Although the Dutch claimed that they had lost only two wooden battleships, the reality was not the case. At least three of the seven frigates were damaged, but they did not sink in the naval battle, including the flagships North Holland, Zelan and Udrecht.

These three warships have one common feature, that is, they are wooden iron-clad ships. In essence, they just hang armor on the wooden warships and install steam power. After the impact, the keels and ribs of the three warships were damaged to varying degrees. The Udrecht almost sank and finally stranded on the Portuguese coast.

After inspection, the three warships thought they were no longer suitable for service. In the end, the Dutch Navy chose to rebuild them. However, if they rebuild again, they could not use wooden hulls. Instead, they directly adopted the same wrought iron hulls as the latter four. However, until the end of the war, the three warships were not launched.

Although the losses were quite large, the winner must belong to the Grand Alliance. The reason is very simple. Just five days after the end of the Battle of Gibraltar, Portugal announced his joining the Grand Alliance and declared war on France. Within one month, Sweden declared war on France.

But there are also differences between the two countries. Portugal joined the Grand Alliance to declare war on France, while Sweden only declared war on France and did not join the Grand Alliance.

The reason for this is that the Grand Alliance urgently needs the Swedish navy. After having the Swedish navy, the Grand Alliance has an absolute advantage, but the Grand Alliance is unwilling to be enemies with France, Poland and Saxony. For Sweden, at present, the naval warships have no effect on Poland and Saxony and Russia. They can only be used as transport ships, and it is better to hand them over to the Netherlands.

Therefore, Sweden declared war on France, but only formed an alliance with the Netherlands and took out its own navy to form a joint fleet of the Netherlands and Rui. Not only did the Netherlands bear all the expenses, but it could also obtain war financing from the Amsterdam financial market, and both sides benefited from their own benefits.

The result of the Battle of Gibraltar was not a good thing for the Empire. The Great Alliance side obtained the sea control power, and the balance of the war once again tilted towards the Great Alliance side. Moreover, whether it was Prussia and the Netherlands jointly promoted the second glorious revolution in Britain, or Portugal secretly agreed to join the Great Alliance after the naval battle, or even Sweden used the navy to exchange for financial support and declared war on France, it was not in the Empire's plan. The Empire began to secretly unite in Europe, and did its own thing without hiding the Empire.

Some of these strategies are to harm the interests of the empire. More importantly, the strategic balance between the two alliances is broken and the Spanish war on the throne may end in the short term.

This is true. After the Battle of Gibraltar, France proposed a ceasefire peace talks with the Grand Alliance. Although the parties to the Grand Alliance accepted it, France absolutely cannot accept it in terms of terms. One of the ones was that Philip V had to abdicate.

On the other hand, the Netherlands and Britain, without telling the Empire and Portugal, actually had the idea of ​​Gibraltar. The Netherlands provided the Navy and the United Kingdom provided the Army to blitz into Gibraltar. Fortunately, the Dutch Navy used four Swedish ironclad ships, and the Swedish generals passed the news to the Empire.

So the Rock Plan was launched. First, the Consul of the Cossack Republic in Ceuta declared war on France and Spain on behalf of the Cossack Republic on behalf of the Cossack Republic, on the grounds that its merchant ships were attacked and invaded, which affected the interests of the Cossack Republic as a neutral country. After declaring war, they immediately sent troops from Ceuta and occupied Gibraltar.

Although the Rock Plan guaranteed the strategic interests of the Empire to dominate the Strait of Gibraltar, it inevitably caused the strategic balance to tilt again. Especially in France, the response is obvious. Today, France relies almost entirely on national debt income for war expenses. After Gibraltar was occupied, France's national debt income plummeted.

The reason is very simple. Everyone knows that the Caucasus regiment attacking France started from Ceuta, so one rumor is that the fall of Gibraltar is the prelude to China's entry into the war. Although this is just a rumor, it can already hit the confidence of the French on a large scale.

The direct result of the reduction in government bond income for a period of time was the bankruptcy of France. Although the Kingdom of Spain quickly replenished a fiscal revenue to fill the gap, it was too late. France borrowed new debts to pay off old debts, and investors' confidence in the French government was once again frustrated.

This series of chain reactions is over. The money added to France by the Kingdom of Spain did not come from its own finances, but by Spain's loans from the empire.

