The Chinese Empire has always been a typical example of following the rules in the development of aircraft carriers, and there is absolutely no China among the world's major aircraft carrier powers at this stage, and the world's seven major aircraft carriers are all converted from battle cruisers and cruisers, especially the Chicheng and Kaga of the Akamoto and the Lexington and Saratoga of the United States, which are all aircraft carriers converted from 40,000-ton battle cruisers, and enjoy the exemption treaty on the maximum displacement of aircraft carriers of 27,500 tons.

The first (A024) Zhenyuan-class aircraft carrier built by the empire in 1924 was basically a copy of the Lexington, which was also built on the basis of referring to the American aircraft carrier.

Only before that, the empire had built two test aircraft carriers, (A022) Fuzhou Shipyard and (A023) Northeast Shipyard, conducted a large number of tests on the combat mode of the aircraft carrier, and made a lot of detailed improvements on the basis of the Lexington aircraft carrier, and officially built the first aircraft carrier in 1924.

The Empire's classification of naval ships is based on surface ships as series A, underwater ships as B, series 01 as battleship class designation, 02 series as aircraft carrier class designation, 03 as cruisers, 04 as destroyers, 05 as defense ships, submarines are divided into large, medium and small three classes, large submarines are B01 series, medium submarines are B02 series, and small ones are B03 series.

In the naming of warships, the battleship is named after the ancient Kyushu, the first one is named after the Aurora class, the aircraft carrier adopts the main naming method of the provincial name, and at the same time, it can also be named with other special meanings, and the first one is named after the Zhenyuan.

The standard displacement of the Zhenyuan aircraft carrier is 25,500 tons, and the maximum speed can reach 33 knots, because this class of aircraft carriers itself has been greatly improved on the basis of the two experimental aircraft carriers of Fuzhou Shipbuilding and Northeast Shipbuilding, and it is relatively mature in this period, and it is expected that two Haiqi-class ships will continue to be built on its basis in the future.

Zhenyuan and Haiqi have been the long-term flagships of the Chinese Navy for a long time, and it is not easy for the Chinese Navy to have such a scale and level today.

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At the end of May 1925, at the suggestion of Marshal Xia Fei, French President Dumerg personally visited China and signed the formal "Sino-French Strategic Alliance Treaty" with China in Yanjing, positioning Sino-French relations in a truly solid and permanent alliance position.

This may be the real good thing.

The reason why the empire wants to continue to maintain an alliance with France, which is already inferior to its own strength, is that the competition between camps around the world is too fierce, and the United States has no possibility of formally concluding an alliance with any country. Second, for Emperor Song Biao, he had no intention of avoiding World War II.

If a new world war is bound to break out in the world in 10 years, with China's national strength and strength at that time, there is absolutely no need to sit on the sidelines, otherwise it will only harm itself, and the best choice is to deal a heavy blow to the opponent from the beginning and use the war to prove the true rise of the Chinese nation.

In general, France needs to maintain the Sino-French alliance more than China, and the present stage is almost the weakest and most difficult period in the history of France, facing the competitive pressure of Britain, Germany, and Italy in Europe, and the relationship with the United States is not good, the two countries have a great conflict of interests in the Caribbean and South America, and the conflict between the South Pacific and the United States is becoming more and more intense, while France's military and economic strength are constantly declining seriously.

Before World War I, France was the largest loan shark in the world, and it was able to maintain its international status by controlling its financial hegemony, but after World War I, with the loss of financial hegemony, this was completely impossible.

With the collapse of the Russian Empire, the most important ally, France was the most isolated country in the world if it could not maintain the Sino-French alliance, competing with almost every great power in the world, and even with Spain, which was extremely stiff and could be said to be attacked on all sides.

Therefore, in the Sino-French Strategic Alliance Treaty, the concessions made by France are very huge.

The first is that with the exception of Vietnam and the French Indies, France sold most of its Pan-Pacific colonies to the Chinese Empire, and only kept Clipperton Island on the east coast of Mexico. Second, France resold northern Costa Rica (about 15,000 square kilometers) and surrounding islands to the Chinese Empire.

