Wait until 1914 when a world war broke out in Europe? How is that possible! Yang Haocai doesn't have such good patience, he can't wait for the great powers to fight now!

However, with the current level of weaponry and tactics of various countries, even if there is a full-scale outbreak, it will be difficult to reach the scale of mobilizing tens of millions of people in the world. Therefore, he planned to proliferate military technology from the very beginning, and almost ten years ahead of schedule, provoked a competition to build ships all over the world!

Don't have the technology? It's okay, let's provide it. Don't have the equipment? No problem, we've got it for sale here! As long as you can get real money, we will have a steady supply of countless advanced gadgets. It doesn't matter if you are Germany or France, it is not a problem to catch up with the Premier League and the United States after you get it!

In just two years, Yang Hao has worked hard to promote the upgrading of military equipment in the B plane, and today, it can finally be officially completed.

He not only provided the necessary raw materials for the construction of 20,000-ton battleships, but now he has also indirectly spread out the mine development and complete production management system by taking advantage of the development of the Philippines. It is foreseeable that in a year's time, the industrial production capacity of Britain, France, and other countries with vast colonies will be greatly increased as a result.

But the Germans, who have been seeking the world market, will be even more anxious!

The ambitious Wilhelm II was not willing to be trapped in Europe. He was in dire need of a vast colony, a cheaper resource-providing area, and a dumping ground for industrial goods.

Yang Hao's model of Philippine development provided an example for the Germans to follow, and at the same time, it also made them feel the great convenience of the colonies - other powers would never share their colonies with Germany, and Yang Hao was willing to open up the Philippines. So that the Germans did not pay much. Considerable benefits have been obtained.

But this is a benefit. It's like putting a drop on the lips of an alcoholic addict who puts a full bottle out of his reach.

What a maddening fatal attraction! Who can stand it?

Yang Hao's behavior is more hateful than not giving at all. It is natural for the Germans to hate him, but more importantly, they are envious and jealous of everyone, including China!

Why didn't we grab the colony? Why is Germany confined to a confined space? It's not fair! Then you have to break him completely!

The Germans got the only set of 10,000-ton hydraulic press for export, a set of ordinary ship plate welding technology, and related cutting and drilling process equipment from Yang Hao, which made the German shipbuilding industry suddenly improve its level. As long as they don't make it awkward on their own. If you have to treat the battleship as a work of art, then at least the speed of construction for a period of time will definitely surpass Britain, France, Russia and other countries.

In addition, the fact that the rigorous Germans are more likely than other countries to assimilate and transfer production management techniques will further promote their strengths in the industrial skill tree.

The already profound German industry, after such a catalytic process, will inevitably grow explosively in just a few years. Not to mention surpassing the UK, no matter how full a foot plus five is regarded as an idle one.

Then the question arises. Britain, France, and the United States either have huge colonies or huge domestic demand, which can support sales all at once. The Germans produce so many industrial goods. Where do you want to sell it? If you can't sell it, there will be a strict economic crisis!

Economic crisis. It will inevitably lead to war!

It is impossible for the great powers to build a complete set of basic industries like China, and to transform the agricultural population into the urban industrial population in tens of millions. building or expanding hundreds of new cities; Provide high-income and high-welfare benefits for hundreds of millions of people; Railways, highways, and waterways were built on a large scale in an almost blank land.

It can be said that as long as the Yang Hao government does not fall and there is no powerful foreign war interrupting the construction, China can develop at a high speed without stopping for 50 years!

External blockade? That didn't do much for the new government's system. As long as the Chinese navy is undefeated, the Korean Peninsula and the Philippines alone will be enough to toss for twenty or thirty years.

Nowadays, countries around the world are waiting to see Yang Hao's jokes, believing that his kind of national revolution, which requires billions of dollars of investment to promote, will inevitably collapse in the middle way because of the lack of strength. Don't look at the auction of Philippine minerals this time, it seems that more than one billion funds have been raised. On the other hand, it is not necessarily that the revolution in several provinces that is being promoted is already very difficult.

