Lin Fei said with a smile: "It's not that I don't trust you, it's that your ability is not enough to serve as the captain of the battleship." ”

"What did you say?" Deng Shichang's face was full of anger, and he said proudly: "I am the admiral of the Qing Empire Navy, can't I be a captain in Huaxia?" ”

Lin Fei smiled bitterly: "It's not that I mean to belittle you, you really can't behave it." ”

"Liu Daming was my subordinate back then, he can be the captain of the ship now, and he is still commanding the latest warship in China, why can't I."

"Liu Daming, it took so many years of hard work to become the captain."

Deng Shichang sighed lightly and said "Okay", his face full of helplessness and disappointment.

Lin Fei looked at Deng Shichang's lonely expression, couldn't bear it, and said with a smile: "If you want to contribute to me, there are three paths for you to choose, one is to go to Europe to be a diplomat like Sa Zhenbing, the other is to go to my Naval Officer Academy, learn the relevant knowledge of warship command, and after the assessment, you can become the captain, and the last one is to go to the Naval Officer Academy to teach." ”

Deng Shichang thought for a while, and said in a deep voice: "I'd better go to Europe to be a diplomat, if I go to the Naval Academy, then I have to be classmates with a group of juniors, it's really embarrassing, if you teach, Deng is clumsy and can't teach others." ”

"Okay, then you can become a diplomat, but I have a few questions for you, and I hope you will answer them truthfully."

"It's okay to speak."

"First of all, the first question, the old couple who claim to be my parents, are they really my parents? And that girl named 'Hua'er', is it really my wife who has not passed through the door? ”

"No, the old couple has lost their child, but no one knows if the child is yours."

"So that's the case, then I'll rest assured, okay, the second question, what is the strategy of the Qing high-level government?" This question is what Lin Fei is most concerned about, and the direct reason why Lin Fei wants to subdue Deng Shichang is to figure out this problem.

Deng Shichang also said bluntly, "Their strategy is to delay as much time as possible, wait for each country to solve their own problems, and help the Qing country." ”

This sentence was like a bolt of lightning that crossed Lin Fei's mind, and Lin Fei suddenly realized that his strategy in the previous stage might have deviated.

Lin Fei's strategy in the previous stage was to slow down the pace of the offensive and consolidate the Qing land that he had occupied, but he did not expect that by doing so, he would give the great powers the opportunity to intervene.

Lin Fei hurriedly asked Deng Shichang to rest, and then began to prepare to launch the Eastern Battle, the Western Battle, and the Western Battle, completely destroying the Zhang Zhidong Department entrenched in Hunan and Hubei, and the Eastern Battle, completely eliminating the Li Hongzhang Department entrenched in the coastal areas of Jiangsu and Zhejiang.

Lin Fei asked his subordinates to take out the current situation map of the Eastern Theater, and Lin Fei found through observation that Li Hongzhang's troops were facing off against his direct 1st and 9th Divisions across the Yellow River in the north, and in the south, they were holding on to Xianxia Mountain and Yandang Mountain.

Where is the thinnest part of this gourd? The answer is the first line between Shanghai and Nanjing.

Li Hongzhang placed his headquarters in Nanjing, which was the ancient capital of the Six Dynasties, the land of the tiger and the dragon, and its strategic location was extremely important, and the southeast of Nanjing was the great granary of the Qing Dynasty -- the Taihu Plain and the Hangjiahu Plain, and whoever controlled Nanjing would control this big granary.

If Lin Fei captures Nanjing, he will separate the Qing army on the front line of the Yellow River and the Qing army on the front line of Yandang Mountain in Xianxia Mountain, and encircle the Qing army with the Shandong Huaxia Army and the Fujian Huaxia Army, and the Qing army will soon fall into a desperate situation of being attacked on the back of the enemy.

Lin Fei decided to adopt this method of fighting in the Eastern Battle, and sent troops to go up the Yangtze River to take Nanjing.

There are some differences between this eastern battle and the previous battles, the biggest of which is that the terrain of this battle area has changed a lot compared with the previous ones, the place where the eastern battle took place, there are dense water networks, large and small rivers, and it is now the end of March, the start time of the war is probably in early April, the duration should be about two months, and then it will definitely catch up with the season of extremely heavy rainfall.

There is no doubt that the Sixth Army on the island of Java and the Seventh Army on the island of Sumatra, both of which are areas with a lot of rainfall, and these two armies are very well adapted to such terrain.

As for the mobilization of troops, there was no problem at all, and at this time the whole of China was already in a state of war, and although it did not enter a state of national war like the Nanyang World War, all the armies were already in a state of combat readiness that could be mobilized at any time.

As for the supply of food and ammunition, there was no problem, and in the pre-war preparations, Lin Fei had already hoarded a large amount of food and ammunition in Taiwan, which was enough for the Sixth and Seventh Armies.

