After Britain began construction of a total of seven first-class battleships of the London class and Duncan-class, France began construction of six Danton-class first-class battleships, and Britain and France quietly set off a naval arms race.

As one of the three giants in Europe, Germany, after the German Navy saw that the two giants of Britain and France had further expanded their naval strength, German Admiral Minister Tirbitz immediately responded to the call of Kaiser Wilhelm II's grand naval plan and proposed that the German Navy's strong total tonnage be maintained at the level of 50 percent of the British Navy, equivalent to 75 percent of the French Navy, in the next three years, and strive for the German Navy to enter the top seven navies of the world's great powers.

Led by Tirpitz, the German Admiralty proposed a plan to build five German-class battleships with a budget of 15 million German gold marks.

Kaiser Wilhelm II immediately approved Tirpitz's plan, and German public opinion immediately soared, catering to Wilhelm II's self-esteem, saying that the German navy would become the world's largest navy.

However, the difficulties facing the German Navy were not the only ones. The German Navy has too few shipyards, and since 1892, Kaiser Wilhelm II has been clamoring for a large naval plan, and the German naval industry has been far less rapid than the naval industry of the Chinese Empire because of the long-term blockade of British and French technology. Therefore, looking at the fact that the Imperial Chinese Navy has been able to build 20,000-ton battleships, the German naval shipyards are still at the level of building 14,000 tons.

However, Germany will not care about the 20,000-ton Shenbow ship of the Chinese Empire for the time being, because the German Navy is not optimistic about this shipbuilding project of the Chinese Empire. The German Navy had its eyes on the British Navy and the French Navy, and when the British Navy and the French Navy were also building only about 14,000-ton battleships, the German naval industry could just keep up.

However, to Tirpitz's dismay, there were too few shipyards in Germany, and the slipway was currently full of battleships under construction. As a result, the construction of five German-class battleships was postponed until a year later.

Although the German Navy delayed the construction of five Deutschland-class battleships, Tirbitz did not let his funds sit idle, but began to expand the Royal Wilhelm Shipyard and the Kirjuermanian shipyard to enable them to build 20,000-ton warships. At the same time, the German battleships of the first rank could only be considered second-class battleships in front of other countries, so the German Admiralty was eager to increase its strength and step up the development of large-caliber main guns.

At this time, the German naval industry built battleships, most of the main guns were installed with 240 mm rapid-fire guns and 283 mm guns, while Britain, France, and China were 305 mm 40 times the standard equipment at the same time, and the American main gun caliber even reached 40 times the extension of 13 inches, while the Italian main gun caliber was the most evil among all countries, reaching 30 times the extension of 17 inches (431 mm) and 32 times the extension of 17.7 inches (450 mm). In terms of firepower alone, the German Navy was already lagging behind.

Of course, the Germans were not unaware of their weak firepower, and the German idea of naval warfare required the German Navy's tactics to be defensive as offensive, that is, the German Navy's armor protection was very good, and the purpose was that once it engaged the British Navy, the German Navy would fight with its armor superiority. At this time, the German Navy seemed to be still stuck in the tactical thinking of the Beiyang Naval Division.

Although the construction of five Deutschland-class battleships in the German Navy was delayed by a year, this did not mean that the German Navy was weaker than the French Navy. Germany was the leader of the Central Powers, so the German political axe encouraged his two Allied powers, Italy and Austria-Hungary, to start building two battleships each, so the Allies also began to build four first-class battleships in 1900, so that Germany could be regarded as having achieved its goal.

If France is more nervous than England and Germany is more nervous than France, then Russia is actually the most nervous country. Russia's national policy and the Russian political axe could not find many friends in the world, and they made enemies everywhere. Although Russia and France are military alliances, the French Navy has no intersection with the Russian Navy, and it is pinned down by the British Navy, so the Russian Navy cannot count on the French Navy to help.

