"Finally there is a salvo......" Shang Yi was very emotional, in fact, he was still a little worried, and even frightened. Not long after the Zhaojun arrived, the conventional sea trials had not yet been completed, and a few guns were usually fired, but a salvo was never carried out, mainly for fear of shaking the hull out of trouble.

After the attack on the flagship Triumph, the French began a frantic counterattack, the first to attack was the largely intact cruiser Chamberland, one of his 163mm shells hit the side armor of the Zhaojun, leaving a large black dent after a loud bang.

The headless Scout launched a desperate charge against the Zhaojun, and it made it clear that it wanted to die together. However, with his almost staggering speed of eight knots, no matter how he looked at it, he looked like an elderly woman with bound feet, and he couldn't even bring out a hint of death. And in fact, he couldn't keep up with the constantly moving Zhaojun. In the end, Yan Fu picked it up, and the remaining shells on the Yishi were all sprayed without any scruples, and finally in the state of heroic twilight, the cruiser with a displacement of 1,700 tons sank to the bottom of the sea.

"Report battle damage!" Shang Yi said methodically.

After a while, a voice came from the horn.

"Report to the captain, the hull is fine, but a few crew members have been stunned and are currently in emergency care!"

Shang Yixin said: "The French are really lucky! ”

The French had their luck, and so did the Great Shang, who, after five rounds of attacks, had just adjusted its hull and was ready to use its main cannon to match the Zhaojun, when it was suddenly destroyed. The sixth salvo of the Zhaojun finally ushered in the hit. Three of the twelve shells hit, two missed. One of them hit the coal bunker, and after the explosion, it did not have much effect. The other one directly knocked off Cambridge, and this cannonball directly sent Mei Yi and the others to see God. And the last one smashed into the ammunition depot, and after that, it was like a brilliant fireworks.

After the Triumph was sunk, the Chamberlain, along with the other Franco-Japanese warships, began to flee in all directions, not fighting the Great Merchants again.

"Back to Hong Kong!"

Shang Yi, who did not dare to fight any further, also gave the order to retreat, and after rejoining with the supply fleet, everyone began to return to the Lushun base.

In the Dashang base, Wang Yi was sitting on the sofa and napping, while the two girls were sleeping soundly in his arms. At this time, the sound of rushing footsteps woke up the three of them.

Wu Xiao didn't know how long he hadn't slept for a long time, but his eyes were almost pathological at this time, and even his voice was no longer as pretentious as usual, and he said, "Captain, good news!" Good news! ”

"Read!"

"At 3:40 a.m. on October 13, 1882, the Air Force of our Great Merchant successfully bombed the port of Nagasaki. After that, our navy launched an attack on Nagasaki, and in more than three hours of fighting, our army sank a total of 12 warships of the Franco-Japanese coalition, including the French flagship Triumph, and the cruiser Reconnaissance ......"

Most of these results were patrol boats and torpedo boats, but Wang Yi was also relieved to be able to sink the murderer Triumph. But before he could speak, the two girls jumped up first, and turned in circles with joy.

"Notify Dashang Radio and issue a victory announcement!"

Tang Shaoyi, who was in Beijing, soon received a battle report from the headquarters of Dashang, and he didn't sleep all night, and his originally nervous expression finally relaxed at this moment. Looking at the rising sun outside the house, with a smug smile on his face, he ordered: "Come on, open for business!" …… Wait for the Fat Pig Arch! ”

Beijing City has not yet received the telegraph, so the transmission of news is much slower than that of big merchants, which makes Tang Shaoyi a little impatient.

"Why haven't you come yet!"

At the Tokyo Imperial Palace, the Japanese Emperor Meiji obviously did not have such a good mood, and a group of elders including Kuroda Kiyotaka, Yama Prefecture Aritomo, Matsukata Matsukata, Inoue Kao, Oyama Yan, Katsura Taro, Saionji Konobo, except for Ito Hirobumi in Europe, and Saigo Michi, who was still fleeing on the Fuso, all the other members were all there.

"All of you have seen the battle report, and after we declared war on the Great Merchants, they launched an attack on our port of Nagasaki using a kind of flying ship." Emperor Meiji, who is only 30 years old this year, is worried. "I don't know what your countermeasures are?"

In fact, this matter is a bit troublesome to say, for people who have never seen or heard of airships, if they are asked to imagine a 1780-meter-long, or even more than 210-meter-long behemoth flying in the sky, I am afraid it is difficult to have an accurate concept.

Therefore, all these people present are you looking at me, I look at you, and they have no idea for a while, and no one speaks.

