"The United States has really begun to send more warships!" Qin Kai squinted at the telegram in front of him, and then handed it to Lu Han, the head of the Admiralty.

This person took it and looked at it again and again for half a minute, this is not an unexpected thing, the US government does not understand the importance of the Panama Canal, even the Panama Railway, it is extremely important for the United States, after all, this is an important passage that can transfer goods from the Atlantic Ocean directly to the Pacific Ocean.

As for the opening of the Panama Canal, if it were not for Colombia's great hostility to the United States and its fear of too much involvement by the United States, and its resolute disagreement with the provision of contracts to American companies, it is estimated that the United States would have rushed to do so...... In particular, the theory of sea power has become prevalent in the US military, and although in view of the appearance of Qin Kai, Colonel Mahan's position of sea power authority has been shaken a little, but it is already a fact that the US Navy has entered the fast track of development.

"Chancellor, aren't the Yankees going crazy, the battleship Indian, the battleship Massachusetts, the battleship Iowa, the battleship USS Maine, the USS Terror, the USS Monterey...... This should be almost all the belongings of the Yankees! Lu Han was obviously also surprised by the big move of the Americans, and the Admiralty naturally predicted the move of the US government, and the United States might send one or two advanced warships to make a stand, but it definitely did not expect that the United States would dispatch almost all the first-class battleships.

Today, the U.S. Navy's new warship construction program can be said to be steadily advancing, and the four Indiana-class battleships are the latest types of battleships that were launched just 97 years ago, although the displacement of 12,000 tons is compared with the latest Chinese warships. Obviously, there is no advantage at all. But on the east coast of the Americas. It's definitely a formidable sea force......

Lu Han's judgment is obviously basically accurate, except for the batch of refurbished and rebuilt coastal defense ships, this time the Americans dispatched new warships, which can already be said to have dug out the bottom of the box, but ...... Qin Kai didn't think that the United States was preparing to attack Colombia on a large scale. The US national policy under McKinley's leadership has always been based on flaunting the protection of the interests of the Americas, and has openly broken the banner that the United States has held for so many years. Obviously not appropriate, and not likely.

Qin Kai was currently thinking about another big thing that he was worried about, although the dynamics of the matter seemed to be slightly different from the history he knew, but he had to carefully consider the cause and effect...... Soon, after a few whispered discussions with Lu Han, the admiral immediately left the table, anyway, the next discussion in the cabinet meeting will not have the naval military expenditure that he is interested in.

Beijing, Ministry of Military Affairs. After learning of the movements of the US fleet on the 14th, the entire country's warplanes have been fully activated. Although the Admiralty is nominally subordinate to the Ministry of Military Affairs, in actual operation, even Zhou Ruidong, the chief of the Ministry of Military Affairs, has no intention of interfering in any affairs of the Admiralty, which may be a special situation in the military and political aspects under the leadership of Qin Kai, and the General Staff Department is a department that completely integrates the navy and the army.

"Old Feng, it seems that the Yankees really want to move Spain! This foreigner is also engaged in infighting now! A young captain midshipman lay on the table on the west side of the exercise hall, sorting out the information on troop movements that was constantly being delivered in, and at the same time turned his head to ask a much older major staff officer next to him with some surprise.

"The information that the Intelligence Department has received, whether it can fight or not depends on what the Americans think!" Major Feng shook his head, stared at the various flags that had been placed on the deduction map, and picked up the telegram on the table that had gradually risen, "Ziyu, you are from the water camp, and you were escorted to the Nanyang Naval Command College, and now you are in the General Staff Department to perform your duties, but you have to do a good job, I heard General Lu say, now the country is an eventful time, this is a good opportunity!" ”

"yes!" When the young midshipman heard this, he also stood up straight, looked at the huge chart, and said with a smile: "Old Feng, when we were in the Sailor Academy, we never thought that the country could come to such a point...... In my opinion, Panama will be an important part of the navy in the future, and once it is opened, I am afraid that the situation in the whole of Europe will depend on the face of our Greater China! ”

The two of them obviously had such an opinion, and when they heard what they said, they both laughed, and when Staff Officer Feng was about to express his opinion, the guards on duty had already heard outside the door, "Salute!" The eyes of a room of staff officers pointed to the door, and with the sound of hurried footsteps, a group of shining stars poured in!

