Severa was furious, his main battleship was not as fast as the Seascale, and he couldn't catch up no matter how much he chased it. Although "Maria? The Princess Teresa was Spain's first modern fast cruiser, but the Spanish Navy was not trained and maintained enough to use its full power, and some of its guns were never fired until the war began. After the first main gun fired, it took three minutes to the next main gun fire, and within these three minutes, the Sea Scale quickly maneuvered and evaded by virtue of its speed advantage, making it difficult for the Spanish officers and men on the ship to calculate the correct position of the Sea Scale, and the main gun fired more than a dozen rounds, and the nearest projectile impact point was more than 100 meters.

In turn, like all tradition-loving navies, the ships of the Spanish Navy had a large number of wooden ornaments, which made the ships of the Spanish Navy very vulnerable to fire in naval battles. The Seascale's artillery was mainly rapid-fire guns, and a large number of rapid-fire shells could easily set the Spanish battleship on fire.

A Sea Scale circled the Spanish fleet for two and a half hours, and constantly led the Spanish fleet in the direction of reinforcements from the two ships Dengyun and Tayun.

At half past four in the afternoon, Liu Buyun led the two ships Dengyun and Tayun to suddenly appear on the right side of the Spanish fleet, and the huge figures of the two battleships immediately frightened Severa.

Severa immediately ordered the Spanish fleet to retreat, but it was entangled by the Seascale, and half an hour later, the armored cruiser Viscaya was sunk by the Dengyun. Don Juan. The cruiser Duke of Austria was sunk by the Treading Cloud and the Sea Scale.

Severa, after paying the price of three battleships, led Maria? Princess Teresa, Almirante? Okundo, Isabel II, Marquis of Venadito, Antonio. The Duke of Ulloa fled in a hurry, while the gunboat Max. Bender. The Duiro escaped after being hit hard by accident and ran aground.

The Qing Imperial Navy won more with less, and three warships against nine warships of the Spanish Navy not only suffered minor losses, but also sank four warships of the Spanish Navy, which immediately became famous.

The U.S. Navy felt that the Qing Imperial Navy was too showy, and the U.S. Navy prepared five battleships to deal with the Spanish Navy, and as many as 19 armored cruisers, cruisers, and gunboats.

On 1 March, the U.S. Admiralty, in order to save some face, ordered W.T. Sampson to immediately lead the Atlantic Fleet to destroy the Spanish Navy's Severa fleet.

Three days later, 24 warships of the US Navy blocked the Spanish fleet in the waters near the Cayman Islands in the Caribbean Sea, which was preparing to make a detour into Cuba.

The U.S. Navy took the lead in attacking, with both fierce and long-range firepower. The total weight of shells fired in each salvo was 19,000 pounds, and the Western Army fired a salvo of only 3,000 pounds. The U.S. military hit the western ships one after another with fierce and accurate firepower, burning and sinking. After four hours of fierce fighting, all five warships of the Spanish Navy's fleet of Severa were destroyed, 600 people were killed, and the commander of the fleet, Severa, and 1,800 officers and men were captured. Only 2 U.S. ships were lightly wounded, with 1 dead or wounded each.

After the destruction of the Spanish fleet of Severa, the maritime combat mission in the Caribbean came to an end. The U.S. military immediately confidently and boldly increased its troops to Cuba and besieged Havana with the ancient rebels.

On 16 March, the Western Army ran out of ammunition and food, and 24,000 troops laid down their arms. The U.S. military was as treacherous as it was in the Philippines, abandoning the rebel army and negotiating and surrendering with Spain alone, forbidding the rebel army to enter the city, and the U.S. military enjoyed the fruits of victory alone.

While the Qing Empire and the United States were at war against Spain, the rest of the world did not stop.

In September 1896, the Greeks on the island of Crete staged an uprising to free themselves from the Turkish yoke and annex them to Greece.In April 1897, the Ottoman Empire declared jihad against the Cretans in response. In December, a detachment of the Greek army came to the aid of the insurgents, and the situation began to deteriorate. Subsequently, Britain, France, Russia, Germany, Italy, and Austria-Hungary declared Crete autonomous under "European protection" and sent a landing force to occupy the island on 5 February 1898.

On 6 February, the Ottoman Empire declared war on Greece. The Turkish army, trained by German instructors, greatly outnumbered the Greek army in strength and weaponry and was prepared for war. The Turks had 94,000 infantry, 1,660 cavalry, and 234 artillery pieces in Thessaly and Epirus, while the Greeks had only 55,000 infantry, 970 cavalry, and 144 artillery pieces. The Turkish battle plan was to attack Thessaly with the main force and defend Epirus with two divisions. The Greek command planned to defend Thessaly with two divisions in the first phase and launch an offensive on Epirus in order to liberate the area, while also hoping that victory in the first battle would provoke an anti-Turkish uprising.

However, the Greek army was defeated in the border battle at Thessaly, and on 13 February it was said that the city of Larissa had been abandoned and withdrawn to the city of Trikala. Greece was not prepared for war, the mediocre and incompetent command of the Greek army headed by Crown Prince Constantine, the weak combat effectiveness of the troops, and the superiority of the Turkish army in terms of strength and technical equipment -- all these contributed to the defeat of the Greek army in the cities of Fasalu and Veillistinom in the Thessaly region, and in the vicinity of the cities of Pentai-Pigadia, Alta and Prefozza in the Epirus region.

