At the same time as the Fubo and other aircraft carrier tests, the Imperial Chinese Navy was secretly beginning to design, develop, and build the first domestically built aircraft carrier of the Chinese Empire at the shipyard at the Guam Naval Base.

Since aircraft carriers such as the Fubo were simply rebuilt from civilian ships, they were very backward, so they could only train carrier-based pilots for the Imperial Naval Aviation and use them as aircraft carrier training ships for the Naval Aviation.

Especially the ugly appearance of the Fubo, after Wang Chenhao saw it for the first time, he pouted his lips vigorously to express his dissatisfaction. His Majesty the Emperor was dissatisfied, and the officials of the Admiralty and all the engineers and technicians of the Navy Engineering Division suddenly frowned, not knowing what to do.

"Our aircraft carriers must be practical, and I personally designed several aircraft carrier solutions for this purpose, which were used as a reference for the Naval Engineering Department."

At the Imperial Conference, Wang Chenhao was very happy, because he drew several conceptual drawings of the design of several 21st century super aircraft carriers for the Navy's aircraft carriers.

When they heard that His Majesty the Emperor had designed a warship for the navy, the ministers of the Admiralty were sweating profusely on their foreheads and expressed great concern about this.

Once again, Wang Chenhao had a whim to design a mighty battleship for the Navy, but Wei Han, the director of the General Administration of Shipping, called it "very good in all aspects except for not being able to float", which greatly hit Wang Chenhao's self-esteem, so he did not pay attention to the officials of the Admiralty for several months.

Because of this, the Admiralty officials heard that His Majesty the Emperor had designed a new aircraft carrier on a whim, and their hearts were naturally filled with sorrow.

Whether to adopt it or not to adopt it is a matter of wide eyes for officials and it is difficult to decide. Adopting it is basically a waste of money, and if you don't adopt it, you won't give face to the emperor, and they are the ones who are unlucky.

Deng Shichang weakly took over the aircraft carrier design drawings given to them by the emperor from the hands of the female officials in front of the imperial court, and the officials of the War Department and the Air Force Department all held back their smiles one by one.

Deng Shichang returned to the Admiralty with great sorrow, called Director Wei Han and a group of designers involved in the aircraft carrier, and opened the design drawings given to them by Wang Chenhao.

"Listen up, no matter what, we have to get it out, otherwise our Admiralty won't be able to eat and walk around. I'm not happy, and you don't want to be happy. ”

At the beginning, Wei Han and other designers were full of frustration when they heard that it was designed by the emperor, but when the drawings were handed over to them, everyone was shocked, and they immediately admired the five-body projection.

Wei Han immediately said excitedly: "Your Majesty is really a genius, these sets of aircraft carrier design plans are really good!" ”

"Really?" Deng Shichang looked at Wei Han suspiciously, and asked, "Aren't you stupid?" Don't worry, even if the emperor is really unhappy and repairs me, I won't be embarrassed for you! ”

"No, no, no!" Wei Han shook his head again and again, "I mean it! The style of the aircraft carrier designed by His Majesty this time is indeed excellent without the ancients and since, and the old man admires it very much. ”

Deng Shichang was stunned for a moment, and then said with great joy: "That's great!" I thought the Army and Air Force were making jokes this time? I didn't expect Your Majesty to have such talents? Now I'm relieved! ”

Wang Chenhao designed two aircraft carriers for the Navy, one is to imitate the layout of the later Nimitz-class aircraft carriers, with a polygonal beveled flight deck. The other is a rectangular straight-through flight deck modeled after a British Eagle-class aircraft carrier.

It can be found that there are two runways on the polygonal aircraft carrier, one straight and one oblique, and the oblique one is the beveled deck, and the purpose of setting up these two runways is to allow the aircraft carrier to take off and land at the same time, if there is only one straight deck, when the plane takes off, it has to let the parked aircraft squeeze into the back half of the flight deck, and use the front half as a runway for take-off. However, this not only affects the glide distance of the aircraft, but also has to wait for the aircraft to take off and vacate the runway before the aircraft in the air can land, and if you are not careful, the aircraft that lands later can easily collide with the aircraft that lands first.

The beveled deck, also known as the oblique and straight two-section deck, is located on the left side of the aircraft deck and is at an angle of 6~13 degrees with the centerline of the bow and stern of the ship. With this angle, the landing of the aircraft can be separated from the parked aircraft and take-off operations, while also allowing ejection and recovery operations to be carried out simultaneously. The angle of the recycling area is quite important. The greater the angle, the more difficult it is for the pilot to land.

