"Gentlemen, this is a secret decree signed jointly by Emperor Joseph and Crown Prince Ferdinand. Pen ~ Fun ~ Pavilion www.biquge.info" Count Rouldorf handed a document to Colonel House beside him.

There is nothing else in this secret order, but it only states that the soldiers of the Austro-Hungarian Empire will be unified under the command of Count Rudorf after arriving in the Philippines, and the specific actions after arriving in the Philippines will be responsible for Rudolf and Gao Hongsheng.

After turning around, the document returned to Count Rudolph's hand, he carefully put the document away, looked at everyone and said: "If there is no objection, now Mr. Gao, talk about the goals of our actions after we arrive in the Philippines, and then we will come up with a specific plan of action." ”

Gao Hongsheng put down the coffee cup in his hand when he heard this, raised his head and looked over one by one, and saw that everyone nodded at him, then stood up and made a little identification on the map, pointed to Luzon Island and said: "Our target is the Philippines, not the southern Philippines, but the entire Philippine Islands." ”

After looking at Count Rudolph for a while, and seeing him smiling and nodding at himself, Gao Hongsheng ignored the stunned eyes of the rest of the people, and directly took out a stack of folders, followed them one by one, and then said: "This is the detailed strength information of the US Asian Fleet and the Spanish Asian Fleet, as well as the commander's information. ”

As Gao Hongsheng finished speaking, everyone opened the folder in their hands and looked down, only the sound of turning the paper was left in the room, this information is very detailed, not to mention the speed of the ship, the caliber of the artillery, how much ammunition is prepared, Gao Hongsheng got the information in later generations, and even how many crew members and how many officers are on each ship are clearly marked, which also makes the information that can be done on one or two pieces of paper become more than a dozen pages.

Gao Hongsheng and Count Rudolph did not disturb others to look through these materials, they had already read them countless times, and they could even recite them, they drank coffee slowly, patiently waiting for everyone to finish reading the information in their hands.

When Rudolph waited until the last lieutenant colonel Earlmerley took his eyes off the information and looked at himself, he saw his inquiring gaze, gave an apologetic smile, and then glanced at the people at the table who were looking at him: "Mr. Gao has already told everyone our goal, and we face three difficulties in achieving this goal, the first is the Americans, the second is the Spaniards, and the third is the Germans or the Japanese. ”

Glancing at the waiting eyes of everyone, Rudolph put the coffee cup in his hand on the mahjong table, and then analyzed in a calm tone: "The Asian fleet of the Americans is a problem, but it is not a big problem, don't be frightened by its superficial strength." Let's start with what the Spanish Asian Fleet will do in the face of an attack by the Americans. ”

"First of all, Spain's Asian Squadron is not comparable with the American Asian Squadron in any respect, so the only countermeasure that Rear Admiral Montoh, the commander of the Spanish fleet, can take is to rely on the batteries in Manila Harbor, use the battleships as floating batteries at sea, and cooperate with the firepower of the harbor batteries to engage the Americans' Asian Squadrons, as long as the naval commander is not a stupid daredevil, he can only adopt this method to get a slight chance of victory."

Saying this, Rudolph stopped, glanced around, and saw that everyone couldn't help nodding in agreement, so he said in a firm tone: "Knowing that the Spaniards will meet the Americans there, it is easy to determine where the American fleet will attack when it attacks, the formation it may take, and the time when they will arrive at Manila Bay to attack Manila Port." ”

This problem is not too difficult to analyze, the defender will take anchorage to resist, then it will put on an arc formation, and the attacker will also take the corresponding array to attack, if you want to survey on the spot, any naval officer can even mark the route of the warships on both sides.

As for the time of arrival of the Americans, it is better to deduce that after the declaration of war between the two sides, the sailing time from Mirs Bay, the temporary anchorage of the US Asian detachment, to the port of Manila was slightly extended, which was basically the time for the Americans to arrive, and it would not exceed three to four days up and down.

