When the British told the French that the Cheng'an had set sail from Port Said, the latter, who had already been ready, sprang into action.

In order to intercept the Cheng'an, the French Mediterranean Fleet dispatched the destroyer Lucky, two gunboats, and several seaplanes.

The Astute II is a quintessentially French-style destroyer, known in the French Navy's military language as the "Fleet Mineship", and as the name suggests, they are designed to follow the fleet of their own navy and attack the enemy with powerful torpedoes.

As the three ships got closer, the crew could clearly see the weapons on board—four 130mm guns, two triple 550mm torpedo launchers.

The other two gunboats were the same, the sailors in blue and white striped sea soul shirts were standing on the gun emplacements, and all the guns were pointed directly at the Cheng'an, as if they were ready to fire at any time.

The captain held binoculars and observed the ill-intentioned fellows one by one, "Trouble, this is a prepared situation, the French must know that we are still doing business with the Germans through Rumi." ”

"Tsk! How did it come to be discovered when it was our turn? Bad luck. Facing the menacing battleship, the fire captain looked a little nervous.

The fire chief is the traditional name, and the nature of the job is similar to that of the navigator, who is in charge of sea navigation and needs to be familiar with the compass, astronomy, and hydrological expertise.

At this time, the captain saw the yellow and black checkered flags raised by the destroyer, as well as the regular flashing lights.

He turned to look at a man behind him and said, "They hung the flag and lit the lights, and told us to stop the boat immediately for inspection." ”

The latter is from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the ship sailed with the ship to be in charge of delivery when Antalya arrived at the port to unload the cargo.

Since he did this kind of thing secretly, the imperial court must have expected a serious accident that might occur, and this is what happened to the Cheng'an now.

"I'll drop for a day, what should I do? You can't let them find out, can you? Someone said loudly: "Boss, let's just open the sea valve and sink itself, right?" Come to a death without proof! ”

The captain scolded back: "Your head is an elm pimple? People don't know how to fish boats? Now it's sinking, and I'll pick it up the day after tomorrow! ”

"Be natural, don't panic." The official of the Foreign Affairs Department was very calm, he brushed his collar, "Do what the memorandum requires, just insist that we don't know, the French don't dare to do anything with us." ”

"Yes." The captain paused, breathed a long sigh of relief, and said in a deep voice: "The left car stops, and the right car goes in!" ”

As a result, the left propeller of the Cheng'an stalled and the right propeller was lowered to the "forward one" position to stabilize the hull in the current.

The three French warships that came to intercept turned around one after another, drew three beautiful U-shaped tracks on the Mediterranean Sea, and then remained parallel to the Cheng'an.

They disembarked the steamboat from the side of the boat, and shortly thereafter, an armed sailor with a Betier rifle boarded the Cheng'an.

The crew also gathered at the back of the foredeck, and most of the more than 40 people did not know the inside story, and it was the first time for them to be intercepted by a foreign navy.

The captain, dressed in a navy blue military uniform and wearing a large-brimmed hat, looked left and right for a moment, and asked, "Who is the captain?" ”

A Syrian next to him immediately translated the words into Chinese.

The captain did not speak, but stepped forward silently.

The captain looked at him and took out a nailed document from his briefcase, "We have been ordered to intercept you, and the ship will be taken over and detained in Beirut, and so will you." ”

"There is no reason for you to detain our merchant ships." The captain replied very succinctly.

"Indeed," the captain nodded, then shrugged, "but this is an order, and we must carry it out." ”

Captain "......" remained silent.

"Do you know what this ship is carrying?"

"Tungsten ore and molybdenum ore."

"What about the consignee?"

"A Turkish mining company."

The captain smiled, no longer asked, and waved his hand directly: "Now please take your sailors back to the cabin, this ship has been temporarily taken over by the Mediterranean Fleet of the French Republic." ”

In this way, the Cheng'an, which was loaded with a large number of strategic resources, was taken over by French sailors, and under the escort of several warships, it turned course and sailed straight for Beirut.

Syria was now under French colonial rule, and after the end of the European War, Syria initially tried to become independent, but only existed for a few months before the French invaded Damascus.

Over the decades, the resistance against the colonizers intensified, and the French had to use both hard and soft measures, pretending to promise independence and sovereignty while hunting and killing people on a large scale, in order to contain and moderate the hostile attitude of the local population.

