Chapter 377 Let's talk about good news next time

"My Lord Yan, why do you look as sad as Tang Shaoyi? Mr. Li and the parliament have specially approved the special naval allocation of two battleships to you. Shouldn't you smile?

On the bright beach of Honolulu, Li Mo walked barefoot on the beach in his trousers. He didn't remember how long he had not enjoyed the beach and the sun. At this time, he understood the difference between "dream and reality". It seemed that there was no chance to be a good time to pick up the beautiful years of the country. Maybe this is It's the price of God sending him back.

Li Mo's joke made the face of the Minister of Defense even more bitter. The budget of the two new battleships is indeed overwhelming, but the problem is that it will take at least two years for the budget to become a visible battleship!

Although his defense minister belongs to the ranks of civil servants and does not hold the real power of the army, he is also a solid core member of the general staff. Naturally, he knows what kind of hardship the young Xinhua army will face after this war.

Britain, France, the United States, Russia.

The new Xinhua has almost offended the main powers, and has not yet reached the expected Sino-German alliance, which makes Xinhua have to continue to face the four great powers alone. Although there are contradictions between these powers, they at least belong to the same white world.

Although from the current point of view, Xinhua has won or tied with these four countries, its foundation is not comparable to that of young Xinhua at all.

Taking advantage of the advantages of less attention from the great powers in previous years and stepping on their shoulders to develop, Li Mo and everyone finally came up with a small and capable equipment manufacturing force. He even took the lead in technology, but the scale and efficiency were far inferior.

Xinhua can't afford it. Both officials and generals at all levels know this. Otherwise, Ji Rushan would not choose to assign the heavy patrol team to participate in the decisive battle. What he is afraid of is consumption and dare not devote all his strength to the fight to the death.

On the contrary, although the economic and manufacturing thrones have been surpassed by the United States, France, Germany and other countries, the foundation is that almost every dock in every shipyard can build a capital ship. It is extremely dangerous to fight with such opponents. Therefore, from the beginning, the general ginseng formulated a combat policy to promote peace, and finally Li Enfu Even at the cost of the budget of the two battleships, they persuaded the navy not to continue to expand their retaliation. They were afraid that Britain would come to war.

After all, Britain is still the world's number one naval power. Although it was held back by Bull, it was mainly because the army was dragged down. From the perspective of the navy, Britain still had the ability to fight another war, so he was worried that he would not be able to achieve his goal in the end, which would attract the full revenge of the British navy.

And Li Mo is also very clear that it seems that the British Far East Fleet has lost three battleships and three first-class armored cruisers, which has greatly damaged the strength of the fleet, but if you put this loss in the perspective of the whole British navy, it is a piece of a loss.

After entering the era of steel steam, the size of the British navy has declined significantly from its heyday in terms of the total number of ships, but its fleet size is still larger than that of the last few navies, of which the three fleets are the largest.

The Far East Fleet is the weakest of the three fleets. The Mediterranean Fleet and the Home Fleet are the core forces of the British Navy, especially the Mediterranean Fleet, which is undoubtedly powerful. It has as many as 13 fore-dreadnought battleships, six of which are the most majestic class, but from the quality It even surpassed the sum of the French navy, which is the second in the world! If combined with the seven royal powers stationed in Egypt and India, it will form an absolute military advantage over Xinhua.

However, Li Mo is not as worried as Yan Fu, because Britain is not without worries, and there is no sign of victory in the war with the Boers. On the contrary, it is getting bigger and bigger. European countries led by Germany and France are trying their best to provide weapons to the Boers, and Britain is fighting against the whole of Europe! Therefore, the mainland fleet, the West Indian fleet, and the Pacific Squadron were all transferred there to block the offshore support operations.

As long as they don't force Britain to a dead end, they have no reason to fight with all their strength, because if he really transferred the Mediterranean fleet, he would face the danger of a European power vacuum!

Of course, they can also transfer the home fleet back, but that's it! Li Mo hooked the corners of his mouth. Unless Salisbury goes crazy, the whole European arms ships will rush to South Africa!

So he very much agrees with Li Enfu's strict order at the last moment, because as long as he does not tear the last face and trap the Far East Fleet in Hong Kong, the British will have to consider the safety of tens of thousands of Far East garrisons and more than a dozen capital ships. You know, once the Xinhua Army breaks through the fragile Kowloon defense line, Philett Man only has one way to chisel the ship and sink itself!

