"Even powerful countries such as Britain and France have not made a move against Spain, so should the United States do it against Spain? Is this possible? ”

Although Wang Shizhen was accustomed to Wang Chenhao's surprising words, when he heard him say that the United States was going to take action against Spain, he suddenly showed an expression of disbelief.

There are some things, Wang Chenhao doesn't need to explain them too clearly to Wang Shizhen, as long as Wang Chenhao, as the decision-maker, knows it.

Of course, Wang Shizhen is Wang Chenhao's favorite general, and it is still okay to remind him if necessary.

"Hawaii and Cuba are rich in sugar cane, the sugar industry is developed, accounting for more than ninety percent of the world's sugar supply, Cuba is also the world's largest tobacco production base, and the cigar and cigarette civilization from Havana is the world. Sugar and tobacco are both luxury goods with low production costs, but they are subject to high tariffs and are a major source of revenue, so their huge profits are self-evident. Among the group of American chaebols who supported the Republican Party to come to power this time included a large number of businessmen in the sugar and tobacco industries in Cuba and Hawaii, and at their instigation, the United States would soon take action against these two places, and last year it was said that in order to obtain economic aid from the United States, the Americans had already staged a coup d'état to take control of Hawaii. And Cuba is a colony of Spain, and Spain, which has become a second-rate power, occupies such a rich colony, which will definitely make the United States jealous. In addition, the Cuban Revolutionary Army is resisting Spanish colonial rule, and Britain and France in the Caribbean are already eyeing each other, and the United States must strike first. ”

After listening to Wang Chenhao's simple explanation, Wang Shizhen already understood why Wang Chenhao was so sure that the United States would attack Spain.

"My lord, what does the United States have to do with Spain to prevent us from helping Russia build warships or transfer technology?"

"Of course it does!"

Wang Chenhao smiled and continued: "Spain is not only a colony in Cuba, but also colonies in Asia, such as the Philippines and Guam. ”

Speaking of which, Wang Shizhen already understood Wang Chenhao's intentions.

"Your Excellency isn't planning to help the United States fight Spain, right?"

Wang Chenhao leaned back in the chair, adjusted his sitting posture, and changed to a comfortable position.

"The Philippines has the resources we need for development, and it also has the strategic locations that we need for our future national defense strategy."

"Resources? Strategically located? ”

Wang Shizhen raised his question and said, "Please forgive me for my humble and shallow knowledge. I think that the heavens and the earth are vast, and the land of the Philippines is a small projectile, what resources can we have? What's going on with that strategic location? ”

Wang Chenhao said: "Now that we have the Beijing-Tianjin-Tang Industrial Base, we can basically be self-sufficient in the resources we need. But there is one resource that we lack. ”

As he spoke, Wang Chenhao pointed to a world map next to him and said, "Our country is in the northern hemisphere, and there are too few tropical regions. The Philippines and Southeast Asian countries are located in the tropics, our Beiyang automobile industry needs a lot of rubber to manufacture cars in the future, and many military and civilian industries need rubber, and Southeast Asia is the world's main rubber production base, and the Philippines can provide us with a lot of cheap rubber. ”

Wang Shizhen nodded and said, "It turns out that adults don't want to help the Americans in vain, since rubber is so important, and most of it grows in Southeast Asia, it must be controlled in our own hands." ”

Wang Chenhao continued: "As for the strategic aspect, I only want Spain's colony of Guam, which is the main route in and out of the North and South Pacific, like a nail nailed to the Pacific Ocean, to the north to guard against the United States and Australia, and to the south to Australia and the South Pacific countries, which will be the base of our future Pacific Fleet, and also a perfect bridgehead for us to compete with Britain, France, the United States, and Germany for the Pacific Ocean." ”

Although Wang Shizhen is very strategic and talented, he is still far inferior to Wang Chenhao in terms of global strategy, although he knows nothing about it, but Wang Shizhen believes in Wang Chenhao's strategic vision.

"In this way, we can get great additional benefits by helping the Americans contain the Spanish military. However, the lowly fears and cowardice of the imperial court may not agree to our war against Spain. ”

Wang Chenhao smiled mysteriously and said, "Don't worry!" I've thought about this a long time ago, and I'll get the court to agree! ”

Looking at Wang Chenhao's mysterious smile, Wang Shizhen knew that Wang Chenhao must have a way, and he also wanted to know what the solution was, but in the end he couldn't help asking, because Wang Chenhao had surprised him too much today, and he had to go back and digest it well.

Subsequently, the two exchanged views on a number of other issues. Wang Chenhao said that he was going to visit the industrial base, and he was going to take Wang Shizhen and Ruan Zhongshu to visit, so Wang Shizhen saw that it was not early, so he said goodbye and left.

