On 3 May, after a day of repairs, when the four battleships entered the dock for maintenance, the cruisers "Svetlana" and "Donskoy" of the Russian Second Pacific Fleet, with a column of pitch-black smoke, slowly sailed out of the harbor and headed for the mouth of Sanshawan Sea.

"Go to the vicinity of Taiwan to search and capture the merchant ships!"

Perhaps because of the subsidy of one ruble a day, the already exhausted sailors on the two cruisers seemed quite excited, and they had even begun to think about how to spend this "windfall".

Wine! Steak!

Everyone's mind comes to mind the dazzling variety of spirits and sumptuous food in the sailors' restaurant in the military port, although the price is expensive, but for this group of sailors who have long faded out of their mouths, the price is not a problem, anyway, it is a windfall, but these sailors do not know that the small restaurant of good luck sailors is just to welcome their arrival, and "deliberately" built temporarily, a subsidy of one ruble a day, always have to be earned.

For that "windfall", every sailor is full of energy, obviously without the panic of the past, and wants to come back alive to enjoy the wine and food!

At this time, even if the two cruisers had not yet left the port, they had already sailed out of the eighteen-nautical-mile high-speed, which was one of the advantages of Sansha Bay as a proper military port, and the vast bay allowed the warships to sail out of the port at the highest speed without worrying about reefs or coastal echoes.

When the battleship was about to leave the port for an hour, Captain Eisen, who was standing on the bridge, still only saw the peaks surrounding the bay, and the overlapping mountains blocked the view of the outer ocean.

"It's really the best port in Asia!"

Putting down the binoculars, as the cruiser sailed out of the sea at high speed, Zbelenov finally understood why the Chinese chose this place as their military port, and not only because of its small belly.

"The berth area is more than 30 versts from the mouth of the sea, even if the enemy fleet rushes into the sea, it will not be able to threaten the fleet in the bay, the sea area of the inner bay is more than 1,000 square versts, and the bay is completely surrounded by mountain barriers, and batteries are built on the mountains...... Tsk, tsk, Chinese this port as the base camp of the fleet, it's really ......"

"Don't forget, they're being squeezed in!"

Zbelenov's exclamation, interrupted by Eisen, casually stated a fact.

Lushun used to be Russian, Weihaiwei was British, Jiaozhou Bay was German, and now ...... China, with its 18,000 kilometers of coastline, has only one military port.

Listening to the conversation between the two Russian [***] officials in Russian, Ma Zhenwu, who had a solemn face, did not reveal the fact that he knew Russian, he just muttered to himself in his heart.

"Sooner or later, sooner or later, I'll get rid of you all!"

As an officer of the Naval Intelligence Service, the reason why he came to the Russian ship was to "cooperate" with the cruisers of the Russian army on the one hand, and on the other hand, to further find out the details of the Russian fleet, and the current ally may be tomorrow's enemy.

When the two cruisers with black smoke sailed through the waters of Zhiluo Island, Eisen saw through the telescope a black dot far to the northeast, and the black dot was spewing smoke that was not obvious.

"It is a training ship of the Chinese Navy, remodeled from a merchant ship!"

Zbelenov put down the binoculars and said casually that in Sanduao, he saw at least 18 training ships, and he learned from the [***] officer that the Chinese Navy has 42 training ships with a displacement of 2,200 tons to 4,800 tons, which means that they can train tens of thousands of sailors every year, and they are a navy that is eager to try.

"They use anthracite!"

Eisen looked at the column of smoke, which was not obvious and could even be ignored, and he immediately concluded that the three returning training ships were burning white coal.

"This fleet is so extravagant that it trains with British charcoal!"

"Isn't it? In the coal bunkers of the military port, you can see mountains of British charcoal! ”

"Didn't they say to provide us with coal? When we cruised for them, we burned the inferior coal, burned our coal until we finished it, and then asked them to replenish it to us! ”

When Ma Zhenwu was secretly laughing at this group of greedy Russians, Lu Yushenkov, the mechanical chief of the cruiser "Svetlana", was walking down the ladder in the engine room, and the further down he went, the hotter he became, the hotter he became.

