In the blue sky, a biplane flashed quickly, leaving a buzzing sound.

On the ground is a long airstrip, and in the distance to the right of the runway is a row of spectators, who are watching a flight show of a new aircraft developed by the Beiyang Science and Technology Aircraft Laboratory.

The show is very simple, the pilot flies the plane around the airfield, and this is considered an air show. But the people in the audience were clapping their hands, shouting, and chanting.

In a separate shed in the center of the audience, Wang Chenhao took his two wives and several maids to watch the performance together. Li Youyi and Luo Xier sat on the left and right sides of Wang Chenhao, clapping their hands vigorously and exclaiming, pulling Wang Chenhao to share their excitement from time to time.

To be honest, Wang Chenhao was not interested in this level of performance at all, if it weren't for the fact that today was Li Youyi's birth, he wouldn't have sat here to watch this boring flight show with them.

The aircraft pilots flew by the Adel 98F, and before that Adel and his technical team had already designed five aircraft. The Type 98F is a big step forward from the previous five models. Although its aircraft structure is still a biplane, after Wang Chenhao's special guidance, Adel has been instilled with some modern aircraft structure ideas, and the professor of Beiyang Science and Technology Physics and Aeronautics has coordinated to assist Adel in developing a reasonable aerodynamic layout of the aircraft, so that the biplane fuselage structure has been greatly optimized.

Due to the low power and heavy weight of aero engines in this era, most of the materials used to build the fuselage were wood and cloth. To solve the buoyancy problem required for lift-off, a large area of the wing is needed in order to generate sufficient lift at low speeds. Whereas, biplanes have two wing surfaces and a larger total wing area, which can meet this need.

The Type 98F biplane is 5.8 meters long and 2.4 meters high, with a large wingspan of 8.16 meters, an empty weight of 175 kilograms, and a maximum weight of 300 kilograms. It adopts the BT6 four-cylinder gasoline engine newly developed by Beiyang Science and Technology Engine Laboratory, with a power of 25 horsepower. The maximum speed of the aircraft reached 75 kilometers per hour, the ceiling reached 180 meters, the maximum flight altitude was 240 meters, the cruising speed was 55 kilometers per hour, and the air stay time also reached 35 minutes.

All in all, it's pretty good that the 98F is able to reach this level. And Wang Chenhao didn't want to do anything like pulling out seedlings anymore, so he didn't make excessive demands on Adel, but only gave him appropriate encouragement, and asked other departments to provide funds and technical assistance within their capabilities.

The aircraft project is not public, but the top brass of the navy, land and air force departments under the Ministry of Defense are aware of the project. Although the 98F achieved impressive results, it was not very popular. There are still no plans for mass production of the Type 98F, and although Adel has also modified the Type 98M seaplane for this purpose, it is not favored by military officials.

The reason is that the current aircraft is inferior to airships in terms of key technical indicators such as range, load, and airtime, so officials in the War Department and the Navy Department are only interested in airships.

In addition to equipping the army's reconnaissance units with airships and balloons to facilitate reconnaissance, the Air Department's application for the large-scale formation of airship units has been withheld by Wang Chenhao.

Wang Chenhao has never liked the airship unit, and his original intention of making it public is only to stimulate European and American countries to divert their attention to the development of airships and mislead them in the direction of the development of air power, and at the same time to vigorously advocate the strategic bombing role of airships, stimulate the troops of European and American countries to vigorously develop airships, and set off an arms race of airships all over the world.

At present, the Type 98F aircraft can already fly dozens of kilometers, which is enough to withstand any airship force. Even if you don't load the aircraft with weapons, it is enough to shoot down the enemy's airship by equipping the pilot with a pistol in wartime.

Wang Chenhao has the bottom in his heart, so he has no fear.

At the same time as the aircraft project is underway, the Beiyang Science and Technology Firearms Laboratory is also developing weapons systems that can be carried on the aircraft. According to Wang Chenhao's request, when the range of the aircraft reaches more than 100 kilometers in the future, it is necessary to equip the aircraft with a weapon system so that the pilots can carry out sudden combat missions.

Wang Chenhao's task to the firearms laboratory was to develop a shooting coordinator. That is, to ensure that the heavy machine gun on the aircraft can let the bullet pass through the rotating surface of the front propeller when firing the bullet, and will not hit the propeller, and the muzzle direction is located on the central axis of the aircraft as much as possible, so that the pilot can aim, so as to improve the hit rate of aerial shooting.