In the final analysis, in fact, he also has enough cards to play. Although he may fail in the end, he absolutely has the ability to bite the British Empire with only half a breath. Even if he loses all the hard-won overseas land, as long as he keeps the mainland of Xinhua, there is still hope of a new rise, but that Cheng is too difficult.

Of course, being able to fight back does not mean that you can be arrogant to the end, because this is still an extremely dangerous tightrope walking behavior!

To be the heart, if the British were not willing to give up the interests of the southeast, he would certainly not be willing to go to war with Britain. Even as long as they were willing to withdraw from China, he would rather give the Chinese ship technology to Britain.

But he didn't expect that the Chinese ship did not let Britain give in, so he had to make up his mind to fight this battle on the way to the trip, because if he waited for another two years, after Britain broke through the technical barriers, he would not pay attention to himself. At that time, Britain, which was not under the containment of South Africa, could completely free to let go of it. I forced myself to wait until the start of World War I.

In this way, I will have to deal with the torrent with half of China. Although confidence does not diminish, the odds of winning are undoubtedly a little less, because it is a big change that needs to be dealt with by the strength of the whole country!

Once he can't concentrate his national efforts to deal with it, he will have to be a bystander like history and watch the great powers re-spend the world's resources, which he can't tolerate.

Now that we have fallen, the Far East Fleet has been trapped in Hong Kong and can't move. Next, it depends on whether Britain will fight to the death or negotiate to solve the problem!

"Your Majesty, urgent electricity!"

Du Dazhuang rushed to the beach breathlessly with a telegram, and even had no time to salute, "Listen to the wind report, four Junquan-class battleships entered the Indian Ocean through the Red Sea this morning!"

The faces of Li Mo and Yan Fu suddenly sank. Is it possible that Britain is really going to fight to the death?

"Yes." Du Dazhuang scratched his head and took out another telegram like a trick: "Germany called. Yesterday afternoon, after William II inspected William's shipyard, he announced that he would build four ships immediately."

When Du Dazhuang held the telegram and scratched his head as if he was doubting whether it was the name of the ship or not, but Li Mo's eyes suddenly lit up and said, "It's the announcement of the construction of four class battleships, right!"

"Your Majesty, how do you know?"

"Guess!" Li Mo almost shouted a few times to express his inner pleasure. Although Britain and France were not ** by the Chinese ship, Germany was unwilling to continue to be a second-rate navy after all, and finally sacrificed the treasure of the class!

Du Dazhuang's face was dark, and he kept scratching his head. Can he guess such an embarrassing name? It's worthy of being the emperor! And Yan Fu next to him also jumped in his heart, secretly guessing how many unknown secrets the emperor had left!

Li Mo didn't pay a surprised face. He quickly took the telegram from his hand. After looking at it twice, he finally breathed a long sigh of relief and scolded, "Da Zhuang, remember to say good news first next time!"

"Good news? Is there any good news about German man-made warships? Du Dazhuang didn't know, touched his head to ask Yan Fu for help, and his simple look immediately attracted a burst of laughter from the latter: "It's good news."

"Notice everyone that they will leave for home in three hours." Holding the telegram, Li Mo's eyes were full of hope--

When Li Mo left Honolulu, the whole Europe was in a mess!

No one believes that someone really dares to challenge the powerful British navy. The news in the streets and alleys is even more surprising. After the British mainland fleet and the Mediterranean fleet, the "Far East Iron Arm" Felix and his British Far East fleet failed, losing to the one who had just visited Europe not long ago. The fleet of Far East arsonists in the continent!

Although Philippeman also hit the Xinhua Pacific Fleet (external number, the first fleet internally), causing the loss of the other side's three capital ships, which directly led to the reduction of Xinhua's naval force by nearly one-fifth, Hong Kong, known as the best anchorage in the Far East, was actually besieged by others, and the remaining dozen A warship can't even leave Victoria Bay!

God, what happened to them?!

Everyone is guessing and waiting for Britain's next action, because if a full-scale war breaks out between the two families, it will be enough to affect the current world pattern!

