1921 was the year when the Empire officially appeared on the world diplomatic stage as a world power empire, and the defeat of the Anglo-French forces in the Caucasus indirectly proved the strength of the Imperial Army.

This is a new era and a new era of imperial diplomacy.

1921 is the 10th anniversary of the conclusion of the Sino-French alliance, out of the great contribution made by the Chinese Empire to France in World War I, the French political axe decided to hold a grand celebration ceremony at the Palace of Versailles in Paris, also out of the highest degree of importance to the permanent alliance between the two countries, the new cabinet minister Ouyang Geng personally visited France, and will attend the celebration jointly held by the Chinese and French political axes.

In February 1921, Song Wenhui, Minister of the Imperial Navy, accompanied Premier Ouyang Geng on a visit to France and Britain, Cheng Biguang, the former Minister of the Imperial Navy, secretly visited Germany as a special envoy of the Emperor and the Prime Minister, and Zhang Kangren, Minister of Finance of the Empire, visited the United States, Mexico and South American countries.

During this period, Imperial Foreign Minister Liang Dunyan visited Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Azerbaijan, signed the "Middle East Special Protection Treaty" with the Republic of Azerbaijan and Iraq respectively, including Azerbaijan and Iraq as protectorates of the empire, signed the "Sino-Iranian Strategic Mutual Assistance Treaty" with Iran to establish the quasi-protection status of Iran, and signed the "Sino-Arab Mutual Assistance and Reciprocity Pact" with Tsarist Russia and Arabia.

Imperial Vice Foreign Minister Li Enfu went to Central Asia to visit the Kazakh Autonomous State under the administration of Soviet Russia, then went to the newly established Uzbekistan to sign the "Sino-Ukrainian Special Protection Treaty", and finally went to the Kingdom of Afghanistan, which had just graduated from the British Empire, to conduct final consultations on the signing of the "Sino-Arab Strategic Mutual Assistance Treaty" between China and Afghanistan.

China and Britain can never become hardcore allies, this is completely different from China and France, the Chinese Empire and the French Republic are natural allies, the interests of both sides and the needs of the international world are basically completely identical, the complementary surnames between the economy and interests of China and France are also very compatible, and the struggle between China and Britain is always greater than cooperation, if it is not for the needs of war, China and Britain will not even have cooperation.

Even during the First World War, Britain did not cause less trouble for the empire on the issue of Tibetan provinces, and the empire was also not idle, taking advantage of the attack on Soviet Russia, while aiding the Kingdom of Afghanistan with some old guns and ammunition, and sending officers and officials to serve as military and political advisers to the Kingdom of Afghanistan, making a very outstanding and hidden contribution to the Kingdom of Afghanistan's ability to read by chance.

Almost all the contradictions between China and Britain lay in the greed and arrogance of the British Empire, both before and after World War I, which forced the Chinese Empire to appear on the diplomatic stage of Asia as a righteous man. If Britain had not threatened the security of the empire, had not tried to rule Tibetan provinces, and had not tried to monopolize the domination of the entire Middle East and Central Asia, China and Britain would have been able to live in a more peaceful and friendly manner.

After Premier Ouyang Geng came to power, the empire has been carrying out various diplomatic work to further strengthen and deepen the firm alliance between China and France, deepen the strategic and mutually beneficial cooperation between China and the United States, maintain secret cooperation with Germany and Soviet Russia, and then sign military mutual assistance treaties with some small countries in Asia, secretly support the nationalist reading movement in Burma, Malaya, and Indonesia, and implement counter-suppression of the British Empire from all aspects.

Externally, Ouyang Geng's cabinet adopted a roundabout route of skillful strength, constantly using the Empire's status as a world-class army power and the largest power in Asia, avoiding head-on conflicts with the British Empire, and skillfully using the entire international environment and other countries to contain the British Empire, which had a colony of 35 million square kilometers.

Internally, Ouyang Geng's cabinet took a tough line of emphasizing the law and loving the people, prosecuting Yuan Shikai and Liang Shiyi, and investigating all kinds of corruption and malpractices left by the previous cabinet.

