"Chairman, do you think the Ottomans could defeat Italy? The staff of the fleet and I have repeatedly conducted war games based on the two navies...... Unless the Italians make stupid mistakes and keep making low-level mistakes, the Italian navy will have artillery in almost all Ottoman ports except Isttapour, and the Turks will have no chance of making any effective counterattack except for their Arab cavalry running on land! ”

In Yingkou Port, Vice Admiral Tang Qingshan, who came to greet Qin Kai with a bunch of senior naval officers, came up to inquire about the great war that had started in Europe as soon as they met, and these generals were keen to discuss this matter, in fact, the most important reason was to pay attention to the battleships sold by China, as an important opportunity to test the naval equipment sold by China, the Ottoman Navy against the Italian Navy, obviously an opportunity to test the naval armaments.

"Aoyama, it is indeed difficult for the Ottomans to defeat the Italians, but, let's not forget, to occupy territory, the battleships will not be able to complete this task, and once landed, in a place like Tripoli, where birds don't, the Arab cavalry will have an unexpected territorial advantage...... If our intelligence division can operate better, the three main battleships owned by the Ottoman Navy will be a sea force worth looking forward to! Qin Kai and Tang Qingshan walked towards the port one after the other, chatting very happily about this very interesting topic.

Although the Xia-class battleships and Shang-class battleships sold abroad will have deliberate shrinkage in fire control, power, and armor, for example, the battleships are uniformly made of Jiangnan shipbuilding steel armor, instead of the superstructure like the naval test ship uses T series high-yield and high-elasticity special steel, the hull is made of ST series armor section with high tensile strength and high yield pressure-resistant steel, and the underwater mine-resistant armor is made of W series high-elastic homogeneous armor.

The level of battleship construction in Italy. It's at a high level for the whole of Europe. Not only in manufacturing, but even in theory, it was often ahead of the British Empire. Of course, Italy's production capacity is a hard injury, which is also destined to Italy can only be in the Mediterranean! Supporting the Ottomans, which can be said to have been Qin Kai's idea from beginning to end, is to digest the domestic military production capacity in the early stage to ensure that the four major heavy industries can continue to expand the industrial scale in the first few years at the beginning of the century.

Second, Tang Qingshan even privately speculated with the staff officers of the Northern Fleet that Qin Kai had long expected that the European powers would take action against the Ottomans. Therefore, seize the opportunity to export weapons and cause some trouble for the Europeans, and judging from the colonization of Asia by the great powers, it is completely reasonable to make such a prediction, and the only unreasonable point is that it seems to attach too much importance to the Ottoman Turks.

Qin Kai appeared in the port, naturally not to come to Yingkou for leisure, the first ten years of the new century are about to pass, but as a historical observer, he has already discovered some elusive information......

The emergence of Greater China in the Far East. It seems to have had a very clear influence on the trajectory of history, the series of Eurasian rivalries that could have occurred at the beginning of the century. After his deliberate diplomatic cooperation, the contradictions in the Far East have long ceased to exist, and China, although it has great strength, has not taken the initiative to challenge the position of the British Empire, and this seems to have had the effect of satisfying Qin Kai!

In the past ten years, China has relied on the free trade port area in South Asia, which can almost be said to be a perfect economic take-off, with huge labor resources and free trade ports, solving the problem of trade barriers to European, American and local goods, Qin Kai has formulated a very interesting game rule, a country that needs a huge Nanyang free trade port must provide more preferential domestic tariffs for Chinese goods.

For countries in Europe and the Americas after several economic crises, this rule of the game has been fully recognized, and China's economy has achieved phenomenal growth as a result...... And the sacrifice for this may be the loss of tariffs in the free port...... Although it was huge, Qin Kai thought it was very worthwhile...... Europeans and Yankees simply do not realize the formidable industrial capacity that Greater China has nurtured.

Qin Kai has full confidence in this point, but the development of history has already shocked him, as far as the Italian and Ottoman wars are concerned, they are at least a year ahead of the original history, and the reason for this is that even the staff of the Intelligence Department and the Ministry of Military Affairs cannot find any direct reasons from a series of expansions and confrontations in Europe...... All in all, the change of history has given him a feeling that it is difficult to control.

Moreover, not only the advance of the Italian-Austrian war, but also the second Moroccan crisis became more responsible and lasted longer because of the Germans' involvement and the French's toughness. In particular, his own support for the Ottoman Empire, coupled with the fact that the German Empire also participated in military assistance to the Ottomans in accordance with the historical trajectory, if the Ottoman strength really changed significantly as he wished, it would definitely be enough to trigger a qualitative change in the historical trajectory!