The principle of the Shot Coordinator is simple, allowing the aircraft to coordinate its actions with the aircraft propeller when firing, so that the bullet does not shoot into the propeller blades, but the bullet is shot out of the gap in the rotating blades. The trick is that when the blades form a straight line with the barrel, the machine gun automatically stops firing, which avoids hitting the blades. It was easy for gunsmiths who understood the principles of firearms such as the Grimm machine gun and the revolver to design it. The difficulty was to connect the heavy machine gun's excitation system to the pilot's cockpit and the aircraft's propeller shaft at the same time, and the weight and volume of the heavy machine gun, synchronizer, ammunition feeder and ammunition had to be greatly improved to reduce weight and volume.

In Wang Chenhao's time, the weight and volume of weapons and equipment were just a piece of cake, but for the low power of the current aero engine in this era, it must be unbearable.

Fortunately, the aircraft project is still in a state of further development and upgrading, so the weapons laboratory has enough time to develop an airborne weapon system.

Both the Navy and the Army have been reformed, but the Air Force has not changed much, remaining at the strength of a dozen airships and dozens of balloon squads.

Through political and military reforms, Wang Chenhao consolidated his power in the central government and absolute control over the local areas before he began to carry out drastic economic reforms to touch the core interests of the Manchu strata.

The first item of economic reform is the fiscal and financial reform, which has been implemented a year and a half ago, and now the Imperial Bank has issued 1.7 billion dragon coins, replacing all the currency in the financial market of the Qing Empire, taking back the provincial mint bureaus and currency issuance rights, and finally curbing the chaotic monetary era of the Manchu Qing Dynasty since 1840, and also successfully stopping the conspiracy of the great powers to take advantage of the chaos of China's currency to make a lot of money, but also to help the people end all kinds of silver losses, copper losses, fire consumption, The suffering caused by the chaotic monetary system, such as devaluation, has effectively reduced the burden on the people.

In terms of taxation, the tax system of the Qing government has been very unsuccessful. Although the policy of emphasizing agriculture and suppressing commerce was eased, the industrial and commercial tax was more than 70% higher than that of similar foreign industrial and commercial taxes, which seriously hindered the development of national industry and commerce.

Wang Chenhao built the Beijing-Tianjin-Tang Industrial Base in Zhili, and used various means to exempt the imperial court from paying taxes, the main reason for which was that the imperial court's taxes on industry and commerce were too high, and basically the profits won were exploited by the imperial court, and there was no way to develop and grow.

Based on this, Wang Chenhao's staff team introduced the mature experience of the two major industrial powers, Germany and the United States, and formulated the Chinese Commercial Code. As the world's largest industrial power, the development and rise of the United States is based on the vigorous development and utilization of resources. As the second largest industrial power after the United States, Germany's development relies on advanced science and technology and management experience. China has a vast land and abundant resources, and learning from the experience of the United States has laid a solid foundation for China's industrial development, and it is rapidly catching up with European and American powers according to Germany's industrial development model and experience.

The original investment of the Beijing-Tianjin-Tangzhou Industrial Base was as high as 300 million US dollars, and after more than three years of construction and development, it has formed a scale, and all the industrial projects of the European and American powers can be found in the Beijing-Tianjin-Tangzhou Industrial Base. China has all the industrial projects of the great powers, but it cannot fully digest them in a short period of time, and it will take a considerable amount of time to transform the advanced productive forces of the European and American powers into China's own productive forces.

In the first year, the major industrial factories in the Beijing-Tianjin-Tang Industrial Base achieved a GDP of 30 million dragon coins and a profit of 5 million dragon coins. Among them, Zhili Iron and Steel Company has made great contributions. Zhili Iron and Steel Company, which has obtained the world's top technical team, produced 6 million tons of raw iron and 3 million tons of steel in the first year, including 300,000 tons of Krupp high-quality steel and 20,000 tons of China special steel. Ordinary steel is supplied to civilian use, and Krupp steel and China Special Steel are supplied to armament companies for the construction of warships, the production of weapons and equipment, etc.

In the first year of completion and operation, the iron output of the Zhili Iron and Steel Company reached the level of 1880 in the United Kingdom, and the level of steel production reached the level of 1890 in the United Kingdom.

