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Chapter 243: The Anglo-Egyptian War

The Anglo-Egyptian War was a war between the Egyptian and Sudanese armies under the leadership of the Egyptian Fatherland Party leader Mohammed Arabi, the Egyptian and Sudanese armies under the leadership of the British and their Indian servants, and the Egyptian and Sudanese armies under the leadership of Tawfig Pasha, who acted as the minions of the British, for control of Egypt and Sudan, which can also be regarded as a colonial war of the British!

Originally, this war broke out in July according to the original history, but in this life, with the strong support of the Huo family's army, the strength of the Egyptian army under Arabi swelled rapidly! In addition, Huo Shan also needed the Egyptians to draw Britain's attention to the Huo family's army, so he supported Arabi's Egyptian army at any cost! The hard work paid off, and with the improvement of strength, Muhammad Arabi's ambition began to swell rapidly!

He led the army to besiege the royal palace in advance, forced a new parliamentary election, allowed the Fatherland Party to come to power ahead of schedule, and dissolved the 'dual supervision' system that Britain and France regarded as the lifeblood! The arrogant British, seeing that they could no longer control Egypt with a governor and cabinet, decisively chose armed intervention!

"What is the military strength of the two sides now?" Huo Shan is most concerned about whether the war between Egypt and Britain can continue, at least to ensure that the Egyptians do not lose completely in three or four months, as in history!

"Young Master, according to the secret report of the Military Intelligence Agency, Egypt has 250,000 troops! With our support, all of them are equipped with rifles, but the models are very mixed. In terms of logistical replenishment of the army, very great difficulties are faced! The Egyptian army is very short of heavy firepower, and the number of artillery pieces owned by the 250,000 troops, including the artillery we support, has only just reached about 200 guns, and most of them are old goods that have been used for more than ten years, and the new artillery is less than a quarter! Moreover, there is a serious shortage of heavy artillery with a caliber of more than 100 mm! In addition, the Egyptians do not have their own military factories, and they rely on external purchases of bullets and shells. I'm afraid it will be difficult for them to block the attack of the British!" Huo Longshen said with some concern.

After listening to his words, Huo Shanshen nodded calmly, he understood the difficulties faced by the Egyptian army! But this was already the maximum help that Huo Jiajun could provide on the premise of avoiding the British from discovering!

After seeing that the young master heard this, he fell into thought! Huo Long waited for a while before continuing: "For this war, the British have been preparing for a long time. Until now. They had already brought in three divisions of British troops from home and two Anglo-Indian divisions from India, plus the Egyptian and Sudanese armies of Tawfig Pasha, and now the British force attacking Egypt had reached 116,000 men! Moreover, compared with the uneven equipment of the Egyptian army under Arabi and the serious lack of artillery, the 50,000 regular troops and 60,000 servant troops of the British were all equipped with Snyder-Enfield rifles! Infantry, artillery, medical men, cavalry, and baggage troops were complete. The number of light and heavy artillery pieces has reached 300, and there is a perfect logistical supply! Judging from the comparison of the quality of soldiers and weapons and equipment of the two sides, the strength of Egypt and the British is not at all on the same order of magnitude!"

"If I'm not mistaken, in the original history the British used only 40,000 troops to attack Egypt, less than 50,000. And now it has reached 110,000, it seems that history has finally been changed by me!" Huo Shan thought secretly in his heart.

"Huo Long. I guess the British now have the same idea as you, and probably they already feel that they can win the Egyptians with their own strength! Isn't this exactly the result we have always wanted? If the British are not arrogant and proud, then how can they fall into the trap set by our hearts!"

"It's just young master, will there be too few small troops of less than 400 people with only the two special forces of dragon teeth and cheetahs!" Although the Egyptians mobilized 20,000 people and handed them over to the Huo Jiajun, the two most sharp troops, for training, but only two months, I am afraid it will be difficult to train these lazy Egyptians into jīng sharp soldiers! If this is the case, then Huo Jiajun's plan is likely to fail!

Huo Long's worries Huo Shan could understand, even though Huo Jiajun's military academy already had a special course on guerrilla warfare, but what kind of power it was, except for Huo Shan, a person from later generations, there was no bottom in the hearts of the entire Huo Jiajun, after all, this era was still an era in which the number of troops was king! The role played by a small army in the operation of a large corps was really suspicious!

However, Huo Shan didn't explain anything specifically, it's useless to say this kind of thing, only the specific results can be convincing!

"Don't worry, Huo Long! Since I have arranged it like this, I am naturally very sure, I believe that Huo Zhiguang and they will not let us down!"

Looking at the confident expression on the young master's face, Huo Long couldn't help but smile! Almost none of the things that Huo Shan had decided over the years were wrong, even though it seemed very incredible at the time, but later facts once again proved Huo Shan's foresight! Therefore, Huo Long believed that the battle between Britain and Egypt would definitely not go wrong under the young master's layout!