Upon arrival in Beirut, the French colonial authorities, together with the long-awaited British commissioners, began to inspect the strategic resources transported by the Cheng'an, as well as documents such as logbooks.

In order to avoid crowds, the French side chose the "unboxing" time in the evening, while the British side has repeatedly suggested calling a group of reporters to expose the shameful behavior of Da Ming Yang in public.

"Sir, according to the logbook and loading and unloading records, it has a total of 2,000 tons of tungsten sand ore, 300 tons of tungsten concentrate, and 400 tons of molybdenum concentrate, and we are right in our visual estimates."

It can be said that although the French are very angry, they still do not want to make a big deal about the matter, and prefer to solve the problem through official private negotiations, but the British are diametrically opposed.

But after all, this is on the territory of the French sphere of influence, if this basket is poked out, the Ming people who want to save face must not hold a grudge to death?

The French were not stupid, naturally they did not listen to the British.

But soon, the British and French realized the trickiness.

Thanks to the thorough preparation, the operation of the Ming to secretly export strategic resources to the German Society was very clean, and even if the French intercepted the Cheng'an, no direct evidence was found between the Ming and the German Society.

On the surface, this is just a resource that Daming exports to Turkey. There is no ironclad evidence, and the Ming people only need to die and not admit it.

The French then tried to interrogate the detained crew of the Cheng'an.

Ordinary sailors were completely unaware of this, and only the captain, fire captain, and others knew the inside story.

In the basement of the Beirut police station, a reinforced concrete building, the captain of the ship, the captain of fire and the officer for external affairs were dismantled and interrogated.

“…… Stop lying! A Frenchman suddenly shouted loudly: "Your companion has confessed that you are actually going to sell these ores to the Germans!" If you still don't state the facts, you will face many years in prison! ”

This is a typical cross-interrogation method, and the interrogated person will be more likely to be psychologically attacked because he is alone and does not know the situation of his peers.

Sudden shocks and threats of punishment are more likely to shatter the psychological defenses of the interrogator.

However, because these people had expected this, although they were inevitably highly nervous and afraid, they still bit the bullet and did not know it, or kept silent throughout the whole process.

The helpless French finally gave up the interrogation, and when they left, it felt as if they had survived the catastrophe, the captain's clothes were soaked with sweat, and the sea breeze blew, and they couldn't help but shiver.

Several British commissioners could not help but be a little contemptuous of the vain efforts of the French - why bother? Wouldn't it be better to just fake a confession?

Thus, the next day, the French Legation in Yingtian lodged a protest with the Department of Foreign Affairs, attaching a series of photographs of the Cheng'an and evidence collected during this time.

Because of internal changes, the Ming court has been busy recently, and most of the officials' minds are focused on adjusting their respective networks, so they are very slow to react to this, and the news is not passed on to the cabinet until the next day.

"Mingyin, do you know, the French stopped a merchant ship transporting ore before, and now they are ripping off." Yu Shenhua said as he picked up the pen and wrote something.

"Intercepting ships? What ship? ”

"Mines sold to the Germans."

"Oh, so what? If you don't admit it, it is. Li Guangyuan didn't take this matter to heart at all.

Britain and France were the weaker parties when the agreement was signed, and it was they who wanted to maintain a favorable position for their own countries at the minimum cost – an end to the export of resources to Germany, and a commitment not to invade the South Seas.

Since there is no strong way to counter the other party (breach of trust), then the other party is not to blame for not abiding by the agreement.

After all, in this world, the credibility of the great powers is only valid if it is in the interests of their own countries.

The Cabinet's decision was to ignore it for the time being, and to observe the attitude of Britain and France.

Zhu Shiyan agreed with the cabinet's approach, "The British are probably going to reassess the situation, and we must pay more attention to their actions." ”

Obviously, both Britain and France far underestimated the ambitions of the Ming Dynasty, and the surrender of Japan to Japan did not achieve the desired effect at all, as if throwing a small piece of meat at a hungry wolf and unable to make it stop.

Now it belongs to the loss of the lady and the loss of the army...... However, this is not necessarily the case, after all, if we do not make concessions on the Japanese issue, I am afraid that a direct conflict will have already broken out before that.

Just as the emperor had thought, the shrewd British responded quickly.

At the Prime Minister's residence in Downing Street, after several meetings over two days, the ministers reached a new consensus on the situation in the Far East.

