The outbreak of civil war in Australia immediately attracted the attention of countries around the world.

Previously, the Chinese Empire had supported the resistance forces of Afghanistan, India, and Burma to attack the British Asian colonies everywhere, which had annoyed the British political axe, and the diplomatic relations between the two sides had been downgraded from the minister level to the consular level, but neither of them had issued a letter of renunciation, because neither side was ready.

Now that a civil war broke out in Australia, the British authorities suddenly realized that the Chinese Empire intended to open a new battlefield in Australia. Once the Australian Ming Cook Party wins, then Australia will become a world of Chinese descent and become a vassal state of the Chinese Empire.

The British government urgently convened a meeting to discuss its strategy toward China. However, at the time of the British general election, the Conservative Party had suffered a defeat in foreign policy in the past four years, Britain was constrained everywhere on the issue of China, the British colonies were on fire everywhere, and the British economy had a serious trade deficit with China, which caused the Conservative Party to be defeated by the Liberals in the 1905 midterm elections, and the Parliament was in the hands of the Liberals.

At this point, with a month to go before the final election for prime minister, Conservative candidate Stanley ? Baldwin and Liberal candidate Henry? Sir Campbell-Bennenan is at the height of the fight, and if the British political axe is mishandled on the Australian issue, it will lead to the direct collapse of the Conservative Party. For this reason, British Prime Minister Balfour of the Conservative Party believed that war with the Chinese Empire should be avoided and wait and see what happened on the Australian issue. But there are also some Conservative members who believe that this time the Conservative Party is doomed to defeat, and it is better to leave the mess to the Liberals, who are ready to deal with the next election in four years.

The latter's proposal was largely supported by the Conservative Party, so Balfour had no choice but to adopt their advice and intervene in the Australian civil war by force, further intensifying the contradictions between China and Britain, and throwing the mess on the soon-to-be-coming Liberal Party.

At this time, on the Australian battlefield, the Eastern Australian Army had been defeated by the Western Australian Army, the Western Australian Army had occupied the capital Melbourne, and the Eastern Australian Army had retreated to Sydney and Canberra.

The Western Australian Army is well-trained and well-equipped, and is basically composed of retired soldiers of the Chinese Empire, with strong combat effectiveness. On the other hand, the Eastern Australian Army has backward equipment, poor training, and the Australian political axe has always been disgusted with the British army's interference in Australia's defense, so the original British army has been abolished, and the Australian police force serves as the defense force. In this way, the strength of the Eastern Australian Army is far inferior to the Western Australian Army, and after six consecutive defeats, the Eastern Australian Army lost its capital and Victoria, and most of Queensland was lost, leaving only a few important cities in South Wales.

As a last resort, the East Australian political axe had no choice but to ask the British for help.

On October 1, 1905, the British political axe issued a manifesto to support the Adams, the leader of the Labor Party elected by the three eastern states of Australia, did not recognize the Prime Minister Holmes of the Ming Cooking Party elected by the three western states of Australia, and ruled that the three western states of Australia were illegal, and would provide military assistance to the eastern Australia and even intervene by the British army.

After the British High Command issued the order, the British Asian Fleet and the Indian Ocean Fleet respectively dispatched more than a dozen warships to form a fleet to aid Australia, and carried more than 30,000 British Army personnel to land in Sydney on October 8.

The British navy shelled the Chinese Imperial Expatriates, which immediately caused the Chinese Imperial Political Axe to strongly protest, but the British Political Axe ignored it.

On October 8, the Chinese Emperor Wang Chenhao convened a pre-imperial meeting, and the civil and military ministers arrived together to discuss the feasibility of fighting against the British.

At this time, after 34 months of preparatory work, the battle plan against Britain formulated by the General Staff of the Chinese Empire was basically realized.

The Imperial Chinese Navy has successively commissioned nine Xia Dynasty-class battleships, nine Western Zhou-class battlecruisers, nine Fengxian-class light cruisers, six hunting ship groups have all been reequipped with Northwest Wind-class hunting ships, 82 new Han-class submarines have been added, nine Daji-type heavy cruisers are under construction on the slipway, and the strategic plan formulated by the Imperial General Staff has been completed by 8 percent.

The new Han-class submarines are actually different from the previous Han-class submarines, in the process of construction, Holland and Lake continued to improve, and in the end, the new production of 82 Han-class submarines is actually an upgraded version of the previous Han-class submarines. The Admiralty called it the Eastern Han class submarine, while the previous one was classified as the Western Han class submarine.

