"Immediately telegraph this news to the Pacific Fleet!" Waving the papers in his hand, Xu Shoushan stood in front of a huge map of the Pacific Ocean and carefully placed a blue flag marking the military garrison in the upper right of Australia, Fiji and Samoa, two western Pacific colonies belonging to the British Empire.

Because Fiji and Samoa have always been important ports for China's overseas sugar trade, there are a large number of Chinese trade points in the western Pacific region, which is naturally indispensable for the intelligence department to insert eyeliners, but the intelligence personnel originally planted in Fiji were mainly to secretly investigate the news of the British and American fleets, but they unexpectedly found that a large military port appeared on the strategically located Lukara Island.

For the Royal Navy of the British Empire, in addition to having permanent naval bases in Brisbane and Sydney, Australia, the western Pacific islands were not included in the scope of defense, after all, the colonies such as Fiji and Samoa are mainly agricultural production areas, and the scope is of little significance, but the port of Fiji, which is busy with trade, has very good conditions for anchoring military ships, which is obviously the reason why Port Lukara was finally chosen.

The transformation of the entire Lukara military port has obviously begun in secret, but due to the extremely strict blockade carried out by the British side, coupled with the blind spot of China's attention to the local area, it has not been noticed, and now after the investigation of the Intelligence Department, the Lucara military port has begun to take shape, and there is a defense force including 1 Dreadnought-class battleship and 2 Edgar-class cruisers.

Dreadnought-class battleships, as the most powerful battleships of the Royal Navy in the pre-dreadnought era, are obviously a little outdated now, but they are definitely not chicken, and the pre-dreadnought naval arms race provoked by China at that time has made this type of battleship combat power already exceed the Dreadnought class that has appeared in history. The main guns were increased from 4 to 6, and the armor and tonnage were increased, of course, at the cost of only 18 knots in the speed of the battleship, but such a compromise was clearly not a failure.

It's just that. The opponent of the British was obviously not Germany, but the Chinese navy rising in the Pacific, and in the face of the Chinese navy, which has a strong naval tradition and a large fleet, such a small garrison fleet is obviously not enough to create any suppressive force, which makes the Chinese military feel a little strange, and the Pacific Fleet Command immediately re-investigated through the Naval Intelligence Department within half a month after receiving the news.

To the surprise of the admirals, including Lühan, the port of Lucara is a U-shaped offshore port with a good deep-water anchorage. Due to the lack of observation conditions, it was not until late April that the British secret was discovered when the CS C77 survey ship dropped a small submarine near Lucara - not just the surface fleet was stationed in Lucara, but the Royal Navy's Holland-class submarines, which included at least one formation.

In today's Europe, the German U-boat caused a lot of trouble to the British in the English Channel, especially for the British Empire's huge overseas trade routes, which had obviously been taken seriously by the Royal Navy, and the British had deployed submarines to the Far East Pacific. This is obviously a very interesting intention.

April 28, Washington. After nearly a month of sparring, the secret consultations between China, Britain and the United States finally entered the substantive negotiation stage, but what puzzled Huang Zunxian was that US Secretary of State Ferrand? Knox did not make any concessions at all on the terms of the promise, and the British minister to the United States, Sir Chucton, even offered to share the benefits of the Panama Canal in exchange, and the British were willing to offer it. It is only the protection of Chinese interests in the Atlantic.

In fact, as a sea power today, the Chinese Navy has already formed a routine Atlantic escort operation after the outbreak of the European War, and as a stakeholder with close ties with the Allies, it has no fear of being attacked by German submarines. As for the peace agreement between the two countries with Britain, it is natural that there are not too many worries, so this so-called exchange of interests is more just an attempt by the United States and Britain to draw China in.

Huang Zunxian naturally understands that China's position in the European war, at least for the time being, does not need to make any compromises, unless there are huge national interests, and it should not be the so-called exchange of interests under the leadership of Britain and the United States, so he made it very clear that he dissented and put forward five demands on the Chinese side at the same time -- the core is only one point, China must obtain the benefits of trade in the Atlantic, not only in the North Atlantic, but in the entire Atlantic region.

In this regard, Britain and the United States naturally could not agree, China's trade in Europe completely ignored the position of the warring parties in the European war, although the trade with Germany, Austria-Hungary and other allies did not involve armaments, but this was also unacceptable to the Entente, which was also the fundamental reason why the United States and Britain were ready to join forces, and the only reason for the British to sit at the negotiating table was from the defeat of the Sino-British naval battle in the Far East, the British Empire could not bear that kind of defeat again, especially now that the European war was a mess.

