In this way, all warships were organized into five sub-fleets, and in addition to the commander of the sub-fleet, the captains of each warship and the main management officers were all soldiers who had crossed the fleet, but there was no commander-in-chief of the fleet for the time being.

It is also in line with the practice of various countries that two or more detachments are carrying out tasks at the same time, and the commander of the detachment with the highest rank is the commander of the provisional fleet, and if the commander of the detachment has the same rank, the commander of the detachment with the highest rank is the commander of the provisional fleet. In the event of a battle, a mixed fleet needs to be formed, and the command of the Navy specifically assigns the person to the commander-in-chief of the fleet.

In addition to the summary report, the naval command also put forward a five-year shipbuilding plan.

The construction of the navy is a long-term process, and in the old time and space, there has always been a saying that the army will be 10 years, the air force will be 50 years, and the navy will be 100 years.

Although the scale of the People's Army Navy is still considerable, there are not many cutting-edge warships, and most of the warships are basically backward, of course, there are still five modern warships to rely on, but due to the limited logistics support capacity of this era, these five modern warships can only last until about 1910 at most, and during this time, the traverser must build a new fleet of a certain size to ensure that after the five traversal warships are decommissioned, they still have the ability to defend their territorial waters. Then from now on, it is necessary to start your own shipbuilding program.

The five-year shipbuilding plan developed by the command of the Navy is:

In 1902-1903, four large 6,000-ton protective cruisers, two 7,000-ton medium armored cruisers, two 3,000-ton small protective cruisers, and four 1,000-ton destroyers were built, all of which were to be completed by 1904.

In 1903-1904, two large armored cruisers of 10,000 tons, two large protective cruisers of 6,000 tons, two small protective cruisers of 3,000 tons, and four destroyers of 1,000 tons were to be built, all of which were to be completed by 1905.

In 1904-1905, two 12,000-ton battleships, two 3,000-ton small protective cruisers, and four 1,000-ton destroyers were built, all of which were to be completed by 1907.

In five years, a total of 2 battleships, 2 large armored cruisers, 2 medium armored cruisers, 6 large protective cruisers, 6 small protective cruisers of 3,000 tons, 12 destroyers, a total of 30 warships of various types, with a tonnage of about 110,000 tons and a total cost of about 90 million silver. In addition, during this five-year period, the construction of 4-8 technical verification submarines will be considered, which will also be included in the shipbuilding plan.

Moreover, there is a characteristic of this shipbuilding plan, that is, from easy to difficult, it is not to build the most technically difficult battleship at the beginning, but to start with relatively simple large protective cruisers, then build large and medium-sized armored cruisers, and finally build battleships, so that it is gradual and in line with the current shipbuilding technology level of the East China government.

Now the East China government is in Qingdao, Tianjin has two shipyards, the first phase of the shipyard construction has been completed, all kinds of shipbuilding machinery and equipment have been put in place, and Qingdao shipyard has built a 170 meters long, 35 meters wide extra-large dock, in this era, such a large dock can build 20,000 tons of super large battleships, of course, now the technical level of the traverser, certainly can not build 20,000 tons of battleships, in fact, the largest warship at this time is only 16,000 tons, so the actual purpose of this dock is to allow the largest Kunming ship to be docked for maintenance, although the Kunming ship is only a 7,000-ton warship, but the length of the ship is 156 meters, 19 meters wide, had to use such a large dock. And the Tianjin shipyard did not build this large dock.

However, the 6,000-ton large protective cruiser does not necessarily have to be built in the dock, it can be built on the slipway before being launched, and now the two shipyards in Qingdao and Tianjin have the slipway to build a 6,000-ton large protective cruiser. Therefore, at least theoretically, the two shipyards in Qingdao and Tianjin have the technical ability to build such warships.

The disadvantage is that the traverser currently lacks practical experience in building warships, as well as a shortage of qualified shipbuilders. Although in the early repair of warships, the traverser has also accumulated a certain amount of experience and trained some shipbuilders, after all, there is a big difference between repairing warships and building warships, in addition, such as ship engines, boilers, large-caliber naval guns, *, armored steel plates and other materials and accessories for construction, traversers do not have, so strictly speaking, traversers do not have the ability to build warships independently.

In the face of such a practical situation, the Navy Command Military Department believes that it is possible to adopt the method of introducing foreign technology, that is, to cooperate with foreign countries, such as the four 6,000-ton large protective cruisers planned to be built in 1902-1903, and the traverser can provide design drawings and performance data, order and build two ships abroad, and the traverser will send someone to supervise them, so as to learn from the construction management experience of building ships. Then, a small number of shipbuilding management personnel and skilled workers from abroad will be promoted to build two ships in China, so as to accumulate their own experience in shipbuilding and train their own shipbuilders; and under the premise that their performance will not be affected, they will be able to purchase materials and spare parts from China as much as possible in China, so as to save costs, and at the same time, other departments will work hard to tackle key problems and speed up the speed of localization. The same was true for subsequent armored cruisers and battleships.

