Tune the Pacific

Chapter 497 Soar

@@@@@@In the ancient and majestic Forbidden City, wandering between the Golden Hall, looking at the golden dragons and stone lions that can be seen everywhere, Li Mo can feel this majestic and inviolable solemnity more than the people of this era.

This is the nominal largest and most luxurious property of the Xinhua royal family. Although most of the antiques here have been secretly collected, the value of this huge complex itself cannot be estimated. Therefore, in order to ensure the safety here, not only was it taken over by the Royal Guard, but also specially hired a large number of Changwei. The nurses, even Li Mo himself often come here to visit.

Can I pass on this kind of majesty that has condensed the world for thousands of years from generation to generation?

After staring at the upright plaque for a long time, Li Mo put aside his distracting thoughts and turned his head to ask Chen Ping, who came to report: "Is the Russian envoy gone? Nicholas II didn't curse, did he?

"How can you not scold your mother?" Chen Ping smiled and said, "One hundred tons of gold is only 200,000 rifles and supplies he had lost here before, plus some bullets and cotton yarn, and I have to throw them directly into the sea!"

"Oh? Didn't he want a veteran?"

"No." Chen Ping shook his head: "Lenin has brought back 30,000 veterans one after another. These people are now hard-hard supporters of the Bolsheviks. Nicholas II is also afraid that taking them all back will strengthen the rebels, so the rest of the money is also used to order ammunition supplies."

"It's a pity." Li Mo sighed. He hoped that Nicholas II would take this group of people back. Although doing so would aggravate the turmoil in Russia, it was not a good thing for Germany and Austria-Hungary. 300,000 people could pick out at least one-third of the soldiers, and they were all veterans who had fought, enough to give them twice!

After asking about Russia, Li Mo turned the topic to the most urgent matter: "Is there any connection in Britain?"

"Wu Tingfang, the ambassador to the United Kingdom, has sent a note to the British political axe about the interception of our fleet, which caused the death of two shippers, but at present, there is still no reply. However, Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire have reacted very positively, publicly saying that we should not be suppressed, and that commercial matters should be solved commercially. All countries have the right to decide to build a railway.

As soon as Chen Ping finished speaking, Li Mo smiled hoarsely: "Hehe, it's useless to be positive. They can also watch the hustle and bustle."

"That's not necessarily the same." Chen Ping said, "Germany sent two new armored cruisers to supplement the Far East Fleet. At present, it has crossed the Suez Canal. If I guess correctly, Lieutenant General Pace may be willing to go to see the fun."

"Oh." Li Mo was surprised, but not because of Pace, but because the two famous armored cruisers, Shannhorst and Gneiseno, finally came out. Before, he thought they would not come to the Far East again.

"Ha ha, if Pace really goes to the Persian Gulf, it will be troublesome for Britain. They will think that our two families have joined hands, and they will probably be anxious."

This sentence made Li Mo think of a possibility and a sudden setback: "Wonshou, you said that if Pace appeared in the Persian Gulf, would Britain go to war cruelly!"

Hearing this hypothesis, Chen Ping also suddenly changed his eyes. After thinking about it, he shook his head: "I don't think so. As long as we don't really start the Baghdad Railway, Britain may not be ruthless, because what they want to keep most at this moment is Europe. If they send more capital ships to the Far East, Europe will be greatly Weakening, not to mention that Germany has begun to build the first two of the six Bavarian-class battleships before. He may not be able to suppress Germany!"

"Oh? Has Germany started to build the Bavarian class? Six more at a time!" Li Mo rubbed his hands and suddenly became excited. In history, this is the second largest one after Queen Elizabeth in the United Kingdom, and there are two more. Now Delan is going to change the taste!

"It wasn't so fast, but after receiving the loan, Germany ordered 100,000 tons of Krump carburizing armored steel from us, and also bought ship generators, high-power motors and other things. Almost all the pieces inside were handed over to us to make, and the progress of the 15-inch naval gun jointly developed by our two countries exceeded the expected speed. At present, the first prototype gun is already under construction, and it is estimated that it can be produced by the end of next year at the latest.

"So fast!" Li Mo's eyes widened. Because of the special environment of the North Sea, the design of Germany's 15-inch gun is very strict. It not only has high speed, but also has much better accuracy and power, which has led to a lag in the development of naval guns. This is also one of the main reasons why the Bavarian class lags behind Queen Elizabeth, so he quickly asked: "You won't take out the chrome plating technology and electroslag refining, will you?"

"Your Majesty, you can rest assured that we are mainly responsible for the gun frame and high-power motor. The equipment department has already had technical reserves in these aspects, so the progress will be so fast."

"Good!" Li Mo shouted well. This 15-inch gun was used by Bismarck in later generations. The speed and accuracy are very good. If you can add electroslag to refine chrome-plated technology and use heavy armor-piercing bullets, it will be increased to 50 times the caliber. I dare not say that it is less than 16 inches, but at least it will not be much worse. Moreover, this is also for the rapid progress of the development of naval guns. Show that your second batch of fast battleships can be built faster, so that you don't have to wait for 1916, but can be completed a year earlier!

