The second day of Song Biao's return to China was the handover celebration of the official delivery of the Aurora-class dreadnought to the navy, early in the morning, he couldn't sleep and couldn't wait to get up, for fear that the warship would be stolen by someone and it was difficult to wait, so he went to the shipyard early to check and looked at his dreadnought from afar.

The 775 Aurora-class officers and men were carefully selected by the Imperial Navy, and not only had they all participated in patrols in the Atlantic and Mediterranean Seas in the past few years, but the main officers and non-commissioned officers were sent to the British and French naval battleships for six months of internship.

Now that he could finally wait for his battleship, the excitement made every officer and soldier incomparably excited.

Outside the harbor, the cruiser Glory, the largest tonnage of the Imperial Navy, the cruiser Haiqi, which had served as the flagship of the Imperial Navy for a long time, the first self-built cruiser of the Jinzhou Shipyard, and more than a dozen other warships lined up, all moored around the harbor and waiting for the official departure of the battleship Aurora.

Song Biao was still wearing the military dress of the Supreme Commander of the Imperial Wehrmacht, and in line with the festival, he specially chose a blue tweed military coat, wearing a gilded saber presented by the Tsarist Russian royal family, and was accompanied by all the senior officers of the Navy present, waiting for the time of the speech in the vermilion welcome tent.

Cabinet officials, naval officers, shipyard leaders, and representatives of Vickers advisers who had come to the celebration sat under the welcome tent and waited for the emperor's speech.

Only six minutes before the official handover did Song Biao take the podium, scan the more than 40 officials and officers in front of him, and then look at the battleship Aurora in front of him, he couldn't help but feel a little emotional in his heart.

When he took the stage, everyone stood and bowed together.

Song Biao glanced at everyone again, as if he wanted to firmly remember everyone in front of him in his heart, and after a few seconds of reflection, he turned the first page of the speech and glanced at it, and after pondering for a while, he finally spoke: "This is destined to be a great moment for the Chinese nation, and it is destined to be a moment of victory for the Chinese nation in the stage of recovery and revolution." At this time last year, I personally accompanied the elite of the 700,000 army to Iran, which opened the prelude to the full participation of the Chinese Empire in this world war, before that, we have fought countless victories, but there are still many countries who question us, do not believe that we Chinese and the Chinese nation have changed, let alone believe that our [***] people have changed and become stronger, until we completely defeat the main force of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and the allied army of 1.3 million is like the rotten Qing Dynasty armed in front of the million-dollar imperial expeditionary forceLet us easily defeat it, our army will win easily, not because of the weakness of our opponents, but because of our strength, because of the strength of our Chinese nation, because of the strength of our Chinese will and unswerving restoration revolution, and this is the backbone of our Chinese, this is the source of our spirit and all our strength. Without the best weapons and warships, we are still strong, with the best weapons and warships, our Chinese nation will be an invincible force, here, at this moment, on behalf of each and every one of you, I will loudly declare that the Chinese nation has stood up, the recovery of the Chinese nation is an irresistible trend, in this 20 th century, this will be the most important thing in the world, we will change the whole world ......! ”

Song Biao's mood was intense, suppressed for more than ten years, and at this moment finally burst out of the deepest desire and enthusiasm in his heart, and burst out of the most powerful call in his entire life.

China will not wait until the era of aircraft carriers to sprint to the status of a naval power, no, absolutely not, because we now have the ability to become a world naval power in this era, and we must directly establish the glory of the empire from the era of dreadnoughts and prove to the world the tenacity and greatness of the Chinese nation.

In this era of battleships, in this era of super dreadnoughts, China will rise to become a non-negligible member of the world's naval powers, making the vast and boundless sea our territory and the coastline of the enemy country our stage.

As long as it is within the range of naval artillery, it is China's sphere of influence.

Song Biao controlled the time very interestingly, and ended his speech at the last minute, everyone stood up and applauded warmly, and dozens of reporters outside the welcome tent kept taking pictures, and the spotlights were shining non-stop.

Song Biao picked up the solid gold pocket watch carved with a cumbersome dragon pattern and inlaid rubies on the table, and determined that the time had reached 10 o'clock in the morning, he slapped the copper bell with his hand, and the whole port immediately sounded a solemn salute, and the thumping salute was fired, spraying colorful petals towards the warship, illuminating the entire warship, as if it was a rain of colored petals.

