If the strength is not enough, and the blind pursuit of being at the top is not commensurate with the current national strength of the country, this will be constrained by both military and political factors. If the war had not broken out in 1894, or even the Third Sino-Russian War, and Liu Xian had always guarded China's one-third of an acre of land and had not greatly expanded to the outside world, under such a conservative Chinese national condition, Liu Xian believed that China's 'dreadnoughts' could be made public a few weeks or a month or two after the British had made public the Dreadnought-class battleships, and the effect would have been better than being the first to make them public!

This is the disproportion between the national strength [influence] and the pursuit of status!

Although China keeps pace with Britain in terms of shipbuilding ideas, this will be more attractive to Germany, which is eager to obtain more advanced warships, and the Germans will definitely buy it together with the shipbuilding technology, which can make the shipbuilding industry of 'conservative China' move towards a more virtuous circle.

But the current China is not a hypothetical conservative China, but an expansionary China that takes its expansion to the extreme. The land of 40 million km2 is worthy of the status of the founder of the 'Age of Fearless'. The appearance of the first steam turbine-powered fully heavy artillery battleship in China will not violate the peace at all. This is the commensurate between the national strength [influence] and the pursuit of status!

It is undeniable that compared with Europe, compared with Britain and Germany, China is much behind in many technologies such as artillery and structural design. China's technology in the manufacture of dreadnoughts, the British can reach it, and the Germans can fully reach it. What the latter lacks the most is that they do not have the consciousness to keep up with the advanced ideas of shipbuilding -- the concept of a warship with full heavy artillery has long been proposed. The British consciously built dreadnoughts that should have appeared two years later in history by fully armed heavy artillery warships. The Germans, on the other hand, built one standard dreadnought after another with the concept of 'fully armed heavy artillery battleships'.

In just four years, the Germans built five fully armed heavy artillery battleships in one fell swoop. At the same time, there are two more unfinished ones on the slipway, and the Germans are too far behind John Bull in the design concept of warships. There is also a lack of an adventurous spirit!

The Germans have not had any "development" for the "fully armed heavy artillery battleship" so far. The information that both the European Office and the Military Intelligence Agency could find, Liu Xian did not believe that the Germans would not know at all. So far, however, there has been no intention of the Germans to follow up in this regard. If the Chinese dreadnoughts do not appear, as soon as the dreadnoughts of the British come out, the Germans will realize that they have once again been thrown off by their opponents on the sea.

The great era of shipbuilding for the Chinese Navy has never come, and naturally it will not cool down. China will not rashly build many warships of the same class, at most it will build some high-speed destroyers, light cruisers, torpedo boats, and submarines, and there will be less than 10 warships of more than 10,000 tons. It is completely incomparable with Britain and Germany, which frantically built dreadnoughts and battle cruisers in the original time and space. The development path of the capital ships of the Chinese Navy has always been to take the line of high-quality products, and to do our best to build a battleship, the next battleship for its own use will definitely make progress compared with the previous one.

And because of this. China's shipbuilding factories will face many problems - building a large-tonnage capital ship alone will cause a huge waste, and it will be a pure unrewarded investment, and to solve these problems, it is necessary to seek foreign shipbuilding orders.

When Italy, Britain, Germany and other European powers announced the construction of similar battleships, China's shipbuilding industry finally knocked on the door of the world's warship trade circle.

The first to patronize China was Brazil. At the end of the 19th century, Brazil was a small naval nation with coastal defense, and when the Chileans and Argentines staged a vigorous naval competition, Brazilians could only be spectators. So when the new century came, the rubber trade boomed. When Brazil's economy was on the upswing, Brazilians, who had always thought highly of themselves, began to march into the sea.

They became the buyer of China's first battleship for export. On the battleship São Paulo, Brazil, China applied the most powerful technology of the time - the triple turret. This is actually no different from China's own 'Huashan', which is an experimental product of a dreadnought. It's just that Brazilians absolutely don't know.

Late 1902. The São Paulo returned to South America, and Brazil, with its increased maritime voice, had a strong naval plan because of the boom in the rubber trade in recent years. The Brazilian government's finances are rich. But neither in 1903 nor in the first half of 1904 did nothing of the Brazilian government. There is even a distance from relations with China, because the United States is back. The United States, backed by Spain and Europe. As soon as it returned to the Americas, the Brazilian government chose to distance itself from China. This estrangement, especially after the opening of the Panama Canal!

At the end of 1903, the first Chinese cruiser entered the Atlantic Ocean through the Panama Canal, and immediately Britain, the United States, and Spain announced that they would hold a joint exercise at sea. This is Xiang Zhuang dancing the sword, which is intended for Pei Gong! In the confrontation between the two major powers of the East and the West, Brazil naturally chose Britain and the United States.

Then the situation in the Americas continued until now, until the end of 1904, until the Chinese dreadnoughts took the stage!

