"According to the information we have, we can be sure that the Chinese Empire is really moving this time, and they are indeed placing orders for building ships to major shipyards across the country. At present, we have detected that 20 shipyards, including Dalian, Tianjin, Yantai, Shanghai, Fuzhou, and Guangzhou, have respectively undertaken orders from the military, and are mobilizing a large number of materials and workers. ”

In London, in the Downing Street Parliament Hall, the British held an emergency meeting to discuss the implications of the Chinese Empire's move, while the British Navy clamored for an increase in the military and shipbuilding budget.

Thor is hard, the Chinese Empire allocated 66 million yuan at will, it's really rich! Equivalent to 330 million pounds at the moment, this is a huge amount of money, which makes the British Empire shocked, envious and jealous.

Today's British Empire, the economy tossed by the Chinese Empire is very weak, the pound has depreciated sharply, although the exchange rate of the RMB has recovered from 10 to 1 five years ago to 5 to 1 today, on the surface it seems that the British economy is recovering quickly, only Saul himself knows in his heart that he has done his best, and if you want to restore the pound to the same status as the RMB, it is almost impossible, at least the current British economic strength, do not want to achieve it in ten years.

Now, the British Imperial Navy has been seriously stimulated, and the government is asking for funding to deal with the new round of shipbuilding pressure in the Chinese Empire.

It's just that Thor has no money, in the past five years, 10 main battleships have been built, more than 30 cruisers and frigates, and more than 100 submarines have been built, which has cost a lot of finance, and even so, it is impossible to restore the huge scale of more than 600 warships of the British Empire five years ago.

"If we are going to respond, how many warships will need to be built?"

Thor asked Fisher with a solemn face.

"The Chinese Empire announced this time that it will build 12 battleships, 24 destroyers, and 24 submarines in one go, which is huge in scale, and this is to crush us in one go. If we're going to respond, we'll have to at least have the same number of warships. ”

The same amount?

Thor jerked his cheeks.

"Is it necessary to build so much that? Let's only build four, okay? ”

Saul said solemnly, in the past, this kind of words came out of the mouth of the dignified Prime Minister of the British Empire, which simply made people laugh off their teeth. But now Thor is no longer afraid of being embarrassed, anyway, the face of the British Empire has been thrown to Mars, and he doesn't care.

Fisher shook his head and said, "I've already thought about the minimum!" You must know that the new battleships of the Chinese Empire have 12 main guns, which is equivalent to our 3 battleships. They have built a new type of warship called a destroyer, and we don't know what it does yet, so we have to be more careful. I heard that the tonnage of such a destroyer is only about a thousand tons, so we can wait and leave him alone for the time being. But the battleship could not wait, because the construction time was too long, and a year later would affect the tide of the war. This is already the bare minimum and cannot be lower. ”

Thor sighed and asked again, "How much budget does that cost?" ”

Fisher took out a piece of paper and said as he calculated: "I'm not sure how much, but we also have to install the main guns on the battleship on a large scale." It is also better to install triple main guns like the warships of the Chinese Empire. However, we do not have this experience and need to design and develop. In addition, we also have to study the installation method of the piggyback turret, and the battleship needs to be redesigned, and it also requires a lot of money. Now the purchasing power of the pound is too weak, it is estimated at 100 million pounds! ”

One hundred million?

Burst......

Saul almost squirted out his stomach, Nima asked for 100 million pounds, and it was not enough to sell the kidneys of all the members of Parliament!

"No way, we don't have that much budget right now! We've already advanced the finances for five years, and we really can't make any more advances! ”

Fishell said solemnly: "Don't you want the Prime Minister to regain the world hegemony of the British Empire?" ”

Salle was stunned for a moment, and then smiled bitterly: "I took it for granted at the beginning, the fiasco five years ago was our fault, if we can endure it, maybe the British Empire will not be so miserable now!" ”

Fisher was furious, and his heart was hurt.

"Prime Minister, even if the whole world is disappointed in the British Empire, you can't! You are the backbone of the British Empire, and if you don't have the courage, we're in complete decline! ”

Thor was instantly awakened by Fisher's scolding, and his face was immediately full of embarrassment.