It was only at this time that all the naval officers and sailors lined up on the Aurora-class warships saluted in the direction of the harbor, and continued, the warship's whistle remembered loudly, and set sail slowly and steadily in the farewell eyes and applause of everyone, and the shouts of the surrounding people.

Oh, my God.

This is the largest tonnage battleship of the Chinese Navy!

This is the first dreadnought warship built by China itself!

This is the new flagship of the Imperial Central Navy!

Tremble, all the enemies of the empire, wait for more battleships to emerge in the empire's navy, the latecomer always has the advantage of the latecomer, from today onwards, every battleship of the empire will always fight on the front line of the ocean, and every battleship will fight to the last moment with incomparably brilliance, swearing to defend the dignity of the empire and the Chinese nation.

Although the total tonnage of the Imperial Navy was still small, in the future, not only would the total number be huge, but each battleship would frighten and frighten the enemy.

Song Biao, who was very excited in his heart, stood here, watching the Aurora go into the distance, as if his body, mind and soul were also walking with him, eager to turn into a heavenly spirit to follow it and protect its life and glory.

Song Biao couldn't suppress the excitement in his heart, he also saluted the warship, saluted the horn of the Chinese Navy, and followed him, other naval officers, and even shipyard employees who were not from military backgrounds also saluted, looking at the battleship where the soul belonged with that eager gaze.

At this time, Song Biao could roughly understand Li Hongzhang's mood at the moment he saw Zhenyuan, yes, he was like his own child, worthy of care and cherishment.

The battleship Aurora was finally put into service, although there were many hardships in the construction process, there were countless problems and troubles, and even the people of Vickers Company stopped reporting hope many times, and the Chinese people were both excited and suspicious, but after all, it was still in service.

Really, the construction process of this battleship is too difficult for China at this time, it is as difficult as climbing to the sky, from the manufacture of ship steel to assembly, from the hoisting of boilers to the commissioning of the main gun, all of which are a difficult test for China's shipbuilding industry, but fortunately, it has finally passed this pass, just like the construction of the Satsuma battleship in 1905, everyone needs to pass this hurdle.

They said how much effort they put in to embark on the road of building their own battleships, and only they themselves understood the hardships involved, and if they wanted to embark on this road on a weak industrial foundation, they always had to make more efforts than other countries, and they had to have a more tenacious will, a hard-working spirit that was not afraid of all difficulties, and they had to go all out of the whole country.

I want to be stronger, and so do the Chinese.

Under the call of the restorative revolution, the Chinese are changing faster and faster, changing the numbness and indifference of the Manchu Qing rule, the decadence and rigidity of the Manchu Qing rule, and new young people have appeared more and more in this empire, calling for freedom, for progress, for new knowledge, for new national spirit, for the prosperity and strength of the country and nation, and for the heroes of the empire to appear on the world stage.

The manufacture of naval ships has been the responsibility of private shipyards from the very beginning, and the use of commercial shipbuilding to share the total investment, to hold back the desire of the heart, to withstand the pressure of being bullied by the navy, and to start with the increase of lightly armored cruisers and destroyers under the condition of limited funds, gradually increase the number of ships and naval officers and men, and the training level of the troops, increase the popularization of naval education, and expand the shipbuilding industry and education base. Waiting for the development of the iron and steel metallurgical industry, electrical and other military and heavy industries, it was not until 1915 that the long-term relationship with Vickers was used to design and build a new ship directly on the basis of the battleship Queen Elizabeth.

Compared with the Satsuma battleships manufactured by the Chinese Navy, which were not very mature, such as the Satsuma, Tsukuba, Kurama, and Hanoi, the Chinese Navy's military expenditure was small, but its efficiency was higher, and during this period, it gradually possessed the three major shipyards of Jinzhou, Fuzhou, and Jiangnan, and within three or four years it would have the manufacturing capacity of battleships.

Even if there is still a big gap between the level of warship manufacturing at this moment, Song Biao firmly believes that the empire's shipbuilding industry will definitely surpass the capital, and the empire's navy can also surpass the capital.

……

After presiding over the handover ceremony of the battleship Aurora and continuing to hold the ten-year planning meeting of the imperial shipbuilding industry in Jinzhou, Song Biao returned to the capital by special train from Aurora Mansion.

Daughter Song Yuanyuan is eight years old.

Her Royal Highness Princess Yuanyuan!

