The remnant sun was purple, reflecting the dark red of the sky far away in the west, as if it was soaked in blood. In the wide harbor, several patrol boats floated alone in the berths, and under the light of the bloody sun, it was even more lonely and desolate. On the flat ground of the hillside and in front of the main road pass, more than ten turrets and bunkers are under intense construction; A red, white and black Iron Cross flag flutters on the roof of the Chinese attic, full of inappropriate abruptness and weirdness.

The whistle sounded, the iron anchor entered the water, and with the clanging sound of a gangway on the shore of the pier, several men slowly walked down the side of the cruise ship. There were no clusters of flowers, no crowds, just a middle-aged officer in the uniform of a German major and two retinues standing on the dock, quietly waiting for Qingying's arrival. After some pleasantries, Qingying followed this person to the Provisional Governor's Palace; Looking at this elegant and simple room full of ancient Han meaning, there was a trace of bitterness in his heart that quietly spread.

On November 1, 1897, two German priests, Francis, and Han Ligalio, on their way to the Yanzhou Catholic Church to attend the "All Saints' Day", stayed overnight at the home of another German priest, Xue Tianzi. What they didn't expect was that the local villagers had long hated Xue Tianzi's behavior of spreading cults and harboring followers on weekdays, and they were ready to kill Xue Tianzi. That night, Xue Tianzi's house was broken into by more than 20 black-clothed men armed with sharp blades, and chopped Neng and Han into meat paste on the spot, while Xue Tianzi escaped by hiding behind the door panel. Afterwards, Xue Tianzi telegraphed to the German ambassador to China, Hai Jing, and the news spread to every region of Europe in a short time.

Prior to this, Germany had made three requests to Mites to lease Jiaozhou Bay from 1895 to 1897, but each time they were politely rejected by Mites. And the occurrence of the Juye lesson plan gave William a great opportunity to get involved here. Under his orders, Tirpitz led a fleet of three battleships as the core set sail from Hong Kong in the starry night and went straight into Jiaozhou Bay. Due to the disparity in the strength of the fleets of the two sides, the fact that Germany had reached an agreement with the other powers to divide the spoils, and the fact that there were 2 million pounds worth of warships being built in German shipyards, the mite Qing side could only swallow the bitter fruit silently.

From William's point of view, there is nothing wrong with doing so; Although Qingying has always disapproved of this in his heart, his attributes as a son of man and a minister doomed him to not disobey the will of the king, and after failing to persuade him, he could only choose to fully support William's behavior. Returning to China this time, Qingying didn't want to come to this land; But Tirpitz had not met him for two years since he assumed the post of commander of the Far East Fleet in mid-1896, and there was no reason not to visit him. Qingying estimated in his heart that after a while, William should transfer his favorite general back to China and let him serve as the Minister of the Navy as in history.

After a period of rambling thoughts, Qingying gathered his thoughts and asked the middle-aged officer sitting next to him, "Major, where is General Tirpitz?" I remember that 2 months ago, the headquarters of the Imperial Far East Fleet was transferred from Kowloon to here, and General Tirpitz should have been here, right? The major officer replied respectfully, "Your Highness, a day ago, General Tirpitz was indeed in this room; But now, he has led the main force of the fleet out to sea. ”

Hearing this reply, Qingying was slightly shocked in her heart, and said in surprise: "No wonder when I arrived, I only saw a few patrol boats in the port, it turned out that he took the fleet away." But what is he going to do with this fleet of more than 50,000 tons? At present, the situation in the Philippines has been settled, and neither the indigenous rebel army nor the Spanish colonial army is powerless to stop the southward advance of the imperial army; In less than 1 month, we will be able to annex the whole of Luzon to the territory of the empire. In this case, even if the navy needs to do some more tasks to escort merchant ships and shell the opposite shore, there is no need to let all the main forces pour out, right? ”

The officer said softly: "Your Highness doesn't know that in the few days that Your Highness visited Japan, an extremely important incident happened in the waters of the Philippines. The U.S. Pacific Fleet departed from Hong Kong, bypassed Luzon and headed south, launching an attack on Mindanao, the southernmost island of the Philippines; A day later, the Americans conjured up nearly 1,000 officers and men from nowhere to carry out a landing operation on Mindanao. According to the latest information we have, the Americans have already occupied hundreds of square kilometers of land there. ”

Qingying was taken aback and said, "What do you say, the U.S. Pacific Fleet attacked Mindanao in the southern Philippines?" And there are army personnel in the back who are specifically responsible for landing operations? The officer nodded slightly and said affirmatively, "Exactly." According to General Tirpitz's analysis, the Americans must have hidden Army personnel in their merchant ships in order to make a sudden landing without warning, hiding from the eyes of Imperial scouts. ”

Qingying closed her eyes when she heard this. He needed a moment to digest the new information he had learned.

