On December 25, 1895, it was a day when diplomats from the major countries of the world were extremely busy, especially those of the Empire, who traveled almost all over the world.

In Washington, diplomatic officials such as the Imperial Minister to the United States and the Secretary of State of the United States had a secret conversation for six hours on the 25th, and no one knew what they were talking about.

In London, the Imperial diplomats in Britain were also in frequent contact with British diplomats, and constantly sent the Empire's goodwill signals to the British, constantly reiterating that the Empire's actions in the Philippines were actions that had to be done to protect the Imperial diaspora and to protect the interests of the Empire.

He also reiterated many times that the Empire's actions against Spain would be confined to Spain's colonies in Asia, and would never affect the rest of Southeast Asia.

In Paris, Berlin, St. Petersburg and other cities, imperial diplomats dressed in Chinese costumes can be seen hurrying back and forth.

Even before the Jinhua incident, the Empire had already developed a sound diplomatic and military strategy to win the United States into the Imperial camp, and at the same time declare war on Spain, and at the same time use all means, if necessary, to make some retreats, so as to avoid British and French interference.

However, although these diplomatic strategies have been formulated, it is difficult to say how much of a role they can play, and the Americans are not ready for war yet, and it is estimated that the Americans will not have the courage to directly declare war on Spain until Britain, France, and other countries have made a clear statement.

If Britain, France, and other countries had made it clear that they would not interfere, the empire would no longer need the Americans to declare war on Spain to relieve diplomatic pressure.

That is, the empire needed not just the Americans to declare war on Spain, but the Americans to declare war on Spain before Britain and France and other countries could take a stand.

The difference between the former and the latter is very large!

However, the Empire remained pessimistic about how effective these diplomatic methods would be, and the British had been very wary of the Empire's expansion in recent years, and now that the Empire was acting against Spain, from the British point of view, it was a prelude to the Empire's full-scale expansion in Asia.

Now Spain, then the Empire will look at the Netherlands, then France, and then Britain itself.

In fact, this concern of the British is not false, judging from the current development rate of the empire, and judging from the huge willingness of the Chinese empire to expand abroad, if there is no strong obstruction, then the pace of expansion of the empire will not stop, now the Philippines, and then it may be the whole of Southeast Asia, especially the crucial Strait of Malacca.

Perhaps it is expansion in Central Asia, India, Australia and other regions.

This expansion was intolerable to the British.

Compared with the United States and Germany, which were also backward countries, the Chinese Empire posed a greater threat to the British.

The population of the Americans is small, and how to say it, the Americans are still Europeans, of the same species as the British, and have a natural sense of closeness, and the Americans do not have the same strong desire for expansion as the Chinese Empire.

Germany, although it has a strong army and is expanding its navy, there is a France next to Germany, and the French are uniting with Russia.

For Britain at present, the European continent is still in a state of equilibrium, and the threat from Germany is not too great.

But the empire is different, the Chinese empire has a huge territory, a larger population, and the industrial economy is also developing quite well, when such a country still has a strong desire to expand abroad, then it is basically a nightmare for neighbors.

It's not hard, the British and the Chinese Empire can be regarded as neighbors.

Although the British mainland was thousands of miles away from the empire, the British Burma and India were only separated from the empire, and the Malaysian region, especially the Strait of Malacca, was something that the Chinese empire dreamed of controlling.

So the expansion of the Chinese Empire, especially to the south, will not actually bear the brunt of Spain, but Britain!

As for Spain, it is just a pawn in the game between China and Britain in Asia.

For the British, the question now was whether to abandon Spain and tolerate the expansion of the empire, so that they could wait for a few years for more battleships to be launched. Or do you support the Spaniards now, or even go directly to the war to contain the expansion of the Chinese Empire.

No matter what the British thought, but on the side of the Chinese Empire, the war machine was already launched.

While the diplomats were still negotiating and firing all kinds of verbal artillery, a Royal Navy scoring fleet had already arrived in Manila Bay, and then shelled the Spanish batteries and demanded the complete surrender of the Spaniards.

The Spaniards were naturally unwilling, and despite knowing that they were outnumbered, the Spanish fleet put up a stubborn resistance.

The naval engagement between the two sides was hardly worth mentioning, because at that time the detachment sent by the Imperial Navy was not a main fleet, not even a new capital ship, only two old armored cruisers at the head, and then brought six ordinary old cruisers.

