Chapter 224 Sign it!

There is a drizzle in the sky, and Charles Street is empty, but the Whitehall Road at the end of the street is as usual, with an endless stream of vehicles and pedestrians. Whitehall is a street in London, England. Whitehall Street, where it is located, is the center of the British political axe. The middle part of Whitehall is occupied by military buildings, and the British Royal Navy, which commands the world's largest fleet, is also located in the middle of Whitehall.

No one can ignore Britain, and it is the Royal Navy that makes the British confident that all this, and the Royal Navy on Whitehall Road is the heart of the world's most powerful fleet.

In the conference room on the third floor of the Admiralty, there is a negotiation at this time. On the one hand, there are general officers in British Royal Navy uniforms, and on the other side, there are Chinese people in black or navy blue Chinese clothes, including an Asian officer in British navy uniforms.

"All right!"

After Major General Delena finished speaking, Zhang Hao said in a slow tone.

"Now I think we only need to agree on one thing: "Animal" and "Triumph". How much are you going to sell?"

The two-day negotiations have been very smooth. Under the introduction of General Fisher and the acquiescence of Downing Street, the officials of the Admiralty finally agreed to regard Nanjing as a "saleable object". Although Britain did not recognize the Nanjing regime, it did not prevent the arms trade between the two countries, and these arms trade even got Supported by some British political officials.

"Hmm! The cost of the Agile is 957,520 pounds, and the cost of the Triumph is 956,596 pounds!"

"Yes! Mr. Zhang, you are very well prepared!"

De Reiner nodded less and did not deny this public information. Anyone can access the relevant information as long as they want.

"So, we are going to buy these two warships for 1.3 million pounds!"

"What?"

As soon as Major General Delena heard this sentence, he immediately shouted angrily.

"Are you buying two warships at the price of one warship? These are two warships, not cruisers!"

"I don't want to deny what the General said. After Chile said the sale, it promised to pay 1.6 million pounds to Chile for the purchase of two kinds, and then Russia increased the price to 1.87 million pounds to buy two ships. In order to avoid the two ships being resold to Russia, your country bought two ships for 1.87 million pounds, didn't it? And this price is the result of the bad bidding! It's far higher than his value!"

At this time, Zhang Hao spoke more slowly. He stared at Major General Delina closely and added with the natural negotiation skills that only those who did not know him would be surprised.

"Captain Zheng, could you tell me what these two warships are?"

Zheng Zixu, who has never spoken, is a naval officer who was brought from the Royal Naval College of Greens in England at the beginning of the negotiations. He studied at the Royal Naval Academy three years ago, and a year later, he was sent to the Royal Naval Academy to specialize in naval gun manufacturing with the first place in the naval class. During his study, he was invited to participate in the whole process of the design and manufacture of the British 35-mile long-range shore gun and achieved success. Therefore, he was praised by the British scientific and technological community as one of the three masters in Asia and was also the only naval technical officer in Europe.

"General De Reiner, you should understand that these two warships are far from meeting the battleship specifications. First of all, the thickest part of his armor belt is only 7 inches, and the thinnest part is 3 inches. This armor thickness is even inferior to the armored cruiser built by Armstrong for Japan, okay! Even considering that his tonnage has reached 11,800 tons, but Mr. General, the thinnest armor of battleships with similar tonnage is also 4 inches thickest and more than 9 inches. There is no heavy armor. Is the "Agminist Class" still a warship?

When he asked the question, Zheng Ziqi was worried. When he was building a long-range shore defense gun by Armstrong, he had participated in the armor-piercing bullet test. The old armor-piercing bullet was very poor for the armor-piercing ability of nickel steel with surface hardening treatment. In as many as hundreds of tests, it failed to penetrate more than 7 inches. It is also because of this that Armstrong began to study new armor-piercing bullets. From this test, at least in the next few years, the 7-inch armor belt of the "Agile" class warship can meet the protection needs before the new cap-piercing shell is widely adopted.

"The armored cruiser is an armored cruiser. Its main gun is only four 8-inch guns, while the "Agile" class has four 10-inch guns. According to the tests of the Royal Navy, although the 10-inch gun is small and cannot effectively deal with modern warships, they can still penetrate the latest German and Russian Battleship!"

This time, De Reiner took the initiative to say the shortcomings of the agility firepower. He knew that Zheng Zixi, a widely appreciated naval gun expert, could naturally pick out this problem!

"Italian armored cruisers also use 10-inch naval guns! Isn't it?"