As a rule, the beveled deck is equipped only with a barrage for aircraft landing. However, the aircraft carrier designed by Wang Chenhao also has two catapults on the angled deck, which are designed to be used by aircraft for take-off when there are no aircraft to land.

The Department of Naval Engineering studied the layout of the two flight decks, and believed that the polygonal flight deck could accommodate a large number of aircraft, so that two aircraft could take off and land at the same time. And being able to take off at the right angle at the same time, the hypotenuse can recycle the landing plane, which is a lot of advantages, and they tend to use this solution.

However, such a flight deck occupies a flight area the size of nearly three football fields, which is very demanding for aircraft carriers carrying such flight decks. At the same time, the aircraft carrier with this deck layout, the island is located on the left side, and its weight must be designed to balance the weight of the huge flight deck on the right side, so that the hull buoyancy is balanced.

In order to achieve the purpose of carriers, the tonnage of the battleship must be at least 22,000 tons, otherwise it will not be able to support a flight deck the size of three football fields. At the same time, to be able to carry 120 Cat Demon fighters, it is necessary to have 1,000 to 2,000 maintenance personnel. The fuel and ammunition supply and freshwater food supply of aircraft and aircraft carriers also occupy a huge tonnage, and the tonnage of aircraft carriers after full load is at least 30,000 tons.

To build a 30,000-ton aircraft carrier is a huge challenge for the Imperial Chinese Naval Engineering Department. However, they firmly believed that His Majesty's instructions were correct, and that if they followed His Majesty's instructions, they would have avoided decades of detours (the beveled deck was invented by the British in 1952).

At the same time, Wang Chenhao made a series of novel conceptual designs on the aircraft carrier, such as catapults and arresting cables. Due to the light weight and low power of the aircraft at this time, it was not difficult to take off and land, and there was no need for catapults and blocking cables. However, Wang Chenhao believes that in order to reduce the crash rate of aircraft taking off and landing, the plane with catapults is easier to take off and is not easy to fall into the sea. When landing with a blocking cable, it is safer and less likely to hit other docked aircraft, or rush off the runway and fall into the sea.

Since catapults and blocking cables are new concepts, Wang Chenhao made it clear about their roles and uses on the drawings.

After Wei Han and other engineers saw it, they were immediately amazed and praised him as a genius.

For this aircraft carrier designed by Wang Chenhao, for the engineers of the Imperial Chinese Navy, this is an unprecedented new concept, and everything has to be recalculated and explored.

To this end, Wei Han and others plan to complete the final physical design of this new concept aircraft carrier within one year (Wang Chenhao gave only a conceptual design), as well as develop new catapults and arresting cables and other equipment required for the aircraft carrier.

The first option could not be built in a short period of time, and Wei Han and others needed to do a lot of calculations and design. However, the second rectangular layout is very ideal, and it is also very simple, and Wei Han and others can come up with a design plan in a short time.

Although it is far inferior to polygonal aircraft carriers in terms of overall combat power and surname, this is currently the simplest feasible surname scheme. The island is in the middle on the right, and on the left is the drive-through flight deck and parking shed. Several platforms protrude under the two sides of the deck, on which are designed with high-level rapid-fire guns, which can be used both for air defense and anti-ship. However, there are not many artillery weapons, and it can be seen that Wang Chenhao does not intend to rely on the ship-borne firepower of aircraft carriers to defend and counter ships, and he has to need other ships to escort them.

The second plan is very simple, Wei Han and his technical team quickly came up with the scheme design drawing, and the naval shipyard first secretly transformed one out and used it as a test ship.

The CV-5 Danxia (Mountain) was converted in June 1908 at the Jiaozhou Bay Shipyard and was formerly known as the RMS Marita. Displacement 14000 tons, speed 24 knots. After four months of refit, the Danxia has a displacement of 19,000 tons, a deck length of 180 meters, a width of 25 meters, and can take off and land any fighter of the Chinese Empire, and H1N1 bombers can also take off and land on the Danxia. The island is located in the middle and rear of the left side of the deck, with a speed of 23.5 knots and 30 aircraft.

In parallel with the design and modification of the latest aircraft carriers, carrier-based aircraft are also being reformed.

