The geographical location of the Tang Empire determined that its national defense construction could not be purely defensive.

Zhang Meng knew that the Tang Empire lacked strategic depth on land, and the only land fortress base, Yanjing Fortress, could only defend Yanjing and the Vava'u Islands, while the Tonga and Hapai Islands, far away from the Vava'u Islands, could not provide fortress fire support.

However, these two islands are coral islands, less than 10 meters above sea level and there is no danger to defend the Pingchuan River, the only thing that can provide shelter is the island of Ava where Daxing is located, the island is covered by endless tropical rainforest, and it is okay to fight guerrilla warfare with the enemy in it, but it cannot protect the safety of the capital Chang'an and Jinling Islands.

Without strategic depth on land, Zhang Meng could only hope to build a naval and air integrated defense system. Only by vigorously developing the navy and air force Liliang to block the enemy's attack in the Pacific Ocean far from the land of the Tang Empire.

Zhang Meng knew that the biggest enemy of the Tang Empire in the next ten years would inevitably come from Japan in the North Pacific, and as the third largest naval power in Shijie, the Japanese Combined Fleet became the second largest navy in the Pacific region after the United States Navy and the British Navy, and even the United States did not dare to touch its edge easily.

In the face of the Japanese Combined Fleet, Zhang Meng knew that the Washington Naval Treaty was about to expire, and the Japanese Navy refused to sign a new London Naval Treaty, which meant that the Japanese Navy would be massively expanded.

Although the Japanese navy was very strong, Zhang Meng was actually not afraid of them. The reason is that Zhang Meng knows that in the future Pacific theater, aircraft carriers and aviation will dominate the victory or defeat on the battlefield.

However, the Japanese Navy has now successively commissioned three aircraft carriers, Fengxiang, Kaga and Akagi, which will pose a huge threat to the Tang Empire.

However, what is puzzling is that the Japanese Navy currently only has the Fengxiang aircraft carrier, which was built in 22 years, to serve as combat readiness duty, and the other two aircraft carriers, Akagi and Kaga, have been conducting secret experiments since they were built in 28 years to study the experience of building and using second-generation aircraft carriers for the Japanese Navy.

It can be said that the Japanese Navy is ahead of the United States and Britain in the construction and application of aircraft carriers, and its aircraft carrier combat theory and experience are ahead of the navies of Europe and the United States, and it is worthy of the name of being the first aircraft carrier power.

Zhang Meng attaches great importance to the enemy tactically, but always despises the little devils strategically.

In order to counter the Japanese navy, Zhang Meng planned and built a total of 12 airfields on the three islands, which were subordinate to four air bases, namely Qinglong Air Base on Yanjing Island, Suzaku Air Base on Chang'an Island, Baihu Air Base on Jinling Island, and Xuanwu Air Base on Daxing Island.

These four air bases deploy at least 3,000 combat aircraft of various purposes, including 1,200 fighters, 600 bombers, 200 reconnaissance aircraft, and 1,000 trainer aircraft.

The reason why it was necessary to prepare 1,000 trainer planes was mainly because there were no ready-made pilots under Zhang Meng, so he selected 5,000 people from the Wehrmacht to form an air force unit, and transferred pilots from Raptor Airlines to train them.

Although it is not too difficult to fly an airplane in this era, and it may be possible to fly the plane into the sky in half a month, it is very difficult to become a qualified pilot or become an ace.

However, at present, only Raptor Air has provided a batch of fighter jets mainly for training, mainly the P6E fighter produced by Martin, the predecessor of Raptor Aviation, for the US Army Air Corps and the F11C carrier-based fighter produced for the US Navy's aircraft carrier formation.

To tell the truth, Zhang Meng really couldn't get used to the US military's biplane propeller fighters, and whether it was an army aviation fighter or a carrier-based aircraft used by aircraft carriers, their fighter performance was very backward.

