460 Third Fleet

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According to this plan, from the date of the start of the Yangtze River-class light cruiser, by 1915, the navy will build an ocean-going fleet dominated by 16 battleships, 4 heavy cruisers and 20 light cruisers, as well as 60 destroyers, 30 submarines, and 12 ocean-going supply ships.

At the same time, Li Mo also once again put forward a proposal to the General Staff Department on reforming the three armed forces, put forward the idea of forming a third fleet, that is, the home fleet, and for the first time put forward the overall strategy and idea that the army must keep the enemy out of the country, that is, "fighting a decisive battle outside the borders."

One stone stirs up a thousand waves

There has always been a great deal of controversy in the navy about whether the local fleet is needed, and Long Guozhang is not in favor of forming a third fleet, he is willing to strengthen the current first and second fleets, from the perspective of geographical environment, they are stationed in Hawaii and Guam respectively, and the two fleets covering the southeast and southwest of the theater are like two big pincers, which can well guard the main passage in and out of China.

However, Chen Ping agreed with Li Mo's suggestion, after all, a complete blockade of the sea could not be done under the technical ability at the moment, once the two fleets were negligent and the enemy broke through the first island chain, then the mainland coast would suffer heavy damage, and at the same time, the doorstep was not completely safe, the German and American fleets stationed in Japan were always a threat, and he also believed that the home fleet was not a waste of resources, but a good complement to the two fleets.

Li Mo's idea is very simple, that is, let the home fleet take over the defense, so that the two oceanic fleets can be completely empty, cultivate and guide the navy to actively attack to replace the defense, and at the same time strengthen the strategy and operational concept of "decisive battle abroad", so after some detailed argumentation, the Admiralty agreed to form the Third Fleet, and at the same time transferred the existing four Jinghai-class and ten destroyers back, supplemented by two Duke-class battleships, and built the skeleton first.

However, in the post of commander of the fleet, several bigwigs of the navy and the general staff were unified, unexpected, chose one of the young captains of the capital ships, and captured Dong Fei in Dutch Guinea.

Whether it is ability or qualifications, Dong Fei is not a good candidate, but why did he become the commander of the home fleet? However, some people seem to understand a little, because Dong Fei has a good relationship with the guy who also has the word Fei in his name, but now he is refrigerated and can't even see the figure

The formation of the Third Fleet, the Home Fleet, was still a single fleet, but it took over all the sea areas from Kamchatka, Vladivostok, Korea, and Arthur to Taiwan, and the South Gulf close to the mainland, thus completely freeing up the hands and feet of the First and Second Fleets.

At the same time, Li Mo's idea of "fighting a decisive battle abroad" has also won the approval of many young officers, but the big problem here is supply, and a large number of overseas bases are needed to support the decisive battle abroad, otherwise it is too risky to rely on sea transportation alone.

At a time when the three armed forces were studying and discussing the idea of "fighting a decisive battle abroad," in order to save as much money as possible and start to use it for the construction of key equipment, the Admiralty gritted its teeth and decided for the first time, promising to replace the six Duke-class ships in a one-to-one manner after the battleships were launched one after another, and this time they would not even keep the reserves, but completely eliminated them. ※※※※※ I ※ I ※ ※

After the post of commander of the Third Fleet and the Zhoushan Islands as the headquarters, the Huludao Shipyard, which had already been prepared, cut the first steel plate used in the Beijing class, and officially joined this huge arms race on behalf of China.

For this reason, the National Security Bureau, the State Intelligence Administration, and the National Guard took over the security work of the two factories for the first time.

In order to strengthen their technical capabilities, Li Mo suggested to the General Staff that 3,000 skilled technicians should be mobilized from the three factories in the Ryukyus, Dalian and Huludao to provide support, and the ship design institute began to strengthen the technical guidance of the two factories, and the navy also sent special personnel to supervise the quality.

