The holding of the Football World Cup has given people all over the world hope for peace.

However, this is nothing more than a show by the governments of the great powers. What appears to be peace has actually become an undercurrent.

The Chinese Empire took advantage of the World Cup to speed up military aid to the Spanish Empire. The Spanish Empire also knew that time was pressing, and stepped up the training of the army, especially in Havana, the island of Cuba, where all kinds of defensive fortifications were built day and night, all with the help of the Chinese Imperial military, and various advanced fortifications were built.

At the same time, the Confederate States of America also stepped up its military invasion of Spanish Cuba.

Grant personally ******** and transferred the Atlantic Fleet of the American Navy south to Miami, including 6 Maine-class battleships, 8 Lexington-class armored cruisers, and 8 Philadelphia-class frigates. On the army side, there were the 3rd, 7th, and 8th Divisions of the Central Army of the Confederate Army of the United States, the 19th Division, the 32nd Division, and the 358th Mixed Brigade of the Southern Army, with a total strength of 123,000 troops, 230 artillery pieces, and 103 Gatling machine guns.

Despite the sharpening of the U.S. military, Grant had to have an excuse to attack the Spanish island of Cuba.

As a result, a large number of American sugar merchants made trouble on the island of Cuba and stirred up trouble.

However, the Spanish governor-general, Fernando, heeded the advice of Major General Yang Xiangwen, commander of the Imperial Chinese base in Key West, tolerated the provocations of the Americans, and seized the time to train the army and build fortifications.

Grant secretly sent people to cause all kinds of incidents on the island of Cuba, but unexpectedly, the Spaniards took patient measures and at the same time launched a public opinion offensive in major international newspapers, showing that Spain had been tolerant of the United States and did not want a war, thus winning the sympathy of the media all over the world.

This made Grant very annoyed, and the more it dragged on, the more detrimental it would be to the United States, but the Spaniards kept putting up with it and didn't give Grant an excuse to be mad at all.

In this way, the two sides dragged on until August, and the Spanish troops in Cuba, under the training of the instructor corps of the Chinese Empire, had completely mastered the use of Chinese-style equipment, and their combat effectiveness was greatly enhanced. At the same time, the fortifications of Havana were finally completed, and a large number of heavy weapons and equipment from the Chinese Empire entered the fortifications and began to prepare for war.

At the same time, Grant finally found a partner.

In the Santa Clara Mountains, U.S. military intelligence officers contacted the Cuban rebels, and the two sides agreed on terms to deal with the Spanish colonial forces.

Grant provided funds and weapons to the Cuban rebels and expressed support for the Cuban rebels in forming a new Cuban government. In return, the Cuban rebels will attack the American Chamber of Commerce in Cuba.

On 15 August, the American Chamber of Commerce was attacked, killing at least 20 American businessmen and 50 Spanish soldiers.

On the same day, President Grant harshly condemned the Cuban rebels and demanded that troops be sent into Havana to protect American merchants.

Of course, Fernando understood Grant's sinister intentions, so he naturally disagreed, so Grant gave an ultimatum to the Spanish government as he wished.

The King of Spain telegraphed Fernando asking if he could hold the island of Cuba, and Fernando said that he was fine, so the Spanish government rejected the unreasonable demands of the American government.

The next day, Grant declared war on Spain on behalf of the United States. On the same day, the King of Spain also declared war on the United States on behalf of the Spanish government, and the Spanish-American War broke out.

In the Forbidden City, Li Weiguo also learned the news of the outbreak of the Spanish-American War at the first time, and he immediately called Yang Xiangwen, the commander of Key West.

"Can the island of Cuba be defended?"

"The Spanish navy is too weak, and it is estimated that it will be wiped out soon! The Spanish Army, which had lost its naval supremacy, could only hold on to Havana, Santiago and other places. At present, the total strength of the US army is more than 120,000 people, and the Spanish army has 300,000, which is stronger than the US army in terms of equipment, but its combat experience is obviously inferior to that of the US army. ”

"Cuba cannot fall into the hands of the US military, you have to send troops to intervene if necessary!"

"Please rest assured, Your Majesty, the last general will guarantee that Cuba will not fall into the hands of the US military! In addition, the last general hopes that His Majesty will send more troops to Key West, in case the American army suddenly turns the spearhead and attacks our army! ”

"Your concerns are not unfounded! Grant is a soldier, and it cannot be ruled out that he has a conspiracy to kill the false Tao! I'll say hello to the military department! ”

"Yes! Your Majesty! ”

Li Weiguo put down the phone and convened a pre-imperial meeting.