After mediation by the major powers, an armistice agreement was signed on 7 March. Under the peace treaty signed at Constantinople on 4 December 1897, Greece ceded six small but strategically important areas of Thessaly to Turkey and paid an indemnity of 4 million Turkish pounds.

Crete remained under Turkish administration, but under pressure from European powers, Turkish troops soon withdrew from Crete, and the island became an international protectorate and an autonomous government was established.

At the same time as the Cretan War broke out, on the other side of the Mediterranean, the war also broke out in Egypt.

On February 2, 1898, Britain and France were ostensibly negotiating a solution to the conflict between each other's 2C and 2S strategies, but secretly they were using their own means. The French-backed Mahdi Army of Sudan launched an offensive against Egypt, and the Battle of Omdurman broke out.

After the outbreak of the war, British and Egyptian troops (8,200 British, 17,600 Egyptians) relied on fortifications to defeat 52,000 Sudanese Mahdi troops. The unprecedented victory of the British was due to the fact that the British borrowed the experience of the Qing Russian war of Aihui. The British learned the application of heavy machine guns from the Qing Empire's Beiyang Army from the Qing Empire's Beiyang Army, and the Makqin heavy machine gun played a huge role in the Battle of Omdurman, causing nearly 20,000 Mahdi Army to be killed, 13,000 wounded, 5,000 captured, and the British and Egyptian troops only 48 were killed and wounded no more than 100.

The contradictions between Britain and France are well known, and after the Battle of Omdurman, France suffered a great loss, and the contradictions between Britain and France deepened.

Similarly, within the Central Powers, the contradictions between Austria-Hungary and the Kingdom of Italy intensified.

On March 8, Queen Elisabeth of Austria and Queen Elizabeth of Hungary was assassinated by Lucheni, an Italian apoaxeist, and Austria-Hungary immediately attacked Italy and even threatened war retaliation. Germany, as the boss of the Central Powers, suddenly had two big heads. Austria-Hungary's economy was inferior to that of Italy, and it was a complete vassal of Germany, so Germany supported Austria-Hungary in the Elizabethan affair, making Italy apologize and promise Austria-Hungary some concessions. This immediately caused [***] demonstrations in major Italian cities, which made the Italians very dissatisfied with Germany and Austria-Hungary, which affected relations between the Central Powers to a certain extent.

Li Guodong, director of the intelligence bureau, made a report to Wang Chenhao on the above situation, and Wang Chenhao couldn't be happier about the dog-eat-dog between the powers, and immediately asked Li Guodong to arrange personnel from intelligence stations around the world, so that they could instigate the contradictions between the powers as much as possible under the premise of self-preservation.

On April 3, 1898, the Spanish Minister to China and the Minister to the United States respectively submitted a request for an armistice to the Qing Dynasty and the United States.

Subsequently, Britain and France intervened to mediate. Wang Chenhao had already achieved his operational objectives and occupied Puerto Rico, Guam, the Caroline Islands, and the Northern Mariana Islands, so he agreed to the peace talks. The United States also defeated the Spanish forces in Cuba and the Philippines, and although they had not yet completely occupied the Philippines and Cuba, there was no war with the Spaniards, so they agreed to peace talks.

Subsequently, China, the United States and Spain launched negotiations in New York, with the Chinese negotiator Tang Shaoyi in charge of the Chinese negotiator. Because Wang Chenhao's demands were not high, he only demanded that Spain recognize the Qing Empire's actual occupation of Guam, Puerto Rico, the Caroline, and the Northern Mariana Islands, and give up the pursuit of the anti-Spaniard movement that had occurred in China before, so that China and Spain would have equal exchanges from now on. The Spanish political axe thought that Tang Shaoyi would take advantage of the fire to rob and extort compensation, so he quickly agreed to this request.

As far as the United States is concerned, the Spaniards have launched a public opinion offensive, and the American political axe is bound by the US Constitution, and it is impossible to demand reparations from Spain, let alone launch a larger-scale war of aggression, so the negotiations between the two sides are also smooth.

On May 13, 1898, the Qing Empire signed the New York Treaty with the Spanish Empire, and the United States and the Spanish Empire

The peace treaty stipulated that Spain would recognize Cuba (which had effectively become a protectorate of the United States), and that it would transfer Puerto Rico, Guam, the Caroline Islands, and the Northern Mariana Islands to the Qing Empire, and the Philippines to the United States. However, the United States paid $20 million to Spain in return for the Philippines.

During the entire war, about 3,000 American troops were killed, and the Qing Empire expeditionary force suffered less than 100 casualties. The Qing Empire seized strategic islands such as Puerto Rico and Guam at a very small cost. The United States, on the other hand, seized important overseas colonies from Spain, mainly by taking advantage of the armed struggle of the Cuban and Filipino peoples. On the surface, the United States made money, and the Qing Empire got some islands, but in the long run, the Qing Empire won a strategic victory, and the occupation of Puerto Rico made the Qing Empire qualified to intervene in the Caribbean and American affairs, which was of great significance for the increase of international influence.

(To be continued)