Although the total tonnage of the Russian Navy remains the third largest in the world, too many old warships take up more than half of the tonnage. Most of those old battleships could only defend near the sea, and they were not so much battleships as a whole bunch of shallow-water heavy gunboats. In particular, the Russian fleet was divided into three parts: the Baltic Fleet, the Black Sea Fleet, and the Far Eastern Fleet, and the three fleets were thousands of miles away from each other, and there was no possibility of mutual support. That is to say, once a naval battle breaks out, Tsarist Russia can only use one-third of its fleet to fight against the enemy's fleet. What is even more tragic is that the Ottoman Turkish Empire is stuck in the mouth of the Black Sea, and the Black Sea Fleet is an inner lake fleet, which can never get out.

However, the Tsarist Russian Empire was a country that wanted to save face, and it was eager to build each of the three fleets into a powerful fleet that could stand alone against the British Imperial Navy. Tsarist Russia is also the country with the largest standing army in the world, and with the economic strength of Tsarist Russia's political axe, it has to maintain a huge army and navy, which shows how tight its finances are.

Originally, in order to counter the 66th Fleet of the Imperial Chinese Navy and the newly passed 33rd Fleet Supplementary Act, Russia has exhausted its financial resources to build five Borodino-class battleships, and with the previous battleships, it is barely equal in number to the main ships of the Imperial Chinese Navy. But in terms of quality, the self-built battleships of the Tsarist Russian Navy were inferior to the active battleships of the Imperial Chinese Navy in terms of tonnage, speed and firepower.

Under these circumstances, the strategic policy of the Tsarist Empire was to protect itself by the navy, not to defeat the Chinese Imperial Navy, but to hold the Far Eastern Sea Frontier. The Tsarist Empire only hoped that the navy would be able to make a draw with the Chinese Empire, and it would be acceptable to suffer a little loss. The real decisive bargaining chip for the Russian Empire was the army, and Tsar Nicholas II, who had an army of several million at his disposal, believed that he could defeat any country.

However, at this time, Nicholas II was following the old path of the Napoleonic era in France, which wanted to build the world's strongest army and the world's strongest navy. At that time, Napoleon's idea decreed that France has not taken a breath to this day, and even the economically developed Britain can only choose to dominate at sea, but does not dare to dominate both sea and land. But all these lessons could not make Nicholas II give up, he has been arguing with the British, but the British have repeatedly used naval power to help Turkey in the Russian-Turkish war, so that Tsarist Russia was almost able to take Constantinople out of the Black Sea in the last Russian-Turkish war, this hatred of the Russians must be avenged, but the power of the British is at sea, and if you want to take revenge, you can only develop the navy.

This was the idea of Nichol II, who wanted to make England lose to Russia at sea, and only then would Nichol II feel that he had taken revenge.

For an imperial state, the will of the emperor is the will of the empire. If Nicholas II wanted to develop a large navy, the Russian Empire had to tighten its belts to develop naval power.

In order to counter the British expansion of seven battleships, the Russian Empire increased its budget by 46 million rubles and ordered three additional Borodino-class battleships. At the same time, in order not to make the Far East look down on the Chinese Empire, Nicholas II, who wanted to save face, ordered the Admiralty to develop a 20,000-ton battleship St. John's class.

However, at this time, the Russian Empire had just absorbed the technology of the French Prince-Prince battleship and part of the technology of the American Retvizan, and was only able to build a 16,000-ton battleship, and for the first time tried to build a new battleship abroad, it can be said that the Borodino-class battleship itself had problems in all aspects that had not been completely solved, and it was not capable of building a 20,000-ton battleship at all.

However, since Nicholas II had spoken, the Russian Admiralty had no choice but to do so. However, the Russian shipyards were already full of warships under construction, and it was impossible to build the 20,000-ton battleship St. John, so the Russian Admiralty used this as an excuse to delay again and again, and did not come up with a design blueprint until the end of the Second Sino-Russian War.

As a North American country, the United States has built nine battleships and more than a dozen large armored cruisers in just five or six years, as well as a large number of light armored cruisers. The United States has become the fourth naval power in the world, but it has recently been overtaken by the Imperial Chinese Navy, because the nine main battleships of the Imperial Chinese Navy are all first-class battleships of more than 16,000 tons.

