Chapter 466 Request to set sail

@@@@In the conference room of the Prime Minister's Office, Li Enfu put the information just sent from Germany on the table and said with a smile, "This William II is so interesting. What do you mean by him?"

"What's the point?" Tang Shaoyi, who just came back from Europe, smiled and said, "You haven't been to Europe recently. It's almost a mess there. Germany kept trying to build ships with Britain. Britain probably also saw a threat. Recently, it began to repair its relationship with France, but France fell behind in building battleships, and because of the pressure on land began to surge, it desperately to please Russia. When I came back, I heard that France had promised to help Russia build two. News of 100,000 rifles and military assistance.

"200,000." Zhao Long's eyes were straight, and he curled his lips and said, "Is the Tsar still quite rich? How good would it be to redeem it from us? Save the pressure of the warehouse!"

"Hehe, the tsar is not poor." Tang Shaoyi smiled and said, "I heard when I was in Germany that the Russian royal family is said to be the second richest royal family in the world. It should have accumulated more than 1,500 tons of gold over hundreds of years, and I heard that there are still a large number of diamonds and jewelry. According to the current market value, there should be 2 to 2.5 billion blue coins anyway. Between."

Tang Shaoyi's words silenced the conference room. Everyone had seen the world, but when they heard that Nicholas II had 1,500 tons of gold in his hand, they were all dumbfounded!

Xinhua has been robbed and searched for so many years. A few months ago, it just established a thousand tons of gold reserves, but it's better. There are 1,500 private individuals alone, more than the whole country!

It's really envious and jealous!

"Do you say that our emperor has money? Or is Nicholas II rich?" After breaking his fingers, Long Guozhang suddenly thought of a problem.

"It's hard to say." Chen Ping touched the beard, squinted his eyes and said with a smile, "I guess that our emperor should also have two or three hundred tons of gold in his hand. If we add the antique jewelry left by the Qing Dynasty, I think it should not be bad."

"Yes, Dunyan, you are the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Doesn't the emperor publish the property list to you every once in a while? Disclosure? Disclosure? Long Guozhang did not give up and was entangled with Liang Dunyan, the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

Liang Dunyan waved his hand with a wry smile. He knew Li Mo's private wealth figures and also knew that after Li Enfu exchanged all the gold in his collection in one go, in the past ten years, Emperor Li had recollected more than 500 tons of reserves by relying on the three major gold mines not long ago, but the royal property was also top secret. So he shook his head and said he didn't know.

"Stop, don't guess! Look at you like this. I thought you were in a bandit's nest!" Li Enfu laughed and scolded, "Nikolai II is rich, but he doesn't have the ambition of the emperor. If he learns the emperor and spends all his money on national construction, even if it is his own factory, Russia will not take its own design and order with France and the United States."

"That's right, how can Nicholas II compare with the emperor? That's what I asked, thinking that if we can get this money back, how many battleships can be modified!" Long Guozhang can correct his mistakes.

" Stop!" Li Enfu quickly blocked the topic of getting farther and farther away: "The emperor has dragged the sick body to Huludao for your battleship, so don't give me a tongue all day long, and then hear the word you build a ship. Don't blame me for letting people to coax you out."

"All right." Long Guozhang nodded and smiled. The four planned super battleships were finally about to kick off. At this time, he did not dare to offend the Prime Minister. Although the money was self-funded, the account still had to go to the Ministry of Finance. He quickly coughed: "Let's continue to talk about why William II supported us!"

Long Guozhang, who turned his face faster than turning over the book, caused a burst of laughter from everyone. Speaker Rong Kui shook his head with a smile, and then said, "As I said, William II should have been scared by the British ship-building counterattack and wanted to find an ally."

"Allies? No way!" Zhao Long frowned: "Before, the emperor provided a new battleship and a telegram, so he signed a secret contract. How could his attitude change all of a sudden?"

"What's impossible?" Chen Ping agreed with Rong Yu's words and said, "I'm not scared clearly, but Germany looked down on us before because I didn't feel pressure, but now Britain has tried its best to deal with it. It must be a lie to say that it's not to worry!"

"Germany is not a fool. I guess they should also smell gunpowder smoke, so they are the happiest when Australia has a problem. If they can instigate us to fight with Britain again, it will not only contain Australia, but also Britain can't afford to build a battleship if it can make a second Boer!"

"Yuanshou is right. The German emperor must have ulterior motives, trying to instigate us and sell personal feelings by the way. I guess the United States and France are eager for us to have another fight with Britain!" After saying that, Zhao Long raised his eyebrows and said with a bad smile, "Lao Long, your navy can fight again."

