The United States was already full of opposition to the purchase of Alaska, and this was still without the intervention of external forces, and now the empire suddenly declared sovereignty over Alaska, and refused to recognize the legitimacy of Russia and the United States to buy and sell Alaska, and announced in a high-profile manner that it had sent its navy to Alaska to cruise and station troops.

As a result, there is even more opposition to the purchase of Alaska in the United States.

Spending more than $7 million on a super refrigerator will bring the risk of war with the Chinese Empire!

More importantly, with the current naval strength of the United States, it is barely possible to protect the American coast, but it is not ordinary to go to Alaska and compete with the Chinese navy for Alaska.

During the civil war, the United States had quite a few warships of various types in the navy, but most of them were small ships engaged in inland and coastal operations, and the only warships of several thousand tons or more generally did not have the capability of ocean-going operations.

In addition, since the official end of the American Civil War in 1865, the United States has begun to reduce the military on a large scale, the number of its standing army is quite small, and the navy is also a large-scale sale and dismantling of warships during the Civil War, and the number of active warships is quite small, and there are even fewer warships with ocean-going operations, and most of these warships are deployed on the east coast, and the naval strength on the west coast is quite weak.

Otherwise, during the Hawaiian War before, the Americans would not have gone to great lengths to send a few warships, most of which were still wooden warships.

In these years, the United States has been in terms of both its international influence and its own military strength, especially its naval strength. They were all quite weak, not even as good as the Chinese Empire.

Although the Chinese Empire was second-rate among the country's powers. But with a large army, there are not many opponents, at least on the Asian land.

Although the navy was weak, it was able to compete with the British East India Fleet. He also created a battle line that sank a large British additive and the Resistance.

If this kind of thing were to be put on the US Navy, it would be absolutely impossible to do it.

The United States in the mid-nineteenth century was not the same thing as the United States in the mid-twentieth century, and even the United States in the late nineteenth century.

The formal rise of the United States took decades after the end of the American Civil War, and it was not until the Spanish-American War that its military strength caught up with the pace of the great powers and built a navy known as the third in the world. It was not until the early 20th century that the United States, with its powerful navy, laid the foundation for becoming the world's number one power, and shone in the two world wars, thus replacing Britain as the world's number one power.

Before the Spanish-American War, the United States had limited national strength and was even weaker militarily.

Not to mention the years since the end of the American Civil War.

If you just talk about the Navy, the US Navy in the sixties is incomparable to the Imperial Navy!

In late February of the 1867 year, the U.S. Congress formally rejected the proposal to purchase Alaska. This move has drawn a round of cheers from public opinion in the United States.

But for the Russians, this is not a good thing!

After the Americans refused to buy Alaska, the Russians did not give up and also wanted to go to the British. France promoted Alaska, but Britain and France were even more straightforward and refused without even negotiating.

Are you kidding. If it only costs hundreds of thousands of dollars, maybe they will ask for it. But what about the Russians offering more than seven million dollars, everyone is not stupid. Why spend so much money?

Moreover, the Chinese Empire has made it clear that it will not recognize the legitimacy of any country's purchase of Alaska, which will cause a war with the Chinese Empire if it is not careful.

The British were so entangled with the interests of France and the Chinese Empire that it would be quite uneconomical for another war with the Chinese Empire to break out because of one Alaska.

Otherwise, they would not have signed the Four-Power Treaty with the Chinese Empire before, and they would have just continued the war.

With the further implementation of the industrial and commercial reforms of the Chinese Empire, although the Industrial Revolution has not yet been completely completed, it has already achieved initial results, and the share of the Chinese Empire in global trade is also steadily increasing.

And which country is doing the most business with the Chinese Empire?

The largest were undoubtedly the British, who alone accounted for nearly half of the empire's imports and exports, followed by the French.

Then Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, Prussia and other European countries and the United States and other American countries will be voted on.

In the past few years, the international trade between Britain and France and the Chinese Empire has made these two countries gain a lot, and the benefits are not as simple as hundreds of thousands of millions, but tens of millions or even thousands of pounds.

The annual import and export trade of the Chinese Empire brought benefits to Britain and France was able to buy several Alaskas.

Britain and France refused, and other countries even less had the strength and courage to buy Alaska, so the Russians worked hard for so long, and then found that they couldn't sell it if they wanted to......

In the end, I had to dismiss this idea.

However, the Russians still maintained their pride, and resolutely did not say that they would simply sell Alaska to the Chinese Empire.

