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The new round of industrial innovation driven by electric power, railways, and new chemical industries is undoubtedly an excellent opportunity for the entire Europe and the United States to boost the economy, but the pursuit of profit by capital and the greed of the people's hearts will soon lead to the development of the world in two completely opposite directions......

At the beginning of 1906, the Beijing government issued a series of laws and new regulations aimed at improving domestic credit and cracking down on illegal finance, which led to temporary turmoil in the entire domestic financial market, however, the state-owned banks obviously played a firm role as the cornerstone of the market, and the domestic infrastructure construction, heavy industry, light industry, agriculture and animal husbandry can be said to be blossoming in all directions, in March, with the well-known Nanyang Beihai Heavy Industry listed on the Shanghai Stock Exchange for the first time, quickly unveiled a new round of domestic industrial investment boom.

The German, French, and British governments are obviously aware of a new round of industrial opportunities, however, Kaiser Wilhelm II is obviously more concerned about the technological progress of the German Navy, on January 20, the Royal Navy Shipyard, the first real dreadnought Nassau-class in the German Empire, also began to build in full swing and secretly, and Tirpitz, with the support of Wilhelm II, also quickly passed the appropriation bill for 3 dreadnoughts in the Diet, which was later than the original rhythm of the United Kingdom, under the kind reminder of China, Germany has been able to speed up its construction time by a full three years.

In February, a number of private innovative power companies in the United Kingdom, the United States, and France announced that they would land on the stock market to raise funds, and the patent fees for AC transmission were greatly reduced. As a result, it is possible for this industry to obtain very stable profits in the future. Especially after 15 years of patent lapse. The expected benefits have made the capital of various countries crazy, and European countries have cited China's power industry innovation experience, rich hydropower and cheap coal after the economic crisis, all mean huge industrial benefits.

At the end of February, London's first private power company to invest in Far Southeast China was welcomed by capital, which excited Poirot, a billionaire who holds more than 30 percent of the shares, about Guò's secret relationship with the Global Sources consortium. He was easily granted the right to develop the northern section of the Cagayan River in the Philippines in South Asia, and the construction of the dam before it had yet to begin gave him easy access to a huge £1.2 million capital raised from the London market, while he was able to secure at least six or more construction contracts...... Soon, through his close ties to the House of Commons, he was ready to lobby for the opening of various restrictions on capital investment in the Far East.

However, in August, as the Royal Navy rapidly launched the naval race of the Dreadnought era, the six Britain-era production Bellelophon-class battleships were included in the naval expansion plan with the strong support of First Admiral Fisher, just half a year after the launch of the British Dreadnought. The speed of Britain apparently also shocked the military and political department in Beijing.

Qin Kai was slightly surprised when he got the report. To the extent that it is understandable, it is clear that the German construction plan has deeply stimulated the British...... In my memory, the Royal Navy was still very restrained in the early construction of dreadnoughts, and the entire construction cycle of the Dreadnought battleship was only one year, but the test of the entire power and weapon system lasted for two years.

The change in the concept of the global navy in this era has obviously exceeded the face of history, so he is not clear at the moment what Felsher will eventually design this real production version of the dreadnought, but the important thing is that because Germany understood the details of the British dreadnought earlier than history, the naval arms race has set off again.

No sooner had Britain recovered from the economic crisis than it could not wait to invest a large amount of military expenditure to ensure the absolute maritime control of the Royal Navy, and it was obviously impossible to expect adequate compensation for such an investment in overseas trade...... Dreadnoughts, this is already the most powerful industrial product before the electronics industry, even with Britain's very perfect industrial cost control, Qin Kai is also sure that each Bellerophon battleship will not be less than 1.8 million pounds, which is equivalent to 9 million US dollars, or 7.2 million Chinese dollars, or 36 million German marks.

The construction of 6 Bellerophon dreadnoughts at the same time means that a quarter of the British Empire's annual military expenditure is invested in the construction of warships, in fact, the ruler of any country will understand that the construction cost of the navy is expensive, in contrast, the more expensive is the maintenance cost of the navy, the tonnage of the warship has reached 950,000 tons at the beginning of the Royal Navy, and more than half of the huge naval cost of 41 million pounds is used for the maintenance of this navy with a base much larger than that of various countries.

The Royal Navy's naval spending has reached a point that has surprised the rest of the world, with a quarter of the Empire's finances being eaten up by the navy, a department with a long history, and the output of overseas colonies declining rapidly in the last decade, so that even the wisest British think tanks could not have predicted the decline of this era of global colonization.

The Royal Navy's lavish spending on dreadnoughts immediately inspired a fierce response from the whole of Europe, and the French Ministry of War immediately announced in October that it was ready to build two Leibout-class battleships, however, the French outdated concept once again buried the future of the French Navy, and the news of the Royal Navy Dreadnought battleship did not seem to give the French any inspiration, and this type of battleship turned out to be only a strengthened tonnage version of the Republic-class dreadnought.