However, Raptor Aviation has not yet completed the development and design of a new generation of single-wing all-metal retractable landing gear fighters, and Zhang Meng is worried about the national defense and security of the Tang Empire, so he is in a hurry to form an air force.

In his opinion, as long as the air force of the Tang Empire has formed combat effectiveness, then even if the Japanese come to Zhang Meng for revenge, they will not be afraid of them. Because the end of the strong crossbow cannot penetrate Lu Min, Japan is thousands of miles away from the Tang Empire, and even if their navy comes, there is no way to take Zhang Meng without absolute air superiority.

Because of Zhang Meng's direct capital investment, the Raptor Airlines expanded its production line, and there was still a batch of inventory, so the first batch of 50 P6E fighters and 20 F11C carrier-based aircraft were quickly delivered to the Datang Imperial Air Force, and were deployed to the first completed Qinglong Air Force Base, exclusively for the training of Datang Imperial Air Force pilots.

Since these two models of fighters are not very fast, basically anyone who can drive can do so. The only difficulty lies in the airsickness and direction judgment caused by the need to serve the flight when flying in the air, and the flight rotation causes the pilot to misjudge the direction, and in most cases, once the direction cannot be determined, then the only result is to fall directly into the sea.

In order to overcome the problems of airsickness and lack of direction, Zhang Meng specially set up a large number of horizontal bars and axial rotating cages on the training ground of the air base to assist the pilots in overcoming difficulties. The horizontal bar mainly allows pilots to do at least 200 abdominal winds every day to solve the problem of motion sickness and airsickness. The axial rotation cage simulates the state of the aircraft cockpit when it is spinning in the sky, allowing the pilot to adapt to the situation for a long time, and finally achieve a muscle memory state, preventing the pilots from being unable to distinguish the direction when the aircraft rolls and rotates in the air.

It can be said that Zhang Meng's simple method is very effective, and for those pilots with a low level of education, Zhang Meng's method is easier to learn and memorize than the pilots who taught them.

In less than half a month, most pilots will be able to fly into the blue sky. It is inevitable that there will be some casualties, but this is all within the permissible limits.

In order to encourage pilots to have the courage to fly planes, Zhang Meng introduced a regulation on large disability pensions for air force pilots, and in the event of an accident, pilots and their families will receive three times the compensation from the military. At the same time, the minimum treatment for pilots is ensign, and the food is also the highest standard in the whole army.

These preferential treatment policies immediately calmed the confidence and fighting spirit of the officers and men of the Air Force, and enabled them to join the training with the greatest enthusiasm.

Zhang Meng is Jihua temporarily used army aviation to counter the threat of the Japanese Combined Fleet, but if you take into account the three aircraft carriers of the Japanese Navy, Zhang Meng has to think of another way.

If the Japanese navy came to attack the Tang Empire, if they dispatched aircraft carriers, then Zhang Meng must have a naval fleet as an auxiliary for the army aviation.

Of course, Zhang Meng wanted to have an aircraft carrier immediately. But he knew that the pilots of the Tang Empire's air force were still trembling when they took off from land airfields, let alone let them take off from the bumpy and shaking deck of an aircraft carrier, which was simply impractical.

Moreover, the most important thing is that Zhang Meng does not have an aircraft carrier, and even his navy only has a few antique small gunboats, the naval base is still under construction, and although the relevant shipbuilding equipment of the Dilis shipyard under the Boliheng Iron and Steel Company has been shipped back, the Yanjing Port shipyard is also under construction, and the four 60,000-ton large shipyards will not be completed until the summer of 1931.

Even if Zhang Meng wanted to build a third-generation aircraft carrier, he would not be able to start construction until after 1931. And he didn't want the powers to know about the design of his third-generation aircraft carrier, so it was impossible to order a third-generation aircraft carrier in a foreign shipyard.

However, forced by the sense of crisis, Zhang Meng decided to buy a few ready-made warships and submarines from Britain to enrich the Liliang of the Tang Imperial Navy.

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