Early April 1890

Red Fort, Sky Tower.

West study

Compared with the east study room that deals with government affairs on a daily basis, the area of the west study is much smaller, with rows of exquisite rosewood bookcases standing on top of the sky, the room is covered with heavy carpets, and the air contains a faint sandalwood fragrance, quiet and deep.

Dai Yingcai, the slender director of political affairs, stood respectfully with his hands down, standing beside the elegant rosewood desk, quietly waiting for inquiries.

Behind the desk

Li Fushou was looking through the secret documents in his hand, which showed;

From October 1889 to the end of March 1890, Melbourne imported as many as 220,000 rifles, 178,000 Colt revolvers, 2,100 Maxine heavy machine guns, more than 400 artillery pieces of various calibers, and 220,000 tons of grain......

So many weapons and equipment, enough to arm 25~30 infantry divisions.

In southern New South Wales and Victoria, the National Defence Force is being formed on a large scale, with a total of no less than 82,000 people, including 41,000 in southern New South Wales alone, plus 7,200 in Sydney, for a total of 48,200.

Who are you going to deal with with so many troops and equipment?

The answer is self-explanatory.

The Red Fort was not unprepared for this, exposing the militaristic acts of the southern states in the press, criticizing white conservatives for trying to drag Australia into the abyss of disaster, and openly calling for open negotiations between the North and the South through public opinion to try to save the peace.

meanwhile

Queensland, together with Western Australia and South Australia, submitted a letter to the Colonial Department in London, stating through a large number of detailed data the insidious intentions of the armed forces of the southern states, hoping that London would intervene to stop it, and preside over the convening of peace talks between the north and the south to ease the sharp contradictions between the two sides

On the contrary, the various measures of the Red Fort were regarded as cowardice by the southern states, and their actions became more rampant and unscrupulous, and began to persecute Chinese immigrants living in the southern states on a large scale, robbing wealth, bullying women, and insulting and even killing local Chinese expatriates at every turn.

The revelation of these atrocities has sparked anger among the Queensland people, and the two sides have become more incompatible, and a strong emotion called hatred is brewing.

For the Red Fort

The advantage of time is firmly in control of one's own side, there is no need to make superfluous actions at all, and the more mistakes the enemy in the south makes, the greater the sins, and the more complete the final reckoning.

The most important ...... It is to obtain the title of the righteous army, even if it is ostensibly forced to fight back, these tasks must be done.

You must know that the history written by the victors can be written in the Spring and Autumn period, but it is impossible to reverse black and white.

All the Red Keep has to do is keep putting pressure on the other side, forcing them to make mistakes, forcing them to jump over the wall, and forcing them to open the door of dangerous war first.

This is the most powerful weapon...... It is the southern extension project of the coastal railway, which is firmly being implemented.

Sydney is about 864 kilometers from Melbourne, and if you calculate from the city of Beilun, it is a full 900 kilometers to bypass the bay by land.

Today, the southern extension of the coastal railway continues to move forward with determination, and has already crossed the city of Wollongong, advancing about 100 kilometers, and the completed railway line has reached 200 kilometers, less than 90 kilometers from the town of Canberra.

Canberra Town is located 290 kilometres south of Sydney, right in the middle of the border between Sydney and the two states, and is strategically important as an important node town south from Wollongong.

This is the southernmost bridgehead established by the Red Fort in New South Wales, deep into the heart of white power, and the town is home to about 700 Chinese immigrants, most of whom are armed militias.

"Is there any conclusive information on when they are going to do it?" Li Fushou closed the confidential document in his hand, raised his head and asked.

His tall figure sat on the chair, faintly exuding an invisible majesty, and his deep gaze made Dai Yingcai's straight waist arch a little, as if he was bearing a huge weight; "Back to my lord, the circle of these white conservative leaders is very small, and the level of moles planted by our side is not enough, and we cannot get confidential information involving the core for the time being, according to the intelligence obtained, the other party has preliminarily completed the preparation of materials for large-scale war mobilization, and the rest is the details, such as tents, soldiers' equipment, military uniforms and other logistical materials, and the probability of launching them within the year is very large."

"Tell me more about it."

"Analysis of all signs, at the end of the year between 9 ~ 12 months is very likely to be launched, more than 7 percent, now the southern white conservatives spend a lot of money to import a large number of materials, and in the public opinion media to do full publicity, is already on the bow, have to send."

"Well, the strength of relevant intelligence support is not enough, such a vague judgment is not conducive to military preparations, I will give you another month and a half, no matter what method you use, you must get accurate information, otherwise the military plane will be delayed, and the crime is not small, do you understand?"

"I understand my humble position, and I must live up to my lord's high expectations." The cold sweat on Dai Yingcai's head trickled down, and his waist bent deeper.

Li Fushou looked at him deeply and commanded lightly; "It's good to understand, you go out and do things."

"Obey the order, master, and retire."

