The reforms of Sumatra and Java and the independence of Kalimantan took place almost simultaneously, keeping the three islands, formerly part of the Dutch East Indies, on the world's news charts for a full month.

The islands of Sumatra and Java retained their original names and were temporarily militarized.

The island of Kalimantan is directly independent into the United Sultanate of Kalimantan, with its capital in Balikpapan, East Kalimantan.

For at least three years, the migration of indigenous populations will be the biggest topic of conversation between the three islands, and Australasia's only action in Sumatra and Java.

The islands of Sumatra and Java will not be developed until the indigenous population has been fully relocated, and the islands will be fully indigenous, giving Arthur the key to control the Strait of Malacca.

At the same time as Australasia annexed the Dutch East Indies, the British were not idle, and pulled a group of European brothers to start a discussion in the World League on whether Germany should join the World League, and finally obtained the consent of most countries, believing that Germany was eligible to join the World League.

This move directly angered the French. After all, in the eyes of the French, the so-called world alliance was a body for the victorious side of the First World War and the Allied powers to divide the fruits of victory, and naturally it was impossible to tolerate the participation of a defeated country like Germany and the culprit of the First World War.

What's worse is that no matter what the relationship between Britain and Germany is, the relationship between France and Germany is definitely hatred.

It was impossible for the French to come together with the Germans, which meant that Germany's entry into the World League was a completely bad thing for France, which had hindered the development of French power in Europe.

The French used a veto to reject the Germans' entry into the World League, but this was also criticized by other countries, who believed that the French had influenced the development of Europe for their own selfish interests.

I have to admit that the veto is really a good thing. Even if the British were too powerful in the World League, France could use the veto at any time to veto the diplomatic efforts of the British to do so.

But the question is, in the face of the current general trend, can the French really prevent Germany from joining the World League?

In order for Germany to have more power to counterbalance France, the British could not afford not to work hard.

In fact, as early as five years ago, the topic of Germany joining the World League was raised by a number of countries.

However, not long after the end of the war, the French still hated the Germans, and naturally rejected Germany's proposal to join the World League.

But now five years have passed, and the French hatred of Germany has diluted slightly, and the current situation in Germany is indeed miserable, and even some factions sympathetic to Germany have grown in France, proposing that Germany join the World League.

One of the more controversial points at present is that the French believe that Germany's entry into the World League will become a permanent member, which will greatly harm the interests of the French.

At the same time, joining the World Alliance will allow countries to relax restrictions on Germany, which will lead to a rapid increase in Germany's power and an increasing threat from Germany.

These two concerns about the French were resolved in a secret negotiation between Britain and France.

The British assured that Germany would not become a permanent member of the World League and that it would not be possible to ease restrictions on Germany until it had shown good performance.

After the compromise between Britain and France, Germany naturally joined the World League and became one of the ordinary members.

Although the German government is very dissatisfied with the status of ordinary members, after all, it has achieved its goal and entered the world alliance, and there will not be much opposition for the time being.

This is also what the British want to see. The Germans were dissatisfied with their identity, and the dissatisfaction was transferred to the French.

After all, it was the French who refused to make Germany a permanent member, and it was a direct conflict between France and Germany.

In this way, the internal part of the world alliance would naturally be divided between those who supported France and those who supported Germany.

The British would be able to play the role of neutrality in which they were good and laugh at the rivalry between Germany and France in the World League.

At present, Germany and France have an advantage in competing with France, which is why the British are biased towards Germany.

Regardless of the previous relationship between Britain and Germany, for the British, whoever was a threat to them was their enemy.

The French, isolated in the League of the Worlds, will naturally have their eyes set on Russia, another permanent member.

Russia is obviously a bottomless pit, and if France wants Russia to firmly support itself, it must support the Russians to win the civil war and achieve reunification.

But the civil war in Russia was not easy to win, and Soviet Russia obviously gained more popular support, and the civil war was a huge drain on Russia.

If France were to turn around and support Russia's civil war, I am afraid that the attrition of the war alone would be enough to bring France down.

The fact that it was easy to solve a competitor was the best news for the British and the reason why they invited Germany to join the world alliance.

