When General Crook proposed to let Fang Lang send the Rio de Janeiro aircraft carrier battle group south, Fang Lang also said that only destroyers would be sent south. This can be described as a taboo in the workplace, let alone in the army.

Although General Crook said this sentence at a private party, Fang Lang's words still caused General Crook to frown slightly. But he wasn't angry, although Fang Lang was his subordinate, Fang Lang was not an ordinary subordinate.

In his opinion, Fang Lang's strength and status are qualified to raise objections to his opinions. What's more, he was never a self-righteous general, and he couldn't do anything that he couldn't listen to other people's advice.

Fang Lang, as a general with brilliant records under him, can put forward his ideas, which is also more conducive to him formulating future naval strategies and filling in his possible omissions.

Therefore, his frowning brows quickly relaxed, his face changed to a trace of solemnity, and his tone was slightly sincere:

"Oh! Are you worried that when they see our aircraft carrier fleet, they will devote more energy to the navy and pose a threat to our navy in the future? ”

Fang Lang, who noticed General Crook's frowning movements, thought that General Crook would be angry, but he didn't expect him to adjust so quickly, and couldn't help but raise General Crook's evaluation by one level again in his heart.

But from General Crook's words, Fang Lang can also see that as the Minister of the Navy, although he knows that Argentina is making some moves now, he doesn't know much about their real situation.

Even the intelligence that Argentina was scouting the British Giant-class aircraft carriers did not know. At this time, Argentina had already made it clear that it wanted to improve its military strength and intend to seize the dominance of South America.

However, there are contradictions between the navy and the army in the same way as the military personnel in China, after all, the military expenditure for a year is so much, and the price of a warship in your navy can allow the army to raise a division.

What's more, you still want to build an aircraft carrier, isn't this to drive the army crazy? Therefore, although the Argentine Navy has begun to actively seek the purchase of aircraft carriers, it is not so easy to pass in Argentina.

If the Brazilian Navy sends its own aircraft carrier battle group to the South Pacific to show off its military might at this time, the Argentine aircraft carrier plan, which should have been repeatedly verified, may be advanced.

This is not what Fang Lang wants to see, it is not that Fang Lang is afraid of the opponent's strength. He knew very well in his heart that the competition between Argentina and Brazil was, at best, a small-scale arms race.

It will not trigger a large-scale war between the two countries at all, after all, Argentina is not stupid, their initial strategy was to wait until the US-Soviet war involves Brazil and makes Brazil hurt its bones, and then start to attack.

If there had not been a war between the United States and the Soviet Union, or if Brazil had not been drawn into it, Juan Perón would never have allowed the two armies to misfire.

The normal arms race is what Fang Lang is looking forward to very much, but if this arms race is forcibly accelerated from the beginning, it is not Fang Lang's willingness.

Because of the situation at the Fangyuan shipyard, although the imitation of the Fletcher-class destroyer has been completed, the new missile destroyer has not yet come out!

At this time, if the arms race between Brazil and Argentina suddenly escalates, the equipment renewal of the Brazilian Navy may be missed by its shipyards.

Although it is very likely that the funds for the Brazilian Navy to update its equipment will still flow into the pockets of Shata, this is not what he wants.

Purchasing from Shata Company, he can at most be a middleman and earn a little difference. How can the Navy entrust Fangyuan Shipyard to independently develop and manufacture it.

Of course, he couldn't tell General Crook directly what he really thought in his heart. Fortunately, when he said this advice, he had already prepared it.

"Of course not, our navy is never afraid of any threat. If the Argentine Navy really wants to try its hand with us, I will show them why the waters of the Atlantic Ocean are so salty.

The first reason why I only let the Fletcher-class destroyers go to the South Atlantic is that we don't have a border with their maritime borders, and if we let the aircraft carrier fleet go south, the first nervous thing is not Argentina, but Uruguay.

This could push Uruguay over to Argentina's side, which is diplomatically taboo and clearly inappropriate. But a Fletcher-class destroyer has no problems at all.