When all this money is spent, where else can he find a bigger source of wealth? Even if they find it, how can anyone pay for it? After development, where can I sell industrial products? There must be a limit to China's own consumption, right?

The results of the analysis of all kinds of complex information have produced a series of deviations, which makes all countries still maintain unrealistic illusions about the revolutionary government headed by Yang Hao. As long as he exhausts all his forces, both domestic and military construction will be stagnant because of this. A war launched against a foreign country will inevitably lead to a ceasefire, which will lead to a huge damper on national confidence.

And those provinces that did not have time to be affected by the advance will either join and conflict will erupt because of unfair treatment, or they will not join and unite to form a counter-government force. Eventually, the whole of China will inevitably be torn apart. At that time, the great powers will make a comeback, and they will still be able to reap the benefits!

Needless to say, these calculations have been fluctuating from country to country.

However, Yang Hao may not react at all? Of course not, after the tender ended, he quietly gave the Germans a message: "In Monaco, there is the world's largest phosphate deposit. As long as you can mine it, we will have as much as we want. ”

Phosphate is an indispensable important mineral for human beings, which is widely used in food, detergent, metallurgy, water treatment, building materials, medicine, feed and petrochemical industry. There is no substitute for this essential raw material, and the world's proven developable reserves are limited, which is a strategic resource for Totoer. In this world, China, the United States, and Russia control 70 percent of the world's resources.

Among them, the Americans signed a near-monopoly trade agreement with Morocco, which owns 75% of the total reserves, as early as 2004, and did not hesitate to suspend the exploitation of huge domestic reserves in order to protect the inevitable growing domestic demand in the future.

At the end of the XIX century on the B plane. The chemical industry is just getting started. However, the market demand has been widely emerging. In particular, Yang Hao has two unavoidable commercial channels. If you can't use up on one side, you can resell it to the other side, and it's all profitable. It is the right way to control the monopoly as early as possible.

The Germans have been stimulated by Yang Hao's very cautious "tens of billions of tons" of mineral deposits, and they are almost crazy on the spot!

Morocco, which is across the Mediterranean Sea, was originally an important export market for Germany, but now it is facing strong competition from Britain and France. In the future, because of the struggle for this important colony. Two conflicts broke out between the three countries and pushed the countries of the West step by step towards a full-scale war.

Originally, the contradiction that took more than ten years of accumulation to develop to the apex began to heat up rapidly in 1897 because of Yang Hao's intervention and provocation.

Friedrich Jr. Krupp brought back a shocking secret from the Far East, and he did not even dare to send a telegram, but personally carried a copy of Morocco's largest phosphate mine and returned on a freighter carrying machinery and equipment to Germany.

Wilhelm II, who received the secret telegram, sent a large number of men to secretly take him back by land via Austria-Hungary in advance. After seeing the intelligence for himself, he decisively decided: "Germany must have Morocco in its entirety!" The minerals there are ours. The market there is ours, and the Strait of Gibraltar must be patrolled by our warships! Mediterranean Passage. It will become the jurisdiction of the German Reich! ”

A task force quickly found a huge mineral deposit in central Morocco that could be mined in the open pit. The wealth that was almost within reach could be transported directly to the northern ports by building a short railway. As long as you use the huge steam-powered mining vehicles produced in China, a shovel will be more than a dozen tons, which is a pile of real money!

Not only can it be sold to the Chinese, but Germany can also use it to develop the chemical industry and make huge profits. Some related technologies can be imported from China. The benefits are endless!

When the exploration report and the industrial development plan were presented to Kaiser Wilhelm II, the arrogant and enthusiastic emperor excitedly dragged his legs around the room and exclaimed: "This is the source of Germany's strength!" Gentlemen, this will be a great and historic beginning! The day is not far off when Germany will reach the top of the world! ”

The package of technologies that China can sell to Germany is of great value. The initial processing technology of phosphate chemical industry on the surface involves industrial power generation, and the next step is the selection and crushing technology of coal. As long as this series of technologies and equipment can be thoroughly understood, Germany will soon be able to obtain many key technologies such as coal power generation and substation transmission.

