Chapter 460 The Third Fleet

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With this sentence, the construction plan of 12 battleships, the core of the 10-year shipbuilding plan of the Royal Xinhua Empire, was quietly launched. According to this plan, from the construction of the Yangtze River-class light cruiser, by 1915, the navy will build 16 battleships, 4 heavy cruisers and 20 light cruisers, to And the ocean-going fleet dominated by 60 destroyers, 30 submarines, and 12 various kinds of ocean-going supply ships.

At the same time, Li Mo also once again put forward a proposal to the General Staff to reform the three armies, put forward the idea of forming a third fleet, that is, the mainland fleet, and also put forward for the first time that the army must resist the enemy outside the country, that is, the overall strategy and idea of "foreign decisive battle".

One stone stirs up thousands of waves!

There has always been a lot of controversy in the navy about the need for a native fleet. Long Guozhang is not in favor of the formation of a third fleet. He prefers to strengthen the current first and second fleets. From the perspective of geographical environment, they are stationed in Hawaii and Guam respectively. The war zone covers two fleets in the southeast and southwest like two big pliers. It can well guard the main access to and from Xinhua.

However, Chen Ping agreed with Li Mo's suggestion. After all, it is impossible to completely block the sea under the technical ability at this moment. Once the two fleets are negligent and break through the first island chain by the enemy, the home coast will be hit hard. At the same time, the doorstep is not completely safe. The German and American fleets stationed in Japan are always A threat, and he also believes that the home fleet is not a waste of resources, but a good supplement to the two major fleets.

Li Mo's idea is very simple, which is to let the local fleet take over the defense, which can completely empty the two ocean fleets, cultivate and guide the navy to actively attack instead of defense, and at the same time strengthen the "overseas decisive battle" strategy and combat ideology. Therefore, after a detailed argument, the Navy Department agreed to form a The three fleets, at the same time, transferred back the existing four Jinghai-class and ten destroyers, supplemented by two Duke-class battleships, and built the skeleton first.

But in the position of fleet commander, the navy and the general manager were unified beyond everyone's expectations. They chose one of the youngest captains in the capital ship and captured Dong Fei of Dutch Guinea.

In terms of ability or seniority, Dong Fei is not the best candidate, but why did he become the commander of the local fleet? However, some people seem to understand, because Dong Fei and the same word Fei in that name, but now it is refrigerated, and the guy who can't even see the figure has a good relationship!

Although the formation of the Third Fleet, the mainland fleet, is still a shelf, it has taken over all the sea areas from the Kamchatka Peninsula, Vladivostok, North Korea, Lushun to Taiwan, and the South Bay line close to the mainland, making the First and Second Fleets completely free up their hands.

At the same time, Li Mo's idea of "overseas decisive battle" has also been approved by many young officers, but the biggest problem here is supply. In the decisive battle abroad, a large number of overseas bases are needed as backers, otherwise it is too risky to rely on sea transportation alone.

Just as the three armed forces studied and discussed the idea of "overseas decisive battle", in order to save as much as possible and start to use it for key equipment construction, the Admiralty gritted its teeth for the first time and decided to promise to replace six duke-class ships in a one-to-one manner after the new battleships were launched one after another, and this time it did not even save the reserve, but comprehensively The elimination of.

On March 1, 1907, when Dong Fei took over the position of commander of the Third Fleet and took the Zhoushan Islands as the headquarters, the well-prepared Huludao Shipyard cut the first steel plate used in the Yanjing class, and officially joined the huge arms race on behalf of Xinhua. Because the plan was too huge, the general commission finally decided to open the two major shipyards in Jiangnan and Guangzhou, which had just been under the construction of Jiangnan Heavy Industry Group for two years. This is also the first time that the two factories have received military orders.

To this end, the National Security Bureau, the General Administration of National Intelligence and the National Guard took over the security work of the two factories for the first time. Although the workers were a little nervous, after all, the profits of the military industry were amazing, so they also actively cooperated with the security work, and the factory also strengthened the ideological education of confidentiality.