The upgraded Donghan-class submarine has an increased displacement of 640 tons on the surface and 780 tons under water, the main engine uses 2 Diesel 4-stroke diesel engines of the Diesel type (for surface navigation), 2 motors (for underwater navigation), dual propulsion shafts, and a slight increase in speed, with a surface speed of 14.2 knots and 10.1 knots underwater. Taking into account the entry into the Atlantic Ocean, the endurance of the Donghan-class submarines increased to 10 knots and 3600 nautical miles.

It is equipped with 5 450 mm torpedo tubes (including 4 bow and 1 stern torpedo tube) and 12 torpedoes. The original 47 mm rapid-fire gun was changed to a 76 mm rapid-fire gun, and the increase in caliber led to a reduction in the number of spare rounds to 200 rounds. However, a 12.7 mm heavy machine gun was added to the stern of the ship for attacking enemy personnel. The submarine is equipped with a more advanced radio system, which enables the submarine to communicate with the submarine at an underwater distance of 500 kilometers, and can communicate with nearby submarines and surface fleets for coordinated and unified operations. The safe depth of submersible navigation has been increased to 75m, and the guns of British cruisers at this depth cannot threaten submarines. The number of submarines increased by five to forty.

The Eastern Han class submarines can be said to be specially designed for the Atlantic Ocean to break the engagement, speed, endurance, diving depth, surface rapid-fire gun firepower, etc., are all aimed at the British transport fleet.

To this end, the Chinese Empire has built large submarine bases at Wake Island Naval Base, Guam Naval Base, and San Juan Naval Base in Puerto Rico within two years, and has developed a semi-submersible submarine carrier specifically for submarines, one submarine carrier can tow four submarines, and can provide submarines with supplies at sea.

By this time, the Chinese Empire had already deployed fifty Eastern Han-class submarines to the Atlantic Fleet at the San Juan Naval Base.

The Atlantic Fleet of the Chinese Empire was established in January of the fifth year of Guanghua, with Admiral Du Xigui as the commander of the fleet, and Vice Admiral Li Dingxin, chief of staff of the fleet. It has nine battle cruisers, nine light cruisers, 36 hunting ships, 50 submarines, and seven large supply ships under its jurisdiction of the Atlantic Fleet. The whole fleet is divided into the 1st, 2nd and 3rd fleets.

The flagship of the fleet, King Wu of Zhou, the first squadron of the first fleet: King Zhou Cheng, King Zhou Kang, King Zhao of Zhou, King Mu of Zhou; Second team: Zhou Yiwang, Zhou Xiaowang, Zhou Liwang, Zhou Xuanwang.

Second Squadron: Flagship Stormy. The third team: Feng Ling, Feng Shuo, Feng Tao, Feng Ting; Fourth team: Wind Bay, Wind Lookout, Wind Might, Wind String.

The Third Squadron has under the jurisdiction of the Fifth Group of Destroyers and the Sixth Group of Missioners, with a total of 36 Mistral-class destroyers.

The supply fleet is 15 Taihu-class large supply ships, numbered Taihu No. 1~15, and the submarine fleet is 50 Donghan-class submarines.

The main combat mission of the Atlantic Fleet is to protect the security of the Panama Canal and to enhance the maritime presence of the Chinese Empire in the Caribbean.

All nine Western Zhou-class battlecruisers were allotted to the Atlantic Fleet, officially nine battleships, and the military kept it strictly secret, advancing at only 11 knots during the passage through the Panama Canal. The weakness of the Western Zhou-class battlecruisers was that the armor was only 254 mm, but the British could not obtain the technical parameters, and they could not see it at all from the onlookers, which made the world, especially the British Navy, believe that it was true.

As for the Pacific Fleet, Admiral Lin Jianzhang will continue to serve as commander of the Pacific Fleet, and Vice Admiral Ye Zugui will serve as chief of staff. After the nine Xia Dynasty-class battleships were put into service, they were incorporated into the first and second fleets of the first detachment of the Pacific Fleet, and the flagship of the fleet was also changed from Dengyun to Diqi. The nine Dengyun-class battleships were grouped into the 3rd and 4th divisions of the 2nd Fleet, and the other divisions were also in the rear.