Neither Uruguay nor Argentina will see it as a threat. But at the same time, the Fletcher-class destroyer can be regarded as one of the most advanced destroyers of this era.

Far from being comparable to the warships of their countries that are still stuck in the First World War, we can serve the purpose of warning the other side without leaving the international community with a provocative voice. ”

Crook was stunned by Fang Lang's words, he didn't expect that Fang Lang's perspective had jumped out of the military level and began to consider the problem from the diplomatic level, and this pattern was even higher than him.

But I have to say that Fang Lang's words are very reasonable, Brazil and Argentina have a direct border on land, but there is really no border on coastal defense, if he takes the position, because Argentina has frequent actions on land, he will send the navy to provoke the other party.

It may really have some bad effects on the international community, especially when there is a Uruguay in between.

As Fang Lang spoke, he was observing General Crook's expression, and when he saw him nodding slightly, he couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief in his heart, and continued to speak:

"The second reason is that our Brazilian economy is now in a period of rapid development because of the European Reconstruction Plan. China is also in a critical period of transformation from a traditional agricultural economy to an industrial economy.

At this important juncture, the focus of Brazil's work is to focus on economic development, not because of the provocation of a clown.

When we in Brazil take advantage of this rare opportunity to completely complete the transformation of industrialization, it will not be too late to come back and clean up Argentina.

Finally, there is another reason, which is that I feel that the current policy of the new Argentine government is simply a joke.

Like us, they were agrarian countries that had reluctantly begun their industrial transformation by taking over a large number of Nazi remnants from Germany.

Before the basic industrialization has been completed, they can't wait to expand their influence by upgrading their armament.

As everyone knows, from the very beginning when they actively embraced the remnants of the Nazis in large numbers, they had already gone to the opposite side of most countries in the world.

There is a saying in our hometown: There is much help for the righteous, but little help for the unjust.

Now everyone is too lazy to pay attention to him, and once he has to do something excessive, his good days will come to an end. ”

In Brazil, most of the soldiers are relatively pure, and many of them do not have a wide range of academic qualifications and knowledge.

After a long period of time in the army, after being promoted, he mostly used the knowledge he learned from the army to look at problems.

There is nothing wrong with looking at the problem from this perspective, but considering the problem purely from a military perspective often leads to people doing things in a relatively simple and crude way, knowing only what it is, not knowing why it is.

But when Fang Lang thought about the problem, he was different from all the soldiers Crook knew, and his overall situation and strategic vision had even surpassed his own. This shocked General Crook greatly.

You must know that the Brazilian army of this period was actually very backward, if it were not for the fact that it participated in World War II and came into contact with some of the latest strategic and tactical theories.

In the eyes of European and American countries, they are actually not much worse than African countries in the eyes of everyone now. Of course, the navy is a high-tech branch of the armed forces, and many officers still have a certain level of education and knowledge.

However, during this period, Brazil's naval officers were mainly in the Portuguese military academy, learning relevant military theories and knowledge.

However, Portugal had not participated in a large-scale war for many years, and it had long been in a backward position in the study of military theory.

In this case, it is even more conceivable what Brazil can learn from Portugal.

Nor do Brazilians realize that an army without culture is a stupid army. In the entire Brazilian army now, only Fang Lang has carried out cultural learning courses in his fleet.

Let the soldiers take part in the basics of the organization of the army in their spare time, so that even if they are retired, they can take the exam and join the Brazilian police force.

No one ever told the soldiers that they should have faith and why they were soldiers. Everyone joins the army in order to be paid to be a soldier, which is why military coups often occur in Brazil.

To sum up, the current Brazilian army is in the same situation as the Kuomintang army in the early stage of the Anti-Japanese War.

That's why General Crook was so surprised after hearing Fang Lang's words.

"So, your judgment is that Argentina is not a concern at all, and we don't have to pay too much attention to their actions at all?"