At a time when the two sides are arguing for the national interest in Washington, William? President Taft made an extremely important decision at a cabinet meeting on May 3 that the U.S. Home Fleet would be integrated with the Royal Navy's Second Atlantic Fleet to establish a joint naval command to ensure the formation of a final superior combat force along the entire East Coast and the fulfillment of the secret agreement between the two countries.

The target is undoubtedly the Chinese fleet, which has infiltrated its tentacles into the Caribbean Sea, and the reason why President Taft made such a decision, the report produced by Secretary of War Henry ****sheng is obviously absolutely convincing -- compared with the US Navy during the Cuban crisis, the US Navy has undergone earth-shaking changes today.

From the Chishach-class battleship to the New York-class dreadnought USS Texas, which is now being launched and outfitted, the U.S. Navy has spanned the history of battleships from 14,000 tons to 28,000 tons, and the number of U.S. Navy battleships has never been more than 28, including 8 dreadnoughts, although compared to the Royal Navy's superhuman 20 dreadnoughts, the U.S. Navy is still a little immature, but after all, this is fighting at its own doorstep, China's naval fleet stationed in Port-au-Prince only has 3 battleships.

Excluding the 8 battleships on the west coast and Australia, there are 20 battleships that Henry **** can handle, although some of them are slightly old like the Chishaji class, but they are definitely thick-skinned iron turtles, and they should theoretically have absolute certainty against the military power that Chinese enter the Atlantic...... Of course, considering the psychological trauma brought by the Chinese to the US fleet during the Cuban crisis, the components of the Joint Naval Command this time can obviously play a more effective role in powerful US armaments.

As a lawyer-turned-secretary of state, he also knows the essence of bargaining, and once he can reach a substantive agreement with China in the Far East, it will undoubtedly be the most brilliant achievement of his political career, and even enough to prompt him to run on the stage after President Taft leaves office.

However, it is clear that he completely underestimated China's hard-line attitude, and although Huang Zunxian did not close the door to negotiations, he has clearly put forward China's so-called position of not choosing sides, and has thrown out a choice that has puzzled the United States and Britain -- if China's position is not satisfied, it will have to abandon its original position, which means entering into a confrontational position.

As a result, the three days of negotiations between the two sides reached only one intended result, and all three sides promised to resume negotiations as soon as possible, but did not reach anything substantive at all......

On 4 May, the same day that the United States and Britain announced the establishment of a joint naval command, the Chinese government also announced a new humanitarian aid program for the European war, which would provide 25 million yuan in humanitarian food aid to Germany and the Ottoman Empire to ensure the growing shortage of materials in the two countries...... Although this is a mere aid programme on paper, it will face enormous difficulties that will be difficult to overcome.

Britain has completely blocked the aid trade on the Suez Canal to Germany and the Allied countries, of course, in view of China's position, small batches of goods are still allowed to pass, but this kind of fanfare of so-called humanitarian aid, especially the grain trade, which is completely unable to distinguish between military and humanitarian use, the British will certainly not let go, and will inevitably prevent goods from passing through the Suez Canal in various ways.

Of course, China now has more than one hole card, the Panama Canal provides another perfect passage for Chinese goods to enter the Atlantic, but the Panama line is obviously not a smooth road, and now it has to face the increasingly tough attitude of the Yankees, since the Speeze fleet tossed on the West Coast of the United States, the US government has strongly stated that it will block all aid to Germany!

Therefore, such a statement is obviously one of the diplomatic means of the Chinese government, and this news has obviously touched the nerves of Europe and the United States, any materials entering the allies, will strengthen the strength of the hand, the diplomatic stance of the two sides at a time when the fierce game, the course of the European war has once again undergone drastic changes.

Feng? Field Marshal Hindenburg's German army on the Eastern Front made amazing progress, after breaking through the Russian defense line in the Gerbachan Mountains, although it encountered an unprecedented rainy season attack, which caused the German army to pursue the Russian army on the Eastern Front greatly reduced, but after three months of fighting, the German-Austrian forces had completely smashed the Russian defense on the Eastern Front, and entered Warsaw, Poland on May 10.

And the even more shocking news came from the already stalemate of the Bordeaux theater in France...... (To be continued.) )