This will not only allow Germany to make full use of its huge coal reserves and mining capacity, but also strongly promote the upgrading of metal smelting technologies such as electrosteel and electrolytic copper. Germany will be the first country in Europe to enter full electrification, the first to carry out the power industrial revolution!

Technological innovation, the explosion of strength, and the change of productivity mean that the day when Germany will become strong is looking forward to it!

Under the personal auspices of Wilhelm II, a vast plan around the complete control of Morocco and its development into a German colony was quickly and secretly formulated in the upper echelons of Germany and promoted its execution.

As a key force in supporting the success of the support program, the expansion of the German Navy was given almost maximum priority. Under Yang Hao's careful control, Germany obtained the most equipment and materials in the first batch, and the construction speed of new warships was also the fastest. It was only in August 1897 that a series of four upgraded versions of the former dreadnoughts were launched and outfitted. The British, who received the information, were greatly shocked, and the new giant ship project, which was still squabbling and tossing in the country, was quickly approved.

With the help of a well-established intelligence system, the British soon learned the details of the four new warships. That's just a British model with four 280mm/40x diameter guns and 14 170mm secondary guns. According to the photos taken secretly and combined with Germany's existing shipbuilding capacity, the British Admiralty was optimistic that these four warships would inevitably squeeze Germany's huge resources and consume precious time. At best, they could have been fully completed and put into service by the end of 1898 or the beginning of 1899.

Affected by this, a truly powerful new generation of all-main gun battleships will inevitably lead to late production or even difficult birth. By that time, Britain would have been able to complete two batches of at least eight battleships with four 305mm/45 main guns, or ten full guns!

At that time, both in terms of numbers and in terms of firepower of individual ships. It is still evaluated in terms of comprehensive combat effectiveness. There is no doubt that the German Navy will be left far behind.

This optimism is undoubtedly contagious. In the process of Yang Hao's second military intervention in the Philippine War, the two new battleships and new light cruisers that were unveiled, the vague hand-drawn designs, also made countless associations with the British Navy.

Especially after the relevant information of the bidding conference was fed back, it was shocked to learn that China may have received a huge amount of financial support of more than 200 million pounds, and the British upper echelons no longer speculated with a fluke mentality. They did not hesitate to set the primary target on Yang Hao!

No matter how much Germany tosses, after all, there are still the French staring at hand. At any time, I will take revenge on the Franco-Prussian War. As long as Britain showed their support, they did not worry that they would not devote themselves to the competition and drag down the main energy of the Germans.

Battleships with larger displacements, more stout guns, no upper limit on the number of battleships to be built, a complete renewal of existing capital ships and cruisers, and within three years, a high-speed fleet of entirely new warships had to be deployed in the Far East - a plan that could have been much overrun.

Naval Ordnance Superintendent John Brown. Fisher was an early adopter of technological innovation. At the beginning of his tenure. Fisher made it clear that he would eliminate a large number of slow, obsolete and backward small cruisers and gunboats and reduce the number of warships. In his opinion. These small warships, which are scattered around the world, are empty and costly, take up a large number of well-trained personnel, and are worthless in wartime. And the maintenance of a large number of obsolete reserve warships is also unnecessary.

Therefore, with the support of the new Lord of the Navy, he strongly proposed a series of naval reforms in his capacity as Second Sea Lord.

As soon as he came up, he unceremoniously cut down more than a hundred old ships and canceled all plans for the construction of slow battleships and cruisers with steam engines. In its place, there is a bold integration of a series of new technologies, such as steam turbine power, long-barreled rapid-fire guns, optical sighting instruments, radios, wave wheel fire control systems, and so on.

