The news of the large-scale construction of warships by the United States soon spread back to the Chinese Empire, and at this time, Li Weiguo also stopped playing in the mountains and rivers in the south of the Yangtze River and returned to the Forbidden City.

Unaware that the Chinese Empire was already building powerful dreadnought battleships, many civil and military officials were concerned about the U.S. Navy's large-scale shipbuilding operations, and wrote letters requesting funding for the Navy to build ships to deal with the maritime threat from the United States.

With the end of the Battle of the Solomon Islands, the Chinese Empire was nominally the maritime hegemon in the Pacific region, but in reality it was still difficult to control the entire Pacific Ocean. Because the Pacific Ocean is too vast, there are many countries around the Pacific Rim, especially in the Central Pacific region, there are still a large number of island countries, which require a large number of warships to cruise in these sea areas, showing the hegemony of the Chinese Imperial Navy over the Pacific region.

Previously, during the non-war period, the Chinese Imperial Navy only had the Northern Ocean Fleet, the Eastern Ocean Fleet, the Southern Ocean Fleet, and the Qizhou Ocean Fleet, and the combat mission of these four fleets was only coastal defensive, and they were standing fleets, and only during the war would they be unified into the Pacific Fleet.

Today, the Chinese Empire has established its dominion over the Pacific Ocean with the British Empire, and the entire Pacific Ocean will become the traditional maritime sphere of influence of the Chinese Empire.

As a result, the Pacific Fleet, which was previously established only in wartime, will now become a standing fleet.

The transformation of the Pacific Fleet into a standing fleet required a great deal of adjustment, which was not completed until seven months after the end of the Sino-British War, when the Imperial War and Admiralty of the Chinese Empire completed this adjustment program.

According to the provisions of the new plan, the original North Ocean Fleet, East Ocean Fleet, Southern Ocean Fleet, and Qizhou Ocean Fleet will be abolished and unified into the Chinese Empire's home fleet, which will have jurisdiction over the sea areas within 500 nautical miles of the coast baselines of Northeast Asia, East Asia, and Southeast Asia from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Qizhou Ocean in the south, and will be responsible for the coastal defense tasks of the Chinese Empire's mainland, with Vladivostok, Jeju Island, Lushun, Weihaiwei, Zhoushan, Taiwan, Hainan Island, Manila, and Singapore as the main naval bases.

In addition to the home fleet, the Pacific Standing Fleet was established to govern the entire Pacific waters, with the mud port in the east of Australia, the port of Darwin in the north, the port of Tamara in the west, the port of Adelaide in the south, and the port of Apra and Pearl Harbor in Ezo on Guam as naval bases.

The Indian Ocean Fleet, which was previously only an escort fleet, has now been upgraded to a standing Ocean Fleet, with Chittagong, Bangladesh as its main naval base.

The three newly established standing fleets, with the home fleet being the strongest, with nine Hsiungfeng-class battleships and nine Zhongning-class armored cruisers all allocated to the home fleet, while the Pacific Fleet has the largest jurisdictional area, but it is only equipped with three old-fashioned Dingyuan-class ironclad ships, and the Dingyuan-class ironclad ships do not have the ability to carry out long-term sea patrol missions.

As for the Indian Ocean Fleet, only two repaired Haiqi-class cruisers serve as the main force, and most of the time they are also in the harbor.

This situation was deliberately carried out by the General Staff of the Chinese Empire, on the one hand, to show the countries of the world that the main naval force of the Chinese Empire was still the primary goal of defending the homeland, so that the countries of the world would not be so nervous.

On the other hand, it is also the current situation of the Chinese Imperial Navy, which was originally planned to engage the British Royal Navy for a long time, and the major shipyards started construction of 9 Hsiungfeng-class battleships during the war, but the British Imperial Royal Navy was defeated in half a year. As the Imperial Chinese Navy secretly began to build dreadnought-type battleships, Li Weiguo immediately stopped the nine Hsiungfeng-class battleships under construction, after all, it was not cost-effective to build the former dreadnought-class battleships after having dreadnoughts.

It happened that Germany, France and other European powers were vying to purchase all-steel battleships from the Chinese Empire, so they modified the castration and sold them to the European powers at a high price.

Due to the victory of the Imperial Chinese Navy in the Battle of the Solomon Islands, within four or five years, the navies of the European and American powers, including the British Imperial Navy, did not dare to provoke the Chinese Empire again. After all, the British Imperial Navy did not have all-steel battleships, and it was impractical to provoke the Imperial Chinese Navy with ironclad ships. The British Navy began to build all-steel battleships, and it would take four or five years at the earliest to form combat effectiveness.

