The civil war broke out again in the United States, which brought huge arms sales revenue to China, and the British people were red-eyed.

At the end of December 1974 and the beginning of January 1875, the British Ministry of Defense released a report on global military strength and a white paper on national defense, which pointed out that China's military spending continued to grow by double digits, an increase of 67% over the previous year, and that military strength threatened the security of the entire world.

At the same time, the British Ministry of Defense also accused the China Arms Import and Export Corporation of becoming the world's largest arms dealer, selling 28.88 million pounds of arms last year, and being the main culprit in creating wars around the world last year.

Britain is hyping up **********, and China has also launched a counterattack, first protesting through diplomatic channels, pointing out that Britain provoked the American Civil War and caused massacres in India and Africa. Immediately afterwards, China's Ministry of National Defense also released a report on global military strength and a white paper on national defense, accusing Britain of spending 1 million yuan more than China's total military spending, Britain's military spending has accounted for 60% of the total GDP, belongs to the type of reckless militarism, is a precursor to the imminent bankruptcy of the economy, ready to reverse the results with military aggression, and all countries in the world should be vigilant against Britain's military threat to the whole world. China's military spending accounts for only 10% of its total GDP, which is within the normal scope of a normal country's armaments.

As a result, China and Britain began a war of public opinion again, blaming each other, causing more and more tension between the two countries.

Countries around the world are also nervous, because China and Britain are like two children, quarreling and fighting for three days. It has been five years since the Fourth Jamie War (known as the Commercial War in England), and if it is extrapolated by common sense, the two countries are expected to fight again, so the countries of the world are nervous, worried about being drawn into the war by these two equally thick and dark countries.

"Is Britain ready for war?"

The Times, Britain's most authoritative newspaper, ran headlines predicting the possibility of a war between Britain and China.

The report points out that Britain has been fighting since the Fourth Commercial War (the Epic War). In the past five years, the British Royal Navy has built 18 new 10,000-ton ironclads, called the Revenge class, and 6 Queen Elizabeth-class ironclads under construction, which are said to be more powerful, plus 18 10,000-ton ironclads built five years ago. At present, there are 8 ships left (10 ships were lost in the Sino-British Battle of Huangyan Island), and by 1876 there will be 32 main ironclad ships.

The Royal Navy of China (the British have the emperor's national army plus the word royal) in the last war had 9 10,000-ton ironclad ships, and five years later today 9 Hsiungfeng-class ironclad ships have been built and put into service, for the British Royal Navy started to build the Queen Elizabeth-class ironclad ship, it is said that the Royal Navy of China has also started to build a new type of ironclad ship, but the specific information is still unknown. At present, the British side has information that the Chinese Royal Navy has a total of 18 main ironclad ships, and the British Royal Navy still has an absolute advantage in terms of quantity, but it is not known whether the British ironclad ships can surpass the Chinese ironclad ships in quality.

Next. The editor-in-chief of The Times also analyzed the cruisers, frigates, submarines and fish and radium boats of the British and Chinese navies, and compared them in terms of number and tonnage.

Among them, the British Navy will have 89 cruisers next year, of which 24 dome cruisers have been built in imitation of China's Haiqi-class cruisers, 8 new armored cruisers, and the rest are old cruisers. And the Chinese Navy seems to have built only nine new cruisers, plus the previous nine old dome cruisers, which is still eighteen.

In terms of the number of frigates, the superiority of the British Royal Navy is even more obvious. The foundation of a centuries-old maritime power has shown its advantage at this moment. At present, the British Royal Navy has 248 frigates of various types, while the Chinese Royal Navy appears to have fewer than 80. The gap is stark.

Five years ago, in the Battle of Huangyan Island, the British Royal Navy suffered a crushing defeat, and they found the cause of the defeat, which was the Chinese Royal Navy's submarines and fish and radium boats.

In the past five years, the British Royal Navy has been brave and brave, and has spent huge sums of money to build eight submarines of the sixth class and more than 100 fish and radium speedboats.

The editor-in-chief of The Times concluded by conviction: "I believe that when a naval war breaks out again between Britain and China." We, the Royal Navy of the British Empire, will be victorious! ”

In the face of the British media's praise of how powerful the British Royal Navy was, the Chinese media also fought back, and a commentator from the Central Daily said: "The Chinese Navy is invincible under the leadership of the great Guanghua Emperor!" In front of the Chinese Navy, the British Navy is a paper tiger, which can be broken at the first poke. Sink with one hit. ”

The Central Daily did not explain too much, but said that although the number of warships in the Chinese Navy is small, the quality is high, and it is by no means that the British Navy can make up for the quality gap with the number of warships.

