International public opinion was very unfavorable to the British Empire, but the British Empire decided to start the Boer War, because the British Empire had lost the income from the Yapian trade and the income from colonial plunder, and it was in urgent need of funds for a large-scale arms race with the Chinese Empire, and it could not afford to lose South Africa's gold income again. Pen "Fun" Pavilion www.biquge.info

Only the United States of the Entente group is still supporting the British Empire, Grant has completely delegated power to Roosevelt, and Roosevelt determined that the Boer War must be won by the British Empire in the end, so he supports the British Empire, and he can also get a piece of the pie in South Africa in the future, after all, South Africa's gold and diamonds are too tempting, and Roosevelt did not think that now is the best time to invade South Africa, but considering the actual situation of the British Empire, Roosevelt finally held back and could not lose big because of a small loss.

In the office of the president of the White House, Roosevelt routinely reported to Grant.

And Gran was not particularly interested, as long as the Chinese Empire was involved, it would attract his attention.

"The whole of Europe is in chaos, is there any movement in the Chinese Empire?"

Roosevelt replied: "At present the Chinese Empire has only announced humanitarian aid to the Boers, allowing the citizens of the Chinese Empire to voluntarily go to South Africa and participate in the war of aggression against the British army!" ”

Grant snorted coldly and said: "Li Weiguo is planning to meddle in South Africa again, if it is not as I expected, the Chinese Empire may send troops to occupy South Africa, and it may not be the British Empire that will pick peaches in the end!" ”

Roosevelt immediately frowned and said, "Is this a possibility?" At this time, if the Chinese Empire sent troops to South Africa, then they had made a series of propaganda in support of the Boer rebellion, which would be invalidated in an instant, and everyone in Europe would see the true face of the Chinese Empire, is this possible? ”

Grant said: "You are still young, you have little contact with politics before, and you don't understand the squalor in it. Of course, the Chinese Empire will not send troops to participate in the war at the beginning, that will provoke a full-scale war between the entire Allied and Entente Powers, although the Allies currently have the advantage, but they are not absolutely sure of completely defeating our Entente Powers, I believe that the Chinese Empire will not be stupid enough to detonate a world war, unless there is an absolute certainty of victory, but the variables of war are too great, and it is not that there are no examples of overturning ships in the gutter. ”

After a pause, Grant continued: "The Chinese Empire will not rush into military intervention, they will only enter the war at the initiative of the Boers after the Boers and the Global Volunteer Army are defeated by the British Empire. With the initiative of the Boers, even if the European countries were dissatisfied, they would not say anything, and we, the Entente bloc, could only acquiesce to let China and Britain go to war in South Africa, and both the Entente and the Central Powers would strictly maintain neutrality to avoid detonating a world war. ”

Roosevelt immediately frowned and said: "If that's the case, with the strength of the British Imperial Army, it can't defeat the Chinese Empire at all, and it will inevitably lose the colony of South Africa." Only, would the Boers be stupid enough to lure the wolf into the house? ”

Grant sneered: "When people are desperate, do they care about those?" If the Boers could not hold their gold mines, would you say he would give them to their enemy, the British Empire, or to their ally, the Chinese Empire? ”

If the Boers really can't hold the gold mines, it is estimated that they would rather give the gold mines to the Chinese Empire than to the British Empire.

Roosevelt smiled bitterly, he seemed to understand the strategic intentions of the Chinese Empire.

"Then in this way, we must ensure that the British Empire wins, otherwise the gold mines will fall into the hands of the Chinese Empire, and we will be economically inferior to the Chinese Empire, and if we lose the gold mines, it will be difficult for the British Empire to have the confidence to confront the Chinese Empire."

Grande nodded and said: "If one day the Chinese Empire is ousted from the altar of world hegemony by us, the British Empire will become our enemy, and we will also use this method to deal with the British Empire." But now, we have to help the British Empire against the Chinese Empire. ”

Roosevelt immediately understood: "I know, I will do my best to arrange this matter and ensure that the British Empire wins the Boer War." ”

Grant smiled: "You can't pay in vain, once you succeed, you have to let the British Empire spit out half of the gold and diamond mining rights." ”

Although they are allies, they are always unprofitable between countries.