As for the object of cooperation in building ships, the Navy Command Military Department believes that Germany is an ideal choice, because before that, the traverser had relatively good military-technical cooperation with Germany, so there is a certain basis for mutual trust, and in addition, the traverser can also provide some advanced military technology to the German side in order to improve its own bargaining chips; moreover, Germany's industrial manufacturing capacity is the strongest in this era, and it has also had good cooperation with China; most of the artillery of the Qing court and most of the warships of the Beiyang Naval Division were purchased from Germany. Of course, if the East China government's diplomacy is handled well, it is also possible to carry out technical cooperation with other countries.

If this shipbuilding project can be completed, it will not only greatly enhance the strength of the KPA Navy, but will also be able to fight against the Japanese Navy, which has completed the 66th Fleet. Moreover, it can also promote the rapid development of the shipbuilding industry of the East China government, which basically has the ability to build ships on its own, and at the same time can also promote the development of a large number of other related supporting industrial technologies.

After listening to Shang Jinfeng's introduction of this five-year shipbuilding plan, the first thing that attracted the attention of Xia Bohai, Qin Zheng, and Xiao Jianjun was not the technical level, nor the object of technical cooperation, but also the cost of the five-year shipbuilding plan. 90,000,000 taels of silver, of course, can be regarded as a huge amount of money in this era, and it has exceeded the current silver reserves of the East China government. Although this huge amount of money is to be used in five years, it is by no means a small amount, not to mention that the East China government also has a five-year development plan, and it still needs 70 million to 80 million taels of silver.

Of course, in the past five years, the East China government has not been without other revenues, but whether the existing fiscal revenues can support the completion of these two huge plans, the three of them have no bottom in their hearts.

Xiao Jianjun first asked: "To complete this five-year shipbuilding plan, it takes 90 million taels of silver, how is this figure calculated, I remember that the two warships of Dingyuan and Zhenyuan of the Beiyang Naval Division were only 1.4 million taels, even if the battleships and armored cruisers are definitely more expensive than Dingyuan and Zhenyuan, but like small protective cruisers, destroyers must be easy, and we calculate according to the average price of 1.4 million taels, which is more than 40 million, which is more than half easy." ”

From Xiao Jianjun's heart, of course, he hopes that this ship-building plan can be passed, but although Xiao Jianjun does not interfere in government affairs, he also knows that 90 million taels of silver is indeed a huge burden for the current East China government, and he is not like Japan who does not care about the national economy and people's livelihood, and only asks for military expenses, and knows that if the military expenditure is too large, it will not be a good thing for the development of the country, so he asked the question of cost in detail.

At this time, Qin Zheng said: "Lao Xiao, the account can't be calculated like this, first of all, 1.4 million taels is the original price, and after the final completion of the two warships of Dingyuan and Zhenyuan, there will be some additional costs, including various expenses for returning from Germany, totaling about 1.7 million taels of silver." And this is the exchange rate calculation at that time, the price of silver has been constantly falling, when ordering Dingyuan, Zhenyuan two warships, the ratio of silver to the British pound is about 3:1, and by the time of the Sino-Japanese War, it has dropped to 4:1, a decline of 25%, and in this era, the ratio of silver to the British pound has fallen to 6.1:1, compared with the Beiyang Navy when the army was formed, the decline has doubled, so calculated, the cost proposed by the navy is not outrageous. ”

Xiao Jianjun said: "It turns out that silver is so worthless, so it seems that in the old time and space, the [Xinchou Treaty] lost 430 million taels of silver, which is only more than 70 million pounds." ”

Qin Zheng nodded and said: "Yes, on the one hand, it is an international factor, during this period of time, the international currency has changed from the silver standard to the full standard, and it is not surprising that the depreciation of silver is not surprising; on the other hand, it is also because in order to plunder China's resources and wealth, countries also deliberately depreciate the value of silver, and the Qing court does not have its own perfect financial system to protect itself, so it has suffered a lot of losses in this regard." After the Franco-Prussian War, France's compensation to Germany, that is, Prussia at that time, reached 5 billion francs, and the exchange rate at this time was 1 franc or about 0.24 taels of silver, so 5 billion francs was almost 1.2 billion taels of silver, which was only 930 million more than the indemnity of the [Xinchou Treaty], and even if the silver was not depreciated, it was about 600 million silver, so the indemnity of the [Xinchou Treaty] was not too high in the international community. ”

This fashion Jinfeng said: "As for the funding of this ship-building plan, we have carefully estimated the detailed situation, and I want Major Huang Zhe's leaders to explain it carefully, because this is mainly calculated by him." ”

Xia Bohai nodded and said, "Yes." ”