Annam, with the withdrawal of the last French troops from Cam Ranh Bay, France finally announced the abandonment of Annam, and there was no longer a foothold in Asia.

It was a secret agreement between the Chinese Empire and the French Empire that avoided the possibility of war between the two countries in Annam.

In fact, the French army had already planned to abandon Annam, because the French army was really unable to destroy the Dawn guerrillas, and the long war in Annam had already strained France's finances and proved to be a wrong war.

Of course, this is all because the Chinese Empire is behind Annam, supporting and providing assistance to the guerrillas of Dawn. Obviously, France's financial resources could not be exhausted by the Chinese Empire, and its weapons and equipment were far inferior, and defeat was a matter of time.

In the end, Emperor Napoleon III chose to withdraw his troops from Annam with dignity and handed over all the occupied cities of Annam to the Chinese Imperial Army. In return, the Chinese Empire was willing to help France build an all-steel battleship repair dock.

The two sides reached an agreement, and the Chinese Empire took most of the cities of Annam without bloodshed. In this way, after the withdrawal of the French army from Annam, the guerrillas of Dawn would face the annexation of the Chinese Empire.

Liming has ambitions, he wants to become the king of Annam, but he does not want to give up diplomatic and military power, but he does not have the courage to break out a war with the Chinese Empire. So he used his daughter's relationship in the palace to test Li Weiguo's bottom line, but the result was obvious that Li Weiguo would not give in.

Annam borders the Chinese Empire, borders the Qizhou Ocean in the east, and threatens the maritime traffic safety of the Chinese Empire, and now even Siam has bowed down, and Annam is left in the whole of Southeast Asia, so the Chinese Empire will never allow the situation of China to appear, and the existence of military threats is not allowed.

Eventually, ambition prevailed over reason, and he sent people to incite the Annamite people to make trouble and attack the Chinese Empire's Shence army in the cities of Annam, which detonated a military conflict between the two sides.

The Shence Army of the Chinese Empire was not a French army, its combat effectiveness was far stronger than that of the French army, and its equipment was more advanced, so as soon as the two sides started a war, the guerrillas of Dawn were defeated.

However, Dawn's guerrillas had been fighting with the French for many years and were experienced in jungle combat, so they quickly abandoned the town and moved into the mountains to continue fighting. The Chinese Imperial Army, on the other hand, adopted a blockade policy, cutting off the guerrillas' food, ammunition, and medical aid, and blockading the Liming guerrillas in the mountains.

At first, there were ordinary people in Annam who secretly helped the guerrillas, but soon the Chinese Empire began to assist the ordinary people of Annam on a large scale to rebuild their homes, which made the ordinary people of Annam, who were already full of yearning for a happy and prosperous life in ****, quickly make a choice, abandon the guerrillas of Dawn, and instead support the Shence Army of the Chinese Empire.

With the help of some ordinary people in Annam, the Chinese Imperial Shence Army soon learned the hiding place of the Dawn guerrillas, and after plotting against a group of guerrillas, the Chinese Imperial Army successfully surrounded the Dawn guerrillas. In the end, Dawn was betrayed by his men and died in the rebellion, and then the Annam guerrillas died and surrendered, and Annam was pacified.

At this point, the Chinese Empire completely unified all the vassal states in Southeast Asia, and realized the so-called **** kingdom in a real sense.

However, the Chinese Empire did not stop the pace of war, and after pacifying the Annan Kingdom, the Chinese Empire targeted Ezo Mei.

After several months of negotiations with the Confederate States of America, the two sides could not reach an agreement, so the Chinese Empire decided to use force, and under the banner of helping the Ezo Tail Yi GuoWang Fu State, more than 20 warships of the Chinese Imperial Navy suddenly appeared in Ezo Tail and launched a surprise attack on the American Navy staying in Pearl Harbor on Oahu.

At this time, the U.S. Navy was still very weak, even less powerful than the Chilean Navy in South America, and there were only three American battleships in Pearl Harbor, all of which were sail warships, which were no match for the Imperial Chinese Navy, and all of them were sunk in less than ten minutes.

Because the wooden warships did not resist the attack, a single large-caliber shell of the Imperial Chinese Navy was enough to inflict a huge amount of damage on them, and as a result, more than 1,000 American Navy officers did not have time to escape, and all of them were killed.

The American Army in Ezo Mei originally had two town troops, but with Grant's military reform to the Chinese Empire, the military town establishment was abolished and changed to a British division and regiment establishment, and the American Army in the two towns of Ezo was reorganized into a ninth division, about 30,000 people.

Grant wanted to hold Ezo, and the Ninth Division was expected to be the most combat-ready unit in the Confederate American Army.

