When the British told the French that the Cheng'an had sailed from Port Said, the latter, who had already been prepared, took action immediately.
In order to intercept the Chengan, the French Mediterranean Fleet dispatched the destroyer Lucky, two gunboats, and several seaplanes.
The Astute-class No. 2 ship Lucky is a typical French-style destroyer. They are actually called "fleet torpedo ships" in the military language of the French Navy. As the name suggests, they are designed to follow one's own naval fleet in battle and use powerful weapons. torpedoes to attack the enemy.
As the three warships got closer and closer, the crew could clearly see the weapons carried on them-four 130mm naval guns and two triple 550mm torpedo launchers.
The same goes for the other two gunboats. Sailors wearing blue and white striped sea soul shirts are standing on the gun emplacements. All the guns are pointed directly at the Cheng'an, seemingly ready to fire at any time.
The captain held his binoculars and observed these malicious guys one by one. "Trouble, this formation is well prepared. The French must know that we are still doing business with the Germans through Rumi."
"Tsk! How come we were discovered when it was our turn? What a bad luck." Facing the menacing battleship, Huo Chang looked a little nervous.
The fire chief is a traditional name, and the nature of his job is similar to that of the navigation chief. He is in charge of maritime navigation and needs to be familiar with the compass, astronomy, and hydrology.
At this time, the captain saw the yellow and black checkered flag raised on the destroyer, as well as the regular flashing lights.
He turned to look at a man behind him and said, "They have put up flags and lights, and told us to stop the ship immediately for inspection."
The latter is from the Foreign Affairs Department of the Ministry of Rites, and will be responsible for the delivery when the ship sails with Antalya when it enters the port to unload the cargo.
Since they were doing this kind of thing secretly, the imperial court must have anticipated possible serious accidents, which is what happened to the Cheng'an now.
"Oh my god, what should we do? We can't let them find out, right?" Someone shouted: "Boss, let's just open the sea valve and sink ourselves? Let's die without any evidence!"
The captain scolded back: "Do you have a lump in your head? People don't know how to salvage the ship? If it sinks now, it will be salvaged the next day!"
"Be natural and don't panic." The official from the Foreign Affairs Department was very calm. He stroked his collar and said, "Do as the memorandum requires. Just insist that we don't know. The French don't dare to do anything to us."
"That's right." The captain paused, breathed a long sigh of relief, and said in a deep voice: "The left car stops and the right car comes in!"
As a result, the left propeller of the Chengan stopped spinning and the right propeller was lowered to the "forward one" gear to stabilize the hull in the ocean 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 kept parallel to the Cheng'an.
They lowered the motorboat from the side of the ship, and soon after, an armed sailor carrying a Berthier rifle boarded the Chengan.
The crew members also gathered at the rear section of the front deck. Most of the more than 40 people did not know the inside story. The experience of being intercepted by a foreign navy was unprecedented for them.
The captain, who was wearing a navy blue military uniform and a big-brimmed hat, looked around and asked, "Who is the captain?"
A Syrian next to him immediately translated the words into Chinese.
The captain did not speak, but silently took a step forward.
The navy captain looked at him twice and took out a stapled document from his briefcase. "We have received orders to intercept you. This ship will be taken over and then detained in Beirut, as will you."
"You have no reason to detain our merchant ship." The captain replied very concisely.
"Indeed," the captain nodded, then shrugged, "but this is an order and we must carry it out."
"..." The captain remained silent.
"Do you know what this ship is carrying?"
"Tungsten and Molybdenum Ore."
"Where's the recipient?"
“A Turkish mining company.”
The captain smiled, stopped asking questions, and directly waved the order: "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. Under the escort of several warships, it changed course and sailed straight to Beirut.
Syria is now under French colonial rule. After the European War, Syria initially tried to become independent, but it only existed for a few months before the French army invaded Damascus.
Over the past few decades, the local resistance movement against the colonists has intensified. The French had to use both soft and hard tactics, pretending to promise independence and sovereignty while killing many people, in order to contain and ease the hostility of the local people.
After arriving in Beirut, the French colonial authorities, together with the British commissioner who had been waiting for a long time, began to inspect the strategic resources transported by the Chengan, as well as documents such as the voyage log.