Since aircraft carriers are not larger than land, the aircraft taking off on aircraft carriers are lighter than those on land, with a larger load, a high take-off weight, and a short taxiing distance. It can be said that it is necessary to streamline the land aircraft and improve the surname ability.

Compared with land aircraft, carrier-based aircraft can still take off mainly in bad sea conditions. In this way, the carrier-based aircraft must have the main wheels with a larger wheel base, the landing gear piston with a larger telescopic take-off and landing stroke, and the tail hook to facilitate the aircraft carrier's blocking lock to hook the aircraft and make the aircraft stop as soon as possible.

To this end, the Scientific Research Department of the Air Force of the Chinese Imperial Air Force began to research and develop the carrier-based type of the aircraft in view of the characteristics that carrier-based aircraft should have.

Since biplanes and triplanes could not be folded, monoplanes became the first choice for naval carrier-based aircraft at this time. Only aircraft with foldable wings can fit more into the belly of the aircraft carrier and improve the combat effectiveness of the aircraft carrier.

The J-4 Cat Demon fighter is the only monoplane in the Chinese Empire, so it has naturally become the object of improvement of the carrier-based type of naval aircraft carriers.

The improvement plan is only to change the wing to a folding one, and the other schemes have not changed, because the naval aviation requires the aircraft to be equipped with aircraft for carrier-based aircraft as soon as possible, because the main target that naval aviation needs to test is still on the aircraft carrier, and the carrier-based aircraft is already enough, so it is not so active.

Therefore, the Catdemon fighter only changed the wing folding system to become a carrier-based fighter. However, the bomber was still a biplane, which could not be folded, and the huge wings could not fit into the belly of the aircraft carrier, so they could only stay on the flight deck.

Navy engineers designed a set of plans in accordance with the concept of catapult and arresting cable proposed by Wang Chenhao.

Among them, the catapult uses steam catapult. During takeoff, a steam-powered ejection device drives the aircraft to take-off speed in less than 5 seconds. Its working principle is to use high-pressure steam to push the piston to drive the slider on the ejection trajectory and eject the carrier-based aircraft connected to it.

However, after testing, the Admiralty considered it to be bulky, consumed a lot of steam when working, and had a serious waste of power, with only about 6% of the steam being utilized. To produce and transport steam, aircraft carriers are equipped with desalination units, large boilers and numerous pipelines, and the amount of work and maintenance is staggering. During the test, there was a situation where the body of the test pilot was seriously injured during the ejection due to the excessive ejection power, and then the Admiralty decided that the steam catapult technology was immature and abandoned the use of the ejection system.

However, the blocking cable works very well. The first time the arresting cable was used on the Danxia aircraft carrier, in comparison, because although the aircraft was slow, there were still many aircraft drilled into the sea during the test, so after the use of the arresting lock, the probability of hooking the carrier-based aircraft was also relatively large, and the risk of landing was greatly reduced.

The Admiralty still attaches great importance to the development of aircraft carriers, but aircraft carriers are still in large-scale testing, and most of the officers of the naval fleet do not know about the existence of aircraft carriers, and they still believe in the doctrine of giant ships and cannons.

While the Chinese Empire was vigorously developing and renovating its equipment, the rest of the world was in turmoil.

In the imperial study, Li Guodong, director of the Central Intelligence Agency, briefed Wang Chenhao on the latest international situation.

In Europe, the main body was an all-out confrontation between the Central Powers and the Entente, but there were subtle changes within the Allies and the Entente. This is manifested in the fact that Germany of the Central Powers has become the main antagonist of Britain and France as the Entente powers, and Russia has no core conflict of interest with Germany for the time being, but the conflict of interests between Russia and Austria-Hungary is irreconcilable.

In June 1908, Tsar Nicholas II and King Vittorio of Italy? A secret agreement reached by Emmanuele III at Lagonici, near Piedmont, Italy. The parties agreed to maintain the status quo in the Balkans, Italy supported Russia's attempts to control the Black Sea straits, and Russia did not oppose Italian interests in Tripoli.

The two sides were clearly directed against the Ottoman Turkish Empire, but their secret alliance reminded Wang Chenhao that Italy and Russia had common interests.

Wang Chenhao couldn't help but think that at the beginning of World War I, Italy suddenly defected to the side of the Entente, so that the strength of the Allies was greatly reduced.