However, as the first hegemon in the Americas, with the Chinese empire meddling in the Panama issue, the direct economic losses of the United States in the next few decades will exceed billions of dollars. Moreover, the Chinese Empire's control of the Panama Canal is equivalent to opening the door to the backyard of the United States, plus the Chinese Empire seized the island of Puerto Rico in the previous war against Spain and has a base in the Caribbean Sea, the threat to the United States will be very huge.

Although Sino-US relations are still good, the US political axe has secretly been wary of China. In particular, the United States is facing maritime security problems in the two oceans, and the large-scale construction of the navy cannot be stopped.

In order to guard against Britain in the Atlantic Ocean and against China in the Pacific, the US Navy Department decided to start construction of Maine-class battleships and three of the same class. One is deployed in the Atlantic Ocean and two in the Pacific Ocean. In addition, there is a group of large armored cruisers under construction, and the US Navy is also accelerating the pace of construction.

Unknowingly, a Shenbow-class battleship of the Chinese Empire caused a new round of naval arms race in all countries in the world.

Of course, it is precisely the British Admiralty that deliberately used the Imperial Chinese Navy as an excuse to ask the British Parliament for money in order to make military spending, which triggered a chain effect and set off a naval arms race in all countries of the world.

The British political axe resolutely refused to admit that it was Britain that started the naval arms race, and they mistakenly shifted the blame to the Chinese Empire. And the political axe of the Chinese empire also flatly denied this, and shifted the blame to Tsarist Russia.

In this way, you push it to me, I push it to him, and he pushes it back to you, and the countries then blame each other, and the arms race becomes a closed circular system, and there is a momentum for further expansion and escalation.

No matter how much the European and American countries accuse each other, they have no intention of taking the initiative to reduce armaments.

Yanjing, the imperial study of the Forbidden City.

Every afternoon from 3 to 4 o'clock, Wang Chenhao would stay in the imperial study, because at this time, Prime Minister Zhang Feng would come over to report something to Wang Chenhao.

The Chinese Empire was ostensibly a constitutional monarchy, with the Prime Minister's Office becoming the highest state organ in the country, but in reality the Prime Minister's Office was still accountable to the Emperor alone.

After Zhang Feng finished processing the official documents submitted by the five provinces and nine ministries every day, he would pick out some important or sensitive documents and take them to the imperial study to Wang Chenhao, and these documents must be nodded by the emperor Wang Chenhao or used the Indian side to take effect, because the officials of the five provinces and nine ministries only recognize the emperor's jade seal and approval on some important matters.

Compared with when he was in the Prime Minister's Office before, after Wang Chenhao became the emperor, he only dealt with some major matters every day, and the rest was handed over to the Prime Minister's Office, so Wang Chenhao also became very relaxed and no longer as tired as before.

Of course, Wang Chenhao's political decentralization does not mean that what he says will not be counted. In fact, every word Wang Chenhao says now will affect the decision-making of the cabinet and the Congress, so Wang Chenhao usually tries not to interfere, and the cabinet and the Congress make their own decisions, so as to hope that China will realize the politics of the open boil as soon as possible. If Wang Chenhao has to intervene, it must be that the cabinet is out of order, and Wang Chenhao has to come out to stabilize the situation. Of course, Wang Chenhao did not want to see that day come.

"Your Majesty, Weichen received a report that locust plagues have broken out in Henan and Gansu, which has caused disasters in thirteen counties and towns, and a large number of crops have been destroyed. This is the third year in a row, affecting more than 200,000 people, and Congress has passed the Emergency Food Assistance Act to allocate food for disaster relief. ”

This kind of thing is just to allocate funds for disaster relief, and there is no need for Zhang Feng to report to Wang Chenhao one by one, and even the local Ministry of Civil Affairs directly has the right to allocate funds for disaster relief, without going through the Prime Minister's Office.

"What are you trying to express? Let's hear it. ”

Wang Chenhao directly broke Zhang Feng's words.