Europe began to rub its hands. Germany, France, Italy, Austria and even Russia began to make small calculations. Among them, there were not only the ridicule of the Germans, but also the secret celebration of the French. There were also the Italians who were more and more coveted about North Africa. Even the half-haled Ottoman Empire was waiting for the ordered battleship to come back. Should it be Take Egypt back.

A naval battle, which was half a globe apart and not on a large scale, made the whole of Europe unpredictable, which may be what Li Mo did not expect.

In the face of this trend and the disaster of the parliament, the Prime Minister of Salisbury could no longer sit still and brought Prince Badenberg, the First Minister of the Navy, and Fisher, the Third Secretary of the Navy.

One of them is a prince who has been in charge of the navy for 20 years, the other is a pioneer of naval technology, and a recognized naval artillery expert in Britain at present, but at this moment, they are all frowned at the same time.

In fact, although the Xinhua Navy played well in the face of the Felicman, it was not enough to worry Britain. What really frightened them was that the remaining more than a dozen warships in the hands of the Felicman were blocked by a mysterious weapon in Hong Kong and could not leave!

As the core of naval technology, Fisher immediately remembered the emerging submarines in European countries. Only that kind of thing can unconsciously make the Far East Fleet helpless, but the question is that France, the best technology in the world, is still far from reaching the level of actual combat. Why can Xinhua do it? What about it?

How much technology does Li Mo still have enough to affect the navy?

Fisher clenched his fists. It's still a little early to talk about this. At present, the most important thing is to take the Phillyteman and the Far East Fleet out of Hong Kong, because the Xinhua Army has quickly landed in Guangzhou Bay and is constantly heading for Kowloon. If they capture Kowloon, occupy Hong Kong and capture warships, the Far East. Both the fleet and Britain are a catastrophe!

The three monarchs sent to support the Far East Fleet have temporarily entered Singapore, and the four of the same type stationed in Egypt have also set out. They will form a fleet with the former to rescue the Far East Fleet, but the question is, if they will anger Xinhua and finally launch an attack after they enter the South China Sea. Instead, they buried the Far East Fleet and tens of thousands of soldiers?

You should know that from the previous telegram sent back by Phillipman, Li Mo had been merciful to the Far East Fleet, otherwise he would not have sunk three capital ships and turned to deal with the small warships that were consumables. If they had fired all the torpedoes at the defenseless capital ships at that time, then now Britain or Xu no longer needs to think about the rescue.

The New Chinese deliberately gave the Far East Fleet a glimmer of vitality, but they kept exerting pressure from the sea and land. As an excellent politician, he was actually very clear about this diplomatic language. Li Mo wanted to use nearly 10,000 officers and dozens of warships of the Far East Fleet to force Britain to compromise and give up Far East interests!

Salisbury rubbed his swollen temples, and there was a multiple-choice question in front of him. Either he would continue to fight, but he would sacrifice the entire Far East Fleet and give up tens of thousands of soldiers in Shanghai and Hong Kong, which were currently surrounded.

Compromise, there is no doubt that Britain will lose all its interests in Xinhua and make Britain lose face, which is intolerable for all Britons.

"Mr. Prime Minister, with your permission, I am ready to send the Mediterranean Fleet to the Far East!" Prince Badenberg's eyes flashed, like an immortal veteran exuding the breath of courage all over his body.

"Send the Mediterranean Fleet!" Prime Minister Salisbury and Fisher were stunned, but as soon as they stood up, Kimberley had slammed the door open.

"No, the Mediterranean Fleet must not leave!"

"Why? Why! Tens of thousands of Admirals of the Phillyman Republic are waiting for us to rescue. Why can't we let the Mediterranean Fleet go? Prince Badenberg suddenly got up and looked at Kimberly angrily.

"Because of this!" Kimberley gave the information in Yang's hand to Prince Badenberg. After looking at it twice, the blood on his face suddenly disappeared and he suddenly fell into a chair.

"Your Excellency the Prime Minister, France has announced the withdrawal of all its troops from Xinhua, and Germany also announced this morning that it will build four new battleships!" Kimberly took a deep breath: "In addition, Xinhua has sent people to bring the news. They are willing to give us the battleship technology they have mastered, as long as they need."

Kimberley glanced at a few people before saying, "Let's evacuate the border of Xinhua!" ......

(to be continued)