As the victorious side of the Battle of Scarborough Shoal, it doesn't hurt that the Chinese Navy does not explain too much, because all countries in the world believe that the quality of the Chinese Navy's warships is very high and the performance is very advanced, and if a Sino-British naval battle breaks out, it is really difficult to say whether the Chinese Navy will win or lose, but since the Chinese Navy has won once, it is entirely possible to win again.

Since neither country can judge which of the Chinese and British navies will win in the end, they cannot choose a side and can only maintain a neutral attitude.

However, almost all countries in the world believed that war would break out again in 3976 or 1876 in the Western calendar, because they saw the vengeful eyes of the British and the resolute attitude of China to continuously drive British power out of the Asia-Pacific region.

If the two strong compete and are not convinced by each other, then they can only fight.

However, where the fuse of the war is, military experts from various countries are discussing and thinking.

German military experts said that the next Sino-British war would break out in the Strait of Malacca in Southeast Asia, because that was the last stronghold of the British navy in Southeast Asia, and as long as China uprooted the Singapore fortress, then British power would be squeezed out of the whole of Southeast Asia. Moreover, China's maritime trade and oil routes, which all pass through the Strait of Malacca, must also be in their own hands.

The Dutch government was nervous and hastened to find some military experts to make comments, pointing out that the Dutch government would strictly maintain a neutral attitude and would never get involved in the Sino-British war, and hoped that China and Britain would not start a war in the Strait of Malacca.

In fact, the Dutch side was worried that China would attack the Dutch East Indies under the pretext that Britain only controlled the Malay side of the Strait of Malacca, and the Dutch East Indies controlled the other side of the Strait of Malacca.

The Dutchman was on the wrong side last time. As a result, the entire island of Kalimantan was lost, which was an area of more than 700,000 square kilometers, equivalent to the area of two Dutch, and the Dutch were hurt to think about it, so they hurriedly issued a statement that they would never intervene in the conflict and war between China and Britain.

French military strategists expressed a different view. They believed that the next Sino-British conflict would be in the Eastern Ocean (the Yellow Sea and the northern part of the East China Sea), because Japan was at risk of war with China, and Britain and Japan were allies. The last time the Chinese Navy deliberately used the emperor as a bait to lure the Japanese Combined Fleet into attacking, the Chinese Navy ambushed the Japanese Combined Fleet, which added to the blood feud between China and Japan. Now the strength of the Japanese Combined Fleet, with the full help of the British, has skyrocketed. When the Japanese Navy took revenge on the Chinese Navy, it was the pretext and flashpoint for the British Navy to get involved in the war.

Spanish military strategists have been calling on the Spanish government to recover the Philippine Islands, arguing that the Spanish army should side with the British, and suggesting that the British choose Australia as the site of the war. Using Australia as a base to attack Kalimantan and the Philippine Islands, the Spanish army would fully support the British in their operations.

As the weakest Western power, Tsarist Russia has always hated China's seizure of the Far East, and cut off Tsarist Russia's Far Eastern outlet and Pacific dream. Unfortunately, the Russian navy was too weak to make an expedition to China from the sea, so Russian military strategists generally did not comment on the naval battle in the Far East. But they also have to brush existence. The great powers of the world could not be allowed to forget about Tsarist Russia, so the military strategists of Tsarist Russia believed that the next flashpoint of the Sino-British war should be on land. And it's between Bangladesh and Myanmar.

Tsarist Russia believed that China had established a naval base in Burma, and that the Chinese Shence Army was stationed in Burma to threaten British Bangladesh and British India. If the Chinese Navy wants to seize sea supremacy in the Indian Ocean in the next step, it will inevitably drive the British Army out of India and Bangladesh, and only by occupying India first can the British Navy be driven out of the Indian Ocean.

There is some truth in the views of the Russian military strategists. It was once recognized by many European and American military experts.

But the real mainstream was naval warfare, because they all read the Chinese Emperor Li Weiguo's "Treatise on Sea Power".

Recently, European and American countries have been spreading Li Weiguo's "Treatise on Sea Power", which is a book written by the emperor of the first major power in ancient times, and it is also closely related to the naval warfare of European and American powers.