Throughout 1921, the Chinese Empire spent the first year of Ouyang Geng's cabinet in the stage of external ingenuity and internal toughness, although the doubts were very loud, but the emperor's support still suppressed all kinds of domestic opposition, ensuring the stability of the central political axe of the empire.

Militarily, the Imperial Army was intensively conducting theoretical and practical research on large-scale mechanized operations, and in the process promoting the mechanization reform of the Army; The Imperial Navy formally established the Aircraft Carrier Project and the Aircraft Carrier Research Bureau, and the center of the Navy's work continued to strengthen and improve the level of ship manufacturing; The Imperial Air Force really spread its wings and began to work on the investment of large transport aircraft and bombers.

After World War I, the Empire's financial situation should have been the best among the Entente powers, and Britain was one of the worst, but Britain said that the military spending of the United States and France could not be reduced because of the new round of naval competition, and the Empire was the only country that reduced its military spending, focusing on domestic construction, focusing on research and reform in the military field, rather than large-scale investment.

In early October 1921, before officially going to the United States to attend the Washington Conference, Song Biao, accompanied by Navy Minister Song Wenhui, took the battleship Aurora, the flagship of the Imperial Navy, to the Luoyuan Bay Naval Base.

The Imperial Navy has been trying to build a true super-dreadnought in the past few years, and its design blueprint is derived from the German King-class and Bavaria-class battleships, before that, the Imperial was still building a 10,000-ton Weihai-class armored cruiser, this class of cruisers is the Golden State Shipyard with the help of Vickers, with the Hood-class battlecruiser as the initial design drawing, using oil-coal hybrid boiler and steam turbine technology, with a standard displacement of 9700 tons, with 8 twin 8-inch guns, Much like an armored cruiser of a pocket battlecruiser.

The consistent principle of the Imperial Navy is not to seek the best, but to meet the actual needs of the Imperial Navy.

In the past four years, a total of six armored cruisers of this class have been built in the three major shipyards in the country, and they are also the main equipment warships of the Imperial Navy, although the displacement tonnage is small, but its defensive effect is close to that of early battleships, and the overall defense effect has the same 10-inch guns, and the top speed is only 28 knots, which is much lower than other cruisers.

The Battle of Delan has proved that the battlecruiser is not the opponent of the battleship at all, and the only value is to destroy the opponent's cruiser, and the significance of the Empire's construction of the Weihai-class armored cruiser is only to maintain the security of the Empire's maritime frontier, not to directly fight the British Navy, and it is also a long-term move of the Imperial Navy to gradually improve the level of the ship and shipbuilding industry.

Song Biao rode the battleship Aurora and entered the Luoyuan Bay Military Port under the escort of the Weifang-class armored cruiser.

Fujian is still hot in October, and Luoyuan Bay, because it is close to the coast, looks cooler in the morning and evening with the tide of the sea.

In 1913, the total amount of currency in circulation in the international financial market was about 3.5 billion, and the actual purchasing power was basically equivalent to 3 trillion US dollars in 2010, and by 1920, the M0 of the British pound increased to more than 7 billion, and the total M3 including long-term government bonds, foreign debts, banks, and cheques may be as high as 18 billion pounds, of which the debt owed by the British political axe alone was as high as 6.5 billion pounds.

The proliferation of the United Kingdom as an international currency has directly led to a collective rise in global commodity prices, with the price of wheat alone increasing by 1.4 times in five years, and the price of copper rising by 3.7 times. Of course, the world economy after World War I is indeed very complex, since 1920, as countries adopt monetary tightening and high interest rate policies to deal with the financial crisis, as well as the gradual recovery of European industry, the European immigration of World War I has made Canada, Brazil, Argentina, Australia and other countries in the field of agriculture and mining rapid development, coupled with the uneven distribution of international gold reserves caused by the financial austerity of small countries, international commodities and global prices have been reduced year by year since the 1922 Washington Treaty. The severe contraction of U.S. agricultural and mining exports was a major factor in the Great Depression in the United States.

China's total military expenditure in 1921 was $350 million, an increase of nearly four times compared with 1913, and it could only maintain the third place among the six countries of Britain, the United States, China, France, and Italy, lower than that of the United States and Britain, and higher than that of France and Italy.

