"Ten million, another ten million yuan! Equivalent to 65 million new pounds, the Chinese Empire is really rich and has added a naval defense budget this year!"

News of the Chinese Empire's additional defense budget spread all over the world. Although the Thames and other international newspapers were unwilling to do so, they had to report it on the front page, which made the Allied countries feel jealous and vomited sour water.

At the just-concluded Allied Military Conference, facing the huge strategic threat brought by the powerful dreadnought ships of the Chinese Empire, countries had to prepare to start construction of a large number of dreadnought battleships in their respective countries to offset the threat of the powerful maritime military force of the Chinese Empire.

However, before countries could take a breath, the Chinese Empire increased its defense budget for this year, up to 10 million yuan. This money is obviously used to spend on shipbuilding funds, and it is only this year's budget. According to the completion of a main ship in as early as three years, this round of the Chinese Empire allocated at least 30 million yuan to shipbuilding budget.

According to the intelligence mastered by the British Empire 5 Intelligence Agency, this huge sum of money can build at least 10 battleships, or battleship cruisers of the same size.

This shows that after the last time the Chinese Empire built 12 fearless class ships in one go, it has launched a new round of large-scale shipbuilding operations after eight years.

The last round of large-scale shipbuilding operations has already overwhelmed Britain, the United States, Japan, Russia, France and other countries. As a result, another round has come. This is the rhythm of pushing countries to death!

Every large-scale military fund allocation by the Chinese Empire seems to have experienced a major earthquake.

Especially the British Empire, the allocation of naval shipbuilding budgets for the Chinese Empire was the most nervous and troubled.

The psychological shadow of five consecutive defeats is still lingering in the hearts of every British people for a long time.

Especially in recent years, the Chinese Empire has gradually eroded the British Empire's colonies, but the British Empire can only adopt a policy of non-resistance, which has made the British people very angry and strongly criticized the United Cabinet.

Again in the face of public concern, United Cabinet Prime Minister William had to come forward to appease the people, saying that the British Empire had already made preparations. If the Chinese Navy invaded (referring to the local area), the Royal Navy would give the other party the heaviest blow.

However, William also made money. He was worried that he had no money to build a warship. As a result, the British public opinion gave him the opportunity to defend the Imperial Chinese Navy and the joint cabinet could impose additional taxes and raise funds for shipbuilding.

Soon, the United Cabinet passed a new round of shipbuilding military budget, allocating 65 million new pounds, which was exactly 10 million yuan.

In the past, the British Empire didn't care about the resources plundered from the colonies every year and the huge income from the Yapin trade would be enough for the British Empire's navy to squander.

But now it is different. A large number of overseas colonies of the British Empire were taken away by the Chinese Empire, and Australia, which had the most abundant resources, caused a severe blow to the British Empire's economy. At the same time, the Chinese Empire seized the Golden Triangle, making it impossible for the British Empire to trade in the elegant films.

The two most profitable places are gone, and the five wars were defeated, and the economic losses were heavy. The huge compensation has squandered all the wealth accumulated by the British Empire for hundreds of years, making the British Empire poorer. The allocation of 65 million new pounds seems to be a lot, but in fact it is only equivalent to 6 million pounds twenty years ago, and the depreciation is more than ten times, thanks to the Chinese Empire.

Originally, William believed that the establishment of the Allies could effectively deter the Chinese Empire in a short period of time, so that it would not dare to attack the British Empire easily, so that the British Empire would have a chance to breathe, develop its economy well, and restore the pound to its former strong international currency.

But the new round of naval funding of the Chinese Empire completely shattered William's dream of trying to revive the British Empire's economy, and he didn't even have time to breathe.

In fact, William couldn't get the money out of 65 million new pounds, so he had to issue a new pound secretly. Invisibly, the new pound will face another round of depreciation. The British people will share the huge amount of money, which will make their original deteriorating life even worse.

Despite this, the British Empire's Navy is still not satisfied because the money is the budget for the next three years, while the 10 million yuan of the Chinese Empire is just the budget for this year. The funding gap will ultimately be reflected in the quantity and quality of the new naval warships.

Defense Secretary Cook and Maritime Secretary Fisher came to meet William.

"His Excellency Prime Minister, the information I just received has been announced, and the purpose of the defense budget of the Imperial Navy of the Chinese Empire has been announced."

Cook handed over a latest telegram to William, which said that the Chinese Navy's budget this year is used to start construction of four battleships equipped with 14-inch (356mm) main guns, as well as four battleships equipped with 14-inch main guns, as well as more than 100 ships including light cruisers, destroyers, frigates, submarines, etc.