Roosevelt suddenly remembered something and said: "By the way, our telecommunications system must be nationalized, and recently our intelligence shows that the use of telecommunications equipment manufactured by the Chinese Empire is easy to be eavesdropped by the Chinese Empire, and a lot of our intelligence has been leaked out in this way." ”

Grant smiled slightly and said, "It seems that you do do do things very carefully, and I am very happy." However, I have known about this for a long time, and the reason why I didn't take action was because I didn't want to startle the snake. ”

Roosevelt asked curiously, "Then you are going to do it?" ”

Grant said mysteriously: "Now that I know the leak channel, when the war breaks out, I will ruthlessly attack the Chinese Empire at a critical moment, and I will make them pay a heavy price for monitoring and eavesdropping on our intelligence for a long time." ”

Roosevelt agreed: "This plan is very good! But I think it's time to take advantage of it! ”

Grant frowned suddenly, he didn't want to be seen by the Chinese Empire too early, but Roosevelt was his valued heir, so he patiently asked, "Tell me your reasons!" ”

Roosevelt sighed and said: "It's not because of the super dreadnought battleship, we use the battlecruiser to pretend to be a battleship, once the Chinese Empire learns about it, the consequences are unimaginable." So, to be on the safe side, I wanted to take advantage of this opportunity to put out a smokescreen and give us more time to prepare. ”

Grant closed his eyes in contemplation, and after a while, he opened his eyes and said, "So, our steam turbine technology is not up to par?" ”

Roosevelt smiled wryly: "I have encountered a bottleneck, and the power cannot be greatly improved." I don't know what kind of high technology the Chinese Empire has adopted to make a battleship with a displacement of nearly 50,000 tons run at a speed of more than 25 knots, and we have worked hard for a long time, but we can only increase the required power to 22 knots. ”

Grant asked rhetorically: "Is it possible that the Chinese Empire deliberately exaggerated and strategically deceived us?" ”

Roosevelt shook his head and said, "Judging from the past situation, the actual data performance of the Chinese Empire has always been higher than the performance of public data. At the same time, we have seen with our own eyes the battlecruisers of the Chinese Empire run at a speed of more than 30 knots, and according to the distribution ratio of armor and power, their ultra-dreadnought battleships can indeed reach more than 25 knots. ”

Grant was suddenly unhappy, slammed the table, and said: "Damn the Chinese Empire, why are their people so smart, our Western civilization is obviously hundreds of years ahead of the Chinese Empire in terms of science and technology, but they have surpassed it in just twenty years, it's really hateful!" ”

Roosevelt sighed, "Is there a way to try?" We will find a way to sink a warship of the Chinese Empire offshore, and then secretly fish it out and study it. ”

Grant suddenly frowned and said, "How can we have the ability to sink the super dreadnought battleships of the Chinese Empire?" ”

Roosevelt said: "You don't have to sink a super dreadnought battleship, as long as it's a destroyer, according to our speculation, even if the destroyer uses less steam turbine power than the battleship, but the principle should be the same, what we want is the principle." ”

Grant stood up and paced back and forth.

"Taking the initiative to attack the warships of the Chinese Empire, the risk in this is too great! If you're not careful, you'll detonate a world war! ”

Roosevelt was well aware of this, but he didn't seem to have a better way, after all, the United States was ten years behind the Chinese Empire in the development of steam turbines, and without superhumans such as Li Weiguo to guide it, the speed of research and development was of course very slow.

But as the contradictions between the Entente and the Central Powers intensified, and the clouds of war seemed to be getting closer, Roosevelt seemed to feel that there was no more time left and that he had to take a risk.

"We can take advantage of the Boer War to sneak attack the small and medium-sized warships of the Imperial Chinese Navy cruising the oceans, secretly sink them under the condition of ensuring that nothing goes wrong, and quietly salvage them before the Imperial Chinese Navy reacts, and secretly transport them back to China for study."

Grant was nervous, and he couldn't judge this decision.

"Can you buy warships through a third country and come back for research?"

Roosevelt smiled bitterly: "You don't even know? That's how a large part of our current steam turbine technology came about! ”

Grant was stunned for a moment, then patted his head and said with a wry smile: "Look at my memory!" I forgot! ”

A considerable part of the steam turbine technology currently mastered by the American Navy is through a third country, importing some warships from the Chinese Empire, and then secretly conducting research.

For example, five years ago, the U.S. Navy commissioned Chile to import two light cruisers from the Chinese Empire, and the U.S. Navy sent professional engineers to the Chilean Navy shipyard to take advantage of the opportunity to repair the warships to visit and study the steam turbine equipment and technology used on the warships.

Although the steam turbine systems of the warships exported by the Chinese Empire to the Chilean Navy were castrated versions, and their performance was greatly reduced, American experts still found some clues from them, which made the steam turbine technology developed by the American Navy subsequently improve to a certain extent.

However, the more the American Navy saw the technological achievements of the Chinese Empire in this regard, the more envious and jealous it became, and finally influenced Roosevelt to personally come forward and propose to Grant that he plan to get an active warship of the Chinese Imperial Navy for research.

