When the Moroccan crisis continued to ferment, European countries, including France and Spain, spoke out one after another, demanding a peaceful settlement of the crisis between Britain and France.

However, the British Empire did not intend to compromise in the slightest, and issued a strong official announcement on the Moroccan crisis before Christmas, solemnly re-emphasizing the content of the agreement signed between Britain and the Moroccan royal family, and the subsequent news from Britain once again shook the whole of Europe...... It is said that the British Navy and Army have been mobilized again!

On January 3, 1905, less than two months after the Moroccan crisis, the Left, which had been taking a hardline stance on the outside world, had been taking a hard line on the outside world. Two days later, when Prime Minister Emile of the Democratic Republican League announced his resignation over the impeachment of the parliament on African issues, and the moderate Louvier elected by the Democratic Republican Union took office, Paris finally put aside its arrogance and announced that it would hold diplomatic talks on the Moroccan question, and at the same time submitted a request for good offices with Russia and Germany.

Just as the British Prime Minister Balfort was about to consider the demands of the French in the despair of his cabinet ministers over finances, he was unexpectedly stunned by the news brought by Chen Bo, the Chinese minister to the United Kingdom...... China has agreed to participate in diplomatic mediation between the two countries, but according to information obtained by the Chinese, the bottom line of the French government's mediation is to obtain at least two Mediterranean ports, including the Moroccan port of Meria.

The news immediately angered the British government, and the French appetite for Moroccan interests apparently surprised Prime Minister Balfour and his cabinet ministers for control of the Strait of Gibraltar. This was the skill that the British Empire had to contain the whole of Europe. But the French were counting on Guò to control the port of Meria, which was close at hand to the Strait of Gibraltar, to achieve an indirect threat to the strait. This was obviously an unacceptable demand for Britain, which for a long time insisted on maintaining the Moroccan royal family rather than carving up Morocco, precisely on the basis of safeguarding its interests in the Strait of Gibraltar.

On the 10th, the British government officially announced that it was not willing to accept the good offices of any country other than France, and instead demanded direct negotiations with the French, after the news was announced. Even the most moderate French ruling party could not accept British arrogance, but Prime Minister Louvière, apparently aware of the disastrous nature of the confrontation with Britain, made the most severe attack on Britain while the French government urgently telegraphed to Minister Mernan in London for diplomatic consultations.

However, the British once again taught France the arrogance of the First Power, and Minister Mernan's intensive visits to the Balfort Cabinet were closed to the French until only one of the Deputy Ministers of Foreign Affairs accepted the unofficial visits of the French. At the same time, the message was sent to France very strictly: France must maintain all the rules laid down by the British Empire in Morocco, or else. There is no possibility of negotiation!

As if to exert maximum pressure on France, on the 15th, the British government announced the withdrawal of five divisions of the army from South Africa, and at the same time announced the transfer of two fast-class battleships to join the Mediterranean Fleet, accompanied by three Edgar-class cruisers and seven Albatross-class destroyers, and the strength of this detachment can almost compete with the French Mediterranean Fleet.

There is no doubt that Britain is ready to form a total maritime suppression of the French in the Mediterranean, and once war breaks out, it will be an all-firepower confrontation, and the French are not prepared to give the French any chance at all, and the French in the Mediterranean Sea against the British battleships seems to be left with only nearly 60 torpedo boats respected by the French academy, but the British destroyer formations are completely aimed at the small torpedo boats of the French.

Beijing, Xu Shoushan, who succeeded Zhou Ruidong as the chief of the Ministry of Military Affairs, was obviously also surprised by the news from Europe, and he was not less than sitting in the staff headquarters and scratching his head for a while...... Fortunately, there is no staff now!

On 20 July, Ouyang Geng, senior staff officer of the General Staff Department, put forward an overall analysis of the situation in Europe at a top-secret military analysis meeting on the same day, and came to an extremely important judgment -- the military strength of the entire European Union is rapidly expanding, and it may lead to a local national war at any time because the situation gets out of control!

Several generals, including Xu Shoushan and Lu Han, attended the analysis meeting that day, and the generals of the army department did not attach much importance to the urgency of the war in Europe as much as the generals of the navy department, after all, in the past 20 years, since the Chinese army was formed from the south, it fought head-on with almost all the armies of the great powers, and almost all of them won the final victory.

Now, with the strict implementation of the professionalization of the reserve forces and the army, the combat capability of the army is on the road of rapid development of comprehensive regularization and modernization. If the current military strength can be rapidly expanded by 1.2 times in half a year, and the huge regular army will reach more than 2.5 million in a year, if it is fully mobilized, the huge reserve officers that have been reserved for more than ten years will be unimaginably huge based on the huge population base of nearly 500 million in New China today.

However, in the report on the situation in Europe, even the current strength of the French Navy still shocked all the naval bosses, since the Sino-French War, the French Navy has fully retreated from the Far East, although for the interests of Cochinchina, France is still stationed in Saigon Bay with a Far Eastern Fleet, but that is almost only a symbolic sea power, only has a Charlie? The battleship Martel and several cruisers, not to mention against China, will be able to hold the port at that time is a question.

But in fact, the entire French people have never stopped the construction of warships after losing the war with China and France, and the entire French Navy currently has 10 more advanced battleships represented by the latest Republic-class battleships, in addition to more than 15 cruisers, and the latest Henry-class cruisers are said to have a speed of more than 25 knots and a cruising range of nearly 8,000 kilometers.

According to the information provided by the Intelligence Department to the Ministry of Military Affairs, the tonnage of the entire French Navy is nearly 420,000 tons, and this tonnage is even 20,000 tons more than the tonnage currently disclosed to the public by the Chinese Navy, and the nearly 140 torpedo boats of various types owned by the French constitute a key threat to the Mediterranean and Atlantic coasts, while the German Navy, which is competing strongly with Britain, actually had a total tonnage of just over 500,000 tons a year ago, which still includes the total tonnage of old armored cruisers such as the Lufthansa.

In the discussion of the General Staff Division, several newly promoted staff officers who had just returned from South Africa made comments that made Xu Shoushan's eyes shine, especially Wu Peifu, an army major transferred from the 27th Army, who showed dozens of photos from the front line of the Boer War, and then made a judgment with great certainty, "The Boer War has just ended, and the war that was originally expected to end within half a year has been delayed for four and a half years, and the losses of the British on the battlefield are shocking even to us, which is enough to dispel the possibility of any country quickly launching another war!" ”

And his judgment was not supported by the majority of people, especially the staff officers from the naval department, and some people immediately stood up and expressed different opinions, "Major Wu, you are too concerned about the war of the army, if Britain is ready to occupy France, their best way is to unite the German Empire to attack from both sides, but if Britain only wants to ensure the interests of Morocco, blockade the English Channel and the Strait of Gibraltar, and then dispatch the overwhelming hundreds of heavy guns of the home fleet to block the French main fleet in the military port of Saint-Malo, The French cabinet is expected to fall soon! ”

“……”

The half-day discussion obviously did not have any clear results, but this did not affect Xu Shoushan to draw his own conclusions, a little later, he issued an order to the General Staff, so that the staff officers of all departments planned a plan for the war in Europe and reported, and he discussed with Lu Han, with the ready-made report of the General Staff Department, and ran to the Prime Minister's Office to find Zhou Ruidong. (To be continued......)