As soon as he returned to Xuanzheng Garden, the princess and prince who had been waiting for him ran over happily, and Song Biao was holding one in one hand, and returned to the West Garden with Queen Shu Xuan talking and laughing.

He hadn't seen him for a whole year, but he wanted to hold his wife more and tell him about the war in Europe, those interesting things, tragic things, painful things, happy things, all he wanted to talk about.

When I returned to the capital, it was already late, and after eating dinner, playing with the two children for a while, and coaxing them to bed, Song Biaocai and Shu Xuan were ready to rest in the dormitory.

When he was soaking his feet, Shu Xuan asked him with great interest: "The emperor's return this time must be a major event in the European war, and the rest of the things can be left to the subordinates to deal with, so there is no need to go again, right?" ”

Song Biao sighed: "You are half right, I don't have to go to Europe when I come back this time, but the war in Europe is not over yet, the big thing is not over, and the rest of the things are just handed over to Chen Qicai and them, and I may not really be at ease." The way of using troops lies in winning by surprise, Chen Qicai's ability lies in fine-tuning and astuteness, but he does not have the courage to command thousands of troops and horses, Martos is good at strategizing and calculating, and he is not the commander of the army, Duan Qirui is not handsome, just a shrewd and capable person, Fu Liangzuo is a good candidate, but unfortunately the experience is still insufficient. Otherwise, there was no need for me to personally go to Europe to command the expeditionary force, but for the time being, the main forces of the Imperial Expeditionary Force had to be withdrawn from Europe one after another, and the use of troops on the southern front only needed to advance in a decent manner, take defense as an attack, and attract 20 German infantry divisions to achieve the effect, and the real charge and killing of the enemy would be left to the Anglo-French forces and the American army. ”

Shu Xuan smiled: "The emperor is a fine person, and he can't bear his own capital." ”

Song Biao said: "You are wrong, it's not that I can't afford my own capital, but the empire actually has another real big battle to fight now, and the scale of this battle is far greater than our situation in Europe, and what level does my status as the emperor in this life lie in, and whether it can be compared with Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, I am afraid that it only depends on this battle." ”

"So......?"

The queen is inevitably a little disappointed, and even more worried, but she is a real fine person, and she is not willing to ask more, whether it is military affairs or political matters, she has never asked much, so as not to be suspected of interfering in politics in the harem.

It is said that Xiao Bie is better than the newlywed, and this farewell has been more than a year, and the two naturally rested early.

That night, Song Biao had a dream, dreaming that the queen gave birth again, but she gave birth to a meat ball, and after cutting it with a saber, a big fat boy jumped out of it.

Traveling back to Beijing, Song Biao's practice has always been to rest for a few days before dealing with various official affairs, but this time it will not work, because Soviet Russia and the German Empire have signed the "Peace of Brest", and they are about to concentrate on dealing with the remaining white forces in the country.

The next morning, Song Biao went directly to the imperial study very early to work, and this rhythm caught the General Administration of the Inner Court off guard, and everyone was extremely surprised, and they all seemed to have a premonition that things had a different new change.

Director Chen Qimei of the Secretariat knew the most because he had been accompanying the emperor to fight in Europe, and naturally understood that the emperor was in such a hurry to start his work precisely to deal with Soviet Russia, and he returned to China a month before Song Biao, and at this time he had already prepared a lot of work.

When Song Biao arrived at the imperial study, Chen Qimei compiled all kinds of intelligence materials related to Soviet Russia collected by the Secrecy Bureau, the State Intelligence Administration, and other intelligence agencies into a book and submitted them to Song Biao for review.

For Emperor Su, Song Biao is naturally familiar with it, but the history of Emperor Su is basically as clear as a stream for him.

The February Revolution in Russia was only a combined revolution of the left and right wings of the SPD as a whole, which was unanimously respected by the whole Russian society at that time, but the right wing was not armed, and most of the Russian [***] teams were on the front line, and the Bolsheviks on the left wing of the SPD used the Red Army to overthrow the Provisional Coalition and implement the rule of the left-wing scholars.

This was the October Revolution.

After the outbreak of the October Revolution, the opposition within Russia began to increase dramatically, and although he was in Europe at that time, Song Biao still contacted those high-ranking Russian officers who were more familiar with the White Army through the Central Military Department, and sent the Mosin Nagant rifles that he had been equipped with before, and even the old guns of various miscellaneous models in stock, including the Murata Type 22 rifle, to give the White Army nearly 1.2 million rifles.

