In the United States, calls for the Chinese Concession District have been rising and falling.

The Grant dictatorial government deliberately guided American public opinion to divert domestic conflicts in order to enhance people's ability to resist the Chinese Empire.

It can be said that Grant has been planning for world hegemony, and his ambitions have expanded, otherwise he would not have launched a military coup.

A dictator's regime has a great hatred for the Chinese Empire and the country is in the stage of imperialist expansion, and the result will inevitably be that the entire country will embark on the Nazist path.

With the total economic and industrial strength of the United States, once we embark on the Nazi path, it will have a profound impact on the future of the world.

In Newport, Rhode Island, Lieutenant General Shi Dakai, the new governor of the Chinese Empire, was ordered to arrive here and take over military and political power.

Before leaving, Shi Dakai was summoned by Li Weiguo and Wu Yong, and was given face-to-face advice and informed him about the strategic importance of Rhode Island and the risks that he would encounter as the governor of Rhode Island.

Shi Dakai happily accepted the order and accepted it without any complaints.

More than twenty years have passed since the fall of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. Shi Dakai has also become a self-taught genius general. After ten years of military academy career, he finally fully combined practical combat with theory, and his military command and combat capabilities have been qualitatively improved.

In more than a dozen large-scale army annual military exercises by the Shence Army of the Chinese Empire, Shi Dakai became the most dazzling and victorious general among the Shence Army with outstanding achievements.

Li Weiguo and Wu Yong thought for a long time and finally appointed Shi Dakai as the governor of Rhode Island. They also hope that Shi Dakai could hold on to the strategic location of Rhode Island, threatening the most prosperous cities in America such as New York and Washington, and restraining the American army, so that they dare not leave their homeland easily and devote themselves to the war against the Chinese Empire in the Far East.

Shi Dakai was well versed in military tactics and of course understood the strategic importance of Rhode Island, so he issued a military order to defend Rhode Island at all costs.

Li Weiguo and Wu Yong both gave high praise to Shi Dakai's ability, so I believe he can do it.

In the military and political aspects of Rhode Island, Li Weiguo directly granted Shi Dakai the right to envoy the imperial envoy, and the Duzhi Department provided full support to provide Shi Dakai with the most powerful and advanced weapons and equipment and combat preparation materials.

At this moment, standing in the Newport Military Harbor tower, through the glass window, Shi Dakai compared the contour combat map in his hand and chose a reasonable location to establish the fortifications.

Next to him was Chen Yucheng, a powerful Taiping Army general who had died several times and miraculously survived, was transferred back to Rhode Island and served as an assistant to Shi Dakai. The two were old friends, so it was much more convenient to cooperate.

"The entire Rhode Island is divided into four large islands and six small islands. Among them, there are only three large islands that can be stationed in division-level forces, which are just triangles. The focus of our defense is Newport, Portsmouth, Middletown and Jamestown. Among them, Newport has a complete naval shipbuilding industry system, which is the top priority of defense."

Chen Yucheng pointed to the exit location of Newport Port and said: "Newport Port is surrounded by three large islands in the middle. There are one or two islands in the sea between each of the three large islands. On it, it will be built with permanent artillery fortifications, which will serve as a link to cover the two large islands on the left and right, and can also block enemy ships and submarines into the Newport Port channel."

Shi Dakai nodded and said, "That's true. The locations of these large islands and small islands are really wonderful. For the defense side, the conditions are unique and comparable to the pass that can only be opened by a man."

Chen Yucheng smiled and said, "I thought there was only one island in Rhode Island, which would be very difficult to defend. Now it seems that these three large islands here are just triangles, building three fortresses, and the artillery supports each other. Adding to the surrounding islands, there are a small number of troops on it, blocking the sea surface, connecting several floating bridges, and then laying water radium, this will be much easier to defend. Only the elite divisions of the three towns of the Shence Army are enough to defend here."

Shi Dakai shook his head and said, "You are too naive to think! But you have ignored Portsmouth, northeast of the main island of Rhode Island, which is less than 2 kilometers away from the Tiffon coastline of the United States. The US artillery shells easily strike from the other side, which is the most dangerous place. If I were the commander of the US military, I would definitely choose to land on the beach. With the fastest landing craft, the infantry can be sent ashore in five minutes, and it will become a place of hard fighting."

Chen Yucheng was stunned and then realized that the northeastern end of Rhode Island was indeed very close to the American continent, with an average of only a few kilometers of sea surface. Just now, he was only concerned about observing the mutual support of the three large islands, but he ignored that the entire Rhode Island was surrounded by the American continent.

Hey!

Chen Yucheng suddenly exclaimed and pointed to the combat map and said, "General, look at the contour line. Although the northeast of Rhode Island is too close to the American continent, the contour line is very low, which means there is a depression there!"

depression?

