"Ten million, see 10 million yuan again! Equivalent to 65 million New Pounds, the Chinese Empire is really rich, and this year it has increased its naval defense budget! ”

The news of the Chinese Empire's additional defense budget spread all over the world, and the Times and other major international newspapers had to carry out front-page reports, although they were unwilling, which caused the Entente countries to vomit a lot of jealousy.

At the just-concluded military conference of the Entente bloc, in the face of the huge strategic threat posed by the powerful dreadnoughts of the Chinese Empire, the countries had to prepare to start building a large number of dreadnought battleships in their respective countries, so as to counteract the threat of the Chinese Empire's powerful maritime military power.

However, before the countries could take a breath, the Chinese Empire increased this year's defense budget, as high as 10 million yuan, and this money obviously had to be used for shipbuilding funds, and it was only this year's budget, according to the analysis of the fastest three years for the completion of a capital ship, this round of the Chinese Empire allocated at least 30 million yuan or more for the shipbuilding budget.

According to the intelligence held by the MI5 Intelligence Bureau of the British Empire, it is speculated that this huge amount of money can build at least 10 battleships, or battlecruisers of the same size.

This shows that since the last time the Chinese Empire built 12 Dreadnought-class ships in one go, it has once again set off a new round of large-scale shipbuilding operations after eight years.

The last round of large-scale shipbuilding operations has overwhelmed Britain, the United States, Japan, Russia, France and other countries, and the result is another round, which is the rhythm of forcing all countries to death!

Every time the Chinese Empire allocates large-scale military spending, it seems as if the whole country will experience a major earthquake.

The British Empire, in particular, was most nervous and troublesome about the Chinese Empire's naval shipbuilding budget.

The psychological shadow of five successive defeats still lingers in the hearts of every British Empire people for a long time.

Especially in recent years, the Chinese Empire has been encroaching on the colonies of the British Empire, but the British Empire can only adopt a policy of non-resistance, which has made the British people very angry and strongly criticized the Coalition Cabinet.

Once again, in the face of public concern, the Prime Minister of the Coalition Cabinet, William, had to come forward to reassure the people, saying that the British Empire had prepared a plan, and if the Chinese Imperial Navy attacked (referring to the mainland), the Royal Navy would deal the heaviest blow to the other side.

However, William also made money, and he was worried that he had no money to build warships, so the British public opinion gave him the opportunity, under the pretext of defending the Chinese Imperial Navy, and the coalition cabinet could raise taxes and raise funds for the construction of ships.

Soon, the joint cabinet approved a new round of military budget for ship building, allocating 65 million new pounds, which is exactly equivalent to 10 million yuan.

In the past, the British Empire didn't care about the resources plundered from the colonies every year, as well as the huge income from the Yapian trade, which was enough for the British Empire Navy to squander.

But now it is different, a large number of overseas colonies of the British Empire were taken away by the Chinese Empire, and Australia, which has the most abundant resources, has dealt a heavy blow to the economy of the British Empire. At the same time, the Chinese Empire seized the Golden Triangle, making it impossible for the British Empire to trade in elegant films.

The two most profitable places are gone, coupled with five war defeats, heavy economic losses, and huge indemnities have squandered the wealth accumulated by the British Empire for hundreds of years, making the British Empire poor today, and the allocation of 65 million new pounds seems like a lot, but in fact it is only equivalent to 6 million pounds twenty years ago, and the depreciation is more than ten times, all thanks to the Chinese Empire.

Originally, William believed that the establishment of the Entente bloc could effectively deter the Chinese Empire in a short period of time, so that it would not dare to attack the British Empire easily, so that the British Empire would have a respite, and could develop the economy well and restore the pound sterling to its previous strong international currency.

But the new round of naval appropriations of the Chinese Empire completely shattered William's dream of trying to revive the economy of the British Empire, and he did not even have time to breathe.

The appropriation of 65 million new pounds, in fact, William could not take out the money at all, and he had to secretly issue new pounds. Invisibly, the new pound will face another round of depreciation, and the British people will share this huge amount of money, which will make their already deteriorating life even worse.

Despite this, the British Imperial Navy was still not satisfied, because this money was the budget for the next three years, and the 10 million yuan of the Chinese Empire was only the budget for this year. The gap in funding will ultimately be reflected in the number and quality of new warships in the Navy.

Secretary of State for Defense Cook and Sea Secretary Fisher came to meet William.

"Your Excellency Prime Minister, I have just received information that the purpose of the defense budget of the Imperial Chinese Navy has been announced."

Cook handed a new telegram to William, which stated that the Imperial Chinese Navy's budget for the year was to start construction of four battleships equipped with 14-inch (356 mm) guns, and four battlecruisers also equipped with 14-inch guns, as well as more than 100 ships such as light cruisers, destroyers, frigates, and submarines.

