After the original three fleets were reorganized into four, the [Baxia] and [Jianxi] classes, which had been determined to be dismantled, drove into the shipyards in Tianjin and Lushun on their own, and waited for the fate of the dismantling under the tearful eyes of the officers and men of the navy.

As for the other six [Kui Wood Wolf]-class battle cruisers, they are still being studied. These six battle cruisers are all relatively young, and their performance has not yet reached the stage of degradation, so it would be a pity to dismantle any of them.

The government also thought about selling all of these ships, but only under the Washington Naval Treaty...

There is no way, and in the end, I can only study and see which two ships have the best performance, and then dismantle the other six ships.

In any case, the establishment of the four major navies has laid the foundation for the Chinese navy for the next hundred years.

At the same time, while retaining all 10 capital ships, the Ocean Fleet also separated some of the [Ching Hai]-class destroyers, [Jinghai]-class light cruisers, and [Chaofeng]-class heavy cruisers built in the past and transferred them to the Indian Ocean Fleet and the Black Sea Fleet.

The shipyards in Guangzhou, Shanghai, Fuzhou, Tianjin, and Lushun have also begun preparations for the design and construction of the Wutong-class destroyers, the Qingyun-class light cruisers, and the Qianqiu-class heavy cruisers.

In particular, in order to replace the Qinghai-class destroyers with not very good ocean-going performance, the standard displacement of the Wutong-class destroyers has reached 2,400 tons, and they are equipped with three 150mmL/50 main guns, several 75mm secondary guns, 30mm machine guns, three triple rotatable 18-inch torpedo launchers and four deep-bomb projectors, with a speed of 37 knots, and are also equipped with a newly developed sonar system.

In general, the Navy is still very satisfied with the Sycamore class.

After all, the Wutong class has ocean-going capabilities and anti-submarine capabilities that the Ching Hai class does not have, which is very important for the Wehrmacht Navy, which attaches great importance to breaking engagements and anti-submarine operations.

However, for the Qingyun-class light cruisers and the Qianqiu-class heavy cruisers, the navy was not so satisfied.

For example, the Qingyun class has a displacement of 5,100 tons, a full load displacement of 6,300 tons, and is armed with three 203mm twin naval guns, two in front and one behind, ten 120mm secondary guns on both sides, a number of 30mm machine guns and 12.7mm anti-aircraft machine guns, and four triple 18-inch torpedo launchers.

Like the Wutong class, the Qingyun class is also equipped with a deep projector and a new sonar system.

In addition, because of the large displacement, it is much stronger than the Jinghai-class cruiser in terms of seaworthiness and comfort, but in terms of firepower, because of the "Washington Treaty", the Qingyun-class has almost no change compared with the Jinghai-class, and even regresses by 7mm caliber, which makes the navy very dissatisfied.

However, the seaworthiness and protection capability of the Qingyun-class have been greatly enhanced, and the regression in firepower is not very large, and the speed of 35 knots is much stronger than the 30 knots of the Jinghai class, so the navy can at least accept it.

However, to the Chiaki class...

In the past, the Asakaze-class cruisers, with a displacement of more than 10,000 tons and a full load displacement of more than 12,000 tons, had four twin 280mml/45 caliber guns, although they were not as good as the four twin 305mm main guns of the Japanese Tsukuba-class cruisers, but at least the firepower was also powerful.

However, the newly designed Chiaki-class heavy cruisers, although they also reached a maximum speed of 35 knots, but because the caliber of the main guns of the "Washington Treaty" was reduced to 8 inches (that is, 203mm), although the three triple 203mml/50 main guns were one more than the previous four twin main guns, but the firepower was geometrically reduced.

Therefore, the Navy's dissatisfaction with the Qianaki-class treaty-type cruiser is also geometric.

However, since the treaty has been signed, what can be done even if it is not satisfied?

By the way, it seems that the Caspian flotilla was forgotten? But forget it, it's an inland sea fleet anyway, and there is only one Iran that shares the Caspian Sea with the Nationalist government, so it is enough to allocate some gunboats or destroyers to the Caspian Flotilla. ..., although at the Washington Conference, the status of the Defence Navy as the third in the world was officially recognized by the great powers, which made the old navy of the Defence Navy, which had endured endless humiliation, very excited. However, under the Washington Naval Treaty, the fact that some of the capital ships had to be dismantled still made these old navies very distressed, after all, in the past, all the ships of the entire Chinese Navy were not as large as the tonnage of one capital ship.

