In the face of the growing national strength of the Republic of Seris, the British began to find embarrassedly that the weight of Hong Kong in the scale of his hand began to tilt continuously.

At sea, Hong Kong is too close to Taiwan, Luzon, and other places in the East, and the two places that are only separated by a sea from it are equivalent to severely blocking its various passages to the Pacific Ocean to the north. On land, it is close to the East Asian continent behind it, and this past advantage has become its greatest disadvantage in the context of today.

Once China and Britain are at odds, the other side's million-strong army can crush the British military in the entire Hong Kong region at any time. Gradually, the British began to discover and re-examine Hong Kong's place in their Far East policy...... At least one thing is certain, Hong Kong's past military role must be abandoned, Hong Kong does not even have the bare minimum of safe supply capabilities in the face of its current powerful eastern "neighbor", and if Seris shuts down her water conservancy facilities in the upper Pearl River, the British soldiers in the area will even have to face a water shortage the next day.

Compared with the original interests, the colony of Hong Kong has gradually become a hot potato for the British government, and after losing its original military significance, only a small amount of economic activity is left in the area. In addition, politically, Britain's occupation of Hong Kong is also an important symbol of its control over the Far East, and it has nothing to do with the existence of various Far East countries, and the Hong Kong colony, as long as it still exists, will be directly related to the prestige and interests of the British in the Far East and even the world.

Chen Zeyu would not know that while he and his government were trying their best to take back Hong Kong as soon as possible, his opponent, the British, was also increasingly under tremendous psychological pressure that he could not imagine - just as he looked at Britain, in the eyes of today's empire, the Republic of Ceris in the Far East had also become an invincible country, at least on his own land, and now no European country dared to guarantee that it was strong enough to defeat Seris, her huge population, Resources and the speed of industrialization have increasingly become a nightmare that afflicts the British colonial authorities in the Far East......

……

At 8 a.m. on February 13, 1899, the Republic of Seris, Mawei Shipyard, Fujian.

With the arrival of a new day in spring, all the docks in the north area of Mawei Shipyard have resumed the sound of tense ship operations. In the harbor, two navy warships with silver-gray livery are slowly sliding into the waterway, splashing a lot of water.

After the launch of the two Cochin-class light cruisers, another group of workers at the shipyard began to board the battleships one after another from the trestle and began the intense outfitting work. On the other two slipways of the shipyard, two steel warships of the same appearance have also entered the final stage, and a large number of shipyard workers can be seen on the scaffolding applying silver-gray ship anti-corrosion paint. Almost at the same time, the two dry docks that had just been emptied began intensive construction work again.

Starting with these two newly launched Cochin-class cruisers, the shipyards of the Republic once again started a shipbuilding boom in the New Year.

According to the construction period of the domestic docks, from this month until the end of the next year, the Republic will have at least one new steel ship built every month, from the beginning of the excitement to the current increasingly usual, in addition to still causing a lot of uneasiness from external forces, to now the Chinese people have gradually begun to get used to the rhythm of these steel warships.

Thanks to the guidance of avalanche technicians, today's Mawei shipyard has already changed the original shipbuilding method, after being familiar with today's avalanche parallel shipbuilding process, the entire ship construction process will be the original must wait for small and medium-sized structural parts, power packs, naval guns and other parts of the construction work are independent, so that the original ship construction cycle has been greatly shortened, such as the current few less than 7,000 tons of Cochin-class cruisers, if you do not calculate the sea trial time, the construction period of a single ship has been controlled to less than 11 monthsExcluding the time of surface outfitting, it will not even take 9 months for the battleship to be launched from laying the keel to launching.

On the bustling wharf of the factory trestle, Zhou Zhesen, the person in charge of the shipyard, introduced the two newly launched naval warships in front of him with a smile on his face.

