Istanbul, Dolmabahce Palace.

Abdul. Hamid II was very excited today, and when he was bathing at noon, the slave girls in the palace were washing his hair, and they hurt him. Hamid II was generous and forgiven, and was not punished at all. You must know that His Majesty the Sultan in the past was not so magnanimous and merciful, he did not have any mercy for the female slaves around him, and the punishment for making mistakes was often death!

Your Majesty, what's the matter?

Abdul. The ministers around Hamid II, the concubines of his harem, all felt strange. Didn't anything special happen yesterday or this morning? The Ottoman Empire didn't have anything to be happy about, right? Your Majesty the Sultan, this is ......, what's wrong?

It wasn't until evening that the curious had the answer.

It turns out that when the Ottoman Sultan did not have a special will, there were no secrets in the Dolmabahce Palace.

In less than an afternoon, the military and political leaders of the entire Ottoman Empire, as well as the upper echelons of Istanbul, knew the reason for the joy of His Majesty the Sultan. His Majesty the Sultan received a diplomatic letter from the Chinese this morning, a telegram personally sent by His Majesty the Venerable Emperor of China, and His Majesty the Emperor of China praised the Sultan's intelligence and praised him as a wise and intelligent man on the issue of oil under the sea surface of the Persian Gulf!

That is why His Majesty the Sultan is so pleased today!

He was praised by the Emperor of China, the Lord of the East, and the god of war who walked on earth. This is certainly something to be happy about. On Abdul. His Majesty Sultan Hamid II will have a different kind of sense of victory. As many of the upper echelons of the Ottoman Empire know, after 7 million pounds was taken away by the Chinese, His Majesty the Sultan has been feeling sorry for his 'generosity'!

The money belonged to the Ottomans. It's just buried deep underneath. The Chinese dug out the vault and opened the door to the vault with a key. Took half of the inside!

Abdul. Hamid II knew very well that there were no Chinese, even the half of the gold coins left in the treasury. The Ottomans couldn't even get their hands on it. But he is still distressed. 7,000,000 pounds, which would make the empire's finances more generous and rich. Or be able to build an elite armored legion, a powerful heavy artillery legion!

Now the Chinese emperor confessed that he did not think about the Persian Gulf under the surface, and Abdul. Hamid II thought of this, and the ministers and nobles close to the Sultan knew that this would give His Majesty a sense of victory.

Just Abdul. Hamid II could never have imagined that Liu Xian did not care how much the Ottoman Empire benefited from oil, because his definition of China's interests in the Middle East was to take a piece of the pie, and that was enough.

The Ottoman Empire was able to attract more European attention. This is the greatest help for China today. Even if China loses its interests in the Middle East altogether, the oil resources on its existing lands – Siberia and Central Asia, and another oil sea, the Gulf of Mexico, could easily make up for this shortcoming.

What China needs most now is not money, nor oil interests, but time.

After the oil-rich hat of the Middle East is put on the head of the Ottoman Empire, a large amount of money will make the Ottoman Empire stronger, and it will also make the Ottoman Empire even more coveted by the European powers. The Ottoman Empire, the 'sick man of Europe', may be able to become stronger because of the black money of oil. But it absolutely cannot resist the covetousness and minions of Britain, France, Germany, Austria, and Italy.

China under Liu Xian is like a despicable and shameless person, when he is full of food and drink, he has 'indigestion' and cannot exert his strongest combat effectiveness. Desperately pushing out the allies, the Ottoman Empire, as their own shields. Throwing out the interests of allies - a piece of fat, temporarily diverting the gaze from staring at himself. When China's enemies finished sharing this piece of fatty fresh meat. China's 'indigestion' situation has certainly improved dramatically.

So, for the Middle East. It is more important for China to leave a perfect impression and deep influence, rather than to extract too much oil profits and money here. Abdul. Hamid II's careful thinking if Liu Xian knew about it. It will only make Emperor Liu feel pity. What a poor child, poor baby.

It's just that Liu Xian doesn't know. Even Abdul. Hamid II was triumphant, and the self-proclaimed victory of offshore oil in the Persian Gulf was just a casual remark. He had now left the city of Peking and was on the battleship Dinghai in Tianjin, accompanied by a group of admirals, and went south to Shanghai. He will personally attend the launching ceremony of the Tarzan next month!

This warship will be outfitted and seaworthy within this year, handed over to the navy by the end of the year, and will complete combat training by next spring; then it will sail west to the Strait of Malacca together with the small battleship Dinghai, two other armored cruisers, and a number of destroyers and transport ships, and sail to Europe, where it will circle around under the noses of the four European naval powers of Britain, France, Germany, and Italy, and then cross the Atlantic Ocean to the east coast of America and join the Chinese fleet on the east coast of North America.