In November, Admiral Rudnev, Minister of the Russian Navy, proposed to Nicholas II the construction of a new type of dreadnought, and received the corresponding appropriation, but the Imperial Navy shipyards had no experience in building dreadnoughts at all, and France, which had close ties with Russia, could not afford this construction plan, which really made the Russian Empire depressed for a while.

While the British Empire was in full swing to deal with the arms race at sea in Europe, the cabinet of Zhou Ruidong in Beijing unexpectedly sent a note to Bauer, the British minister to China. Although the tonnage of the British Navy is already approaching the 1 million tons agreed in the arms treaty between the two countries. But China considers the friendship between the two countries. It was decided not to engage in an arms race at sea in the Far Eastern Pacific for the time being.

Of course, the attitude of the Chinese side is also very resolute and decisive, the Chinese navy does not put pressure on Britain, but Britain must also ensure that there is no large-scale expansion of armaments in the Pacific...... The spearhead is, of course, the United States of America on the other side of the Pacific.

The U.S. Navy did not have any intention of considering China's opinion after suffering the defeat in Cuba. President Roosevelt had enough capital to put in the Navy. At a time when Britain and Germany were entering the competition of the dreadnought era, the U.S. Navy was accepting the new battleships that shipyards were constantly providing as if they were dumplings.

In the past year, 6 Virginia-class pre-dreadnought battleships have been delivered to the Navy, bringing the total number of battleships on the east and west coasts of the United States to a staggering 19, if it were not for the loss of 4 Indiana-class battleships in the Battle of Cuba, the battleships of this emerging naval power would probably quickly surpass Germany, and compared to France and Germany, the British Navy was dragged down by huge naval maintenance costs due to financial reasons, but the US Navy Department did not have the slightest burden in this regard, at the end of the year. Orders for 6 Connecticut-class battleships were placed at the Brooklyn Shipyard and Newport News Shipyard without hesitation.

In December, Qin Kai, who was inspecting the construction of new warships in the 30,000-ton large dry dock closed at the Beihai Shipyard. When he learned the news of the arms race between Europe and the United States, he had to envy the Yankees' speed of building ships, although he was now in obscurity, and almost the whole country was constantly improving the capacity of domestic heavy industry and supporting industries, and it was not such a strong national strength that he was pursuing.

However, the only thing to be thankful about is that although the Yankees are now strong, the US Navy still has a very fatal weakness, and they did not hesitate to attack the United States twice, so that the US Navy lost a large number of excellent military strength with naval heritage, and the US Heavy Industry is still moving forward on the stupid and rough construction ideas, especially in the most important power and fire control of warships, and the US battleships are even far behind Britain.

After all, compared with the huge national economic industry, it is difficult to give birth to the market without the arms race of war consumption, and the naval shipyards of various countries have to bear more and more amazing factory investments while desperately receiving naval orders.

In the era of dreadnoughts, the 20,000-ton dry dock has no doubt that it will be quickly eliminated, and to build a new dock, huge investment and output, even the British Empire, which has strong industrial strength, has begun to appear industrial differentiation, heavy industry quickly transformed to trust, and the shipyards that cannot complete the mega-size of this industry will inevitably embark on the road of self-destruction, and the expensive dreadnought, indicating unlimited business opportunities at the same time, but also indicating infinite crisis.

Just after the New Year of 1907, Tang Qingshan, commander of the Northern Fleet, received the second type of dreadnought Guangdong, which had just been secretly completed and completed sea trials, and a series of new technologies were applied to this super warship with a displacement of 28,000 tons.

Of course, Tang Qingshan's greatest concern was the actual combat capability of the battleship Guangdong, although the members of the Naval Committee of the Beihai Shipyard all patted their chests and said that they would definitely be able to comprehensively crush the first-generation dreadnoughts, but this was obviously not enough to meet the harsh requirements of the Northern Fleet.

Later, Tang Qingshan immediately ordered the Northern Fleet to carry out a sea exercise, and seemed to have completely forgotten that it was the coldest winter in the north, and in the solemn north wind, the Guangdong battleship conducted a comprehensive confrontation exercise with two Chang'an-class battleships in the East China Sea.

Two months later, when the Consulate in the United Kingdom received an urgent secret telegram sent to China, Qin Kai, who was in the super real room that day, also received the forwarded secret telegram as soon as possible, and the word "Pulan" was specially marked on the telegram, which immediately made Qin Kai smile. (A good event for pie in the sky, cool mobile phones are waiting for you!) Follow from ~ Dian/Chinese network public account (WeChat add friends - add public account - enter ddxiaoshuo), participate now! Everyone has a prize, now pay attention to ddxiaoshuo WeChat public account! (To be continued......)