"Didn't you say that you still have to prepare for 10 to 15 years? Why is it fighting now? ”

"Didn't you say that Japan has always wanted to be my lackey of the Ming Dynasty? Why did you collude with Yingyi to set us up? ”

"Brother Zhuge Ten, Zhuge Fifty-one, have you figured it out?"

"Old man Yu, how much of our financial savings are left? Can it cope with a long war? ”

In the office of Prime Minister Zuo's Mansion, Zheng Guozhong, the prime minister, looked a little messy. Although he has already made up his mind to fight Japan as a dog, Japan is Japan, and Great Britain is Great Britain. Fighting a war with the former is nothing more than a question of how much to win? Moreover, Japan's national strength is limited, the level of industrialization is extremely low, and its resources are quite expensive, so it cannot support a long-term war at all.

But the war with Great Britain is different, this is a world war with unpredictable outcome and defeat! And now that the economy of the Ming Dynasty is sluggish, the finances of the imperial court have been in deficit for two consecutive years, is this going to borrow money to fight? But what level of opponent is Great Britain? The sun never sets, O empire! And Britain also has a bunch of Western allies, all of whom are very powerful. Fighting with them will definitely be protracted, and it will not be certain for ten or eight years. If the war is not over, the Ming finances will go bankrupt first!

Therefore, according to Zheng Guozhong's thoughts, the war with Britain must be fully prepared, and the old foundation of at least hundreds of millions of silver yuan must be saved financially, right? And the British must have to save money, too!

But now it's a fight? There was also a sinister situation in which the British and the Japanese colluded with each other...... And Zhuge Weijiu, the old guy retired again, and replaced the old man Yu on stage, okay?

"Prime Minister, Xia Guan feels that this naval conflict is a provocation and temptation by Yingyi against our Ming Dynasty, and he doesn't really want to fight a full-scale war. And judging from the results of the current engagement, the Yingyi were not prepared at all, and their monarchy was exaggerated, with shortcomings such as weak defense of the main battery, insufficient number of secondary guns, slow rate of fire and insufficient accuracy of the main guns. As for the more old warships such as the Indomitable class, the combat effectiveness is not worth mentioning. ”

Of course, the Admiralty is aware of the problems of the British Royal Navy in terms of equipment, although the Sovereign class is a good ship, but there are problems such as unreasonable firepower allocation and weak main gun defense, and it is a particularly strong target ship on the battlefield.

Of course, there are similar problems at the Hongwu Emperor level...... Although the 305 mm main gun of the Hongwu Emperor class has a shield, an electric loader, and the rate of fire can reach the level of rapid-fire guns, there are still problems such as too high sensitivity to armor-piercing charges, too few main guns, and low observation and fire control levels of the main guns.

Therefore, neither the Ming Navy nor the British Royal Navy are now ready for war, and there is a need to design and build the next generation of 20,000-ton warships.

In fact, here in the Ming Dynasty, the design work of the Yongli Emperor-class battleships and the Wuwang-class armored cruisers has been in full swing.

Among them, the standard displacement of the Yongli Emperor-class will exceed 20,000 tons, and the standard displacement of the Wuwang-class armored cruisers will also reach 15,000 tons. With such a huge hull, these two levels of battleship can adopt the main gun layout of the piggyback turret, and will be able to install at least eight 305 mm or 210 mm caliber cannons!

In addition, the design demonstration of the 10,000-ton Grand Tour has also begun, and the design plan should be available this year or next year.

In this case, the probability of a large-scale war between the Ming and Great Britain is almost zero.