In fact, these areas do not have much value, and China itself does not have such requirements, but in order to restore its capital advantage as soon as possible, France asked China to greatly reduce its debts, and China certainly did not agree, and finally reached such a special agreement, France symbolically sold some colonies, just to withdraw from the Pacific region, and also gave China some suitable supply points in the Indian Ocean, for example, the port of Angelana in northern Costa Rica is a world-class natural harbor, It would also be a good idea for the Empire to have an Indian Ocean naval base here.

The empire itself is also eager to develop fisheries, and the fishery resources of the entire Indian Ocean are still very rich, and with this base point, as long as the investment in fisheries is increased, the long-term return is still very good.

None of the colonies sold by France were worth much, but China had to pay a whopping £150 million and face a fierce standoff across the Pacific.

The real biggest concession that France actually made was in the terms of the strategic alliance, stipulating that China and France would open their colonies and enjoy the same trade and investment treatment, which would be of great benefit to both sides, but on the whole it would be more beneficial to China.

France's taxes are very high, the colonies are basically closed and only trade with the French mainland, after the treaty was reached, China is equivalent to joining this economic circle to enjoy the same low tax treatment, although France also enjoys the same trade treatment as China's Central Asia, the Middle East, North Korea and other Chinese colonies and protectorates, but France is not an industrial exporter after all, including its position as a capital exporter has also been greatly weakened after World War I, the two sides are equal, that is definitely China's big advantage.

There was still a lot of opposition to this matter in France, and it was not easy to finally reach this alliance treaty.

After China and France continued to maintain the alliance treaty, in response, Britain also strengthened the cooperation of the alliance between the two countries, with the acceleration of China's ship-building, it was also forced to increase the construction plan of cruisers, in fact, China said that the cruisers of the two countries are not cheap, especially the armored cruisers like the Fushun class, which are basically quasi-battleships with small main guns, and can become battleships at any time by replacing the main guns, and they will go directly to the battleships from the beginning.

The cost of one of the Fushun class was 7 million yuan, and the cost of a similar heavy cruiser was roughly the same, and both sides added four ships in one go, so from 1925 onwards, the Sino-Chinese naval competition was ignited again, and for Yueben, maintaining such competition would cost an additional 50 million yuan a year in naval funds.

China did not have any major problems, and its naval military spending increased to 520 million yuan, accounting for 8.5 percent of the total budget of the central government, and was forced to expand back to about 30 percent, which was tantamount to not signing the "Washington Treaty."

There was no need to do this, because at the end of the First World War, In 1925, the economic scale ratio was 7.85:1, which was a very special stage, and in 1925, the economic scale ratio was beaten back to its original shape, and the economic scale ratio in China expanded back to a gap of 9:1 again, and the economy is not so prosperous as before, although affected by the decline in bulk commodities and global prices, China's mining and agricultural exports have declined, but China's economic growth rate is still faster than that of the capital, and the overall situation is much better than the capital.

After all, China is not the era of the Qing Dynasty in the past, and with such a big gap, it is really unwise to say that it is really unwise to rigidly compare the Sino-Japanese War and continue to believe that it can defeat the Chinese Navy.

Of course, this has its own reasoning, because its national economy is basically driven by the military industry, and the short-term stimulus effect of the increase in military spending on the economy is obvious, but in the long run, it cannot be said that after stimulating the economy in the past few years, you will rely on naval superiority to start a war with China.

Although there is not much difference between China and the navy, the scale of China's expenditure on the army and the air force is also very staggering, with the army spending always at the level of 350 million yuan per year, and the air force spending 120 million yuan in 1925.

There are still several very special problems in China's military spending: First, a large part of the scientific research expenditure of the Chinese government is spent by the Ministry of Industry, Science and Technology of the Cabinet; The second is that there are two invisible wings behind the Chinese [***] fee, one is the trust capital of Xinhua Company and China International Trust and Investment Corporation; The second is the military reclamation system.