However, the time for the American army to obtain Ezo was only four or five months, and it was too late to build a large defensive fortification, and the Chinese Empire could not give the American army time to build fortifications, so when the Chinese Empire sent troops to attack Ezo, the American army only completed a part of the coastal fortifications.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

The sound of huge cannons from the sea rang out, and the ships of the Imperial Chinese Navy fired volleys, causing the coastal fortifications of the American Army to disappear in an instant.

In the thick smoke, the soldiers of the Chinese Imperial Marine Corps took speedboats, under the cover of naval artillery fire, and began to land on the beach.

The American Confederate Army tried to resist, but unfortunately they did not have fortress artillery to suppress the naval artillery superiority of the Imperial Chinese Navy, although the American army had rich combat experience after a long civil war, but unfortunately it was a continental war, and they had no combat experience in the face of beach landing battles.

On the other hand, the Imperial Chinese Marine Corps had rich experience in beach-rushing landings, and in less than three hours, the Imperial Chinese Army had successfully landed on the beaches at four locations: A, B, C, and D.

The Confederate Army of America was forced to retreat, moved its positions back, and deployed a large number of Gatling machine guns and artillery to block the coastal beachhead in an attempt to prevent the Chinese Imperial Army from gaining a foothold.

I have to say that the American Confederate Army, which was carefully cultivated by the Chinese Empire, is equipped with the advanced weapons of the Chinese Empire, but now it is used to deal with the attack of the Chinese Empire's Shence Army, which has indeed caused a lot of casualties to the soldiers of the Shence Army.

At that time, the military of the Chinese Empire could be said to have gone all out to support the American Southern Army, to equip for equipment, and to give technology to technology, thinking that it would divide the United States forever, but ten years later, the American Southern Army betrayed the Chinese Empire and became the enemy of the Chinese Empire in turn.

The 155-mm heavy howitzers of the Confederate Army of the United States opened fire, which caused considerable casualties to the Shence Army of the Chinese Empire, which rushed to land on the beach.

Because of the ballistic curvature of this howitzer, it can hide behind the hills to attack the coastline, while the guns of the Imperial Chinese Navy fire are direct, even if the artillery positions of the American Confederate Army are discovered, it is difficult to destroy them for a while.

In the end, the Chinese Imperial Army did not want to suffer too many casualties and quickly withdrew the landing force to the sea.

The first beach-rushing landing battle failed.

However, the Chinese Imperial Army had rich tactical experience, and in the following month, it continued to organize small groups of marines to launch beach-grabbing landing battles at night.

The American army did not know how many Chinese Imperial Shence troops had attacked, and could only carry out saturation attacks with various artillery.

The American army is all Chinese armament and equipment, with the increasing tension between Grant and the Chinese Empire, the Chinese Empire has long stopped providing all kinds of military assistance to the American army, such as the high-performance shells used in 155mm howitzers, the United States cannot produce them by itself, and relies on imports from the Chinese Empire, most of these shells were used in the war with the Lincoln Army, so the Ninth Division in Ezo Tail is not much in reserve.

As a result, in the face of the night offensive of the Imperial Chinese Marines, the artillery consumption of the 9th Division of the United States was extremely high, and the Imperial Chinese Navy blockaded the Pacific Ocean, and the American Navy could not transport supplies, resulting in fewer and fewer shells of the 9th Division.

A month later, the shells of the 9th Division of the United States were basically gone.

As a result, the Shence Army of the Chinese Empire stopped the attack of a small force and launched a large-scale beach-grabbing landing battle again.

This time, the Imperial Chinese Army committed two Marine Divisions, the Third Marine Division attracting the attention of the Confederate Forces in front of Pearl Harbor, and the Sixth Marine Division landing directly on the beach north of Oahu.

Because the commander of the 9th Division of the American Army was misjudged, he thought that the Chinese Imperial Army was attacking Pearl Harbor, so he concentrated his main forces on the coastline of Pearl Harbor to resist the attack of the Chinese Imperial Army.

After learning that the Sixth Marine Division of the Chinese Imperial Army had successfully landed north of Oahu, Del once again misjudged the strength of the Chinese Empire, and transferred 2,000 troops from Crow Hill to reinforcements, resulting in a crushing battle of the Chinese Imperial Army on the way, and the defense of Crow Mountain became empty.

On the same day, when the Sixth Marine Division of the Chinese Empire captured Mount Crow at the south gate of Pearl Harbor from behind, more than 20,000 men of the Ninth Division of the United States surrounded Pearl Harbor.

The American army was flanked by the enemy, and after a day of fierce fighting, more than half of them were killed and wounded, but they could not recapture the commanding heights of Crow Mountain, and finally Del saw that there was no hope of victory, so he had to surrender.

The Imperial Chinese Army then occupied Pearl Harbor and entered Honolulu the next day, and the new mayor of Honolulu resigned.