In order to avoid crowds of people, the French side chose the "unpacking" time in the evening, while the British side has repeatedly suggested calling in a group of reporters to expose the shameful behavior of the Ming Dynasty in public.
"Sir, according to the voyage log and loading and unloading records, it carried a total of two thousand tons of tungsten sand ore, three hundred tons of tungsten concentrate, and four hundred tons of molybdenum concentrate. Our visual estimate is correct."
It can be said that although the French are very angry, they still don't want to make the matter a big deal and prefer to solve the problem through official private negotiations, but the British are exactly the opposite.
But this is, after all, within France's sphere of influence. If this whole thing is revealed, will Akito, who wants to save face, hold his grudge to death?
The French are not stupid, so they naturally did not listen to the British.
But soon, Britain and France realized the difficulty.
Thanks to adequate preparations, Ming's secret export of strategic resources to the German Society was very clean. Even if the French intercepted the Cheng'an, no direct evidence was found to show the connection between the Ming Dynasty and the German Society.
On the surface, this is just the resources exported by Ming Dynasty to Turkey. Without irrefutable evidence, Mingren just needs to refuse to admit his guilt.
Therefore, the French tried to interrogate the detained crew members of the Chengan.
Ordinary sailors were completely unaware of this. Only the captain, fire chief and others knew the inside story.
The Beirut Police Station is a reinforced concrete building. In the basement, the captain, fire chief and the foreign affairs department officer were separated and cross-examined.
"...Stop lying!" A Frenchman suddenly shouted angrily: "Your companions have confessed that you are actually going to sell these ores to the Germans! If you still do not state the facts, you will face many years in prison. !”
This is a typical cross-examination method. Because the person being interrogated is alone and does not know the situation of his companions, he will be psychologically easier to break.
Sudden surprises and threats of punishment are more likely to break the interrogator's psychological defenses.
However, because these people had already expected this, even though they were inevitably very nervous and fearful, they still insisted that they did not know anything, or they kept silent throughout the whole process.
The helpless French finally gave up the interrogation. When they left, they felt as if they were surviving a disaster. The captain and others' clothes were soaked with sweat. The sea breeze blew by and they couldn't help but shudder.
Several British commissioners could not help but feel a little scornful of the French's wasted effort - why go to such trouble? Wouldn't it be better to just forge a confession?
In this way, the next day, the French Embassy in Yingtian lodged a protest with the Department of Foreign Affairs and attached a series of photos of the Chengan and the evidence collected during this period.
Due to internal changes, the Ming Dynasty court has been very busy recently. Most of the officials' minds were focused on adjusting their respective relationship networks, so they responded very slowly to this, and did not pass the news to the cabinet until the next day.
"Mingyin, do you know that the French stopped a merchant ship transporting ore not long ago and are now arguing about it?" Yu Shenhua said while writing something.
"Interception ship? What ship?"
"Mine sold to the Germans."
"Oh, so what's the matter? Just don't admit it." Li Guangyuan didn't take this matter to heart at all.
When the agreement was signed, Britain and France were the weaker parties. They hoped to maintain a situation that was beneficial to their countries at the minimum cost - to end the export of resources to Germany and to promise not to infringe on the Nanyang region.
Since there is no strong means to counter the other party (broken trust), then there is no need to blame the other party for not abiding by the agreement.
After all, in this world, the credibility of great powers is only effective when it serves their own national interests.
The cabinet's decision was to ignore it for the time being and then observe the attitudes of Britain and France.
Zhu Shiyan agreed with the cabinet's approach, "The British probably need to re-evaluate the situation and need to pay more attention to their actions."
It is obvious that both Britain and France far underestimated the ambitions of the Ming Dynasty. Handing Japan over did not achieve the expected results at all. It was like throwing a small piece of meat to a hungry wolf, unable to stop it.
Now it's like losing his wife and losing his troops...but that's not necessarily the case. After all, if they don't make concessions on the Japanese issue, I'm afraid a direct conflict will have broken out before.
Just as the emperor thought, the shrewd British responded quickly.
At the Prime Minister's residence in Downing Street, after several meetings over two days, ministers reached a new consensus on the situation in the Far East.