The army and air force accounted for $250 million, or 71.5 percent, of the empire's military expenditure, which was equivalent to the combined expenditure of the British and French armies, while the navy's military expenditure was the second lowest among the six countries of Britain, the United States, China, France, and Italy, only $2 million more than Italy.

In 1921, the navy's military budget was as high as $230 million, accounting for 31 percent of the country's total financial expenditure, and this was still evident in the 1920 Taisho nine-year post-war economic crisis.

It is precisely in this international environment that the Empire is positioned as a first-class army power on the world political stage, and its navy only maintains a basic deterrent power, and does not pose any threat to Britain, the United States, or even to the United Kingdom. This is also more evident in the manufacture of warships, and the tonnage and caliber of the main guns of the Imperial Navy, whether they are battleships or cruisers, are smaller than those of the British and Americans.

At the Luoyuan Bay Naval Base, the first aircraft carrier test ship owned by the empire was rebuilt on the basis of a 23,000-ton coal carrier at the San Francisco shipyard, which was exactly the same as the situation in the United States, and the technical standards and parameters were roughly the same, and even the carrier-based aircraft were produced by the same Curtis Aircraft Manufacturing Company.

It was the evening when the Aurora sailed into the naval base, and the setting sun was slanting against the boundless sea and the circular coastal mountains, and in this almost closed harbor, the Empire's first aircraft carrier test ship Zheng He was quietly parked at the edge of the harbor, bathed in golden sunlight.

Due to the use of various types of carrier-based aircraft, especially the light reconnaissance planes of the Curtis Company, which only need a short runway to take off, even if the Zheng He aviation test ship was parked on the shore and did not travel at high speed, two light reconnaissance planes took off from the deck in a row.

When Song Biao stepped down from the bridge of the battleship Aurora, he happened to see these two light reconnaissance planes flying overhead, with a whistling sound, which made people feel a surging force in their hearts unconsciously.

What a good time!

In this embryonic period of aircraft carriers, Song Biao did not pay too much attention to the empire's aircraft carrier projects, and even in the cycle of project establishment and preparation, the empire was later than Britain and the United States, but the latecomers had the advantage of being latecomers, and they could fully learn from the British and American aircraft carrier systems from the beginning.

In order to solve this problem, the Imperial Navy adopted a strategy of opening up mountains and flattening the sea, flattening several barren mountains and mounds on the west side, building a naval base there, and at the same time increasing the port area, which will gradually develop into China's largest aircraft carrier base in the long run.

The advantage here is that the opposite island of Taiwan can be built into the empire's largest outer island air base and naval outpost, covering a wide range of forbidden areas, which can effectively defend against the surprise attacks of foreign navies.

When he arrived at the naval base, Song Biao met Cheng Biguang, president of China University of Shipbuilding Industry, and said that the Navy's aircraft carrier engineering research work has always been a major part of the China Shipbuilding University, and even the aircraft carrier test ship belongs to the China Shipbuilding University.

Song Biao did not have much interest in this aircraft carrier in its embryonic stage, and after visiting it accompanied by Cheng Biguang, he was ready to go to the base and inspect the Fuzhou Shipyard and the China Shipbuilding Industry University tomorrow.

The Chinese's dream of an aircraft carrier.

It's a wonderful feeling to be within reach, and this seemingly primitive aircraft carrier test ship represents the hope of the Chinese Navy, and the Imperial Navy's efforts to catch up with the battleships will eventually achieve the crazy achievement of the Imperial Aircraft Carrier Battle Group.

