London, Europe. Downing Street inside the residence of the Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Great Britain.

Prime Minister John Russell, Foreign Secretary Earl Derby, Secretary of State for the Navy Sidney Herbert, and Secretary of War Panmel Ramsay all looked gloomy, standing in the conference room on the second floor of the official residence, and even Russell, who had never smoked a cigar, followed Derby and the three of them, lit a cigar and smoked hard.

In front of them, there was a fuchsia emergency telegram, and the fuchsia on the outside represented the highest level, a top-secret telegraph. At this moment, the Big Four must have read the contents of the telegram, and they smoked their cigars vigorously, and the smoke filled the entire conference room, which could represent the anxiety and uneasiness in their hearts at the moment.

Russell's mood is extremely complicated at the moment!

Who would have thought that that the Eastern country, which has always been backward and ignorant, would grow to such a point in just a few years! Moreover, he was so bold that he was just imposing some sanctions on that eastern country as the British Empire had always done. Because of this, the evil eastern country dared to declare war directly on the Kingdom of Great Britain. Moreover, not only did the other side brazenly send troops, directly sending a huge expeditionary fleet and land force to capture the island of Ceylon, which the British Empire had occupied for 60 years, not only that, but also captured many important areas of the Indian territory that the British Empire had owned for more than 100 years, and even the capital of India, Calcutta, was occupied by it. With 80,000 British soldiers stationed in Calcutta, plus the British troops in Madras and Ceylon, more than 100,000 British troops were lost at the hands of that evil country in the east.

This, it was hard to believe, like a fantasy, but now, word by word on that telegram, I was telling myself unmistakably that it was all true. My God!

Rose's heart was dripping with blood and screaming. He was helpless!

Russell, who has never smoked, was stimulated by the choking fierceness of the cigar and coughed again and again, and his tears flowed out, I don't know whether it was smoked or other reasons, he finally stopped coughing, threw the cigar in his hand on the ground, stomped on it, and then rubbed his eyes, and said with an effort to calm down but still unable to calm down: "Gentlemen, everyone has read this urgent telegram from Istanbul!" The Kingdom of Great Britain has reached the edge of a cliff. How to deal with it? ”

The Secretary of State for the Navy, Sidney Herbert, and the Secretary of State for the Army, Panmmel Ramsay, both looked at the Earl of Derby, the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, but neither spoke. Obviously, the news came so suddenly, and so big and alarming, that they were completely unprepared to face it, and had to follow the most senior Sir Derby, so they were silent.

Russell looked at the derby.

But Sir Derby, who was smoking a cigar, glanced at Russell and slowly exhaled a smoke ring, behind the smoke his gaze was a little sympathetic and a little gloating. However, Derby took another hard puff on his cigar and said, "Cope? What else can be done to deal with this situation? You can only fight! The Kingdom of Great Britain directly declared all-out war on that damned Chinese Empire! And the first step is to unite the whole of Europe to send troops, recover India, completely eradicate all the naval forces of the Chinese Empire, capture all the port cities, and force it to surrender! But this process can take a long time and can also be difficult to achieve. ”

Russell's face was ugly, and the corners of his mouth flashed with a hint of bitterness: "Who would have thought that bastard Feng Yunshan would be so savage and bold that he would dare to declare war on my Great Britain Kingdom, and what is even more unbelievable is that he would dare to brazenly launch an invasion of the Indian territory of my Great Britain Kingdom, how ...... Too...... Of course, it was my Russell fault. I should have prevented the actions of this stupid lion in the East, and even sent troops in advance. ”

Deby sneered: "Your fault is not that you did not take precautions in advance against this evil lion of the East, nor did you rush to send troops, everyone knows the strength of the Kingdom of Great Britain, and there is no extra force to send before the Irish problem is resolved." Your mistake is to stupidly challenge the bottom line of the oriental lion, foolishly give the best excuse to the evil lion that is constantly expanding and growing, and the best excuse to send troops to India to occupy the Indian Ocean! Okay, I'm not going to blame you anymore. At this point, the most important thing is how to solve the crisis facing the Kingdom of Great Britain. As for you, Mr. Russell, I think that after letting the Queen and Parliament know about this, your position as Prime Minister is likely to be ...... My suggestion is that it is better for you to take the initiative to resign, and it will be better to face it. ”