However, the capital ships still didn't worry about letting them build, so they were mainly responsible for the six Yangtze River-class light cruisers and destroyers in the back.

As for the submarines being placed in Hawaii and Guam, although it is not cost-effective to build warships in the two places because of resources and materials, the tonnage of submarines is not large after all, and this can also ensure that the shipyards in the two places will not have nothing to do.

As for the six Qinshan-class integrated oil-water supply ships with a full load displacement of 30,000 tons and a payload of 16,000 tons, and the four 20,000-ton Taihu-class quick-ammunition support ships, which were started at the same time as the Beijing class, they will all be handed over to Taiwan's shipyards, which have experience in building large ro-ro ships and cruise ships, and they will be an important supplement to the thinking and strategy of "fighting a decisive battle abroad."

Until this moment, everyone understands why Li Mo developed the shipbuilding industry so frantically ten years ago, and now it seems that it is really forward-looking, otherwise even if there is a strong technology, it will not be able to transform it into a finished product in a short time.

The addition of the Southern Shipyard suddenly made the tense Northern Dockyard vacant, which also freed up the super battleship program six months later.

A 10-year plan allowed the huge funds of 420 million yuan to be in the hands of Emperor Li Da for less than half a year, and then they were robbed by the three armed forces, of which the navy accounted for the majority of 300 million, and the army also received 80 million yuan for the construction of four armored divisions and four infantry divisions

You must know that even if the star engine has been developed, it is only 200 blue coins per unit, and if you remove the engine, whether it is a falcon or a hummingbird, most of the other things on it are wood and canvas, and only 300 blue coins are more, which is still calculated as labor costs.

Any weapon, as long as it is mass-produced, the unit price will drop a lot, even if it can't be reduced, the total price is only 500 blue coins for an aircraft, and 40 million is enough to build 80,000 aircraft, so this distribution method immediately caused dissatisfaction among the navy and army.

However, Li Mo insisted on this distribution plan despite public opinion, because he knew very well that the training of pilots was too expensive, and according to his ten-year plan, by 1915, the air force must train at least 10,000 qualified pilots.

If it is placed in the future generations, it will definitely be ridiculed, but now it is very simple to fly an airplane, so it is not nonsense, what is needed is just time, not to mention the key is that this fee also includes the training and procurement funds of the first generation of CV, but this is still a secret, so Li Mo bypassed the navy and hid the money in the air force.

In these years, the boundaries between the three armed forces are still very strict, so this confusion is very strong, and I don't even understand it internally, let alone the outside world.

Later, when everyone saw that the emperor had spoken, they had no choice but to accept this plan, but in this way, the huge amount of money was spent, and Li Mo really felt why the first war was going to be fought, because for the two major alliances, either there was a war, or everyone went bankrupt.

Because he prepared 400 million yuan, he didn't even have enough equipment funds, not to mention that compared with the purchase of equipment, the funds required for logistics and personnel training were huge, so Emperor Li just finished spending the money and began to worry about the next money.

On April 1, the Senate and the House of Representatives approved the military plan at the same time.

On April 3, when Li Enfu signed the plan, a report with a large amount of data was quietly put on the desk of the editor-in-chief of Huadai, which tampered with so much that Li Mo blushed a little, just take the Beijing-class battleship that had just started, the displacement was reduced to 20,000 tons, not only was it nearly 7,000 tons less, but the speed was reduced to 20 knots, and the endurance was also reduced by half. and the purchase of 100,000 Makqin machine guns and cannons.

The next day, when the Huahui Daily put the armament plan in the newspaper, it caused an uproar*.

Although there are many people who applaud the country because the stronger the army, the more the country's security can be guaranteed, but some people believe that such a large armament program will affect the economy and increase the burden on the people, but this voice is not strong, mainly because with the rapid development of the past 10 years, the domestic economic construction has become more and more perfect, and it already has a certain strength.