The problem of the White Army is that it lacks a truly unified command system and commander, all of them are scattered in various places, and they are finally broken by the Soviet Russian Red Army one by one, and the so-called joint dispatch of foreign troops is also a false issue, and the European and American countries that have just ended the First World War have no energy to launch a major war again, and can only symbolically support the Russian White Army.

Now the problem is different, China will send troops to intervene, and Song Biao's original plan was to send more than two million army forces to attack Russia directly, he didn't even have much of a division plan, and directly rushed with a strong main force, at least to attack Yekaterinburg and Chelyabinsk, if Soviet Russia did not agree to his armistice treaty, he would spend two years with Russian attrition, completely dragging down the nascent Soviet Russia.

He can afford it.

In these years of China's railway plan, the Imperial Railway has three lines connected with the Russian Far East Railway, namely in Vladivostok, Manchuria, Kyakhta, the Imperial Xinjiang Provincial Railway will be completed within half a year, connecting the Russian railway in Kazakhstan, Tsarist Russia built a railway from Novosibirsk in 1907 to connect Almaty, the Imperial Xinjiang Railway has been built to Urumqi at this time, if you gather all your forces now, you can connect this Russian railway within three months, This allowed the Imperial Army to advance all the way to Novosibirsk from the west.

But the Empire's main line of attack was in the Kyzyl region of Tangnu-Ulianghai, where the Empire had spent two years secretly stockpiling a large amount of military supplies and ammunition, and had an integrated division and more than 40 new regiments stationed there.

Although the empire was not in a hurry to build a railway from Kyzyl to Abakan, Russia, on this 120-kilometer-long line, the Imperial Railway Engineering Brigade had been intensively explored countless times, and as soon as the war began, the two railway engineering brigades, with the cooperation of the Central Railway Corporation, would only need about 40 days to urgently lay a temporary railway, and the relevant materials had already arrived in the local area, just waiting for the official start of construction.

After the end of the European war, the imperial expeditionary force did not immediately withdraw from Europe, but tried to win the support of Britain, France, the United States and other countries as much as possible, using the agreement of the Entente to attack Ukraine from Romania to the north, and rationally using the surplus materials of the European war countries to advance Russia on both fronts and force Soviet Russia to finally make major concessions.

If the European Expeditionary Force of the Empire is counted, Song Biao expects to use more than 3.5 million land forces, unite about one million to two million white troops, and the main force will be about 2 million, and the existing and frenzied production of the Imperial Army in the next six months, and more than 14,000 cars purchased from the United States, and 3 million horses will be requisitioned from China and Central Asia.

Of course, he did not have a plan to completely eliminate Soviet Russia, which was not conducive to his signing of an armistice treaty that would be truly beneficial to the Empire, and it would not be conducive to the Empire in the international environment.

At the same time, it is necessary to exploit Soviet Russia economically, reduce the development rate of Soviet Russia, force Soviet Russia to pay long-term tribute to the empire, and maintain the development of the empire until the empire builds a huge navy, which is enough to protect its huge interests in the Middle East.

It is suicidal to exploit oil on a large scale too early in the Middle East, and even now, Britain and the United States and other countries have actually realized that the Middle East may contain relatively rich oil, but there is a lack of a clear estimate of the specific reserves, and of course, they did not expect such a crazy amount, otherwise the center of the First World War would not be just in Europe, but along with the Middle East front.

Song Biao also knew in his heart that after the Sino-Soviet War, China basically had to spit out half of the various benefits it had absorbed in World War I, and the gold reserves of the empire might not change greatly, but the debts of Britain and France and other countries to the empire would have to be greatly reduced.

If Russia had accepted the armistice earlier, the situation would have been better, and if Russia had followed him to endure the war, he would have spent at least a billion pounds in military spending on this war, and even if Russia could eventually bear the military compensation, the loss of the empire would still be very staggering.

There is no way, the distance is too far, and the cost of delivering a bullet to Moscow is much higher than the production price.

The only advantage is that we will continue to support the development of the domestic military industry for a period of time in the one or two years after the war, and there will be a good buffer period, which will allow the domestic military industry to continue to accumulate strength and transform.

Of course, this battle must not be lost, and once it fails, the empire will be really in danger, and all previous efforts will be in vain.

