The young emperor took another long sip of his tea, then reached for another document before him. This concerned the security of the Paracel islands and the Pratas island, know to the Great Qing Empire as the Xisha islands and Tungsha island respectively. They were little more then collections of sand, coral and rock. In and of themselves, they were hardly very attractive or even valuable territory, unless one considered their relative positions in the South China Sea, then they became very important as outposts for both military and commercial purposes for whatever power possessed them.
The French had, in point of fact, made serious attempts to seize these islands during the Sino-French War of 1884-85, though they had been sufficiently fortified and garrisoned by both the Ming and Qing Dynasties over the last two centuries to fend off any attempt to take them short of a full scale invasion. The French Marine Nationale squadrons based in French Indo-China had not been able to attempt this given their considerable committments to operations in the Gulf of Tonkin, the invasion of the island of Hainan and their wide-ranging coastal or airel bombardments of the provinces of Zhejiang, Fujian, Guangdong, Guangxi and Yunnan. French naval deployments had been further constrained by their intensive efforts to contain or bring to action, the two southern most of the four seagoing Qing Imperial Fleets, the Fukien and Kwangtung Fleets and the Vampire Riverine Fleet which had acted in a supporting coastal defense role during the war.
That was not to say, that the French had not tried to take them, even with limited forces. Both islands had been heavily bombarded by air and by sea, several times during the war, to try rendering them unusable by Qing Naval forces. Two serious attempts to take the Xisha Islands had been mounted although both failed by the narrowest of margins. While at least one attempt had been made on Tungsha island, which had ended in complete disaster for the French.
When the next Sino-French War came, the French would make a much more practical effort to seize the Xisha and Tungsha islands to secure their naval flank against operations by the rebuilt Fukien and Kwangtung fleets (which had both been largely destroyed by the French during the 1884-85 war). This, it was felt by the Qing Imperial Admiralty and by both Qing military and diplomatic intelligence services, would be the French naval prelude to actually going to war. Whether the French military forces in Indo-China would then turn their main effort to invading Laos and Siam or against China, was hotly debated however.
Few believed that the French would be mad or arrogant enough to attempt offensive wars against both Siam, Laos and China at the same time. It was reasonable to assume that they would go on the offensive on a single front rather then three, while holding to the defensive on the others. Once, the offensive front had been decided satisfactorially, then and only then, would the French assume an offensive posture on the defensive fronts. The prevailing wisdom in both Siam and Laos and in the Qing Empire, was the French would strike on their western front first and concentrate it's initial effort on Laos (if the current French diplomatic efforts to force a protectorate upon Laos failed) and render the kingdom hors de combat as the French military expression went, as quickly as possible before China or Siam had time to intervene.
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