"Mr. President, please rest assured, if we are not 100% sure, we will not do it lightly!"

"Mr. President, we now very much need to know the secrets of the steam turbines of the Chinese Empire, and the life and death of our American Navy are all in your thoughts."

It is indeed a matter of life and death, if the Chinese Empire learns that the so-called super-dreadnought battleships of the American Navy are nothing more than super-dreadnought battlecruisers, then once the war starts, the US Navy will be very passive and will undoubtedly lose the decisive battle.

However, if the operation fails, it will inevitably be wrathed by the thunder of the Chinese Empire, and the United States may be forced to go to war, and the outcome will be the same.

Grant is tangled!

Pacing back and forth, pulling the egg hurts!

Eventually, he gave his head in a desperate gamble.

If there was any other way, he would not have chosen it that way.

Roosevelt was overjoyed and assured Grant that nothing would go wrong.

At the same time, at the Sydney Naval Base in Nandu, a military competition is in full swing.

On the royal cruiser Guanghua, Li Weiguo personally attended and watched, accompanied by a large number of officials.

In the distance, a formation of four battleships, two battlecruisers, and three light cruisers was conducting live-fire training on the sea.

20 kilometers away from the fleet, two decommissioned Hsiungfeng-class battleships are advancing in formation at a speed of 20 knots.

The two retired Hsiungfeng-class battleships were not operated by real personnel, but some dummies wearing enemy uniforms, and the reason why the battleships were still able to sail was because they were dragged forward by two other battlecruisers with thick steel ropes several kilometers long.

In the past, the target ships of the Imperial Chinese Navy were often fixed buoy targets.

During the live firing training of the Imperial Chinese Navy, the main guns were aimed at these targets, and most of the practice was the accuracy of the artillery, but the armor-piercing ability, armor-piercing ability, and lethal ability of the shells could not be evaluated.

As the Chinese Empire became richer and richer, it built batch after batch of large warships, early ironclad ships, armored cruisers, pre-dreadnought battleships, etc., the steel used in these warships did not have corrosion resistance, and the years were more than eight years, and they were basically going to be decommissioned one after another.

As the former dreadnought-type battleship of the Imperial Chinese Navy, the Hsiungfeng-class battleship was decommissioned from the front line and served as a first-class coastal defense ship for five years in coastal defense tasks.

However, the steel of the Chinese Empire is too cheap, so that no scrap iron company is willing to buy this batch of Hsiungfeng-class battleships, even if the Chinese Imperial Navy reduces the price to a penny, no one cares, because the cost of dismantling is higher than the cost of selling scrap iron, after all, the Chinese Empire, as the world's first steel power, the quality of steel is changing with each passing day, and the steel used in the Hsiungfeng-class battleships has long been outdated and worthless.

There was no way, so the Imperial Chinese Navy had no choice but to apply as a practice target ship to sink the Hsiungfeng-class battleship.

For this reason, some members of Congress who did not know the inside story even scolded the navy for being a loser, and once forcefully stopped it, causing great embarrassment to the navy.

"Your Majesty, live firing is about to begin, bring you earplugs."

Although Li Weiguo was not on the battleship of the exercise, in order to improve the viewing experience, the Guanghua royal battleship was very close to the acting fleet.

This time, there were two super-dreadnought battleships in the exercise fleet, the USS Thunder, and the second ship escorted Li Weiguo all the way to Australia, where he was temporarily assigned to the Australian detachment to participate in live-fire training.

You must know that the Thor-class battleship is equipped with a 381 mm 50 times diameter main gun, and such a huge cannon fires with unparalleled power, and it is deafening within a hundred kilometers.

The entourage was worried that the sound of the cannon firing would break Li Weiguo's ears for a while, so they kindly proposed.

Li Weiguo waved his hand and said, "No need, I'm not that fragile!" But those officials who haven't experienced it, let them bring it! ”

"Your Majesty is not afraid, and we are naturally not afraid when we are courtiers!"

"I don't bring it!"

"I don't bring it anymore!"

When the accompanying officials saw that Li Weiguo did not bring earplugs, they were embarrassed to bring them and refused one after another.

Li Weiguo was also childlike, so he wanted to see how they would get into trouble for a while, so he didn't insist.

"Your Majesty, here we go!"

Someone specifically reminded Li Weiguodao.

Within a few seconds, I saw a flame dozens of meters long suddenly erupt from the muzzle of the No. 1 main gun of the battleship Thor.

The next moment, there was a loud bang.

Rao is Li Weiguo was mentally prepared, and his ears were numb in an instant.

Woohoo!

Woohoo!

……

A large group of civil servants were instantly frightened.

Li Weiguo looked back, shook his head, and gloated. (To be continued.) )