From the very beginning, the northwest is with the help of the trade surplus, a large number of reserves of various basic raw materials and oil, especially the latter, in the petrochemical field without the premise of great development, the oil application field is relatively single, mainly gasoline, kerosene and diesel, and even diesel because the diesel engine does not have a large number of applications, the amount of use is very small, even if it is gasoline, it is only the emergence of automobiles, slowly popularized, it can be said unceremoniously that the application of oil in this era is still in a very early stage, The amount of usage is also relatively small.

As early as more than 4 years ago, the northwest was storing all kinds of oil on a large scale, and the direction of imports was mainly the United States and Russia, and Russia and the northwest still maintained hostile relations, but after the defeat in the Far East, the domestic finances were too tight, and who to sell to was not selling, almost the northwest imported more than 25 million US dollars, so that Russia eased the most nervous time, had enough funds, paid off the debts, and even recovered a little strength. This part of the strength was originally prepared to go to the northwest side and continue to fight, who knows, the situation in the Balkans has changed abruptly, and his military strength has gone there, compared to the newly enmity of the northwest, the Turkish side and the Balkans are a little more important.

In addition to Russia, the United States, the Northwest also imported more than 70 million US dollars of oil, the United States is a large export of oil, gasoline and kerosene, and even in order to promote kerosene, Rockefeller stationed in China for a high-level person in charge of this matter, since the Northwest imports a large number of dollars, and it is real money, the United States is really open to selling, and then use the money to build more oil wells. Occupy more oil fields, get more development.

In this era. That's an absolute amount of money, more than $100 million in oil. At a time when oil prices were not so high that they were unacceptably high, and they were hovering at a low level for a long time, tens of thousands of thousand-ton or even 10,000-ton storage tanks were built in the northwest, and only then did they pack up these oils, and it was conservatively estimated that even in a few years, the number of motor vehicles in the northwest would have a large increase, and the huge oil reserves were sufficient. However, it will not work for a long time, after all, when a large number of motor vehicles are popularized, aircraft, warships, armored vehicles and tanks, these are definitely large fuel consumers, and the source of water will not take too long, and it must be open source and throttle.

Yang Yuanzhao sometimes. I really think about whether it is time to extract Iraq's oil, which is a huge oil reserve calculated in hundreds of millions. Moreover, the storage is quite shallow, and when mining, it is much easier. But after thinking about it. I still suppressed this idea, and the current northwest is far from having the ability to operate overseas. At the moment there is no problem on the Middle East side, that is, there are not enough interests. It's just an external channel for Germany, Britain may pay attention, but it won't care too much, but if the Middle East contains more than 60% of the world's oil bursts out, I'm afraid the world powers will look at it, and even Britain's home fleet will drive over more than half of it, for gold and diamonds, the British will not hesitate to fight a Boer war with the Boers, for this oil that is more precious than gold, maybe the greedy British, directly put Germany aside, come to the Middle East to enclose land, Because of the Suez Canal, the Middle East was Britain's traditional sphere of influence.

Oil has not completely replaced coal, but it is a representative wealth, which has been highlighted as early as decades ago, the Morgan Group, the Rockefeller Group, all relied on oil to start, the myth of California's wealth, the new economy of the Gulf of Mexico, all have something to do with oil.

It's still too weak, Yang Yuanzhao couldn't help but sigh with emotion, in this era of great changes, in this era of the last law of the jungle and war, it is the best era and the worst era, China, is still a little less confident, and the time to come is too short.

However, there is still good news coming, when the achievements of aerial bombs have just entered the industrial production, and are currently exploring how to increase production, another good news came, the 15-inch gun was successfully developed, and 4 physical objects were produced.

With the help of the all-in-one machine and the design of Linus, the design of the 14.5-inch gun was basically completed, and later under the premise that Baotou provided materials and 10,000 tons of hydraulic press provided forging, this large-caliber artillery made rapid progress, and at the beginning of 1913, it had reached 42 times the caliber, which could barely be put into use, and now, it has reached an astonishing 48 times the caliber, which can almost be equipped on battleships.

The use of high-quality gun steel provided by the all-in-one machine, after the pressure of the 10,000-ton hydraulic press and the free forging press, the performance is much higher than the original British products, the special internal coating and rifling drawing, so that the performance of the artillery is about 5% higher than the performance of the design, this is still Yang Yuanzhao did not apply the electroslag remelting, self-tightening and other technologies to the above results, that is the killer feature, the promotion effect of the artillery is too powerful, rash use, will only let the powers get benefits, China only gets a little.

