The arrival of 1898 was a tragic continuation for the Cuban people.

Under a series of brutal repressions by the Cuban governor-general, Weirall, the Cuban uprising suffered another heavy blow. The leader of the rebels, Maximo Gomez, was even forced to hide in the mountains and forests.

If anyone familiar with history sees this scene, they may wonder why the Cuban uprising came to be the way it was. The reason is simple: the Governor of Cuba, Willer, has not been removed from his post, and the most dangerous enemy of the rebels has always served as the Governor of Cuba, and the encirclement and suppression of the rebels have not ceased for a moment. This strategy of pressing step by step made the rebel army unable to rest for a moment, and could only continue to maneuver with the Spanish encirclement and suppression troops in the mountains. Such a high-intensity battle was too difficult for the rebel army, the continuous casualties made people break down, and every day people did not say goodbye, which made the rebel army gradually collapse in the mountains and forests. Maximo Gomez, the leader of the rebel army, also had to hide first and wait for the opportunity.

The reason why Governor Weirall was not removed from office is also very simple, although Prime Minister Castillo was also assassinated, but he did not die because of it. The assassinated anarchist, for unknown reasons, missed his pistol and did not hit the vital point directly, but only wounded his shoulder.

Since the prime minister was not killed, Madrid did not relapse into political turmoil, and Governor Weirall, who was the prime minister's faction and pushed for power, did not step down because of the lack of support from Madrid.

In the face of the gradual subsidence of the Cuban uprising, the attitude of the United States, which is separated by a sea, is somewhat meaningful.

At this time, the New York News and the New York World competed to report on Cuba, and in their reports, the Spanish colonial army had created a series of terrible tragedies in Cuba, and it was too trivial to kill people directly. There are countless sensational reports of officers of the Spanish army, the need to bathe in the blood of children, the use of children by the Spanish army for evil rituals, and so on.

Although the Spanish army did not do a good job in counterinsurgency, it did not act like a medieval wizard.

Regardless, the coverage of both newspapers has boosted their own sales.

Of course, if that's all, then we can use these two newspapers for the sake of readers, not the bottom line, then the next report of the New York Journal is a bit naked.

One day in June, the New York Journal published a letter purportedly written by the Spanish ambassador to the United States, Depp de Lomé, to a friend in Havana. In the letter, the minister alluded to Spain's deception in negotiations over a pending trade deal and said that President McKinley was a "statesman of the inferior rank."

Such blatant remarks infuriated the American public, with one official calling the letter "the worst insult to the United States ever." ”

Of course, we don't know exactly how the letter got into the hands of the New York Journal, but at least we know that all four U.S. ships were commissioned last month.

In the face of the accusations of the United States, the Spanish ambassador to the United States, Lomé, who was one of the parties involved, naturally denied it, saying that he had never written such a letter, and that the letter's handwriting was forged and was made by sympathists of the Cuban rebellion.

It's just that Lomay's words did not appease the American people, because the major newspapers did not report what he said at all.

In addition, the US Navy also announced that it would send the warship "Maine" to visit the port of Havana in Cuba.

At this time, sending warships to Cuba was obviously an act of demonstration, and Spain did not dare to openly refuse in the face of the powerful United States.

So on June 19, the battleship Maine sailed into the port of Havana.

Here it is necessary to talk about the data of this Maine, which is 98.9 meters long, 17.4 meters wide, has a maximum draft of 6.9 meters, and has a displacement of 6,682 tons. The main gun landed on the aft deck of the ship, which was not only susceptible to bad weather, but also made it impossible for the ship to stabilize its center of gravity, and its stability decreased during navigation. In addition, there were two main guns on the sides of the ship, arranged in echelons for front and rear firing.

It had four 10-inch (254 mm) Mark-II guns, in addition to six 6-inch (152 mm) Mark3 guns, two each in the bow and stern, with the last two in the amidships.

The Maine has a crew of 355, including 26 civilians, 290 sailors and 39 naval officers.

Judging from the data, the Maine does not look like a new ship that appeared in 1895, but should have been taken out in 1885 to be new enough. But what can be done about this, the shipbuilding industry of the US Navy is like that, and although the ship has only been in service for 3 years, it has been waiting for nine years from launch to service with the USS Maine, just because it needs to be tested.

In addition, the backwardness of the Maine is also aimed at a limited number of great powers, and in other countries, there is only drooling.

Of course, for the Spaniards, the Maine was just as behemoth. At present, the largest warship of the Spanish Navy in the Caribbean is the Alfonso XIII, whose 4,700 tons are only 14 knots, and as a cruiser that has been in service for 24 years, its combat effectiveness is worrying.

So when the Maine arrived, the Spanish Navy was left with envy.

Of course, the arrival of the Maine also encouraged American plantation owners, who had invested heavily in sugar cane cultivation and sugar production in Cuba in recent years.

Cuba sends more than 100 million dollars of sugar to the United States across the sea every year, and it is precisely because of this interest that the United States attaches so much importance to Cuba.

But the visit of the Maine will be the same for the Cuban colonial army. Its warships could not go ashore, so what threat could there be.

Life still needs to go on, and everyone still does what they should do. And the officers and men of the Maine also took advantage of their free time to walk around Havana, everything was so natural, except for the topic of the Cuban insurrectionaries (rioters) that would make the two sides unhappy.

Fast forward for more than ten days, and the port of Havana was no different except for the addition of the Maine.

In the middle of the night on July 2, the port of Havana was as quiet as ever, and the officers and men of the Maine fell asleep in addition to their normal duties.

And at this moment, a violent explosion sounded, and the ferocious explosion woke up the whole of Havana, and then the explosion of the Maine was released. The bottom of the port side of the Maine was directly blown into a large crater, and the ferocious sea water poured directly into the Maine cabin.

Shortly after the explosion, the Maine sank into the harbor. A total of 261 people were killed in the blast, and 16 of the 94 who survived were injured.

The explosion of the USS Maine in the port of Havana directly pushed the already tense US-Spanish relations into an even more dangerous situation.