The original plan of the Derby cabinet was that the war against North Manchuria would be a medium-sized war in North Manchuria, and the British Empire planned to invest an expeditionary force of more than 10,000 men in addition to the Far East Fleet. But as soon as the battle began, everything was different, and the battle not only reached the British sphere of influence, but also the total number of troops invested exceeded 100,000.

The Derby cabinet now regrets that it had supported the southward expansion of North Manchuria, and that if North Manchuria had not had a base in Borneo, it would never have been possible to go on an expedition of 10,000 miles to reach the British sphere of influence. It's a pity that it's too late to regret it now, North Manchuria has already controlled the whole of Borneo and marched into the Malay Peninsula, although the land battle is still in the Johor Bahru line, but the South Sea Fleet of North Manchuria has been directed at India. The East India Fleet was basically losing its combat effectiveness, the West India Fleet was cowering, and India, the fundamental stronghold of the British Empire, was in danger of being isolated.

The Far Eastern Fleet, which attacked Manchuria, even threw people at Grandma's house, hiding in Japan and not daring to come out. Although Japan seems to be biased towards Britain and protects the Far East Fleet, if North Manchuria really takes a tough attitude towards Japan, it is simply unknown whether the Japanese can withstand it. Besides, the mission of the Far Eastern Fleet is to attack Manchuria proper, and now it has run to the Japanese mainland. It is also a large expense for an entire fleet plus the marines accompanying the ships to live in Japan, and the Japanese have done quite well in terms of sitting on the ground and raising prices. If the war really drags on for a few years, the British army will starve to death in Japan, and of course there may be a food war between Japan and the samurai now.

After a simple analysis, London simply judged that the Far Eastern Fleet was basically like that, and they couldn't count on it at all, and it would be good if they could take care of themselves. Lieutenant General Cole, who is besieging a 7,000-strong enemy with an army of 80,000 on the Malay Peninsula, is probably playing a mess, and what the Malay Peninsula should consider now is not how to recover Singapore, but how the Manchurian Army should arrange the defense of the Malay Peninsula if they counterattack. At present, the key to determining the outcome of the war is naval warfare, as long as the British army can annihilate the North Manchurian Nanyang Fleet, the British Empire will once again seize the initiative in the war. It was an irrational decision to let the West Indies Fleet join the remnants of the East Indies Fleet and fight the South Sea Fleet again, as Cole did in the Malay Peninsula, and the refueling tactics would not have any effect, but would give the enemy the opportunity to annihilate the British fleet in batches.

The British Empire nominally has ten major fleets, scattered in major regions of the world, but most of the elite main forces are concentrated in the Atlantic Fleet and the Mediterranean Fleet, and the other fleets are much smaller. The bottom five East India Fleet, West India Fleet, Pacific Fleet, North American Fleet, and Far East Fleet are similar in strength to the original Bolton Fleet brought back from England to the Gift Fleet, and far inferior to the luxurious Aspen Fleet. The Far East Fleet was split from the East India Fleet and took away most of the belongings of the East India Fleet, which in turn was replenished by the West India Fleet, and the West India Fleet borrowed ships from the Pacific Fleet, in short, the level was very average. In the face of the South Sea Fleet with eleven ironclad battleships, these little brothers of the last five are definitely not good, and the Derby cabinet is ready to mobilize the Mediterranean fleet and go to the East to test the waters.

It was on the basis of this viewpoint that Prime Minister Derby made a report in the Diet on the increase of troops in Southeast Asia and the all-out war on North Manchuria. In Derby's imagination, the Far East Fleet was defeated, the Malay Peninsula was lost, and the Parliament should have been in a state of great excitement, but in reality few people responded to him. After the Battle of the United States, the British government adopted an attitude of weakening North Manchuria, which everyone knew and supported, but this time the military movement against North Manchuria was too sudden, and many parliamentarians were not fully prepared. The British opium traders' incident, which was the cause of the war, did not resonate in Britain as much as it had twenty years earlier. With the development of industry, the glory of the opium trade is long gone, and everyone is a serious businessman, and of course they will not sympathize with drug dealers. There was a long anti-smoking agreement between North Manchuria and the United Kingdom, and these bastards who visited drug traffickers themselves hit the muzzle of the gun, why should the whole country perfidiously fight for them. Moreover, the Opium War was to open up the Chinese market, and the merchants were profitable, and now the business in Manchuria was doing well, and the sudden start of the war would affect the business very much. Pashali, who had been in China for too long, picked the wrong excuse for the war, which made many parliamentarians feel that the war against Manchuria was an inexplicable farce at all.

