"Eight Grids, Roads--" After receiving the telegram from the Japanese envoy to the minister, Yamaprefecture Youpeng was stunned. It was over, because the Hawaiian fleet joined, and the strength of the Qing navy reached the strength to fight Japan head-on. Yama County Youpeng roared and flipped the table: "Notify the Combined Fleet immediately." So, the wounded Japanese destroyer quickly received the order and sailed out of the port at full speed.

It was impossible for Japan to come up with 10 million pounds, and in order to prevent the Hawaiian fleet from joining the Qing navy, the Japanese government conducted intensive diplomacy during these 24 hours. A 100-ton destroyer is not worth a few dollars, and Japan still offers a sky-high compensation of 200,000 pounds. It's just that the Japanese minister still hasn't seen Her Royal Highness the Queen of Hawaii, but the word has come out: The Kingdom of Hawaii needs face.

The United States, France, Italy, and other countries were unwilling to be involved, and Germany and Russia also wished that both Qing and Japan would lose so that they could reap benefits from it, and the British, who only supported Japan, were also angry by Japan's behavior and refused to mediate the contradictions between the two countries in the summer, and secretly warned Japan that the British Empire did not need friends who were only looking for trouble.

As a result, Japan, which failed in its 24-hour diplomacy, could only accept its fate and accept the facts.

So, at noon the next day, the Hawaiian princess and the Hawaiian prime minister submitted their credentials to the Qing Kingdom on behalf of the Hawaiian Kingdom, and asked the Qing Kingdom to incorporate the Hawaiian fleet into the Qing army's combat sequence in this war against Japan, so as to regain face for the Hawaiian Kingdom. The Qing Emperor smiled and agreed.

Thereupon. The ammunition warehouse in Lushun was opened, and Dalian Bay was guarded. The Hawaiian fleet that stayed in Dalian Bay openly accepted all kinds of supplies from the Qing state, and the commander and captain of the Hawaiian fleet were invited to Lushun to discuss military aircraft.

Thereupon. Upon learning the news of Hawaii's declaration of war on Japan, the ** ships that stayed at the mouth of Dagu immediately set sail in the direction of Lushun. The only difference was that the warships of Germany, the United States, Italy and other countries stayed in the waters off Arthur, while the warships of Britain, Russia and France headed in the direction of the Japanese fleet.

As a result, even the Japanese government knew that tomorrow the Qing Kingdom would devote all its strength to a decisive battle with the Combined Fleet, and they still believed that their destroyer had told the Combined Fleet the news, but what they did not know was that just an hour and a half after the destroyer left the port, two sudden tracks blocked their way, and then there was no more. For the sake of insurance, Aritomo Yamaguchi also sent a merchant ship from Kagoshima and Nagasaki each. It was only after these merchant ships disappeared from the sea antenna in the harbor that they disappeared completely. Because they were intercepted by a destroyer, which was the destroyer of the Nanyang Chinese Autonomous Army.

In Beijing, the capital of the Qing Dynasty, the emperor's wedding ceremony is being arranged in an orderly manner. Don't look at the ministers, they all know who the queen is, and they all know that the queen is pregnant with a dragon heir, but the etiquette of the emperor's wedding is not lacking at all. The etiquette of Nacai, Dazheng and makeup is indispensable. In addition to the 280 dowries of the dowry, which only went from the Queen's Palace to the Palace, other gifts such as Nacai and Dazheng were intercepted by the Queen's Palace. Because Queen Luan was set up in the Prime Minister's Palace, and because the Queen's biological father was not present, it was the Prime Minister's Mansion before the Queen's marriage. Li Hongzhang performed the queen's father's salute and happily accepted the gifts due from the palace. Therefore, it is rumored that the emperor urgently summoned Li Xiang to the palace in the middle of the night to discuss matters, but in fact, the emperor grabbed Li Hongzhang's collar and threatened him to send the money back. As for the result, no one knows, anyway, the Prime Minister's Office has received a big red envelope. And Li Xiang felt the emperor's grace because the queen Luan was stationed in the palace, and all the food and lodging of officials from all over the country who came to Beijing for the emperor's big wedding gifts were paid by Li Xiang out of his own pocket. It is said that the emperor is still very unhappy.

