"Wow ......"

A biplane whizzed and swooped down, staring at the dense anti-aircraft fire, dropping a bomb at an altitude of 300 meters above the ground. The plane was quickly pulled upwards, circled in a semicircle in the air, and landed flat downward.

The snow-white fuselage has been beaten into a sieve by empty shells.

"Report! 35 shots! ”

A lieutenant said loudly on the phone, and the entire rostrum could hear it. Liu Sheng, who was standing in the middle of the rostrum, had a calm face like a mirror, but the officers of many aircraft systems around him knew that the prince was angry.

After many years of contact, everyone is an old acquaintance. How could the officers of these aircraft systems not know some of the temperament of the prince? And they even breathed a sigh of relief in their hearts, the prince was able to show his anger on his face, which showed that he was not really angry.

Joy and anger are invisible, and this is an ability that every superior must master. Liu Sheng's learning is not bad. If he really wants to be more realistic, he will never let people see the slightest idea of him. That would make everyone down there scared.

"Test again!"

Liu Sheng's dissatisfaction radiated through his voice. He left Beijing eight days ago and came to the flight base in Inner Mongolia. It was his father who sent him out to survey the planes, because just two days before he left Beijing, ZN Hai received two telegrams one after another, first of all, the Italian airships were shot down by the anti-aircraft fire of the Ottoman army in Libya. And a force of Ottoman airships stationed on the island of Lemnos in the northern Aegean Sea, although it pursued thirty miles from the coastline of Lemnos when it drove out the Italian Navy's two Sicilian armored cruiser formations. But it only lightly damaged the two Sicilian armored cruisers, and another light cruiser of 4,000 tons. Instead, he was shot down five airships by anti-aircraft fire from the two Sicilian formations - three light and heavy cruisers and four destroyers.

This battle seems to have put an end to the myth of the airship force, although no one denies that the airship force still has great military utility. But it's not invincible anymore. This made Liu Sheng's father more concerned about the development progress of the aircraft.

Liu Sheng was ordered to leave Beijing, but the aircraft factory in Inner Mongolia did not give him a satisfactory answer. It is true that the speed of the aircraft increases slowly, and the speed of 110 kilometers per hour far exceeds that of the airship, but the enemy of the aircraft is not the slow-moving airship, but the high-rate fire of the gun shell.

The speed of the bomber is 135~150 kilometers per hour when fully loaded, which is the minimum requirement for the speed of the bomber/torpedo plane, and the bomb load should exceed 300~500 kg, which is also the minimum performance requirement. This could be equipped with a medium torpedo, or a 200-kilogram bomb and two 50-kilogram bombs. Not to mention three 100-kilogram bombs, which are a good threat to warships.

As for the fighters, now the speed has reached 150 mph, strive to advance to 200!

Liu Sheng stayed on the rostrum for a whole day, and the newly built planes bombed from one plane at the beginning, to two planes, then four planes to attack from different positions and directions, and finally a squadron of 16 planes to attack together......

After as many as 12 tests, Liu Sheng returned to his residence. With only one bowl of soup, the man was lying down on the bed. When he closed his eyes now, his mind was full of the dive of the plane, and his ears and eyes were full of the clatter of machine guns and the roar of shelling. When there are outsiders. He didn't show it at all when he was holding on to the shelf, but when he returned to his lodgings, he really felt tired and couldn't support it.

All the data of the 12 tests were sorted out and placed on the edge of the bed, and Liu Sheng didn't want to look at it. He's going to sleep. If you can't sleep, it's okay to empty your brain with your eyes closed. I just slept in a daze.

Liu Sheng stayed at the base for another two days and then returned to Beijing disappointed. That test result. He had already sent it to Liu Xian by telegram.

Liu Xian knows that China's aircraft manufacturing industry has reached a bottleneck. The easy onboarding phase has been completed. In six years, China's aircraft have developed to the middle and early stages of the original World War I period, no, it is better than the same performance aircraft in the early stage of World War I, because China's aircraft are stronger and have stronger defenses, and the road ahead is much more difficult.

Liu Xian is most worried about whether anyone in Western countries has invented airplanes, which are not high-tech, and without the Wright brothers and the Caite brothers, no one can guarantee that Westerners will really cut off the road of airplanes. After all, there are too many people who have the ability to invent airplanes in the Western world. Gliders, in particular, were popular in Europe decades earlier.

Now the shadow of 1905 can be seen. In his previous life, there were only ten years left before the First World War, and Liu Xian was preparing for the war.

Airplanes, he will wait a little longer, if by 1906, airplanes can no longer make great progress, China will have to mass-produce airplanes. There are too few planes now, and in the whole of China, there are less than 100 planes of all kinds combined. No matter how bad the performance of the current aircraft is, a certain amount of strategic reserves must be carried out. And a large number of pilots are trained.