The first to come to China this time was Argentina, another of the top three South American powers.

Argentina was originally a Spanish colony, with a large number of European immigrants in the country, and politically alienated from China. Even its thriving economy has been subordinated to the UK. Julio from 1880. Argentino. Rocca began to strengthen the policy of economic liberalism by successive federal governments, and the inbound wave of European immigrants stimulated by the policy reshaped the political, economic and cultural landscape of Argentina. Between 1870 and 1900, the flow of immigrants and the reduction in mortality quadrupled the population; The length of railways increased sharply from 503 km to 23,104 km; The annual export of wheat increased from 100,000 tons to 1.8 million tons, and the use of refrigerated ships at sea led to an increase in annual beef exports from 25,000 tons to 265,000 tons, placing Argentina among the top 10 export countries in the world and ranking in the middle! The free public compulsory education system has surged Argentina's national literacy rate from 22 percent to 65 percent, higher than in most Latin American countries fifty years later. In 1904, Argentina became the eighth largest economy in the world, with a per capita income comparable to that of Germany. Buenos Aires has also transformed from a "big village" to an international "Paris of South America".

However, nature's bounty cannot long overshadow Argentina's economic problems. The large landlords, the oligarchs, and the vast expanses of land have made the concentration of wealth in Argentina much more serious than in the United States before the last war, and it has also made it go further and further down the old path of single export, deviate from the path of industrialization, and rely heavily on Britain in its economy. Even if the British occupied the Falklands!

The emerging middle class in Argentina opposed the original oligarchy ruling clique and demanded more and more political cooking, especially the establishment of the Radical Party Russia, which led to frequent armed uprisings in Argentina.

In such a political situation, Liu Xian could not understand Argentina's psychology of pursuing dreadnoughts at this time. What do they think? Is it just because of that small friction with Chile a few years ago?

But Argentina's offer was really placed in front of Liu Xian, and with a stroke of the pen, Liu Xian approved the sale without hesitation.

The newly built Rivadavia-class battleships, according to the design drawings, will have a standard displacement of infinitely close to 20,000 tons, and a full load of 21,500 tons. It is equipped with 6 305 mm/45 x caliber twin turrets, 12 120 mm guns, 16 50 mm anti-aircraft guns. There are two main turrets in the front and rear of the hull, which are arranged in a knapsack style, and the main turret in the amidships is arranged on both sides, and the front and rear are staggered. The armor was somewhat lower than that of the dreadnought, with 229 mm of waterline armor; turret frontal 305 mm, top 76 mm, gun mount 229 mm; conning tower 305 mm; Deck armor 51 mm. The crew is 900 people.

The total price of these two Levadavia-class battleships is 3.8 million pounds, compared to the British 1.8 million pounds of dreadnought cost, China sells one for 1.9 million pounds, which is an absolute conscience price in the industry. Although the cost of China's own construction is just over 1 billion, it is no more than 1.5 million pounds sterling.

The Argentines placed an order in 1905 and could return to South America in warships by 1907 at the latest, and the two dreadnoughts were able to blow up a pile of rags in Brazil and Chile. And Argentina, a country that will follow China and Britain, will lead France, Germany, Italy and other countries to become a country with dreadnought-class battleships.

The actions of the Brazilians did not break the calm of the South American continent, and the actions of the Argentines were the real move to disrupt South America. Even the British and Germans set their sights on the country. Brazil and Chile, which have certain conflicts of interest with Argentina, and the other two South American powerhouses, have become nervous.

Brazilians, who have recently been plagued by the severe downturn in the coffee market, are shocked and feel the threat from Argentina! After ordering two dreadnoughts, the Argentine government's waist board was also stiffened, and its foreign minister even uncharacteristically stopped following the British tail at the International Conference of the Americas, but proposed the new Monroe policy of 'South America is South America for South Americans', which is a change in national strategy and makes all countries feel the voice of Argentina. So the Brazilian Congress immediately approved the naval development plan for the order of new ships, and without coffee, Brazil still has rubber, cocoa, etc. Rubber, in particular, is dependent on Brazilian rubber throughout Europe and the United States, with Nanyang rubber firmly in Chinese hands. Even though Brazilian rubber is expensive and of good quality, Nanyang rubber must first supply Chinese demand every year, and the remaining production will be put into the European market, which is quite limited.

The presence of the top brass of the Brazilian Navy began to appear frequently in the large shipyards of Britain and Germany, and Germany was quickly excluded. Although the latter has a lot of experience in the manufacture of 'former dreadnoughts', this is completely different from dreadnoughts. Just like what China preached after the launch of the dreadnought, a battleship that does not use steam turbines, cannot maintain a strong and stable horsepower output, and has only the same number and unified artillery, is not a dreadnought at all! (To be continued.) )