What a wealthy person!

It's really hateful!

William's face looked envious and jealous, but his heart was cold.

Youdao was afraid of a rope when he was bitten by a snake for ten years. The British Empire was trapped by the Chinese Empire more than once. The worst thing was the fearless battleship eight years ago, blindly preparing for a competition with the Chinese Empire, and as a result, a bunch of copycat goods were created, which turned out to be scrapped iron, causing heavy losses to the British Empire.

"I wonder what conspiracy was hidden in the Chinese Empire this time?"

Seeing William's depressed look, Cook and Fisher were also very sympathetic.

"Prime Minister, no matter what conspiracy the Chinese Empire is doing, we must respond actively!"

"Yes! If there is only 65 million new pounds in the next three to five years, then let's not say that we will overwhelm the Chinese Empire, even the most basic defense ability will be lost!"

William knew what the two of them meant and sighed, "I'll do my best!"

Cook shook his head and said, "Prime Minister, now that the Allies have been established, the scale of the war will be far beyond imagination. Winning and defeat will be a success!"

This reminds William that now it is no longer a single confrontation between China and Britain, but a military confrontation between the entire Allies and the Allies, which will affect the whole world. Once defeated, the consequences will be very terrible.

After realizing this, William clenched his fists and said, "Since that's the case, let's fight to the death! I will support you at all costs. I hope you can surprise me, and the fate of the British Empire will be on you!"

"Yes!" Cook and Fisher immediately became serious and bowed deeply.

With William's approval, the Royal Navy of the British Empire quickly responded, led by Fisher, and organized the British Empire's engineers to start developing Queen Elizabeth I-class battleships to target the newly-built Type 5 battleships just announced by the Chinese Empire.

Type 5 is a model that the British Empire temporarily named without knowing the level of the newly built battleships of the Chinese Empire. For example, the Fearless Class Battleship built before the Chinese Empire was Type 3, and the Fengyun Class Battleship cruiser was Type 4.

According to the information obtained by Mike 5, the Imperial Chinese Navy will start construction of the Type 5 battleship and Type 6 battleship, with the main guns of 356 mm. Therefore, in order to confront, Fisher could only design the Queen Elizabeth I battleship with a 14.5-inch main gun.

This is because the Chinese Empire's artillery technology is ahead of the world. Since the Type 5 battleship needs to be equipped with a 356mm caliber main gun, it is almost certain that it is 50 times the diameter. In terms of artillery technology, the British Empire, because the technology of the Chinese Empire is different from the Chinese Empire, there will be various problems in building a main gun with a diameter of more than 45, which has led to Fisher having to give up the 14-inch 50-diameter main gun and change it to a 14.5-inch 45-diameter main gun, hoping to offset the diameter advantage with the caliber.

As for issues such as armor protection and speed, Fisher could only rely on his own experience to judge how thick armor the Type 5 battleship of the Imperial Navy and how powerful the steam turbine system it uses.

Finally, Fisher finalized the design drawings for the Queen Elizabeth I battleship.

The design standard displacement of the Queen Elizabeth I battleship is 28,600 tons, with a full load of 32,120 tons, and the shape is still in the shape of a pair of large slippers. The power is the latest successful Parsons v2 steam turbine developed by the British Empire, with 4-axis propulsion, 37,000 horsepower, and a theoretical speed of 21.5 knots.

Judging from the speed, it shows that the British Empire is satisfied with the recent improvements and upgrades of the Parsons steam turbine system.

In terms of military preparation, Fisher racked his brains and finally installed five double-mounted 45-diameter 14.5-inch main guns, 16-seat single-mounted 6-inch secondary guns, 2-seat 3-inch rapid-fire guns, 4-seat 3-pound guns, and 4-seat 22-inch underwater fish radium launch tubes.

This is a weird design, with five double main guns, two in front and two in the back, and one in the middle (firing boundary is limited), so that 10 main guns can be concentrated on the side of the side at the same time to fire.

In Fisher's impression, the battleships of the Chinese Empire all had four triple main guns, that is, 12. Fisher also wanted to install triple main guns for the British Empire's battleships. However, when the Mary-class battleship and Victoria-class battleships built earlier were delivered to the navy for sea trials, they found that the triple main guns had too many problems, the long-range shooting accuracy was insufficient, and the problem of mutual interference between shells was the most prominent.

