The Marine Corps has completely become the Marine Corps, and the word "Navy" has been removed.

Last time, I only lost my peacetime command power, as well as financial and personnel rights. Now, I even lost my wartime command power.

This is the Marine Corps founded by Li Xiu!

From a single regiment at the beginning to an army of hundreds of thousands now, only Li Xiu can understand the hardship and hard work involved.

At this time, Li Xiu felt like an old man whose daughter had been married away.

Since childhood, I have weeded, fertilized, and caught bugs in a pot of flowers to protect it from wind and rain.

It finally bloomed, but someone called my son-in-law took the pot away with him.

Helpless!

The situation is compelling!

Li Xiao forcibly improved the use of technology in warfare and almost eliminated the possibility of rebellion by generals.

This problem that had troubled the Chinese dynasty for thousands of years was solved by Li Xiao in just a few decades.

In the past thousand years, military logistics actually referred to food most of the time.

When two armies fight, the side that runs out of food will be quickly defeated.

The masterpiece is the Battle of Chibi led by Mr. Cao. After Yuan Shao's army was burned, Yuan Shao's army suffered a systematic collapse.

But it’s different now!

It is too difficult for the generals to rebel.

One of the reasons is the complexity and specialization of supplies!

The modern army is the product of industrialization.

Take the navy under Li Xiu as an example. It not only needs supplies of food and drinking water, but also supplies of ammunition, oil, etc.

These things are definitely not something the navy can handle.

This requires mines, smelters, refineries, gunpowder factories and thousands of industrial workers.

These...except for the oil fields in Basra, there is no way to supply them overseas.

Today's military is a large, systematic organization.

Logistics supplies are the lubricant of this large organization.

An army without supplies is like an engine that has lost its lubricating oil. It will not run for long before it breaks the cylinder.

Crete has become the Ming Dynasty's most important base in the Mediterranean, even more important than Cyprus.

It is a huge port, not to mention the truce battleships, even the entire aircraft carrier fleet can be docked without any problem.

“The first phase here has just ended, and the second phase is three kilometers away.

Three dry docks are planned to be built there. Once completed, everything from battleships, aircraft carriers to destroyers can be maintained and repaired.

Further over there is the third phase, but that will be two years later.

After the completion of the third phase, Crete will be able to dock more than 70 warships and become a proper naval home port."

Li Xiu proudly pointed to a large busy construction site!

"Yeah!" Li Xiao nodded.

In fact, Palermo in Sicily seems more suitable as a naval homeport.

But Li Xiu still established the navy's home port in the Mediterranean on the island of Crete.

The reason is simple: Crete blocks the outlet of the Aegean Sea.

If Constantinople falls, this place can ensure that the powerful Israeli navy cannot rush out from the Aegean Sea.

"That's the airport over there, and it will be completed in more than a month.

The runway follows your instructions, with a rammed foundation of large stones at the bottom, concrete in the middle, and gravel and asphalt surface on top.

The amount of work was a bit large, but it was finally completed.

It is three kilometers long and can take off and land large transport planes without any problem."

"hehe!

How did the plane fly over?

Along the way from Daming to here, only Singapore, Mumbai and Cairo are building airports.

If you expect a plane to fly over from Daming, I'm afraid it's unreliable."

“Hasn’t the sea trial of the Shaanxi aircraft carrier ended?

Let it carry five of the latest Hercules transport aircraft. In addition, Sicily is also building an airport.

If everything goes well, it should be repaired in another five or six months.

It’s just that the runway is a bit short, only two thousand meters.”

"It's better to repair three thousand meters. If this kind of thing can be fixed at once, fix it at once. Don't waste it twice."

“The two thousand meters need to be repaired, and the three thousand meters also need to be repaired.

Look, beside this runway, foundation digging has begun to build a two-thousand-meter runway.

The 2,000-meter one is for fighter jets and bombers, and the 3,000-meter one is for Hercules transport aircraft.

Everyone has his own use, it’s spacious!”

The Hercules transport aircraft Li Xiu talked about is the latest product of Changchun Aircraft Manufacturing Factory.

It has just been finalized, and only three prototypes have been produced in total.

The five planes Li Xiu mentioned probably include the production for the next two months.

This transport aircraft can be described as an epoch-making product. It has five engines.

The fuselage length reaches 21 meters and the wingspan reaches 32 meters.

The body height is five meters!

The net weight of the whole aircraft is six and a half tons, and the maximum take-off weight reaches 11 and a half tons.

The maximum cruising speed reached 300 kilometers.

The maximum range reaches 1,300 kilometers.

As a pure transport aircraft, there are no weapons mounted on it.

In fact, in terms of transportation capacity, this thing is not as practical as an airship at all.

Now the Ming army's large-scale transport airships can carry 90 tons and fly 1,500 kilometers.

But the speed of the airship is really too slow. The cruising speed of the large transport airship is only 90 kilometers.

Even at full speed, the speed is only 110 kilometers.

In terms of speed, a transport plane is three times that of an airship.

Large-scale strategic transportation is not possible, but it is still feasible to transport some emergency personnel and equipment.

Palermo is only over 900 kilometers away from Crete, which is the ideal distance for this kind of transport aircraft.

"Okay!" Li Xiao nodded. Anyway, it would be nice to build two more runways.

Planes take off and land more frequently, and in the event of an emergency, the runway on one side cannot be used, while the runway on the other side can still take off and land aircraft.

“The climate in this place in the Mediterranean is really good.

Construction can be carried out around the clock for 365 days a year. Look at the water plant, power plant, and dormitories for officers and soldiers.

There is also a lighthouse over there that can guide ships in the harbor."

Li Xiu seemed to be a top student showing off his achievements to his parents, proudly introducing the infrastructure projects on Crete.

Li Xiao looked around and saw that the roads were full of big trucks.

This thing is not used much in Russia because of road problems. But here, it comes in handy.

Truckloads of cement and yellow sand were all transported to the construction site by this thing.

There are also various construction machinery on the construction site.

Grapplers, bulldozers, forklifts, etc. are all available.

Where the building was built over there, Li Xiao also saw a tower crane seven or eight stories high!

Although it has been under construction for two years, Crete still looks like a large construction site.

There was dust everywhere, and many of the people working on the construction site were dark Egyptians.

Daming supervisor wearing a safety helmet would check the construction quality with drawings and tape measure from time to time.

Li Xiao saw that these guys also used line weights and levels.

If they encounter areas where the construction is not up to standard, they will ruthlessly order them to be demolished and rebuilt.

Usually at this time, the Egyptian foreman, who had just nodded and bowed, would use a whip with a ferocious look on his face, making the workers cry and howl.

"There are no locals here anymore. Apart from us Ming soldiers and their families, there are only these Egyptians."

"Where are the locals? Kill them all?" Li Xiao knew that there were originally indigenous people in Crete.

"No, they were all sent to Greece."

"Sent to Greece?"
To be continued...