After receiving the order, the two escort airships immediately broke away from the formation, turned to fly to the top of a hillside not far away, this combat support type is usually equipped with a 37 gun, four 12.7 mm machine guns, and also carries two 250 kg and 10 50 kg bombs, anyway, just for show, just to look good, the two airships threw all the bombs down at the same time, and almost in the blink of an eye, the entire hillside was completely engulfed by the flames of the explosion.

"See, how does this thing work?" Yang Feng said proudly to Alexandra.

"You sold it to the Germans?" Her Majesty the Empress turned her head and asked with a gloomy face, she knew very well what this meant, these two airships took off in Beijing at the same time as them, and they have flown more than 500 kilometers so far, and the destination of this trip is Shanghai, and they will not land anywhere on the way, which means that this kind of airship can fly at least 1,000 kilometers, that is to say, if you bomb back and forth, there is no pressure to take off from Germany to bomb London.

"It's just a means of transport, just like cars, trains, and other things, and they can't be considered weapons at all, and since they're not weapons, then naturally they don't have to comply with the neutrality law." Yang Feng said with a smile.

Alexandra glared at him hatefully.

"Don't be angry, how could I sell this thing to the Germans with our feelings, besides, that helium is so expensive, and it can't be equipped casually, I just built a royal airship for William." Yang Feng hugged her from behind, and said while playing with her chest: "However, you must know that this kind of hard airship was originally an invention of Count Zeppelin. If he made the same imitation of the airship I sold and filled it with cheap hydrogen, it would have nothing to do with me. ”

"Okay. So should you give me one too? Alexandra said with a smile on her face.

"Of course, Royal Aircraft Manufacturing can build any airship they need for any customer in any country, of course, civilian." Yang Feng said with a smile.

Now I wish the European powers were all equipped with airships on a large scale, and then they would use this thing to throw bombs at each other, and the Germans could bomb London, and the British could bomb Berlin. There are contacts before it is called business.

Of course, this business is mainly Chinalco.

His Majesty the Emperor of China's royal airship, apparently very much to the Empress of Russia, arrived in Shanghai shortly after the two arrived together. On behalf of the Russian government, the Russian minister in Beijing signed an agreement with the Royal Aircraft Company to entrust the company with the construction of two large airships for the Russian royal family, which were named Nicholas I and Empress Alexandra.

Since the royal families of Germany and Russia have bought this expensive super toy. The emperors and kings of other countries were naturally not far behind. Although it was in wartime, it was not suitable for this kind of luxury to show off wealth, but the British royal family still ordered one for Edward VII, and as for His Royal Highness Crown Prince Victor, he also ordered one at his own expense, as the fourth largest shareholder of Imperial Oil, the fool has made a lot of money over the years.

Next it's like Italy, Spain. The Netherlands, the Ottoman Empire, and other major European royal families have placed orders with the Royal Aircraft Company. Even like some super-rich people have begun to purchase this expensive helium airship, although the Empire level is a little bigger, but some small ones are still worth buying, just when the countries gradually set off an airship boom, an air transport company with large helium airship as a means of transport was established in Beijing, called Panda Air, not only to carry out regular routes in China, but also to open up intercontinental shipping.

Of course, this is only a preliminary idea, after all, there is basically no need for intercontinental air transport at this time, Europe is in full swing, how can anyone be bored to shuttle through Eurasia by airship, and a large number of supporting facilities are also needed, as for the transpacific transportation, which belongs to China's domestic shipping business.

The Germans did not show the slightest dissatisfaction with Yang Feng's behavior of selling airships in the world, of course, William also knew that he was not qualified to express his dissatisfaction with Yang Feng, and even if Britain and Russia got large airships, what could they do, did they have a Zeppelin-level professional airship manufacturing company?

During the Russian Empress's visit to China, the first naval battle since the beginning of the war took place on the European battlefield, but not between the two main players, at this time the British and German navies were accumulating forces in their respective military ports on both sides of the North Sea, preparing for the ultimate showdown, but because the progress on land was smooth and there was no shortage of supplies, William was reluctant to let his sweethearts and souls go to sea for the time being.

The Strait of Otranto, the connecting passage between the Adriatic Sea and the Ionian Sea, this strait is about to become the battlefield of the first perfect battleship duel in the history of warfare.