July 18, 23rd year of Guangxu in the Qing Dynasty (August 15, 1897 Sunday). The emperor of the Qing Dynasty loved Xinjueluo? The big wedding ceremony will be held today after months of preparation. It was a good day. Everything is feasible and there are no taboos. But in fact, the emperor's wedding began the day before. The official wedding ceremony is held in the middle of the night. Therefore, at noon on the day before the wedding, the Central Garrison Brigade began to impose martial law on the entire city of Beijing, and three steps, one post, five steps, and one sentry were not enough to describe the strict blockade. So much so that there was a shortage of manpower, so he could only hand over the defense of the capital to the first division of the Fengtai battalion. The people of the capital did not resist the soldiers who came to investigate, they had not seen the emperor's grand ceremony last year, and they saw the emperor's wedding ceremony in the middle of this year. Tonight, Kim Wu couldn't help it.

The day before the wedding, the emperor needs to send officials to pay tribute to heaven and earth, Taimiao, and Fengxian Palace, and then go to Cining Palace to salute the queen mother of the two palaces and inform her that she will marry the bride. At the same time, the ceremonial arrangements in front of the Taihe Hall are in full swing. After Emperor Guangxu saluted the queen mother of the two palaces, he personally visited the Taihe Palace to read the golden book and golden treasure, and ordered the envoy to hold the golden festival to welcome the queen. After the envoy accepted the Golden Festival, Emperor Guangxu returned to the Qianqing Palace in the inner court to wait for the arrival of the empress.

Taihe Palace: The south of the palace is set up in the middle of the festival case, the golden book case is westward, the Jinbao case is eastward, the emperor's law is set up in front of the palace, and the east and west eaves are set up in the middle and Shaole. The left and right sides of the Danqi Middle Road display the war horses. Taihe Gate: Set up Dan Majesty is happy to be under the eaves of the east and west of the door, display the steps outside the Taihe Gate, the queen Fengyu is under the Taihe Gate steps, and the Queen is driven under the Taihe Gate steps until the noon gate. Noon Gate: The five chariots are displayed outside the noon gate, and the elephants are tamed in the south of the five chariots......

Tang Shaoyi, the main envoy who welcomed the queen, and Duan Qirui, the deputy envoy, led the honor guard out of the Taihe Gate, followed by the envoy was the Dragon Pavilion that held the golden book and the golden treasure. The queen's phoenix was escorted by 16 people, lined up behind the Dragon Pavilion, and went out of the Noon Gate and the Daqing Gate together to the queen's mansion. Different from the weddings of the Qing emperors in previous dynasties, the imperial palace was greeted according to the Manchu etiquette, while the queen's mansion was dressed in Han clothes according to the Han etiquette. The officials of the Ministry of Internal Affairs had already made preparations in advance in the queen's mansion, and the envoy first read to Li Hongzhang the document for marrying the queen, and then put the golden book and gold treasure on the book and treasure case, and led the female official to guide the new queen to the throne. The lady of honor read the book of treasures to the queen, and the queen received the gold book and treasure. At last. After the queen knelt three times and bowed three times, the canonization ceremony was completed. Wait for the Qintian supervisor to report that the auspicious time (early morning) will come. The queen was dressed in a ceremonial Hanfu dragon and phoenix robe, and officially sat on the phoenix and marched to the palace. All of this was faithfully recorded by the cameras that were brought in. For this reason, the entire city of Beijing is lit up all night.

When the queen Fengyu arrived at the Qianqing Gate, the Guangxu Emperor had already fallen asleep in the Xinuan Pavilion of the Qianqing Palace in a dragon robe, and the Prince of Li, Shiduo, woke up the Guangxu Emperor who was sleeping soundly, and then tied his hair in the main hall of the Qianqing Palace, and then went to the cave room of Kunning Palace from the back fan to wait. This Guangxu glanced at his watch: Mud horse, it's not yet four o'clock in the morning.

After worshipping the temple, it is the emperor and queen cave room ceremony. There are still many rituals to be done in the emperor's cave room. For example, unveiling the hijab, eating half-baked "descendants dumplings" (i.e., dumplings) to worship the gods, etc., and finally performing the joint ceremony. The original meaning of the word "卺" was to divide the gourd into two scoops, so the union means that the newlyweds each take a scoop and drink. That's a scoop, in order to show the atmosphere Guangxu also deliberately chose a big scoop, but it was clear that people put the wine and ginseng water in the scoop, which Wang Jiudan poured the second pot head into it. Fortunately, there are no outsiders in the room, and the queen's scoop is also ginseng wine. The emperor and queen looked at each other and smiled, Guangxu drank the wine in the scoop, and then snapped. Collapsed on the bed, fainted. Yang Zao'er smiled and pushed Guangxu to the bed to lie down, and he also lay down on the emperor's side, and the emperor said that he would give him the world's grandest wedding. I didn't expect the scene to be so huge. The moment the Manchu Dynasty's civil and military and the woman Fu Jin saluted her, she was really stunned, this is the majesty of the queen of the mother of a country. Only then did she understand what the queen of the world was......

