"Thank God! Thank you Queen Mother! Thanks to the King! Thanks ......"

Being Fernando. Primo. Morality. Two Spanish soldiers standing guard in front of Rivera's office suddenly heard some strange noises...... A loud shout full of joy and excitement seemed to come from their Governor-General. Pen × fun × Pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 But all the soldiers knew that His Excellency the Governor's mood had long since become extremely bad because of the terrible situation, so in theory he would not shout with joy, but only roar with anger.

But the shouting kept coming from the office, and it was getting clearer. One of the guards thought with a frown, then cast a confused gaze at his colleague on the other side.

"Did you hear anything?"

"Did you hear that, too?"

"What do you think has happened to His Excellency the Governor? I don't understand what's going on. ”

"Me too."

The two guards looked at each other, exchanged glances, and nevertheless decided to let go of their curiosity rather than disobey the orders of His Excellency the Governor, to whom he had given an order forbidding anyone to enter his office before the strange shouts appeared, to rush into the office to see what was really going on. The guard stood up again, his body straight, his eyes fixed ahead, not even blinking his eyelids, as if he had heard nothing, nothing unusual.

In fact, they should rush in, and the ecstatic Rivera may hug them, shake their hands, perhaps add a little compliment, or even say that he is going to give them a reward, a promotion, a medal, or a bonus - Rivera is so happy that after spending so much time in worry, he finally gets the real good news: all the problems of the Philippines have nothing to do with him, and he has put it aside.

To put it more plainly, he is no longer the Governor of the Philippines of Spain. Just five minutes earlier, Rivera had received an urgent telegram from Madrid, asking him to hand over power to Basilio as soon as possible. Augustine [Note] and immediately returned to Spain to take up a new position.

Good news.

Whatever Madrid want to do to demote him or promote him, Rivera sees it as good news. He will no longer have to worry about the situation in the Philippines, he will no longer feel nervous, and he will be able to rest at night, so the headache that began after learning of the explosion of the "Maine" will also be gone to him. All the problems are solved, and now it is the turn of poor Mr. Augustine to enjoy those troubles, hoping that God and the king will bless him......

Rivera paused, quickly drew a cross on his chest, and continued to dance.

"Praise God! Praise the Queen Mother! Praise the King! Praise ......"

"Did you hear that? Again. The guard standing on the left whispered.

"Nope." The guard on the right replied solemnly, "No matter what you heard or found anything unusual, I heard nothing and found nothing. ”

"Carlos ......"

"Attention! Someone came over. ”

The guard on the left looked ahead again—the Governor's secretary was running quickly, looking panicked, as if he were followed by a pack of extremely vicious dogs, or an even more ferocious group of Filipino rebels. But in reality, there was nothing behind him, and no one knew why he was panicking.

And the two guards didn't want to know either, but they had to do their duty.

"You can't go in." The guard on the right reached out and blocked the secretary.

"Get out of the way!" The secretary yelled.

"You can't go in." This time it was the guards on the left. The secretary's reaction didn't alert him - after all, it wasn't surprising that a guy like this who followed the big guy would always behave aggressively.

But this time, things seem to be a little different.

"Get out of the way!" The secretary raised his voice. But instead of solving the problem with words alone, he grabbed the guard's hand and tried to push it aside. Of course, it's a bit difficult for a civilian to do so. In the end, he still had to go back to the original solution.

"Get out of the way! I have something important to report to the Governor! "It's a little louder.

"You can't go in." The two guards said, "This is the order of His Excellency the Governor......"

"To hell with the Governor's orders!" Finally, the secretary could not help himself and cried out - and incidentally with the news that he was trying to hide from ordinary soldiers: "The Americans have declared war on us!" ”

"The Americans have declared war on us!"

"We should have expected this to happen -- right after the explosion of the battleship Maine in Havana." Viceroy and Commander-in-Chief of Cuba of Spain, Peña. Marquis of Plata, Ramón. Blanco[note 2] reprimanded his overly alarmed officers and officers with a straight face, even though in reality he was more nervous and frustrated than any of them.

Blanco felt that his luck was simply terrible: in 1893 he was appointed governor of the Philippines, but there was a rebellion; In 1896 he was preparing to settle the rebellion in the Philippines once and for all, but the conservative forces forced him to leave there, and the Prime Minister sent him to Cuba to deal with the mess left by General Wellaire; Now, when he was almost about to put down the rebellion in Cuba, the Americans declared war on Spain again.