However, even several shipyards under Jiangnan Heavy Industry used to be the manufacturing bureaus of the Qing Dynasty. They had experience in manufacturing warships, but they were still technically worse than those of the north. In order to strengthen their technical capabilities, Li Mo suggested to the general staff that 3,000 skilled technical workers were mobilized from the three factories of Ryukyu, Dalian and Huludao. And began to let the ship design institute strengthen the technical guidance of the two factories, and the navy also sent special personnel to supervise the quality.

However, the capital ships are still worried about letting them build, so they are mainly responsible for the last six Yangtze-class light cruisers and destroyers.

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

As for the six Qinshan-class comprehensive oil and water supply ships with a full load displacement of 30,000 tons and a payload of 16,000 tons, and four Taihu-class rapid ammunition support ships of 20,000 tons, which started construction at the same time as the Yanjing class, were all handed over to the Taiwan shipyard with experience in the construction of large ro-ro ships and cruise ships. They will be an "overseas decisive battle" The most important supplement to ideas and strategies.

It is not until this moment that everyone understands why Li Mo developed the shipbuilding industry so crazily ten years ago. Now it seems to be really forward-looking. Otherwise, even if there is strong technology, it can't be converted into a finished product in a short time.

The addition of the Southern Shipyard suddenly vacated the nervous Northern Dockyard, which also freed up the super battleship plan half a year later.

A ten-year plan made a huge amount of money of 620 million yuan in the hands of Emperor Li for less than half a year, but it was robbed by the three armies. Among them, the navy accounted for most of 300 million yuan, and the army also got 80 million yuan for the construction of four armored divisions and four infantry divisions. The most surprising thing is that the air force actually divided this time. It's 40 million!

You should know that even if the star engine has been developed, it is only 200 blue coins, and the engine, whether it is a falcon or a hummingbird, most of the other things on it are wood and canvas, only 300 blue coins at most, which still calculates the labor cost.

As long as the unit price of any weapon is mass-produced, it will drop a lot. Even if it cannot be reduced, the total price is only 500 blue-coin aircraft, and 40 million can build 80,000 aircraft, so this distribution method immediately aroused the dissatisfaction of the navy and army.

However, Li Mo finally tried his best to stand up and insisted on this distribution plan, because he knew very well that the training of pilots was more expensive. According to his ten-year plan, by 1915, the Air Force must train at least 10,000 qualified pilots.

If it is put in later generations, it will definitely be laughed at, but now flying a plane is still very simple, so it is not nonsense. All that needs is time. What's more, the most important thing is that this fee also includes the training and procurement funds of the first-generation CV, but this is still confidential. So Li Mo bypassed the navy and hid the money in the air force.

These days, the boundaries of the three armed forces are still very strict, so this kind of confusion is so strong that they don't even understand the inside, let alone the outside world.

In the end, when everyone saw the emperor talking, they had to accept the plan, but they spent a huge amount of money so quickly, which also made Li Mo really feel why the war was fought, because for the two major alliances, either there was a war or everyone went bankrupt.

Because he had prepared 400 million yuan, he did not even have enough equipment funds. What's more, compared with the procurement of equipment, the funds needed for logistics and personnel training were more huge, so Emperor Li began to be worried about the next money as soon as he finished spending money.

On April 1, the two houses of the New China 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 that had been castrated with a large amount of data was quietly placed on the table of the editor-in-chief of Xinhua Daily. Among them, even Li Mo blushed a little. Take the Yanjing-class battleship that has just started construction as an example, the displacement has been reduced to 20,000 tons, which is not only nearly Seven thousand tons, and the speed was reduced to 20 knots, and the endurance was reduced by half. As for the Army Armored Division and Air Force aircraft, they were not mentioned at all. Instead, they were equipped with 3,000 airships and bought 100,000 Maxim machine guns and cannons.

Next time, when Xinhua Daily put the armament plan in the newspaper, it immediately caused an uproar.