This feeling is even stronger especially when the Army and Air Force are all maintaining their original plans, and only the Navy is disarming.

It's just that there is no way, who says that the treaty has been signed.

What's more, the signing of the treaty is also very beneficial to the navy, after all, after the British Navy dismantled most of the dreadnoughts, the gap between the navy and the British navy has reached the smallest point since the former Qing Dynasty, so in the end, the navy can only grit its teeth and acquiesce.

After all, the navy is also a branch of the military that needs to serve the country, not to mention that the government's finances are indeed very tight now, and if the "Washington Naval Treaty" can be followed, it will indeed be of great benefit to all countries.

Though...

Although people at the top of the government, such as Sa Zhenbing, do not think so.

Seriously, however, Sa Zhenbing and other high-ranking government figures are also hesitant to hear that Iraq and Kuwait have large quantities of oil. After all, after years of exploration, the exploration team only gave the news that there was a large amount of oil in the two places, but not even a drop of oil was extracted.

After learning that Iraq and Kuwait had a large amount of oil, Sa Zhenbing and others also inquired about a lot of information on oil. They are well aware that in the history of oil exploration, it is not uncommon for there to be clear signs of oil, but not even a drop of oil has been extracted or only small wells have been extracted.

So to say it so accurately without even a drop of oil, Sa Zhenbing and the others really can't be as confident as Yan Guang.

That is, when Sa Zhenbing and other high-level officials were hesitant about Iraq's oil fields, the oil exploration department in Iraq finally took action.

――――――――――

"Drop! Drip! ”

In the city of Baghdad, a new domestically produced sedan walks down the street, alerting pedestrians on the street.

And the pedestrians on the street only smiled and dodged to the sides after seeing the car, neither afraid nor hated the Chinese in the car.

It was 22 years after the signing of the Washington Naval Treaty, and five years had passed since the expeditionary force occupied Baghdad.

Over the past five years, the inhabitants of Baghdad and Iraq have become accustomed to the disciplined expeditionary forces (compared to the Turkish and British armies of the past). After the occupation of Iraq and Erzurum, which originally belonged to Turkey, the newly established national government also relieved the local people of a considerable burden as in China, and the national government respected the local faith very much (no different from Islam in China anyway), so the local people were not very hostile to the national government.

After all, in the eyes of the Iraqi people, as long as the Chinese are willing to respect their religion, it makes no difference whether they live under the rule of the Turks or under the rule of the Chinese, not to mention that after most of the tax cuts, the life of Iraqis is much easier than in the past.

The Armenians in the Caucasus think the same way, and for the Catholic Armenians, after the massacre of the Armenians by the Turks, life is almost no different from that in heaven.

Of course, it is impossible to have no resistance at all, after all, the Turks have been operating in Iraq for many years, and it is impossible that there are no people loyal to Turkey, not to mention that not all Iraqis welcome China, and there are some independence elements, so resistance movements are still sporadic in Iraq. However, the population of Iraq as a whole is only more than 2 million, and the population of a very small number of "large" cities is only a few tens of thousands, and in addition, Iraq, which is vast and sparsely populated, has little production, and Britain and the United States and other countries are also looking for trouble in the Caucasus and Kazakhstan, so nothing has happened in Iraq that affects the overall situation.

But...

I am afraid that this may not be the case in a while...

"Lao Zhang, has the above really agreed?"

In the car driving on the street, a young man who looked to be in his thirties asked his companion with some excitement.

Hearing the young man's words, Zhang Jianquan, who was already in his forties, of course understood why his companion was so excited, in fact, his heart was as excited as the situation around him, but he was already in his forties and replied with a smile.

"The director will call us over, and that's probably for that."

As he said this, Zhang Jianquan turned the car he was driving and heard the gate of the Baghdad branch of the Ministry of Energy.

The Ministry of Energy is a newly established department after the success of the Northern Expedition and the establishment of the Nationalist Government, which is directly under the jurisdiction of the State Council. One of the responsibilities of the Ministry of Energy is to carry out energy exploration work in China, such as exploring coal fields and oil, and the Daqing Oilfield in Northeast China is explored by oil exploration experts trained by the Ministry of Energy.

Zhang Jianquan is the first batch of graduates of these exploration experts, and Nian Yao, who is in his thirties, is the second batch, both of whom have been in charge of the exploration of the Daqing oilfield.

"Lao Zhang, Xiao Nian, are you all back?"

Not long after Zhang Jianquan and Nian Yao walked into the building, several members of the sub-bureau who were busy with other work greeted them one after another.