Malaya and Borneo were indeed important to the British Empire, but the overall strategy still had to prioritize Europe.

Based on this, the British side has been trying to stabilize the situation in the Far East at the lowest possible cost, not increasing troops if it can, and concentrating its main efforts on Europe.

After all, the military and economy of the British Empire are far from being as proud of the world as before, and there must be a distinction between priority and priority.

But now, a series of actions of the Ming Dynasty have forced the British side to adjust its strategy, strengthen the defense of the Far East, and take seriously the increasingly strong threat.

In addition to actively contacting the Americans, the British immediately began to consider the deployment of a new fleet.

Historically, as the Japanese threat became apparent, Britain decided to deploy Z Fleet before the outbreak of the Pacific War, staying in Trincomalee (the island of Sri Lanka) to deter Japan.

The original plan was to send a large fleet of HMS Counter-Attack, HMS Prestige, HMS Prince of Wales, HMS Duke of York, and several Revenge-class battleships, including HMS Radiance and HMS Ark Royal.

But then it was interfered by the cigar fat man - if the German Bismarck could contain half of the strength of the Royal Navy's home fleet, what was the problem with a George V now to contain the Japanese fleet?

So as we all know, the final and inevitable tragedy of the Z fleet came.

And now, because the time is earlier, and at the same time, the Royal Navy also attaches more importance to the Ming Navy and does not dare to take it lightly, so it has a very core positioning for the planned fleet - the Z fleet is an existing fleet.

Before the war broke out, this fleet could deter the Ming and let the Ming people weigh more.

After the outbreak of war, this fleet could contain the main force of the Nanyang Fleet of the Ming Navy.

If you are at a disadvantage, then you can flexibly leave the port and retreat westward to Sri Lanka, retreat to the Indo-Du Ocean, and wait for the opportunity to make a move to disgust the Ming Navy.

Compared with the decisive alternative of the British, the French continued to fight with the Ming court.

With a batch of high-precision machine tools and a heavy machinery production line that have not yet been delivered, they demanded that the Ming Dynasty must stop its exports to Germany, otherwise it would definitely intercept any Ming merchant ships carrying strategic resources entering the Mediterranean.

The imperial court naturally ignored it, and if this was loosened, wouldn't it be tantamount to admitting that it was indeed exporting resources to Germany?

The French government forcibly detained hundreds of special machine tools and heavy machinery production lines ordered by Daming enterprises, and the Mediterranean Fleet was ordered to intercept and inspect any Ming merchant ships passing through the Suez Canal, and if they were found to be loaded with tungsten, nickel, molybdenum, rubber and other resources, they would be detained in Beirut.

While condemning the slander of France, the imperial court began to freeze the assets of some French companies in Daming.

The two sides have come and gone back and forth, and there is a stalemate.

In normal times, this should have been a hot news that could attract a lot of attention, but now it has been overshadowed by another blockbuster news from Daming.

On the morning of the fifth day of the eighth lunar month, the Sun Moon Society reported the news of Zhu Likai's death, and there was an uproar in the north and south of the country.

Subsequently, the imperial court announced that the yamen of the national government must fly the flag at half-mast to mourn for ten days; The Zongren Mansion requires all royal families to fast for three days, and violators are severely punished.

"Oh my God! Wasn't the prince okay a few days ago? How did it suddenly ...... Deceased. ”

Early in the morning, Xia Xiaoshi had just prepared breakfast and was about to dine with Zhou Changfeng, but was shocked by the murderous news coming out of the radio.

Zhou Changfeng on the side looked as usual, just looked at her calmly, and then sighed softly.

"Sir, why are you so calm? Shouldn't you have known it before? ”

Zhou Changfeng let out a "hmm" while peeling salted duck eggs, and didn't say much.

Xia Xiaoshi didn't get to the bottom of this, but asked to herself: "Your Majesty is quite old now, so who should inherit the throne in the future?" I remember that there seems to be another prince? ”

In fact, the outside world still doesn't know that the emperor has walked in front of the ghost gate, and his physical condition is not as good as before, and even the preparations for abdication have been prepared for several days.

"Yes, there is a little prince," Zhou Changfeng nodded first and then shook his head, "but...... Not him. ”

Xia Xiaoshi, who was scooping porridge with a spoon, was even more confused when she heard this, "Sir...... You... Are you kidding? ”

(End of chapter)