When he went to the Luoyuan Bay Naval Base to rest, Song Biao got into the car and asked Cheng Biguang very casually: "It feels good to go back to Fuzhou to work, right?" ”

Cheng Biguang replied: "Back to the emperor, although he is still busy, his subordinates are even more happy in their hearts. ”

Song Biao nodded and praised: "That's the best, I heard that some time ago, the president of the Imperial Naval University of Yuben, Mayuki Akiyama, also invited you to visit Yuben, how about it, there should be a lot of gains, right?" ”

Cheng Biguang pondered carefully for a moment and replied: "The gains are indeed not small, first, I sigh that my navy still has a long way to go, second, I feel that there is still a deep discrimination against my country's navy and warship manufacturing industry, and it is still permeated with the special pride of the victor of the First Sino-Japanese Naval War, and third, I feel that on the one hand, I look down on the current strength of my navy, and on the other hand, I continue to use my navy as an excuse to expand frantically, and there is a desire to completely defeat my navy. When I talked about this matter with President Akiyama, I also affirmed that the main body of our country is an army power, and the navy mainly serves the basic needs of defending coastal borders and maintaining the security of ocean-going trade, and has no intention of challenging the superiority of the navy. ”

Song Biao bowed slightly, and said, "You're right, what did Qiu Shan say?" ”

Cheng Biguang said: "Principal Akiyama also said that he was trying his best to persuade the Imperial Admiralty not to blindly take our navy as the target of suppression, because the development of the Chinese navy is an inevitable trend with the improvement of national strength and trade expansion, and it is much better to strengthen cooperation than confrontation, but he also frankly admitted that the possibility of persuading most of the officers of this navy is very low. Therefore, he suggested that China should draw lessons from Germany's experience and not blindly challenge the superiority of its own navy, and at the same time ensure the basic strength of its navy for self-defense, so that only in this way can we avoid further deterioration of the situation of confrontation between China and the Chinese navy. ”

Song Biao pondered for a while and replied, "Akiyama is telling the truth, he is not the kind of person who can tell lies. In fact, in the long run, our navy will still focus on defensive operations, for example, the tonnage of our destroyers and defense ships is relatively large, and the tonnage of battleships and cruisers is very small, including the fact that we are now devoting a lot of money to the study of submarines, including the Air Force's long-range fighters and bombers, which are also in this way of thinking. The crux of the problem now is that China is blindly expansionist, and if a naval war breaks out between China and China, the most important reason will definitely be that China is provoking China. ”

Cheng Biguang said: "After the defeat of the Xinhai War, China has always taken revenge on our country as its national goal, and this trend has become more obvious after World War I. I have been visiting the United States for two months, and during this time I have been studying the national policy of the United States, and I always feel that the people are using us as a cover, in fact, they want to compete with the United States Pacific Fleet at the same time, and they are very concerned about the failure to compete with the United States for the Hawaiian Islands, and in general, this nation and country are very strange, and the emperor must be cautious in dealing with their provocations. ”

Song Biao's mood for these words was very heavy, and it happened that in the car, except for the driver and Han Chunlin who accompanied him, only he and Cheng Biguang were sitting in the back of the car.

He and Cheng Biguang sighed: "This country and nation are not strange, but paranoid and crazy, such a national spirit makes it easy for them to develop in the past crisis, and it also makes them always a little self-conscious, and sooner or later they will fight very badly." There are also many small countries in Europe, but none of them are as crazy as they are to challenge the three great powers of Britain, France and Germany. The gross national product of the United States is three times that of China, and the per capita output value is 12 times that of ours. Our per capita output value is roughly the same as that of the capital, but because of our large population, our total output value is eight times that of the capital. Under these circumstances, the total state fiscal revenue is actually one-quarter of ours, and this year's total military budget is at the same level as ours, with us $350 million and $330 million. If you look at this simplest number, you can see that its political axe is crazy, the society is crazy, and the people are even more crazy. The total tax ratio between the total tax revenue of the whole country and the gross national product has been maintained at more than 30 per cent for the past two decades, what do you think it wants to do, and what kind of pressure is this nation under to build a strong military force? ”

Cheng Biguang has not been very sensitive to the issue of finance and taxation, and he felt that he was really crazy when he heard this, and said: "As far as the ministers are concerned, the whole is still a very poor country, the political axe is rich and the people are poor, the political axe can build a super dreadnought ship once a year, and the people live normally but can't even eat enough, and many families make a living by eating beans." Although the people of the empire are also poor, they are not as poor as the people of the Moon, especially in the ten years when Premier Tang was in power, the people are indeed much richer than before, at least they can eat enough, and it is a fact that the people love the prime minister. ”

"yes!"