Of course, the European Office and the Military Intelligence Agency will also keep their eyes open to the white world as a whole. Therefore, this war between Italy and the Ottomans has both advantages and disadvantages for China. The good thing is that it shatters the myth of airships and confirms the fact that there is no such thing as an invincible class in military affairs. China's deterrence will be reduced to a certain extent, because it was China that pushed the airship to the top. The disadvantage is that the myth of the airship will be shattered, which will make the world's military and political leaders, inventors and even military strategists inevitably look for a more perfect replacement, which is likely to promote the birth of aircraft.

It is impossible for Liu Xian to pay attention to what other people's minds think, all he can do is make China stronger.

Also in the second half of 1904, a completely new Chinese-made battleship was outfitted. 18,500 tons of displacement, 21.5 knots, endurance: 10 knots 7,000 nautical miles. It is equipped with three 305mm 45 times diameter triple guns, 24 75mm 50 times diameter anti-aircraft guns, 18 14.5mm double anti-aircraft machine guns, 12 75mm secondary guns, plus two 450mm underwater torpedo tubes!

Broadside armor 280mm, deck armor 110mm, turret armor 260mm, turret front armor 280mm, conning tower armor 340mm.

The speed of 21.5 knots is definitely better than that of any battleship of the present era. This warship was named the Intrepid by Liu Xian himself, which naturally robbed the British signboard.

And just as China's Dreadnought had just completed sea trials, a new type of battleship that the British had secretly begun building last year was also launching at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard. It's a big guy like never before. Although it has not yet been outfitted, the completed ship will far surpass the most powerful battleship of the Royal Navy today.

Liu Xian had known about the existence of this warship for a long time, and this was completely the dreadnought that had been advanced in history. The technical reserves of the British were much deeper than those of the Chinese, and as soon as the value of the fully heavy artillery battleship was recognized to a certain extent, they began to design the drawings of this warship. Instead of a compound steam engine, the all-over armor was case-hardened, and the armor in important areas was up to 11 inches thick, providing comprehensive protection. The watertight compartment under the waterline of the hull compartment has canceled the horizontal contact door, strengthened the watertight structure, and improved the anti-sinking ability of the warship.

The appearance of this warship in history marked the dawn of a new naval era. It was a watershed in battleship construction technology, and the battleships that preceded the Dreadnought were called "pre-dreadnoughts".

Liu Xian received a report from the European Office two months after the warship was laying the keel at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, and it was not an exact report, but only a suspicion. The warship, named HMS Victory within the Royal Navy, was named by the current Emperor Edward VII himself.

The British apparently took their Victory ship very seriously, and the whole construction process was very tight. It is not like China, although it is strictly implemented in accordance with the military secrecy system, but the intensity and degree of top secrecy are far worse than those of the British.

Estimating the time, the victory ship will be about the same in the first half of next year. If the Chinese dreadnoughts don't tell the story, by the time the British sea trials of the Victory are over, the Europeans will find that their thick pile of battleships has become old goods.

It has been several years since the Chinese Dreadnought-class battleships were planned and built, and it has been several years since they were implemented, and two verification ships have been built alone. After Taishan, Huashan and Songshan were built successively, one larger than the other, Huashan applied a triple turret, and used 45 times the diameter of the gun, Songshan used the strongest steam turbine at that time, but because of the technology, the main gun ventriloquism of both was 280mm, and the speed was not significantly improved. It was only after the verification of the power system and the new turret technology that China began to enter the formal construction of the Dreadnought.

How long has it been scrapped? Not to mention the flow of funds and resources, China's shipbuilding system is also working hard to carry out examinations again and again all the time, and only after completing the assessment again and again can China's shipbuilding system completely complete the localization of the Dreadnought. Every step of the way is perfect, trying to build a flawless dreadnought-class battleship. It also marks a shift to another era for the Chinese navy, as the country is bound to reduce its spending on the navy in the coming years. In the future, the Chinese Navy's surface warships will take a high-quality route, and the Dreadnought-class battleships are the landmark 'buildings' that divide the development of the Chinese Navy.

According to the current outfitting speed of the British Victory, it will take eight to ten months to enter the sea trials, and it is destined to fall behind China. But Liu Xian still firmly grasped this point, and the glory of opening the 'fearless era' is destined to make China's international image even higher.

Just like Germany before the implementation of the Navy Act, China's surface naval forces are seriously inconsistent with China's strong national strength. It is also time for China to pursue naval status, but I don't know if the British will become more nervous...... (To be continued.) )