After the French threat was resolved, it was clear that Germany, which had suffered too many restrictions, and Russia, which had suffered too many losses because of the civil war, were no match for Britain.

Australasia is far away in Oceania and will not have much influence on Europe, and the World League will become a word for the British.

The development of the situation in Europe is not important to Arthur, anyway, as long as a large-scale war does not break out, no matter how much Britain, France, Germany and Russia strive for hegemony, it will not affect Australasia's international status and influence.

Arthur's eyes are on the current development of the military industry in Australasia, to be precise, the development of aircraft carriers, which are already very important.

Australasia's existing aircraft carrier, known as the Giant-class aircraft carrier, was designed in 1916, more than nine years after now.

What's more, Australasia has also ushered in the development of jet aircraft in these nine years, and the existing aircraft carriers are no longer suitable for jets, and the navy is in urgent need of a new aircraft carrier design to equip a large number of jet aircraft.

I have to admit that jets are a huge improvement in aircraft performance. But here's the problem: jets are too fast for regular airplanes to stay on the deck of an aircraft carrier.

Even if the Giant-class aircraft carrier is equipped with a blocking device, the landing of the jet aircraft will have up to more than 30% damage, which is obviously not qualified for an aircraft carrier used in actual combat.

How to make jet aircraft land safely and effectively on aircraft carriers has become the main goal of the Navy's research and development.

In addition to this, the number of aircraft carried by the aircraft carrier, the armor and air defense capabilities, the speed of the aircraft carrier, etc., are also the targets of the new aircraft carrier.

However, after nine years of development, the Royal Shipyard still has a certain direction for the research and development of aircraft carriers, and even has certain research results.

After Arthur inquired about the progress of the aircraft carrier's development, the blueprints of the two aircraft carriers were quickly sent to Arthur's office, and they were named Hercules-class aircraft carriers and Hurricane-class aircraft carriers, respectively.

The previous Giant-class aircraft carriers had an obvious drawback, the total tonnage of the aircraft carriers was only a little more than 10,000 tons, and the navigation was not stable.

Fuel consumption and take-off and landing of aircraft can cause the aircraft carrier to shake, which will make it more difficult to land and increase the chance of loss of aircraft.

In order to solve this problem, the tonnage and volume of the Hercules-class aircraft carrier are much larger, and they have been comprehensively lengthened and widened, and a stronger and tougher special steel plate is used as the deck material.

Of course, the greater volume led to the fact that the weight of the aircraft carrier exceeded 20,000 tons, almost twice as much as the previous Giant-class aircraft carriers.

But if you just look at the increase in armor protection capabilities, the increase in tonnage is completely worth it.

At the same time, the number of aircraft that can be carried by the Hercules-class aircraft carrier has also been increased to 36, which greatly strengthens the combat capability of the aircraft carrier.

In addition to the changes in size and weight, Hercules-class aircraft carriers will also be equipped with a laser signal light on the deck to provide the best landing angle for the pilots of the aircraft through reflection.

The laser signal light is also equipped with a gyroscope mount to ensure that in any case, the landing angle of the light reflection is the most correct.

With advantages come disadvantages. It is precisely because of the huge size and weight of the Hercules-class aircraft carrier that the speed of this aircraft carrier has not been greatly improved.

Although more boilers were loaded, the speed of the Hercules-class aircraft carrier was still only about 26 knots, which can only be said to be good in terms of speed.

However, in terms of firepower, in addition to up to 36 combat aircraft of various kinds, the Hercules-class aircraft carriers are also armed with a number of CA-2-27 mm anti-aircraft guns.

This artillery is an improved version of the CA-1-37 mm cannon, which, although smaller in caliber, is an anti-aircraft weapon designed specifically for anti-aircraft combat.

With the refinement of the Royal Military Factory, the CA-2-27-mm anti-aircraft gun achieved a terrifying rate of 88 rounds per minute, and the dense network of fire became a lethal weapon for enemy aircraft.

In addition to this, there is a specially modified MA-107 Maxim heavy machine gun. The machine gun was modified to be used for strafing into the air, and the multiple barrels increased the firepower of this heavy machine gun several times, and also made the anti-aircraft firepower of the Hercules-class aircraft carrier reach its strongest.