Song Biao sighed.

From this point of view, Tang Shaoyi is indeed a good prime minister, in order to make the people's lives better, he will spend more political axes on basic affairs such as education and water conservancy, he can confront the emperor regardless of his career, and the result is actually blocked by the emperor The political back road.

It's rare, it's really rare.

Even if Tang Shaoyi has his own faction in the cabinet and the Liberation Party, he is also an imperial party, and he often declares his loyalty to the emperor, but his "loyalty" is a Confucian "loyalty", not foolish loyalty.

Song Biao is a good emperor and Tang Shaoyi is a good prime minister, but the conflict between them is precisely here.

Speaking of Tang Shaoyi, Song Biao was very emotional, but he had no choice, Tang Shaoyi was certainly a good prime minister, but at this time, Tang Shaoyi already had political capital and prestige to adhere to his own ideas, and his ideas were very different from Song Biao.

At this time, Song Biao, who was sitting in the car, did not know that the new premier Ouyang Geng also had an opinion on this, Ouyang Geng after becoming the prime minister, once commented on the contradiction between the emperor and Tang Shaoyi with his nephew Ouyang Xi, he said, Tang Shaoyi is a good prime minister, essentially an idealistic pragmatic prime minister, and admires the United States very much, but Tang Shaoyi does not really understand the United States, in fact, the United States is very different from China, and there are many bad things in itself.

Just when Song Biao thought of Tang Shaoyi's question, Cheng Biguang remembered another thing, and Song Biao added: "Your Majesty, the minister also found a not very good phenomenon during the visit to the navy and the people, according to reason, the whole world knows that China's industry is developing rapidly, but the media, officials and people still have a deep discrimination against our country, and in the process of my conversation with them, all the people who said that I continued to use this kind of contempt for us insisting on and being paranoid. Many people did not believe in the current level of industry in our country, and when we visited their shipyard, even Akiyama suggested that we continue to buy warships from Samoto, and said that Motomoto really considered selling dreadnoughts to our country. We have already built three Aurora-class dreadnoughts on our own, the fourth Aurora-class dreadnought will be commissioned at the end of the year, the new Qingzhou-class super-dreadnoughts have entered the final stage in the independent production of main guns and steam turbines, and they are expected to be put into production early next year, and they will also export dreadnoughts to us, I really can't understand what they think, and the most unhappy thing is that even Akiyama Shinyuki said that this is the beginning of the regularization of Sino-Chinese military exchanges, and it is also the best way to end the Sino-Chinese naval dispute. ”

Song Biao laughed out loud, and reassured Cheng Biguang: "Qiushan, this person is very smart, but he didn't tell lies, the military industry is the economic pillar of the capital, and the warship manufacturing is the leader of the military industry." Now that countries have agreed to participate in the Washington Conference, it is enough to show that the finances of all countries cannot support the current post-war naval race. In fact, the situation is even worse, if we can export dreadnoughts to our country, the export price of one ship will be as high as 20 million yuan, and we can use our money to develop their military industry and train their talents and experience. In fact, this also shows that the country itself is also very clear that China's current military focus is not on the navy, and there is no idea and strength to compete with them on the west coast of the Pacific Ocean, and their navy does not look down on our level. Of course, they say theirs, we do ours. After all, the current era is different, Britain says it is an alliance, China and France are also allies, and the British are not at all ready to challenge the Sino-French alliance, and Britain will not let it do so. Therefore, I have a word for the aggressive posture of the Navy, let them be arrogant, as long as the Empire can threaten Burma, India, and southern Korea with its land forces at any time, it is impossible for the British Alliance to risk war with our country. ”

Speaking of this, Song Biao also felt a little emotional, and couldn't help adding: "This country is indeed very sick, sooner or later, it is necessary to fight a really ruthless Sino-Chinese naval battle to end their sense of historical superiority above the navy, otherwise, it will be difficult for the empire to have a long-term real peace, and there is no way to be a real leader in Asia." ”