At the same time, the expansion of the British Navy was only halfway completed, and most of the new warships were on slipways. Although the British Navy launched the battleship Dreadnought in June 1904, sea trials did not go well until September 1905, when it was completed and entered service with the British Home Fleet.

Because the Edward VII-class battleships, Nelson-class battleships, and fast-class battleships that were completed by the British Navy expansion were not the opponents of the Xia Dynasty-class battleships of the Chinese Empire, they were even reluctant to compete with the Dengyun-class and Jianwei-class battleships.

The British Admiralty only really understood the combat capabilities of this new concept battleship after testing the surname of the battleship Intrepid. Thinking that the Chinese Empire had completed the relevant testing of the new concept battleship Shengong three years ago, and that three years later it had completed the construction of eighteen such new concept battleships, the British Admiralty panicked.

In the summer of 1905, the British Admiralty reported that the Imperial Chinese Navy's Divine Bow battleships would become a nightmare for the British Navy's active warships, and the British Navy could only compete with the Dreadnought, but it was definitely no match for the Imperial Chinese Navy, because the Imperial Chinese Navy had received eighteen Divine Bow battleships one after another.

The British Parliament scolded the Admiralty for a bunch of rice buckets, and the huge cost of building ships that had been allocated 50 million pounds three years ago was suddenly wasted, and the warships built had become obsolete since the day they were designed, and now these warships were a pile of obsolete scrap metal in front of the Imperial Chinese Navy.

However, despite the Council's scolding of the Admiralty, it had to accept the reality and urgently increased the cost of building ships by 30 million pounds, ordering the Admiralty to build a batch of dreadnought battleships as soon as possible to counter the Shenbow battleships of the Chinese Empire.

Beginning in September, major British shipyards began construction of 18 Bellerophon-class battleships, but due to the tension of the slipway, only six could be started at the same time.

The Bellerophon-class battleship was only a slightly improved version of the Dreadnought, and 95% of the design remained unchanged, because the British Navy did not have time to carry out large-scale renovations, so it had to be built and renovated, because for the first time, the British Navy really felt the great maritime threat from the Chinese Empire.

However, Britain's huge naval dreadnought shipbuilding program had just begun, and the Chinese Empire was ready to go to war against Britain, so that the subsequent twelve construction plans of the British dreadnought battleships all failed, and only the first six dreadnought battleships were finally completed.

At the Imperial Council presided over by the Emperor of the Chinese Empire, Wang Chenhao, the Minister of the Navy, Deng Shichang, promised Wang Chenhao that the Imperial Navy had the advantage to fight the British Navy and win it with confidence.

Secretary of the War Feng Guozhang also said that the Guangzhou Military Region had made a military plan to recover Hong Kong Island, and that the Guam, Puerto Rico, and White Beach forts in the Central Pacific Province, Puerto Rico, and Ryukyu Provinces had all completed land reinforcement work, which was sufficient to resist the British invasion of the island.

Air Force Minister Xue Xiangguang also said that the Imperial Air Force has completed the production of 300 fighter planes, 200 reconnaissance planes, 20 airships, and 1,000 sounding reconnaissance balloons, and that the Air Force can completely control air supremacy in the combat zone, provide reconnaissance for army and navy operations, and can even provide direct attack assistance.

Wang Shizhen, Minister of National Defense, finally concluded: "Your Majesty, the officers and men of the three armies of the empire have made preparations and are confident that they will regain the lost territory and defeat the British. ”

Wang Chenhao nodded and said: "The soldiers of the three armies use their lives, the country is very lucky, and I am very lucky." ”

Then, Wang Chenhao turned to Zhang Feng and asked, "The soldiers and horses have not moved, the grain and grass go first, how are you prepared?" ”

Zhang Feng replied, "Your Majesty, the cabinet has raised 500 million dragon coins as war reserves. ”

Wang Chenhao thought for a while and said: "Britain is not as good as Russia, Britain is the first power, and it is very rich, if they are ruthless and play a protracted war with us, this money is not enough." ”

Zhang Feng replied: "Your Majesty, rest assured, Weichen still has a second set of plans, once the Sino-British war enters a protracted war, the empire will raise two billion dragon coins of war treasury bonds within half a year." ”

Wang Chenhao nodded, and suddenly asked, "You can't be the idea of trying to beat my insider, right?" ”

Zhang Feng smiled brightly and said, "Your Majesty's internal funds do have more than two billion dragon coins in reserve, but Wei Chen can raise this fund this time without His Majesty's internal funds. ”

Wang Chenhao said with a smile: "I also put my internal money away, so it's better to take it out to make money." In this way, my internal funds will be used as your third plan, so that there will be an extra layer of insurance. ”

The ministers suddenly said in unison: "Your Majesty Shengming!"