It is no exaggeration to say that with the data on paper and the most advanced jet aircraft in Australasia, the Hercules-class aircraft carrier will definitely be the most advanced aircraft carrier in the next decade, and it will also improve Australasia's naval strength by a large margin.

If the previous Giant-class aircraft carrier was only the first generation of aircraft carriers, then the current Hercules-class aircraft carrier is the real powerful weapon that can easily handle battleships.

Of course, no matter how powerful the Hercules-class aircraft carriers are, they cannot overshadow the brilliance of the Hurricane-class aircraft carriers.

The difference between these two aircraft carrier designs can be seen from the name. Hercules-class aircraft carriers are biased towards volume and weight, that is, the so-called armor protection and firepower.

The Hurricane-class aircraft carrier is more inclined to the power and deterrence of the aircraft carrier, and the volume is not much higher than that of the Giant-class aircraft carrier, but the increase in power is extremely obvious.

The Hurricane-class aircraft carrier has a total length of 195.2 meters, a width of 23.5 meters, a draft of 6.9 meters, and is capable of carrying 22 combat aircraft.

Compared with the giant aircraft carrier, the armor protection capability of aircraft carriers of this class has not been improved much, but some anti-aircraft firepower has been strengthened to ensure the self-defense and counterattack capabilities of aircraft carriers.

The biggest improvement is in the power system, after improving the previous steam turbines, several new steam turbines have been installed, allowing the Hurricane-class aircraft carrier to reach a terrifying speed of 27.5 knots, which is infinitely close to 28 knots.

The speed of 28 knots is relatively fast compared to the most advanced battleships at present, which also gives the Hurricane-class aircraft carrier the guarantee of escape when facing any battleship.

The slightly increased length of the aircraft carrier also allows jet aircraft to take off and land more freely on Hurricane-class aircraft carriers.

It is also equipped with interception devices and auxiliary landing devices (laser signal lights), which also makes the design of Hercules-class aircraft carriers and Hurricane-class aircraft carriers more reasonable, and the deterrence of aircraft carriers is also greatly improved.

The two equally excellent battleship designs made Arthur a little difficult. One is biased towards larger, the other is faster, and it is difficult to say which design is more suitable for current naval developments.

However, both aircraft carriers have certain advantages in their design, and regardless of which aircraft carrier is chosen, Arthur can guarantee that it will be one of the most advanced aircraft carriers available.

The difficult question about the choice of aircraft carriers continued until the next day, when he was reminded by William at breakfast.

"Why do you have to choose one or the other? Wouldn't it be nice to build it? William's simple words made Arthur like a pot of empowerment, and also strengthened Arthur's determination to start building aircraft carriers quickly.

The design of both aircraft carriers will be first-class for the next 10 years, and even in 20 years it will definitely not lag behind.

This also means that if World War II goes ahead as scheduled, the aircraft carriers being built now will definitely provide a lot of help to Australasia.

Anyway, the government's finances are completely sufficient, and it is afraid of building two aircraft carriers at the same time, and it is not worried about the problem of funds at all.

In mid-November, Arthur convened a cabinet meeting and unanimously approved the construction of two new aircraft carriers, as well as the plan to build ships in Australasia for the next five years.

Understand that the decline of battleships has become inevitable, even if the battleships are still strong now, it cannot change the fact that the battleships will fall in ten or twenty years.

Instead of building battleships now, it is better to devote all your energy and funds to building aircraft carriers.

It is precisely this idea that Australasia's shipbuilding plan for the next five years is almost entirely battleships and submarines, plus a small number of other small and medium-sized warships, battleships will not be built in the future, and the existing few battleships are enough.

Between the end of 1925 and the end of 1930, Australasia built 4 aircraft carriers, 32 submarines, 11 frigates, 25 small destroyers, 15 patrol boats and 8 shore defense gunboats.

In order to cover up the public, there are four more battleships in the shipbuilding plan, but they will not be actually built.

At the same time, the four aircraft carriers will also be built in secrecy, so that the most important thing is to let countries focus on the construction of battleships.

Only when the countries have come up with the most advanced battleships, when they are arrogant, will they understand who is the future direction of development between aircraft carriers and battleships.

Today's one more, tomorrow's two more, ask for support!

(End of chapter)