"Ziyi (Zhuge Weiyi's name) is right, according to the report received by the Navy General Staff, Yingyi's Sovereign-class main gun was destroyed not long after the start of the engagement, and the 18-inch main gun of the Unyielding class was too slow and inaccurate to deal with high-speed moving sea targets at all. As for the 6-inch secondary guns of the two ships, there are only 10 and 6 guns, which together are only equivalent to one Lushun-class ...... The only advantage of these two levels of warships is probably that they are durable, and with the 305 mm naval guns and armor-piercing shells that we currently have, I am afraid it will be difficult to sink them. So now if we fight a world war with Britain, I don't know how to fight on land, and the naval battle will probably depend on the battle to win or lose, because no one can rely on artillery to destroy the opponent's capital ships. Since neither side has the necessary ships to win, it is certainly unlikely that a big war will break out immediately. ”

Yu Quan took over the topic of the two Zhuge and said: "Lord Wang, we have no money, and Yingyi has no money." They have been hit by the economic crisis more than us, dozens of British banks in the country have fallen, and they have recently fought with Turkey, where is the spare strength to fight with us again? ”

After listening to the analysis of these people, Zheng Guozhong was finally relieved, nodded and said: "That's what I said, war, the place of life and death, the way of survival, where can you be so rash?" But don't we have an airship? Can you sink the British battleship with an airship?

Since we can't fight for a while, we still have to negotiate most of the time! If we can blow up and sink that monarch or unyielding level, then our chips will be big! ”

"Lord Wang," Zhuge said, "I have already hung up the phone to the airship headquarters...... Whether or not to dispatch the 1st Airship Brigade to Jeejang Island in Busan will be decided by HNA's Guan Zhongyin (Guan Tianpei). ”

"Where is Guan Zhongyin now?" Zheng Guozhong asked, "I haven't seen him for some days." ”

Zhuge said: "He is now at the airship base on Jeep Island in Busan. ”

......

Shadow Island.

This small island next to the port of Pusan, the Kingdom of Korea, has been the territory of the Ming Navy since the time of King Mujong, and the entire island is full of headquarters, barracks, warehouses, batteries, watchtowers, military ports, naval ship repair yards, etc., and even the home port of the Beiyang Fleet of the Ming Navy is also placed on Jueying Island.

Since the airship was there, the airship base on Jueying Island was built, and after several expansions, by the time Guan Tianpei took office as the admiral of the naval aviation, the airship base on Jueying Island was already a little large-scale.

No less than 30 large warehouses used to store rigid airships have been built, plus various warehouses, gas stations, workshops, and more than 50 large and small buildings in total. And they are all solid brick and wood structure buildings, which look much more magnificent than the airship field in the Xianmen Pass of the Dajin Kingdom.

In addition, in the four corners of the airship field, a tall castle-like high gun was built, which is a turret specially used to erect anti-aircraft guns - anti-aircraft guns, of course, they have to be placed in a high place to be useful!

Now, all the Flying Dragon III airships placed in the airship hangar have been towed to the open and flat airship take-off and landing field, and the 25 airships are tightly lined up, and the ground officers and men of the naval aviation are pushing small carts loaded with aerial bombs, machine gun bullets, hydrogen cylinders, and gasoline to the location of the airship.

Rear Admiral Guan Tianpei, Admiral of the Naval Aviation, had already boarded one of the airships, which had been loaded with hydrogen cylinders, gasoline and ammunition, and was also sitting in the seat of deputy captain.

Different from the Wyvern III boat "leased" to Daikin by Daming, the cabins of the airships in the airship base on Jeeping Island are all in the layout of combat boats, and the crew is not large, only the captain, the deputy captain and co-pilot, the first navigator and the first communications officer, the second navigator and the second communications officer, the first machine gunner and the first observer, the second machine gunner and the second observer, the first bombardier and mechanic, and the second bombardier and medical officer, a total of eight people.

The space saved, except for a small warehouse--lounge and a toilet, is all built-in bomb bays! During bombing missions, a total of 16 100-kilogram bombs or incendiary bombs could be carried in the built-in magazine.

"Chief Guan, the routine pre-takeoff inspection has been completed, and all items are in compliance with the requirements."

The captain of this airship is Lieutenant Colonel Ma Xuchen of the First Airship Brigade, who has completed his routine inspection and is reporting to Guan Tianpei while fastening his seat belt.

"Good!" Guan Tianpei nodded heavily, "Take off...... Target Shikoku Island Muroto Cape! ”