Wang Chenhao nodded and said: "Fighting with the British may not be able to earn benefits, and it is a blessing not to accompany you." ”

Ruan Zhongshu came out at this time and said: "Your Majesty, the minister thinks that it is better to expand the war, burn the war from the Atlantic Ocean to the Mediterranean, the coast of Africa, and the coast of the Indian Ocean, and attack the British colonies around the world. ”

Yang Shixiang cried out: "The minister agrees with Lord Ruan's opinion, Britain is known as the Empire of Immortality, its colonies are all over the world, and the British Navy is certainly powerful, but if it is dispersed, a single navy is not the opponent of the Imperial Navy at all. ”

Zhang Peilun also came out and said: "The minister seconded the proposal of the two lords, and the minister thought that the British attack on the British sea lines of communication was a good strategic move, and if the Marines were sent to attack the important British colonial cities, so that the British could scramble to extinguish the fires everywhere, they could receive tactical miracles." ”

Wang Chenhao asked, "What does Master Zhang mean?" ”

Zhang Peilun explained: "The minister thought that South Africa was rich in gold and diamonds, and after Britain fought the Anglo-Boer War, it plundered thousands of tons of gold and a large number of diamonds from the Boer treasury in South Africa, and it is said that Britain was forced by international public opinion to not ship most of them back to London, and has been stored in the Bank of England in Cape Town, as a post-war reconstruction for South Africa, if the empire sent a marine team to raid Cape Town and seize this batch of gold and diamonds, it can not only hit Britain's war staying power, but also supplement the empire's war expenses." ”

"What a good idea!" Wang Chenhao's eyes lit up suddenly, and he hurriedly said: "This matter will be discussed immediately!" ”

Wang Shizhen then said: "Your Majesty, if you want to raid Cape Town, you only need the Atlantic Fleet of the Imperial Navy and a strong and capable Marine Corps. The Atlantic Fleet was in the Caribbean, only half a month's voyage from Cape Town, and a long-distance attack could quickly wipe out the British cruiser fleet stationed in Cape Town, and the Marines could capture Cape Town before the British could react with a capable Marine brigade. ”

"Capturing Cape Town and quickly removing the gold, diamonds, pounds and so on from the Cape Town branch of the Bank of England is a bold but feasible plan," Fung said. ”

Deng Shichang smiled: "If it succeeds, the British will go crazy." ”

Wang Chenhao nodded and said: "Any plan that can make the British go crazy is beneficial to us, and we can adopt this plan, but we must plan it in detail, so as to hit it with one blow, and we can't drag the mud and water with the British." ”

"Obey the order!" Wang Shizhen immediately received the order.

Then, Wang Chenhao looked at Wu Tingfang and said, "The Ministry of Foreign Affairs immediately launched a public opinion offensive to cover the actions of the three armies of the empire. ”

"Command!" Wu Tingfang continued: "Your Majesty, rest assured, we have the experience of public opinion on the last war against Russia, and this time we will definitely live up to our mission." ”

Wang Chenhao nodded and said: "Everything is ready, only the east wind is owed, since everything is ready, then find an excuse to act!" ”

"Your Ministers obey!" A cadre of ministers immediately received the order.

After the Imperial Council, the ministers of civil and military affairs returned to their respective offices, and the war machine of the Chinese Empire was suddenly put into operation.

On October 17, 1905, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Chinese Empire angrily accused the British Navy of intervening in the Australian Civil War, killing and wounding hundreds of Chinese people in Australia, and destroying a large amount of property held by the Chinese Empire.

Beginning on the 18th, the Chinese Empire carried out evacuation operations within the jurisdiction of Britain all over the world, which immediately stimulated the British political axe, and the British veteran military strategist Bacon immediately commented that this was a precursor to the Sino-British war, warning the British political axe and the British army and navy around the world to be vigilant against the sudden attack of the Chinese Empire.

However, Britain has been the big brother of the political axe for many years, and it is Britain that has taken the initiative to declare war on other countries, and has not seen any country dare to take the initiative to declare war on Britain, let alone dare to take the initiative to attack Britain, and most British politicians and military officers think that is impossible.

(To be continued)