"You're right, I have let the people of the British Empire down! However, listening to your attitude, your navy will not still want to provoke a war, right? ”

Fisher nodded and said, "As you know, the navy, from the top to the ordinary soldiers, all regard the defeat to the Chinese Imperial Navy as a shame, especially the new batch of high-ranking generals who have been recently promoted, they have all lost to the Chinese Empire, and they have worked in the concentration camps of the Chinese Empire, and their hatred of the Chinese Empire is needless to say. Now that they are in power, war is a matter of time. ”

Salton frowned and said, "If you want to go to war, I can't come up with money to support you at all!" You know, the current war is different from before, it used to be a fight for people, now it is a fight for money, there is no money, and we have already lost at the starting line before we have fought. ”

Fisher said: "I know what you mean, the people in the Admiralty are not stupid, they naturally know that now is not the time, so they are saving strength." The war money is all up to you! ”

It's all up to me?

Thorton's face twitched......

With Saul's support, the Royal Navy's defense budget was reluctantly approved, with £15 million allocated to start construction of 12 battleships, followed by an additional £45 million.

12 new battleships, four ships per year as planned, all completed in five years, in line with the Chinese Empire. As for the 24 mysterious destroyers and 24 submarines that the Chinese Empire started building at the same time, the British Admiralty will think of other ways to deal with it.

The rest of the work was left to Fisher, who mobilized the best battleship designers in Britain to tackle the technology of the triple main gun and knapsack turret on the mysterious battleships of the Chinese Empire.

For Fisher and the warship designers of the whole Britain, whether it is a triple main gun or a knapsack turret design, it is a revolution in naval shipbuilding, and it is not easy to imitate.

In terms of the triple main gun, the British designers thought it was very simple, and it was even a mistake to weld three parallel main guns directly on the main turret, and they didn't even pay much attention to the test, and they didn't find that there was an error in the firing accuracy of the triple main gun they designed.

As for the knapsack turret, the British took a lot of effort. Don't look at the simplicity of just adding a knapsack turret, in fact, all the drawings of the battleships designed by the British before had to be changed, and it was a major change. Two turrets were added, eight more main guns were added, taking up a lot of displacement and space, and the power compartment, ammunition depot, armor, etc. were all redesigned. In this regard, the Chinese Empire had been stockpiling technology for many years, and it was finally successful at the meeting, while Britain had no technical reserves in this area before, and it was very difficult to design.

However, in order to meet the deadline and not be left behind by the Chinese Empire, the British Navy was forced to mount the horse and decided to build and design while revising.

As a result, the British newspapers boasted that Britain had also begun to build 12 more advanced battleships, surpassing the dignity class and the monarch class, and were also equipped with 12 large-caliber main guns, four triplets, and a knapsack arrangement, which completely copied the new dreadnought battleships that the Chinese Empire had just completed sea trials.

Faced with this situation, the newspapers of the Chinese Empire condemned it one after another.

"The British have completely declined! Starting from copying our Chinese Empire's Dingyuan-class ironclad ships, and then imitating the Hsiungfeng-class battleships, now seeing that our Chinese Empire has more powerful 12-gun Dreadnought-class battleships, they have begun to plagiarize again, and they are completely shameless! ”

The British newspapers responded quickly, and immediately made all kinds of sophistries and scolded the newspapers of the Chinese Empire.

Britain: "This is a brand new battleship independently developed by the British Empire, although it looks similar to a certain type of battleship launched by the Chinese Empire before, but the internal structure is definitely very different!" ”

Chinese Empire: "Nonsense! You're just mimicking the exterior structure through photos! You can't imitate the internal structure if you want to! ”

Britain: "This new battleship of our British Empire has been brewing for a long time, otherwise it would not have started construction in just two months, this kind of triple main gun and knapsack turret installation technology, it takes a lot of time to demonstrate and study in the early stage, so our British Empire did not copy the Chinese Empire, it is purely a coincidence!" ”

Chinese Empire: "What a coincidence! Don't think that if you just get three cannon barrels and stick them in the cake, you're going to be a triplet! We said that you are just following the example! There is no god in the form! ”

Britain: "There must be a traitor within our British Empire, and all the shipbuilding designs of the Chinese Empire were stolen from our British Empire, shameless!" ”

Well, the British finally showed that they were embarrassed, you came to bite me!