“…… According to the agreement we reached with the Chilean government, these two Cochin-class ships will be transferred to their navy in advance as the first foreign trade warships of the other side. ”

Li Shengtao nodded and asked, "It's the same batch as Nanyang, right?" ”

"Not bad," Zhou Zhesen responded, "The Chilean government is in a hurry to get ships, and after domestic coordination, it transferred the four orders of the East China Sea Fleet to the other party in advance, but in terms of performance, they were slightly reduced. ”

Li Shengtao laughed and said, "It's good that you didn't take off the barrel." ”

"This is not true, in addition to removing the shooting command system in the armament of the battleship, the overall armament is still dominated by four 10-inch 24 times the diameter of the main gun" Zhou Zhesen shook his head and said with a smile, "There is no weakening in protection, and the biggest difference between the foreign trade version and my country's order is that the power system of the hull adopts an alternative scheme......"

Li Shengtao nodded, indicating that he understood.

In order to dispel the covetousness of foreign forces for their own technology, Seris now abandoned the latest steam turbine system for the warships sold by the two shipyards, and instead made a fuss about the original old reciprocating steam engine. After the same oil-fired boiler is replaced, the existing foreign trade version of the Cochin-class warship can still run a maximum speed of 24 knots, and it does not mislead foreign shipbuilding counterparts while dealing with customers from all over the world.

This is true not only of the latest Cochin class, but also of the Ryukyu-class battleships sold to Ottomans and other countries, as well as the shipyards of the Republic. In fact, even if it is equipped with an old-fashioned steam propulsion system, the export version of the Ryukyu class is still firmly ahead of the Dreadnought class of other navies in various data, from thick armor protection to 20 knots of warship speed, no matter how you look at it, whether it is the British Duncan class, or the French Marseille class and the Italian Margaret class are not its opponents.

"That's also your Mawei factory over there?"

Looking at the new factory area under construction not far from the other side of the Minjiang River, the chief of the general staff of the Navy asked suspiciously.

Zhou Zhesen nodded, "Yes, according to the plan, the southern area of the shipyard will be used for the construction of future large-tonnage ship orders in the future, and the original sites are a little congenitally insufficient, and it is impossible to build a giant battleship like the Ryukyu class......"

"Yes, I've heard about that, too." Li Shengtao suddenly realized.

The current Mawei shipyard was inherited from the Fuzhou Shipbuilding Bureau of the former Qing Dynasty, because of the carelessness in the selection of the site when the construction started, resulting in the entire shipyard is now located in the north bank area of the Minjiang River estuary. The water depth near the entire original site is insufficient, and the maximum draft is less than 8 meters, so that the original Mawei shipyard can only theoretically build ships below 10,000 tons. In the eyes of the construction designers at the time, it may not have been imagined that the shipyard would build ships on such a scale beyond their imagination in the future, but it made the government of the Republic that later received it a lot of headaches.

After the survey of Seris engineers, it was finally decided to expand the existing Mawei shipyard in the deep-water area on the south bank of the original shipyard, and the new site was located at the northern foot of Maxiang Mountain on the south bank of the Minjiang River, close to the riverside area of the sea outlet. According to the plan, the shipyard will build four 30,000-ton dry docks and five steel trestles here where the conditions are suitable, and the entire Mawei shipyard will become a veritable major shipbuilding base in China.

“…… In terms of construction conditions, Mawei is still not as good as the two shipyards in Dalian and Shanghai in the north, I have seen the government's construction indicators for each shipyard, Changxing Island and Dalian are given an annual output of 300,000 tons, and the remaining Zhanjiang and our Mawei are only 200,000 tons, and from the potential point of view, we are already in the end, Changxing Island they still have spare power...... Alas, what an unwillingness. ”

After thinking about the future scene, Zhou Zhesen, the shipyard manager, sighed.

The Chief of the General Staff of the Navy patted the shoulder of the person in charge of the manufacturer next to him and comforted, "200,000 tons is not bad, it is enough to build 12 Ryukyu-class battleships, think about it, isn't it ......?"

"Although the account is not calculated like this, I feel much better when I hear you say this, general." Zhou Zhesen smiled bitterly.

Li Shengtao, chief of the general staff of the Navy, nodded and said, "That's right, if you want to talk about the horsetail...... Shipbuilding is a bit inferior to the north, but I think it's a good base for the navy. ”

Isn't that it, Mawei is really the shore base of the Nanyang Naval Division fleet in the former Qing Dynasty.

The shipyard manager shook his head and smiled bitterly again......