The Chinese Empire's welcoming team was led by Zhou Fu, the secretary of the Ministry of Rites, and Mingyue, the deputy chief of the Imperial Guard, and the Imperial Navy sent four Hsiungfeng-class battleships to escort them all the way to Hawaii.

Before leaving, the Imperial General Staff had already predicted that this trip would not be easy, and I was afraid that something would happen. Since there was no telegraph and communication equipment directly to the Chinese Empire, the Military Command Department gave the Navy the right to make a decision, and the Navy Logistics Department filled up the ammunition depots, fuel depots, and various combat readiness auxiliary equipment of the four ships to achieve full loads.

Half a month later, the Chinese Imperial Greeting Fleet arrived in Hawaii. At the same time, the British fleet had arrived in Honolulu three days ahead of schedule, and negotiations with the Hawai Nut King had broken down, leaving the two sides at hostility.

The British fleet then blockaded Pearl Harbor, and about 3,000 British marines landed.

The British in the Hawaiian Legislature proposed abolishing the macadamia nut king and replacing it with the Hawaiian Republican fruit, with support from the Americans and French legislators. Then the macadamia nut king was furious, gathered more than 10,000 people to storm the Honolulu parliament, killing a large number of parliamentary members from Britain, France, the United States and other countries.

British Marines rushed into battle with King Macadamia's army.

Although the Hawai Fruit King's army had recently been equipped with advanced Chinese rifles and other weapons, and numbered 7,000 more than the British Marines, the actual combat effectiveness was very weak, and it was quickly defeated by the British Marines.

King Kamehago escaped from the palace with his daughter, and under the protection of agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., left Oahu in a small boat to take refuge in a Chinese family surnamed Chen on Lanai.

By the time the Imperial Chinese fleet arrived in Honolulu, the entire island of Oahu had been occupied by British troops.

The British fleet and marines cut off Hawaii's telegraph line to the United States, blocked information, and did not openly declare the British military occupation of Hawaii until the arrival of the Imperial Chinese fleet.

The Chinese Empire would never allow Hawaii to fall into British hands, so the Imperial Court immediately protested to the British Legation in China. At the same time, Li Weiguo urgently summoned the British ambassador to China and issued a solemn warning in person, demanding that the British fleet leave Hawaii immediately and restore the Hawaiian royal fruit.

In the face of the hard-line attitude of the Chinese Empire, the British government simply ignored it and only used various excuses and justifications to glorify their aggressive acts.

The Chinese Imperial Greeting Fleet soon made contact with the local S.H.I.E.L.D. bureau. Brought the macadamia nut king and princess to the battleship Heroic Wind.

At the same time, the British fleet also received information and stopped the Chinese Empire's welcoming fleet, demanding that the Chinese Empire hand over the macadamia nut king and princess.

Obviously, this is not possible.

As a result, the two fleets engaged in a military standoff off the waters off Hawaii.

China and Britain have launched a diplomatic war of words, but everyone knows that diplomacy has no effect at this time, both sides are speeding up military preparations, and only war can solve the problem.

This time. The British Empire did not mobilize 100,200,000 troops to fight the Chinese Empire in the Far East as before, and suffered three disastrous defeats in the four Yapian Wars, which proved that the British Empire did not have the military capability to expedition against the Chinese Empire.

The British Army continued to increase its presence in Hawaii from Canada and Australia. Since Canada and Australia were very close to Hawaii, British troop carriers arrived in Hawaii very quickly.

In just one month, Britain has deployed 50,000 troops in Hawaii. The British Navy also set out from the British mainland and joined the British fleets in the Atlantic and Indian Oceans on the way. Form a huge fleet and sail to the Pacific Ocean.

The British Imperial Ministry of Defense believed that the Chinese Empire would send troops to Hawaii, so it mobilized the main fleet of the British Royal Navy to the Pacific Ocean.

At the same time, the General Staff of the Chinese Empire was also intensively formulating battle plans, and once China and Britain went to war again, the scale could be unprecedented. Because both sides know that this time will be a decisive battle.

"The Royal Navy was almost in full swing, and intelligence showed that there were more than a hundred British warships assembled in Australia, including 28 battleships, 58 cruisers, and 28 frigates. There are 18 lightning strikers and 4 submarines. ”

In the war room, Minister of the Navy Lin Jiyun said with a solemn face.

"What about a lot of them? Our battleships are advanced in performance, not afraid of them! Chen Shaoyi, the naval commander who already had experience in the naval battle of Huangyan Island, said disdainfully.

