On January 22, Cam Ranh Bay Naval Base, at this moment a large number of warships were moored at Cam Ranh Bay Naval Base, and the main warships of the Royal Navy of the Chinese Empire were all gathered at this most important overseas base of the empire.

Since the acquisition of Cam Ranh Bay in the sixties, the empire has developed Cam Ranh Bay, building deep-water docks, port infrastructure, and necessary shipyards.

In the sixties and seventies, the importance of the Cam Ranh Bay naval base was not yet highlighted, and the main construction of naval bases by the Imperial Navy in those two decades was mainly concentrated on the domestic naval bases, and during this period, the ports of Hong Kong, Guangzhou, Shanghai, Qingdao, Bihai Harbor, and Vladivostok were the main bases of the Imperial Navy.

With the expansion of the imperial navy, there was more demand for ports, so in the 70s and 80s, it also concentrated on the expansion of some secondary ports in China, such as Zhanjiang, Sanya, Yulin, Zhoushan, Keelung, Zuoying, Weihai, Lushun, Lianyungang, Miaojie, etc.

However, most of the above-mentioned ports are secondary ports, mainly small ships stationed in the coastal defense fleet, and for the main fleet, they are only temporary anchorages or supply points.

However, in the 80s, as the empire's desire for foreign expansion intensified, especially after the signing of the border treaty with Russia, the threat from the north decreased, and the wave of domestic expansion to the south was raised.

Under this backdrop, the Imperial Navy also tended to make the construction of naval port bases larger, and selected several major ports for in-depth development.

In this process, Hong Kong, Zhoushan, Qingdao, and Bihai Ports, as the four major bases of the Imperial Navy on the mainland, naturally continued to develop, while the two ports of Shanghai and Guangzhou were gradually converted into shipbuilding and maintenance bases, but a large number of capital ships were no longer anchored in these two commercial ports.

In the later period, the empire mainly developed overseas bases, and the domestic port, that is, Yulin, as the southernmost excellent deep-water port of the empire, was vigorously developed, but the main ones were Cam Ranh Bay and Yokosuka, Japan.

Yokosuka, Japan, was the main core base of the empire in the Pacific, and was clearly more important than Pearl Harbor, much more so than Pearl Harbor.

If Pearl Harbor was the forward base, a nail in the coffin for the Imperial Navy in the Central Pacific, then Yokosuka was the core base of the Imperial Pacific strategy.

The same is true of Cam Ranh Bay, a naval base that is the core support for the Imperial Navy's control of the South China Sea, and even all of Southeast Asia, blockading the Strait of Malacca and advancing out of the Indian Ocean.

In addition, the natural geographical environment of Cam Ranh Bay is really rare, it can be called the best military port in Asia, the water depth reaches 16 to 25 meters, even the largest battleships of modern times can enter and exit at will, and its harbor is enough to berth dozens of huge warships of more than 40,000 or 50,000 tons, such as super battleships or aircraft carriers, if it is a ship of less than 30,000 tons, there is no problem at all to berth hundreds of ships.

Therefore, the Imperial Navy carried out initial development in the sixties and seventies, but the development efforts were limited, and the real large-scale construction was after the eighties, when the Navy invested heavily in the construction of the Cam Ranh Bay Naval Base, which turned it into a first-class large-scale military port.

In the posture of building a fortress, a complete fortress system was built in Cam Ranh Bay, with more than 20 large-caliber coastal defense guns of more than 8 inches deployed, and more than 50 coastal defense guns between 5 and 8 inches.

Cam Ranh Bay Naval Base, known internally as Asia's first-class fortress, boasted that it could defend even in the face of an attack by more than 20 times the enemy.

The Empire's emphasis on the Cam Ranh Bay Naval Base is a direct reflection of the importance that the Empire attaches to its external expansion, and this emphasis is reflected today.

All the capital ships of the empire are gathered in Cam Ranh Bay, the best military port in Asia, and more than 100 ships of all sizes are moored in the bay, and these warships can be safely anchored under the protection of many shore defense guns outside the port.

On the edge of one of the deep-water docks in the port, the Houyi is quietly moored here, on the high mast of the Houyi, several flags are waving in the wind, and the rear mast is hung with the red background blue dragon anchor flag, which is the imperial naval flag, and the army flag is a red background blue dragon, the difference is that the navy is an anchor, and the army is a cross sword.

Hanging on the main mast of the Houyi is a fleet command flag, which represents the identity of the flagship of the Pacific Fleet, and also represents the ship of Lin Tongshu, the commander of the Pacific Fleet.

As the most advanced battleship of the Empire today, the Houyi-class battleship was designed with the consideration that its lead ship, the Houyi, would become the flagship of the Imperial Navy after it entered service, so it was designed internally to take into account the space that accommodated the fleet command team, and a wireless communication command system was installed.

'Wireless communication command system', this term describes a bit of a lofty thing, this thing is actually wireless telegraphy.

As a latecomer, Lin Zhe will naturally promote the scientific and technological development he sees at some point, such as promoting the development of cable telegraph and railways in the sixties, and building a cable telegraph network all over the country.

However, Lin Zhe naturally would not be satisfied with cable telegraphy, he also wanted wireless telegraphy, in the seventies, he scavenged all the contents of wireless telegraphy that he still remembered, and then let those researchers engaged in electromagnetic research from the Imperial University and the Royal Academy of Sciences conduct research.

Although the information provided by Lin Zhe is scattered and incomplete, in the late nineteenth century, the relevant basic disciplines were already quite perfect, and some specific applied inventions only needed one foot in the door, and then they could make breakthroughs.