"Now we have the route of the attack of the Americans, with the approximate time of their arrival, this upcoming naval battle is transparent in our eyes, and we can do a lot of things to thwart the attack of the Americans, and even if we are lucky enough, we can send them all into the sea."

Seeing everyone's puzzled glances, Rudolph smiled and said, "Of course, all this is based on our participation in the war. ”

Seeing him say this, everyone also cast a smile of approval, indeed, if the old warships of the Spaniards plus the two warships of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the strength of the Asian detachment of the Americans are compared, it can basically be said that half a catty is worth eight taels, although the battleship is a little lacking, but because of the support of the port battery, at least it will not lose, of course, the naval battle is still full of uncertain factors, but in general, the prospects are still good, and the probability of victory is very high.

Smiling, Rudolph continued in a mocking tone: "As for the Spaniards, don't talk about it, their warships are too old, they should have been given to the children of the naval academy as toys a long time ago, but they actually relied on such old warships to meet the Americans' new Asian fleet. ”

The ships of the Spaniards are indeed too old, all of them are old ships before 1890, except for the flagship "Rena, Christina", which is a first-class unprotected iron-hulled cruiser and two 1,000-ton and second-class protected cruisers, the remaining four cruisers turned out to be wooden-hulled cruisers, this kind of old wooden-hulled cruisers have long disappeared in the naval sequence of the great powers, and it is no wonder that Rudolph will laugh at the aging Spanish Asian fleet.

Rudolph also smiled, then put away his smile and said word by word: "If things were going to be that simple, there would be no need for us to discuss here." Gentlemen, our warships will not participate in the war between the American Asian Detachment and the Spanish Asian Detachment, because we have much more important tasks. Prevent the Germans or the Japanese from interfering in Philippine affairs. ”

When everyone heard Rudolph say this, they couldn't help frowning, this task is not simple, the main thing is that the strength of the Spanish Asian Detachment is too weak, so weak that they fight the American Asian Detachment alone, and there is no chance of even a little chance of victory, even if they rely on the support of coastal batteries, it is impossible to win this naval battle.

The only way to do this was to completely block the Americans' passage into Manila Bay, but the result would be that the Spanish Asian detachment would become a turtle in an urn, and they would also be trapped in Manila Harbor by torpedoes.

The Americans only need to send one or two cruisers to calmly attack other ports in the Philippines and land there, then the Americans will win the war, and of course there will be nothing to do with Gao Hongsheng.

Rudolph looked at everyone's frowns, and then said in a soothing tone: "After the Spanish detachment finishes facing the US Asian detachment, even if it will not all die in the sea, there will be no strength left, so Spain's naval power in the Philippines needs us to maintain."

According to Mr. Gao's information, we are not the only countries that are interested in the Philippines, among which the Germans and Japanese are the most worthy of our attention.

The Japanese have been secretly financing the rebels in the Philippines with weapons, ammunition and funds.

After the Germans acquired a colony in the Far East in the Qing Dynasty, their eyes were not limited to that place, for the Philippines, I believe that the Germans would definitely intervene, as for the extent to which they will participate in the end, then it depends on how strong we are.

Our goal was to ensure the security of the Philippine colonies, both by sea and land, until the end of the war between the United States and Spain. ”

Austria-Hungary did not have the strength to directly intervene in the Spanish-American War, but it was still possible to maintain Spanish rule in the Philippines, and it was not too difficult to drive Spanish power out of the Philippine Islands after the war.

Without the support of Austria-Hungary, Gao Hongsheng was confident that he would snatch the Philippine Islands from Spain, not to mention that he might only need to pay some money to Spain at that time, and it was likely that he could easily lease the entire Philippine Islands from the hands of the Spaniards.

This is the main reason why Gao Hongsheng came over in person, otherwise he would not need to come over in person, after all, the South Philippine Islands and Sabah are now nominally his colonies, and it may be difficult to occupy the entire region by force, and it will take a long time, but it is still very easy to occupy one or two islands to establish an arms sales point.