After reading the materials prepared by the Secretariat, Song Biao asked Chen Qimei to call Jiang Fangzhen and Cai Yi, the chief of staff of the Northern Staff Bureau, over, and after waiting for a while, the two hurriedly entered the imperial study and stepped forward to salute.

Song Biao took out a box of iron-clad Shengjing cigarettes from the drawer, and was about to smoke one with Jiang Fangzhen, when he glanced at Cai Ng, considering that Cai Que had had lung disease, and there had been a repetition in the early days of the Northeast Army, so he put away the cigarettes and let them sit down first.

Cai Ye took the initiative to say: "Your Majesty, you should still smoke, since I came back from Germany, my body has been fine, and now I insist on taking Tongrentang's Loquat Lung Pills." ”

Song Biao waved his hand and said, "It's not good for your health, so it's okay if you don't smoke it." ”

He asked the guards to change a cup of tea for him, brought a plate of fried peanuts, peeled a few grains and chewed them first, the peanuts he ate have always been bought from the red soil cliff, the land over there is suitable for planting peanuts, the time is much longer than Shandong, the peanuts are planted very large, the juice is enough, very sweet, and the fried peanuts are more fragrant.

Chewing these peanuts, he thought of the Red Clay Cliff, Niujiabao, and Erwolf Cave.

The Second Wolf Cave has always had a secret bureau in charge, but it has not yet organized experts to conduct research work, and Song Biao himself is a little hesitant about this matter, but when it comes to a certain time and stage, he still plans to transfer those equipment and transport it to the northwest to secretly establish a long-term research base.

After a little pondering, Song Biao turned his mind back to the side of the Northern Staff Bureau, and asked Cai Ye: "The things on the Kizil side are almost ready, right?" ”

Cai Yi replied: "Everything has been prepared, and it is completely in accordance with the emperor's orders." ”

Song Biao continued to ask, "What about the cavalry troops?" ”

Cai Yi said: "It's almost all formed, and now it's a further addition from the regiment level to the brigade level." ”

Song Biao nodded slightly, and said: "That's good, since the October Revolution in Russia, the empire can be said to have ushered in a very good historical opportunity, in the past, we had a good relationship with Tsarist Russia, and some things were inconvenient to mention, but now it's different, the people in Soviet Russia have even killed the Tsar's family, since there is no old relationship, then let's have a good talk with Soviet Russia about all the territories that Russia divided from the Qing Dynasty, Russia owes us a lot of debts, and over the years, one-third of Russia's arms have been sold by us, It's all ruble debts, and now it's a matter of whether they admit it or not. Of course, whether you admit it or not, this battle will definitely be fought, and it will be fought very beautifully. To put it mildly, this is also God helping us, our original plan was to directly attack Tsarist Russia, but it is a bit difficult to save face, it is better to use military deployment to force Tsarist Russia to negotiate with us, and return the territory occupied by us through political negotiations. Now it's okay, let's directly fight a new Russia that has no relatives and no reason, then what are we talking about, just fight all the way over, not only to regain the territory, but also to carve up and split Russia as much as possible, for example, Russian Turkestan, we will split from Russia, control our hands, build a railway from here to the Middle East, and strengthen our control in the Middle East. ”

After Song Biao finished speaking, Cai Ye didn't speak, although he always felt that this battle would be very hard, and he might even be defeated, but he didn't know how to talk about it.

Jiang Fangzhen said: "Your Majesty, although this is what you say, it's just that the empire has been at war continuously, and the war in Europe has not yet ended, and now we have to continue to fight Soviet Russia, and the military expenditure is too great, I'm afraid that the empire's finances will be difficult to support." ”

Song Biao said: "Don't worry about this, I have already asked people to arrange that the central cabinet will issue new treasury bonds directly, and the Far Eastern Bank, the Bank of Shanghai and the Nanyang Bank will directly subscribe to most of them, and the Bank of America will also subscribe to a part. It is resolute to win the war, and after winning the war, let Soviet Russia compensate for this military expenditure. ”

Jiang Fangzhen thought for a while, and after estimating it in his heart, he said: "Two billion is basically enough, but it may not be enough for us to fight to the end, judging from the current intelligence, the combat strength of Soviet Russia has not declined significantly compared with the period of Tsarist Russia, not to mention that we will be an aggressor country at that time, and it is easy to stimulate Russia's will to resist." ”