Shi Dakai's eyes lit up immediately. He hurriedly checked the contour lines and found that there was a large depression there.

"That's great! Let's go and take a look!"

Shi Dakai and Chen Yucheng and his group hurriedly arrived near the northeast coastline of Rhode Island by military vehicle. Standing on a small high ground, Shi Dakai was immediately happy.

"What a depression!"

"Yes! Although it is very close to the American continent, this depression is enough to drag down the US troops in a rapid attack!"

During land warfare, depressions are the worst places because the terrain is low and they are easily flooded by the enemy, causing a significant decrease in mobility.

For the defenders, if the US military launches a rapid landing from the other shore, even if their landing craft can pass the strait within five minutes, they cannot pass through this depression, and the infantry can only get down and walk out of this depression area that lasts several kilometers.

During this period, infantrymen were unable to walk in depressions and were most likely to be hit by fire from defenders.

"That's great. There is a small highland here. Blockade artillery and heavy machine guns are deployed here, and the firepower is enough to block this depression!"

Shi Dakai immediately breathed a sigh of relief and solved another key defense problem.

Without further ado, Shi Dakai and Chen Yucheng discussed it and immediately started construction of the entire Rhode Island Fortress defense system.

Among them, Rhode Island's main island has the largest area and a relatively long terrain. There are three large cities that need defense. Therefore, Shidakai built a large fortification on each of the north and south sides.

Fortress No. 1, also the most important fortress, focuses on defending the two major cities of Newport and Middletown, protecting the naval bases of the Chinese Emperor**, as well as various industrial facilities such as shipyards.

Fortress No. 1 faces the North Atlantic Ocean and is built along a hillside with an altitude of 4,060 meters near the coastline. The hillside is 24 kilometers away from the coastline. It is mainly to prevent the US military from bombarding with large-caliber heavy artillery from naval battleships from sea.

There are turrets within 40 kilometers along the line, with a total of 18. Each turret is 14 kilometers away from Newport or Middletown, and the distance between the turrets is 6 kilometers. These 18 turrets radially surround the coastline around the southern part of Rhode Island, forming a large fan-shaped firepower network facing the Atlantic Ocean.

Each turret is made of reinforced concrete, wrapped in a layer of 120 mm thick special steel armor. Most of them are built underground and only reveal the flat triangle-shaped top.

All the weapons and personnel of the turret are hidden underground, with a total of 500 cannons and 1,200 heavy machine guns. On average, each turret has 9 105mm war defense cannons, 9 155mm cannons, and 9 280mm heavy howitzers. All turrets are protected by steel armor, which can rotate at 360 degrees and can be automatically lifted and lowered.

The turret is also equipped with searchlights for night shooting, which can be lifted and lowered like the turret, and is equipped with a heavy machine gun and flamethrower, which blocks the wilderness around the turret and nearby blind spots.

Below the fort, there are well-connected passages and various basements, which store a large amount of food, drinking water, ammunition, medical supplies, power supply facilities, equipment and accessories for repairing weapons.

There are also deep protective trenches dug around each turret, and there are a large number of barbed wire mesh, obstacles, and ground radium on the outside.

The Chinese Empire Shen Ce Army guarding each fortress generally consists of 3 artillery companies and 1 reinforced infantry company, with a total of 800 people.

There are also cement roads built in the wilderness between the various forts for mobile reinforcements by motorized infantry in the Shence Army of the Chinese Empire.

Fortress No. 1 is the focus of defense. Shi Dakai deployed a reorganized town and a mixed motorized infantry brigade here, with about 50,000 people.

In Fort No. 2, north of Rhode Island, the overall defense plan is similar to Fort No. 1. Due to geographical restrictions, the scale is only 12 forts and about 80,000 people are stationed.

In addition, Fortress No. 3 was built on Jamestown Island, with a scale of 16 fortress fortress batteries and a deployment of 10,000 troops.

On Prudens Island, Fortress No. 4 was built. Since there were no people living on this island and no important facilities to protect, the defensive pressure was the smallest among the three islands. Only 12 fortress fortifications were built and 20,000 people were deployed.

In addition, there are several central islands between the three large islands, and Shi Dakai also built permanent fortifications on it. Because there are only one or two turrets under the local area, and there are not many defenders. They are only used to block the waters between the three large islands and prevent the enemy from infiltration from the rear waters.

In addition, more than 30 floating bridges are connected between the three large islands. Shi Dakai specially applied to the Ministry of War to transfer three mechanized infantry regiments of the Dragon Cavalry Regiment to garrison. When the enemy attacks any large island, the other two large islands can use the floating bridge for rapid reinforcements at any time.

Shi Dakai's report was quickly posted to the Forbidden City. Li Weiguo only took ten minutes to approve the construction plan for the Rhode Island Fortress Defense System.

