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~Chapter 472 Global Navy Holiday

In terms of air force armament, the member countries of the League of Nations do not have much understanding, although the air force played a great role in the world war, but the traditional navy and army thinking still prevails, so the countries do not do too much to limit the armament requirements of the air force, but only stipulate the number of bombers in each country and prohibit the use of mass destruction bombs. Pen @ fun @ pavilion wWw. ｂｉｑUｇE。 ｉｎｆｏ╔╗

After the World War, countries around the world had 8,520 bombers of various types, including 3,710 long-range bombers, and the Chinese Imperial Air Force accounted for 70% of this aspect, followed by the British Air Force's O-400 bomber, the modified bomber played an important role in the American battlefield, and was considered by the air forces of various countries to be the only bomber that could compete with the H2N1 bomber of the Chinese Empire.

After high-level negotiations between the air forces of various countries, it was finally stipulated that the ratio of the number of bombers to the five aviation powers of the Chinese Empire, Britain, France, Germany, and Italy was 10:7:4:4:3, and the Chinese Empire was required to stop producing bombers, and each country arranged the production or dismantling of its own bombers in proportion to the existing number of bombers in the Chinese Empire.

France, Germany, and Italy had far less than the required number of bombers, and the three countries could continue to produce bombers to fill the gap, while Britain slightly exceeded the regulations, dismantling 45 old 0-100 bombers as required.

Interestingly, the Mexican Air Force was asked by the member states of the League of Nations to reduce the number of bombers in the Air Force. The original Mexican Air Force only had a dozen old seaplanes, with Mexico's alliance with the Chinese Empire, obtained a batch of H1N1 bombers, after the war with the United States, the Chinese Empire transferred half of the captured American planes to Mexico, for which Mexico established the most powerful air force in the Americas, six bomber groups to the rest of the Americas uneasy, so it was required to limit the number of bombers. ╔╗

The Mexican Air Force has finally formed a powerful air force, and it is not willing to reduce it at all. To this end, the Mexican government asked the Chinese Empire for help. Under the mediation of the Chinese Empire, the countries of the Americas made concessions and allowed the Mexican Air Force to retain its air force bomber force, but not more than 1,500 aircraft. As a reassurance, the Imperial Chinese Congress approved the export of advanced H2N1 bombers to the Americas for the first time, and Latin American countries were able to obtain the world's most powerful bombers from the Chinese Empire, so they no longer had to worry about the Mexican air threat.

The United States was very annoyed by the Chinese Empire's restriction of the United States Air Force, and appealed everywhere in the League of Nations, asking for help from other countries. However, the Chinese Empire did not let go of this, and the countries did not bother with it after the trial.

The US side is well aware that the Sino-US war depends to a great extent on the loss of air supremacy, and the US military has always talked about the successful bombing of the Third Aircraft Carrier Battle Group of the Imperial Chinese Navy, and has been secretly operating around on the matter of rebuilding the Air Force. However, the US High Command believed that even if it could not establish an air force, it should at least train a large number of pilots, because in the Sino-US war, the US Air Force suffered heavy losses in pilots, exposing the shortage of American aviation pilots. Therefore, after the war, the United States vigorously developed aviation schools, and the reserve of pilots became the first priority. At the same time, the U.S. Self-Defense Forces Command found a loophole in the New York Peace Treaty, vigorously developed civil aviation, and changed the O-400 bomber to civilian transport aircraft to avoid the supervision of the Chinese Empire.

When it comes to fighter jets, there are no clear restrictions for any country. The Chinese Empire is the dominant player in this regard, and after the baptism of the Sino-American War, the old Cat Demon fighter series of the Chinese Empire have been eliminated and replaced with more advanced Thunderbolt fighters and Hellfire fighters. In this regard, Europe and the United States could not compete, and their financial resources did not allow them to catch up with or surpass the Chinese Empire in a short period of time.

However, European and American countries do not restrict the development and production of fighter jets, but they demand that the Chinese Empire relax the export restrictions on high-tech weapons and equipment and allow all countries to equip the Chinese Empire's advanced fighters. ╔╗In this regard, the Chinese Empire did not object, but strongly supported it, saying that it could give priority to the export of Thunderbolt fighters to allies and friendly countries to earn foreign exchange.

