…… The Far East has cut interest rates in the aftermath, and Soviet Russia is in full swing.

As the Polish army confidently marched into the southeast of Russia, the world's attention began to shift to Europa, and the young Chinese people, immersed in the excitement of recovering the country and all sovereignty, had already rolled up their sleeves and worked hard to build a better era under the call of Yang Qiu.

But underneath the beauty and calm lies the increasingly fierce competition between countries. German humiliation, Japanese hatred, Italian discontent, Soviet and Russian civil war. The dockyards of the world's major powers are filled with warships of all kinds! Among them, the capital ships of the United States alone that are laying or about to lay keels have reached 13, and the total tonnage even exceeds that of the Royal Navy! Italy decided to expand its navy, and the Japanese army began to dismantle, and the same hope was to regain the position of the leader of Asia by relying on the navy, despite the hunger and cold of the people! France, which was the most injured by the glittering silver of the European War, also developed an ambitious naval plan for 1920, and even the Chinese government officially announced its own plan of 12 cruisers and 24 destroyers a few days ago. The battle of muscle and steel has begun, and post-war recovery and the collision of the old and new worlds are destined to become the leitmotif of the 30s. The British Empire, which was already unable to expand and only wanted to maintain the old order and colonies, had to pull countries to the negotiating table. After the clash in the Yellow Sea, a three-member delegation consisting of Gu Weijun, ambassador to the United States, Yang Du, new vice foreign minister, and Ye Zugui, deputy chief of the general staff of the Chinese Navy, went to London non-stop to attend the first round of consultations at the World Disarmament Conference.

A new round of military reform was launched in an all-round way, and Yang Qiu put forward for the first time a 10-year plan for strengthening the army, and in accordance with this plan, he made major adjustments to the current military system. According to the draft. The National Defense Forces will consist of seven major departments, namely, the Army, the Navy, the Air Force, the National Guard, the General Logistics Department, the General Armament Department, and the General Military Intelligence Bureau, as well as 23 auxiliary departments, such as communications, meteorology, and scientific research.

The Navy adjusts the fastest. According to the Lend-Lease agreement, the Navy will officially accept two Nevada-class battleships for a five-year lease in June. As for the 8 follow-up ships, the plan was abandoned due to financial pressure and other factors. The Navy persuaded Congress and Yang Qiu to buy a Dunkirk-class semi-finished product at the price of immediately dismantling two light cruisers and returning them for study. This shows how much the conflict in the Yellow Sea, especially the humiliation of the self-sealing of the port after the Japanese Combined Fleet pressed the territory on a large scale, has stimulated the navy from top to bottom! Two converted Combined Force-class battleships have also been officially delivered to the Navy, and they will be built along with two Nevada-class and four Anhai-class cruisers, as well as four more Taiwan-class heavy cruisers and eight Yalujiang-class light cruisers. The two Daxia-class aircraft carriers shouldered the heavy responsibility of coastal defense before 1930.

The Air Force was established on April 1, 1920, and its commander was ace pilot Xue Muhua. According to the plan, by 1925 the Wehrmacht would form 16 brigades and 6 bomber brigades. Each brigade consists of one aviation group, one ground service group and one air defense squadron. Each squadron consists of 5 squadrons, and each squadron has 5 squadrons. Each squadron has 4 fighters, so that each squadron has 22 (including the main and deputy squadron leader planes) and 142 brigades (including transport aircraft, reconnaissance aircraft, etc.), a total of 3,124 aircraft of various types.

Both the sea and the air are expensive money, and the army has to make appropriate sacrifices for this. In accordance with the order signed by Yang Qiu, a total of six military regions were set up in the northwest, northeast, north, southwest, central plains, and southeast, and 40 army divisions and three independent brigades were built, and eight armored brigades were reorganized. At the same time, the National Guard Command was again subdivided into 22 jurisdictions with a total of 66 brigades (2 regiments lightly armed and small). There are three coast guard patrol areas in the north, center and south, and for the first time, it was decided to build three air patrol brigades.

The intensity of this reform was very strong, and the number of presidents reached 500,000. The outside world believes that this is due to the fact that there is no need for so many troops after peace, and Britain and the United States even sent telegrams to express their appreciation, only Yang Qiu knew that he was already quietly preparing for 20 years.