"What the hell, there is no battleship. Is this what it looks like to fight?" Long Guozhang spat. Although he was eager to fight with the British navy again, the British were not stupid. From the fact that they did not transfer warships from the Far East Fleet, but mobilized several cruisers in China, it showed that Britain did not want to fight, otherwise they would have sent battleships earlier.

"All right." Li Enfu waved his hand, interrupted everyone's discussion, and said to Tang Shaoyi, "Shaochuan, if you want to continue to put pressure on Australia and Britain, you must clearly tell them that we don't want to fight or interfere in Australia's autonomy, but the rights of Chinese in Australia must be guaranteed!"

"Yes."

"Lao Long, although you don't have a chance to fight, you still have to be careful. In addition, is your escort fleet ready?"

"Prime Minister, don't worry." Long Guozhang licked his lips, raised his wrist to look at his watch, and smiled, "That bunch of rabbits have probably set out!" --

Long Guozhang is right. In the Truk base, two brand-new light cruisers are slowly anchoring, followed by four defense-class destroyers, and the Kunlunshan-class No. 2 ship Tianshan, which has just completed the global voyage and returned to the base.

The Truk base is located in the Truk Islands in the Greater Xia Province of the New China Empire (Mikronesia and the Marshall Islands). It is the largest island in the archipelago. The name originated in Malay and means 'mounta rising into the sky'.

The island presents a triangle, with an atoll with a diameter of more than 30 kilometers in the middle. There are six waterways on the lagoon for large ships to enter and exit, which is an ideal natural sea berth.

In the center of the lagoon, there are twelve volcanic islands towering out of the sea from the sea like cliffs. These islands have a minimum of 300 meters and a maximum of 500 meters, guarding the entire lagoon and waterway.

From Truk to the east are Gilbert and Marshall Islands, to the south are New Guinea and Solomon Islands, to the west are Guam, Ryukyu and Luzon, and to the north is the Ogasawara Islands. The geographical location is very important.

Historically, Japan once occupied this place, and also became the location of Japan's joint fleet headquarters, and it is known as the "Gibraltar" of the East.

In such a precious land, Emperor Li will not give up after he gets the whole of Micronesia. Although it is not like the enemy around Japan, if you unfold the chart, you will find that Luzon, Guam, Truc, Wick Island, Nauru and Hawaii, if you connect them into a line, then a southwest-facing one will be formed. The huge dam in the Pacific Ocean blocked all the floods and beasts from the dam.

Although there is no force that can threaten Xinhua's control over the Pacific Ocean, the United States has always been a great threat. As long as these places are held, no matter what happens in the future, the southwest Pacific Ocean has been surrounded by Xinhua's palm.

So after controlling here, Li Mo immediately used it as one of the most important naval bases. With its back to Guam, the two places almost became the main military ports of the Nanyang Fleet.

The natural environment has forged Truk's reputation, but any fortress will be broken, so Li Mo has been strengthening the construction here and striving to build it into a sinking southwest Pacific aircraft carrier.

After several years of construction, the port of Truc is no less than the Guam base hundreds of nautical miles away. Not only the islands that towered out of the sea are equipped with a large number of heavy shore guns, but also an air base has been built on the island, with ten reconnaissance airships and more than 20 seaplanes. In addition, two five have been excavated. The 10,000-ton dry dock, and the first floating dock built was also sent here.

In addition to these defense facilities on the ground, Truk Island was almost hollowed out by the Construction Corps. A large number of underground fortifications and then warehouses were all over the island. These areas with a large amount of crude oil and ammunition were almost wrapped in dozens of meters of thick cement, and a submarine was built for the first time in the deep-water area of the lagoon. At the base, the four gray sharks belonging to the Second Fleet are usually trained here and between Guam.

The soldiers in the base were all standing on the dock, with envy in the two brand-new light cruisers full of barreles that were preheating the boiler and steam turbines.

Jiang Haoran and Meng Dong looked even more excited. Unexpectedly, it was only been a year since they were promoted from a destroyer to light cruiser captains. They took two Yangtze River-class ships to the Truk Sea Trial only two months ago, and they received a combat mission.

Patrol and protect the waters off Northwest Australia, and intercept all naval ships trying to approach!

Any simple and clear also makes the two of them feel a faint pressure. Although the Australian navy is not afraid, it is a British territory. Does this mean that it is possible to fight with the British navy again?

When they were against the British Far East Fleet, the two were just destroyer captains, but now.

"It's time for the UK to know that Xinhua is different from before!" Standing in the bridge of the Yangtze River and looking at the sister ship Yellow River beside him, Jiang Haoran took a deep breath: "Notify the base that the 21st Patrol Fleet is ready and ask for sailing."

(to be continued)