In 1885, the Daming Navy and Army had entered the final stage of preparation, the Navy received all the warships, and the Army recruited enough soldiers. Pen & Fun & Pavilion www.biquge.info

The international situation did not seem to have been affected by the Ming Dynasty's military expansion, and the Berlin Conference of November 1884 was held, which had nothing to do with the situation in East Asia but was a thematic meeting on African affairs, at which attempts by the American delegates to put the issue of prohibition on the agenda were also rejected.

This conference under the banner of expanding trade in Africa, singing a high note of bringing civilization to Africans, can not cover up the essence of the partition of Africa, which caused a huge impact in the world, Japan and the Ming Dynasty in the East have reprinted relevant reports, with a headline to report that the great powers carved up Africa, not all Ming newspaper editors have such a strategic vision, the key is that Europe's own newspapers are reported like this, their right to speak can easily affect the concept of other countries and nations.

After the popularization of education and the enlightenment of newspapers and related teaching materials, the intellectual class of the Ming Dynasty was not as conservative as in the past, they knew Africa and the world, and it was a pity that the natural nature of the agrarian people who were not interested in the outside world made him less sensitive to the events of the great powers carving up Africa. However, the Japanese were very vigilant and regarded this as a crisis for Japan, and since the great powers had already carved up Africa, if Asia did not have the strength to protect itself, the great powers would sooner or later have to carve up Asia.

However, the combination of the Japanese sense of crisis and the traditional emphasis on culture has led to the idea that Japan should occupy other lands in Asia and preserve the living space of Asians before the great powers carve up Asia. Almost shortly after the end of the Conference on the Partition of Africa, Yukichi Fukuzawa, the godfather of Japanese thought, issued a theory on the separation from Asia, calling on Japan to actively expand outward, and Japan should not only be civilized and enlightened itself, but also lead the civilization and civilization of Korea.

The interest of the Ming intellectuals in foreign expansion has always been inferior to that of the Japanese, because they have not yet seen the benefits from the country's outward expansion, and at the same time, a huge goal has always attracted everyone's attention, that is, the Manchu Qing Dynasty, the traditional idea of unifying the Chinese world has twisted both the old and the new school into a rope, and the call of the Northern Expedition has always been the biggest call for the Ming Dynasty's external expansion, and the direction of expansion is placed in the north, which has always been the mainstream of public opinion for so many years. Even when France was getting closer and closer to Vietnam, some people thought that the Ming should not be in charge of Vietnamese affairs, but seized the opportunity to obtain the support of France, expedition to the Central Plains, and dominate the world.

However, the "backward" power system of the Ming Dynasty has put power in the hands of a few elites, and although the newspapers with free public opinion have never cut off criticism of the government, the government has enough power to do its own thing, but slowly began to get used to doing things in the scolding and no longer care about the voice of public opinion. Japan, on the other hand, imposed strict press control measures and was not a free press country until its defeat in World War II.

The conference on the division of Africa in Europe, which ended in February and March, did not have any impact on the Ming Dynasty's arms build-up, and the war readiness situation is still proceeding in an orderly manner. At the same time, the Navy has also developed a number of related battle plans.

Among the naval officers of the Ming Dynasty, because hundreds of them were officers who had entered the British military academy when he went to the Paris Exposition with Zhu Jinglun in 1867, the British naval idea was very popular, that is, advocating the offensive naval line. Their battle plan was mainly offensive, and they planned to mobilize the main forces to the south as soon as the war broke out, destroy the naval forces of the French colonies before the main forces of the French navy were transferred to the east, and cooperate with the army to land directly in Saigon, so as to wipe out the French colonial forces in one fell swoop.

After France transferred the main naval force to the east, it gathered capital ships to fight a decisive battle with the French army in the South China Sea. It is necessary to completely annihilate the navy and gain sea supremacy. If the decisive battle with the French army failed, he retreated to the area around the mouth of the Pearl River and made every effort to ensure the safety of the Beijing division. The detachment was stationed in the Penghu Hall to inspect the Penghu area of Taiwan and Pengjinxia to prevent the French Navy from heading north to Shanghai.

The navy believed that the French army was very likely to go north to Shanghai and retake the French Concession in Shanghai, which had been taken by the Ming Dynasty.

After reading this plan, Zhu Jinglun suggested that it should be revised, and he believed that the coastal defense of Fujian (including Taiwan) should be concentrated on land, with fortress batteries as the mainstay, supplemented by the navy. It is equivalent to opening up the Taiwan Strait to the French army, so that the French army can calmly go north.

First, the possibility of France letting the Ming Dynasty not fight and going north is very low, unless it can fully grasp the sea dominance, otherwise it is possible that the Ming Dynasty will be cut off from the back road. Second, Zhu Jinglun was not worried about France fighting for the Shanghai concession, once the French forces entered Shanghai again, the British would only support the Ming Dynasty more.

After the expansion of the army, emergency training began, but it was impossible to produce weapons and equipment immediately for a while.

Daming's arms are basically self-sufficient, but that is under normal circumstances, and this kind of emergency expansion of the army is not something that Daming's military industry can digest.