Liu Xian has high hopes for the Taishan, he hopes that this unique warship can make the name of the Chinese Navy more resounding and dazzling in the world, and hopes to attract the attention of the three small powers in South America and usher in a 'delicious' order for China's naval ship manufacturing industry!

On the Dinghai, Liu Xian listened to the admirals' ideas for the future of the warship. It turned out that the generals of the Chinese Navy still have some ability to fight wars, and they are really fighting in terms of the ideas and needs of warships.

Many people are very satisfied with the Taishan, and even the small battleship Dinghai at their feet. It seems that this is already considered the best warship in the world. While making Liu Xian sigh, he could only lower the level to the level of a colonel-level naval officer. In addition to driving and fighting, most of these people have a lot of knowledge about the performance of warships and the history of naval development, and these people have much more knowledge of warships in the future and their self-hopeful requirements for warships than the generals of the previous generation.

Firepower, speed!

Liu Xian was very pleased to see that many colonel-level officers wanted to have higher speed warships and stronger firepower. Their requirements for defense are generally weak, which is a good manifestation of their fighting spirit and desire and hope. Without a strong offensive spirit, the mid-ranking officers of the Navy would not have sought greater speed and greater firepower.

"In the design of the Tarzan, we reserved a certain amount of space for both the bow and stern platforms – it has a lot of turret seat space. Why is this the case? The reason is to replace the turret in the future. My vision is to replace the current two-pack turret with a triple turret in the future. ”

"Maybe this will make the caliber of the cannon a little smaller, but don't be afraid of it. As long as we can successfully study the 10-inch caliber 45 times the diameter of the main gun, its range and power will not be weaker than that of the 12-inch caliber 35 times the diameter of the main gun. The power of the triple turret is even more powerful than that of the two-mounted turret. ”

"Of course, I also know that the triple turret will certainly not allow us to cross the threshold easily in terms of economy and design. But the country has money to put into the navy, and the motherland's maritime frontier needs a strong navy to protect it. The three heavy artillery research institutes in Jiangnan, Tianjin, and Wuhan are all making bold attempts and breakthroughs, and the state is also providing them with all the convenient conditions as much as possible. The triple turret will be in our hands in the near future. ”

Fully-armed heavy artillery battleships are the hegemons of the future seas, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, and even the heavily disabled old United States, as long as they are not building full-armed heavy artillery battleships, the more they build now, the more intense the labor pains will be when the era of dreadnoughts comes in the future. So far, Liu Xian is not afraid to compete with the Europeans. He also has a big killer in his hand - an aircraft carrier!

Although the bomb weight of the bomb planes secretly developed by China cannot exceed 100 catties, there is still time for war.

Besides, bombers can fly torpedoes in addition to bombs. Under today's technological conditions, it is too difficult to create a tactical bomber with a bomb load of two or three tons. However, it was not difficult to create a torpedo machine with a bomb load of only four or five hundred kilograms. And the tactical deterrent of a torpedo is much stronger than that of a bomb. The cooperation of the two sides, and the addition of fighter jets to clean the surface of the ship's sailors, and even secretly supplemented by submarines, are also a mortal threat to the powerful dreadnoughts that will appear on the sea in the future!

"The importance of speed for warships is self-evident. …… According to our experiments, the steam turbine can give the battleship a longer sailing time at the top speed than the ordinary compound steam engine, but the boiler and the steam turbine require a lot of space, which requires more space inside the ship, which is a paradoxical problem. "Boilers and steam turbines occupy too much space inside a warship, which will have a great impact on the defense and safety performance of the warship." So we have to have better steam turbine crews before we can install battleships. According to the tests on destroyers and patrol ships in the past few years, if one does not want the main battleship to go into the dock once after each battle to be repaired, and the existing problems of the steam turbine are not solved, it must not be installed on a large warship. ”

"The state has sown such a large amount of money, invested in the establishment of steam turbine laboratories, and also put small horsepower steam turbines on destroyers and patrol ships for testing, you should all know the meaning behind this intention. In the ocean, the speed of a large battleship is the slowest, generally around 145 knots, and the maximum speed in battle can only reach 1678 knots, but the duration of naval battles is not something that can be predetermined by any side. An hour or four or five hours, or longer, it can be. The duplex steam engine is not capable of keeping the battleship at such high speed for such a long time, and the steam turbine is the way to go......" (To be continued......