"Taking advantage of the outbreak of the Spanish-American War, we have to make a good fuss about this! Exaggerate the American threat theory and make European countries wary of the United States! ”

"European countries have more or less colonies overseas, and this time the United States can't wait to declare war on Spain, and the purpose of seizing Spanish colonies is very obvious, and European countries will definitely be highly vigilant!"

"Britain is an ally of the United States, and even if the European countries know about the ambitions of the United States, they dare not say anything!"

"Then it's good to drive a wedge between Britain and the United States!"

"How is this possible? You're talking nonsense with your eyes open! ”

"How could it not be? Tell the British that the United States is an emerging country, and it is bound to attack the old countries and re-divide the world colonies, and it is not impossible for Britain and the United States to conflict! ”

Listening to the arguments of the civil and military officials, Li Weiguo was also drunk.

"Off topic! I asked you to come to the meeting to discuss the Spanish-American War! ”

was shouted by Li Weiguo, and the civil and military officials came back to their senses and were extremely embarrassed.

"Spain will definitely not be able to beat the United States! Defeat is a matter of time! ”

"The Spanish island of Cuba must not fall into the hands of the United States, otherwise the base of the empire in Key West will be surrounded, and the situation will be grim!"

"Didn't we sell Spain a lot of advanced weapons and equipment? He also sent a large number of officer corps to help train the Spanish army, and if he wanted to deal with the American army, even if he couldn't win, he should have no problem protecting himself! ”

"Your Majesty's intention is to let the Spanish-American War go on forever, to spend three or five years on the island of Cuba, and to bring down the American economy. At the same time, we should also look at the combat effectiveness of the American army, and the Cuban battlefield is the best place to test. ”

"Since it is an inspection site, it is better to test the various advanced weapons and equipment newly developed by the empire!"

"What new equipment to test!"

"Why not? I heard that the military department is preparing to replace the army with the next generation of main battle rifles! ”

"Oh? What kind of rifle? ”

"Patriotic fifteen-year rifle! I heard that it is very advanced! ”

WhewW...... WhewW......

Li Weiguo is asleep!

These civil and military officials obviously didn't pay much attention to the Spanish-American War, so they digressed from topic when they talked, leaving Li Weiguo, who was speechless, to sleep.

"Your Majesty is tired!"

"It's all gone!"

Concubine Li Zhao Li and Concubine Ying Zhao Ying, who were in charge of the secretary's office, suddenly got up and said softly, they didn't know that Li Weiguo fell asleep because he was too bored, and they thought that Li Weiguo was overworked and tired last night.

The civil and military officials saw that the two imperial concubines had spoken, so they saluted the sleeping Li Weiguo one after another, and then tiptoed one by one, and slipped away in the blink of an eye.

Zhao Li and Zhao Ying's two daughters then gently put down the dragon chair slowly, which is a dragon chair specially designed by Li Weiguo himself, similar to the office chair of later generations, when you are tired, you can put it down and turn it into a reclining chair for rest.

More than an hour later, Li Weiguo woke up from his dream, stretched his waist, and when he opened his eyes, he found that all the civil and military officials were gone.

"Where have all the people gone?"

"When we saw that Your Majesty was so tired that we fell asleep, we sent them all away!"

Li Weiguo suddenly smiled bitterly, he originally meant to sleep by himself, so he let these ministers wait in the main hall, punishing them for only caring about their own affairs within one acre and three points of land, and not caring about the Spanish-American War. As a result, Zhao Li and Zhao Ying's two daughters didn't know, so they let these ministers go, it was too cheap for them.

However, Li Weiguo doesn't blame the second daughter, compared with the cunning of this group of old foxes, the second daughter is still too simple, even if the second daughter doesn't take the initiative to speak, this group of old foxes will soon guide the second daughter to speak, so that they can just slip away.

"Forget it, these guys never care about things outside the empire, and it's useless to ask them! Let's go shooting! ”

As soon as she heard about the target, the second daughter suddenly became excited, especially Zhao Ying, who liked to dance with knives and guns the most.

Li Weiguo then took his second daughter to the Xiyuan Royal Shooting Range.

It was a place for members of the royal family to practice shooting, and sometimes for the Guards to practice shooting.

The new generation of Patriotic rifles, which took more than ten years of research, has been designed and finalized, and after many years of testing by the military, it has now been officially approved by Congress and has begun mass production, and it is being reloaded in the army batch by batch.

Today, when Li Weiguo came to shoot at the target, he chose the latest model of the patriotic rifle.

Since the day of the birth of the self-defense rifle, the gun has been continuously improved and improved, until the fifteenth year of Guanghua, that is, the beginning of the Jianyuan 3981 The final design was finalized, and it was decided to mass produce and replace the rifle with the whole army.