"There are only two on the Italian armored cruisers, but there are four on the agile class!"

"Yes! Can he still be regarded as a warship with protection and main gun caliber similar to armored cruisers? No, sir, you know better than me what a warship is, heavy armor and a powerful main gun!"

Almost from the beginning, Zheng Zixi was determined to pay attention to the main gun and armor when picking the thorns. As for the secondary gun, he would never mention the firepower of the 14 7.5-inch secondary guns of the "Agile class" is powerful, and the secondary gun can penetrate the secondary armor belt of the warship except the main armor.

As for the small caliber of the main gun, it seems to have a large impact, but in fact, the impact is not great. Since the Battle of Dadonggou, navies of various countries have adopted high-explosive bomb tactics, and the rate of fire is the key. Small caliber means higher rate of fire and higher hit rate. The powerful secondary gun and the not-effective main gun are enough to threaten all kinds of warships, even the latest warships.

"Well, even if we classify him as an armored cruiser, let's take a look at his speed again, poor 19 knots! It is one section faster than the warship, but 2.5 knots slower than the new armored cruisers. Your Excellency, compared with the warships, their firepower is weak and the armor is thin. They are far from the opponents of the warships. His only use is to deal with the armored cruisers, but they are not fast enough to catch up with the cruisers! What is the "Agile" level?

Zheng Zixi asked rhetorical questions. Before the other party could answer, he took a word by himself.

"They are garbage at all. The only difference is the garbage that can float on the water!"

Hearing this sentence, De Reiner couldn't help but be shocked. However, he still regained his composure. After today's negotiations, after the two sides reached a preliminary consensus on the sale, they maneuvered for two hours and thought about it without saying a word of nonsense, while Zheng Zixi in front of him used one fact after another to tell him a consensus reached in the Admiralty, "Agile The class is simply two expensive pieces of garbage, which even disrupted the logistics supply of the British Navy.

But even so, De Reiner's heart is still unwilling to cheaply let the Chinese get such two almost brand-new warships that have never been trained at sea.

"Well, I admit that you are talking about some facts, but don't ignore their powerful secondary gunfire. You can easily tear up any warship below a type of warship. Even the non-armor belt of the warship will be smashed to pieces..."

Major General Delena, who calmed down, finally found his strengths after being criticized by Zheng Zixi for being worthless.

"Yes! Before the agile-level secondary gun bombarded the other party, the two thin-shell ships were bombarded first!"

Zheng Zixi shrugged his shoulders helplessly, and his powerful artillery in the future, but he was whispering, but he confused the fact that even the cruiser that hit dozens of shells in Dadonggou was not directly sunk. On the contrary, the heavily armored Dingzhen ships were severely damaged by the high explosive bombs fired by the cruisers.

After a technical rebuttal, De Reiner discussed with the officers beside him, and this time he turned his eyes to Zhang Hao again.

"Give it up a little more"

De Reiner said in a tone that was not negative.

"You know, these are two brand-new warships that have only been out of the sea once so far, but only conducted hundreds of nautical miles of sea training once. If you need them, you can drive back to China immediately."

"1.3 million pounds is already very expensive! According to the general rules of various countries, as soon as the ship comes out of the factory, it is used goods!"

Zhang Hao shook it. In the past two days, he saw that his wife not only sold the manor, but also sold all the jewelry except the ring. Even so, in order to collect money, she even sold the shares of Miss Catherine's dowry of the South African gold mine and diamond mine to Miss Catherine. In this case, Only 900,000 pounds. In order to collect enough money, Miss Catherine has begun to prepare for fundraising in Europe, but can she make up 400,000 pounds?

"Stop talking, 1.5 million pounds."

This time, the helplessness and anger in his heart made De Reiner's tone tough. He knew that unless Downing Street agreed to sell them to himself or the Russians, they would not be able to sell them at all. Instead, they would devour the military expenses of the Royal Navy.

Zhang Hao, who knew that this might be the last bottom line of the British. After he hesitated for a while, he said.

"1.35 million pounds!!"

"The deal is made, but it does not include the ammunition and return of the ship!"

After talking softly with the naval officials next to him for a while, Derenner said that 344 10-inch shells and 2,100 7.5-inch shells would exceed 150,000 pounds, not to mention small shells and torpedoes. If possible, it would be better not to leave coal for these stingy Chinese.

"Deal!" Zhang Hao said without thinking, after all, his wife needs a warship.

As if he was afraid of the other party's regret, Delana ended the negotiation with one sentence.

"Let's sign the contract now!"

(to be continued)