Not only did the British Imperial Navy quickly launch new battleships with triple main guns and knapsack turrets, but the navies of the United States, France, Germany, Tsarist Russia, Italy, Japan, and Austria-Hungary were all launched to carry out research.

This Nima can't be studied without it!

The Chinese Empire has 12 main guns on a battleship, and they only have 4 main guns on a battleship, which is bound to suffer a big loss!

Unlike the British Navy, the German Navy and the Austro-Hungarian Navy first asked the Chinese Empire for this set of technology, and the Chinese Empire neither refused nor agreed, but let Germany and Austria wait for an expression, seeing that the posture was no problem, and then it was just a matter of negotiation and bargaining.

Germany and Austria were very happy and entered into negotiations with the Chinese Empire.

However, sometimes a negotiation can be resolved in a few days, or a few months, but there are also negotiations that take several years or more than ten years.

This time, the Chinese Empire is like this, it has no intention of transferring technology immediately, but it also knows that within three or five years, it will definitely be studied by European and American countries, so it will be delayed for three or five years, as long as the British have researched it, the Chinese Empire will immediately sell it at a reduced price, and will never give the British a chance to make money.

When it comes to the essence, this is still a pit! Pit the enemy, but also pit the allies!

The United States, France, Tsarist Russia and other countries are different, they can only study on their own, which costs a lot of money. Even the British are groping for themselves, and it is impossible to provide them to the allies of the United States and France, and it is even more impossible for the peripheral members of Tsarist Russia, only when the technology is about to be eliminated will it be the turn of Tsarist Russia, who makes Tsarist Russia poor and backward!

On the whole, the Chinese Empire suddenly came up with the technology of triple main guns and knapsack turrets, and installed 12 main guns on a battleship, which really shocked European and American countries, forcing them to invest a lot of money and personnel in research. However, if you want to study it, it will take at least three or five years, and with this buffer, the Chinese Empire can complete the construction of 12 dreadnought-class battleships, and then directly throw the European and American navies out of the street.

The more the navies of Europe and the United States build, the better, because they do not have a steam turbine system, they want to carry 12 main guns, they do not have a powerful power system, they can only sacrifice armor and speed, and they are not the opponent of the Chinese Empire! The more you build, the greater the loss in the end.

Now it has just begun, and the navies of the European and American powers have only begun to study the triple and knapsack multi-turret structure, and it is impossible to find a hole in it at once, and when they find out that something is wrong one day, the Chinese Empire will directly announce the fundamental differences between the Dreadnought-class battleships and the previous Dreadnought-class battleships.

The more the European and American powers make today, the worse they will be when they are discovered in the future.

This time, the Chinese Empire dug a deep and large hole, and the cliff made it impossible for the European and American powers to jump into it and climb out!

It wasn't until many years later that when some military experts commented on the global naval arms race in the 80s of the 19th century, they would say with emotion: "The global naval arms race set off by the Chinese Empire at that time was equivalent to digging a huge hole, clapping their hands and welcoming the European and American powers to jump into it, not only the British jumped in, but also the Americans, the French, the Japanese, and the Tsarist Russians, the enemies of the Chinese Empire, and even the allies of the Chinese Empire, the Germans and Austria-Hungary, also jumped in. And the Chinese Empire did not tell them that this pit could not be jumped, but secretly said behind their backs that allies were used to be pitted! ”

Some critics also analyzed: "This is another big move by Li Weiguo, the great leader of the Chinese Empire, this time it is not a simple arms race, and it is not only aimed at the traditional enemy of the British Empire, don't you see that even Germany, an ally of the Chinese Empire, has been pitted?" That is, this time not only against the enemies of Europe, but against the entire Western world. Only the great leader Li Weiguo has such a strategic vision, and he has used a global arms race to directly trap the entire Western world into it. Because to this day, the entire Western world is reluctant to mention how much money they spent on building warships, and as a result, they all turned into scrap metal overnight, and countless money was wasted, which became a shame for the entire Western world at that time. (To be continued.) )