Zhang Jianquan and Nian Yao also nodded one by one, and finally walked in front of a member Zhang Jianquan asked.

"What about the Director? Isn't it still in the office. ”

"That's right." The member who had been called nodded his head. "The director didn't go out for a day today."

As he said this, the member's face was a little excited, and it seemed that he knew something.

Zhang Jianquan knew it at a glance, and it seemed that the news was known to the whole situation.

"Let's go, let's go see the director..."

Turning his head to look at the young man, Zhang Jianquan spoke.

Nian Yao nodded, because the office building of the Baghdad branch was not very large, so it didn't take long for the two of them to walk in front of the director's office.

"Director?"

Knocking on the door, Zhang Jianquan asked softly.

Before Zhang Jianquan could knock twice, an old voice had already come from the office.

"Come in!"

With permission, Zhang Jianquan and Nian Yao pushed open the door and walked in.

Mu Renqing, director of the Baghdad branch bureau, who was in his 60s in the office, sat behind his desk and quietly looked at Zhang Jianquan and Nian Yao who walked in.

"Sit down."

Mu Renqing, like Zhang Jianquan and Nian Yao, are all members of the National Socialist Party, although in a country like China with a history of thousands of years, bureaucracy is absolutely inevitable (in fact, it doesn't take thousands of years, a few decades of stability is enough), but Mu Renqing, like Zhang Jianquan and Nian Yao, are relatively neat and neat people, which is why Yan Guang appointed Mu Renqing as the director of the Baghdad branch, so Zhang Jianquan and Nian Yao were not polite to him, and sat directly on the chair after getting permission.

"You should have guessed what you were called for."

"Guessed..."

Zhang Jianquan nodded, and Nian Yao on the side said excitedly.

"Director, it's already been approved from above, right?"

"Approved."

When these three words were spoken, although Mu Renqing was already in his sixties, he still looked very excited. In fact, after the British handed over the two places to the Communist government, the newly established Ministry of Energy had already begun to explore in Iraq and Kuwait.

In the beginning, members of the Ministry of Energy, like some senior members of the government, did not have much hope for oil in Iraq and Kuwait.

After all, even if Iraq is counted, Kuwait's area is not large, the British have been operating in Kuwait for many years, if there were oil fields in Kuwait, wouldn't they have been exploited by the British long ago?

However, under Yan Guang's "insistence", the Ministry of Energy finally sent a group of elite soldiers to Iraq and Kuwait to carry out preliminary exploration work.

Still, after Russia's October Revolution, some of the top echelons of the government and the Ministry of Energy turned their attention to the Caucasus, an oil-producing region of great importance to Russia.

At that time, the annual production of Caucasus crude oil exceeded 100 million barrels, equivalent to 40 million pounds, and in the process of taking over the Caucasus oil-producing areas, although some facilities in the Caucasus oil-producing areas were damaged, the oil produced in the Caucasus still brought a lot of income to the national government for a period of time in the future.

It is also for this reason that some of the upper echelons of the government and the Ministry of Energy have been thinking about increasing production in the oil-producing areas of the Caucasus.

As for Iraq and Kuwait? The result of Yan Guang's "obstinate action"?

Although there has been a lot of discussion within the government about Yan Guang's "obstinate action", there are very few people in the government who dare to oppose Yan Guang's views after the end of the European war, so although many people in the government have very opinions about Yan Guang's allocation of some of the already small resources of the Ministry of Energy to the two "wastelands" of Kuwait and Iraq, the exploration work in the two places is still proceeding steadily.

However, neither the government nor public opinion has high expectations for the discovery of oil in the two places, because the operation of oil exploration is not a secret, and even people who know about it are very popular.

Some newspapers even claimed that this was the only mistake Yan Guang had made since he took office.

Then, in the midst of these doubts, it was also in the lazy exploration work of the oil explorers in the two places (because they were not confident, so they were somewhat lazy in the exploration), and they actually found oil seedlings and other signs of oil in the two places...

Oil seedlings are not special, they only grow in areas with oil, but the traces of oil in the earth's crust on the ground, which is one of the important signs of searching for oil mines.

If I had to say, the oil seedlings were a little like cream squeezed out of the palm of my hand, but this cream was black.

The discovery of oil seedlings in Iraq and Kuwait has alarmed explorers in both places and, of course, the Ministry of Energy.

After determining that the news of the discovery of the oil seedlings was not false, the Department of Energy soon sent more personnel to Iraq and Kuwait to begin larger-scale exploration work.