Cheng Biguang was sincerely convinced: "Your Majesty, what you said really speaks to the hearts of your subordinates, think about the empire's ten years of hard work, and before that, they also ruthlessly wiped out hundreds of thousands of army forces in the Xinhai year, they are still so rampant, they are really full of righteous indignation, I can't wait to beat them again, completely kill them, but unfortunately the gap in naval strength is large, I am afraid it will take another ten years to have the confidence of the decisive naval battle." ”

Song Biao replied, "Almost." ”

A vicious war can win peace for 10 to 20 years, but it is difficult to defeat the arrogant ambition of the opponent, and Vietnam and India are not typical. At the beginning, it was beaten so badly, and then it was not alive and bounced to continue to provoke, even if India, it was inconvenient to attack, what do you say Vietnam is dancing?

Vietnam's deputy defense minister openly declared in a national newspaper that the Vietnamese army could hit Yenching, is this a bit too low IQ?

Song Biao said unceremoniously, you can hit Nanning in Vietnam, even if you are very powerful.

This kind of thing is known to the whole world, as far as they themselves do not know, the problem is the same now, as a Chinese, especially a Chinese soldier, you really have no way to understand their logic.

Song Biao said that the book ...... That's really a lot of emotion.

The economy determines politics, and politics determines the military, and this kind of saying is still true a thousand times.

The root cause of all the problems is the economy, first of all, it lacks sufficient territory and resources, and then lacks colonies and markets, thanks to the war prosperity of the First World War, it has become one of the world's capitalist powers, but compared with the lack of resources, territory and colonies, the real biggest problem is that the whole society and the political axe lack a sense of security, so that they are excessively eager for colonies and provinces, which is the fundamental reason why the country embarked on the road of aggression.

China now has a territory of 18.9 million square kilometers, and the mining volume of coal, iron and lead ranks third in the world, and the mining volume of gold, silver, copper, manganese, nickel, tungsten, aluminum and magnesium also ranks among the top in the world.

China has a vast territory, the area of arable land has surpassed that of the United States, and the output of rice, soybeans, wheat, corn and cotton, raw silk, hemp, sugar beet, tea, potatoes, sorghum and sweet potatoes ranks among the top in the world.

China's animal husbandry and forestry area is the largest in the world, China's forestry and animal husbandry development speed is also particularly fast, the total output value of animal husbandry in the past ten years has continued to grow rapidly, through many years of study in Germany and the United States and other countries in the country to establish a modern animal husbandry, at the same time combined with the characteristics of the country through credit and policy to encourage farmers to develop small-scale family breeding sideline, the total number of goats, sheep, horses, cattle, donkeys, pigs, rabbits in the country has gradually ranked in the forefront of the world.

China's semi-fine wool production in 1911 was only 3,300 tons, fine wool production was only 1,042 tons, by 1920, the former had reached 170,000 tons, the latter reached 14,400 tons, plus up to 400,000 tons of coarse wool production, China's total wool production accounted for about 1/5 of the world's total.

Even so, the empire still has a vast space for internal development, and the empire does not need to continue to expand, but needs a stable and peaceful environment to devote itself to the development of the country.

The five-year war prosperity of the First World War enabled China to build a complete set of industrial systems, and the mining, metallurgy, food, textile, chemical, shipbuilding, machinery, electrical and other industries have formed a scale sufficient to participate in international competition.

During the international economic crisis from 1920 to 1921, the gross national product of the United States fell by 1.3 percentage points, but China's economy still maintained a one-tenth growth rate under the influence of the Sino-Soviet war.

Under such circumstances, China naturally has to devote all its fiscal expenditures to national economic construction as much as possible, because its own development space is unlimited, and it must transfer all its fiscal expenditures to the military, continue to stimulate the country's development with the expansion of the military industry, and at the same time frantically expand its navy in order to seek more colonies.

He said that he was tenacious and would never be willing to be a second-rate country.

They also want to be a real world power, and to do so they will not hesitate to provoke any adversary, especially those who are the weakest in the Pacific region, and even China, which is relatively the weakest in its navy.

The information brought back by Cheng Biguang's visit to Yueben further made Song Biao realize that the empire had not completely settled down, and it was both the misfortune of the empire and the luck of the empire to have a crazy country like Yueben as a neighbor.

(To be continued)