It is irresponsible for 500,000 soldiers to be let go at once. In particular, there are cultural education courses every day after the soldiers of the National Defense Forces join the army, and many people have actually reached the level of initial Chinese, so the Ministry of Defense has specially opened a one-year military camp technical training course to help veterans learn work survival skills. In order to absorb these high-quality manpower, Yang Qiu also specially purchased all the production lines and equipment of seven labor-intensive enterprises, including three large automobile factories, from the United States and France, so as to further promote the development of the country's automobile and industry. It is also used to absorb veterans.

After the vigorous military reform began, the whole country once again ushered in an important spring plowing season. Hunan is a major grain-producing province in the country, known as "the two lakes are full of the world", so there is a busy scene everywhere. The dredging of waterways and the penetration of the southwest railway network, in addition to the Chengdu-Chongqing line and the Sichuan-Hankou line, which are about to be merged, have promoted the development of Hunan to be guaranteed. Traders from the south to the north can easily reach Sichuan, Guangdong, Jiangxi, Guizhou, Guangxi, Yunnan and Hubei. The construction of the Southwest Railway network since 1912, the large rear area away from the war, and the unique resources have injected abundant vitality into the area.

Each province in the southwest has its own advantages, Hubei, Chongqing and Sichuan rely on steel, industry, salt and developed handicrafts, tungsten and coal in Jiangxi, tobacco and sugar in Guizhou, rubber and camphor in Guangxi, grain, copper and zinc in Yunnan, and the million-ton Shuicheng Iron and Steel Plant under construction. In addition to the traditional industries of grain, tung oil, tea, coal and mining, Hunan also has abundant water resources, and Zhuzhou, which is not far away, is a three-acid and two-alkali chemical base invested by the central government, especially after the arrival of a large number of German chemical experts after the Rhineland Plan, which has promoted the progress of chemical technology and also led Changsha to build many small private chemical factories, most of which are soap, alcohol, paint, dyeing and other industries.

Ba Yuzao rode his bicycle to the factory. The Yunhua Aircraft Factory named after him is located at the foot of Yuelu Mountain on the outskirts of Changsha, just 40 kilometers from the central chemical industrial zone. The southwest transportation network can bring a variety of materials and technologies, Changsha is also the country's earliest treaty port, the idea is progressive, and several universities are nearby. Not to mention the fact that the number of workers skyrocketed after the Southwest Five-Year Industrial Plan of 1912. It is also one of the first areas to implement free education and literacy cram schools, and its industrial base is not much worse than that of Hanyang and Shanghai, making it one of the most suitable areas for private enterprises.

When he first came here to build a factory, he received strong support from the Hunan Provincial Government, including Tan Yanmin, and the Air Force, who not only sold the wasteland at the foot of Yuelu Mountain at a low price, but also reported the location of the Changsha Airport selected by the Air Force to Nanjing for several kilometers, so that the factory could use the Air Force airfield for flight tests when the funds were insufficient in the early stage of the business.

Nowadays, industrialists like to buy cars to get around when they get rich. Ba Yuzao also took advantage of the European war and the sharp increase in air force orders to make a small profit, but he insisted on riding a bicycle to work. It's not that he's reluctant to spend money, it's that the factory is just getting started. Although there is government support, the government will not help you pay for it, at most it is more convenient to take out a loan, and he must save everywhere.

What's more, when he resigned from the Chongqing Aircraft Factory, the largest and most advanced in the country. It also caused a lot of family conflicts, the parents were angry and complained, and even the old classmate Wang Zhu couldn't figure it out, so they asked Wu Qingdu, the general manager of the group, to keep it, and it once reached the ears of the vice president. Many people think that he is stiff wings, forgetting his righteousness, and is ready to play against Chongqing. On the contrary, Yang Qiu personally wrote a letter to support him, and privately took out his pocket to ask Lei Meng to send 50,000 yuan of entrepreneurial funds. This touched him very much, and he secretly determined to run a good factory and make the best aircraft in the world.

But it is not easy to fulfill this dream.

"Yunhua. You're finally here. Hurry, hurry. Before the person arrived at the door, Zhou Houkun's voice came from afar. Mr. Zhou had just returned from the United States in the middle of last year, when Mr. Yang promised to let dozens of international students, including him, who had not finished their studies, stay for a few more years. His return also caused three aircraft factories in Chongqing, Henan, and Fengtian to rush invitations.