Russell's eyes flashed with sadness, Derby's words were harsh, but they were also true. No matter how good Queen Victoria's relationship with herself is, she is not as important as her honorary status and the Kingdom of Great Britain, and half of the parliament is dissatisfied with herself, and now that such a thing has given them the best excuse for impeachment. It seems that it is better for him to resign voluntarily, so as not to be impeached, and then he will be laughed at by the whole Kingdom of Great Britain and even the whole of Europe.

But even if he were to resign as prime minister and take responsibility for India's loss, he would have to do his best to organize an all-out attack on that evil country in the east before that. Maybe, so there will be a turnaround.

Thinking of this, Russell's eyes lit up with a glimmer of hope again. He said self-deprecatingly: "Sir Derby, resign or not, you don't have to worry about this." I agree with you and declare an all-out war on the Chinese Empire. At the same time, it is best to send troops as soon as possible, and it is best to convince other countries in Europe, but if you can't convince, even if there is only one country in the Kingdom of Great Britain, you must immediately send troops on an expedition. India must be recovered as soon as possible and sea rights in the Indian Ocean, which belonged to Great Britain. ”

Russell's remarkable words made Derby and the others look at him highly. Russell's sentence is equivalent to setting the overall tone, that is, to start an all-out war against the Chinese Empire and immediately send troops.

Russell ignored what everyone thought, he looked at the Admiralty Sidney Herbert and the War Chancellor Panmel Ramsay, and asked, "Herbert and Ramsay, what are the two of you doing, how are the navy and land forces of the Kingdom of Great Britain now?" ”

Admiral Herbert glanced at Derby and replied, "Mr. Prime Minister, from the information revealed in the telegram, we can estimate the situation of this expeditionary fleet sent by the Chinese Empire, their artillery is very powerful, and the number of warships of all kinds should be at least 70, or even close to 100. As far as I know, the newly formed Indian Ocean Fleet and the former South Ocean Fleet are the two most powerful fleets, and there are three other fleets, the Eastern Fleet, the North Ocean Fleet, and the Pacific Fleet, two of which are weaker, and the other Pacific Fleet is no less powerful than the South Ocean Fleet, but their main warships are already concentrated in the Americas.

Nevertheless, if we start a full-scale war with them, the Chinese Empire, upon learning of the news, will definitely transfer the Pacific Fleet from the Americas back to the Far East and even the Indian Ocean, and concentrate all its naval fleets to fight a decisive battle with us. In this case, even if we have a tactical advantage, it seems that they have the advantage in terms of weapons. Therefore, to defeat them, our Navy must at least dispatch a fleet comparable to them.

After the losses of the last expeditionary Combined Fleet, the navy of Great Britain has not been able to recover. Today there are only the Atlantic Fleet, the Mediterranean Fleet, the Cape Fleet on the mainland, the North American Fleet, and the West India Fleet. The warships and forces of the Cape Fleet and the Mediterranean Fleet have not been replenished, and the original East India Fleet and the Chinese Combined Fleet have already lost most of them, and this time even the last few warships of the East India Fleet have been completely lost. The North American fleet and the West Indies fleet are too far apart, and their own strength is not strong, they only have more than a dozen warships, and most of them are small and medium-sized. In addition to the dozens of warships newly launched on the mainland, all of them are counted, and the whole of Great Britain now has a total of 383,000 tons of naval vessels, including 285 warships, 367 troop carriers and supply ships, and the naval strength can reach 60,000 after recent recruitment. ”

A gloomy color flashed on Russell's face, and he asked directly: "In addition to the local defense, how much can you send troops on an expedition?" ”

Herbert said: "Europe is not stable today. Tsarist Russia and France were still ambitious, and they had to have enough troops to defend their homeland. I estimate that we should be able to send up to 150 warships, about 35,000 naval forces. ”

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