Saigon was the stronghold of French influence in Vietnam, and the French presence was entrenched there before 1859, and then the Governor of La Grandier built the Norodom Palace, which became the administrative center of France in Vietnam.

Today, however, the governor of Devillere, who lives at Norodom Palace, is very dissatisfied. Because he received the news that the two ships purchased by the Qing people from Italy had appeared at the mouth of the Pearl River, which made Deviller very worried about the use of these two warships, mainly because these two warships were too fast, up to a speed of more than 18 knots, and he felt ashamed when the 13-15 knots of the battleships commanded by General Lone Dial.

Of course, the more odious thing is that the Italians, these two or five boys who only unified the country with the help of France, dare to meddle in the affairs of France, they simply do not know whether they are alive or dead. Of course, this matter of Italy is not in his charge, and I believe that the French government will make Italy regret selling the two warships to the Qing State.

But now he must let General Lone Dial solve the threat.

"Your Excellency General Lone, I believe you have also seen that the Qing people bought two large armored cruisers from Italy, and I heard that even the officers and soldiers on board are Italians."

Some of the emaciated vice admirals were more aware of the threat posed by these two warships.

"Your Excellency, I will find a way to put these two lone wolves in cages."

After getting the result he wanted, de Villere continued. "If you need anything, tell my secretary, and he will help you coordinate, and I only have one request, that is, let these two Qing ships be equipped and patrol, and they must not threaten the connection between Indochina and the country. This will displease not only the government, but also many powerful people. ”

"Your Excellency, wait for my good news."

Wearing a navy hat, he turned around and left.

Leaving the Norodom Palace, he immediately rushed to the port. His headquarters is next to the military port, although he is confident in front of the governor, but in fact, how can these two Venice-class patrol ships be so easy to grasp.

I had sent it before, and the Admiralty had already obtained the specific information of the two ships, and specially sent them to Lone. It was after knowing the specific performance of these two Venice classes that he had a headache for this.

The speed is fast, the firepower is fierce, and the armor is not weak, this is the first reaction of the Gu Gu after reading the Venetian-level information. Then he felt admiration, admiration for those Italian warship designers, who were able to design such a balanced battleship.

However, he has reservations about the design of the main guns of the Venetian class, one after the other, because he has not yet fought each other, so he doesn't know why it is designed like this, isn't this the time for a head-on attack, there are two main guns missing?

However, although he admired the Italian design, now his mission was to sink the two Venice classes, if not to sink them, at least to make them ineffective.

In fact, Gu Pao also had his own ideas, and the battle plan he reported to Paris was to use the experience of the last war with the Qing State to take Tanggu directly, threaten the security of the Qing capital, and force the Qing government to agree to the conditions of France. However, Paris was reluctant to do this, because it would affect the interests of other countries in China and make enemies for France, so the red line drawn for him was south of the Yangtze River.

In the face of the red line given by Paris, Gu Di was not annoyed, and he was ready to cut off the sea route of the Qing State, so that the Qing State suffered unacceptable losses, and forced it to agree to the conditions of France. Of course, Gu Pao has already chosen the target, and Taiwan is right next to this route, so taking Taiwan can threaten the Qing Dynasty's shipping lanes anytime and anywhere, and it can also give his fleet a foothold here.

The previous attack on the Fujian Navy, as well as the handling of these two Venice-class cruisers, were all in the service of this strategy.

However, compared with dealing with the Fujian Navy, it is much more difficult to take down these two ships, but no matter how difficult it is, it will not be difficult for him to be alone, and many years of experience are enough for him to have various ways to deal with it.

For this reason, he returned to the command headquarters and immediately summoned his deputy, Risby.

"I just met with His Excellency the Governor, and he asked us to find a way to keep the shipping lanes safe."

"Damn it, we wiped out the Fujian Navy, and two bigger ships came out, these damn Italians."

Lisby couldn't help but complain, of course, more about Italy.

That's right, now the news of Italy's sale of two ships to the Qing State has long been known on the streets, and the explanation given by Italy is that this deal was completed before the outbreak of the war, and the reason why it has been delayed until now is mainly because the Qing people are recruiting sailors.

Anyway, in a word, I admit to selling two ships to Qingguo, but this has nothing to do with me anymore.

Of course, this is not something that Gu Di and the others need to care about, they now urgently need to grasp the dynamics of the two Venice class cruises.

But the difficulty now is to send that ship appropriately.

At present, there is no ship in the French fleet that can reach 18.5 knots, only the Basval communication ship (18.1 knots) can barely keep up, but this is a communication ship of less than 1,000 tons, and there is not much armament on board, and it is given away in vain, as for the fastest other ships is the 1722-ton Jianbing reconnaissance cruiser, which is only 17.6 knots, and it is not in vain to go up.

To put it pitifully, the lone French fleet, although its tonnage and size look terrifying, is only some old goods from the sixties and seventies (in this era, even if it is outdated after five years of launching, the only new Bayard ironclad is a useless guy in wooden-hulled ironclad).

So it's not bad to bully those small ships of the Qing Kingdom, but it's a bit too much to deal with the technological crystallization of the two Italian shipbuilding industries.

"It seems that the only way to do this is to set up an ambush."

After studying for a long time, Gu Di put down the pen in his hand and told his deputy next to him his plan.

"It's a good idea to set up an ambush, but how do you get the other party into a trap?"

The deputy also thinks that the ambush is a good idea, and at the same time raises the question of how to get him into the trap.

"This is simple, giving the other party a bait that cannot be refused. As long as they are tempted, there is a way to catch them. ”

Then Lone said that he had prepared the bait. "If you were the commander of the opposing side and heard that the enemy was going to send a batch of military supplies to the front line, what would you do?"

"Of course, I don't want the enemy to complete the delivery of supplies smoothly."

Saying this, Lisby also smiled, he knew that as long as the other party was tempted, then he would step into the trap.

However, before that, it needs to be a good plan, so Gu Pao needs to conspire with General Miller, who is in charge of the army in Beiqi, after all, you can't treat the enemy as a fool and suddenly transport a large number of military supplies for no reason, doesn't this make the prey wonder.

Therefore, every time in a long time, General Miller, who was in Beiqi, announced in a high-profile manner that he would launch a large-scale offensive against the Qing army to let the Qing state know how powerful France was.

Later, the French army began to be active on the Sino-Vietnamese border, and the Qing army's investigation report described it as a sea of foreigners, eager to spy on us.

This made Zeng Guoquan, the governor of Liangguang who was about to leave office, have to raise his spirit and ask the Qing troops stationed on the border to strictly guard against the invasion of the law.

Since the French army was to prepare for the offensive, it needed sufficient military supplies, and the current transportation of North Vietnam was destined to be the most convenient for sea and water transportation, so a large number of cargo ships under the escort of several cruisers and gunboats sailed towards Beiqi.