"By the way, Huo Long, when you go back, send Huo Zhiguang by radio, and the troops we trained in Egypt will be deployed to the north of Cairo to prevent the British army from attacking from the Canal Zone!" Huo Shan carefully ordered. He remembered very well that it was in the north of Cairo that Britain was met with stubborn resistance from the Egyptian army led by Alabi, and it was unable to break through the defensive line for a long time! Finally, the British army changed its tactics and landed at Port Said in the Suez Canal Zone! Because the Egyptians were gullible enough to believe that the capitalist countries would abide by the guarantee of neutrality in the Suez Canal Zone. It was a strategic mistake made by Arabi and his officers to strengthen only the defensive line in the north of Cairo without paying due attention to the defense of the eastern front!

Launching an attack from such an international condominium area, and finally the Egyptian army was caught off guard, coupled with the fact that the British bought off the feudal nobility of the nomadic tribes, especially the Bedouin chiefs who participated in the war of resistance. With strong enemies outside, traitors inside, and internal and external attacks, the war of resistance led by Muhammad Arabi inevitably failed!

In this life, Huo Shan certainly does not allow such an unexpected situation to happen again!

"I see, young master!"

"By the way, after we took the Hawaiian Islands, did Rì himself make any changes in the north?" Huo Shan then asked.

"Well, after the news of our occupation of the Hawaiian Islands spread on May 20, Rìben Tohoku Zhentai (rìben only changed the army to a division system in 1885, and Tohoku Zhentai was later the Sendai Division!), an infantry wing, 4,000 people were transferred to the Ryukyu Islands to garrison, and one of the infantry brigades was stationed on the Senthima Islands! It seems that the news of our Huo Jiajun's control of Taiwan has been noticed by Rì himself!"

After listening to his words, Huo Shan nodded silently, rì himself is not the decaying Manchu Qing Dynasty, they have never given up their desire for the mainland for hundreds of years, especially since the beginning of the Meiji Restoration, with the increase of national strength, rì's own ambition for expansion has gradually been exposed! In 1879, he annexed Ryukyu and deliberately sent spies to collect intelligence from inside the Qing Dynasty, and the island of Taiwan had already appeared on the list of rì's intended annexation!

Huo Shan controlled Huo Jiajun's great industry on the island of Taiwan, and the economy developed rapidly, and it was impossible for Rì himself not to notice it!

"That's right, young master! This is the military expansion order that the Ministry of War has just passed in May this year!" Seeing that the young master asked about the information of the army, Huo Long hurriedly took out a piece of information that he had just received from the Military Intelligence Bureau!

"Oh, I'll take a look!" Huo Shan said with interest. Huo Shan is not too familiar with the situation of the army before the First Sino-Japanese War!

"Twenty-eight wings! More than 100,000 troops, Rì himself is really a big deal!" Huo Shan couldn't help but sigh a little as he looked at the telegram in his hand. At this time, the annual fiscal revenue of the army was only 5 million yuan, which was equivalent to 5 million taels of treasury silver! In order to use these revenues to support the army, even the army himself was constantly expanding the navy! This shows that military expenditure has accounted for 60 percent of the financial expenditure!

Although the number of troops of the Huo family army has now reached 600,000, and the size of the navy is also expanding rapidly, this is because the Huo family army has plundered almost the entire Nanyang and more than half of the landlords in the Qing Dynasty! If it only depends on the annual financial revenue of the Huo family military administration yuan, I am afraid that even one-third of the troops will not be able to support it!

According to this information, starting from the 15th year of the Meiji era, the army will be expanded into 28 infantry brigades, seven cavalry brigades, seven field artillery brigades, seven engineer brigades, and seven heavy brigades, as well as four infantry brigades composed of tuntian soldiers, one cavalry, one artillery brigade, and one engineer brigade, as well as various units for coastal defense. As long as this plan is completed, the number of this army will exceed 150,000 and it will become a powerful force in the Far East that cannot be ignored, which is a serious threat to our Huo family army!" Huo Longshen said solemnly. As the head of the military department of the Huo family army and the first person in the military, his eyes have been thinking about the development of the Far East, Asia, and even the world at the strategic level under the guidance of Huo Shan!

"Hehe, I'm glad that you can have such an understanding! The combat effectiveness of this army is not comparable to that of the Eight Banners Green Battalion, which has been completely corrupted within the Qing Dynasty! Therefore, we must pay close attention to the important internal information of this army! Maybe when this unfed wolf cub will be like us! " Thinking of the First Sino-Japanese War in later generations and the serious damage caused to China by the war of aggression against China, the anger in Huo Shan's heart couldn't help but boil!