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In the blink of an eye, at the end of 1900, the British army led by General Roberts won a series of victories in South Africa, and completely defeated the Boer coalition army in the Orange Autonomous Region before Christmas, and planted the British Empire's rice flag on Bloemfontein, the capital of the Autonomous Region. Stein led government and congressional officials in a desperate and hurried flight to Kronstad in the north.

At the same time, the British army attacking in the middle of the Transvaal also had an excellent opportunity because of the fall of Orange, facing the threat of being cut off from the back, and the Transvaal allied DeWitt Corps was forced to retreat, and the tide of the war was completely reversed in less than two months.

However, as soon as the New Year's bell rang, a plague that swept through the entire Orange and Transvaal West Lines suddenly attacked the British Expeditionary Force that had just occupied Bloemfontein, and Admiral Roberts received the news that nearly 8,000 people were sick in less than twenty days, which meant that a larger epidemic could break out in the occupied area, and the fighting between the two sides had to be stopped, and the British army entered Bloemfontein for a full rest, and the Boer coalition army also turned to Colognestad for defense.

On January 20, British Foreign Secretary Winston Churchill sent a note to Chen Bo, the Chinese ambassador to the United Kingdom, who proposed to China a series of needs for the purchase of medicines, food, and trade. Chen Bo naturally did not refuse to come. And the reason why the British extended an olive branch to China. It is clear that the large Chinese merchant fleet and the Chinese fleet in East Africa will be involved in the military supply of Cape Town, and that China, which still controls the Strait of Malacca, is in a better position than to purchase from the more distant United States.

However, Qin Kai, who was attending a Baath Party meeting in Beijing, apparently did not take the trade seriously, and immediately transferred it to the Ministry of Commerce as soon as he received the telegram from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and his attention was entirely turned to another secret telegram from London.

After monopolizing the Royal Navy's firing command platform trade for nearly two years, Heisenberg Precision Machinery QÌ Factory produced the HS-2 shooting command instrument, but in the recent Royal Navy tender, a strong challenger unexpectedly appeared. What made Qin Kai even more laughable was that he planned the deployment of the shooting HS system command system that was secretly implemented by the Intelligence Department, which unexpectedly gave birth to this competitor.

After the Heisenberg Precision Machinery Factory provided the Royal Navy with the HS-3 type shooting director, including ranging and calculation, Captain Fred Admiralty, who had served as an adjutant earlier and participated in this project, after studying the HS series of shooting command systems, after participating in many Royal Navy sea surveys, turned to the planning of the new shooting director, and a year later, at the end of 1900, submitted the relevant design research report to the British Admiralty, and soon obtained the relevant patent.

When in 1901 the Royal Navy put out a tender for fire control systems. Strauss Maschinenia, in which Fred participated, submitted to the Royal Navy the Fred Shooting Command Platform, which they had developed, according to intelligence. The British Navy captain really showed a good imagination, in addition to borrowing the design of the wind deflector and deflector in the HS fire control, he actually designed his own distance change rate calculation clock and simple plotting device.

In fact, from Qin Kai's point of view, this type of Fred shooting command platform, this thing is completely a rough simulation scheme, although it is not clear about the specific test effect, but it is basically certain that this primary product is obviously difficult to fight against the HS series shooting command instrument with the Rafale shooting command system as the parent type, but to compete with the early HS-2 type, I think this Strauss Machinery Factory is obviously prepared.

The HS-2 shooting command instrument still uses the distance input method, rather than the distance change rate of the Fred shooting command platform, however, Qin Kai obviously does not have too many worries about the Fred shooting command instrument of this design concept, after all, China has reached an unprecedented level of research and development on the analytical fire control platform, and it is equipped with three series of mature products such as typhoon, gust and storm.

Originating from the earlier Rafale model, the HS-2 series of shooting commanders can achieve good shooting hits at distances below 7,000 meters and relative speeds of less than 10 knots.

If the target carries out a complex Z-shaped maneuver, using the HS system shooting command instrument to attack the opponent, even at a short distance, it is estimated to be a tragedy, and the Fred shooting command developed by the British Navy Captain Fred, due to the addition of more logical relative displacement, bias and other influencing factors, although it is difficult to judge the effectiveness of the mechanical calculation system designed by the British, but it is indeed a conceptual victory, however, the judgment of analytical fire control for irregular movement, with Qin Kai's judgment, has always been very difficult.

The reason why Qin Kai is worried is naturally not because the British finally developed the Fred Shooting Command Instrument, with such a large HS series shooting command instrument, even if it is an imitation, it is not without difficulty, and as the most innovative empire in this era, Britain obviously has all aspects of technical resources and industrial accumulation, which also created the result that the Fred Shooting Command will be developed by a naval captain.

This is obviously not the only bad news from the Intelligence Department in the UK and the Heisenberg Precision Machinery Factory, the Fred Shooting Commander is obviously not the only company that is competing with the HS series Shooting Commander, another Eric Brothers Precision Company, which is favored by the Royal Navy for the production of ranging equipment, is also selling their Demerrick calculation clock to the Royal Navy, and the information obtained from the Admiralty, although it is still in the evaluation stage, the British Admiralty is very interested in this mechanical number jù processing clock, Even the Heisenberg Precision Machinery Factory was built to consider integrating this calculation clock.

In this regard, Heisenberg Machinery Factory naturally vetoed it, but the imminent problem is that it must immediately launch a targeted product bidding, otherwise, the Royal Navy, which has always been very concerned about any naval technology, will inevitably give enough attention to the Fred Shooting Commander and Demerrick Calculation Clock, and the Royal Navy will not mind a few more choices.

After careful consideration, Qin Kai soon issued instructions through the Guò Intelligence Department, in the course of the development of fire control, the appearance of the Fred shooting commander is not necessarily a bad thing, since it is also based on the analysis of the number of observations, although this is not a point of no return, but in the end it will be difficult to escape the fate of being eliminated, so it is not necessarily a bad thing to let the British continue to move along this road.

In April, Heisenberg Precision Machinery Factory released an updated product of the HS series, adding the relative position mapping function of friend and foe and upgrading the new shooting command instrument of the Rafale calculation clock, and in July, the successful bidding was successful, becoming the second King-class battleship to be launched on the fire control system on the Commonwealth, and the Royal Navy obviously did not give up the Fred shooting director, while fully adopting the HS series fire control, it also ordered two sets of fire command systems from Strauss Machinery Factory as the fast class battleships launched earlier.

The British battleships were working day and night in the shipyards all over the east coast of Britain like dumplings, and Qin Kai naturally had no pressure, but the Germans ...... In particular, Wilhelm II, a fanatical naval builder, sent a note to Wang Li, the Chinese ambassador in Berlin, in June, hoping that China would increase the export of German marine equipment, especially marine armor with a long construction period and complex processes.

Wang Li reiterated his rhetoric about China's diplomatic non-alignment, but at the same time confirmed to Kaiser Wilhelm II that he would do his best to provide the German Empire with the best naval armor in the country. (The novel "Industrial China" will have more fresh content on the official WeChat platform, and there will also be a 100% lottery gift for everyone!) Open WeChat now, click on the "+" sign in the upper right corner to "add friends", search for the official account "qdread" and follow, hurry up! (To be continued......)