"Notify the equipment department and suppliers to fully guarantee and accelerate the production speed of German Bavarian-grade accessories from now on!" Li Mo's eyes are burning. The news of the start of the construction of six Bavarian-class battleships is absolutely blockbuster, which indicates that only five British Queen's will completely lose their advantage and will minimize Britain's determination to go to war with itself.

Now it is October 1912. The Balkan war and Europe are the core interests. As long as you don't really break the window paper, don't make too much trouble, and Britain can only swallow it.

"You go and tell Tang Shaoyi and Feng Qi that you can send a signal to Britain that we will not build the Baghdad Railway, but the premise is that we must find a way to ensure our interests in the Persian Gulf!"

"Yes."

Shortly after Chen Ping left, Li Xiufeng quickly came over and said, "Your Majesty, my godfather asked me to tell you back and forth that last month's gold has been put into storage."

Looking at him who wanted to stop talking, how could Li Mo not know the purpose of Fubo and his use of gold as an excuse, and smiled: "Are you worried about your brother?"

"Hmm." Li Xiufeng nodded without concealing it. Although he had been ready since the day his younger brother chose to be a soldier, he knew how hard this kind of suffering was until he really met him. What's more, his brother led a destroyer. If he met a large British warship, he was afraid he would suffer.

Li Mo doesn't know how to answer him. Although there are many small islands in the Strait of Hormuz, which are very suitable for high-speed small warship assault, who can predict the war? What's more, he is most worried about fuel!

According to the previous news brought by Chen Ping, although the 37 destroyer detachment happened to get fuel from the supply ship the day before departure, it still exceeded 2,000 nautical miles from Sikkim to the Strait of Hormuz, and Li Xiuyan was too anxious. The average speed along the way It has reached 23 knots.

This means that if he can't finish a few bites as soon as possible, he can't even escape!

Looking at the watch, Li Mo thought for a while: "Go to the General Staff first. There should be a result soon." -

In the bridge of Weiqing, Li Xiuyan put down the telephone and raised his head. Two small British cruisers had appeared in the distance. For him, the news of the engine cabin was not very good, because the fuel could only last for less than five hours at a maximum speed of 37 knots.

"Notify the ships, the left rudder 15 degrees, and leave the coastline."

"Group, the first team Li Mu, Meng Tian closely follows the ship, the second team Bai Qi, Tian Dan protects the right wing."

"Contact the British, we are 37 fleets of the Xinhua Empire. We need to enter the Persian Gulf for navigation training and let them make way!" Li Xiuyan quickly forgot the bad news and took the chart in front of him.

The Strait of Hormuz was once human-shaped, and the narrowest part was only 55 kilometers, among which the island reefs made up for it. If it hadn't been for the naval hydrological investigation ship to stay here for a year, and obtained British hydrological records through the Intelligence Department, I'm afraid he really didn't dare to play a high-speed assault in this area, but even so, he still had to Take the chart to rest assured.

Just as he was studying how to quickly avoid islands and reefs and choose the route, the communications officer had shouted: "Report, the British [***] ship said that they are holding exercises here and asked us to leave immediately!"

"Exercre?!" Li Xiuyan smiled at the corners of his mouth, grabbed the special short-wave fleet contact microphone, and gave a look at the first mate, who immediately let people turn on the radio.

"This is Wei Qing. I'm Li Xiuyan." Holding the microphone, Li Xiuyan's eyes still stared at the two cruisers approaching in the distance and smiled, "I just asked the British to avoid it, and it was very polite, but those guys said they wanted us to get out of here!"

"What should I do?!"

In the bridge, there was a sneer, and there was a burst of laughter in the radio horn, and then everyone heard a few loud voices.

"Chen Shaokuan, Tian Danhao is ready."

"Yang Feng, Li Muhao is ready."

"Zhang Ke, Meng Tian is ready."

"Chen Jiliang, Bai Qihao is ready."

Hearing this loud sound of preparation, they were carefully selected. On the five destroyers with an average age of only 23 years old, all the sailors felt a crisp electric current rising from their spines, and then heard a word.

"Frepe!"

With this word, the five captains who had been on standby with the phone for a long time shouted fiercely. The steam turbine, which was still low just now, suddenly let out a sharp roar, and the loud sound was like the army's horn.

Five destroyers, each of the six main guns were stuffed with shells at the same time, and there was a mechanical sound behind the four quadruple 37mm machine gun shields on the deck. Even the six double 12.7mm machine guns suddenly pulled off the bolt and pushed the bullet into the bore.

The hot steam roared into the steam turbine and hissed the blades. The newcomers of the Xinhua Empire, like a fierce horse pressed on the buttocks by a soldering iron, split the waves fiercely.

Li Xiuyan grabbed the armrest beside him, stared at the British cruiser in the distance, handed over the microphone to the large, and ordered: "Scythe line, rush over!" ......

(to be continued)