Except for the high-ranking military officials who were not in Beijing, almost all the heads of the Ministry of Military Affairs were present, which shows that the high-level attaches great importance to the Central American side this time.

Lu Han took a telegram from the adjutant on the side, and after signing it quickly, he immediately stood in front of the chart, on which the yellow flag marked two intertwined links, from Taiwan all the way east, along the Ryukyus, Ogasawara Island, Wake Island, Midway Island, Hawaii, Coberton Island, Garaspa Island to the American coastline, which made him smile confidently.

Then, his eyes fell on the port of Jas, Ecuador, a stone's throw off the west coast of Panama, where a blue arrow was already pointing at the narrow junction of Central America......

"When will our communications network be ready for real combat at the earliest? Where did General Chen Ming's 31 fleet go? Did they receive a telegram about the maneuver of the American fleet? Lu Han stood in front of the huge Pacific map of the General Staff Division, and pointed to the chart with a stern expression and asked the adjutant behind him.

"General, the communication ships that have been dispatched from the military ports of the Philippines and Hawaii in the past week are expected to be able to complete the preliminary communication links by tomorrow afternoon, and one hour ago, the communication ship Hongze had just arrived in the direction of Saipan, and the first confirmation telegram was transmitted back by the destroyer Pizhou, which was cruising in the direction of Palau, and it is expected that the 12 communication ships in the direction of Clipperton Island and Galapagos Island will soon have news! A telegram to General Chen Ming has been sent...... It's been 22 hours, it should have been received, probably due to the fact that the fleet was at sea, and there was no confirmation of the telegram back! ”

The prediction of the possible outbreak of war between the United States and Spain was completely out of the expectations of the entire navy, but after Qin Kai clearly pointed out this point, the Intelligence Division quickly confirmed a large amount of information from the United States and Cuba, although this information could not confirm the purpose of the US Navy's operations on the east coast of the Americas, but it confirmed one point from many aspects -- the Americans had long been ready to move on the Central American colonies of Cuba, the Bahamas, and Puerto Rico controlled by the Spaniards, and what the United States of America needed, It may just be a necessary fuse.

With the current situation, if a naval war really breaks out on the east coast of the Americas, it is definitely not an easy thing for China to intervene or take advantage, but it is an opportunity to definitely test the strength of China's navy!

Therefore, the first thing he had to do was to build up the huge military operation of the intercontinental communication network guò planned by the Admiralty Staff, and the importance of intelligence to the war was obviously beyond doubt, and after knowing this well, the first step of this operation against Central America was rapidly advanced!

The Navy in the application of wireless telegraphy, is undoubtedly ahead of the navies of other countries in this era, at this point, with the cooperation of the domestic military and the real room, the military 1500 watt capacitive oscillation spark radio frequency machine, has achieved a huge breakthrough, in the flat sea, the Navy has achieved more than 350 kilometers of radio communication.

Of course, the 350-kilometer communication distance is also affected by natural factors such as geography and weather, and under normal circumstances, a stable communication network of 300 kilometers has been established, and in an emergency, the military can lease merchant ships to build a more reliable maritime relay platform, and use the domestic maritime shipping capacity that has grown in the past ten years to quickly form a communication system across a huge sea area.

Nowadays, with the expansion of China's radio technology, European countries are also catching up rapidly, but due to the technical bottleneck of high-power spark radio frequency machine, it is far from reaching the military level, and in China, the research of three-pole electron tube radio frequency machine has been launched, and military ore high-sensitivity detection equipment and tube receiver have also achieved preliminary results.

In the foreseeable future, if a technological breakthrough is made, the Chinese Navy will have a communications system that is completely beyond this era, but now Lu Han has to worry about practical difficulties.

At 3 o'clock in the morning of the 17th, the news of the Yanghu communication ship operating on the outskirts of Coberton Island came from the sound of tick-tock telegrams, and on the morning of the same day, the four communication ships that entered the periphery of Galaspa Island successfully received the message from Vice Admiral Chen Ming, commander of the 31st Fleet, and only three hours later, only 10 words of information from the east coast of the Americas were put on Lu Han's desk. (To be continued......)