Soon, a large number of material resources used to build the fortresses were continuously transported to Rhode Island. Along with them were the 100,000 Shen Ce Army of the Empire, who would train and help build the fortifications of the Rhode Island Fortress.

Shi Dakai has also been fully authorized and sufficient funds to force all residents in Rhode Island to speed up the construction of fortifications.

The US military conducted a large-scale military exercise in Tiffon, and the shells even landed in Mount Hope Bay, only a few kilometers away from Rhode Island.

This is a pure military provocation. The Chinese Empire protested solemnly through diplomatic channels, and on the other hand, it notified Shi Dakai to strengthen his vigilance and guard against the US military's sneak attack on Rhode Island.

This incident attracted high attention from Li Weiguo and the senior leaders of the Chinese Empire, and also clearly felt the attitude of the Grant dictatorial government towards China. I am afraid that the war is not far away.

In dealing with America, Li Weiguo did not adopt a strategy of eroding step by step, because America is different from England. The Chinese Empire eroded England, and England could choose not to resist the policy, because what was eroded was just the overseas colonies of the British Empire. Although it was unhappy for the people of the British Empire, it would not be a desperate attempt to fight the Chinese Empire.

But America has no colonies. If Li Weiguo used the tactics against England to deal with America, the effect would be the opposite. America would definitely launch a powerful anti-China movement and even directly broke out wars.

At least until the Rhode Island Fortress was completed, Li Weiguo did not want a war to break out with the United States.

If possible, Li Weiguo hopes that America will continue to compete with the Chinese Empire in arms. Only in this way can America invest more manpower, material resources and financial resources, and the future losses will be heavier.

To be precise, Li Weiguo hopes that the United States will continue to build expensive battleships and battleships. These battleships will quickly consume all the national strength of the United States. One day in the future, Li Wei will use the battleships and battleships of the Chinese Empire to defeat the American navy. Even if the worst result is encountered, it doesn’t matter, because Li Weiguo has a killer weapon, such as if he had no choice, he can also use aircraft carriers in advance, or even develop nuclear weapons in advance, etc.

Shi Dakai from Rhode Island was very nervous. He was not afraid of war, but he didn't want to start fighting before he was ready.

So he dispatched the only two heavy cruisers deployed in Newport Naval Base, the Holland and the Sunshine, to cruise in Mount Hope Bay.

Shi Dakai's original intention was to monitor the American Navy's military exercises and prevent the enemy from taking advantage of the exercises to suddenly attack Rhode Island.

However, Shi Dakai ignored the contradictions between the navy and the army. Since the founding of the Chinese Empire, the navy has almost achieved decisive victory in the face of the five Sino-British wars. Now, the navy has won more than 10 million square kilometers of overseas territory, and the navy has made great contributions.

Therefore, the Navy considers itself the boss and never looks down on the Army.

However, Rhode Island appointed a lieutenant general as governor, and was able to cross the Navy headquarters and directly command the naval fleet stationed in Rhode Island, which made the two captains of the Heyue and Xiyue very unhappy.

Inside the bridge of the Heyue heavy cruiser, Captain Fang Boqian was complaining.

"I thought Shi Dakai had a lot of cows, but it turned out that he just built Rhode Island into a turtle shell!"

Every time Fang Boqian said something, the commander next to him recorded it and transferred it to the telegrapher in the telecommunications room, and then sent it to the captain Xiyue not far away by using a wireless telegraph.

Soon, Captain Xiyue replied to a telegram.

"Shi Dakai is afraid of doing an exercise for the Americans. Don't you have to ask our Navy to come forward?"

Fang Boqian immediately called: "I said Fu Zhong, we have to let the army see. As long as our Chinese Empire navy appears, the navies of other countries have to retreat!"

"What do you mean?"

"We are the Chinese Navy, the world's maritime overlord. Do we need patrol and surveillance to conduct military exercises? That's too underestimated us! If I ask me, how about we break into the exercise area of ​​the American Navy?"

"Damn, you're crazy! Be careful that the American Navy will open fire! There are more than 100 battleships and more than a dozen battleships in their exercise area!"

"You are afraid! If you admit defeat, you will put your team on the battlefield and see me train the American Navy!"

"Fuck! You crazy man! How can you lose such a hooligan? Brother me!"

Fang Boqian was immediately happy. After coordinating with Fu Zhong, he immediately issued an order to force the American naval exercise area.

In the American naval exercise area, the USS Missouri battleship was conducting live-fire exercises. The gun aiming staff suddenly shouted in horror: "Look, it's a warship of the Chinese Empire!"

For a moment, the American Navy was in chaos!

President Grant, who was giving lectures to the American naval officers and soldiers, was stunned when he received the news.

Damn, what's going to make a fuss!

To be continued.
Chapter completed!