Tang Qingshan obviously also heard the meaning of Qin Kai's words, it was obvious that for this war in the Mediterranean, China was more willing to see the result of disrupting the situation in Europe, and he immediately seized the opportunity and asked the question that made him more concerned, "Prime Minister, our Northern Fleet has been in the army for 14 years, and the battleships have come and gone, and let me stay here to test the new warship, the grass is about to grow on the soles of my feet!" ”

Seeing this unwilling whining, Qin Kai laughed, "Qingshan, don't be dissatisfied...... Over the years, Chen Ming of the Pacific Fleet, Deng Shichang of the South Pacific Fleet, Lu Zhiyuan of the Indian Ocean Fleet, and Chen Ying of the Home Fleet have been complaining to Xu Shoushan every time they go to Beijing. ”

Hearing Qin Kai's ridicule, Tang Qingshan responded unequivocally: "Chairman, they are called envy, jealousy and hatred, the test done by our Northern Fleet is definitely worthy of the word Navy, they are not less to hitchhike, the officers who come to study on the ship every month can form two marines, and our Northern Fleet is definitely pouring out their money!" ”

When Qin Kai heard this, he also smiled slightly, at the beginning, he strongly vetoed a series of shipbuilding plans, including the 98 Navy case, there is no doubt that it is the need of Taoguang to raise obscurity, a world war may be just around the corner, and then economic capacity can only be decisive, he turned around and patted this guy's shoulder, "Qingshan, you don't have to worry about this, our journey must be more than just the Pacific Ocean, and then the navy is afraid that there will not be so many officers to bring warships, not that there are no warships!" ”

On the morning of April 30, Qin Kai arrived at Qinhuangdao Port by naval warship, and arrived in Beijing by train in the evening of the same day.

After a full meal, the topic of small talk came to an end temporarily, and Tang Shaoyi was the first to jump out and throw out the topic, "Chairman, I heard Gengtang mention that he has drafted a naval case with a military expenditure of 600 million yuan, Yushan has also drafted a 200 million yuan army record, and Zhang Kui has also taken out an 80 million yuan air force record...... The budget for my side has already been issued, and the infrastructure construction plans for Sichuan, Gansu, Shanxi, Siberia, and Tangnu Ulianghai have already been approved by the National Assembly, and we are waiting for the money! ”

"Shaochuan, our military and political department has eaten chaff for ten years, so we have to improve it!" Xu Shoushan immediately jumped out and protested loudly, for Tang Shaoyi, the God of Wealth, these bigwigs in the Ministry of Military Affairs actually have a deep hatred for him, you know, if you want some head funds, you have to find Zhou Ruidong, the prime minister, to save the country, otherwise, the Ministry of Finance will use the supreme instructions to develop people's livelihood as a shield, and completely ignore it.

Qin Kai had long anticipated this situation, and he had not looked at the various reports of the Ministry of Finance transferred from the cabinet earlier, and the large amount of national tax revenue was reinvested in infrastructure construction and the addition of state-owned industries, which undoubtedly greatly stimulated the domestic industrial capacity and the national economy, and after nearly 10 years of hard work, in 1908, the financial revenue of the Beijing government increased by 2.7 times compared with 1900, reaching 1.63 billion yuan, which was unimaginable ten years ago, and the more equivalent to 330 million pounds.

In the past 10 years, the industrial fund injected into the Ministry of Industry has reached 550 million yuan, and this huge amount of funds began to be put into operation in the form of the state-owned China Industrial Bank last year, and it has departed from the original mode of operation, which also directly shows the abundance of domestic capital.

"Shaochuan, these military filings are all approved by me!" Qin Kai nodded at Tang Shaoyi, "The situation in Europe is not optimistic, according to my judgment, the contradictions between the Balkans and Africa have reached an irreconcilable stage, and the confrontation between Germany and Britain has also reached a dangerous situation where they can go off at any time, we must prepare from now on!" ”

In fact, not to say this, Tang Shaoyi should also know the ins and outs, the reason why this first question, naturally still hopes to continue to increase investment and support for the domestic economy, the amazing economic changes that have occurred in China in the past ten years, so that this generation of high-level government is excited, and the world is helped, for thousands of years has been the persistent concept of Chinese governance.

However, when Qin Kai said his judgment, Tang Shaoyi immediately realized the urgency of the matter, he was the generation that grew up in the Nanyang system, so he naturally understood the importance of armaments, and also understood the importance of Qin Kai's personal intervention in this matter, "Oh, chairman, then I will immediately start to adjust this year's budget to ensure that the National Assembly can match funds as soon as possible after the filing of the Guò Army!" ”

"Ruidong...... In my opinion, for the time being, we should not publicize it in a big way, and I propose to make a report in the form of a cabinet confidential case, and submit it to the Congress for the record, so as to ensure the secrecy of this military information, and the future situation is probably unpredictable for any of us, and we must make complete preparations! Qin Kai turned his head and discussed softly with Zhou Ruidong. (To be continued......)