After the end of the Battle of Gibraltar, Li Junwei felt that the war balance changed rapidly. In order to maintain the balance of strategic forces, Li Junwei decided to accept the request of France and the Western countries to provide loans to the two countries. However, the problem was that the French themselves were financially bankrupt, and only Haiti in the West Indies was left in the overseas colonies. They were still in danger and could not provide decent collateral.

After the emergency consultations between the three countries, the plan was determined to lend 15 million imperial silver dollars from the Imperial Bank with the customs income of the American colonies as collateral, which was the income controlled by the empire, which was equivalent to Spain's fiscal revenue for one year.

How to spend the money depends on how Louis XIV and Philip V, the grandson, discussed it.

Most of this loan was turned into war materials in Ceuta and Xizin. Various types of guns and ammunition were sent to France and Spain, which eased the decline of the two countries in the war to a certain extent, but this triggered a new round of chain reaction, that is, the Grand Alliance believed that the empire had destroyed its neutral position and provided war loans to hostile countries.

Of course, when the Grand Alliance knew, the money had already been in place and the materials had arrived in Hong Kong one after another, so it was too late to destroy this loan. Therefore, the countries of the Grand Alliance, especially the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Austria, proposed that in order to maintain the neutral position of the Empire, the Empire should provide loans to the Grand Alliance.

This is a reasonable requirement. After all, compared with France, Spain, the Netherlands, Prussia and Portugal in the Grand Alliance, which have always been hostile to the empire, the problem is that the loan of 15 million silver dollars was a decision made by Li Junwei based on strategic balance. If he provides loans to the Grand Alliance, he will destroy this balance.

For the empire, the war in Europe would be better ended in a way that both sides suffered losses and maintain a balance of power, just like the war of the Grand Alliance.

However, an accident destroyed Li Junwei's control of the situation in Europe. On April 15, 39, the empire, a notice ship sailed from Xijin into the port of Ceuta. Pei Yuanqi, the highest executive of Xijin, brought a bad news - a shocking change in the royal family.

The wired telegram between Xijin and Shenjing was completed in June of the 38th year of the empire. After that, the direct information exchanges between Ceuta and Shenjing were transferred from Xijin, so Pei Yuanqi could know the news from Shenjing earlier than Li Junwei.

The thirty-nine years of the empire were extremely sad for the people of the empire. Starting from April 5, bad news from the royal family came one after another. First, the only prince of the empire, Li Zhaoji, died of illness, and then the emperor's only concubine, Concubine Rong. On April 10, the empire's empire and the former Ming princess passed away.

Within half a month, three royal members who were loved by the imperial subjects died in succession, causing a heavy blow to the royal family and the entire empire. The bad news of all this originated from a dog.

"I fucking know that something will happen sooner or later!"

In the Yu King's camp in Ceuta, after learning the truth, Li Junwei angrily smashed everything in front of him, and roared with such a sentence with anger that he had never seen in his life.

Because as early as the year when Li Zhaoji was born, Li Junwei returned from overseas and saw that there were many cats and dogs in the harem. This was the change brought to the royal family by Concubine Rong's personal hobbies.

Since the time of Emperor Li Mingxun, the royal family has also raised dogs, but most of them are hunting dogs. They are kept with war horses on weekdays, but there is no companion dog around them. But Concubine Rong changed all this, but who can say what? Concubine Rong gave birth to a son for the emperor and gave birth to a successor to the throne.

It was also from that time that the royal princesses, princes and even some noble families enjoyed raising dogs, so raising dogs became the atmosphere of the upper class of the empire. Communication between the powerful class, especially women, is inseparable from the participation of their beloved dogs.

When Li Zhaoji was four years old, he had his first puppy and had always been with his beloved dogs. At that time, Li Junwei was worried that the prince was a woman from the deep palace and was arrogant. When he took Li Zhaoji north alone, the one Li Zhaoji could not let go of was his beloved dogs.

The once arrogant and rude prince was educated by Li Junwei with a sense of sympathy and justice, but this dog-loving hobby has never been changed. But no one expected that Li Zhaoji would suffer from rabies.

This incurable disease ultimately killed the young talent. In the early years, Li Junwei proposed not to raise dogs in the palace, and also mentioned rabies, but none of them worked. Such a trivial matter was naturally not as effective as Rong Fei's pillow for the emperor.