Emperor Meiji was obviously a little angry, "Zhuqing is talking!" ”

"Your Majesty, we don't have a good way to deal with it, what we can do now is to end the war with the Great Merchants as much as possible, and the other is to prevent the Great Merchants from continuing to use that kind of flying ship to attack us." Youpeng in Shanxian finally spoke at this time.

This is not very constructive, in fact, in the first place, Shan County Youpeng did not agree to start a war with the big merchants. Because there is no benefit at all, it may seem that the Franco-Japanese alliance is very strong, but there is not much that can be done. Now who doesn't know that behind the Northeast Republic is the support of the Great Shang, and its army is so strong that even the Russians are losing and retreating under the same circumstances. Shan Shan Youpeng is confident in his troops, and he does not believe that the Franco-Japanese coalition army of several thousand people can land in Mukden and achieve results. In his mind, it was already a great thing that the Franco-Japanese alliance would not be completely annihilated on land.

Matsukata Masayoshi was in charge of money in the Meiji government, so when he heard the words of Yama Prefecture Aritomo, he frowned. Failure, or to put it mildly, is to make peace, in the face of the business empire of Dashang, if he doesn't pay a heavy price, he doesn't believe that Wang Yi will let go lightly.

The other patriarchs thought more, if Japan was victorious, maybe it would be able to maintain stability in politics, but now it has suddenly suffered a heavy blow. Those liberal and civil rights factions in the country are probably about to raise their arms and shout again, and Shigenobu Okuma and Itagaki will not let go of this good opportunity to seize power.

"Internal and external troubles!" Everyone couldn't help but sigh in their hearts.

Dashan Yan said at this time: "Your Majesty, this matter is indeed tricky, at present, it is better to quickly contact the ministers of various countries to come forward to coordinate, hoping that they can join forces to pressure Dashang and help us get through the current crisis." ”

Emperor Meiji nodded.

"As for this defeat, it is actually a crime of non-war! Our previous intelligence gathering was very imperfect, otherwise we would not have been able to sit back and wait. Therefore, for the treatment of Saigo Congdao, I hope that His Majesty Xià can open up. ”

Everyone present knew that Oyama Yan was a relative of Saigo Takamori, and although the government army won the victory after the Southwest War, Oyama Yan never set foot in Kagoshima again, and he also maintained an alliance with Saigo Takamori's younger brother Saigo Komichi on the political government. Therefore, today's remarks are not surprising, in fact, what he said is not unreasonable.

As the current leader of the Satsuma Domain, Emperor Meiji was reluctant to take action against him, so he nodded and said, "This matter will be discussed later." ”

Enomoto Takehiro is in Beijing waiting for the news of the Franco-Japanese coalition against Dashang, but because the Franco-Japanese coalition will not move until a few days later, he has not had much to do recently.

At this time, the clerk rushed in and said, "Mr. Ambassador, there is a call from China." ”

As soon as Enomoto Takeyang took it and took a few looks, his face changed greatly, and he didn't say anything, and said directly: "Rush to the French embassy immediately." ”

The clerk obviously didn't know what was going on, but seeing Takehiro Enomoto's expression also let him know that something big was happening, so he left at once, and ordered his subordinates to hurry up and prepare the carriage.

The French ambassador to China, Bao Hai, was leisurely drinking coffee and reading newspapers in his small courtyard. The speed of news on his side was obviously not as fast as that of the local Japanese, but when he saw Enomoto Takehiro's anxious expression, he suddenly had an extremely bad premonition.

"Mr. Enomoto, you are ......"

Enomoto Takehiro handed the translated news to Baohai, and after reading it, Baohai's first feeling was that God was joking with him. For a while, like a deflated ball, he slumped in his chair.

Enomoto Takeyo is not much better than him, and his face is similar to that of his dead father and running away mother.

"What should I do?"

Baohai shook his head, and it took a long time to get rid of the shock, disappointment, and powerlessness, and he muttered for a moment, and said, "Go to the Beijing Office of the Great Merchants and see what they have to say." ”

Because of the delay in the middle, when Baohai and Enomoto Wuyang rushed to the Beijing office of the Great Merchants, the British Minister of Honor to China, Gwiner, and the American Minister John Yang were chatting with Tang Shaoyi, and they seemed to be very enthusiastic.

"Congratulations, Don, for your amazing success." In fact, these two people are somewhat duplicitous, but both of them are now sure of one thing, that is, the rise of big business in East Asia is unstoppable.

"Thank you." Tang Shaoyi smiled very standardly at this time.