In Li Weiguo's theory of sea power. The examples of the rising rise of Britain's maritime hegemony were cited, and the process of Britain's step-by-step seizure of world maritime supremacy and the establishment of Britain's empire where the sun never set was illustrated with naval battles.

They both wrote "The Theory of Sea Power", and even the content is basically the same, but the influence of Mahan and Li Weiguo on the world is huge.

When Mahan wrote "On Sea Power" in history, many countries sneered at him, and even the protagonist of "On Sea Power" was disdainful, thinking that Mahan was a clown who jumped off the beam, which was complete nonsense. It was not until more than 20 years later that Mahan's "Theory of Sea Power" was regarded as a classic by the US Navy, and with the gradual growth of the US Navy, it was gradually valued by naval people all over the world, and finally became brilliant.

As the emperor of China, Li Weiguo's views expressed in "On Sea Power" largely represent the future development direction of the Chinese Navy, so all countries have to attach great importance to this "Theory of Sea Power". At the same time, the Chinese Navy defeated the British Navy in the Battle of Scarborough Shoal, and drove the British Navy out of China, out of China's coastal waters, out of East Asia, and out of the Western Pacific step by step from an inland river fleet.

Li Weiguo's influence was too great, so that the "Theory of Sea Power" just came out, it was concerned and studied by all countries in the world, and soon the military strategists of various countries discovered the mystery of it, and combined with the brilliant achievements of the Chinese Navy, Li Weiguo's "Theory of Sea Power" was immediately regarded as a classic, and it became a compulsory course in the naval academies of various countries.

Britain was deeply influenced by Li Weiguo's "Theory of Sea Power", especially the Minister of the Sea Fisher, in the case of tight funds, in the case of the construction of 18 revenge-class ironclad ships, he still strongly recommended the British Admiralty, and started the construction of Queen Elizabeth-class ironclads, because Fisher read a sentence from "Sea Power".

The axioms will only be valid if they are within the deterrent range of the cannons of the giant ship, beyond which a different set of axioms will be used.

Fisher has since understood the path that the Chinese Navy will take in the future, and it is also the path that the British Navy will take in the future.

Eventually, the British Admiralty was persuaded by Fisher to temporarily build six more Queen Elizabeth-class ironclads on the basis of the Revenge-class ironclads, which are huge ships with a full load displacement of 16,000 tons and will carry 12.5-inch guns and 14.5-inch armor.

With Britain's strong industrial capacity, there was no problem in building a 16,000-ton giant ship, and there was no problem in installing 14.5-inch wrought iron armor, the only problem was the installation of a 12.5-inch main gun, and it was required to reach 45 times the caliber.

This is a huge challenge to the British military industry, three years ago the British Navy Gun Barrel Factory was still worried about the development of a 12-inch 35 times caliber barrel, after three years of hard work, it finally succeeded in the development of the Revenge-class ironclad ship before it was launched. However, as the construction of the Queen Elizabeth-class ironclad began, they had to continue to complain, because Fisher gave them a death order that the Queen Elizabeth-class ironclad must be successfully developed before it was launched, and the Queen Elizabeth-class ironclad could not be delayed in service.

Fortunately, the construction of the Queen Elizabeth-class ironclad ship only started last year, and the launch date was also scheduled in 1877, according to the previous fighting rules between China and Britain, it is estimated that the fight will start in 1876 next year, so the engineers of the British gun factory are praying in their hearts to fight quickly, as long as the fight starts, the British Admiralty will suspend the development of new main guns and produce the existing main guns with full force, so that they will have enough reasons to push away the problems that Fisher gave them.

If Fisher knew what these guys really thought, he would probably vomit three liters of blood in anger.

No matter what the military strategists of Europe and the United States think, for China, Li Weiguo's strategic goal has been achieved.

Strategic deception is a national strategy implemented by Li Weiguo against European and American countries, and the purpose is to concentrate the energy of European and American countries on the doctrine of giant ships and artillery.

In the imperial study of the Forbidden City, Li Weiguo stood in front of a huge world map, and a guard next to him presented a secret report from the China S.H.I.E.L.D. Bureau.

Li Weiguo smiled slightly after reading the secret report, and said to himself: "It's a pity that no one has guessed my real strategic goal, it is worthy of being a brick family, no matter what era it is, it will only mislead the country and the people." ”

As he spoke, Li Weiguo picked up a dart and threw it towards the world map, which happened to be stuck on Hawaii. (To be continued.) )