"You brat, are you starting to get carried away? You actually have the idea of rebuilding the Old Summer Palace. Now that you have a little money, you don't know where Bei is!"
On the signal tower at Kunitudong Military Port, Xiang Ying braved the strong sea wind and used a telescope to look at the warships in the distance on the sea for a cruise test!
The newly delivered warship from the Szczecin Shipyard in Germany has not yet been named, and everything is being debugged with technical parameters!
This is the third version of the modified Zhiyuan-class battleship. The Zhiyuan, which initially moved to Europe and Asia, is the initial mothership of this series of battleships. This is the first generation.
The initial displacement of the Zhiyuan was only 3,000 tons, which was not enough to qualify as a giant ship. What made it dazzling was just its excellent design, which was better than those pseudo-ironclad ships with wooden ships covered with iron armor.
The victory in several naval battles actually took advantage of the excellent design. But now the secret of the Zhiyuan has been revealed, and the design concept and even many parameters have been measured or directly deduced by the great powers.
The European maritime powers are currently desperately building Zhiyuan-class warships. Just like Xiao Letian's previous life, countries around the world regard the dreadnought as a watershed of the times.
The navy has finally entered the stage of an arms race. This is a very cruel Cold War. A large amount of resources and wealth between countries are consumed in the construction of steel behemoths.
The 5,000-ton Zhiyuan II series can no longer satisfy the appetites of Britain and Germany. Chinese intelligence has confirmed that Britain is designing and building a 7,000-ton warship!
He had no choice but to continue to modify the design drawings. The Zhiyuan series had already been pushed to the third generation on the drawings, which was the finished ship that Xiang Ying saw in front of him!
Germany has built a total of two 7,500-ton steel behemoths. One remains in Europe, and the other across the ocean just arrived at Kunigami Military Port last month.
Entering the dry dock, scraping the bottom of the ship, repairing the power system, and overhauling the fort... People who have never been exposed to this kind of steel city simply cannot understand how powerful the national power is to support such a warship.
People say that a battleship is a floating country. This is not wrong at all. There are thousands of fully armed battleships with officers and soldiers, which is equivalent to the level of a small town.
Not to mention fighting, just the living system of a thousand people eating, drinking and sleeping is a very complicated project.
After a month of maintenance, the warship began its first test voyage in Asia. How could Xiang Ying, the soul of the navy, not be present at this moment?
All tests went very smoothly. The huge battleship drew a beautiful arc on the blue sea. The power output was very stable, fully demonstrating Germany's industrial standards!
A series of tests were perfect, and Xiang Ying finally breathed a sigh of relief. "After all, it is an experimental ship, and the price is still much more expensive... Just one ship will cost us 4.5 million silver dollars!"
Lin Zhen said carelessly at the side, "Four and a half million dollars will be spent on a powerful weapon of the country. This money cannot be saved! It is best to turn all the French big-nosed compensation into our warships. With sea power in hand, the wealth will be gone." It won’t fall!”
But Fatty Jin shook his head like a rattle, "Don't! That's not how the accounts are calculated. Building warships is a sum of money, and raising warships requires spending money every year!"
"This is the construction cost of four and a half million taels of silver. The training expenses, maintenance expenses, and accessories expenses for the next three years will also have to be this amount!"
"The life of the main gun is short. After 200 rounds, you need to consider replacing the barrel. After 250 rounds, the rifling will be worn away. Replacing a barrel will cost hundreds of thousands..."
"You don't have a lot of money. The report for applying for shooting training is all written in random order. How can you ask for twenty rounds of live ammunition in a month?"
Lin Zhen was not happy when he heard this: "Hey... I am the gunnery commander, and I have the final say on how to fire the cannon. How can soldiers fight without training? Why don't we fight if we are afraid of spending money?"
"You can't even shoot twenty rounds of live ammunition a month. What did the head of state say? The more you sweat in peacetime, the less you bleed during war. Now you are reluctant to spend even a little money? The Navy shouldn't let you have this little money. Take care of it..."
"Hey...what are you talking about? Our gun barrels still need to be imported from Germany, and the latest boring machines have not been debugged yet. Even if we can produce gun barrels in the future, they will only be secondary guns!"
"Cannon barrels above 120 caliber still have to be imported from Germany... But how much does Germany produce? Don't they keep it for themselves?"
"When you fight a war, you have to consider your strategic material reserves when you fight a war! You can't just think about your own enjoyment, that's not how life is lived!"
On the signal tower, Jin Sanshun and Lin Zhen started bickering, and Xiang Ying didn't bother to talk to them. They knew that they were still good friends after the quarrel, and no one would be really angry.
But his mind had already drifted to the north, to Emperor Tongzhi, who was incompatible with him!
Xiang Ying is an official in the inner circle of the Chinese people. The level of intelligence he can obtain is the same as that of the Four Heavenly Kings. Therefore, he knows very well what is happening in the capital during these times.
"Tongzhi ZTE" is the most ferocious slogan shouted by the capital recently. The sudden strength of the financial market suddenly triggered a consumer investment boom across the capital. Zai Chun was completely lost in it.
Of course Xiang Ying, the senior brother, has no responsibility or obligation to remind his junior brother. He is too lazy to talk nonsense to Xiaohunjun. He sees Zai Chun wandering on the edge of the cliff but does not remind him.
"With such a small amount of money, you still think you have revived the Qing Dynasty? Your prosperous times are nothing more than financial blood pumping, which has made the already poor people even poorer!"
"The financial market can only mobilize wealth. It cannot create any wealth itself. Wealth is created by physical objects. Without the real economy to keep up, everything you do is imaginary!"
"When great powers compete, in the end they compete for productivity. How much food, cloth, steel, etc. you can produce can be converted into physical objects used by the people. This is called wealth!"
"I'm afraid you will never understand how much wealth the master wants to build the navy. It's all calculated in hundreds of millions!"
"You are just there to be beautiful by yourself, and you still want to rebuild the Old Summer Palace? Do you know how many people are thinking about you in the dark now? Haha, I am just one of you!"
"Grasshopper after autumn, let me see how many days you can jump around!"
At this moment, there was a sound of footsteps outside the signal tower, and the adjutant sent a report on the completion of the training. Xiang Ying ordered the warship to return, and today's mission came to an end for the time being.
Jin Sanshun and Lin Zhen stopped arguing and followed Xiang Ying down the stairs. On the way, Fatty Jin looked around and said in a low voice, "Hey... Brother, please remind me that the Logistics Department has been here a few days ago." Suddenly, a false account of three thousand Mauser rifles appeared from our navy's accounts..."
