What Lin Fei didn't expect was that the first to start the arms race was the Qing Kingdom.

Lin Fei set up a number of consulates in the Qing State, these consulates were ostensibly consulates, but in fact they were the activity bases of Chinese spies, and the spies sent by Lin Fei sent back a lot of news about the expansion of the Qing State's military power.

The first to send back the news was the consulate in Guangzhou, which said that the Guangdong Army Accelerated School and the Guangdong Huangpu Naval Academy recruited a large number of British and German instructors, and recruited a large number of cadets, of which the Army Accelerated School mainly recruited German instructors, and the Naval Academy mainly recruited British instructors, because the Qing government believed that the first push of the army belonged to Germany, and the first push of the navy belonged to Britain.

The Guangdong Army Crash School and the Guangdong Huangpu Naval Academy were the first two military schools in the Qing Dynasty, and their predecessors were the Guangdong Naval and Land Division School founded by Zhang Zhidong.

This news not only surprised Lin Fei, the army construction throughout the ages, is the first to build talents, and then build equipment, before the Beiyang Fleet purchased warships, sent many people to study in the United Kingdom, Lin Fei's Sa Zhenbing is one of them, speaking of Sa Zhenbing, at this time he has stepped down from the Huaxia Military Academy, first to the United Kingdom, as the post of Huaxia ambassador to the United Kingdom.

The news was then sent back from the Tianjin consulate, which said that the Qing court had sent Li Hongzhang to contact the British to negotiate the purchase of new warships, the exact number and model of which were unknown.

The news also said that the Qing court ordered Yuan Shikai to expand the new army, expand the total number of troops to 50,000, and purchase the latest Mauser M1897 rifle from Germany.

The Mauser M1897 rifle is never before in the era of Lin Fei, the rise of Huaxia has obviously changed the development process of the world's weapons and equipment, which is inevitable, because foreigners are not stupid, you Huaxia has taken out weapons that transcend the times, how can foreigners stop and wait for the Chinese people to kill with backward weapons.

The direct reason why the Qing State expanded its military strength was Lin Fei! In the Nanyang World War, Lin Fei waved his division to take Tianjin, such as into a no-man's land, the Qing army attacked the Penghu Islands, but was defeated, the two were contrasted, Emperor Guangxu was shocked by the gap between himself and Lin Fei, so he made up his mind to expand the army.

It takes a lot of money to expand the military, the Empress Dowager Cixi must nod, she was reluctant to pay such a sum of money, the silver of the Qing Dynasty, and still keep it for herself to build a tomb, the ancient Chinese rulers, the first thing to do after coming to power is to build a tomb for themselves, until the day they die.

Emperor Guangxu made an evil move in order to let the Empress Dowager Cixi take out the money, he asked people to write a letter, and then sent it to the Empress Dowager Cixi, saying that it was written by Lin Fei.

The Empress Dowager Cixi is already sixty-two years old, and her eyes are a little glazed, so she rarely sees things by herself, she handed the letter to the most trusted eunuch Li Lianying, and asked Li Lianying to read the letter. ”

The Empress Dowager Cixi has seen a lot of this kind of thing, and said casually: "Read it, forgive you for your innocence." ”

Li Lianying kowtowed again, "The slave doesn't dare." ”

The Empress Dowager Cixi muttered "waste", pointed to another little eunuch and said, "You go and read." ”

The little eunuch knelt and crawled in front of Li Lianying, held the letter with both hands and read it again, was so frightened that he broke out in a cold sweat, knelt on the ground, and screamed "Don't dare", the Empress Dowager Cixi scolded the "dog slave" fiercely, and asked the palace maid to hold the reading glasses and read the letter in person.

The Empress Dowager Cixi was the concubine of Emperor Xianfeng, and Lan Guiren was the title she held when she first entered the palace.

If anyone dares to read this letter, they are saying that they are the first emperor, and who dares to bear this charge?

The Empress Dowager Cixi continued to read, only to see that the letter read: "Lan Guiren, hello, I am Feidi Lin Fei, I heard that you are young and widowed, the night is long, no one comforts, lonely and lonely for decades, although I have three wives, all of them are national, but they are all young, no one is in charge of the harem, the mother is the world, and the queen's position is still empty." ”

"Although the Lan nobles are over sixty years old, their demeanor still exists, like a young woman in their thirties, why don't you remarry Huaxia, for my concubine Lin Fei, you and I will stay there night and night, wouldn't you be happy, I will make you the queen......"

After reading the letter, the Empress Dowager Cixi was so angry that her eyes rolled and she fainted on the spot, Li Lianying and the others hurriedly rescued, and when the rescue came, the Empress Dowager Cixi slapped the table and said angrily: "The mourning family will capture Lin Fei alive!" So there was a military budget for the expansion of the army.