"Mr. Prime Minister, the Far East Fleet and the Expeditionary Force are currently besieged in Japan's small seaports, surviving on the relief and shelter of a weak island nation in the East. We really can't understand how the plan you said to attack Manchuria and occupy Changchun City can be realized under such a terrible situation! "Liberal magnate William Yurt Gladstone and others have long been unhappy with the Conservative derby, and this time the Derby cabinet poked such a big basket, of course they have to beat the water dogs.

"I promise that this plan will be realized, but the occupation of Changchun is only the last link in this plan. Before that, what we need to do is to send the Mediterranean Fleet into the Indian Ocean, merge the East Indies Fleet, the West India Fleet and the Pacific Fleet, and annihilate the North Manchurian South Ocean Fleet through a decisive battle with the main fleet, retake the Malay Peninsula, and occupy Borneo. Having crushed the entire power of Northern Manchu in the seas of Southeast Asia, the fleet will march to the Far East, settle the besieged Far Eastern Fleet, and further advance into Manchuria proper, making the proud general pay for his stupidity! "Derby should have died William, and if there was no such bastard in Congress, Derby would have had a lot better.

"Mr. Prime Minister, on what basis do you firmly believe that you will be able to annihilate the North Manchurian South Ocean Fleet? As an additional reminder, there is also a powerful North Sea Fleet in North Manchuria, and it is they who trapped the Far Eastern Fleet in Japan! "Many of William's friends had trade dealings with North Manchuria, so William always thought that the war against Manchuria was a very stupid thing to do.

"The battleships of North Manchurian were all concentrated in the South Sea Fleet, and if the South Sea Fleet was annihilated, the North Sea Fleet had nothing to worry about. As for the question of whether our combined fleet, with the Mediterranean Fleet as the main force, can annihilate the South Sea Fleet, do you still need me to answer it? We have an absolute superiority in the number and tonnage of capital ships, and isn't it a matter of course to annihilate them? 'Derby is full of confidence.

"Mr. Prime Minister, I don't think you have noticed some of the details of the battle reports sent back by the East India Fleet. The South Sea Fleet currently has a total of 11 capital ships, of which nine were procured from China, and North Manchuria captured three more in the battle with the US federal government. I don't know if you have found a problem, after several adjustments in Northern Manchuria, their capital ship is inexplicably missing one, from twelve to eleven. I have been investigating this question for a long time, but I have found the answer in this report from the East India Fleet. The Manchurians, lacking high-quality materials for building ships, may have demolished one of the capital ships of smaller tonnage and made extensive rebuilds of the other eleven warships. After the Manchurian reconstruction, its 11 capital ships have undergone great changes, the armor and weapon systems have been comprehensively upgraded, and the tonnage has also been greatly increased. Originally, the tonnage of these warships was supposed to be about 6,500 to 8,000 tons, but according to the battle reports from the East India Fleet, the tonnage of Manchurian warships rose to between 7,500 and 10,000 tons. William also advocated the suppression of North Manchuria, and he put more effort into the military side of North Manchukuo than the Derby cabinet.

"Dear William, what does this mean! Our fleet still has the advantage! Derby was a little confused by William's tirade.

"Mr. Prime Minister, the Manchurians' reconstruction of the capital ships is mainly to allow their capital ships to adapt to armor, according to the battle reports of the East India Fleet, the armor on the Manchurian capital ships definitely exceeds three hundred millimeters of uniform steel, does our British fleet have the artillery to penetrate such a thickness of armor? If we can't penetrate such a thick layer of armor, how can we annihilate the Nanyang Fleet? "In William's eyes, Derby was an idiot, and that idiot would kill the British Empire.

"William, the situation of war is always changing, there is always a way to restrain the enemy on the battlefield, the era of ironclad ships has long come, but no one has given up on war." Derby was running out of words, but he couldn't admit it in Congress.

