A delegation of the Chinese Navy headed by Admiral Chen Shaokuan arrived in Fumu from Italy.

In his previous understanding, the Austro-Hungarian navy should be slightly inferior to the first-class naval powers of Germany, the United States, and Great Britain, although they were now the hegemons of the Mediterranean and had defeated the British navy during the European War. But that was only done without the British doing their best, after all, during the European war, the German Navy held back most of the British Royal Navy's energy.

In fact, Chen Shaokuan stayed in Britain during the European War, and his views were the same as those of most people in the British Navy. However, after learning about the current situation of the Austro-Hungarian shipbuilding industry, he found that in fact, the shipbuilding industry capacity of the entire Austro-Hungarian Empire was no less than that of Britain, and he was sure that the Austro-Hungarian Navy had become one of the world's largest navies, and its hidden strength was enough to compete with the three major naval powers of the United States, Britain, and Germany.

The navy's reliance on equipment far exceeds that of the army. The army can reduce the gap in equipment by expanding the number of soldiers, but the gap in naval equipment cannot be made up for on the battlefield. After the European War, the Beiyang government has maintained a large number of land forces due to the addition of the "Chinese Workers' Army", which suppressed the military rebellion of the local powerful factions, but because almost all the military expenditure was used to maintain the Central Army, which had a total strength of nearly 900,000 troops, the huge naval development has been strictly restricted.

With the development of domestic industry and economy, the financial situation of the Beiyang government improved year by year, and it was not until after the "Northeast Incident" that it realized the inadequacy of its own naval development, and the amount of appropriation for the navy increased year by year, so that the Chinese Navy had the ability to purchase and build six light cruisers with a displacement of 6,000 tons and ten ocean-going destroyers with a displacement of nearly 3,000 tons. At the same time, the construction of two aircraft carriers began.

The construction process of aircraft carriers is not particularly complicated, unlike the relatively high-tech battleships, and China does not currently have the ability to create naval guns with a caliber of more than 150 mm. But the gap with the world powers in aircraft manufacturing technology is not particularly large.

But in the field of shipbuilding, where huge investments are made, the gap between China and the world powers is simply worlds apart.

There are a total of 18 shipyards in Austria-Hungary capable of building military ships, including six shipyards capable of building large warships of more than 10,000 tons, and these six shipyards have the capacity to build 50,000-ton super warships. The largest of these is the Islaia shipyard in Trieste, with an area of more than 20,000 acres and nearly 40,000 employees. It has four large docks that can accommodate 50,000-ton ships. The second is the Royal Shipyard in Trieste, with two large dockyards of 50,000 tons, and if in wartime, the Austro-Hungarian Navy can start building ten superships at the same time.

This is the huge gap in industrial capacity, a strong navy can not be bought, it needs to be supported by the huge industrial capacity of the whole country, the Austro-Hungarian Emperor once famously commented on the outcome of the war at sea: "Warships are used at sea to sink the enemy or be sunk by the enemy, and the outcome of the naval battle is actually determined on the slipway." If they can only sink ten of our capital ships a year, and we can build twelve. We can win this war. ”

"The outcome of the naval battle is decided on the slipway!" Indeed, the decisive factor in modern naval warfare is industry and steel production capacity, and without defeating Japan at sea, the Chinese simply cannot achieve a complete victory in the Sino-Japanese war. For example, the Japanese Navy has begun to secretly build Yamato-class battleships with a displacement of more than 60,000 tons, with a record caliber of 460 mm main guns and armor thicker than any other country's navy in service and under development. At the same time, this triggered a new round of battleship construction competition among the world's naval powers. But the Chinese Navy can only sigh at this, even if there is no Sino-Japanese war. If the Chinese Navy wants to build such a super warship, it will need at least another 15 years of peaceful development.

The navy is a money-burning service, and the cost of a "joint force" class battleship alone exceeds 200 million crowns, and after the budget is increased, the Chinese navy only spends more than 100 million yuan a year, even so. It also made the people in the War Department criticized, because the money was enough to equip more than a dozen army divisions with arcane weapons, but when it was voted for the navy, it did not have much effect at all.