The armaments of the army and air force were the first to be finalized, and all countries basically reached a consensus, basically eliminating the danger of another major war.

In accordance with the provisions of the League of Nations' disarmament treaty, all countries have begun to carry out major disarmament one after another. In this respect, France was the fastest, because the French people were so disgusted with the war that they had reached the limit that the French government had to drastically dismantle the army. Seeing the rapid disarmament of France, some German officers even hoped to take the opportunity to raid France, but this idea was strongly disliked by the German side and the Chinese imperialists, and this idea was immediately abandoned, and Germany also disarmed on a large scale.

France and Germany, the main sources of war, both carried out large-scale disarmament in accordance with the terms of the treaty, and other countries were relieved to disarm to reduce financial pressures.

However, the five permanent members of the League of Nations are not completely reassured that, in addition to the Army and Air Force, the naval disarmament program that is of most concern to them must also be addressed.

The French Navy was the first to be unable to hold on, so the financial pressure on France became more and more tight, and the huge expenditure on naval military expenses and the maintenance of naval equipment was cut by the French presidential palace for most of it. Military spending fell from 60 billion francs during the war to less than 1 billion francs, which was very ferocious and made the French navy extremely sad. Excluding inflation, one billion francs was equivalent to only 2 million dragon coins at this time, less than a fraction of the military expenditure of the Imperial Chinese Navy.

The French navy did not have military support, so it gave up the idea of naval armament and actively promoted the major disarmament of the navies of the other four countries.

Similarly, the Italian navy was forced to take the side of France because of the three-quarters reduction in military spending, and actively persuaded the Chinese Empire, Great Britain and Germany to reduce their navy and equipment. ╔╗

The problem was torn between the Chinese Empire, Great Britain and Germany, a traditional maritime power unwilling to have a weaker navy than the Chinese Imperial Navy. The German Navy, since its victory in the Battle of Jutland, was not to be left alone. The Imperial Chinese Navy also had to maintain its status as the world's largest naval power and the maritime traffic safety of its vast overseas colonies, and was unwilling to drastically reduce it.

At this time, the British Navy, since the defeat in the Battle of Jutland, the main force of the British Navy has been lost. Although a large number of warships were built subsequently, the total tonnage of the navy could not reach its peak state. At this time, the total tonnage of the British Navy had fallen to a record low, less than 350,000 tons, and there were only eight capital ships, and the former powerful British Navy no longer existed.

At this time, the German Navy, as the second largest navy in the world, had 48 capital ships and more than 200 warships of various sizes, with a total tonnage of more than 1.3 million tons, which was an unprecedented glorious moment for the German Navy.

The Imperial Chinese Navy was even more powerful, with 82 main warships and more than 600 combat ships of various types, with a total tonnage of nearly 3 million tons.

Of course, the capital ships of the Imperial Chinese Navy include some of the captured capital warships of the US Navy, as well as the four Iowa-class battleships and four Olympia-class battlecruisers that have just completed the final outfitting in the US shipyards and are heading to the territory of the Chinese Empire, as well as the four Ming-class battleships that have just been launched by several naval shipyards of the Chinese Empire, and these twelve warships are all super battleships equipped with 18-inch main guns, and they are all the strongest warships in the world.

The Imperial Chinese Navy opposed the reduction, one of the reasons was that the Imperial Chinese Navy wanted to maintain its position as the world's maritime hegemon; The second reason is that the Chinese Empire has vast overseas territories that need to be protected, and it is necessary to maintain a global projection of naval power; The third reason is that the ratio of naval forces proposed by various countries will cause a large number of capital ships of the Imperial Chinese Navy to be reduced, and the capital ships of the Imperial Chinese Navy have a short service time, are expensive, and even dismantling will cost considerable financial resources, so from an economic point of view, the Chinese Empire does not agree. ╔╗

The top brass of the three navies has held many closed-door consultations, but the differences are still wide.

In this way, the League of Nations' plan for reducing the navies of various countries has not been implemented for a long time, and the navies of various countries have been consumed without first reducing them.