At the first meeting of the New Battleship Design Committee, it was declared: "The two major factors that dominate naval warfare are firepower and speed, and all theoretical and practical experience shows that having a uniform configuration, the largest caliber of artillery, combined with the speed to overwhelm our opponents, will ensure our victory." ”

This judgment is vividly displayed in several wonderful performances of the Chinese Navy. Therefore, at the naval conference, not many people were stubbornly opposed to him.

Based on his new technical ideas, Fisher spearheaded the formation of the Admiralty Petroleum Commission, which was dedicated to searching for oil deposits in the British colonies. In his opinion, "fuel oil will definitely revolutionize naval strategy, and this is a matter of 'waking up Britain.'" "Petroleum fuel will replace coal as the main power of the new generation of naval ships, which can significantly improve the speed of warships, the power output of the main engine and the maneuverability. This article has still been verified by the relevant intelligence of the Chinese Navy.

Fisher's reform program was huge, and he brandished a check for huge sums of money from Congress and drove oil merchants around in search of minerals like a whip; Forcing the manufacturers of large warships to upgrade their equipment and update their technology.

For example, three steam turbine manufacturers, including Parsons Company, which provides power equipment, stubbornly increased the power of their reactionary technology as much as possible because they did not buy China's multi-stage impulse steam turbine technology and gear transmission mechanism.

Of course, the British should never look up to it, they dismantled the main engine from China, and found that because the strength of the material is strict, the failure rate of the multi-stage impulse steam turbine is extremely high, and the life is very short.

Therefore, the British still adopted their "mature" design of multi-stage reactionary direct-link propellers. However, they discovered the secret of boiler burning heavy oil more efficiently, starting fires and increasing speed, and more boilers can be stuffed in a unit space, resulting in a larger total output.

This also led the British to come up with a large amount of money to import oil from the United States -- oil was really expensive these days, reaching two or three dollars a barrel! That's the equivalent of almost a hundred dollars in the 21st century!

According to Fisher's grand plan, within two or three years, between India and the China Sea, there will be a fleet with at least four brand-new battleships, eight new fast cruisers, and a dozen destroyers, which will become the main force to counter the Chinese navy.

Without exception, these battleships must have a speed of more than 23 knots/cruisers at more than 25 knots, all with new rapid-fire main guns. With the new concept of naval warfare, the current 3,000-yard firefight range has been extended to 7,000 yards or even 10,000 yards!

Fisher was ambitious that by that time, the Royal Navy of the British Empire would regain its majesty and crush China and the United States as they tried to challenge its position with undoubted strength!

Under his vigorous promotion, starting in September 1897, not only the renovated "Sovereign-class" battleships were completed, the first batch of battleships with four mixed guns were launched, and the four "Dreadnought" battleships with a standard row of 18,000 tons were also completed one after another, and the outfitting was carried out overtime. The British don't even play a steady experiment, and directly the number!

In this way, it is optimistically estimated that by the beginning of 1899 at the latest, these battleships will be rampant on the sea!

The British, however, did not know that the Germans were not as honest as they thought!

Under the cover of four upgraded hybrid battleships, a huge battleship equipped with twelve second-hand Chinese-supplied 305mm/45x main guns was quietly launched in October 1897! It has become a behemoth with the largest number of fully equipped main guns in the world today!

This battleship is 160 meters long, 28.5 meters wide, has a draft of 8.9 meters, and has a standard displacement of more than 20,000 tons in one fell swoop! It adopts three imitation enlarged Chinese multi-stage impulse steam turbines, with a maximum power of 3,000 horsepower and a guaranteed speed of 21 knots. six 12-twin 305mm guns; 14 150mm/45x secondary guns; Amazing firepower of 14 single-mounted 88mmL/45 anti-torpedo boat guns!

In addition, the ship is also equipped with Krupp armor with a maximum thickness of 305mm, and the waterline armor, the front of the main turret, and the command tower are fully protected. This also led to the full load displacement of the battleship, which reached an astonishing figure of 24,000 tons!

Wilhelm II personally presided over the launching ceremony, ambitiously named it the flagship of the German Navy, and hoped that in the near future, this battleship would be used to give the British a little color! (To be continued......) R1292