"Having said that, but the tiger can't stand the wolves, especially the emergence of submarines and lightning ships (fish and radium boats) such new naval weapons, the battlefield situation is ever-changing, even if our warships are advanced, one accidentally bites by the opponent's fish and radium, and only sinks." Wu Yong, the secretary of the Ministry of War, said sharply.

Li Weiguo sat quietly on the throne, and in the face of this situation, he regretted it a little.

At the beginning, Li Weiguo planned to step by step to silk Britain's maritime sphere of influence, first drive the British navy out of China's coast, then gradually control the western Pacific, and then control the entire Pacific Ocean, and then turn his power to the Indian Ocean, the Atlantic, and finally control the world's oceans.

The strategic goal of each step is only to seize partial sea supremacy, so the shipbuilding speed of the Imperial Chinese Navy has always been maintained at a constant pace, that is, every five years to build a 99th fleet, and every five years to carry out a strategic squeeze on the British Navy.

Li Weiguo always believed that as long as he encroached on Britain's maritime sphere of influence step by step, he would be able to dominate the world's seas after the completion of the Five Five-Year Plan.

Li Weiguo has always believed that it is impossible for Britain to send the entire British Royal Navy to the Far East, at least not at this stage, because the British Navy controls the world's waters, and it is impossible to send all the capital ships of the Navy to the Far East to fight the Imperial Chinese Navy. This is also the time during the previous Yapian Wars, the British Navy has always used the Asian fleet to fight the Chinese Imperial Navy, and did not send the home fleet or other oceanic fleets.

This time, however, the British Navy was willing to temporarily abandon its defense in the Indian Ocean and the Atlantic Ocean and transferred 90 percent of its capital ships to Australia, which was clearly a desperate attempt to plunge into the Pacific theater.

The British Navy is preparing for the lion to fight the rabbit with all its might, and if it had known that the British would be so bold, Li Weiguo should have built a number of capital ships instead of the current 9 all-steel battleships and 9 ironclad ships. 9 Dome cruisers and 9 armored cruisers, a total of 36 capital ships, is much less than the British Navy in number.

As Wu Yong said, there will be great variables in this naval battle, because the British Navy already has lightning strikers and submarines, and it is impossible for the Imperial Chinese Navy to fight the British Navy without fighting back like the Battle of Huangyan Island.

The most powerful German Tiger tank in history is reminiscent. It was much more advanced than the Soviet T34, but in the end it was crushed by the numerical superiority of the T34.

In the same way, Li Weiguo had to carefully decide whether to postpone the decisive battle with the main force of the British navy.

"Let Zhou Fu and them come back first, as long as the macadamia nut king and princess are in our hands, we can use this as an excuse to attack Hawaii at any time."

Everyone in the General Staff was suddenly surprised, why did His Majesty the Emperor, who had always been strong, retreat?

Seeing everyone's puzzled eyes, Li Weiguo smiled and said: "We have a big business now, but we can't afford to lose, so it's better to be cautious!" ”

See Li Weiguo so humorous. Everyone also smiled.

Everyone understands that the current Chinese Empire is no longer the time when it was just rising, at that time Li Weiguo was not afraid of losing, because he was not afraid to wear shoes with bare feet, the cost at that time was small, and he could afford to lose, and he could quickly make a comeback. But now it's different, in Li Weiguo's words. The Chinese Empire is now a big business, and it is no longer a barefoot man. If you lose one game, you risk losing years of hard work and losing the entire national fortune.

It's like the rules of the table, you win many times, and then you lose once and you lose everything and you're left with your pants.

"Of course, this doesn't mean that I'm retreating, on the contrary, it's just too easy to break. When we take a step back, we are preparing for even greater progress in the future. ”

Li Weiguo suddenly remembered Mao Dada's famous words, taking the initiative to take a step back today is to make greater strides forward in the future.

Perhaps, this is the common sentiment of the same leaders.

"Your Majesty's words have given the minister a new idea!" Wu Yong's eyes suddenly lit up, and he said excitedly: "The British Navy has concentrated the world's maritime forces in Australia. Then it will certainly not last, otherwise it will affect the UK's global maritime interests. We only need to stall for time, the British fleet has only two options, either to exhaust or to hastily find our main fleet for a decisive battle. As long as the British Navy is psychologically disorganized, their actions will definitely show flaws, and then we can give them a fatal blow. ”

Hearing what the monarch and the minister said, everyone felt that it made sense.