What a rich man!

It's disgusting!

William's face was full of envy, jealousy and hatred, but in his heart was wow cool and cool drops.

There is a saying that once he was bitten by a snake for ten years and was afraid of the well rope, and the British Empire was pitted by the Chinese Empire more than once. The worst thing is that the dreadnought battleships eight years ago blindly competed with the Chinese Empire, and as a result, they built a bunch of knockoffs, which became scrap metal, causing heavy losses to the British Empire.

"I wonder what conspiracy the Chinese Empire is hiding this time?"

Seeing William's depressed look, Cook and Fisher were also very sympathetic.

"Your Excellency Prime Minister, no matter what conspiracy the Chinese Empire plays, we must actively deal with it!"

"Yes! In the next three to five years, if there is only 65 million New Pounds, then let's not talk about overwhelming the Chinese Empire, even the most basic defense capability will be lost! ”

William knew what the two of them meant, and sighed, "I'll do my best!" ”

Cook shook his head and said: "Your Excellency, Prime Minister, now that the Entente Group has been established, the scale of the war will be far beyond imagination, and victory or defeat will be in one fell swoop!" ”

This reminded William that it was no longer a stand-alone confrontation between China and Britain, but a military confrontation between the entire Entente bloc and the Allied bloc, and the scale would spread throughout the world, and once defeated, the consequences would be very terrible.

After realizing this, William immediately clenched his fists and said, "Since this is the case, then let's fight to the death!" I will support you at all costs, and I hope you will surprise me, and the fortunes of the British Empire are on you! ”

"Yes!" Cook and Fisher suddenly became serious and bowed deeply.

With William's approval, the Royal Navy of the British Empire quickly responded, led by Fisher, organized the engineers of the British Empire, and began to develop the Queen Elizabeth I-class battleship, against the newly built X5 battleship just announced by the Chinese Empire.

Type X5 is a model that the British Empire temporarily named when it did not know the class of the new battleships built by the Chinese Empire. For example, the Dreadnought-class battleships built before the Chinese Empire were Type X3, and the Fengyun-class battlecruisers were Type X4.

According to the information held by MI5, the construction of the X5 type battleship and the X6 type battlecruiser will be started by the Imperial Chinese Navy, and the main guns are both 356 mm. Therefore, as a countermeasure, Fisher could only design the Queen Elizabeth I-class battleship with 14.5-inch guns.

This is because the Chinese Empire's artillery-making technology is leading the world, and since the X5 battleship is going to be equipped with a 356 mm caliber main gun, it is almost certain that it is 50 times the diameter. In terms of artillery manufacturing technology, the British Empire, because of the different technology from the Chinese Empire, there would be various problems in building a main gun with a diameter of more than 45, which led to Fisher having to abandon the 14-inch 50-diameter main gun and replace it with a 14.5-inch 45-diameter main gun, hoping to offset the advantage of the double diameter with caliber.

As for the issues of armor protection and speed, Fisher could only rely on his own experience to judge how thick the armor and how powerful the Steam Turbine system of the X5 battleships of the Imperial Chinese Navy were.

Eventually, Fisher finalized the design drawings for the Queen Elizabeth I-class battleship.

The Queen Elizabeth I-class battleship has a design standard displacement of 28,600 tons and a full load of 32,120 tons. The power adopts the Parsons V2 steam turbine, which is newly developed by the British Empire, with 4-shaft propulsion, 37,000 horsepower and a theoretical speed of 21.5 knots.

In terms of speed, it shows that the British Empire was pleased with the recent improvements and upgrades of the Parsons steam turbine system.

In terms of armament, Fisher racked his brains and finally installed 5 twin 45-diameter 14.5-inch main guns, 16 single-mounted 6-inch secondary guns, 2 3-inch rapid-fire guns, 4 3-pounder guns, and 4 22-inch underwater fish and radium launch tubes.

It was a bizarre design, with five twin guns, two in the front and two in the rear, and one in the middle (with a limited firing range), so that 10 guns could be fired at the broadside at the same time.

In Fisher's impression, the battleships of the Chinese Empire were all triple with 4 main guns, that is, 12 guns. Fisher also wanted to install triple main guns on the battleships of the British Empire, but when the Queen Mary-class battleships and Victoria-class battleships built earlier were delivered to the Navy for sea trials, they found that there were many problems with triple main guns, and the accuracy of long-distance shooting was not enough, and the problem of mutual interference between shells was the most prominent.