It's no wonder that he was the first graduate in American history to graduate with a master's degree in aeronautical engineering and worked as an engineer at Curtis Aircraft during the European War. In 1916, he also won the American Aero Club Award. It is another top talent of Chinese aviation after Ba Yuzao and Wang Zhu. After Yang Qiu's visit to the United States, he went to study fluid mechanics and mechanical manufacturing, so before returning to China, Boeing, Curtis, and even Fokker waved olive branches to him, especially Curtis, who offered a high salary of $1,000 a week to retain him.

In order to give the motherland wings to take off, he and the stranded students finally insisted on returning to China.

He originally planned to go to Chongqing, which is now the most developed aviation industry in China. Or even the technologically leading regions of the world's aviation industry. It not only manufactured world-renowned aircraft such as Sparrow, Haidongqing, and Dapeng, but also began to be known as Feng Ru and Wang Zhu, Chinese designers, and dozens of famous foreign aviation experts such as Sikorsky. Moreover, Chongqing also took the lead in building wind tunnels and static test laboratories in the country, but when he heard that Ba Yuzao opened his own aircraft factory and was in urgent need of technicians, he came to start a business with him.

This is a choice that has surprised the aviation industry across the country and even the world, but Zhou Houkun enjoyed it, trotting all the way into the factory, not noticing that a convoy was approaching here in the distance.

Since both of them were excellent students studying in the United States, the idea of accepting American-style industrial construction was relatively heavy, so the factory was subdivided into many areas. Including final assembly, engine, spare parts and design, experiment, life and so on. Of course, compared with Chongqing's fist products, their main business is to help Chongqing produce spare parts, and there are also a small number of assembly processing, and even a lot of mechanical equipment parts business that has nothing to do with aviation.

This incident also made the two very anxious, because industry is a strange thing. No matter how much investment, no matter how much government support, no matter how good the equipment is, if there is no own products and core technology, it cannot be regarded as a real enterprise, and sooner or later it will be merged or closed down by others.

In fact, according to the level of the two, it is not difficult to design an aircraft of this level similar to Sparrow and Haidongqing, as long as they work hard to surpass it, it is not impossible, but they do not want to take the road that their predecessors have walked, so they have been subsidizing research and development funds in the way of making money through processing, and the cumulative technology is waiting for the arrival of a soaring skyrocket.

When the two hurried to the experimental area, two of their own 9-cylinder star engines had been hoisted on an iron frame, around which workers and technicians were installing various test instruments. Among them, there are not only teachers who are invited at a high price, but also young workers who have just completed their studies, as well as international students who have returned from overseas and domestic university graduates, and it is Feitian's dream that attracts them and brings them together.

The star engine is no longer considered high-tech. In 17 years, Chongqing took the lead in manufacturing the first 9-cylinder 300 horsepower air-cooled star engine in China, and by the end of 18 years, it had reached 350 horsepower and entered the experimental installation stage. Technically speaking, whether it is Hanyang's V-type water cooling or Chongqing's star air cooling, the power has reached or even exceeded the domestic level, but there are still many gaps in durability, maintenance and manufacturing technology. Moreover, the latter will take time to accumulate, depending on the country's basic industrial capacity, material metallurgical technology, and the level of workers.

The 350 horsepower star air-cooled engine is enough to meet the current aircraft use abroad. But it wasn't enough for the two, and their goal was to build a 550 horsepower engine, because they didn't want to build planks and canvas!

"I modified the cylinders and pistons. With the double-layer sealing ring produced by Germany, the oil transfer is changed to a straight pipe to expand the area of the heat sink. Increase the exhaust volume. In Zhou Houkun's chatter, the engine experiment began. After the worker turned the handle, the one on the left roared first. It was bearable outside, but the test area was a semi-sealed building, and when the engine spewed black smoke and screamed, several people couldn't help but cover their ears. Ba Yuzao didn't seem to hear the noise, and looked down at each meter. From the speed to the exhaust volume, to the fuel consumption, etc., they all looked very carefully, and several testers next to him took out paper and pens to record the changes of the instrument quickly, and reported the numbers to be typed by the calculator.