According to the original ritual system, there was no celebration during the whole day, and it was a special time reserved for the emperor's cave room. But they had already done it, so the emperor changed the system. The big wedding banquet will start at 11 o'clock at noon in the Taihe Palace, so there are still a few hours to rest, and Yang Zao'er, who was tired and excited all night, gradually fell asleep. At this time, the light outside the hall was very busy.

In August, the sky in Beijing dawned very early, and it was just after 6 o'clock, and the sun was hot. And farther east, on the sea, the sun has risen very high. Gonbei Yamamoto watched the huge combined fleet sail straight towards Arthur, and he was counting the time. At 11 o'clock at noon, the Qing Emperor invited the ministers of various countries, and according to the announced etiquette, the Qing Emperor would be seated at 12 o'clock, so he could shell Lushun at 11:50 noon at the current speed, so that the Qing Emperor, who had just arrived at the banquet at 12 o'clock, could receive a notice of the Japanese bombardment of Lushun, so that the Qing State would definitely not be able to erase the child and would order a counterattack on the spot, so that he could face the Qing fleet in the sea off Tokyo Bay and set up an ambush. Yamamoto looked up at the weather today, well, very good, the weather was sunny, the wind was light and the waves were low.

Yamamoto believed that his opponent had only four new battleships and four old battleships, and that the Japanese Combined Fleet, with eight new battleships, would definitely win. So what he was thinking about was how to minimize the battle damage on the premise of defeating the Qing State. It's just that I don't know about the Hawaiian fleet joining the Qing Navy's combat sequence, and I don't know that at the same time, the second task force of the Qingxia coalition is also sailing out of Port Arthur.

"Inform the warships of Germany, the United States and other countries to stay on the south side."

"Order the second ship to listen to the wind and watch the sea to approach the Japanese ship and launch a harassing attack."

"Order, the third task force expands the warning circle, and must protect the four ships of Dinghai from being exposed before the war."

In the bridge of the Haichen, the flagship of the Qing Navy, Commander Wu Deren issued a combat order: "I order that the Qing Navy set sail to meet Japan and congratulate the emperor on his wedding with the annihilation of the Japanese Combined Fleet." Set sail—"

"Woo-" At this moment, the sound of the whistle resounded throughout the sea of Lushun. It seems that in order to meet the situation, the German and American second ** ships on the south side also responded by sounding the whistle. On the German cruiser on the south side of the Qing Navy's main formation, the commander of the German Navy, Alfred? Feng? Tirpitz saw the strange formation of the Qing fleet.

Two Dragon-class battleships and Haichen, four battleships and four Tiger-class heavy cruisers formed a combat main formation, and further north, four battleships of the Hawaiian fleet and six ships of Ninghai and Jihai formed another main formation, and at the same time moved eastward. Tirpitz frowned, he didn't understand the reason why Qing Guo had set up the formation like this. Before the war, he and other German admirals had discussed the upcoming naval battle. They agreed that the Qing would have to rely on a strong home force if they wanted to defeat Japan, especially since the Hawaiian fleet had been added and its firepower projection per unit of time was higher than that of Japan. The Qing State should make full use of this advantage to assemble all the warships into a larger formation, lined up or lined up in two rows. Then use the higher hit rate than the Japanese to use long-range shelling of the Japanese fleet to achieve victory. Of course, the possibility that the Japanese fleet might use its higher speed to force the Qing fleet and fight a decisive battle with the Qing at close range. And Japan only needs to keep the fleet concentrated and not make mistakes of principle. Tirpitz believed that this would be an unsolvable problem unless the Qing fleet could gain an advantage before the Japanese fleet advanced. The battle between the Qing and Japanese navies will be a head-to-head battle, with no room for turnaround. It's just that why did the Qing State in front of him put up two combat formations, wanting to use the fleet maneuver to carry out a two-sided attack on Japan, but the Qing fleet did not have an advantage in speed? Also, where did the other warships of the Qing Kingdom go?

"Which of you understands the Qing State's intention to arrange troops like this?" Tirpitz asked the other generals with a look of confidence.