Beside the boiler that dissipated heat, the firemen were working shirtless and in shorts, and although there were windscreens and constant sprays of cold water, the mercury gauge in the engine room still pointed to 54 degrees, and the firemen skillfully swung shovels of coal into the boiler, and kept holding iron rods to dig cinders in the stove.

Bending down, Lu Yushenkov picked up a piece of coal from the deck, and with a hard squeeze of his hand, the coal was easily crushed, which was the worst quality coal.

"Damn it!"

Throwing the coal into the boiler, Luyushenkov cursed.

"Sir, look at this coal!"

As if offering a treasure, Gopitov carefully took out a piece of coal from his pocket.

"Engtan?"

It only takes one glance to know what this fist-sized white coal is, this is the Welsh white coal, the best coal, that the world's navies need.

"The Chinese call him Datong White Coal!"

Gobitov replied casually.

"Datong white coal?"

"Yes, their navy has always used this white coal, no worse than Welsh first-class white coal, or even better than Welsh white coal! I really don't understand why those Germans have to use the original coal instead of buying Chinese coal! Could it be that this was reserved by the Germans before the war? ”

"No, it was purchased during the war, and after the war began, Lushun also received ten boatloads of coal from Yuben!"

"Do you still want to sell us coal? Like now? ”

"War is war, buying and selling is buying and selling, not only do not hinder each other, but even help each other, as long as you pay a little more, what kind of coal, even the latest British telemeter, the Navy Command didn't even think that it would be able to buy it, but after breaking off diplomatic relations with Yueben, he actually sold us ten ships of coal, and even at that time, Lushun's 12-inch shells were insufficient, and the 12-inch caliber shells we bought from Shanghai were all made by Yueben!"

Gobitov was all the same.

"Don't you believe it?"

Lu Yushenkov looked at the cabin full of inferior coal.

"That's what my friend, Kolchak, who was captured in Lushun, told me, but ......"

Luyushenkov patted the coal ash on his hands, and then spoke.

"You can also see, what kind of coal we bought from this book, this kind of coal, at most, is only used to burn the sauna, our boiler itself is self-made, large in size, slow to produce steam, far less than made in England, which requires better coal, but we have to use this inferior coal ......"

The frustration of the military could not change the fact that it was the corruption of the Russian Admiralty bureaucrats that led the Navy to use low-quality coal and shells with defective quality, and while they were venting their frustrations, the two cruisers were heading for the waters off Keelung, Taiwan, with thick smoke in their mouths.

Their task is very simple, that is, to go to Keelung off the coast, and naturally it is inevitable to observe Keelung there with a telescope, the task is very simple, it only takes one day to complete, for everyone, this is an easy task.

"Merchant ships! 45 degree direction! ”

Suddenly, the telephone operator shouted, and the officers in the bridge picked up the binoculars at the same time and looked in the direction of 45 degrees, and a large merchant ship of several thousand tons appeared in the telescope.

"It's a merchant ship!" The national flag in the telescope made Eisen's breath tighten.

"Full throttle!"

When the steamer saw that a warship was chasing after it, it wanted to flee at full speed, but how could a merchant ship with a speed of only ten knots run past the cruiser, and only an hour later, the merchant ship took the initiative to raise the white flag, and according to the order, all the crew members, including a British captain, were captured on the cruiser "Donskoy".

"What's on board?"

Eisen's question was passed to the "Donskoy" through the flag bearer, and then the "Donskoy" sent a signal.

"It's rice and a little coal!"

"Blow him up!"

When Ai Sen gave this order, Ma Zhenwu frowned, there are at least several thousand tons of rice on this ship, how can the rice worth more than 100,000 yuan be blown up and sunk? What's more, there is this merchant ship, he hurriedly walked up to Eisen's side and said softly in English.

"Your Excellency, maybe you can think about it......"