Therefore, for the Imperial Chinese Navy, it was a safe period for four or five years, and there were nine Hsiungfeng-class battleships, which was enough to deter the European and American powers. Whether it is the Pacific Ocean or the Indian Ocean, I believe that the European and American powers will not dare to easily provoke trouble against the Chinese Empire.

At the same time, the Chinese Empire had only one new battleship under construction at the Jiangnan Shipyard, which was an epoch-making dreadnought battleship. However, the Imperial Chinese Navy is not sure whether this dreadnought battleship can meet the expected performance indicators and strategic deterrence capabilities, so it will have to wait for two years, and after the dreadnought battleship is launched and the sea trial meets the standards, the Chinese Imperial Navy can safely build dreadnought battleships on a large scale.

Therefore, within two years, there were no orders for battleships from the Navy in the major shipyards of the Chinese Empire. However, the major shipyards are not idle, because there are so many orders for warships from the European powers, and it is just the right time to use this time to build battleships and cruisers for the European powers, which can not only earn a lot of foreign exchange from European countries, but also a kind of maritime strategic military insurance.

Strategic military insurance at sea, as the name suggests. During the construction of capital warships for the navies of the European powers, these countries did not dare to start a war against the Chinese Empire easily, because once the war started, the Chinese Empire would freeze these capital warships and cause huge economic losses to the enemy countries. At the same time, if other countries go to war against the Chinese Empire during this period, these capital warships will be "requisitioned" by the Chinese Imperial Navy at any time to help the Chinese Imperial Navy fight.

In fact, as long as these capital ships were not officially delivered to the European powers, they would be requisitioned by the Imperial Chinese Navy at any time. As long as the Imperial Chinese Navy sensed a threat from the sea, it would requisition the warships built by various countries in China, so that these warships would become the main ships of the Imperial Chinese Navy in the blink of an eye to protect the maritime security interests of the Chinese Empire.

So, this is a warship military-diplomatic strategy. It's like an adult hooking up with a lollipop to a little pot friend: "Do you want to eat a lollipop or not, if you want to eat it, just be obedient, and you will do whatever I ask you to do!" ”

The major shipyards of the Chinese Empire built more than 60 new warships for the navies of the European powers, which, if necessary, would become the warships of the Chinese Imperial Navy in the blink of an eye, which in itself was a huge strategic deterrent.

However, after the Chinese Empire and the United States became at odds over the Ezo Tail issue, the U.S. Navy announced the large-scale construction of all-steel capital ships, which was clearly aimed at the Chinese Imperial Navy and the Ezo Tail issue, which made many civil and military officials of the Chinese Empire feel threatened, so they wrote to Li Weiguo, requesting large-scale ship construction to deal with the American maritime threat.

Li Weiguo plans to pit the European and American powers, and the American Navy will build ships on a large scale, which is exactly the result he wants to see. However, you can't tell the civil and military officials that this is a hole deliberately dug by Li Weiguo, after all, the mouths of the civil and military officials will not be too strict, in case any of them leak the news, it will ruin Li Weiguo's plan.

But if you don't tell the civil and military officials, you have to find an excuse to give a countermeasure and appease you. In addition, if the Chinese Empire was indifferent to the purpose of the American Navy's shipbuilding, it would also make the European and American powers suspicious.

So Li Weiguo summoned naval officials and generals to conduct a study, anyway, the Chinese Empire did not have a large number of warships for cruising the Pacific Ocean and other seas of the world. In order to show off the prestige of **** and show the existence of the maritime power of the Chinese Empire, it is necessary to build not only battleships for war, but also a number of cruisers.

However, if you want to carry out strategic cruises around the world, you have extremely high requirements for the seaworthiness of warships. First of all, the Chinese Empire had no colonies in Europe and could not supply warships, so it had to have a strong endurance. The second is that considering the cost, you can't waste the tax money of the citizens of the empire just for the sake of being prominent. And then it was necessary to satisfy the strategic deception of the European and American powers.

In the end, Li Weiguo got the advice of Wei Han, the Minister of Shipping, to divide the cruise ship into two grades. The first gear is a cruiser with a displacement of 6,000 to 10,000 tons, which is called a heavy cruiser. The first gear is a cruiser with a displacement of less than 6,000 tons and more than 3,000 tons, which is called a light cruiser.

The main purpose of these two cruisers is to carry out ocean-going strategic cruising and escort operations, highlighting ocean-going performance and focusing on endurance and speed.

Because Wei Han proposed that the construction time of the cruiser be short, it could be used to verify the unified main gun caliber of the Dreadnought, install a steam turbine, reduce armor protection, and carry more guns.