After nearly three hours of engagement in Manila Bay, most of the Spaniards' warships were sunk, others either fled back to port, and if nothing else, the fate that awaited them was either self-sinking or captured.

Naval engagements of this magnitude barely attracted the attention of the Imperial Royal Navy, and in fact, the Imperial Navy's side did not really pay attention to the Spanish resistance from beginning to end.

The only thing that deserves the attention of the Imperial Royal Navy is the possible intervention fleet of Britain and France!

In order to deal with the possible intervention of Britain and France, and also to intercept the reinforcement fleet of the Spaniards, the Imperial Navy had already begun to secretly assemble.

In January, as more than 5,000 Imperial soldiers began to land in Hong Kong and prepare to land in the Philippines, the Imperial Royal Navy also gathered a large number of capital ships in Hong Kong and Cam Ranh Bay.

When the Imperial Prince Lin Lian traveled south on the Beijing-Guangzhou (Nanjing-Guangzhou) railway, and then arrived in Hong Kong by military railway, what he saw was almost the entire Victoria Harbor filled with warships of all sizes!

Lin Luan, who had already served as a member of the Supreme Command Committee and had been awarded the honorary rank of Admiral of the Army, was dressed in an ordinary admiral's winter suit.

As soon as he got off the train, he conveyed the message of his father, Emperor Lin Zhe, to the major admirals gathered in Hong Kong: he hoped that the navy would be ready for any threat.

Then, according to the management, he inspected many warships in the harbor, and successively boarded a number of battleships for inspection, and met with representatives of officers and soldiers to encourage the morale of the navy.

However, encouraging soldiers is not the main purpose of his trip, the biggest purpose of his trip is to seal Lin Zhe's order to personally go to Hong Kong, the naval base camp, to supervise the battle!

This is not only to increase Lin Lu's prestige, but also to make the navy feel more pressure and avoid any luck on their side.

After all, the Imperial Royal Navy has not fought a large-scale naval battle for twenty-nine years since the Battle of the Pearl River Estuary in 1866, although this kind of thing is not only on the side of the Imperial Navy, most of the world's major navies have not fought a real large-scale naval battle for decades.

However, it has not been tested by war for a long time, and when this war comes, it is still a debatable question whether the navy can show its strength and what it should have on paper.

This time, Lin Zhe sent Lin to Hong Kong to oversee the war, so that the navy would be under more pressure and trained more solidly and intensively to deal with possible British interference.

Judging from the negotiations between the empire and the British in recent days, the British obviously did not intend to sit idly by, and a few days ago, the empire's reconnaissance ships found a number of British ships loaded with various supplies to the Philippines, which do not need to be guessed, they must be all kinds of ordnance.

In addition, the British East India Fleet also began to assemble in Singapore, according to the feedback of the Empire's intelligence personnel around the world, the two main fleets of the British Channel Fleet and the Mediterranean Fleet warships are frequently transferred, and it is very likely that many warships have been transferred to the Indian Ocean to reinforce the East India Fleet.

All this shows that the British did not intend to sit back and watch the expansion of the empire, like fools.

Diplomatically, the British pulled in the French to mediate the war between the Empire and Spain, saying that it was just a misunderstanding, and hoped that Britain would not want to see much change in the situation in Asia, and hoped that the Empire would not send troops to land in the Philippines.

These reactions of the British also brought considerable pressure to the empire!

In the face of these pressures, the Empire's most immediate response was to prepare for war on a larger scale!

A large number of warships began to gather in Hong Kong and Cam Ranh Bay, Zhanjiang, Guangzhou and other ports, not that the Imperial Navy did not want to deploy all warships in Hong Kong or Cam Ranh Bay, but because the scale of the Imperial Royal Navy was too large, and it was no longer possible to deploy so many warships in a single port.

Even if they are deployed separately, there are actually only a few warships that can be berthed at the wharf in the current Hong Kong port, and many warships have not been able to dock at the wharf, but have anchored directly in the harbor.

When Lin Yan arrived in Hong Kong, he saw a dense number of warships, of which there were as many as twelve new and old battleships!

There are also eight armored cruisers, and there are dozens of non-main warships such as cruisers and torpedo ships of various types and purposes.

Looking at this dense battleship, Lin Yan couldn't help but feel a burst of pride: this is the real confidence of the empire to dare to challenge Britain! (To be continued.) )