All Shijie's eyes are focused on Northeast China.

Although the people of the Tang Empire, who were thousands of miles away, were also very concerned about China's affairs, their worries about others quickly turned into worries about themselves, because the main force of the Japanese Navy's combined fleet was already on its way to attack the Tang Dynasty.

Whether or not the main force of the Japanese Navy's Combined Fleet can be defeated, this huge greeting appears in the minds of every subject of the Tang Empire, and even the refugees from Northeast China who have just arrived in the refugee area of Fiji are concerned about this issue.

"Will you be able to stop the Japanese Navy's attack?"

"Don't worry, we have completely annihilated the main fleet of the Japanese Navy before, and this time it will be no problem!"

This dialogue is asked even more often than people usually use phrases, which shows the great deterrent power of the Japanese Navy to the subjects of the Tang Empire.

Fortunately, the Tang Empire did eliminate a powerful fleet of the Japanese Navy before, so people were much calmer and calmer than when they first heard that the Japanese Navy was coming, but they were still very worried, after all, this time it was the real main fleet, and even the other powers of the whole Shijie were not optimistic about the victory of the Tang Empire this time, although they also analyzed it this way last time.

It is undeniable that the subjects of the Tang Empire still have a very strong will to fight to defend their home and country. Although their homes and job opportunities were given to them by Zhang Meng, they really don't want to leave Datang now, because they have already lived in the beautiful house they built with their own hands, and they have regarded it as a comfortable nest for themselves and their families. At the same time, they also received job opportunities and generous treatment given to them by the Tang Empire, which was dozens of times better than their previous living environment.

That's right! No one wants to go back to the old life of wandering around without food and clothing!

The citizens of the Tang Empire have more and more strong feelings of protecting their homes and defending the country, and they work hard to produce as many weapons and equipment as possible for the Tang Army, even if it is just one more bullet, they can destroy one more enemy and increase their chances of victory.

The enthusiasm of the people deeply infected the soldiers of the Tang Empire, and Zhang Meng's insistence on bringing every family member of the Tang Army to the Tang Dynasty now proves how prescient he was. Nowadays, every Tang army has to fight not only for the country, but also for the protection of their families and loved ones, if this invisible liliang can be described in words, perhaps it is more appropriate to fight to the death.

The people are full of enthusiasm for production, the soldiers are full of the will to fight, and there are already three points of bargaining chips for the Tang Empire.

However, in the face of the overwhelming military strength of the Japanese Combined Fleet, the Supreme Command of the Tang Empire headed by Zhang Meng did not dare to take it lightly at all.

Zhang Meng originally thought that killing Yuyuki Hamaguchi and causing the early outbreak of 918 could contain Japan's energy, so that Japan would not have more energy to deal with the Tang Empire.

However, in the first confrontation between Tang and Japan, the Tang Empire wiped out a powerful Japanese naval fleet, and sank more than a dozen main warships of the Japanese Navy at that time, especially the four Kongo-class battlecruisers, which was equivalent to tearing off a large piece of meat from the Japanese Navy, which really made the Japanese Navy suffer terribly, and they were destined to never forget the unforgettable pain, and they were destined to come back for revenge.

The main force of the Japanese Combined Fleet expedition to Datang was actually won or lost in the Fifth Five-Year Plan.

Zhang Meng gave instructions at a meeting of senior generals of the Ministry of National Defense: Although Japan's Combined Fleet is powerful, it refers to his traditional surface combat ships, which are explained in accordance with the traditional concepts of warship firepower and displacement. In this regard, the main warships of the Royal Navy of the Tang Empire are inferior to the other party in terms of number and firepower.

Since August, the six Lin Xian-class light cruisers built by the British for the Datang and the third batch of six destroyers of the twenty-four utopian-class destroyers built by the French for the Datang have been delivered to the Royal Navy of the Tang Empire. By the end of December, six Linxian-class light cruisers commissioned from Britain by Ecuador and other Central American countries, as well as a batch of six Utopian-class destroyers from Zuihou, had also arrived in Datang one after another.

Since these warships were built abroad, and the sea trials had already been done by the British and French sides, which lasted for three months and two months respectively, the Royal Navy of the Tang Empire could directly serve and use them after receiving them.

The twelve Lin Xian-class light cruisers have not changed much except that they are much more powerful than the Leander-class light cruisers in terms of anti-aircraft firepower. The officers and men of the Royal Navy of the Tang Empire had already been proficiently operated and used the six Leander-class light cruisers that had been leased before, so they could quickly adapt to the new ships.