This suggestion was approved by Li Weiguo, so finally the Admiralty issued an order to build 30 cruisers, including 10 heavy cruisers and 20 light cruisers.

The basic standard for a heavy cruiser is a displacement of about 10,000 tons, equipped with three triple 203 mm 55 times the diameter main gun, propulsion with a steam turbine system, four axles and four oars, a minimum required speed of 28 knots, and a cruising range of 6,000 nautical miles per 18 knots, for which armor protection had to be sacrificed, only 140 mm.

The basic standard of a light cruiser is a displacement of about 5,000 tons, equipped with three triple 155 mm 55 times the diameter main gun, propulsion by a steam turbine system, four axles and four oars, a minimum required speed of 30 knots, a cruising range of 4,000 nautical miles per 20 knots, the same limited displacement, and the main armor can only be allocated 122 mm.

Because it is to verify the dreadnought's unified main gun function and steam turbine system, and it is also a large-scale construction of 30 light and heavy cruisers, which need to be built in batches, and the naval designers will also sum up experience throughout the construction process and continuously improve, so when the final construction is completed, the final data of the 30 cruisers are not the same, even if they are of the same level, there is a big difference between the final performance of the first and the last.

This is not so much a shipbuilding program to realize the global voyage, but rather that these 30 cruisers are all tests of serious dreadnought warships, and after the construction of these warships, the ultimate beneficiary will be the first class dreadnought battleships of the Chinese Empire.

Of course, in order to strategically deceive the European and American powers, the Ministry of National Defense Information under the Ministry of Military Affairs of the Chinese Empire still announced the news, saying that the Imperial Chinese Navy felt the threat pressure from the American Navy, and the Congress approved the Navy to build 15 new large surface combat warships and 15 armored cruisers.

The concept was secretly changed, so that the European and American powers thought that the large surface warships were battleships when they saw them, and their intelligence departments in China soon discovered the news that at least 30 docks were starting to build large warships at the same time near the major naval shipyards, so they believed it.

However, in order to obtain more detailed information, European and American countries are stepping up intelligence collection in China.

As a civilian military magazine of the Chinese Empire, the attention to the chapter bureau seat is naturally very high. Zhang Juza made a corresponding analysis half-truthfully, which was immediately regarded as a classic by the intelligence departments of the European and American powers, and then studied in detail.

Downing Street, Prime Minister's House.

Thor was pleased that the Chinese Empire and the United States were engaged in a massive naval arms race, but he was also full of jealousy and worry.

"The Chinese Empire built 15 battleships and 15 cruisers in one go, which is completely crushing the American Navy!"

"So what do we do? If the Chinese Empire has another 15 all-steel battleships, plus the previous 9, it will reach 24, and our first all-steel battleship is still under construction, this gap is too big! ”

"It seems that we have accelerated the construction of all-steel battleships!"

"Now it's up to the French Navy to get the most advanced welding technology from the Chinese Empire! As long as the French Navy gets this technology, soon we will be able to mass-build all-steel battleships! ”

"It doesn't matter whether it's welded or riveted, doesn't the American Navy also start building with riveting technology!"

"The United States has money, but our British Empire suffered heavy losses in the war, and the land was ceded and reparated, and now the finances are tight, so save some if you can!"

A group of British parliamentarians were talking about it, full of envy, jealousy and hatred for the United States and the Chinese Empire.

Eventually, Thor looked at Fisher and asked, "How's it going?" Are you sure? ”

Fisher nodded and said, "According to the information we have received from the French Navy, I am convinced that we have basically mastered the main data of the Hsiungfeng-class battleships and Zhongning-class armored cruisers of the Imperial Chinese Navy, and our newly designed all-steel battleships surpass the Chinese Empire in terms of armor and power systems. Especially in terms of firepower, as long as you can take the 343mm naval gun technology of the French Navy, our new battleships will completely suppress the Hsiungfeng-class battleships of the Chinese Empire. ”

Seeing Fisher's sworn nod, Thor also smiled bitterly: "I'll try my best, Napoleon, this bastard doesn't see rabbits and eagles, we don't give them the core ship-building technology, and they will definitely not transfer the large-caliber naval gun technology to us." If we give the core technology of the Navy to the French, in the future, in front of the French, there will be no secrets for the Imperial Navy. ”

Fisher advised: "Don't worry, Napoleon is too stupid, he wants to develop the strongest army on the European continent, but also build the strongest navy, and in the end the French will not be able to do it." ”

Thor's eyes lit up and he smiled: "You can still see it, I know what to do!" (To be continued.) )