Lin Fei issued orders to the two group armies, the 11th and 12th divisions directly under the Sixth Group Army, and the 13th and 14th divisions directly under the 7th Group Army, all of which were mobilized to Shanghai to prepare for the landing in Shanghai.

The defense of the Qing army in the Shanghai area is like this, there is a Chongming Island on the north side of Shanghai, which is the gateway to the Yangtze River, the Qing army set up a defensive battery on Chongming Island, and also deployed a defensive battery on the opposite bank of Chongming Island, Lin Fei decided to order the 11th Division as the advance force, seize Chongming Island, and then advance along the Yangtze River by land and water, and take Nanjing directly.

After a period of preparation, on April 10, the 11th Division, escorted by six Emperor-class cruisers, arrived at Chongming Island and began to launch an attack on Chongming Island.

Before the start of the war, some agents had already marked the location of the defensive batteries on Chongming Island and informed the naval fleet, and the naval fleet took advantage of the night to launch a strike on the Qing army batteries on Chongming Island.

The artillery fire lit up the night sky, and the Qing army fort on Chongming Island turned into ruins in an explosion, as for the Qing army defenders on Chongming Island, they did not expect the Huaxia Army to dare to launch an attack on Chongming Island, they all thought that Chongming Island was the gateway to Shanghai, and Shanghai was a place where foreigners gathered, and Lin Fei would never dare to attack Shanghai.

When the shells fell on the fort, the commander of the defending army was the first to flee, and the others followed closely to escape, so that when the Chinese army landed, they did not fire a single shot.

At two o'clock in the morning, the 11th Division occupied the entire Chongming Island, and then began to land in the north of Shanghai, and when the landing also took place the battle of naval guns against the shore defense artillery, the process of the battle was exactly the same as the battle of Chongming Island, the defenders of the Qing army battery heard the cannon sound of the Huaxia fleet, and ran away.

At four o'clock in the morning, the 11th Division occupied all the batteries on the north side of Shanghai and began to march towards the downtown area of Shanghai.

The 31st Brigade of the 11th Division was advancing, passing through a wood, when suddenly a loud roar came from the woods, the sound was very familiar to the soldiers, it was the roar of a car engine.

The soldiers turned their heads to look at the woods, and they were shocked by the sight before them, only to see countless cars rushing out of the woods, and then the sound of dense Makqin heavy machine guns came from the cars, and the soldiers were caught off guard, and the first battalion, nearly 300 fighters were all killed.

The soldiers were about to catch up, and the cars roared and disappeared into the early night, and the soldiers on foot could not catch up with the speeding cars, and the 31st Brigade hurriedly reported to the superiors: "The Qing army used cars!" ”

The news has been reported to Dayu City, Lin Fei has always been concerned about the war situation in Shanghai, so he did not sleep, when he saw the news that the Qing army used cars, he was immediately surprised, the industrial strength of the Qing country is extremely poor, how can it be possible to build a car, no need to ask, these cars must have been sold to the Qing country by a certain country, the United States is the most developed country in the world with an automobile industry, and Germany's automobile industry is not weak, both countries are suspicious.

In order to find out the source of the car, Lin Fei ordered the troops to launch an attack on the Qing automobile troops and seize the Qing car.

As soon as the order was issued, the 11th Division immediately dispatched a divisional reconnaissance brigade, and in the Chinese Army, each division has a reconnaissance brigade under its jurisdiction, and this reconnaissance unit is the special forces of each division.

The division's reconnaissance brigade searched for rut marks on the ground, found a station of automobile troops, and immediately launched an attack, and after a scuffle, the reconnaissance brigade lost more than 30 people, while the Qing army's automobile troops were completely annihilated, and 10 cars were captured.

The soldiers carefully inspected these cars, and soon found that these cars were small cars made in the United States, and the Qing army removed the roof for the convenience of use, so that the car became a convertible, and the back seat of the car was modified to carry a large number of bullets, and as for the Makqin heavy machine gun, it was set up in the rear of the car.

The soldiers reported the news to Lin Fei, and Lin Fei was furious when he heard the news, what a United States of America, dare to sell to Qingguo Automobile, aren't you afraid that I will start a trade war again?

Lin Fei ordered Nguyen Phuc Bao Jiao to summon the US ambassador, and when confronted with the US ambassador, he did not expect that in the face of Nguyen Phuc Bao Jiao's accusation, the US ambassador flatly denied it.

Ruan Fu Baojiao was not polite, and directly asked in a cold voice: "Mr. American Ambassador, our front-line troops have already seized the cars sold by your country to the Qing Kingdom, do you want us to send those cars to you?" ”

The American ambassador shook his head with an innocent face and said: "These cars are really not sold by the United States to Qingguo, we in the United States have sold cars to many countries, such as Brazil, Chile and so on in South America, and it is very likely that these cars were sold to Qingguo." ”