"440 horsepower." After a few numbers were quickly synthesized. The calculator immediately shouted excitedly. But it didn't take long for the two cylinders on the left side to spew flames and black smoke, and then the revs dropped rapidly, and the engine stalled a moment later.

A hot cylinder stall is the worst, which means it is loaded onto an airplane. Now airplanes can only glide and fly. The poor performance made everyone sigh, especially Ba Yuzao was even more distressed to death, you must know that the market price of such an engine is at least 4,000 yuan. And if you want to develop a good engine, you have to experiment at least dozens of times from design to finalization, which shows how powerful it is to burn money. Just as he was secretly calculating whether the funds were enough to support the finalization of the new engine, a voice suddenly sounded from behind: "There should be a problem with heat dissipation." ”

"How do you know it's heat dissipation. Maybe the vice-president, the vice president! ”

Zhou Houkun was also about to say that it might be that the sealing ring was not sealed enough, and when he turned his head to refute, he saw Yang Qiu walking in with Miao Luo and Tan Yanmin and other officials at some point, and the factory security guards were still frowning at him from a distance, which meant "We really can't stop and can't run away."

In the final analysis, aviation technology before World War II was to fight for engines, and whoever had a good engine would have a greater advantage, so Yang Qiu paid special attention to engine technology. From the Navy's boilers and steam turbines to large diesel engines, the Army's gasoline engines and diesel engines, as well as the Air Force's liquid and air-cooled engines, many of which were directly related to engines in the original Rhineland Plan. He didn't actually know about engines, just because he had been in the Volkswagen factory for a few years in his previous life, and he knew how to behave when the engine failed, and now this situation is very similar to overheating and stalling.

Ba Yuzao and the staff around him were taken aback, and many of them even rubbed their eyes excitedly, they didn't look at Yang Qiu but cast most of their eyes on Zhou Houkun, as if they wanted him to be sure.

When Yang Qiu visited the United States in 16, Zhou Houkun had seen Yang Qiu and participated in the launching ceremony of the Navy's Anhai-class battleship together, how could he see the wrong person. However, Yang Qiu was generous, and deliberately frowned and said: "I came to see the use of entrepreneurial funds, and it seems to be pretty good now." ”

The 50,000 entrepreneurial funds supported by Yang Qiu that year helped a lot, and the aircraft factory also made a lot of money by taking advantage of the opportunity in the last year of the European war, but Zhou Houkun actively promoted the research of new technologies after becoming the chief designer, and Ba Yuzao also supported the accumulation of technology first, so the money was consumed like flowing water during this time, and at least 4,000 thousand were burned just now. So when he spoke, he was not confident enough to speak, and said: "Thank you Vice President for your support, but we are ...... now Haha Governor Tan, look what has become of them. Don't worry, I'm just kidding. It's better to spend money on technology than on the nouveau riche who are thinking about buying a car and land when they get rich. Yang Qiu smiled, pointed to the engine and said to Zhou Houkun: "What are you still doing in a daze, let's see if I guess accurately." ”

A relaxed remark made everyone laugh, and they took the engine apart and checked it.

"The internal burn was severe, and it was indeed overheating, but there was also a problem with the cylinder seal type. Vice President, how do you see that? After Zhou Houkun carefully checked, he suddenly remembered that Yang Qiu was not learning machinery, and couldn't help but ask curiously.

"When I went to Chongqing in my early years, I happened to see Feng Ru and their experiments, which was also like this, so I wrote it down." After Yang Qiu finished speaking, he asked: "Why don't you join forces with Chongqing to build a new engine?" It's the most expensive thing to eat. ”

Yang Qiu is right, Hanyang and Chongqing alone invest more than 100,000 yuan in scientific research in internal combustion engines every year. Therefore, the aviation industry is definitely a money-burning industry, and even in the United States, most of it depends on the sponsorship of wealthy businessmen. If it were not for the stimulus of orders from the European war, the world aviation industry would not be where it is today.

Zhou Houkun and Ba Yuzao glanced at each other, they didn't know that this research was very expensive, but the two of them gritted their teeth and suddenly glanced at the staff next to them. Walking to the left, under the surprised gaze of Yang Qiu and others, the big curtain was slowly opened from left to right.

When everyone thought that it was all an anti-ash curtain, even Yang Qiu widened his eyes and took a breath.

In front of him, the silver light sparkled...... To be continued) rq!!