The scale of the trust management of the military surplus of the Central Military Department of the Chinese Empire is very large, and the scale of China's military reclamation system is also very large.

Therefore, it is the most unwise choice for China to engage in a military spending contest with China, unless it is still prepared to fight a war with China when it is fully expanded to a certain level, and then force China to cede territory and pay a huge amount of indemnity, as China did in the First Sino-Japanese War.

It is said that Ben is a very smart country, but it is also surprising when the IQ is low.

In the summer of 1925, he continued to take the royal family to the Lushan Summer Palace for a vacation, and held a very interesting Sino-foreign friendship meeting in Lushan.

The conference invited 448 foreign experts and advisers working in China, and awarded them the Order of Honor of the Chinese Empire and the Commemorative Order of Imperial Friendship, as well as life members of the Royal Academy of Sciences. Tesla.

Mr. Tesla has worked in China for 14 years, and in these 14 years, he has made more than 20 very important and outstanding contributions, such as China's electric railway engineering, large-scale hydropower station engineering, radio communication engineering, electronic radar engineering, electron tube computer engineering, 35kV high-voltage transmission engineering, regional power grid engineering, synchronous motors, high-efficiency control AC motor engineering. Dr. Tesla has played a key role in projects such as electric railways, large hydropower stations, regional power grids, and the regulation of AC motors.

These projects to promote China's development is very long-term, four or five years can not see a particularly obvious effect, ten or twenty years later, the gap will be very obvious, for example, the machine tool industry, without the first-class motor can not have a first-class machine tool.

The reason why China's machine tool industry has been able to emerge in recent years, can compete with virtue in the world, in addition to the deep cultivation of up to 20 years, the rapid development of the motor field is also a very major direct reason.

With the exception of Tesla, most of the recipients of the First Medal of Honor came from the fields of metallurgy, chemical engineering, machinery, electrical, power, marine and internal combustion engines in Germany. Dr. Haber, in order to avoid being prosecuted by war criminals, transferred to China via the Netherlands after the end of World War I.

In the past few years, Dr. Haber's main work has been to continue to study the ammonia synthesis process and the field of coal chemical industry, which is now the world's largest producer of nitrogen fertilizer, which has a very important role in the growth of agriculture, and many of the credits for this are due to Fritz. Hubble.

Fritz. Haber also has a very important special value, that is, it gave China direct access to most of the chemical weapons development materials and technology in World War I.

These people have a very important value in the empire, and they also enjoy very good treatment, including in the field of scientific research, the empire's expenditure in this area has almost no bottom line, as long as the experts have a suitable project, after approval, the political axe, universities and enterprises will give very generous sponsorship, in the protection of patented technology and share the income, there is absolutely no problem.

Many technologies really don't make much money in small countries like Belgium and the Netherlands, but in China, many small technological breakthroughs will bring a lot of benefits, such as the primer formula of CR rifle cartridges and the technology patents of new formulations of granular ammunition, including the patents of mild steel copper-clad ammunition, which seem small, but the benefits are actually very amazing.

Therefore, by 1925, there were more than 300,000 foreign technical experts and engineers working in China, and about 25,000 experts with doctorates from foreign universities.

Therefore, it is also said that as long as you can learn German and French well in the empire, there is no need to worry about no good schools, and almost every provincial university has at least one German or French campus, and the Russian campus of the Northern University is more common, and the English campus of the Southern University is more common.

After so many years of perseverance, the scale of talents cultivated by the empire itself is also very large, especially in the fields of geology, metallurgy, chemical industry, machinery, electrical, agriculture and animal husbandry, textiles, and ships, which are all pillar fields of China.

To put it mildly, the empire of 1925 is definitely many times stronger in terms of talent than it was at the beginning of the Republic, and there are many real geniuses.