Over the course of several years, oil explorers in both locations have discovered at least three oil fields that may contain large amounts of oil.

However, at this time, there were still great doubts in the upper echelons of the government and the Ministry of Energy, because before the Tampico oil field in Mexico was "discovered" by Yan Guang, there were signs of oil almost everywhere in Mexico, and there were countless oil seedlings and so on, but among the oil explorers who flocked to Mexico, Yan Guang was the only one who successfully discovered the Tampico oil field in Mexico, the world's largest oil field since 1910.

Therefore, although there were signs such as oil seedlings found in two places, the possibility of finding nothing in the end still exists. What's more, as I just said, Kuwait's territory is not very large, and Kuwait is also connected to Saudi Arabia and other places that are now controlled by ......the British, so even if there is really oil nearby, it is difficult to say whether it is in Kuwait or within the influence of the British.

However, in any case, it is always a good thing to find signs, so under the impetus of Yan Guang, various resources are still being shipped to Kuwait and Iraq.

It's just that in the past few years, the oil explorers in both places have made all the preparations, and even the oil wells have been set up and only the only thing left to drill, there has been no news from China that they are allowed to move.

And this news, which has been going on for a whole year ...

Over the course of a year, oil workers in Iraq and Kuwait could only wait in an endless wait.

Even some workers who applied for long-term home leave were not allowed...

This undoubtedly disappointed Zhang Jianquan and Nian Yao and other oil workers, after all, they devoted themselves to the country's oil exploration work, not to work for private enterprises, in order to find enough oil for the country to help the country become more prosperous and powerful.

However, now that the oil has been explored, they are not allowed to exploit it...

Doing so will undoubtedly disappoint them.

Fortunately, it didn't take long for the news of the "Washington Conference" to spread to the two places, and many people like Zhang Jianquan, Nian Yao, and Mu Renqing understood why the government had not let them mine all the time...

Because of the Washington Naval Treaty ...

Oil exploration is not a simple job, and if you want to find the black gold buried underground, it is important to have a rich "posture", but it is not enough to be a nerd.

And Zhang Jianquan, Nian Yao and others are undoubtedly smart people, and they quickly understood what the government meant.

If the Communist government discovers a large amount of oil in Iraq and Kuwait, then during the "Washington Conference", the Communist government will undoubtedly be suppressed by the joint efforts of the five countries, and the treaty will be carried out.

Therefore, oil in Iraq and Kuwait can only begin after the conclusion of the Washington Conference.

So, Zhang Jianquan and others waited until now, until the end of the signing of the Washington Naval Treaty...

"Xiao Zhang, Xiao Nian, everything is up to you..."

Saying that, Mu Renqing handed over a document to Zhang Jianquan's hand, looking at the license document that had been waiting for many years, and looking at Mu Renqing, Zhang Jianquan nodded solemnly.

"Don't worry, Director, I'll definitely find out the oil..."

"Hmm!"

――――――――――

After obtaining permission from the Department of Energy and the State Department, the explorers who had been preparing for years finally took action, and the drill bits of the oil wells that had been prepared for many years began to drill under the soil of Iraq and Kuwait.

Dozens of oil wells are working at the same time, and such a scene is unprecedented even in the world...

However, dozens of oil wells are working at the same time, which also avoids wasting time by drilling one oil well after another.

What's more, the location of these dozens of oil wells is the painstaking efforts of exploration workers in the two places for many years, and the success rate is very high.

And it turns out that the work of the explorers is not in vain.

Of the more than 30 oil wells drilled that day, although more than 20 oil wells did not drill oil, or only some small oil wells were drilled, the remaining 10 or so oil wells were extremely successful in drilling a large amount of oil.

On the day of exploitation alone, more than 100 wells had spewed out at least 100,000 tons of crude oil.

And the discovery of these dozen oil wells also shocked the whole world.

No one could have imagined that the Chinese had discovered large oil fields in Iraq and Kuwait that were in no way inferior to Tampico, especially the British, who promised Iraq and Kuwait to China, even regretted their bowels ...

You must know that the daily output of more than 100,000 tons of crude oil is equivalent to more than one million barrels...

And more than a million barrels, which is equivalent to at least two million dollars.

It's two million dollars just a day, so how much will it be in a year?

The British did not dare to continue the calculation, for they feared that if they continued to count in this way, they would go mad in jealousy.

At this time, oil was still erupting in the three oil fields of Iraq and Kuwait.

#c