After the news of the Qing Kingdom came, there was news from Japan, Lin Fei instructed Wang Yao to leak some of the secrets about the submarine to Japan, and Japan had a little more trust in Wang Yao, and Wang Yao got some news about Japan's military expansion.

According to the source, Japan has launched the "10 Fleet" plan, which requires Japan to build 20 large battleships with a displacement of more than 15,000 tons, 10 for foreign operations and 10 for domestic defense.

Of these 20 battleships, Japan intends to buy 10 and build 10 by itself, of which the ship-building technology relies on Britain, as for the specific ship-building technology, Wang Yao did not figure it out, this is a top secret in the Japanese military.

In addition to the 10 th Fleet Plan, Japan also launched the "All Nationalities Division" program, which is similar to the Chinese all-people army, which stipulates that all men over the age of 15, men under the age of 50, women over the age of 18, and women under the age of 40 in Japan must receive regular military training and be proficient in the use of firearms.

Japan's Ministry of Finance has also specially formulated the "Royal Road Paradise Tax", which is levied on all citizens and must be paid by everyone who has income, and the tax paid is specially used for the construction of Japan's army and navy.

Many social organizations in Japan condemned and opposed the government's reckless military behavior, but the voices of these organizations were quickly drowned out in the cries of "annihilating China and exterminating the Chinese people."

In this way, Japan completely sailed into the abyss of militarism.

Neither Japan nor the Qing news had much to do with technology, but the news from Britain had something to do with military technology, especially naval technology.

Sa Zhenbing sent a lot of news from the British, the most important of which was the British order to stop the construction of a Qiē battleship and instead develop a "fully armed heavy artillery" battleship, that is, a dreadnought.

The reason why Britain made such a huge move was entirely because Lin Fei sold the technical scheme of the "fully armed heavy artillery" battleship to Germany, and Germany quickly entered the development of the "fully armed heavy artillery" battleship.

Lin Fei once planned to induce the development of warships from Britain, France, Germany and other countries to rapid-fire gun warships, and then beat rapid-fire gun warships with dreadnoughts himself, but the outbreak of the Nanyang World War changed this, and Lin Fei had no choice but to sell dreadnought technology, which introduced the development of warships from all over the world into the road of dreadnoughts.

Britain also invested great enthusiasm in submarines, they recruited scientists and engineers throughout the country, built submarines, studied anti-submarine tactics, and as for the progress of research, it was the top secret of top secrets, and Sa Zhenbing could not possibly know.

Britain has invested a lot of resources in the research and development of weapons and equipment, which makes Lin Fei very nervous, because Britain's industrial strength is much higher than that of China, and the talent reserve is far better than that of China, the battle of the Sulu Sea, the reason why Lin Fei was able to win a big victory is entirely because of the asymmetric weapon of the submarine, and now Britain has also begun to develop submarines, and China's advantages are about to cease to exist.

While Britain was improving its weapons and equipment, the French were not far behind, and in addition to actively developing "fully loaded heavy artillery" battleships, they prepared another secret weapon - airships!

Speaking of take-off boats, many people's first impression is the German Zeppelin, this kind of airship shined during the First World War, it can reconnoitre, it can shoot for artillery, it can even fly over the enemy's head, drop bombs, it flies very high, ground weapons can do nothing against it, and it brings great panic to the British and French troops.

But what people don't know is that France, in fact, has always been the leader in the development of airships, Zeppelin was born in 1900, and France, as early as 1784, made airships, and in the following 100 years, a number of technological innovations were born in France, including the use of propellers to propel airships, the use of steam engines and internal combustion engines to drive propellers, and so on.

At this time, France began the development of airships, which means that if China fights France again, it will face a threat from the air.

The countries that are expanding their armaments are not only Britain, France, Qing and Japan, but also Spain and the Netherlands, as well as Italy, Austria-Hungary, Germany and Russia.

Russia put forward the "White Far East" plan, which is to immigrate 500,000 Russians to the Outer Northeast within 10 years, focusing on Hailanpao, Boli, and Vladivostok, that is, Blagoveshchensk, Khabarovsk, and Vladivostok in the Russian population, which have belonged to China since ancient times, but were shamelessly occupied by Russia and were not returned until the time of Lin Fei.

Compared with Russia, Germany's actions made Lin Fei's heart tremble, since August, Germany has recruited merchants from all over the country who have gone to Shandong, China, in Lin Fei's era, Germany once forcibly occupied China's Jiaozhou Bay, this incident happened on November 14, 1897, from now, only three months away.