At the Yokosuka Port Naval Base, Japanese Navy Minister Yuzaburo Kato was sitting in a conference room discussing the issue of sending troops to Kalimantan Island with a senior Navy official, and Rear Admiral Shigetaro Yoshimatsu, commander of the First Fleet, and Rear Admiral Saburo Horiuchi, chief of staff. Vice Admiral Murakami Geichi of the Third Fleet, Rear Admiral Tokutaro Hiraga.

This was only a small internal meeting, and the captains of the ships were not allowed to participate, "The Netherlands has promised to send troops, and will send four protective cruisers to participate in this campaign, and the empire will form a joint fleet with the Netherlands to jointly send troops to South China." Yuzaburo Kato said.

The commander of the First Fleet, Shigetaro Yoshimatsu, said, "Is it really useless for the Netherlands to send only four small cruisers, and the former Dutch kingdom can only play in the pond in front of its own house." ”

"For our Great Japanese Empire, what we want is only this name, although there are only four warships, but this means that the Nanhua State established by Guo Yu is not recognized, and the suzerain, the Netherlands, does not recognize the status of Nanhua. In any case, the Netherlands is also a European country, which is also helpful for the propaganda of our Great Japanese Empire in Europe. Yuzaburo Kato said.

"Do we attach too much importance to Nanhua, after all, they are just a small country that has just been established, even if Guo Yu has defeated the Second Fleet, but I always feel that they have succeeded in a sneak attack, it does not mean how powerful the Huafu fleet of Nanhua is, in the current world, even if it is a warship of the British Navy, if it is a head-on confrontation, the Imperial Navy is not afraid of °F long °F wind °F Wen °F learning, w△ww.cf∧wx.ne+t is afraid." Shigetaro Yoshimatsu said with a frown.

Admiral Shigetaro Yoshimatsu, commander of the First Fleet, is now also the commander of the Combined Fleet of the Navy, a graduate of the Japanese Naval Academy, who studied for internships in the French and British navies, and later served as captain of several warships and participated in many naval battles, serving as commander of the Second Fleet. The rector of the Naval School, the rector of the Naval University, the commander of the First Fleet and concurrently the commander of the combined fleet, is not much worse than Yuzaburo Kato.

He has always been skeptical of the failure of the Second Fleet, believing that it was the Second Fleet led by Rokuro Yashiro. It was not so simple to be defeated by the enemy's fleet, and there must be an unknown reason for this, because even if the most powerful naval fleet attacked the second fleet, the second fleet would not be completely wiped out without fighting back, and the time was still so short.

You must know that the so-called world's first and second navies are not much stronger than Japanese warships, but surpass them in total tonnage, but the second fleet was completely annihilated by the enemy under such circumstances. And it was not possible to send any signal, which is very unreasonable, you must know that when the fleet is attacked, the first time to send a telegram back to the country through the guò radio station, it is the Admiralty's explicit request, but the Second Fleet, when the enemy asked to surrender, sent the last farewell telegram, which is indeed very suspicious.

So he always felt. It was not how powerful the enemy's fleet was, but some unknown force that hindered the performance of the Second Fleet. However, this kind of thing should not happen often, and besides, Nanhua is now far away from the mainland of the Republic of China, and it should lose the influence of this power, if it is just a battle between fleets, Japan will definitely overwhelm the fleet of Nanhua, after all, the Japanese fleet has been developing for decades. By no means comparable to a small country that has just been founded.

The Second Fleet was destroyed, and he, as the commander of the Combined Fleet, also felt a lot of pressure, after all, this was a very disgraceful history, and he would write the words "The Second Fleet" failed on his resume.

"Anyway. We must face the enemy head-on, since the Second Fleet was defeated by the other side, it means that the enemy's combat effectiveness is still very strong, we still do not know the true strength of the opponent's fleet, the lion and the rabbit are still doing their best, we must take out all the naval strength, fight this battle well, now the navy must not lose, this is also the emperor's request to us. Yuzaburo Kato said.

"Where are the Dutch battleships now?" Shigetaro Yoshimatsu asked.

Chief of Staff Horiuchi Saburo hurriedly replied: "The Dutch fleet has been on departure for 3 days, and there should be 15 days left to reach the Sea of Japan." ”

"Are our warships ready?" Kato Yuzaburo said.

"Yes, the battleships have all been overhauled and are in good condition and ready to go out at any time, and now the First Fleet's Kongo, Kurama, Tsukuba, Hiei, Settsu, Kawachi, Yasuun, Satsuma, Mikasa, Hizen, Shikishima, and Otowa of the First Fleet, Kashima, Hizen, Fukushima, Tsushima, Shindaka, Akashi, Kasuga, and Izumo, Hirado, and Chikuma, who returned from England, totaled 22 warships, plus four Dutch cruisers, The combined fleet will be 26 ships. ”

"In addition, there are 11 auxiliary ships and 15 troop carriers, and I think that when the time comes, it will form a crushing posture for the Huafu fleet and defeat the enemy fleet."