Although there are many people in China, because the stronger the army is, the more the security of the country can be guaranteed, but some people also think that such a large armament plan will affect the economy and increase the burden on the people. However, this voice is not strong, mainly because with the rapid development of the past decade, the domestic economic construction has gradually improved. I have a certain amount of strength.

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

Especially the statement of 3,000 airships and 500,000 machine gun cannons is even more dumbfounded. How many people are there in the total number of Xinhua Army? A machine gun for five people? Twenty people and one cannon?!

What are you going to do? Conquer the world!?

Compared with the army, the Navy's new 12 battleship plan is even more eye-catching. First of all, the two countries are in an uproar, but no matter how they reject it, they have no longer care about what Li Mo wants to do, because both countries have begun to exert their efforts. First, Britain has not yet completed all three Bolerophon-class ships, and three invincible-class battlecruisers. With theyang yang yangships in a state of confidentiality, the parliament passed the 1907 Naval Act, announcing the plan to build three St. Vincent-class battleships, which, like the Yanjing-class, claimed to be equipped with L50/305 mm guns, and began construction immediately the day after its approval.

Britain's quick response caught Germany off guard, but Tirpitz and William II were both inspired by Limer's success in the rise of the navy to compete with Britain, so they also submitted a new naval bill to Parliament. Although it has not been passed, five Caesar-class battleships have been handed over. When it came to the design department, to Li Mo's surprise, according to the intelligence, the new Caesar level actually copied the Jilin-level turret layout, but the displacement increased a little.

The whole of Europe has been disrupted by the military expansion plans of Britain, Germany and Xinhua, and the big deal between the United States and Russia on Li Mo is no longer chaotic, but hot!

There is no doubt that there is no need for Russia to have a sea competition with Xinhua. After losing Vladivostok and Eastern Siberia, Russia has lost the possibility of intervening in the Pacific Ocean. What's more, the domestic chaos has not changed. Nicholas II's repeated dissolution of the State Duma completely angered some conservatives and made them Joining the crowd of people seeking to overthrow the Tsar's rule, but in the unstable situation at home, the Xinhua Army's obviously nonsense 100,000 machine gun cannon plan, Nicholas II actually believed it and asked Russia to immediately start expanding the army and strive for a total of two million troops within ten years.

But the problem is that Russia does not have enough military capability, coupled with domestic boycotts, this plan has been bumpy from the beginning.

But the United States, which has just been hit and hurt by the Xinhua Navy, is different. Originally, the United States was not as good as Xinhua in the new battleships, but now the other side has thrown out a new plan for 12 ships. Doesn't this mean that even if the Panama Canal is built, it can't be countered? So while planning how to show the power of the United States to the world, President Fairbanks also urged Congress to pass a new naval budget.

On April 20, the U.S. Congress passed a budget to allow the navy to build four more Delaware-class battleships, but also required the navy to learn from Xinhua's abolition of at least four old battleships to save money.

The U.S. Navy has no doubt about this, and immediately abolished the three oldest Indiana class and one Iowa class (1805 version). But the problem is that the technical gap between the United States is too big. It is not ready to build the new four battleships at all. In the end, it can only imitate the shape of the Jilin class and make South Carolina The Laina-class hull was enlarged to 22,000 tons, and it was also equipped with ten L45/305mm naval guns, but they also encountered great power problems. In the end, the battleship of this class, which started three years earlier, had to drag the maximum speed of 19 knots, and the short legs with a range of only 6,000 nautical miles to forcibly get on the platform.

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

I'm glad that the Americans finally joined in, but what makes me nervous is that he is bringing the country into a whirlpool, a historical tide that he can't even predict.

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

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

Li Mo straightened up and smiled. He was not surprised by the news at all. Although this voyage in history was proposed by Roosevelt, it is not surprising that the White Fleet appeared again at this moment, because this is the best way for Xinhua and other countries in the world to see the muscles of the United States

(to be continued)