Song Biao nodded slightly, and said: "I know, it will definitely be a difficult battle to fight, so we must prepare as much as possible, and then suddenly attack after the end of the European war, and fight a rapid war of annihilation, and strive to find the main force of the enemy, annihilate the main force within a month, do not delay to the war of attrition, but also be prepared for a long-term war of attrition." The Empire wants to increase investment in the field of tanks as soon as possible, either by introducing technology from the UK, or by buying a few to copy. Now it seems that this new type of weapon is very promising for development, and the tactical changes to modern warfare will be very amazing. ”

Jiang Fangzhen said: "The work on the tank side is just as the emperor ordered, the War Department has specially organized an armored vehicle research bureau to discuss and explore tactics and technology, and the Far East Weapons Corporation and the automobile company have cooperated in several models, we have roughly seen it, and it should be said that it is still feasible." My personal feeling is that this weapon is either not used, and if you want to use it, you have to rely on the scale to win, and a small number of tanks are not very meaningful, and they can be easily penetrated by infantry artillery. ”

Song Biao still nodded, the Imperial Expeditionary Force has always used the British-French-made Whippet A tank and Renault FT-17 tank in Europe, and the main controlling party of Renault Company, which manufactures tanks for France, is the Far East Consortium, and the Renault FT-17 model of the tank can also be produced in the Far East Automobile Company, and the technical conditions are almost the same, because the Far Eastern Automobile Company has always taken the military industrial route, and the gasoline engine produced is relatively more durable and durable, and the horsepower is also a little stronger.

Song Biao hadn't read the information provided by Far Eastern Automobile Company at this time, and he didn't want to make a conclusion for the time being.

After thinking about it for a while, he and Jiang Fangzhen instructed: "In this way, you let the main person in charge come to me in the afternoon with materials and drawings, what about other issues, let's have a meeting in a few days to focus on discussion, internal thinking must be unified, this battle must be fought, not to fight Soviet Russia, we can't take back Vladivostok, we can't take back Hailanpao, don't think that these are not the territory of the empire, these are the territory of the empire, they are all valuable assets that Russia has snatched from the hands of the Chinese nation, territory, not an inch can be lost, otherwise, Our generation is the sinners of history. ”

Jiang Fangzhen and Cai Ye both understood at this time that the emperor was determined and left no room at all, and this battle was indeed inevitable, but fortunately, the emperor solved the most headache of military spending before.

Jiang Tingzi, who is currently newly promoted to first-class staff officer in the Ministry of the Army, is the director of the Armored Vehicle Research Bureau, and the chief engineer is an engineer named Wang Yubao of the Automobile Corporation; the former is a native of Xuzhou, a graduate of the third phase of the Lu Shi, and is born in the artillery department; he served in the Quartermaster Department and the Far East Arsenal during the Northeast Army; after that, he was arranged to study in the mechanical department of Northeastern University for a short period of one year; the latter was a science student who graduated from St. John's University in Shanghai, and he went to the Columbia Miners College in the United States for further study during the Northeast New Deal. After graduating, he worked as a technician at General Motors for three years, and only returned to China two years ago to work for Far Eastern Motors.

Not long after Jiang Fangzhen and Cai Ye left, Jiang Tingzi hurriedly came to report to Song Biao with a stack of materials.

Although he had met Jiang Tingzi several times before, Song Biao had never been impressed by him, but he had heard that he had learned very well in machinery and chemical engineering, and had always served as a military representative in the Far East Arsenal.

Song Biao did not attach much importance to tank technology, because the Northeast Army and the Central Army were characterized by fast and maneuverable, and the advantage was speed, while the speed of the tanks before and after World War I was like a turtle crawling, and even the speed of a light tank like the Renault FT-17 did not meet the basic requirements of the Central Army.

Jiang Tingzi brought over the data of several models of tanks recently designed by the Armored Vehicle Research Bureau and presented them to Song Biao for review, looking forward to his work being recognized by the emperor.

Since the beginning of World War I, tanks have been identified as heavy, medium, and light, and their representatives are the British MK.4 tank, the Whippet A tank, and the Renault FT-17 tank, and the empire also produced more than 400 Renault FT-17 tanks in the name of Renault during World War I, equipped with a 37mm infantry gun and a Browning 12.7mm caliber heavy machine gun, and some of them were also supplied to the newly entered United States.