According to this scale, as long as China can persist until the watershed of 1930, there will basically be no obvious gap in the total number of qualified personnel with Britain and France, and in 35 or 40 years, as long as China insists on attaching importance to education and scientific research, it will not be difficult to surpass Britain and France, or even the United States and Germany.

Looking back, in fact, it is really of little significance for the book to continue to adopt such a hostile attitude with China, and we cannot always subjectively like to look at China from the perspective of 10 years ago, or even 30 years ago. After the end of the Meiji Restoration, from the beginning of the Taisho period, the vision and mind of the politicians of Samoto gradually shrank in the expansion of militarism, and compared with the generation of Ito Hirobumi, the new generation of politicians had a higher level of knowledge, but their vision and political skills were far behind, and it can be said that the generation was inferior to the next.

……

It is a tradition of the royal family to vacation in Lushan every summer, which is not only a kind of work, but also a very interesting thing, and you can often meet some world-famous people in the summer palace, many of whom do not work in China, but the royal family will also invite them to Lushan Summer Palace for a holiday out of special respect.

Because this year's Lushan Conference is related to science and technology, the Cabinet General Office invited Rutherford, Planck, Albert Brown, and the Inner Court. Albert Einstein, Manne. Sigbarn, Niels. Bohr, Mary. Curie, Mike. Feng. Laue, Charles. Heavyweights such as Kim Sham went to Lushan for vacation, and sent royal cruise ships to Europe to invite these world-renowned physicists to Lushan.

Among these people, Albert. Albert Einstein, Manne. Sigbarn, Max. Feng. Laue, Charles. In order to ensure the development of Central Imperial University in the field of science and technology, Central Imperial University and Central University of Science and Technology were re-merged into the new Central Imperial University to form the largest national university in China. Feng. Laue is the director of the physics department and the Central Institute of Physics at Central Imperial University, while most of the others work at Aurora University, where it is easier to adapt to the international commons environment.

Since the establishment of the empire, it has always focused on the research in the field of physical theory, and Lao Youzhang, Wu Xunzhi and others are all students from Rutherford at Cambridge University, which is one of the reasons why the empire was able to invite Rutherford, a master of nuclear physics, to Lushan for a vacation.

With the re-emergence of the Empire in terms of total economic size, and its long-term position as the second largest in the world after the end of World War I, the Empire's commitment to scientific research and education was very impressive, and the high level of respect for scientists and scholars made the Empire a country that many scientists would like to visit.

Central Imperial University, Aurora University, Shanghai St. John's University, and Northeastern University are all the top universities in China at this stage, and they are gradually enjoying a certain reputation in the world.

This year's Lushan conference is almost a summit forum of the world's top physicists, because basically I can't understand what they are talking about, Song Biao is different from the past, he rarely attends meetings, only occasionally personally banquets a few physicists to express his respect for them.

That night, Song Biao, accompanied by Lao Youzhang and Wu Xunzhi, two of the most prestigious physicists in China, also hosted a banquet for Rutherford and Planck, two of the world's physicists.

The environment and conditions of Lushan Summer Palace are very superior, and the life of the vacation here is also leisurely and comfortable, Rutherford, Planck and their families are very satisfied, and they all express their gratitude to the Emperor Hua during the banquet.

After the banquet, Song Biao asked Lao Youzhang and Wu Xunzhi to stay, and continued to talk with them about nuclear physics, both of whom graduated from the physics department of Aurora University, and later went to study together at Cambridge University in the United Kingdom, and their doctoral supervisors were also Rutherford.

After returning to China, Lao Youzhang served as the head of the Department of Physics of the Chinese Campus of Aurora University and the director of the Institute of Radiation of the Northeast Academy of Science, and Wu Xunzhi was a professor at the Central Imperial University of Science and Technology, and now he is the deputy director of the Department of Physics and the director of the Institute of Nuclear Physics of the Central Academy of Physics.

Lao Youzhang focused on the study of isotopes, radioactive isotopes and their chemical effects, discovered heavy water in 1922, and light water in 1924, and extracted deuterium and deuterium by electrolysis; Wu's research focuses on quantum mechanics and nuclear models.