Dai Yingcai took a few steps backwards before turning to leave, he was already covered in white sweat on his back under the powerful aura of Lord Earl.

Watching him leave, Li Fushou focused his eyes on the confidential documents on the table again, and his slender fingers gently tapped on the title page of the document, considering the next step to deal with it.

Queensland's preparations for war were made earlier, more covert, and certainly more solid.

The southern states needed to import war materials from abroad, while Queensland did not need them, and was able to meet the needs of the war itself.

The Qixing City area in the Qingshui River Basin has achieved an unprecedented bumper harvest for five consecutive years, and the grain output has to rise to a new level every year, while meeting the local demand of Australia, the excess output has been collected and stored in the warehouse in the past two years.

More than 160 kilometers west of the Red River Valley, on the outskirts of Rock Town (Thylacine Rocks), large grain depots have sprung up one after another, serving as a reliable grain reserve base for the metropolitan area (Red River Valley, Brisbane and surrounding towns), with a food supply capacity of more than 6 months.

As planned

This year, the grain output in the Qingshui River basin will also be collected and stored on a large scale, and efforts will be made to bring the grain reserves to a high level of nine months to cope with any possible blockade.

The Rock Town Reserve is just one of the large-scale reserves in the planning, with a total of 4 large-scale grain reserves in Qingdao-City in the north, Songjiang City and Beilun City in the south of Queensland, which supply the grain needs of surrounding towns on the spot.

In mainland Australia, the Red Fort has a staggering number of cattle, sheep, pigs and poultry in stock, which will not affect the supply of agriculture and animal husbandry as long as they are not affected by the war.

Li Fushou has enough confidence to say; If you don't have enough food, you can eat more meat.

In terms of weapons

The Blue Arms Company has developed into a large-scale weapons manufacturing enterprise, with the ability to produce artillery guns below 305 mm caliber, with an annual output of 80,000 rifles, 1,500 heavy machine guns, and tens of millions of rounds of ammunition.

For 60 mm field guns alone, the two large reserve depots in Beilun and Songjiang have stored 1,100 guns and more than 200,000 rounds of ammunition, and each gun can be equipped with an average of 200 shells. Able to bomb southern towns into ruins.

Some people wonder if such a stockpile of arms is excessive, but in fact it is not much at all.

The American Civil War, which ended just 24 years ago, according to the post-war inventory;

At the end of the Civil War, the U.S. Navy had 700 ships, a total of 5,000 guns, 6,700 officers and 51,000 soldiers, which is a very staggering number, and this is only the U.S. Navy that fought soy sauce, not including the extremely tragic Army.

After the war, the U.S. Navy retired most of its ships, and by the end of 1870, only 52 ships armed with more than 500 guns remained in service, and its strength had shrunk by as much as 80%.

The army was equipped with 23,000 artillery pieces of various types, fortress guns (both the north and the south combined), millions of long and short guns of various types, various grenades, and countless machine guns, which is the horror of the war in the mid-19th century, which can be seen from this.

War is not only fought with a strong will, but also a huge amount of money.

The unprecedentedly tragic American Civil War caused huge losses of up to $68 billion, and 750,000 people died in the war, which can be described as a huge price.

Li Fushou deeply felt the real cruelty and cost, in the first South Pacific war, Queensland directly invested in the war spent more than 13 million pounds, almost bankrupt his richest ranch, or offset most of the war rewards with meritorious fields, which shows the huge cost.

In the first South Pacific War, the number of troops engaged in front-line combat did not exceed 10,000, so how much would it cost to fight a larger battle?

I thought about my family

Li Fushou couldn't help but show an unspeakable wry smile on his face, since the end of the First East Indies War, only one colonial Mozambique war has been launched overseas, and the surplus accumulated over the years has reached 34 million pounds (excluding foreign investment and shareholdings).

It seems like a lot, but in fact, it is not enough for large-scale wars, and this is the problem.

If the Civil War breaks out

Li Fushou undoubtedly had to pay the bulk of the war expenses, this is the inescapable natural responsibility of the feudal lords, in case the opponent cannot be solved in a short time, then bankruptcy is a matter of minutes.

How much does it cost to build an army of 300,000 people for a very simple account?

How much does it cost a year to maintain an army of this size?

How much does it cost a year to maintain an army of this size in the case of continuous operations?

In the case of an average annual income of 8~9 pounds in Australia, it takes at least tens of millions of pounds to form an army of 300,000 people (only calculated according to infantry, excluding cavalry).

In the case of continuous combat, this number has to be multiplied by 4~5, if the shell can be thrown vigorously, it is a bottomless hole of funds.

The money-saving method adopted by Li Fushou was to organize and train the basic militia, complete three months of military training through appropriate subsidies, and turn into an army in wartime.

It's been more than a year

More than 200,000 key militias have been trained in the Australian mainland and overseas provinces, and the number is still increasing at a rate of 20,000 per month.