This continued for another three months, and in July 1918, someone finally couldn't hold it out. It has been a year since the end of the world war, the British coalition cabinet's economic recovery efforts have failed to achieve the expected results, Britain has tried in vain to restore the gold standard system, but its economic recovery is weak, only the level of 1905 before the war, the huge fiscal deficit forced the British government to drastically reduce the military spending of the navy, the six super battleships under construction of the British Navy have all stopped, and the military expenditure of the British Navy is only 3.4 million pounds, which is 20% of last year. As a result, the British Admiralty had to lay off staff and stop building warships to make ends meet.

Britain could not hold on, so at the League of Nations Naval Conference, the original conditions were waived to the point of retaining 50% of the naval strength of the Chinese Empire.

Because the damage of Germany in the world war was very small, although the German government was burdened with a war debt of up to 6 billion gold marks, its financial situation was slightly better than that of Britain, and the relationship with the Chinese Empire was relatively good, and it successively obtained hundreds of millions of dragon dollars in loans from the Chinese Empire, so the German navy's funds were more relaxed than those of the British navy.

Despite this, the construction of four super-battleships by the German Navy at four major shipyards was halted due to lack of funds and the refusal of the German population to build tools for war. At the same time, the military expenditure of the German Navy was also cut by the Parliament of the Weimar Republic, because the huge military expenditure of the German Navy and the maintenance of warships were extremely high, like a huge gold-swallowing beast, eating money like crazy. The allocation of naval funds was cut by more than half, and the German Navy had to face the problem of insufficient funds and forced to cut the naval budget. ╔╗

And for the Imperial Chinese Navy, the huge cost of maintaining the navy was not a problem. Admiralty officials were able to maintain this size after convincing the Emperor and the Diet on various grounds.

In August 1918, Britain and Germany conceded at the same time, and the Chinese Empire took the lead in naval disarmament negotiations.

On August 2, the five permanent members of the Chinese Empire, Germany, Britain, France, and Italy, finally reached an agreement after long and "unpleasant" negotiations.

On that day, the five permanent members signed the Treaty on the Limitation of Naval Armaments. The Treaty is divided into 24 paragraphs and 282 articles, and the annex also includes 2 paragraphs and 8 articles, for a total of 26 paragraphs and 290 articles.

The main content of the treaty is to limit the naval armaments of the five permanent members, limit the tonnage of capital ships and the caliber of their main guns, and stipulate the proportion of the total tonnage of capital ships (battleships and battle cruisers) of the navies of China, Germany, Britain, France, and Italy, as well as the total tonnage, standard displacement, and artillery caliber of aircraft carriers.

According to the provisions of the treaty, the ratio of the total tonnage of the navy of the five countries of the Chinese Empire, Britain, Germany, France and Italy is 12:6:5.5:4.5:3.5, that is, the total tonnage of the Chinese Imperial Navy is 1.2 million tons, the British is 600,000 tons, Germany is 550,000 tons, France is 450,000 tons, and Italy is 350,000 tons.

According to this ratio, the Chinese Empire is undoubtedly the world's largest navy and has absolute maritime supremacy, which is not unrelated to the fact that the Chinese Empire is the only global power in the post-war period.

However, the total tonnage of the Chinese Empire at this time was nearly 3 million tons, and if only 1.2 million tons were retained, it would be equivalent to a reduction of 1.8 million tons at once. The scale of this reduction is not small, mainly because the Chinese Imperial Emperor Wang Chenhao personally ordered a major disarmament, because Wang Chenhao understood that there would be no more major wars for a long time after the world war, and the retention of 1.2 million naval tonnage was enough to cope with various crises, and it was more than enough At the same time, the military expenditure of the Chinese Imperial Navy to maintain 3 million naval tonnage was as high as 230 million dragon coins. Therefore, it is not cost-effective to spend a huge amount of money on the navy, and it is more cost-effective to use the saved money to develop naval technology and prepare for the next world war.