The Chinese Imperial Army occupied Oahu, and the other Ezo Islands surrendered one after another, and three days later the Chinese Empire took the entire Ezo Islands.

Due to the tight blockade of the Chinese Imperial Navy, Grant did not get the news until the fifteenth day after the outbreak of Pearl Harbor, and immediately lodged a strong protest with the Chinese Empire, and even issued a warning of the threat of war.

However, the Chinese Imperial Government was not afraid at all, and only ordered the Chinese Imperial Army, which was stationed at the two military bases in the north and south of the United States, to increase their combat readiness and prepare for war.

Grant originally planned to send heavy troops to surround the Chinese Imperial forces on Rhodes and Shuglove Islands, so as to threaten the Chinese Empire and force the Chinese Empire to abandon the attack on the Ezo Islands.

However, before Grant could finish his preparations, he learned that Ezo had fallen, Del had surrendered, and the Ninth Division had been annihilated.

Grant understands that the Ezo Islands are gone, and the sea power of the American Confederate Army is too weak to defeat the Chinese Imperial Navy, and he will not be able to recapture Ezo in a short time.

The American army, which originally planned to attack Rhode Island and Shuglov Island, stopped, and Grant did not want to expand the war and did not want to start a full-scale war with the Chinese Empire, after all, the current United States had just been reunified, and even Britain had succumbed, and the United States alone could not compete with the Chinese Empire in a short period of time with its own strength.

Fortunately, Grant did not declare war on the Chinese Empire at the first time, so he only verbally protested against the Chinese Empire, demanding that the Chinese Empire return Ezo Weiyi and avoid a full-scale war with the Chinese Empire.

And the Chinese Empire did not intend to go to all-out war with the United States, because the Chinese Empire had just won the British Empire, and needed to digest the Malayan Peninsula, Bengal, and the entire Australian continent seized from the British Empire. Especially on the Australian mainland, with an area of 7.7 million square kilometers, all of which are white Europeans and Americans, the Chinese Empire will spend huge manpower, material resources, financial resources and military strength, and it will take several years or even more than ten years to completely digest Australia and control all the white European and American populations in Australia.

At the same time, there are also New Zealand, the Solomon Islands and a large number of islands in the Central Pacific Ocean around Australia, which are all owned by the British Empire and France, which threaten Australia's security, so the Chinese Empire can only go all out to build Australia in this situation, and has no time to take care of the United States.

Grant is also very good at taking advantage of the situation, saying to the American people that the Chinese Empire has robbed Ezo Tail by force, but the American army is still unable to defeat the Chinese Empire, and Grant asks the American people to unite with others, strive to develop economic and military power, and take revenge in the future.

Grant's voice immediately won the support and sympathy of the American people, who not only did not blame him for losing Ezo Tail, but also fully supported the policies of the Grant administration.

As a result, Grant successfully transferred the various social contradictions caused by the American Civil War to the hatred of the Chinese Empire.

After the British Empire learned of the Ezo Tail Incident, the Saul government was so happy that they finally succeeded in dragging the United States into the water, and with the strong economic and development potential of the United States, they had a few more chances of winning against the Chinese Empire in the future.

So, Saul made a special visit to Washington at this sensitive time to start secret consultations and negotiations with Grant. Originally, Grant was still hesitating to build a navy on a large scale, but after the arrival of the shrimp tail in his hands, Grant did not have such an urgent sense of threat and urgency, and with the loss of the shrimp tail scale, the naval power of the Chinese Empire directly deterred the west coast of the United States, which made Grant feel the importance and urgency of the navy.

Eventually, Grant and Saul signed a naval cooperation agreement between Britain and the United States, with Britain providing advanced technology and experts, and the United States contributing money and resources to help Grant build a strong maritime military force.

As a result, the major shipyards in the United States set off a shipbuilding frenzy.

Due to the secret agreement between Britain and France, the French Navy had obtained the design drawings of the new all-steel battleships built by the Chinese Empire for the French Navy in advance from the Imperial Chinese Navy, and the British Navy received information sharing, so it guessed the data and performance of the Hsiungfeng-class battleships of the Imperial Chinese Navy, and designed several new ship plans for the Hsiungfeng-class battleships.

This time, the British Navy did not hold back, sharing all the most advanced battleship design drawings with the American Navy.

On December 3, 1877, the U.S. Congress approved the Navy's shipbuilding plan, allocating $320 million over three years to build eight Maine-class battleships, 12 Lexington-class armored cruisers, and 20 Philadelphia-class armored frigates for the U.S. Navy.

This move shocked the world, and all countries in Europe and the United States cheered, full of expectations that the United States would be able to prevent the Chinese Empire from dominating the world. (To be continued.) )