Russia and the Chinese Empire were in a state of de facto hostility, and this sale of territory to the enemy was absolutely impossible.

After the Russians failed to sell Alaska, the Russians began to look for other ways to solve the financial constraints, such as raising taxes, which will undoubtedly further exacerbate the tension in Russia.

But these were not important to the Chinese Empire.

After successfully blocking Russia's attempt to sell Alaska, Lin Zhe also began to prepare to officially launch an operation against Alaska as a precaution.

Anyway, the Russians no longer have any sea power on the Pacific coast, and on land, the Imperial Army has already advanced the Line of Control to hundreds of kilometers north of the Heilongjiang River and only more than 200 kilometers from the Udi River.

At present, the Line of Actual Control of the Imperial Army in the Heilongjiang region has fully controlled the Heilongjiang River valley and extends hundreds of kilometers to the north.

On the whole, although some areas have not yet been restored to the borders of the Nebuchu Treaty, such as the area around the Udi River, which belongs to the permafrost near the Arctic Circle, the winter temperature is several tens of degrees below zero, and military operations are quite difficult. However, other areas with better topography, especially those close to Mongolia, had already crossed the demarcation line of the Treaty of Nebuchu.

The main direction of attack is to march along the Heilongjiang River, relying on the Heilongjiang River as the main logistical supply route, relying on the inland river gunboats and ships to march westward, and has now advanced westward more than 100 kilometers away from the Heilongjiang border.

In the conflict between the empire and Russia in three directions, the Central Asian direction is the empire occupies a certain disadvantage, otherwise it would not sit idly by and watch Russia annex a large number of areas in Central Asia, and in the direction of the Mongolian steppe, the two sides are evenly matched, in this steppe, both sides rely heavily on cavalry for operations, and the supply is very inconvenient, sometimes the military operations of both sides will enter each other's borders, but because the number of cavalry is not large, and there are no large cities in this area, so it is impossible to talk about conquering any areas.

It belongs to the two sides to fight back and forth, today the empire suffers, a word of wind is to retreat hundreds of kilometers, but tomorrow after replenishing the strength of the killing, it will be killed, and then the Russians will be driven out for hundreds of kilometers, but even so, the empire will not be able to occupy any urban strongholds, so the next time the Russians come back, the two sides are still fighting on the steppe.

A war of this nature is not beneficial to each other except for the consumption of the strength of both sides, so in the past few years, both sides have maintained restraint in the direction of the steppe of Outer Mongolia, and there are not many troops stationed, and there is nothing to fight anyway.

In the Far East, the empire occupies a certain advantage, mainly because of the proximity, the supply of troops and various material supplies are relatively close, and at the same time, after the navy controls the Heilongjiang River Basin, it can directly supply by sea and then arrive at the Heilongjiang River Valley to supply the Imperial Army for operations.

Therefore, in the past few years, the imperial army has continued to regain lost territory, not only controlling the Heilongjiang River Valley, but also advancing to the area close to the Trans-Khingan Mountains, while the Russians are losing and retreating, and can only stubbornly hold some northern strongholds.

From this situation, it can be seen that the Russians have actually lost control of the Far East, let alone the protection of Alaska across the sea.

To put it mildly, even if the Imperial Navy did not hinder it, the Russians would not have been able to send a few warships and a few hundred soldiers to Alaska.

In this case, the difficulty for the empire to actually take control of Alaska militarily was not the resistance of the Russians, because they could not resist, but the main difficulty was to overcome the local climate.

Americans' opposition to the purchase of Alaska has already illustrated the harsh natural environment of Alaska, and people use the term super refrigerator to describe Alaska.

There is little land available for farming, so the area relies on hunting for a living, and the sea routes are full of dangers in winter, with all kinds of ice and ice floes.

Therefore, it is impossible to have a large-scale military presence in Alaska, and it is not worth the cost.

But it's not good for a soldier not to be stationed either!

To this end, after exploring the routes of several expeditionary ships in a row, the Empire finally sent its first expeditionary fleet to Alaska.

The expeditionary fleet consisted of the cruiser Taiyuan, which had been battered in Hawaii for minor repairs after being battered at the Second Battle of Honolulu last year, and then reluctantly sailed back home for major repairs until January of this year.

Equipped with four gun-equipped naval sail-steam hybrid transports, this small fleet carried an infantry company of marines in addition to sailors.

The fleet, in addition to the personnel, was filled with various supplies.

Dubbed the 'Alaska Task Force', this fleet will be the first time that the Empire has sent an official fleet to Alaska to assert sovereignty. (To be continued.) )