Wang Chenhao was the supreme commander of the three armed forces of the Chinese Empire, and he made an order for a major disarmament, and the naval officials naturally did not dare to raise objections. The Chinese Empire's reduction of 1.8 million naval tonnage in one fell swoop also had a deeper political purpose behind it. The Chinese Empire rose through war, and over the years it was almost the enemy of the world's great powers. Now that the rise of the Chinese Empire has been successful, the European and American powers have recognized that the rise of the Chinese Empire is unstoppable, so the future international policy of the Chinese Empire is to integrate into the world of the great powers, and not to give all the great powers the feeling that they are in danger, and the global hostility will not be beneficial to the future development of the Chinese Empire. Therefore, this large-scale reduction of the navy has undoubtedly sent a signal to the people of all countries in the world that the Chinese Empire is a peace-loving country, and let the people of the whole world know the tremendous concessions made by the Chinese Empire in exchange for peace.

It was precisely because the Chinese Empire was willing to cut 1.8 million tons in one go that Britain, France, Germany, Italy, and other countries happily signed disarmament agreements, and highly praised the peaceful attitude and practices of the Chinese Empire, saying that the Chinese Empire said that it would continue to cooperate more extensively in the future.

The tonnage reduction of the Imperial Chinese Navy was mainly concentrated on obsolete battleships, battle cruisers, battle destroyers, and converted aircraft carriers that had been in service for more than seven or eight years, as well as old heavy cruisers, light cruisers, destroyers, and submarines. Super battleships, super battle cruisers, Aegis air defense cruisers, large aircraft carriers, large submarines, and so on have all been retained, and their combat effectiveness has actually increased unabated.

Although Britain has given up the illusion of world naval supremacy, it has undoubtedly taken advantage of the limitation of armaments this time. Because the total tonnage of the British Navy at this time is only 300,000 tons, there is still 300,000 tons of space from the stipulated 600,000 tons. Although the British Navy was unable to fill this part of the tonnage gap for a while, as long as the British financial resources improved, the British Navy would still be the second in the world.

Britain was able to obtain a quota of 600,000 tons, in fact, it was due to the influence of the Chinese Empire behind it. Since the German Navy became the second largest navy in the world, it was qualified to challenge the Imperial Chinese Navy. Although the Chinese Empire had good relations with Germany, it would not budge on fundamental issues.

In order to weaken the German navy, the Chinese Empire exerted pressure on the government of the Weimar Republic of Germany, under the pretext that Germany drove out Wilhelm II, which seriously hurt the feelings of the people of the Chinese Empire.

The Weimar Republic of Germany had just been established, with chaotic domestic order, economic turmoil, and unstable military morale, and it urgently needed external political and economic support. After the war, the only person in the world who could do so was the Chinese Empire, so restoring national strength with the help of the Chinese Empire was the first priority of the Weimar government.

When the Chinese Empire pressured Germany on the issue of naval arms limitations, the Weimar government immediately understood the concern of the Chinese Empire, that is, the rapid expansion of the German navy made the Chinese Empire feel threatened. The German government knew very well that the German High Seas Fleet was able to win the Battle of Jutland because of the help of the Chinese Empire behind it, otherwise the defeated country today would probably be Germany. Naturally, the Weimar government did not dare to challenge the Chinese Empire, so it could only reduce the armament of the German navy.

The German side originally insisted on parity in the proportion of British and German naval tonnage, but the Weimar government finally took the initiative to reduce the proportion of German naval armaments to 5.5 on the grounds that Britain had a wide range of colonies and needed protection, so that the British naval tonnage surpassed Germany and climbed to the second place in the world.

In fact, the Weimar government deliberately took a back seat to avoid giving the Chinese Empire the impression that the German navy was superior to the Chinese Empire, and let Britain be the first bird, in order to divert the Chinese Empire's concerns about the German navy.

In this way, Britain obtained a quota of 600,000 tons, but in fact it became the target of the Chinese Empire's vigilance, while Germany, although it was reduced to the quota of 550,000 tons, it avoided the suspicion of the Chinese Empire, and at the same time, the British Navy needed to protect its overseas colonies, and there was not much if 600,000 tons were separated, and the German Navy basically defended its own territory, and it was easy to form a local naval superiority in the North Sea. Thus, the game between Britain and Germany was actually a German victory.

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