After completing eight dreadnought battleships and the same number of Invincible-class battlecruisers in less than a year, the British Royal Navy, which had once become the laughing stock of the West, was once again recognized as the strongest navy in the world, and the strong heritage of the British shipbuilding industry and the effectiveness of Chamberlain's reform to revitalize the manufacturing industry were also fully demonstrated. The British Admiralty www.biquge.info who had been holding back for a long time, could finally proudly repeat the slogan of "two great navies", "If Germany builds one (dreadnought), we will build two!" ”

However, the second country in the world to build a dreadnought is not Germany, which has just built a 15,000-ton dock, and the new capital ship is still in the model stage, and the construction plan is disrupted by the dreadnought, even if the German designer can complete the new design in an instant, and then start building immediately, it will have to wait until three years later to complete the service, and Germany's shipbuilding capacity is far inferior to the current Britain, even if Britain suspends shipbuilding, Germany also had to wait at least until the completion of two capital ships to compete with the British Royal Navy, and it was very reluctant. Until then, Germany will have to continue to pretend to be a grandson, at least in the competition for overseas interests, and this is especially evident in the "First Moroccan Crisis", which erupted a little later than in history.

It was the Americans who really came up with a similar design as forward-looking as the British designers, and their desperate efforts to strengthen the navy over the years also paid off, almost at the same time as the completion of the battleship Dreadnought, the battleship South Carolina with a standard displacement of more than 16,000 tons went to sea to complete the first sea trials, and there were as many as 10 warships of the same type built in the same batch!

Obviously, under the tremendous pressure exerted by China, the US shipbuilding industry has also gone all out, and even during the war, it may be difficult to have a stronger production capacity.

According to Theodore Roosevelt's idea, he actually hoped to design a battle cruiser that could crush the Chinese Sage-class battle cruiser in all aspects, but the American steam turbine technology went the wrong way, and the reliability was very bad, so it could only continue to use the old reciprocating steam engine, so it was impossible to gain an advantage in speed, so the American designers could only abandon the idea of the battlecruiser and pragmatically designed the South Carolina-class, a new type of battleship that was not fast, but had impeccable firepower and protection.

Although the South Carolina-class battleships could not keep up with the speed of the Saint-class battle cruisers and could not prevent them from breaking up diplomatic relations and harassment, they could at least effectively defend the homeland and prevent the Chinese army from having the opportunity to land on the east coast of the United States, so as to avoid a large number of troops and materials being held back by coastal defense pressure, resulting in great waste.

Except for the lack of a steam turbine, which resulted in a pitiful maximum speed of eighteen or nineteen knots, and a modest endurance of only 5,000 nautical miles / 10 knots, the South Carolina-class battleship looked even more perfect than the Dreadnought-class battleship: her armor thickness was the same as the latter, although it was made of slightly inferior Harvey nickel steel armor, but as long as the enemy was not capped with armor-piercing shells, it was generally enough, and even the US Navy itself, The subject of cap-piercing shells has only just begun to be studied (which is why Harvey nickel steel armor was used, and Krupp armor was not imported from Germany). ）； Although the 4 twin-mounted 12-inch guns do not seem to have as many tubes as the 6-seat main turret of the Dreadnought-class, they are all laid out along the central axis, and the knapsack turret design is adopted, which can fire eight guns at most angles against the enemy, and the firepower in actual combat is not inferior to that of the Dreadnought; As for fire control, the U.S. Navy, which racked its brains to defeat China's ocean fleet, paid attention to it even earlier than the British, and the South Carolina-class battleships naturally also had fire control systems, and in terms of advancement, they were only higher than those used on the Dreadnought-class battleships.

According to the estimates of the U.S. Department of the Navy (and only the estimation of the U.S. Admiralty), the South Carolina-class battleships are fully capable of going head-to-head with the Dreadnought-class battleships, but their cost is significantly lower than the latter (in fact, there are close to eighty percent), which can be called the masterpiece of the American shipbuilding industry since entering the era of ironclad ships!

In fact, the completion and commissioning of the ten South Carolina-class battleships did give the Roosevelt administration great confidence, and before these ten warships could complete their training, Theodore Roosevelt bypassed Congress and directly ordered the Navy to send the main fleet south to Panama to snatch back the canal, which was not fully penetrated at this time! As long as the Panama Canal can be controlled in its own hands, coupled with a powerful navy that has surpassed its opponents, it will be replaced by the need for the Chinese government to guard against attacks from both land and sea at the same time, and considering the huge geographical advantage of the United States, China has absolutely no chance of winning, and has no other choice but to withdraw from the Americas.

The reason why Theodore Roosevelt did this at the risk of impeachment was to avoid giving China and Britain time to react; if a congressional resolution was submitted, by the time the proposal was passed, the Chinese troops in Colombia would have already marched into the Canal Zone, and the land force brought by the fleet at that time might not be solved, and the British government, which had become more and more anti-American in recent years, could also intervene, and Roosevelt's wishful thinking would be in vain.

The situation would be very different if the Canal Zone could be seized before the Chinese army could react, as long as the docks could be taken safely, the U.S. Army could quickly reinforce them, and given the distance between the mainland of the two countries and the Panama Canal Zone, the speed of China's troop build-up would definitely not be able to match that of the United States. And as long as the fact of the occupation of the Panama Canal Zone is formed, even if the British government is dissatisfied, it is unlikely that it will send a fleet to intervene in the Americas, after all, Britain's fundamental interests are still in Europe.

It must be noted that, despite the same name, the Canal Zone is no longer in the same position as it used to be, but closer to the South American continent. Abandoning the original Panama Canal, which had already been partially built by the French, was a decision made by Li Hui in the light of China's national conditions after listening to the analysis of technical experts.

When designing the Panama Canal, French engineers borrowed from the experience of the Suez Canal, wanting to borrow natural waters to reduce the amount of work, and then after a period of work, they found that the bottom of the lake they wanted to use was higher than sea level (this is the main reason for the construction of the lock-type canal, and the height difference between the two sides of the ocean is actually not so large). In order to build a Haiping-style canal as originally planned, the lake would have to be emptied (and in order to do this, a lot of manual diversion of the river flowing into the lake would have to be done). and then excavate the river channel on the original bottom of the lake, which is too exaggerated...... (To be continued.) )