But this report is dizzy in the eyes of others, especially the four countries of Britain, Germany, the United States and Russia, their eyes are straight, when will it be the turn of the Chinese in the European military competition to intervene?

In particular, the statement of 3,000 airships and 500,000 machine guns and cannons is extremely dumbfounded, how many people are in the total number of Chinese Army? A machine gun for five people? Twenty people for a cannon?

Is this what it's about? Conquer the world?

Compared with the army, the navy's twelve battleship plan is extremely eye-catching, the first uproar is Britain and Germany, but they are no longer repulsive, and they have no intention of caring about what Li Mo wants to do, because both countries have begun to exert force, first Britain in the three Bellerophon-class has not yet been completed, three Invincible-class battlecruisers are also in a state of secrecy, and the parliament passed the 1907 Navy Act, announcing the plan to build three St. Vincent-class battleships, these three are also the same as the Beijing class, It was claimed that the L5 would be equipped, and work would start immediately the next day.

Britain's reaction caught Germany off guard, but Tirpitz and Wilhelm II were inspired by the success of Limer's naval rise to have a good competition with Britain, so they also submitted a naval bill to Parliament, although it has not yet been passed, but the five Caesar-class battleships have been handed over to the design department, and to Limer's surprise, according to intelligence, the Caesar-class actually copied the turret layout of the Jilin-class, but the displacement has been increased.

The whole of Europe has been disrupted by the military expansion plans of Britain, Germany and China, and the United States and Russia have not messed up with Li Mo's big deals, but burned them

There is no doubt that Russia has no need to have a sea race with China, losing Vladivostok and Eastern Siberia, Russia has lost the possibility of intervening in the Pacific Ocean, not to mention the domestic chaos has not changed so far, Nicholas II's repeated dissolution of the State Duma has completely angered some conservatives, so that they have also joined the tide of people seeking to overthrow the tsarist rule, but in the case of domestic instability, the Chinese Army's 100,000 machine gun cannon plan, which is obviously nonsense, Nicholas II actually believed it, He even demanded that Russia immediately begin to expand its army as well, striving for a total of 2 million troops within 10 years.

However, the problem was that Russia did not have enough military capacity, and coupled with domestic resistance, the plan looked bumpy from the beginning.

But the United States, which has just been hit by the Chinese Navy's head-on blow, is different, the United States was originally inferior to China in battleships, and now the other side has thrown out a plan of 12 ships, doesn't this mean that even if the Panama Canal is built, it will not be able to compete? So President Fairbanks is planning how to show the world the power of the United States, and at the same time urging Congress to pass the Navy construction budget.

On April 20, the U.S. Congress passed a budget to allow the Navy to build four additional Delaware-class battleships, but also asked the Navy to learn from China to eliminate at least four old battleships to save money.

The U.S. Navy had no doubt about this, and immediately eliminated three old Indiana-class and one Iowa-class (1805 version), but the problem was that the gap in American technology was too great, and it was not ready to build four battleships at all, and then it could only copy the shape of the Jilin-class, enlarge the South Carolina-class hull to 22,000 tons, and also equipped with ten L45/305 mm naval guns, but they also encountered the most troubled power. The battleship, which had started three years earlier of the latter class, had to be dragged to the slipway with a high speed of 19 knots and a short leg with a range of only 6,000 nautical miles.

Hurting on the rattan chair, Li Mo was both happy and nervous in the face of so much news.

Glad that the Americans had finally joined in, the nervous thing was that he was taking the country into a maelstrom, a tide of history that even he could not predict.

When his thoughts began to diverge in the sun, the arrival of Chen Ping and Duan Fei broke all the silence.

"Your Majesty, the U.S. government and navy are going to organize a round-the-world voyage."

Li Mo straightened up and smiled slightly, he was not surprised at all by this news, although this voyage was proposed by Roosevelt in history, but it is not strange that the Great White Fleet appears again at this moment, because this is a good way to let China and other countries around the world see the muscles of the United States.