Zhang Feng smiled and said, "Your Majesty is wise, what Wei Chen has in mind naturally can't hide it from you!" ”

Wang Chenhao said with a smile: "Don't shoot sycophants, it's useful to shoot once a few days, and it's cliché to shoot several times a day." ”

"Your Majesty taught you a lesson." Zhang Feng smiled, so he turned to the topic.

I only heard Zhang Feng say: "Weichen thought that Henan and Gansu had suffered locust plagues one after another in recent years, and it was too late to replenish the seeds. Moreover, Gansu has a harsh climate and barren land, and planting 100 acres of land is not as much grain as 1 acre of land in the Central Plains. And Henan has a large population, arable land is not enough to distribute, Weichen thought that they should move out of a part of the land, to the rich land in the northeast to open up wasteland, this not only to solve the pressure of the original place, but also for these people to find a good livelihood, at the same time the northeast is the empire to be developed area, Anshan Fushun industrial base is under construction, but also urgently need population. ”

Wang Chenhao nodded and said, "What a good idea!" It can be done! ”

"Your Majesty Mingjian!" Zhang Feng continued: "Recently, the six colonies of British Australia seem to be planning to establish the Australian Federation and seek the autonomy of Reading Power. Your Majesty, you are not saying that Australia is rich in resources, and in the future, when the empire's economy is highly developed, Australia will be able to provide the empire with a steady supply of resources. Moreover, His Majesty has set up a uranium ore mining base in Australia, and you also said that there will be diamond mines and gold mines in the vicinity that are second only to South Africa, and there will be huge reserves of high-quality iron ore, so Weichen thought that he could take the opportunity to support Australia's reading power on the grounds of aiding the Australian locals, and then the empire would find a way to control Australia, and it was really impossible for the empire to occupy it by force, after all, Australia was sparsely populated, and it was enough to send a few infantry divisions. ”

Wang Chenhao smiled: "That's right! I wish Australia was occupied sooner! ”

Wang Chenhao paused, and then sighed: "It's just that you can't resort to force for the time being. Australia is, after all, a colony of the British, and Britain's vast naval power is not something we can contend with now. ”

Zhang Feng insisted: "However, now is a good opportunity. When the British cracked down on the Australian Reading Movement, there may not be such a good opportunity in the future. ”

Wang Chenhao smiled slightly, Zhang Feng's judgment was right, there would be no such shop in this village after that. But the problem is that Wang Chenhao knows that Britain will not use force against Australia, and in the end Australia will achieve autonomy this time, but it is still within the framework of the British Commonwealth, and it is still nominally a British territory.

"Britain is busy with the Anglo-Boer War, so Britain will not use force against Australia, but will allow Australia's six colonies to form a federation."

Zhang Feng nodded and said, "Judging from the British style towards Canada, there is indeed such a possibility. However, Weichen still believes that only by truly holding Australia in the hands of the empire can we ensure that Australia will become a supplier of various resources needed by the empire in the future. ”

Wang Chenhao agreed: "That's right! That's the truth! However, at the moment, we still have to count on Britain's support, and if there is no international support from Britain in the war against Russia, we may not only face Russia at that time, after all, France is Russia's military ally, and France has the obligation to send troops. Germany also wanted to gain a greater foothold in the Far East and invade us, and at the same time Germany also wanted to bring Russia's troubles to China, so that Germany's pressure on Europe would be reduced. Therefore, instead of having a conflict with Britain, we must find a way to form a military alliance with Britain. Only a military alliance with Britain could make France hesitate not to enter the war. ”

In fact, Wang Chenhao was judged based on the historical Russo-Russian War. It was precisely because Britain agreed to form a two-year military alliance with the French that France was forced to choose neutrality in the Russo-Japanese War. According to the Russian-French military alliance treaty, once Tsarist Russia formally declared war on a certain country, France, as an ally, would have to enter the war. The Sino-Russian War a few years ago was nothing more than a local war, and Tsarist Russia never declared war against China, so France did not participate in it at that time. But now as Sino-Russian relations deteriorate more and more, Tsarist Russia has been patient, the next war between China and Russia will definitely be a full-scale war, and Russia will definitely declare war at that time, and if China does not draw Britain into the alliance, France will intervene in the war.