Seeing that General Crook seemed to be a little crippled by himself, Fang Lang hurriedly denied it:

"Of course not, Argentina has a lot of problems, but they are also one of the great powers in South America, and we certainly can't turn a blind eye to their small actions, which may make them mistakenly think that we are weak and can be bullied.

I mean, we just need to react to them reciprocatingly, and we don't have to show our cards to each other because of a little gesture.

Aren't they now carrying out a surge on the border? We only need to increase the number of troops slightly higher than them, and we can hold the opponent steadily.

On the naval side, we will send a Fletcher-class destroyer to the South Atlantic to assert our strength, and then we can see the movements of their navy.

If they send destroyers as well, we'll send cruisers next time, and if they send cruisers, it's not too late for us to send the carrier battle group south. ”

Hearing this, General Crook's brows furrowed again, and he said with some dissatisfaction:

"Isn't this a tactic to add fuel to? According to what you say, if we send an aircraft carrier battle group directly to their doorstep, will they have to consider the issue of allocating aircraft carriers to their navy?

If that's the case, maybe we'll be able to bring down the economy they've built up so hard in just one swoop. ”

Hearing General Crook's words, Fang Lang couldn't help frowning, what's the situation, wasn't this old boy already fooled and lame by himself just now? Why do you seem to have completely failed to listen to what you were saying now?

It seems that in his heart, he is still more inclined to directly send the aircraft carrier battle group south! After thinking for a while, Fang Lang added another cup of tea to General Crook before looking at General Crook with an inquiring face and said:

"And then? Is His Excellency the General really ready to fight Argentina? ”

This time it was General Crook's turn to hesitate, to say that he wanted to deliberately start a war with Argentina, it was absolutely impossible, Brazil, which had just experienced a world war, also wanted to have a peaceful environment, and no one wanted to ignite the war again until it was forced to do so.

At this time, he also thought of what Fang Lang had just said, Brazil was in an important period of transformation from an agricultural society to an industrial society, and at this time, he didn't want to really go to war with Argentina.

So, soon he shook his head and said:

"No, I don't really want to go to war with Argentina."

Hearing this, Fang Lang smiled slightly, and after filling up the tea in front of him, he said unhurriedly:

"Therefore, the contradiction between us and Argentina is at most a border friction. If they don't take the initiative to go to war with us, we don't actually want to take the initiative to go to war with each other. Is that right? ”

Hearing Fang Lang's question, General Crook didn't say anything, just nodded slowly. Seeing this, Fang Lang didn't care, smiled and took a sip of the teacup before saying:

"If that's the case, why would we just send the carrier battle group over and let things go in an uncontrollable direction?

It's better to follow my method and slowly drag Argentina into the quagmire of the military arms race. With their current industrial base, they simply do not have the ability to produce their own arms, and can only rely on foreign procurement.

This would greatly deplete their foreign exchange reserves and slow down their industrialization.

We are completely different, now we have the ability to produce our own Fletcher-class destroyers, and a new type of missile destroyer is about to be finalized.

If, if necessary, we can completely produce our own cruisers, or even aircraft carriers. In this case, how can they compete with us.

When the time comes, we don't need to fight, we can drag them to death. ”

At this time, General Crook finally understood Fang Lang's plan to make a tirade earlier, he wanted to take this opportunity to support his family's shipyard!

However, it has to be said that he is very reasonable, with the current industrial base of Argentina, it is not even possible to produce its own ships, let alone warships.

If you want to engage in an arms race with Brazil, you will really be dragged into the quagmire by Brazil. At that time, the foreign exchange reserves that could have been used to develop the economy were replaced by warships, tanks and rifles.

In the end, what does Argentina have to offer? Perhaps, before they are fully equipped, their country's economy has been dragged into the abyss. When the time comes, don't say that there will be a war with Brazil, and the people in the country will rebel.

In this case, wouldn't Brazil win easily? At the same time, Fangjia's shipyards and military enterprises have also received full support from the Brazilian government because of the arms race with Argentina, and have truly become Brazil's military giants.

This is a proper killing two birds with one stone! How could this young man have such a superb strategic vision.

(End of chapter)