"Yes, there are ways to find a way on the battlefield, for example, the Manchurians sank the Welshman in Dalian Bay with primitive ramming tactics, but don't you think this is a small probability? Moreover, the artillery system of the capital ships of the South Sea Fleet was far ahead of us, and the ironclad ships of our fleet could not even resist the fire of their secondary guns. We can't penetrate the warships of North Manchuria, but North Manchury can penetrate our warships, so do we still have an absolute advantage? What is the difference between sending children to the battlefield under such conditions and directly letting them commit suicide! William did a good job of stirring up the emotions of other MPs, and even some Conservative MPs felt that the Derby plan was a bit outrageous.

"We can transform warships and upgrade our artillery!" Derby gave one of the most scolding replies.

"Mr. Prime Minister, do we have the relevant artillery technology? If we had, there would have been no need for large-scale espionage against North Manchuria, and it has to be said that our espionage has consumed a lot of money and has not yielded any results so far! As for reworking the armor of a warship, it is indeed a good option, but how long will it take, and do we still have time? "Willian sees the derby like a pig.

"The shipyards in England are running at full capacity, and there is still hope for ......" Derby didn't know how long it would take, so he said as he calculated.

"Give it up! My Mr. Prime Minister! The Manchurians were brave and well-armed, and they could draw troops south from their homeland at any time. Based on Vice Admiral Cole's performance in the Malay Peninsula, when we complete the upgrade of the main ships of the Mediterranean Fleet and rush to Asia, the main battlefield will inevitably be in India! And if the North Sea Fleet in North Manchuria also goes south to reinforce it, we will have to send the Atlantic Fleet to Asia as well, and what will Europe do then? For the sake of this absurd war, should the British Empire give up all its interests in Europe? To this day, I have never understood why we are fighting such a senseless war with friendly countries that have always been close to us. "William finished his performance, and he not only rejected the idea of a Derby increase, but also the war as a whole.

"For the dignity of the British Empire!" But the derby is still holding on.

"The rapid development of North Manchuria is indeed worrying, but they did not infringe on the interests of the British Empire, and yes, even in the ports of North Manchuria, we still have the same privileges as the Qing Dynasty. North Manchuria, on major issues such as its southward expansion into Southeast Asia, also consulted the British Empire for the first time. Although it is necessary to suppress North Manchuria, is it necessary for us to take such a drastic approach? What's more, this way is the most detrimental to us. Northern Manchuria has a great advantage in weapons, and we must be in a passive state in the early stage of the war, even if we can use the advantage of national strength to consume the advantage of North Manchukuo in weapons and achieve the final victory, how long will it take? Was it necessary for the British Empire to cross half the world to fight a war that could last twenty years in order to suppress a friend that was growing too quickly? What do we gain and what do I lose? Even if we win the final victory, I am afraid that when North Manchuria lies in the cemetery, the British Empire will also lie on a hospital bed*! 'Willian delivered the final blow to the derby perfectly.

Listening to William's words, many councillors counted below. If you want to defeat North Manchuria, the British Empire may need more than ten years, and the investment of troops will also exceed one million, among which the loss of weapons, the death and wounded of personnel are almost incalculable, and the huge military expenditure will definitely make the British Empire highly indebted. Moreover, except for the British mainland and the African colonies, which will not be affected by the war, all the British colonies, including Canada and Australia, will be involved in the war, and two-thirds of the empire on which the sun never sets will be reduced to ruins.

In addition to feeling that the war should be stopped, the parliamentarians also secretly hated the Derby mistake and should not provoke North Manchuria, which had good relations with them. William used the accusation of Derby to deflect the fire for the Liberals, because everyone was cursing Derby and forgetting who had fostered North Manchurian in the first place. The rise of Northern Manchuria, the British also made great contributions, although Guo Xinga got money and also entered the American Civil War, but without the technical and financial support of the British, it was difficult for him to achieve a miraculous speed of development. Britain has only been getting worse and worse for North Manchuria, and it turns out that it has never blushed. The British Prime Minister who was in power during the honeymoon period was Viscount Palmston and Earl John Russell, who were born in the Liberal Party. North Manchuria, which is now bracing its teeth and claws in front of the British Empire, is the Oriental dragon cultivated by the Liberal Party's counterbalancing strategy.

"What the British Empire needed was balance, and it was the imbalance in the Far East that allowed North Manchuria to break free. We should immediately make peace with North Manchuria, and then restore the balance of power in the Far East as soon as possible. "The derby has stepped aside, and Willian is back in the pitch with his checks and balances.