Among them, Wang Chenhao has been thinking about it for a long time, and he couldn't help but sweat until he figured it out after the end of the last Sino-Russian war. But next time there may not be this luck, Wang Chenhao has to think about it comprehensively.

Zhang Feng thought about it and felt that what Wang Chenhao said was very reasonable, but if he gave up the opportunity to encroach on Australia like this, he was really a little unwilling.

Wang Chenhao saw his thoughts, so he smiled: "We can also get Australia without force." ”

Zhang Feng suddenly looked at Wang Chenhao in surprise, he knew that Wang Chenhao always had a way, in Zhang Feng's heart, Wang Chenhao was like a god-like existence, which was also one of the main reasons why Zhang Feng was loyal to Wang Chenhao.

"Please also make it clear to Your Majesty."

Wang Chenhao said: "Have you ever heard of the term peaceful evolution? ”

Zhang Feng shook his head, he naturally didn't know what this "peaceful evolution" meant.

Wang Chenhao then said: "If we form an alliance with the British, first, to avoid French involvement in the war between China and Russia, and second, after forming an alliance, we can legitimately immigrate to Australia in large numbers." Four of Australia's six colonies are sparsely populated, with populations of just a few hundred thousand. Most of the resources we need are concentrated in these four colonies, and as long as we migrate to these colonies on a large scale under the pretext of mining and the immigrants exceed half of the total local population, we have the right to speak. ”

"This is peaceful evolution?"

Zhang Feng suddenly realized, looked at Wang Chenhao in surprise, and couldn't calm down for a long time.

Wang Chenhao nodded, Zhang Feng savored it again, and then bowed his hand, and said, "Your Majesty is really a god!" Wechen has been taught! ”

Wang Chenhao said modestly: "It's not a god, it's just a way to do it." It is important to know that migrating to Australia on a large scale is not an easy task. ”

Zhang Feng smiled: "That's not simple? It's wrapped up in Wechen! ”

Wang Chenhaoqi said: "Let's talk about it! ”

Zhang Feng smiled shyly and said: "Australia is so big, the west is almost a no-man's land, if large-scale immigration is rejected, then smuggling." According to Weichen's analysis, the establishment of cities or fortresses in Western Australia, as long as they are well disguised, may not be discovered by the British for more than ten years. When they find out, we can say, 'We've been here for hundreds of years, and this is our territory.'" ”

Wang Chenhao laughed a few times, and had to admire Zhang Feng's trick was really shameless enough, but it was a good method, somewhat similar to the territorial disputes between countries in Wang Chenhao's era. As long as the de facto settlement in the area has been completed, the occupation can be declared once a certain period of time has passed. To put it bluntly, this is the legal adverse encroachment in the real estate law, but the encroachment is not on the house but on the territory, and the reason is the same.

Zhang Feng then said: "Your Majesty, now that the scale of uranium mining in Australia is expanding, Weichen thinks that he can use the import of migrant workers as an excuse to immigrate to Western Australia and Northern Australia first. Let the workers drag their families with their families in the past, and live in Australia in the future. ”

Wang Chenhao nodded and said, "Immigrants give priority to the poor people, and they will live better in Australia." In addition, the empire is so big, there are always one or two natural disasters in the country every year, and one or two provinces suffer. For those affected by the disaster, priority can be given to relocation. ”

Zhang Feng said: "Your Majesty is wise, Australia is so big, enough to accommodate tens of millions of immigrants, and the empire has transferred these poor people out, which has also reduced a great economic burden for the empire, and will have great benefits for the social stability of the empire." ”

Wang Chenhao nodded, noncommittal.

"Wechen will do it!"

"Remember to inform the Foreign Office that the matter of the alliance with Britain must be resolved as soon as possible."

"Wechen obeys, Wechen retires!"

Zhang Feng withdrew from the imperial study, while Wang Chenhao lay leisurely on the dragon chair. dealt with another major event that benefited the country and the people, and Wang Chenhao was both happy and fulfilled in his heart.

(To be continued)