Li Weiguo then ordered that from now on, the overseas territories of the Chinese Empire should be on increased alert and ready to break out into war with Britain at any time. At the same time, the North Ocean Fleet, the Eastern Ocean Fleet, the Southern Ocean Fleet, and the Seven Continents Ocean Fleet began to be mixed to form the Pacific Fleet, and the Indian Ocean Fleet remained unchanged for the time being, and continued to remain in the Indian Ocean to ensure the safety of the Chinese Empire's maritime communications.

Don't look at Li Weiguo's words about temporarily avoiding the enemy's edge, in fact, he is not really afraid of the main force of the British Navy, but wants to remind the navy that the Imperial Chinese Navy is not stunned, and it must fight a decisive battle with the main force of others when the British main fleet comes, and it is necessary to pay attention to tactics, and not let the British lead the way, but should leave the British to dry, let the British Navy be anxious, and wait until the Imperial Chinese Navy is ready to cover, and then notify the British Navy to come over and be "annihilated".

In fact, Li Weiguo still had a naval battle tactic that Niu B did not come up with, which he was prepared to use at a critical moment.

That tactic was called the wolf pack tactic, which was invented by the German Navy during World War I, and it did not need to fight a main decisive battle with the British Navy, as long as the blockade of British routes at sea for a year and a half was enough to drag Britain into the abyss of death. Because Britain has a small population and is an island country, it can only be a country that lives by trade, and once the maritime trade is interrupted, it will soon be over. Historically, if it had not been for the intervention of the United States, the wolf pack tactics of the German Navy had continued for a few more months, and Britain would have had to surrender on its own initiative.

Today's Li Weiguo actually wants to launch a wolf pack tactic against the British, but he still resisted it, once this wolf pack tactic is implemented, it must be to the death of the British, otherwise it will be bad for the British to be relieved and prepared.

At present, it is not mature for the submarines of the Chinese Empire to adopt the tactics of wolf packs, because the distance between China and Britain is too far, the Chinese Empire has no naval bases in the North Atlantic, and the conditions for submarines to depart from the mainland of the Chinese Empire to fight in the North Atlantic are not mature. The Chinese Empire has already acquired two naval bases near the North Atlantic Ocean in Rhode Island and Key West, and Li Weiguo will only act if it is built over time to support the submarine wolf pack tactics, so it will have to wait a little longer.

As for the wolf pack tactics in the Pacific, it is simply unrealistic, because British commercial voyages do not care at all about the Pacific. On the contrary, once the wolf pack tactics were exposed, it would be a big loss for the British to implement wolf pack tactics against the Chinese Empire in the Pacific.

Therefore, Li Weiguo is very cautious and saves the wolf pack tactics as a killer weapon to be used at the most critical time.

Just as Li Weiguo was making strategic decisions with the members of the Imperial General Staff, the Yingqin fleet led by Weng Tongyong, who was far away in Hawaii, was intercepted by the British fleet, and an encounter broke out between the two sides near the Marshall Islands.

On September 5, 3975, and on October 6, 1875, the British Royal Navy was ordered to intercept the Chinese Imperial Fleet returning from Hawaii to force the Chinese Empire to hand over the Hawai nut king and princess to the British.

However, the Pacific Ocean was too big, and the Chinese Imperial Greeting Fleet consciously avoided the main route to avoid encountering the British fleet.

As a result, although the British Royal Navy had more than 100 capital ships gathered in the waters near Australia, they had to be scattered and searched everywhere.

Weng had planned to return to China via the Ryukyu Islands via Midway, but he quickly dismissed that plan because intelligence from S.H.I.E.L.D. told him that the Japanese Navy had also been dispatched to cooperate with the British Navy.

In the end, after discussing with Wei Yongsheng, the commander of the Yingqin fleet, Weng Tongyi, Mingyue, and the commander of the Yingqin Fleet, decided to replenish fresh water through the Marshall Islands, and then return to China via the Qizhou Ocean.

The reason why it is necessary to stop at Guam to replenish fresh water is because there are not only naval officers and soldiers on the warship, but also civilian officials and the royal forest army brought by Mingyue, and the most important thing is that there are macadamia nut kings and princesses, especially Her Royal Highness the princess has been canonized as Concubine Ning of the Chinese Empire, and all the treatments must be of the highest standard, so they have to replenish fresh water halfway.

In fact, Wei Yongsheng, as the commander of the fleet, was opposed to going to supply fresh water halfway, but Weng Tongsheng disagreed, he was old and stubborn, and in the end Wei Yongsheng said that Weng Tongsheng could only do it.

As a result, a British fleet came to search in the waters near Guam, and a naval battle broke out between the two sides, which kicked off the war ahead of schedule. (To be continued.) )