However, in the inertia, the shell was slightly modified, and the theory of armor-piercing bullet was proposed, so that the original ordinary alloy bullet became a harder lean oil or tungsten steel bullet, and the overall structure was optimized, so that the armor-piercing performance was 150% of that of ordinary armor-piercing bullet, and the improvement was very obvious.

This cannon makes Yang Yuanzhao feel confident, with it, the sea trial of the fantasy class is at least more than a quarter completed, and the reliable artillery system is always one of the most important systems on the battleship, as long as a year, or even a year and a half of sea trials, for the battleship, in most cases, it is to test the reliability of the weapon system.

In fact, not only artillery, when designing the fantasy level, I considered sea trials, Yang Yuanzhao and Fabian thought of a lot of ways, among them, the emergence of computers, the promotion of sea trials is a huge promotion, sea trials are often relied on, high-intensity paramilitary operations, so as to be able to obtain enough numbers, and then according to the number of jù, for the warship to adjust the subtle links, from launching to have complete combat effectiveness, it takes a long time, but the emergence of computers, So that a lot of work that requires a lot of calculations and measurements, saving countless time, and even designers can design several different forms, with a large number of calculations to compare, select the best design, so that invisibly, the time for the battleship to put into battle is greatly reduced.

There are less than 40 days to go, the first two Fantasy class will be launched, and the artillery is completed ahead of schedule, which means that this battleship can be directly loaded with artillery, which saves a lot of time, you know, the new artillery adopts a lot of innovation, Yang Yuanzhao's vision of later generations and the northwest to provide hydraulic transmission and other technical equipment, and the design of Linus is perfectly combined, this artillery battery has been checked many times, there are not too many problems, what really worries them, I am afraid is whether the cannon can be completed on schedule.

Now, not only was it completed 40 days ahead of schedule, but 4 were produced at once, and 24 will be produced in the next 40 days, which is not only enough for 2 Fantasy-class installations, but also 4 spare gun barrels, such a speed can definitely be called terrifying, that is to say, once it is completed, let alone 2 ships, even if 4 ships are launched one by one within two or three months, the production speed of artillery is also keeping up, and the level of productivity in the Northwest can be seen.

15-inch artillery is a huge bargaining chip for Yang Yuanzhao, and even speculated by the General Staff, an important indicator to promote the outbreak of war and the war situation, Yang Yuanzhao just subconsciously thought about it, and immediately decided to contact the German ambassador Mumer, at this time he was already stationed in the northwest, after hearing it, he was also very happy, with a naval gun team, came to Baotou in person, specially came to see the power of this legendary strongest 48 times caliber, 15-inch artillery, Let's see if this gun is as strong as the design of the northwest, after all, the design indicators, after many German artillery experts have studied it, found that the performance of the 48-fold caliber and 15-inch gun has been squeezed to the extreme, which is almost impossible to actually produce.

From the beginning of the fantasy class design, Germany began to pay attention, but out of inertial thinking, but also out of the protection of Germany's limited resources, Germany did not devote itself to the production of this fantasy class, because the King class occupied a large number of slipways, and then the Bavarian class, also entered the design earlier than the history, in February 1913, the four ships of the Bavarian class have been laid keels respectively, and in the real history, it will not start until 1914 a year in advance.

It is precisely because of Bavaria and the late start of construction that it missed the largest battleship duel in human history, the Battle of Jutland, and even two ships that were not fully completed until the end of the war, and were dismantled back on the slipway, and now, because of the emergence of the northwest, in the case of breakthroughs in key subsystems such as high-power oil-fired boilers, steam turbines, armor and artillery, Germany's prepared capital reserves are also far better than history, built a year ahead of schedule, and laid keels, It made it possible for the most powerful warship in the history of the First World War in Germany to be commissioned ahead of schedule.

It is precisely because of the start of the construction of the Bavarian class, there is more attention to the Fantasy class, the German Admiralty's Tirpitz wants to know the comparison between the Bavarian class and the fantasy class that has achieved the design effect, but when he asked Fabian, he was ruthlessly vetoed by Fabian, the combat effectiveness of the fantasy class far exceeds that of Bavaria, not only the fantasy class has 10 15-inch guns, in terms of power, armor, and artillery power, the fantasy class is one size larger than the Bavarian class, Even if the Bavarian class is stronger than in history, because Yang Yuanzhao provided an oil-fired boiler, the power of Bavaria and increased by 20% compared with history, and the power and speed have been improved, after the use of the armor plate in the northwest, the protective performance has also been greatly enhanced, but the northwest uses newer oil-fired boilers and steam turbines, and the design of the armor plate is more reasonable. (To be continued......)