Daming produced army weapons, mainly the arsenal and the Mauser arsenal. The Mauser Type 70 rifle is a Ming Army rifle, which is actually the Mauser Type 1871 single-shot rifle equipped by the German army in history. However, before the arsenal was the largest manufacturer, after copying the Mauser rifle, it was named the "five-year ordnance" type rifle, which means that the Ming Dynasty was finalized and produced in 1870.

Because of the imitation of the arsenal, the Mauser company had a lawsuit with the arsenal back then, but the arsenal was supported by the army at that time, because the Mauser company was initially established, it could not meet the needs of the army at all, and after seeing that Mauser could only deliver a few thousand rifles to the army a year, the army took the initiative to take samples to find the arsenal to copy.

The arsenal had deep roots and soon became a major supplier of rifles, and the Mauser company suffered considerable losses. It was not until later because of the Schneider incident that the Ming Dynasty promulgated the patent law, and the Mauser Company was compensated, and the arsenal paid the Mauser Company one or two silver royalties for each rifle produced in the future, and reached a settlement with Mao Se. Just by collecting royalties, the Mauser company was compensated by hundreds of thousands of taels. With this money, the Mauser brothers continued to expand the factory, which already has an annual production capacity of 100,000 rifles, and the arsenal can produce 300,000 rifles per year.

However, such production capacity is still unable to meet the needs of a million-strong army, and once the war starts, more weapons and equipment will be lost, and the army hopes to ensure a sufficient supply of weapons.

Therefore, under the coordination of the Ministry of Industry, other machinery industry enterprises in Daming also began to seize the time to purchase equipment, debug the process, and join the tide of munitions production.

These companies made a lot of profits in a short period of time, but after the war they dragged them into the abyss of bankruptcy, that's another story.

The current situation is that the army has been guaranteed the supply of munitions, constantly equips new recruits, and stepped up training to form combat effectiveness.

The army also had its own military plan, which was inconsistent with the navy's plan, which hoped to attack Saigon, the center of the French colony, as soon as possible, and the army, which wanted to capture North Vietnam as soon as possible, relying on the railroad. At the beginning of the war, the Ming Dynasty had sufficient troops to fight on two fronts, and it was able to achieve superiority in troops on both fronts.

Within the first month of the war, the army planned to completely capture North Vietnam and, with the cooperation of the navy, the whole of Nam Gi. After that, if the navy was able to gain naval supremacy, it would continue to fight on two fronts, one side from the north of Vietnam and the south to recover the Vietnamese capital Hue, and the other side from Saigon on the Mekong River to attack French-controlled Cambodia.

If it goes well, the whole of Vietnam can be completely recovered within a year, after which the main battle plan of the army should be transferred to defense, waiting for the result of the decisive battle between the navy and the French, if the navy wins, the war will be over, if the navy fails, the army will become the only force to prevent the French from making a comeback, and the future war will develop into a land war, and there will be nothing to do with the navy.

After completing the basic reorganization of the army, the navy and army began to conduct targeted training with their own operational plans as the core.

In July, the Vietnamese political scene suddenly changed again, and the small Vietnamese court fell out with the colonial master, France.

Last year, the Vietnamese killed another emperor, the Thien Phuc Emperor Nguyen Phuc Ho, who succeeded to the throne after Emperor Concord, who was killed by Nguyen Van Xiang and other powerful ministers and palace concubines.

The reason why this Ruan Fuhao was poisoned was because of the power struggle, because he was dissatisfied with Ruan Wenxiang's control of the government, so he planned to take advantage of the adultery between Ruan Wenxiang and the harem concubine to execute Ruan Wenxiang, but on the eve of his plan to do it, the concubine poisoned the medicine he gave him, and he died that night.

Ruan Fuhao was only fifteen years old when he succeeded to the throne, he was in power for half a year, he died at the age of sixteen, and he dared to do it to the ministers at the age of fifteen, which was quite a bit of Kangxi's prestige, but unfortunately there was no means of Kangxi, and his ministers were more undisciplined than Aobai. Without Kangxi's conditions, but to do Kangxi's things, he died of foolishness, and living under Cixi's obscenity like Guangxu was his only choice.

After the death of Nguyen Phuc Ho, his younger brother Nguyen Phuc Minh succeeded to the throne, with the year name Ham Gi, and he was the Emperor of Ha Gi. This Emperor Xianyi is much more than his brother Xianyi, after ascending the throne, only the orders of the ministers obeyed, he was the emperor for half a year, and he was not killed, and he also gave the ministers the opportunity to stabilize the government.

After the government stabilized, in the face of the French forces that were pressing forward step by step and taking away the power of the Vietnamese court step by step, the ministers finally began to fight back.

At this time, another powerful minister appeared on the stage, and he cooperated with Nguyen Van Huang, Nguyen Van Huong controlled internal affairs, he controlled the military, and divided the power of Vietnam with one article and one force.

From the night of July 4 to the dawn of July 5, 1885, the royal chamber said that he would raise troops in Hue and attack the French "Imperial Palace" and the French army station. After several hours of fighting, the anti-French army was defeated, and the royal chamber said to escort the Ham Gi Emperor Nguyen Phuc Minh to flee the palace to Quang Tri province.

This is the famous anti-French princely movement in the history of Vietnam. Historically, this movement had no impact on the Manchu Qing Dynasty, which had been formally at war with France, but for the Ming Dynasty, which had been holding its ground, it was the opportunity to intervene in Vietnamese affairs that had been waiting for it.