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On the other hand, the United States is far less eager for the Philippines than later generations imagined. From President McKinley to ordinary people, their eyes are only on Cuba at their doorstep, and they are really not interested in this foreign land, which is thousands of miles away. For a long time, the United States has been influenched in overseas affairs, influenced by the isolationist ideology inherited from the founding father Washington. The original subjective starting point of the war against Spain was only to avenge the death of the United States officers and soldiers of the Maine and to protect the economic interests in Cuba, rather than to take advantage of the situation to colonize foreign countries. The reason why the United States annexed the Philippines was because Theodore Roosevelt was a one-handed facilitator; After Dewey's fleet had completed the slaughter of the Spanish Philippine Navy, the U.S. War Department took advantage of the situation and sent troops from San Francisco to occupy the area.

Because the naval strength deployed by Spain in the Philippines in history was a group of scum, this made the weak Dewey fleet dare to attack, and then slaughtered the young; Therefore, in Qingying's original plan, as long as Germany deployed a strong enough fleet near the Philippines and indicated its territorial needs for the Philippines, those few miscellaneous American protective cruisers would not dare to make any moves. Since returning from his first trip around the world, Qingying has been moving towards this goal: Germany has obtained Britain's acquiescence to Germany's invasion of the Philippines at the cost of not opposing Britain's annexation of the Rand gold mines in South Africa, and then began to intensively prepare for an attack on the Philippines. After nearly one year of material reserves and personnel gathering, Germany has assembled thousands of troops on Luzon Island, and has more than 50,000 tons of direct support from a naval fleet, and now it has captured most of Luzon; According to this momentum, Roosevelt will not dare to intervene in the Philippines, right?

But Qingying was wrong. Theodore Roosevelt's ambition to expand the territory was completely beyond his imagination, and even when the US Pacific Fleet only had 4 protective cruisers, Roosevelt still let Dewey launch an attack on the Philippines! In order to cooperate with this action of the Navy, Roosevelt even prepared army personnel for attacking cities and conquering cities in advance, which was at least half a month higher than the speed at which the United States transferred troops from San Francisco after Dewey completely annihilated the Spanish fleet in history!

After thinking about it for a while, Qingying had already guessed what this guy thought. Since the United States had declared war on Spain, it was a natural move to launch an attack on the colonies under Spanish rule, and his plan was to seize part of the Philippines with lightning speed, which would directly lead to the established facts. Mindanao was more than 1,000 kilometers away from German-controlled Luzon, and the German army was beyond the reach of the whip; He was making a gamble that Germany would not use force without regard for morality for the sake of this distant land! What amazed Qingying was that in the face of the Germans who had settled on the Philippines, Roosevelt dared to pull out his teeth and take the chestnut out of the fire!

It is important to know that although the current US Navy is developing rapidly, the overall scale is still in the ascendant; In the Pacific, far from the east coast of America's prosperity, the situation is even worse. The U.S. Pacific Fleet commanded by Dewey has only four protective cruisers, including Olympia and Baltimore, with a total tonnage of only 17,000 tons, of which the Boston is still a protective "cruiser" with a speed of only 13 knots; However, the German Far East Fleet had 3 battleships and 4 cruisers, with a total tonnage of more than 50,000 tons, and the ship "Caesar Frederick III" alone was enough to send all this American fleet to the bottom of the sea!

"Major, have you reported this matter to His Majesty the Emperor? How did the Imperial Center react? Qingying asked.

"Returning to His Highness, General Tirpitz sent back a message to Berlin as soon as he learned of this news, and there has been no reply from Berlin so far. General Tirpitz felt that he should not wait so long in the harbor, so he led the main force of the fleet to Santa Ana Harbor on the Philippine island of Luzon one step ahead of time, so as to give the Americans enough deterrence to prevent them from continuing to act rashly. If Berlin ordered an expulsion by force, the fleet could quickly reach the Mindanao front and attack the American fleet. The officer replied in a deep voice with a solemn face.

"General Tirpitz did the right thing. It was too far from where the Americans had landed to react in time to the movements of the Americans. Qingying tapped the wooden table top with her slender fingers, her starry eyes narrowed slightly, as if she was thoughtful. After a while, a flash of inspiration suddenly flashed in his mind, and he blurted out: "Major, please help me get a pen and paper, I want to send an urgent telegram to His Majesty the Emperor!" ”