In the eighties, the Royal Academy of Sciences made a breakthrough in experiments, in 1884 the first success of the wireless communication experiment, although the initial test distance was only a few kilometers, but still made the researchers very excited, and then quickly launched a longer distance experiment, only two years later, the Shanghai to Nanjing wireless communication test was successful, a year later, the Shanghai to Tianjin long-distance test was successful.

The success of this long-distance test means that wireless communication has entered the practical stage.

The first users of wireless communication were not the Royal Telegraph Company, and the Royal Navy, because the Navy's warships stayed at sea for a long time, their need for wireless communication was even more urgent.

Therefore, when wireless communication came out, the military did not care about the price and was very expensive, even if it was installed on many capital ships, and in order to keep it secret, the military also listed wireless telegraphy technology as a top military secret, and it was temporarily closed to the public.

After entering the 90s, radio communication technology was also initially developed in Western countries, but it was still a very primitive experimental stage, and there was still some distance from large-scale ship installation.

Radio communication technology was also the main reason why the Jinhua and Luzon task forces were able to receive information quickly and arrive in Manila.

As the flagship of the fleet, the Houyi is naturally equipped with a sophisticated radio communication command system, through which Lin Tongshu can command the entire fleet's operations on the Houyi, and this command method is more reliable, farther, and more timely than the previous communication flags and light signals.

At this time, on the Houyi in Cam Ranh Bay, a large number of senior officers and officers of the Imperial Navy were all on a trip!

"It has now been reliably reported that the Spanish fleet has entered the Strait of Malacca at about eight o'clock this morning and is expected to arrive in Singapore shortly, and according to the information we have received before, the British have allowed the Spanish fleet to enter the port of Singapore."

In addition, news came back from Singapore that the British East India Fleet was conducting intensive combat readiness training, and had conducted many live-fire training in the past few days, and another British detachment had arrived in Singapore the day before yesterday.

Now the size of the British fleet in Singapore has increased by at least one-third compared with last year, and the number of large capital ships of various types has exceeded twenty! ”

"It seems that the British are determined to obstruct our operations, otherwise, they would not have risked the weakening of their forces in the Mediterranean direction and sent a large number of warships to reinforce the East India Fleet!"

"So our battle plan remains the same, with the British East India Fleet as the basic strategic core, as for the Spaniards, although their reinforcement fleet has a lot of ships, most of them are old ships, and their combat power is average, so they will not pose much threat to our army!"

The combat readiness and use of the Imperial Navy are all centered on countering the British East India Fleet, and as for the Spanish reinforcement fleet, it is not worth mentioning for the Imperial Navy, and there is no need to even concentrate the main fleet, and any dispatch of a detachment fleet in the past is sure to annihilate this Spanish reinforcement fleet.

Today, in 1896, the Spanish Navy only had a second-class battleship, the Pelayo, and the ship was still an old ironclad completed in 1886, not a new generation of capital ships of various countries after the nineties.

As for the other capital ships, there are mainly three 'Maria?' Princess Teresa's class of armored cruisers, which was an improved version of the British Orlando-class armored cruisers, had a smaller displacement, but was quite new, having been completed between 1890 and 1891.

In addition to these four battleships, most of the other active warships are not worth mentioning, they are some protected cruisers or unprotected cruisers and auxiliary warships, and the tonnage and firepower are generally small.

There are a few ships under construction, such as the first-class armored cruiser Carlos V, which was only started in 1895 and has a displacement of more than 9,000 tons.

In addition, there are three armored cruisers of the second rank, and one armored protected cruiser is under construction.

The current Spanish navy, let alone the current state of 1896, even if it were until 1900, their naval strength would not be any better.

This time the reinforcement fleet of the Spaniards, the main force was three Maria? The Teresa Princess-class armored cruiser, combined with more than a dozen other small and medium-sized cruisers, a Spanish reinforcement fleet of this size has basically hollowed out the Spanish Navy's home, leaving only an old second-class battleship, the Pelayo, to stay on the mainland.

With such a Spanish reinforcement fleet, it was almost impossible to break through the blockade of the Imperial Navy and enter the South China Sea, and then reach the Philippines.

The Spaniards apparently knew this, too, so when they entered the Strait of Malacca, they did not go directly into the South China Sea, but into Singapore.

However, the Spaniards did not stay long in Singapore, and at dawn on the 29th of January, the Imperial intelligence officers discovered that the Spanish fleet anchored in the harbor had disappeared, and to their further horror, a large number of British capital ships in the harbor were also absent.

Seeing the empty port, the intelligence officers of the empire realized that something was wrong, the British and Spaniards must have secretly left the port last night and immediately used the wireless telegraph in the intelligence base to quickly transmit the news back to the country.

After receiving this news, Lin Tongshu, commander of the Imperial Pacific Fleet, issued a formal order, and the main fleet immediately left the port to stand by, and ordered the reconnaissance detachments patrolling the South China Sea and South China Sea to search for traces of the British and Spaniards.

At 11 a.m. on 29 January, the frigate Temple Street, a patrol ship belonging to the Sixth Fleet, spotted a number of unidentified vessels in waters about 300 nautical miles east of Singapore.

At 11:30 a.m., the Temple Street took the initiative to intercept it, and then the three opposing warships hoisted the Spanish flag and opened fire on the Temple Street, and the Temple Street counterattacked while transmitting the news of the discovery of the Spanish fleet by radio.

Not long after, the other three cruisers of the Sixth Fleet in the nearby waters rushed to the sea where the Temple Street was located, and at this time, they finally discovered a huge fleet of many warships in the distance.

In this sea area, in addition to the Imperial Navy, the only one who could organize a fleet of such a large size could only be the British. (To be continued.) )