Malaya and Borneo were indeed very important to the British Empire, but the overall strategy still had to give priority to Europe.
Based on this, the British side has been striving to stabilize the situation in the Far East at the minimum cost. It will not increase troops if possible and focus its main energy on Europe.
After all, the military power and economy of the British Empire are far from being as proud as before, and there must be priorities.
But now, a series of actions by the Ming Dynasty forced the British to adjust their strategy, strengthen the defense of the Far East, and take the increasingly strong threat seriously.
In addition to actively contacting the Americans, the British immediately began to consider deploying a new fleet.
Historically, as the threat from Japan became apparent, Britain decided to deploy Fleet Z before the outbreak of the Pacific War and stay in Trincomalee (Sri Lanka Island) to deter Japan.
The original plan was to send a large fleet consisting of Repulse, Renown, Prince of Wales, Duke of York, and several Revenge-class battleships, including the aircraft carriers Illustrious and Ark Royal.
But later there was interference from Cigar Fat Man - since the German Bismarck can contain half of the Royal Navy's home fleet, what's the problem with a George V now containing the Japanese fleet?
So as we all know, the tragedy of Fleet Z was inevitable in the end.
But now, because the time is earlier and the Royal Navy also pays more attention to the Ming Navy and does not dare to be disrespectful, it has a very core positioning for the planned fleet-the Z fleet is an existing fleet.
Before the war breaks out, this fleet can intimidate the Ming Dynasty and make the Ming Dynasty think twice.
After the war breaks out, this fleet can contain the main force of the Ming Navy's Nanyang Fleet.
If your own side is at a disadvantage, you can flexibly leave the port and retreat westward to Sri Lanka, retreat to the Indu Ocean, and wait for opportunities to attack the Ming Navy.
Compared with the British who decisively chose other methods, the French continued to argue with the Ming court.
They threatened Ming Dynasty with a batch of high-precision machine tools and a heavy machinery production line that had not yet been delivered, and demanded that Ming Dynasty must stop exports to Germany, otherwise they would intercept any Ming Dynasty merchant ships entering the Mediterranean carrying strategic resources.
The imperial court naturally ignored it. If he relented, wouldn't it mean that he had admitted that he was indeed exporting resources to Germany?
The French government forcibly detained hundreds of special machine tools and heavy machinery production lines ordered by Ming Dynasty enterprises. The Mediterranean Fleet was ordered to intercept and inspect any Ming Dynasty merchant ships passing through the Suez Canal. Once they are found to be loaded with tungsten, nickel, molybdenum, rubber and other resources, they will Detained to Beirut.
While condemning the French slander, the imperial court began to freeze the assets of some French companies in the Ming Dynasty.
The two sides fought one after another in a stalemate.
Normally, this would have been a hot news item that would attract a lot of attention, but now it has been overshadowed by another blockbuster news from Ming Dynasty.
On the morning of the fifth day of August, the Sun and Moon Society announced the news of Zhu Lizheng's death, causing an uproar across the country.
Subsequently, the imperial court announced that all government offices in the country must fly flags at half-mast in mourning for ten days; the Zongren Mansion required all royal families to fast for three days, and those who violated the rules were severely punished.
"Oh my god! Wasn't the prince fine a few days ago? Why did he suddenly... die?"
It was early in the morning. Xia Xiaoshi had just prepared breakfast and was about to dine with Zhou Changfeng when she was shocked by the tragic news coming from the radio.
Zhou Changfeng on the side looked normal, just looked at her calmly, and then sighed softly.
"Sir, why are you so calm? Did you know this before?"
Zhou Changfeng said "hmm" while peeling the salted duck eggs without saying much.
Xia Xiaoshi did not inquire further in this regard, but asked alone: "His Majesty is quite old now, so who will inherit the throne in the future? I remember that there seems to be a prince?"
In fact, the outside world still doesn't know that the emperor walked away from the gate of hell. His physical condition is not as good as before, and he has even been preparing for his abdication for several days.
"Yes, there is a little prince," Zhou Changfeng nodded and then shook his head, "but... it's not him."
Xia Xiaoshi, who was scooping out porridge with a spoon, became even more confused when she heard this, "Sir... are you... kidding?"
(End of chapter)