After Wang Shizhen left, Wang Chenhao continued to stay in the study to deal with official business.

Wang Chenhao drew up several orders, the first of which was addressed to Wei Han, the chief of the navy's shipping administration, ordering him to start preparations for the construction of the Northeast River Defense Fleet, and to prepare 10 artillery and 10 mine-strike hunting ships, as well as related auxiliary ships, which were developed and built by Shanghai Shipbuilding Heavy Industry. Since Shanghai Shipbuilding Industry Co., Ltd. is assembling the Exocet-class repellent, which belongs to the lightning repellent ship, the ten lightning repellent ships required by the Jiangfang fleet are not a problem, and they only need to be developed and built on the basis of the Exocet-class repellent ship, and the steam turbine required by the hunting ship is responsible for improving the design by the technical team of Parsons Company, a subsidiary of Beiyang Technology, to improve the power and reduce the volume.

As for the artillery bombardment and hunting ships, Wang Chenhao asked Wei Han and his technical research and development team to design and comprehensively suppress Russia's current mainstream gunboats Kilyakren, and in view of the firepower superiority of Russia's shallow water heavy gunboats, Wang Chenhao demanded that the firepower of the artillery bombardment and hunting ships of the Jiangfang fleet should be maintained at about 70 percent of the opponent's, the speed should maintain a threefold advantage, and the tonnage could be appropriately relaxed, but it must have the ability to patrol in Heilongjiang all year round and all-weather.

The second order was addressed to Tang Shaoyi in New York, and Wang Chenhao asked Tang Shaoyi to negotiate with the US political axe to prevent or delay as much as possible the US plan to build large battleships and armored cruisers for Russia, and preferably to prevent the United States from transferring relevant advanced technology to the Russians. As for whether Wang Chenhao sent troops to assist the United States in attacking Spain, Wang Chenhao also gave Tang Shaoyi authorization, and if other negotiations did not work, he would come up with this killer idea.

The third order was addressed to Yu Geng, the consul general of Qing Zhengaxe in France, asking him to do his best to prevent the transfer of naval technology between France and Russia, and at the very least, to obtain the detailed parameters of the battleships and armored cruisers built by France for Russia, and to find out how much advanced technology France had transferred to Russia.

The fourth order was divided into several parts, which were sent to the Beiyang Naval Academy, the Weihaiwei Suiying Academy, the Jiangnan Naval Academy, the Fujian Shipbuilding Academy, and the Guangzhou Huangpu Naval Division, as well as the Fujian Naval Division and the Guangdong Naval Division.

The entire Royal Navy will only retain 102 members of the British Naval Advisory Group such as Lyons, Lyons and more than a dozen British [***] officers will remain as the chief adviser of the naval fleet, and the rest will be transferred to the Beiyang Naval Academy as instructors, and the rest will be paid travel expenses and salaries to let them return to China.

After all the orders were written, Wang Chenhao called Li Bing and asked him to send them out immediately.

Wang Chenhao's house has a telegraph room, so it is also very convenient to issue orders.

It's just that after dealing with the business, Wang Chenhao also felt sleepy. Thinking of the previous situation when Li Youyi and Luo Hill competed for favor with each other, Wang Chenhao was both happy and helpless.

"Shall we sleep in the study tonight?"

Wang Chenhao sighed, so he rested in the study for the night.

The next day, Wang Chenhao got up and waited for him to finish washing. At the same time, Wang Shizhen and Ruan Zhongshu were already ready.

Subsequently, Wang Chenhao, accompanied by the two of them, went straight to the industrial base to visit.

※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※ southeast coast of Guangdong, a hurricane suddenly blew in the waters near Qiongzhou Prefecture.

A French [***] ship named Bayard was preparing to return to Cam Ranh Bay when it broke into 'Guangzhou Bay' (the predecessor of Zhanjiang City, Guangdong) to avoid a typhoon.

Rear Admiral Shikji, the captain of the White Watt, was immediately moved by this deep-water port, and immediately after returning to Cam Ranh Bay, he joined forces with the French and Vietnamese colonial governors to jointly present a calligraphy and political axe, intending to lease the 'Canton Bay'.

Zhanjiang Port, there is Jinzhou Island as a natural barrier outside, there are East China Sea, South Three Islands are each other's horns, the water is deep and the waves are quiet, the sea surface is wide, the climate is mild all year round, the sand and mud accumulation is less, it is a unique military fortress and the throat of shipping.

As early as the 40th year of the Kangxi reign of the Qing Dynasty (1701), the French cargo ship "Amphitrid" was stranded in Nansan Island by a typhoon, and the crew landed on the shore. During the six months of waiting for the rescue, the French sailors secretly surveyed the waterways, secretly drew maps, and secretly presented them to the French political axe after returning home.