Now the Adriatic Sea has become the most important supply route for the Allied bloc, and all kinds of supplies from China to Kuwait are transported to Smyrna by the Guò railway and the newly opened highway plus the Baghdad railway, where they are loaded onto the Ottoman Empire's own merchant ships, including of course a large number of merchant ships leased from China, and then transported to Durrës, an important port of the Ottoman Empire on the Adriatic Sea.

This was the domestic trade of the Ottoman Empire, and no matter what was transported, even if they knew that these ships were loaded with machine guns or even artillery, the British and French navies could only stare dryly, and they could not find any reason to intercept a merchant ship from a neutral country transporting supplies to their own ports. But when the constant flow of supplies was unloaded at the port of Durrës, it was divided into two routes, and those that did not violate the Neutrality Act were loaded directly into the port and loaded onto Austro-Hungarian merchant ships for Trieste, and then transported by rail to wherever they were needed. As for the arms and ammunition, which were not easy to transport openly, they were transported by road to the garrison barracks on the Ottoman border, which was their public destination, and of course when they arrived at these barracks, it was up to them to receive the Austro-Hungarian troops on the opposite side, who had just occupied Serbia.

However, because this area is mountainous, not only is it difficult to transport, but also the remnants of Serbian guerrillas are still very active, and Austria-Hungary and Germany have strong military production capacity, so there are very few land-based transportation, most of them are transported through the Adriatic Sea, especially those chemical raw materials, grain, steel, copper, and even machinery and equipment, automobiles, and medicines that are vital to the war are being delivered to Germany and Austria in this way.

For Britain and France, there was no reason to intercept the Ottoman merchant ships, and the Ottoman navy at this time was not easy to bully, after the war, under the pretext of dealing with the tension in the Mediterranean, Hamid II got two battleships from China by way of lend-lease, and the Illinois, which was originally captured from the United States, was also sold to him cheaply by Yang Feng. Although this battleship is still far from a perfect battleship after refit, it can already be called a quasi-perfect battleship, so that the size of the Ottoman Navy has been expanded to five battleships, and the other two in Sweden can be delivered immediately, and Hamid II's strength can already be said to be strong in the Mediterranean.

What's more, there was a dragon standing behind him.

Therefore, it is impossible to block this transport channel in this section of the Ottoman Empire without sufficient reasons, and the only way is to enter the Adriatic Sea, block the Austro-Hungarian ports with the fleet, and directly close the gates, so that the Austro-Hungarian Navy must be dealt with.

Four Combined Forces-class battleships designed by Sweden's Young Shipyard specifically for the Austro-Hungarian Navy, two built in Sweden and two assembled in Trieste with Swedish-made main components, of course, these four Combined Force classes are not the same class as the original historical Combined Forces class. With a full load displacement of more than 25,000 tons, the main gun reached the maximum caliber of the current perfect battleship, fourteen inches, forty-five times the diameter, three triple turrets, equipped with a primary version of the centralized fire control system, which is basically the Yang Feng pirate now used by the British, and the armor is so thick that it seems outrageous at present.

This battleship is actually a simple enlargement of the Hongwu-class battle cruiser, including the power configuration and structural layout are the same, but the Hongwu-class battle cruiser has a full load displacement of only 17,000 tons, and the 8,000 tons of weight it has increased are all used in armor except for the guns and the size of the larger one.

Of course, such a price is to sacrifice speed, the maximum speed of this battleship is only twenty-nine knots, and the Hongwu class speed of thirty-five knots is not comparable, but it is enough to protect the Adriatic Sea, in the eighty kilometers wide Otranto Strait, it is the fifty knots of the Littoral Combat Ship can be used?

The Ottoman Empire and Italy's territorial sea line alone is almost halfway there, and the remaining space left for the British and French fleets to fight is only forty kilometers wide. And whether it is Yang Feng, William or even Archduke Ferdinand himself, the requirements for the Austro-Hungarian Navy in wartime are only to let them hold this strait and ensure that the transportation line is unblocked.

In Yang Feng's opinion, it is pure nonsense for this battleship to study what speed, range, seaworthiness and the like, it is enough to have a dozen or twenty energy-saving for them to drive from Trieste, they only need two things, one is the powerful enough artillery, and the other is the armor that is so thick that no one can open it. (To be continued......)