath of the great war was approaching!

I have contracted all the trade in the near sea, and at such a critical time, I cannot leave my weaknesses to the other side in a grand manner - the temporary interests are not worth mentioning compared to the core interests!

Judging from the news we have heard, Spain has also accelerated the pace of its military strategy after the chaos in the early stage, and the total number of ships hoarded in Spain has now doubled the total number of ships accumulated in Spain a year ago!

The war was on the verge of breaking out, and now it was the darkness before the dawn......