When Li Zhaoji died of rabies, Concubine Rong was heartbroken and regretted it because she had rejected Prince Yu's kindness back then. Fortunately, she was joking behind her back several times and quarreled with the emperor. She couldn't think about it for a moment and was so angry that she was so angry.

The empress dowager made the emperor's children prolong their lives after many years of planning. Her sudden death was not yet grown, which made her extremely sad. What made her even more painful was that the puppy that bit her grandson was a birthday gift she chose to give her after she chose, but she did not think that it would become a deadly thing.

The Empress Dowager was already old and was extremely sad and eventually died of palpitations.

The departure of the three relatives made Li Junwei extremely uncomfortable. Although he was not the Queen Mother's biological son, the Queen Mother loved him as much as his biological mother. Although Li Zhaoji was a nephew, he was also one of his favorite children. Even Concubine Rong and the emperor were the matchmaker who was Li Junwei.

But sad things are just minor details. The real big thing is that Li Zhaoji is the emperor's only son, and his departure means that the emperor has lost his only heir. Although Li Junhua himself has never regarded Li Zhaoji as the only one, only a few people know this kind of thinking. At least in the eyes of the world, the emperor's descendants are cut off and the country is unstable.

Whether it is family affairs or state affairs, Li Junwei must return to the empire. He asked Pei Yuanqi to temporarily take charge of Ceuta and ordered Li Su, the King of Rong who was still in Panama, to take over and take charge of overseas affairs. He cleaned up a little, took the notice ship, and immediately set off for the country.

The notification ship named after the Blue Bird is a three-masted fly-scissor ship, equipped with steam power. It can reach twenty-two knots when the wind is at its most abundant, and when the wind is insufficient, it can reach eighteen knots when it is turned on and sailing all the way. Even in Port Said and Gibraltar, Li Junwei did not get off the ship. It took thirty-four days to return to Shenjing.

Li Junwei returned to Shenjing, went to see his father, brother, mother, and sister-in-law. He didn't say anything like "I knew something would happen if I had raised a dog." He did not comfort these relatives, because he was also extremely sad.

He just stayed by their side, worked with the emperor, played chess with his father, and ate the food made by his mother and sister-in-law. Time can erase the pain, but not for a short time.

Li Mingxun lost his wife when he was old and his grandson died. He became a little slow. He usually likes to joke and says little now. The emperor devoted all his energy to work. Although he was only forty-six years old, his gray hair was increasing day by day, and he looked much older.

The entire palace was lifeless, and the children did not dare to play and laugh, and all suppressed themselves. Originally, all the children in Prince Yu's mansion lived in the palace, and now, including the emperor's daughters, have temporarily lived in the palace.

Li Zhaoji is not a perfect child. He was naughty and arrogant when he was a child. He changed his temperament after being educated by Li Junwei. After that, he became much closer to his brothers and sisters. He no longer thought that he was a special prince, and he became studious and motivated. His departure brought too much sadness to those who love him. Perhaps some people could never get out of this sadness again.

One day in June, after completing official duties in the Imperial Study Room, as the cabinet ministers dispersed, Li Junhua got up, ate some food with Li Junwei, and then took his brothers to Fengxian Hall.

All the tablets sacrificed in Fengxian Hall were fabricated by Li Mingxun, and only Li Junwei knew this secret. After the two of them burned incense together, Li Junhua took out a volume of imperial decree enshrined on the stage and handed it to Li Junwei.

This is the imperial edict of the imperial throne inheritance and the measure to secretly negotiate the reserve.

However, opening the imperial edict is not the will to pass the throne to the prince, but to show that if the emperor passes away unexpectedly, the Supreme Emperor Li Mingxun will be appointed as the one who succeeds the throne. And at the end of the imperial edict, King Yu, King Cheng and King Cheng have the right to constituent. If the Supreme Emperor makes a great progress, the person who is positioned will be determined by the order of the three kings.

"Although Zhaoji was buried with the ritual of the prince, I never wanted him to be the successor." Li Junhua sat cross-legged on the cushion and told his brothers plainly about his thoughts.

"Zhaoji has gone, he is a good boy."

"Yes, it's just that his short life has been to show the potential of being a good emperor." Li Junhua said.
Chapter completed!