"Mr. Tang, I don't know how you are going to handle the next battle." Gwena laughed.

"At the moment, we have no specific plans." Of course, Tang Shaoyi would not say the resolution of the big business. "However, if the British Empire mentions anything, I think our Mr. Chairman will seriously consider it."

Gwener nodded.

While the three of them were talking, Enomoto Takeyang and Baohai finally arrived, and Tang Shao was very enthusiastic, giving people the illusion that you are God.

"The two ministers are here, and my small place suddenly shines."

Enomoto Takeyang and Baohai's faces were very bad, especially Enomoto Takeyang, he still remembered the scene when he came to the Dashang Office in Beijing to declare war a few days ago, but now he has completely lost his domineering at that time.

"Mr. Tang."

Baohai was very direct and said, "What are you big merchants going to do next, do you want to start an all-out war with our France?" ”

The corners of Tang Shaoyi's mouth moved, with a sneer, put the teacup on the table, and said, "Otherwise, what are we doing now?" ”

"I hope you don't regret it!" Baohai stared at Tang Shaoyi, his tone threatening.

"Accompany you to the end!"

John Young, the American minister, did not speak, and drank tea to himself. At this time, the British minister Gwener smiled and said: "The two gentlemen have lowered their anger, we are diplomats, not soldiers on the battlefield, and we will say everything to death when we come up, and we will be unemployed in the future." ”

Tang Shaoyi knew this well, the French were just blackmailing, which was effective for the Qing Dynasty and Li Hongzhang, but it was useless for the big businessmen. The two sides are thousands of miles apart, although the Suez Canal has been rebuilt, but it will take at least a month from France to the Qing Dynasty, and there can be no weather problems in the middle, and everyone can see the long supply line. Moreover, although the French navy in East Asia was not completely destroyed, it also lost most of it. Coupled with the amazing deterrent power brought by the big merchant airship, what reason does the big business have to give in?

After listening to Gvina's words, Baohai didn't say anything more, he was now more worried about how much political impact the news of the defeat would have when it came back to China.

Speaking of which, there is actually a big difference between the current positions of Hokai and Enomoto Takehiro, or France and Japan.

Although the French expeditionary fleet suffered heavy losses, it still had a certain naval force in the south of Annam, such as the sister ship of the ironclad ship Triumph, which was sunk this time, the Victory, and several other cruisers with a displacement of about 2,000 tons, as well as a naval fleet on the French mainland that was preparing to come. With these forces, coupled with the long distance between the Great Merchants and Annam, France does not care what the Great Merchants can do to them. Of course, if the news reaches China and the pressure of public opinion forces the French government to make another decision to attack the big merchants, that is the real fatal thing.

Japan, by contrast, is even more tragic.

Dashang was too close to Japan, and now Dashang had the right to garrison troops in Incheon, Wonsan, and Pusan, North Korea. In other words, the Great Shang Navy could pinn down Japan from both the north and the south. In addition, Japan lacks ocean-going vessels, so at present it can only adopt the strategy of coastal defense, which is only a threat to the navy!

If the big business opened an airship air base in Korea, Enomoto Takehiro didn't even dare to think about what kind of life the Japanese people would face in the future. The bombing of Tokyo alone could have had an unimaginable impact on Japan, and it is likely that even Emperor Meiji would have to step down and be held responsible. After all, the order to fight against the Great Merchant was given by the Emperor himself. The previous movement was a direct consequence of the opening of the port by the Americans. Now that the Great Merchants are coming again, Japan is likely to enter the Warring States period again. This is not what Takehiro Enomoto wants to see!

Today's meeting did not say much, after all, the war is not over.

However, in the afternoon of the same day, Tang Shaoyi received news that the Japanese minister Enomoto Takehiro had invited the British minister Gwener to meet with the American minister John Young. What to talk about, Tang Shaoyi doesn't have to think about it. However, at this time, he didn't have the heart to understand this matter, because Zhang Shusheng, the governor of Zhili and the minister of Beiyang, actually came to the door in person today, which was really unprecedented.

"Mr. Zhang, the chairman of Dashang is pleased to maintain a good relationship with Neng Beiyang, and at the same time, he ...... I also expressed my indignation at the accusations made by some people in the imperial court! ”

Zhang Shusheng had a good impression of the young man in front of him, and sighed in his heart, this was one of the three people Wang Yi was going to leave from the Qing Dynasty, but he didn't expect that he had begun to stand alone now.

"Please also rest assured that the chairman of your group has already punished those who slander indiscriminately."