Wang Chenhao then said: "Poke out the news of the collusion between Italy and the Russians, let the Allies and the Entente respectively suspect the ambiguous relationship between Italy and Russia, and let Turkey be prepared to deal with it." ”

Li Guodong nodded yes, and then said: "Austria-Hungary has just announced the annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which originally belonged to Turkey. Russia-nurtured Bulgaria is now closer to Germany, and there are signs that Bulgaria plans to join the side of the Central Powers. ”

Wang Chenhao knew that this Bulgaria was a little brother who was determined to mess with Germany, participated in two world wars, and was a defeated country. However, Wang Chenhao was not interested in Bulgaria, he was concerned about when the Balkan War would start, because he was not sure that World War I would break out on time, but he believed that as long as he focused on the Balkans, he could predict when World War I would break out.

Li Guodong then said: "The situation in the Balkans is very stable at present, although the Balkan Alliance has an advantage over Turkey in terms of land forces, but Turkey has obtained the Divine Bow battleships exported to them by the Empire, and the navy has an overwhelming advantage over the Greek Navy, so neither side dares to act rashly now." ”

That's not going to work!

Wang Chenhao shook his head suddenly, he didn't expect that the original export of the Divine Bow battleship by the Chinese Empire to the Turkish Empire was to suppress and stimulate the Russian Black Sea Fleet, but it led to the Turkish Navy having an advantage over the Greek Navy, so that the Balkan Alliance did not dare to make a move against the Turkish Empire, so that it would be difficult for the Balkan War to break out.

"Does the Greek Navy have any plans to import the Divine Bow battleship to the Empire?"

Li Guodong thought for a while and said, "It seems that there is!" However, the Imperial Navy, out of friendship with the Turkish Navy, refused to export more advanced warships to Greece. ”

Wang Chenhao nodded, picked up the phone and said, "Secretarial Office, immediately notify the Admiralty that the policy on the Greek Navy can be relaxed!" ”

Li Guodong asked, "What does Your Majesty mean?" ”

Wang Chenhao said: "The balance of power in the Balkans cannot be maintained, and the fight must be started, otherwise there will be no good show to watch." ”

Wang Chenhao naturally would not tell him that the Balkan War would be a powder keg of World War I, and Li Guodong also knew that Wang Chenhao was unfathomable.

Li Guodong was about to continue his report when he suddenly felt the ground shake.

Earthquake?

Wang Chenhao and Li Guodong thought of this almost at the same time, and immediately rushed out of the imperial study and came outside. Soon, everyone in the palace ran out of the room.

"Look!"

Suddenly, a palace maid pointed to the sky and shouted, Wang Chenhao looked up, only to see that the sky in the northwest direction had turned dark red, and the dark red was constantly expanding.

"Youkai is coming!" A palace maid was suddenly frightened, and when she saw the sky like that for the first time, she naturally thought it was demonic energy. Soon, a large number of people were thinking so.

"Don't be afraid! No goblins! Wang Chenhao shouted, which immediately shocked everyone.

Li Guodong shouted: "The emperor is here, how can any demons and monsters dare to come?" ”

Wang Chenhao's expression was solemn, he seemed to feel that something big had happened, so he ordered Qin Tianjian to reply.

Soon, the director of the Qin Tianjian sent a report that the seismograph had measured a magnitude 9.6 earthquake in the direction of Lake Baikal, but the air pressure detected by the automatic barometric pressure recorder was extremely unstable, proving that it was not an earthquake but an explosion.

About a few minutes later, the call from the Ministry of Defense directly went to the Imperial Chamberlain's room, asking to report to Wang Chenhao.

Wang Chenhao then answered the phone, and this time he knew what was going on.

It turned out that there was a huge explosion in the western Siberian district of Tsarist Russia. The explosion occurred near the Tunguska River, 800 kilometers northwest of Lake Baikal, with a power equivalent to 10~15 million tons of TNT explosives, and more than 60 million trees in an area of 2,150 square kilometers burned and fell.

The Northern Frontier Outpost of the Chinese Empire reported that they observed a huge fireball streaking across the sky, the brightness of which was comparable to that of the sun, and a few minutes later, a strong light illuminated the entire sky, and later the blast wave shattered the window glass within 650 kilometers of the nearby explosion, and the phenomenon of mushroom clouds was observed, and the sky also turned dark red.

Isn't this a Tunguska explosion?

Wang Chenhao suddenly had a flash of inspiration, and immediately ordered: "Go, call Tesla for me!" ”

(To be continued)