Because of the discovery of isotopes of hydrogen and more than a dozen other elements, many people speculate that Lao Youzhang is the closest Chinese scientist to the Nobel Prize, but as a physicist in the nuclear field, he may receive the Nobel Prize in chemistry.

Although many years have passed, Song Biao has not been actively promoting China's nuclear weapons development project immediately, and he is still waiting for a more reasonable time, and Lao Youzhang is the key, and the new project he is working on is a basic physics research project in Project 201, that is, to make a new element heavier than uranium.

Theoretically, this is a successful project, but in practice it is not, because the end result of this experiment is the discovery of nuclear fission.

In order to cooperate with the research in this cutting-edge field, uranium ore projects have also been added to the large-scale national geological exploration in China, and 14 uranium ore sites have been discovered in the country, but the scientific research needs at this stage are actually very low.

Song Biao chatted with these two top nuclear physicists in China at present, and there was no urgent task anyway, and the three of them talked for more than two hours.

In the history of the development of nuclear science, the laboratory is a very important pillar, and the Cavendish and the Royal William Institute of Radiology, and the Copenhagen Institute of Theoretical Physics have basically contributed to the world's most important physicists in all the fields of nuclear science in the early days.

At this stage, China's Academia Sinica and the Northeast Academy of Science are the world's largest scientific research centers in the world, and they have also cultivated a large number of scientific research talents for China, and the most important thing now is talent.

Song Biao very much hopes that the empire can be the first to complete the process of nuclear weapons research, and hold a sufficient number in the shortest possible time, for this reason, as long as there is a breakthrough in the development of nuclear fission research, he will secretly invest a large amount of capital in the research of heavy water reactors, and obtain weapons-grade plutonium-239 from this process.

Prior to this, Song Biao had already dealt with the Erwolf Cave base.

After the end of the Xinhai War, he used the time he stayed in Tonghua to personally call the Korean volunteer prisoners of war to deal with the matter, in addition to some special deaf and dumb migrant workers, after dealing with them, he dealt with these people separately, and then arranged for other personnel to handle the materials separately, and placed nuclear bombs, rockets, and electronic materials separately in more than 40 different research institutes, and almost every university would get a secret research and analysis task of a part.

Song Biao didn't leave a few computers for his own use, he directly chose to disassemble and incinerate them all, and dispose of all the information related to himself, but he still kept some of the prepared research materials and secretly stored them in a confidential warehouse of the Northeast Military Department.

At present, the most important question is how to break through the manufacturing process and not be able to make the same raw materials, most of the research in this is meaningless, but in the fields of rockets and ramjet engines, fuels, etc., these are relatively easy.

Nuclear weapon-related items are scattered in six secret storage areas in China, because they are kept in the highest state of top secret, and only Song Biao has the right to transfer these special items.

At present, there are two conditions that are insufficient before the Empire officially establishes the nuclear weapons research project, one is that nuclear fission will be discovered, and the other is the discovery of plutonium-239, which means that nuclear weapons are about to emerge once they are discovered.

China can hire a large number of foreign experts and scholars to work in China, fund them to conduct scientific research, and cultivate domestic scientific research talents with their help.

Before that, the empire needed to have a large number of hydroelectric power stations, and the larger the installed capacity, the better, because the cost of extracting heavy water from thermal power was too high for any country to sustain, and of course it would be better to be able to develop a chemical method of extracting heavy water that could be commercialized.

Second, the exploration of uranium ore must be very popular, and large-scale development of uranium ore in the country should be carried out at any time; Third, and perhaps most important, is that there must be adequate equipment and funding.

Song Biao seems to be very active in discussing with Lao Youzhang and Wu Xunzhi, two scientists, about the research in the field of physics theory in China, as well as the cultivation of talents, as well as China's university education, the improvement of basic scientific research, and other interesting issues, in fact, they are all aimed at the general direction of China's nuclear weapons and nuclear power plants.

(To be continued)