Fisher thought that the Fearless Class Battleship of the Imperial Navy also had such reasons, so he was secretly happy and thought that he had discovered a fatal weakness, so he corrected it on the Queen Elizabeth I battleship in time and returned to the dual-equipment era.

Fisher fantasized about defeating the Chinese Empire's Fearless Class Battleships, so he added another cannon mount to 10 main guns.

As for the armor issue, Fisher argued with the British Navy generals for a long time, but in the end, due to financial resources, he could not install 14-inch or 15-inch armor as before, because the armor was too heavy, which would affect the speed of the battleship.

At the same time, the British Empire's battleship steel armor technology finally made breakthrough progress. The local Victor armor combined with the American Harves steel armor, Japan's Mitsubishi armor, and France's Ansemital armor, and stole some of the Krupp steel armor from the German Empire and stole some BT7 special steel information exported to Germany by the Chinese Empire ten years ago. Finally, the British Empire's steel armor technology has made a breakthrough, greatly improved its strength and can save a lot of armor weight.

In the end, the main armor belt of the Queen Elizabeth I battleship was only 4-9 inches, the deck was 1-4 inches, the turret was 10 inches, and the command tower was 11 inches.

After testing, it can withstand armor-piercing bombs fired from ten thousand meters away by Victoria-class battleships.

However, Fisher was still unsure whether he could block the armor-piercing bombs of the Chinese Empire. After all, the Chinese Empire had developed medicine technology and started using smokeless gunpowder more than ten years ago. Now I don’t know how far it has developed.

Fisher could not grasp the details of the latest battleships built by the Chinese Empire, and could only rely on speculation.

However, Li Weiguo, the emperor of the Chinese Empire, could obtain detailed data from the SHIELD design of the Queen Elizabeth I battleship designed by Fisher from SHIELD.

If Fisher knew that the battleship he had worked hard to design and dreamed of beating the battleship drawings of the Chinese Empire, they would be placed on the desk in Li Weiguo's imperial study room, they would probably die of anger and vomiting blood.

"Wei Aiqing, have you seen something?"

Li Weiguo pointed to the drawings of Queen Elizabeth I battleships and asked Wei Han, Minister of the General Administration of Ship Administration, President of the Imperial Academy of Sciences, Ministers of Scientific Research Xu Shou, Hua Hengfang and others.

Several people looked at each other, and finally Wei Han said first: "Your Majesty, I think that although the main gun of the Elizabeth I battleship has increased by half an inch, its power has increased on the surface, but in fact it should not be as good as the 356mm 50-caliber main gun developed by Liu Xue!"

Li Weiguo smiled and said, "Liu Xuezheng finally did something happy!"

In Li Weiguo's impression, eight years ago, he wanted the Fearless Class battleship to install a 343mm 50-diameter main gun, but Liu Xue only developed 330mm. Li Weiguo was actually very unhappy at that time.

However, later Li Weiguo gradually understood that when there were teachers, Chinese people had very strong learning ability and could easily learn what teachers were doing. However, when teachers had nothing to teach, Chinese people's innovation ability became a problem.

This has always been a serious problem that has plagued future generations for many years. Since the fall of the Ming Dynasty, the Chinese's innovative ability has been strangled. Hundreds of years of slave life have had a serious impact on the brain development of future generations. It takes generations or even generations to restore the prosperity of the Chinese nation in the past.

Now Li Weiguo almost forgot about this Liu Xuezheng, but unexpectedly, Liu Xuezheng was lying on firewood and tasted gall. Finally, eight years later, he successfully developed the 356mm 50-caliber main gun that the Imperial Navy most needed.

This made a great contribution. Li Weiguo remembered him from then on and would definitely reuse it in the future.

Xu Shou also pointed out: "Looking at Fisher's use of double-engine guns, it shows that they discovered the problem of mutual interference between long-range shooting of triple guns! However, we have solved this problem a long time ago, so our battleship has 4 triple-engine 12 guns, which is still two more than them, and has the advantage."

Hua Hengfang added: "There is also the layout of the opponent's artillery. It actually used five dual-mounted main guns, and there was one in the ship. In addition to the limited shooting, the biggest hidden danger of the main gun of the ship is that its ammunition depot is too close to the boiler compartment. When the war begins, our main gun concentrates firepower and attacks here, which can easily cause a death explosion to the enemy ship and blow it up to pieces!"

Li Weiguo was immediately happy. It was easy to have intelligence. Knowing yourself and your enemy would never be defeated.
Chapter completed!