As soon as Yoshiichi Tanaka sat down in an Oriental journalist in Hongkou, Shanghai, he handed a newspaper to him, spread out the paper and read, "The open ship is approaching, and the situation is excellent!" "Take a closer look at the contents.

"Mitsui Property "Zephyr Maru" was captured by the Russian fleet off the coast of Taiwan, the crew was captured and the ship was sunk......"

Looking at the newspaper report, Yoshiichi Tanaka looked at Yuki Ichiro with some surprise.

"This should be something that the Navy needs to care about!"

"But the ship is carrying military rice for the Manchurian Army!"

Yugiichiro, with a serious expression, said, 4,800 tons of military rice, a 5,000-ton merchant ship, such a heavy loss shocked the entire Zomoto, after the Lu Navy retreated in Vladivostok, this kind of attack is the first time.

"Isn't the Manchurian Army already fully surrounded?"

When Tanaka Yoshiichi said this, he was a little glad in his heart that he had come to Shanghai, and news came from the newspaper that the Chinese army had encircled the main forces of the Manchurian Army in Mukden and Tieling on all fronts, cutting off their supply supplies, and the outside world speculated that this was due to the deadlock in the negotiations.

"The problem is not the loss of almost five thousand tons of military rice and a merchant ship, but ...... The appearance of the Lu Guo fleet in Taiwan is the most worrying thing! ”

"Sanshawan is facing Taiwan, and it is not news that the Lu Guo fleet appears here!"

When he said this, Tanaka Yoshiichi looked at Yuki in some surprise, could it be that he said...... "The General Staff Headquarters is worried that Chinese may let the Luguo fleet cooperate with them to seize Taiwan, our intelligence shows that many Chinese merchant ships have recently received orders to assemble elsewhere, and in Jiangxi, Hunan and other places, several divisions of the Chinese army have been secretly mobilized, so the situation in Taiwan is excellent!" ”

Yuki's answer made Tanaka Yoshiichi understand that he might have called himself this time because he had a new order from the General Staff Headquarters.

"Any new orders?"

"Riot in Shanghai now!"

"No way, now we have only contacted a few hundred people, and these few hundred people can't create a big riot!"

As soon as he heard this order, Tanaka Yoshiichi, who was preparing to rely on the Shanghai riot to achieve his own fame, immediately retorted that the reason why he had dragged it out until now was that he hoped to make the scale of the riot larger.

"This is an order from the General Staff Headquarters, if there are not enough personnel, you can ...... Use some expat! In short, as long as there is chaos in Shanghai, the Chinese will never dare to transfer a large number of troops out of the provinces when the country is unstable, and they must prevent possible republican turmoil in the provinces! ”

"If you use expatriates, will it cause any unnecessary trouble?"

"Trouble? Tanaka-kun! ”

Yugi Ichiro's expression froze.

"If Taiwan is occupied by Chinese, that is the biggest trouble, you must know one thing, Taiwan is the empire exhausted 200 million yuan of military spending, paid nearly 20,000 casualties to get, if Chinese occupy Taiwan......"

Yugiichiro's expression then darkened a little, his brother was killed in the Battle of Guotai.

"Then it is very likely that we will cede Taiwan to China in the negotiations!"

"Ito-kun doesn't do that, Taiwan is the territory of Yuben!"

When Tanaka shouted these words in shock, he just forgot that Taiwan is the territory of China occupied by Yuben, and this is like a robber who has robbed someone else's property, and when he is confronted by a dirty owner, he even shouts again and again that this is his "private property."

"It is precisely because of this that we want to create a big incident in Shanghai, and use a big event that will shake the whole of China and even the whole world to prevent the Chinese [***] team from occupying Taiwan!"

"Well done!"

Hundreds of kilometers away in the imperial palace, Chen Moran, who was strolling through the corridors, listened to the report of Li Shize, director of the Naval Intelligence Department, with a smile on his face. 4,700 tons of rice and a 5,000-ton merchant ship cost only 200,000 yuan in total to become Chinese, and this business was a good deal.