Fifteen years, a comprehensive and systematic improvement and scientific improvement of the Patriotic rifle, eleven models were born, and if you count the export models, there are more than thirty models, but only the 398115 model has the best performance and is the most popular among the fighters.

The Patriotic 15-Year Rifle, numbered M15CD, is a modern non-automatic rifle developed on the basis of the Patriotic Rifle. In addition to the early models of the Patriotic Rifle in terms of the bolt and its standby mechanism, the magazine and the magazine support plate setting, etc., other advantages such as excellent processing, stable bolt action, reliable action of ammunition supply, shell throwing and insurance mechanism, high shooting accuracy, and low damage rate in harsh environments.

The barrel is the most prominent feature of the M15CD rifle, which is machined from a single piece of special steel and has a barrel length of 610 mm. 6 rifling, left-handed, lead 254 mm, to ensure the accuracy of the universal Chinese standard ordinary rifle cartridge (7.62mm×63mm) within 500 meters, the impact point dispersion range does not exceed a circle with a diameter of 10 cm, its effective range is 750 meters, and the maximum scale firing range can reach 1800 meters.

This kind of precision rifle is actually a simplification of the sniper rifle, on the basis of greatly reducing the cost of the sniper rifle, to improve the shooting ability of ordinary soldiers. As long as you attach a sniper scope to the M15CD rifle, you can turn it into a sniper rifle.

Of course, snipers use professional sniper rifle ammunition, which is much more accurate than ordinary bullets. It's just that this is a secret of the Chinese Imperial military, and it will never be disclosed to the outside world in the short term.

At present, only the Chinese Imperial Shence Army in the world uses 7.62 mm caliber as the standard rifle cartridge, and the length is also controlled at 63 mm. However, Britain, France, the United States, Russia and other countries still use 8 mm and 9 mm caliber as standard rifle cartridges, with a bullet length of more than 70 mm.

This is because only the Chinese Empire has made great strides in the field of anticipation, with the use of ladder NT and smokeless anticine as ******, so the caliber and length of the bullet can be greatly reduced, light in weight, powerful and high in accuracy. In order to balance the power of the rifle of the Chinese Empire, it will inevitably lead to the large size and weight of the rifle cartridge, and the accuracy is not high.

Of course, Britain, France, the United States, Russia and other countries have long noticed the advantages of smokeless drugs and are stepping up research and development, but there is still some time before equipping the army. Therefore, the current Patriotic 15-Year rifle of the Chinese Empire has an overwhelming advantage.

In addition to the M15 rifle, the Chinese Imperial Shence Army was also equipped with a new type of pistol.

The revolver that was previously equipped with officers has long been outdated, and the performance of the revolver in the Bangladesh battlefield and the Lanfang battlefield of the Chinese Imperial Shence Army was too bad, and the imperial military immediately proposed to replace it after the war, but it has not been able to find a suitable replacement for the pistol, so it is reluctantly used.

Today, along with the 15-Year Patriotic rifle, the M11CF pistol, an epoch-making semi-automatic pistol that is a revolutionary leap forward from the revolver.

This pistol was not developed from the military's traditional arsenal, but was supplied by Hualong, a civilian arms dealer. This is also the first time that a private arms company in the Chinese Empire has successfully defeated its competitors and won a military order.

The M11A pistol, developed as early as 3978, participated in the bidding of the Chinese Imperial Military at that time, although the design concept was very advanced at that time, but it was eliminated due to insufficient reliability during the test.

Of course, it wasn't just Hualong that was eliminated, as all seven bidding companies failed to qualify, forcing the military to postpone the purchase of pistols.

Over the next few years, Hualong continued to improve the M11 pistol, until the final CF model was finally approved by the Imperial Chinese military and passed the test.

During this period, state-owned military units such as Beiyang Weapons, Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau, and Nanyang Military Industry of the Chinese Empire also launched a large number of pistol models, forming fierce competition with Hualong, and even used the financial resources of large companies to crush Hualong, but in the end it still failed, allowing Hualong to win the order.

The purchase order of up to 1 million M11CF pistols instantly made Hualong a small private military enterprise into a famous military enterprise in the Chinese Empire.

Li Weiguo likes the M11CF pistol very much, because he found that this pistol looks similar to the historical M1911 pistol, but all indicators are better than the other party, using 7.62×25mm pistol cartridges, 7 rounds, effective range of 50 meters, weight only 860 grams, is a complete Chinese version, with the use and wearing habits of the Chinese. (To be continued.) )