Nearly 200 years have passed, China has changed eight emperors such as Kangxi, Yongzheng, Qianlong, and Xianfeng, and France has also ended its king[***], the bourgeois revolution broke out, and the capitalist country has become an imperialist power, but its aggressive ambitions for Guangzhou Bay are not dead.

With the British political axe, the Qing political axe forced the Qing political axe to sign a series of revised treaties in Yunnan and Burma, opened the commercial port, and even allowed the docking of railways. France had a fierce colonial conflict with Britain in Southeast Asia, so the matter of Canton Bay was immediately brought to the fore, because the French discovered that the location of Canton Bay was a public outlet to the sea in southern and southwestern China, and its strategic location was extremely important. Now that the British had obtained the request for a land connection between Yunnan and Burma, the French took the opportunity to claim Guangzhou Bay in an attempt to achieve their goal of controlling the economy of South and Southwest China by sea.

On January 21, 1897, under the pretext of "stopping ships and hoarding coal," France proposed to the Qing Dynasty to lease "a place for barges to be set up in the waters of Nan Province." Without waiting for negotiations on the demarcation of the border, three days later it brazenly dispatched the battleships Basgar, Lion, and Raid directly to Nansandao and Haitouxun (present-day Xiashan), forcibly occupying Guangzhou Bay.

Because the French political axe was also worried about the Qing Imperial Navy's southward movement, although the French warships occupied Guangzhou Bay, they did not exercise force, and the French soldiers were forbidden to use firearms to prevent the misfire from killing civilians, causing an irreparable situation.

At this time, the Guangdong Navy Division had only six gunboats, Guangyuan, Guangheng, Guangli, Guangzhen, Guangjin, and Guangyu, and the original batch of torpedo boats were also seconded by the Beiyang Navy Division during the First Sino-Japanese War, and they have not been returned to the Guangdong Navy Division until now.

These six gunboats were all built at the Huangpu Shipyard in Guangzhou, their tonnage was small, and their ships were seven or eight years old, so they were no match for French warships at all.

The governor of Liangguang, Tan Zhonglin, was afraid of the French, for fear of another Sino-French war. At the same time, Tam Chung-lun did not dare to take the responsibility of taking up the war without permission, so he opened negotiations with the French to try to solve the problem through negotiations.

When the Central Committee of the Qing Dynasty learned of this, it was extremely dissatisfied with France, but the cowardly Qing Zheng axe did not dare to tear his face directly, and only protested and protested again, but there was no action of substantive surname.

The French side sent a note to Prime Minister Yamen, saying that a series of cooperation treaties between China and Britain in Yunnan and Burma would affect France's strategic security in Vietnam. According to the provisions of the Yenching Treaty, France also had the right to enjoy the same treatment as Britain, so it demanded that Guangzhou Bay be opened up as a French concession.

It was not the first time that France had opened concessions in China, and the Qing Dynasty did not attach much importance to Guangzhou Bay at this time, and as a result, Tan Zhonglin, the governor of Liangguang, wrote to the imperial court many times, arguing that Guangzhou Bay was a small fishing village and was not important. Especially at the end of the Qing-Russian War, France and Russia were military allies, and the Qing Zheng axe was afraid of annoying France, causing France and Russia to unite to attack China in the north and south, so they finally agreed to concession Guangzhou Bay to France.

As a matter of fact, the French political axe was also instigated by the Russian political axe to forcibly seize Guangzhou Bay. As a Franco-Russian alliance, France did not send troops to deal with the Russian army during the Qing-Russian conflict, which was already dissatisfied with the Russian political axe. Therefore, France had to make a statement and try to carry out provocations along the south-east coast and south-west to give an explanation to the Russian political axe. Of course, the French are not stupid, it is impossible to resolutely tear their faces with the Qing Empire, and they are also afraid of transferring the spearhead of the Qing Empire's war to France.

At the end of January 1897, the Qing Dynasty ordered Tan Zhonglin, the governor of Liangguang, to be responsible for the negotiation with France, and Tan Zhonglin, under the coercion of the French emperor's force, signed the "Lend-Lease Treaty of Guangzhou Bay", which leased part of the land of Suixi and Wuchuan counties of 518 square kilometers and 1,912 square kilometers of water, collectively known as "Guangzhou Bay", to France for 99 years. Zhanjiang has since become a French colony.

After the French imperialists invaded Zhanjiang, in order to tighten control and plunder, they successively built a lighthouse in Jinzhou, erected a marker in the waterway, built an embankment in Xiashan, and built a wharf to build a naval base.

When the news came out, the people were angry, and Kang Youwei wrote on the 11th bus, saying that the country was weak and not strong, and asked for reform of the law.

(To be continued)