"Your Majesty, the market value of rice is estimated at about 300,000 yuan, and the valuation of merchant ships is 1.5 million yuan, and the navy hopes to ......"

Without waiting for Li Shize of the Naval Intelligence Department to finish speaking, Chen Moran interrupted him.

"Min Heng, this money can be fully allocated to the Navy Shipbuilding Foundation, that ......"

After hesitating for a while, Chen Moran asked rhetorically.

"The boat and the rice have been bought, and there won't be any horses' feet! If I let him know that the merchant ships and goods have become ours, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs will inevitably have a tongue! ”

"Your Majesty, the merchant ship is an English-made bulk carrier, our country has twelve merchant ships of the same type, in order to avoid causing any trouble, we will directly carry out a simple transformation in the naval dockyard, and then sell it to the shipping company, the rice will be entrusted by the relevant agencies of the intelligence department to the Fujian rice merchants, sold in the market, and at that time, we used gunpowder and heavy oil to create the false appearance that the merchant ship was blown up, and the crew heard the explosion, and the Russian sailors saw the black smoke, and only the officers involved knew that the ship was not blown up! Even if it is said that I have captured the Russian [***] officer in the future, those officers will pick this matter out, let's spread our hands, shrug our shoulders, and just don't know! ”

"You kid......"

Chen Moran, who rarely showed a happy smile, smiled and pointed.

"In the Naval Intelligence Department, I didn't learn anything else, so I learned a little bit of fancy intestines!"

"Your Majesty,"

Because Li Shize once served as His Majesty's attendant, he was not very cautious in front of His Majesty.

"You once said that to deal with these foreign devils, if you don't take advantage of it, you are a bastard! If you take a few more prisoners, you might be able to build a battleship for the navy! These foreigners have taken advantage of us too much, and at most this is to recover a little interest. ”

Nodding approvingly, Chen Moran glanced at the map on the wall.

"Does the Intelligence Department have any information about the Navy? The Russian fleet has entered Sanduao, and they won't be without any movement! ”

"Your Majesty, there is no movement for the time being, but there is intelligence that the Combined Fleet is determined to fight a decisive battle with the Russian fleet in Tsushima, so it is unwilling to make any move to divide the troops!"

This answer made Chen Moran nod reassuringly.

"Your Majesty, the Intelligence Department got a piece of information yesterday!"

Although the information has been transferred to the Investigation Bureau, Li Shize still hopes to use this opportunity to report directly to His Majesty.

"Hmmm! What is the intelligence? ”

"Your Majesty, our surveillance in Shanghai has sent back information from the intelligence officer of the Yangtze River Fleet, and we suspect that the Yangtze River Fleet has recently secretly transported a large number of rifles and ammunition to the concession, and we suspect ......."

"Suspect what?"

Chen Moran's brows jumped, and seeing that he was a little hesitant, he turned around and asked.

"We suspect that it is very likely that Ben will support some people to start a rebellion in Shanghai or elsewhere!"

Chen Moran, who stopped in front of a cluster of Wenzhu, didn't say anything when he heard this report, just quietly admired the Wenzhu, and after dozens of seconds, he asked Li Shize behind him.

"If at this time, some people start a rebellion because of political differences, what do you think the people will think of this?"

"Your Majesty, treason is treason, there is no question of interpretation and timing! Moreover, they accepted the funding of the enemy country, and even during the war, they fornicated with the enemy country, which is undoubtedly the act of Han annihilation! ”

Although Li Shize said this, he was still keenly aware of a question, perhaps, when His Majesty asked this sentence, there were other meanings.

"However, Your Majesty, the ministers think that no matter what crime they have committed, there must be a fair and open trial, and the guilty will be severely punished and acquitted! In this way, we can serve the hearts of all the people, and at the same time, warn the people with their deeds. If you can do this, you can understand it! ”

Could it be that simple? Chen Moran sighed secretly in his heart, if only everything was so simple, does justice really exist? I used to crave fairness, but now I ...... Maybe it's the ass that determines the head

(To be continued)