At the beginning of the war, there were four battleships. The Chinese Navy, which felt good, was crushed by the Japanese in a sneak attack, and the battleships could not withstand the bombardment of aircraft in turns, and it was somewhat fortunate that the Chinese Navy built two aircraft carriers according to the construction of the Austro-Hungarian Military Advisory Group when building ships.

The Chinese navy was almost completely wiped out at the beginning of the war, the capital ships of the First Northern Fleet were forced to flee to Qingdao, relying on the protection of the Germans, while the reinforcements of the Southern Second Fleet to Shanghai did not have an effect, but suffered heavy losses themselves, and the main ships are now refitted in Italy, and only one cruiser fleet is kept in the waters of the Gulf of Tonkin .

The two blocking battles of the Yangtze River Fleet in Jiangyin and Zhenjiang still reflected the value and role of the navy, and the firepower of one destroyer was enough to suppress a heavy artillery regiment of the Japanese army, which bought time for the adjustment of the army. In particular, after the failure of the Japanese attack on Dangtu, the two sides of the Yangtze River Front temporarily stopped attacking. The Japanese attack along the Yangtze River had to wait for the navy to clear the two underwater blockade lines of Jiangyin and Zhenjiang, and then launch an attack after the warships entered the Nanjing line, while the Chinese side actively built defensive fortresses and batteries on the Dangtu and Jiujiang lines.

Under Chen Shaokuan's efforts, the Beiyang government finally agreed to use part of the nearly 2.5 billion marks raised in Europe for the navy to purchase additional ships, and after consultation with all parties, it finally decided on the ship purchase plan: spend 400 million marks to order six aircraft carriers, the rest of the funds will be used to purchase submarines, and the escort warships will be built by the country itself. The Admiralty has raised funds to build a large naval base and shipyard in Qisha Bay, west of Qinzhou Bay.

In the selection of aviation warships, the Austro-Hungarian Navy proposed a plan with a standard displacement of 41,000 tons and a cost of 120 million kroner, which was obviously beyond the scope that the Chinese Navy could currently afford. Scheme for the construction of aircraft carriers of the Zeppelin" class.

In this era, since Germany's industrial and military capabilities were not destroyed by the post-war rigors, and the German Navy also had the experience of retrofitting four York-class aircraft carriers, "Graf. The performance of the "Zeppelin" class aircraft carriers is much better than in another time and space. Although this class of aircraft carriers is the first class of aircraft carriers specially built by Germany, it has absorbed some of the technical advantages of aircraft carriers in the construction of various countries: the standard displacement is 27,500 tons, the use of an extended flight deck and a double-deck hangar, and a closed bow hangar in the British style. In order to increase the area of the hangar, the original design of the 150-mm naval gun was cancelled, and four twin 105-mm high-level dual-purpose guns were replaced, and at the same time, the close-range anti-aircraft fire was strengthened, equipped with eight four-barreled 37-mm anti-aircraft guns and 12 double-barreled 20-mm machine guns, and 26 12.7-mm anti-aircraft machine guns.

This type of aircraft carrier inherits the excellent warship defense design that Germany has always had, and its armor protection is much higher than that of aircraft carriers of the same displacement in this era. The number of carrier-based aircraft is 32 fighters, 28 dive bombers and 12 torpedo bombers, with an additional 6 spare combat reconnaissance aircraft, for a total of 78 aircraft.

When Chen Shaokuan and his entourage visited the German shipyard, "Graf. The construction of the hull of the USS Zeppelin has been almost completed, the installation of the power system has been completed, and the four steam turbines of 14 special naval boilers can output a total of 200,000 horsepower, enabling the aircraft carrier with a displacement of more than 30,000 tons to reach a design speed of 33 knots. In the cruising state, the endurance of this class of aircraft carriers reaches 9,200 nautical miles, although the range is slightly smaller than that of the Austro-Hungarian aircraft carrier, but its level of armor protection is higher than that of the Austro-Hungarian Navy's "Hun King".

The German side provided the drawings, and China ordered two aircraft carriers of this class from Germany, Austria, and Italy. There is no way to do this, and the bonds issued by China from various countries can only buy products from other countries. (To be continued......) R1292