The six Leander-class light cruisers were normally to be returned to the British Navy, but these six warships were outdated, and the British Navy had earned a high lease fee from the Tang Empire, and the British government considered that it had failed to protect the Tang Empire, so the six Leander light cruisers were directly transferred to the Tang Dynasty.

As for the twenty-four French-built Utopian-class destroyers, although the Datang Royal Navy had no actual operation and piloting experience in this area before, the basic principles and operation jishu were the same, plus the Utopian-class destroyers were not large warships, and they were even easier to operate than the Linxian-class light cruisers.

Zhang Meng's original intention of buying these warships from Britain and France was to form an aircraft carrier battle group, although he also thought about having a more powerful surface fleet including battleships and heavy cruisers, but it was too expensive and not much use, so Zhang Meng still thought that it was more cost-effective to form an aircraft carrier battle group, and it also echoed the needs of future naval warfare.

The four Tianwang-class aircraft carriers built by the San Francisco United Steel Shipyard for the Tang Royal Navy were originally completed and delivered within 16 months, but due to Zhang Meng's urgency, the four Tianwang-class aircraft carriers purchased catapult slides from the New York Mechanical Engineering Equipment Company in accordance with the standards for catapulting F11C carrier-based fighters when installing large steam catapult systems. But when it came time to conduct the tests, the Tang Army used the newly entered Raptor heavy carrier-based fighter and Hellfire heavy carrier-based bomber that had completed test flights. Due to the difference in the width of the track, it was not possible to carry out a towed ejection. When the track width was corrected, it was found that the steam catapult was not powerful enough to work against the Hellfire heavy carrier-based fighter at all.

Zhang Meng originally greatly increased the length and width of the flight deck of these four aircraft carriers in order to be able to take off and land heavy carrier-based bombers on the aircraft carrier, because he knew that the aerial bombs that carrier-based bombers of various countries in the early stage of World War II could carry in the range of 200 kg to 300 kg, and it was difficult to inflict heavy damage on the horizontal armor of ordinary large battleships, coupled with factors such as low hit rate, it was generally difficult to sink the enemy's large battleships.

Zhang Meng didn't want to spend money in vain, he liked to do it as much as possible, so he ordered Raptor Airlines from the beginning to develop a heavy carrier-based bomber carrying 500 kilograms of aerial bombs, so he also made a corresponding requirement to lengthen the flight deck of the aircraft carrier.

The designers and engineers at the San Francisco Union Steel shipyard did not fully understand Zhang's request, and as a result, errors such as insufficient power of the catapult and substandard orbit appeared.

Fortunately, they discovered the problem in time and urgently replaced the catapult system, but this delayed an additional three months, and the delivery of the four aircraft carriers was delayed until the end of November.

However, the newly replaced steam catapult system is much more advanced and efficient than the original. This is due to the fact that under the influence of factors such as light weight, slow speed, and low structural strength of aircraft in this era, aircraft can take off from the horizontal deck without catapults.

The aircraft carriers of Britain, the United States, Japan and other countries also used catapult systems at the beginning, but they were soon canceled because they were not efficient and had little effect, so when the Tianwang-class aircraft carriers asked to use catapults, the New York Machinery Equipment Company directly used the old equipment more than ten years ago to fill the number.

This old-fashioned steam catapult was too low in power and efficiency, and the equipment was bloated and complex, making it unsuitable for rapid ejection fighters.

Therefore, Zhang Meng handed over the research and development and manufacturing of the catapult to the Quincy Air Compressor Company, and George and John Carter were responsible for the development. Due to the tight time, Zhang Meng only gave them two months, so they used a mature gas turbocharger boiler, combined with their advanced air compressor Jishu, to successfully develop a high-power gas catapult system.

The power and thermal efficiency of the gas catapult system are much higher than those of steam catapult and hydraulic catapult of this era, which is enough to catapult any heavy carrier-based fighter and carrier-based bomber, but the disadvantage is that the equipment is expensive and the maintenance cost is very high.

After the report was handed over to Zhang Meng, Zhang Meng was forced to immediately approve it without being short of money under the great pressure of preparing for the war against Japan.

In this way, during the sea trials of the four Tianwang-class aircraft carriers, the flight deck was successively replaced with gas catapult systems, and a month later, the various ejection take-offs of the Raptor carrier-based fighter and the Hellfire carrier-based bomber were completed, and all the follow-up installation work was completed before the four aircraft carriers were officially delivered to the Datang Royal Navy.