This brilliance makes Wang Chenhao believe that the development of steel to drive the overall national industry is the most effective way, plus steel is a measure of a country's industrial capacity standard, and China itself has a large number of steel production bases and sales markets, as well as the world's top steel technical team support, can not let go of this great opportunity.

So, Wang Chenhao waved his pen on the map and demarcated a number of industrial bases.

In the northeast region, Wang Chenhao took into account the security of human resources and national defense, and did not develop the two provinces of Jilin and Heilongjiang, but demarcated the northeast industrial base centered on Fushun, Anshan, and Dalian in Shengjing. The coal of Fushun, the steel of Anshan, and the good port of Dalian Bay, this is an excellent steel industry base. Rich in resources, convenient transportation, low in the Bohai Bay, can be used for rapid development with the help of the Beijing-Tianjin-Tang Industrial Base, which is a favorable supplement to the Beijing-Tianjin-Tang Industrial Base.

The Yangtze River Delta region, because of its dense population and abundant labor force, is located in the land of fish and rice and the land of silk, and is suitable for the development of light industries such as textiles and grain processing. The textile industry of the three provinces of Liangjiang is developed, and after the two wars of the Qing Dynasty, the Chinese textile industry, which was originally suppressed by the textile industry, has been quickly restored and developed. As the financial center of southern China, Shanghai has developed finance and commerce, and the large-scale shipbuilding plan of Shanghai Shipbuilding Industry Co., Ltd. has comprehensively driven the economy of Shanghai and surrounding areas. As we all know, the naval industry is the epitome of national industry, and the materials, technology, and equipment required for a warship include almost all sectors of the national economy. Therefore, driven by Shanghai Shipbuilding Heavy Industry, thousands of private companies and enterprises of all sizes have been built in the surrounding areas, and the Yangtze River Delta Industrial Zone with Shanghai as the center has begun to take shape.

Since the two Opium Wars, industry and commerce in the Pearl River Delta region have gradually declined. The financial center was transferred from Guangzhou to Shanghai. However, as the war between the United States and the Philippines continues to expand, China, as a paramilitary ally of the United States, has more than 100,000 US troops fighting in the Philippines mainly relying on importing various strategic materials from China.

Wang Chenhao knows that the US-Philippine war will have to be fought for at least three years, and the US political axe will spend $1.5 billion on the war between the United States and the Philippines. In order to reduce military spending, the United States has chosen to import materials from China nearby, so that the United States does not need to transfer materials from the mainland to the Philippines, saving hundreds of millions of dollars in additional expenses. However, what the US political axe did not know was that Wang Chenhao secretly sold arms, medicines, food, and various strategic materials to the Republic of the Philippines to make huge profits. Wang Chenhao conservatively estimated that the US-Philippine war would have to be fought for more than five years, so he predicted that the US political axe would spend $2 billion on military spending, of which $1 billion would be used to purchase various strategic materials from China. Similarly, the Republic of the Philippines will have to spend at least $300 million over the next five years on importing various strategic goods and arms from China.

In this way, China will profit $1.3 billion from the war between the United States and the Philippines, which is enough to build four Beijing-Tianjin-Tangzhou industrial bases. The Pearl River Delta Industrial Base will shoulder the main supply task, so it is inevitable to build the Pearl River Delta Industrial Base.

The middle and upper reaches of the Yangtze River are also China's current economically developed regions, among which the Liangguang area operated by Zhang Zhidong has the basic conditions for an industrial base. Wang Chenhao divided the surrounding area of the three towns of Wuhan into an industrial base centered on Wuchang, Hanyang Iron Works with the help of the technical team of Zhili Iron and Steel Company, the recovery of profitability is just around the corner, after the formation of Wuchang Industrial Base, Daye Iron Mine, Pingxiang Coal Mine is connected by railway, with the Yangtze River water transport facilities, no less than several industrial bases along the coast, after completion will become an important industrial base in the inland area. Perhaps one day it will become China's strategic rear.

Of course, Wang Chenhao didn't want that to happen, but as a strategist, it's always good to plan ahead. Besides, in order to achieve balanced industrial development across the country, Wang Chenhao also has to build an industrial base in the rear of Wuchang. Even if it is not for national defense needs, at least it can bring economic benefits to the people in the surrounding areas.

(To be continued)