The other admirals had the same questions in their minds as Tirpitz, and after a while, Reinhardt? Scheer stood up and replied, "I think." The purpose of the Qing State in doing this was to take advantage of the rich experience and take advantage of the cooperation between the two fleets to attack the Japanese fleet from two directions at the same time. In this way, no matter which Qing fleet the Japanese fleet attacked, it was pinned down by the other fleet and could not attack with all its might. This gave the Qing fleet room to maneuver. In addition, I remember that the Qing state built a batch of so-called ramming destroyers. By dividing the fleet into two groups, the Qing State could carry out a diversionary attack on Japan, looking for an opportunity to attack the rammed destroyers. ”

Tirpitz looked at Sher and nodded with satisfaction: "This is an explanation, especially since the Qing State's richer experience can give the Qing State more tactical options, but in the same way, every fleet of the Qing State will be at a complete disadvantage." If Japan were to attack one of the fleets with all their might in order to withstand the attack of a Qing fleet, the attacked fleet could be devastated. It is important to remind everyone that it is not wise to divide the forces before they have enough strength to compete with the enemy's main formation. Especially when the speed is completely backward. As for ramming the destroyer. How likely is it that the Qing navy, which had the possibility of victory with the support of the Hawaiian fleet, would ram the destroyer at this time? ”

"Task Force 3, it must be like this." Franz who has been thinking for a long time? Hipper spoke: "Qing divided the second task force into two parts in order to attract the Japanese fleet to attack one of the fleets. When this fleet retreats, the third task force can suddenly appear on the battlefield to form a local advantage, plus the auxiliary ships of this fleet can attack. It is possible to completely disrupt the rhythm of Japan's attack. It's just that the Japanese fleet is in chaos, and the experienced Qing fleet can have countless opportunities. ”

"Well said. But not carefully enough. Didn't everyone notice the number of auxiliary ships of these two fleets? There are only six destroyers here, so where are the others? Tirpitz said with a smile: "In the Battle of Tsushima between Qing and Russia, it was these small destroyers who finally intercepted the retreating Russian ** ships. Only then did the main fleet of the Qing State finally catch up with and annihilate the Russian Far East Fleet. So, don't ignore every warship on the battlefield, maybe the Qing Kingdom has a plan that we can't guess either. Now all we have to do is to carefully look at every detail of the naval battle between Qing and Japan and bring these experiences back to Germany. ”

While everyone was speculating about how the Qing Kingdom would deal with the Japanese, the commander of the Japanese fleet, Gonbei Yamamoto, was smoking a cigarette on the deck and basking in the sun, because there was no room for tactical options for the Japanese fleet and Ben, because the sailors on the fleet had been in the fleet for less than half a year, and some were only three months. Even the officers on the battleships began to train only after the first day of the First Sino-Japanese War. Such a level is not able to cope with complex maneuver orders, so the Japanese fleet's operational thinking is to respond to all changes with the same.

The fleet is moving towards Arthur at a cruising speed of 12 knots, and now it is still 130 kilometers from Arthur, and at the moment everything is normal. The cigarettes in my hand are good cigarettes, Chinese brand cigarettes produced in the Qing Dynasty. The best tobacco is burned and inhaled into the lungs, making people flutter. The Qing Dynasty, Japan's largest trading nation, imposed a strict economic blockade on Japan since the First Sino-Japanese War. Ore, saltpeter, sulfur, coal, and all other materials that may be applied to the military were strictly controlled, even for daily necessities such as grain and cloth, and the Qing State carefully calculated that Japan's imports could only meet the minimum basic needs, and if it were not for the high price smuggled by its own merchants from the Qing Dynasty, I am afraid that there would be no coal available for the fleet to sail. This time, it is necessary to hurt the Qing people at one time, at least let the Qing country enter the trade ban, otherwise, the two cruisers that have been built for almost two years will never be built.

"Report, a column of smoke has been found in the northwest direction."

The report from the lookout post made Yamamoto quickly get up and go to the bridge, and when he arrived at the bridge, the latest observation report came out: two Qing destroyers appeared on the sea level, and the Qing Guo Listening to the Wind and Watching the Sea two ships were heading towards the fleet at a speed of 28 knots, and there were no smoke columns on the sea level in any other direction. Yamamoto wondered, what is Qingguo trying to do? Since there is no pillar of smoke, it means that the Qing fleet is still far away from itself, perhaps this is just a reconnaissance ship, after all, the Japanese fleet has forced into Lushun many times and has not been intercepted.

"Leave him alone, the fleet sails normally." Looking at the Qingguo destroyer that was getting closer and closer, Yamamoto looked down at his watch after speaking, and the time was seven and five in the morning. He did not notice that at this time, the Qing destroyer was 10,000 meters away from the main position of the Japanese fleet.

The sound of "boom" artillery sounded, and four 102-mm shells suddenly flew towards the Japanese fleet from the Qing destroyer at a distance of 10,000 meters. Qing was the first to attack the Japanese on the day of the emperor's wedding. (To be continued......)