Fisher thought that the Dreadnought-class battleships of the Imperial Chinese Navy also had such a reason, so he secretly rejoiced, thinking that he had found an Achilles' heel, so he corrected it in time on the Queen Elizabeth I-class battleships and returned to the era of twins.

Fisher fantasized about crushing the Chinese Empire's Dreadnought-class battleships at once, so he added another gun mount, bringing it to 10 main guns.

As for the armor, Fisher argued with the British admirals for a long time, and finally because of financial problems, he could not install 14-inch or 15-inch armor as often as before, because the weight of the armor was too heavy, which would affect the speed of the battleship.

At the same time, the British Empire's battleship steel armor technology finally made a breakthrough, the local Victor armor combined with the United States' Harvey steel armor, Japan's Mitsubishi armor, France's Ansemittal armor, and stole some German Empire's Krupp steel armor, and stole a part of the BT7 special steel materials exported to Germany by the Chinese Empire ten years ago, and finally made a breakthrough in the British Empire's steel armor technology, the strength was greatly improved, and a lot of armor weight could be saved.

In the end, the main armor belt of the Queen Elizabeth I-class battleships was only 4-9 inches, the deck 1-4 inches, the turret 10 inches, and the conning tower 11 inches.

After testing, it can withstand armor-piercing shells fired from Victoria-class battleships from 10,000 meters away.

However, whether he can block the armor-piercing bullets of the Chinese Empire, Fisher still has no bottom in his heart, after all, the Chinese Empire has developed medicine technology, and began to use smokeless gunpowder more than ten years ago, and now I don't know how far it has developed.

Fisher could not grasp the details of the latest battleships built in the Chinese Empire, and could only rely on speculation.

However, Li Weiguo, the emperor of the Chinese Empire, could get detailed data on the Queen Elizabeth I-class battleship designed by Fisher from S.H.I.E.L.D. from the Chinese S.H.I.E.L.D. Bureau.

If Fisher knew that the battleship he had worked so hard to design, and the blueprint of the battleship that he dreamed of beating the Chinese Empire, was now placed on Li Weiguo's imperial study desk, it was estimated that he would immediately vomit blood and die.

"Wei Aiqing, do you see what's coming?"

Li Weiguo pointed to the drawings of the Queen Elizabeth I-class battleship and asked Wei Han, Minister of the General Administration of Ships, as well as Xu Shou, President of the Imperial Academy of Sciences and Minister of Scientific Research, Hua Yufang and others.

Several people glanced at each other, and finally Wei Han spoke first: "Your Majesty, the minister thinks that although the main gun of the battleship of Elizabeth I has increased by half an inch in caliber, and on the surface it seems to be more powerful, it should actually be inferior to the 356 mm 50 times diameter main gun developed by Liu Xuezheng!" ”

Li Weiguo said with a smile: "This Liu Xuezheng has finally done something that makes people happy!" ”

In Li Weiguo's impression, eight years ago, he wanted the Dreadnought-class battleship to install a 343 mm 50 times diameter main gun, but Liu Xuezheng only developed a 330 mm gun, and Li Weiguo was actually very unhappy at that time.

But later, Li Weiguo gradually understood that when there is a teacher, the Chinese people's learning ability is very strong, and they can easily learn the teacher's things. But when teachers have nothing to teach, the Chinese people's ability to innovate becomes a problem.

Since the death of the Ming Dynasty, the innovation ability of the Chinese people has been stifled, and hundreds of years of slave life have had a serious impact on the brain development of future generations, and it will take the continuous efforts of a generation or even several generations to restore the strength of the Chinese nation in the past.

Now Li Weiguo has almost forgotten about this Liu Xuezheng, but unexpectedly, Liu Xuezheng has tried his courage, and finally eight years later, he successfully developed the 356 mm 50 times diameter main gun that the Imperial Navy needs most.

This credit is very great, Li Weiguo has remembered him since then, and he will definitely use it again in the future.

Xu Shou also pointed out: "Looking at Fisher's use of twin-mounted artillery, it shows that they found the problem of mutual interference in long-range firing of triple-mounted artillery!" However, we have long solved this problem, so our battleship is 4 triple 12 guns, which is still two more than them, and has an advantage. ”

Hua Yufang added: "There is also the layout of the opponent's artillery, which actually uses five twin-mounted main guns, and there is one more amidships. In addition to the limited firing of the main guns of the ship, the biggest hidden danger is that his ammunition depot is too close to the boiler room, and when the war starts, our main guns concentrate their firepower here, which can easily cause martyrdom to the enemy ship and blow it to pieces! ”

Li Weiguo was immediately happy, it is easy to have intelligence, and he knows that he will not be defeated in a hundred battles.

If the British knew, they would probably be to death! (To be continued.) )