He's always solving problems, but when he's about to solve one problem, another, bigger trouble comes suddenly. It's not fair at all!

And more importantly, the United States is a problem that he will never be able to solve.

Blanco considered his situation. Ostensibly with 150,000 regular soldiers and at least 50,000 militiamen, controlling every key point, and having ordered his generals to fortify coastal forts, forts, and cities after the explosion of the "Maine", the situation seemed to favor him, but the reality was quite the opposite.

The Americans have the advantage. The Cuban rebels supported them. In fact, he once tried to persuade the rebel leader Maxim. Gomez confronted the American army, which could invade at any moment, but Gomez flatly refused, while the other rebel leaders saw the United States as their ally and the liberator of Cuba - he could not even count on the rebels to remain neutral. As soon as American soldiers land in Cuba, the rebels will either join them or take advantage of the opportunity for the United States to fight his army to expand their sphere of influence.

But the greater threat lies with the US Navy. Once its fleet succeeded in blockading Cuba and Puerto Rico, his army would become a caged beast with no reinforcements, no ammunition supplies, no food to find, and no flanking attacks from land and sea. In such a dire situation, he could not defend Cuba and Puerto Rico, and defeat was only a time-related and irrelevant matter.

Unless the Navy is able to break the blockade of the American fleet, or force it to abandon it.

Admiral Pascual. The fleet commanded by Severa was Blanco's only hope, and if Severa also failed, the only thing he could do was to order his soldiers to lay down their arms and surrender to the Americans. At least doing so would allow most people to survive this war.

The Navy is key!

"But, Your Excellency the Governor, do you really believe that Admiral Severa's fleet will be able to break through the American blockade, or force them to abandon it?"

Blanco looked at the general who was asking. Arsenio. Linares, who was in charge of the defense of San Diego, was an excellent warrior and commander, but now he also had a pessimistic expression.

He shook his head to himself. "Admiral Linares, the question is not whether we believe Admiral Severa or not, the question is that his fleet is the key to victory. If he loses, we lose......"

"But that's almost a given."

"Then you'd better start reinforcing your fortifications further now, General. Even if we have to surrender, I still want to create enough trouble for the Americans. "For the sake of the kingdom and the honor of the king, the Spanish army will fight bloodily until the last moment." ”

"Until you give the order to surrender, I will hold my ground, Your Excellency the Governor." "But I don't think the Americans will attack San Diego before clearing the coastal batteries," Linares assured. ”

"That's not important, General." Blanco shook his head slowly, "That's not important. ”

What matters is only Admiral Severa's home fleet - Severa himself thinks so, and unfortunately his views on the war situation are exactly the same as those of the army generals - but even more unfortunate that the views of the generals are not those of Madrid...... At least not the opinion of the Minister of the Navy.

Severa was reading the new instructions given to him by the minister, and did not know whether to laugh or crumple the telegram aside, so he shrugged his shoulders and showed it to his captains. "The Admiralty asked us to destroy the US Navy base in Key West and then blockade the shores of the United States."

At first, no one spoke, and it was clear that everyone was confused by the order of the Secretary of the Admiralty, or too shocked to know how to react. Soon, however, they reached a consensus - albeit without communication.

"Only a madman would ask us to blockade the shores of the United States."

The captains' reaction was no different from Severa's expectations. The Home Fleet, with only four cruisers and two destroyers, used such a small force to destroy American naval bases and blockade the American coast...... Perhaps the opinion of the Prime Minister and the Minister of the Navy was this: God came, right among the Spaniards, and naval officers. "Maybe they think I'm God." Severa thought, but didn't utter the blasphemous complaint.

However, even if everyone knew that Madrid's order was extremely absurd, they had no choice but to carry it out.

This is war.

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Note: Historically, Basilio. Augustine succeeded Rivera as Governor of the Philippines on April 11, 1898 - just two weeks before the declaration of war

Note 2: Blanco's title is marqués.de.Peña.Plata

Added: There was a mistake in the chapter yesterday, and it was the "Prestige" battlecruiser that pursued the "Sha" / "Grid", not the "Counterattack" (to be continued, if you want to know what happened next, please land on the www.qidian.com, more chapters, support the author, support genuine reading!) (To be continued.) )