"Very well, let's get ready first, and when the Dutch warships arrive in Japan, we will start the time when we will start attacking Nanhua, so that we can win this battle, please." Kato Yuzaburo said.

"Please rest assured that the Combined Fleet is confident that it will win this battle." Shigetaro Yoshimatsu replied.

Then, several people discussed the details of how to send troops and the deployment of materials, and the meeting ended after a short time.

In this brief meeting, Vice Admiral Murakami Geichi, commander of the Third Fleet, did not say much, because he knew that his qualifications were still too shallow, if the two bigwigs above did not ask themselves, and they did not have the right to speak at will, who called their Third Fleet only one year old, and these two bigwigs were their former bosses, and it was better to be honest with the guy who had just been promoted from captain to fleet commander.

Yuzaburo Kato was the commander of the First Fleet and the commander of the Combined Fleet four years ago, and at that time Murakami Geichi was still a battleship captain, and Yoshimatsu Shigetaro was the commander of the First Fleet and the commander of the Combined Fleet, he was still a captain and was only recently promoted, so in front of these two, there is really no right to speak.

After the meeting, Vice Admiral Murakami Geichi of the Third Fleet returned to the Third Fleet station with his chief of staff, Rear Admiral Tokutaro Hiraga, and in the car, Chief of Staff Tokutaro Hiraga said, "Your Excellency, what do you think of the fleet in South China, now we know too little information about the enemy, which greatly affects our formulation of targeted plans."

"Yes, the Huafu fleet of Nanhua is really mysterious, until now we don't even have any information about any of their warships, we can only analyze some things from some peripheral information, the warships of this fleet should be very advanced, at least in terms of weapons, it is stronger than our existing warships, with the main guns of our warships, it is definitely the mainstream in the world now, I really don't know what weapons the enemy's warships use."

"And from the soldiers who survived and escaped, they learned that they have a kind of high-speed torpedo boats, the speed of which is estimated to reach more than 50 nautical miles, it is really unimaginable, and now there are such fast boats in the world, or those soldiers are dizzy." Tokutaro Hiraga said.

"I don't think it's necessarily that the soldiers are wrong, they are all elite naval soldiers of the Empire, if one person is wrong, it is still possible, so many people are wrong, it is absolutely impossible, it can only show that the enemy has advanced technology that we don't know, otherwise it can't explain why the enemy was able to defeat the Second Fleet so easily." Murakami said.

Tokutaro Hiraga glanced at his commander and said, "Then why didn't you mention this matter just now, Your Excellency the Prime Minister and His Excellency Commander Shigetaro Yoshimatsu?" ”

"The two Your Excellencies may not have realized this, but this naval battle must be carried out, whether the enemy has any advanced technology, we have to fight, so I didn't mention it, but I don't analyze that the enemy's warships are not too many, otherwise they would not use offshore torpedo boats, now we have mobilized so many imperial main warships, the odds of victory are still very good, do you remember the Battle of Tsushima, didn't we defeat the Russian Navy in one fell swoop when the Russian Navy was slightly weaker." Murakami said.

11 years ago, that is, in 1905, the Russian Second Fleet was ambushed by the Japanese Navy in the Tsushima Strait, 21 of the 38 Russian warships were sunk, 9 were captured, a total of 270,000 tons of ships were lost, 4,830 were killed, and 5,917 were captured; The Japanese lost only 3 torpedo boats, less than 300 tons, 117 killed and 587 wounded, and the Japanese achieved an unprecedented victory.

When Murakami mentioned the Battle of Tsushima, his tone was unnaturally raised, Murakami was proud, because he participated in the Battle of Tsushima, at that time he was the captain of the Otowa, the Otowa was only a protective cruiser of more than 3,000 tons, but Murakami Geichi drove him to sink a 10,000-ton cruiser of the Russian Navy and was commended.

This was also an important springboard for Murakami to become the commander of the Third Fleet, so Murakami was very proud of that naval battle.

"We have sunk a total of 21 warships, captured 9, and completely defeated the Russian Imperial Navy, our combat power this time is no worse than the Battle of Tsushima, only stronger, so the Empire is still confident that it will defeat the Huafu fleet."

"Being so valued by the Empire, even if the Huafu Fleet of Nanhua is defeated by the Imperial Navy, they should feel honored, because now the only countries that can make the Empire attach so much importance are those old powers in Europe."

"After going back, hurry up and make the final preparations, the time to send troops will not be too long, it is now the end of November, I think it should be in mid-December, we will send troops to Nanyang, our task is not only to defeat Nanhua and finish, the empire wants to dig more interests in Nanyang, it is necessary to first seek a foothold in where to find a foothold, now is a golden opportunity, this is a golden opportunity for us, this is the opportunity given to us by Guo Yu, the cabinet has given a death order, we must occupy Nanhua, and then seek to take Nanyang, At least we still have a chance in the Dutch colonies. Murakami said. (To be continued......)