After importing part of the Whipbit A tank from the UK, the Armored Vehicle Research Agency began to develop a medium tank, designed with the design number Tank.SY4, which combined the advantages of the Whipbit A tank and the FT-17 tank to imitate, absorbing the latter in structure, and close to the former in tonnage and data, with a speed of about 14 kilometers per hour.

In addition to the SY5, the bureau is also working on the heavy tank SY2 and the light tank SY5, and the test project SY3 was originally finalized as a medium tank, but after the introduction of the Whippet tank, this project was temporarily banned.

Song Biao roughly looked at all three models of new tanks, and there was no breakthrough at all in technical data compared to the British and French tanks, and the plagiarism was also very obvious.

After reading the information, Song Biao lit a cigarette and thought for a moment, then picked up a pencil and made some simple adjustments on the design drawing, and Jiang Tingzi instructed: "The plan of the Type 2 tank can be slowed down for the time being, and the medium tank and light tank will be developed first, I mean the basic design method of the Renault tank is still feasible, the medium tank should consider the 47mm infantry gun as much as possible, the double diameter can be appropriately lengthened, and it doesn't matter if the speed is slow, anyway, it is slow enough, pay attention to safety and reliability, The gasoline tank is placed behind the hull, not in the front, the armor in front and on both sides can be properly strengthened, the turret should be able to turn, there is no need for so many machine guns, four machine guns are too many, our experience in the war is that the machine gun is either not mounted on the tank, and if it is to be framed, the caliber must be larger. Two machine guns are sufficient, two Browning heavy machine guns, caliber 7.62 and 12.7 respectively, and the artillery strives to develop to 55mm, 47mm is too small. Like Renault's FT-17, the Light Tank is a secondary tank with a 37mm gun and two Browning 7.62mm heavy machine guns, and the other is armed with two Browning 12.7mm and one 7.62mm heavy machine gun. In addition, try to choose an air-cooled machine gun, and the heat pipe and machine gun barrel can be increased appropriately. ”

Jiang Tingzi even claimed that it was, and he couldn't wait to keep recording it in the notebook.

Song Biaosuo wrote down his opinions directly, and then handed over these design materials to Jiang Tingzi, and said: "There is another thing, the No. 5 tank is based on the Renault FT-17 to increase the speed as much as possible to meet the requirements of the No. 4 tank, and can be considered as a tracked off-road armored vehicle with strong mobility alone, and if it does not use a turret, it will be used to transport materials, which is equivalent to one vehicle and three types." ”

Jiang Tingzi continued to say yes again and again, and agreed.

Song Biao has nothing else to command, it is indeed not the era of tanks, the key problem is that the horsepower of the engine is too small, and speed, defense and firepower cannot be taken into account.

With a speed of 7 kilometers per hour on the Renault FT-17, this speed really can't keep up with the requirements of CSKA, and the cross-country ability is limited, and it often falls behind on the battlefield.

The difference in speed between Renault and Hibbit is that the former uses only one engine, while the latter uses two.

At this stage, it is still necessary to have two engines to maintain the balance of speed, defense and firepower of the tank, but there are many problems and hidden dangers in the design of the whippet, and what Song Biao needs more now is a Renault-style medium tank, with a speed of more than 12 kilometers per hour, specially using two trucks to ensure the supply of a medium tank, expanding the numerical advantage in the shortest possible time, and equipping at least one medium tank brigade as the main force.

After Jiang Tingzi left, Song Biao continued to look through some materials and reports related to tank research in the imperial study, and suddenly felt some emotion in his heart, since he returned to China, the empire has either built battleships or tanks, and such a thing was unthinkable before.

When the Admiralty announced its plan to build the battleship Aurora, not to mention that foreigners and people at home suspected that China would not be able to build it, in fact, even Song Biao, who finally approved the plan, felt that his surname might be very low, and it was estimated that he would die halfway, and he had even already thought of a remedial plan to hire an American company to continue to complete it when it could not be built, so as not to waste so much money.

As a result, it was actually made, although it took nearly two years in the middle, and many accidents were tormented, and it was not smooth at all, but it was finally made.

At this moment, Song Biao thought about it carefully, and felt that he really wanted to look at China in this period from a different perspective, the times have changed, he has changed, the empire has changed, no matter what, the impetus of the First World War for China's industrial development is indeed very amazing.

In the midst of war, people seem to be able to bring out all their potential and do everything.

(To be continued)