"Didn't you say that we have to prepare for ten to fifteen years? Why are we starting a fight now?"
"Didn't you say that Japan has always wanted to be our lackey of the Ming Dynasty? Why did it collude with the British and foreigners to set a trap for us?"
"Brother Zhuge Ten, Zhuge Fifty-one, have you figured it out clearly?"
"Mr. Yu, how much financial savings do we have left? Can we cope with a long-term war?"
In the office of Prime Minister Zuo's Mansion, the Prime Minister Zheng Guozhong looked a little confused. Although he has made up his mind to beat Japan into pieces, Japan is Japan and Great Britain is Great Britain. Fighting against the former is nothing more than a matter of how much you win? Moreover, Japan's national strength is limited, its level of industrialization is extremely low, and its resources are quite scarce, so it cannot sustain a long-term war at all.
But the war with Great Britain is different. This is a worldwide war where the outcome is unpredictable! Moreover, the Ming Dynasty's economy is in recession now, and the imperial government's finances have been running deficits for two consecutive years. Is it necessary to borrow debt to fight a war? But what level of opponent is Daying? The sun never sets on the empire! Moreover, Great Britain also has a bunch of Western allies, all of whom are quite powerful. A war with them will definitely be protracted, not necessarily ten or eight years. Maybe the Ming Dynasty's finances will go bankrupt before the war is over!
Therefore, according to Zheng Guozhong's thoughts, he must be fully prepared for the war with Great Britain, and he must have at least a few hundred million silver dollars saved financially, right? And the British definitely have to save money too!
But now it's a fight? There is also a dangerous situation in which the British, foreign and Japanese pirates collude with each other... Moreover, the old guy Zhuge Weijiu has withdrawn again, and another old man Yu has come to power, okay?
"Prime Minister, I feel that this maritime conflict is a provocation and test by the British and barbarians against our Ming Dynasty, and they do not really want to fight a full-scale war. And judging from the results of the current battle, the British and barbarians are not prepared at all. Their The Sovereign class is exaggerated, and has shortcomings such as weak main battery defense, insufficient number of secondary guns, slow main gun fire rate and insufficient accuracy. As for older warships such as the Indomitable class, their combat effectiveness is not worth mentioning."
Zhuge Weiyi, the Minister of the Admiralty, certainly knew about the equipment problems of the British Royal Navy. Although the Sovereign class was a good ship, it had problems such as unreasonable firepower configuration and weak main gun defense. It was a particularly strong target ship on the battlefield. .
Of course, the Hongwu Emperor class also has similar problems... Although the 305mm main gun of the Hongwu Emperor class has a shield, an electric loader, and the rate of fire can reach the level of a rapid-fire gun, it still has armor-piercing projectiles. Problems include too high charge sensitivity, too few main guns, and low levels of sighting and fire control of the main guns.
Therefore, neither the Ming Dynasty nor the British Royal Navy are ready for war now, and both have the need to design and build the next generation of 20,000-ton warships.
In fact, in the Ming Dynasty, the design work of Yongli Emperor-class battleships and Wuwang-class armored cruisers has been carried out in full swing.
Among them, the standard displacement of the Yongli Emperor-class will exceed 20,000 tons, and the standard displacement of the Wu-Wang-class armored cruiser will also reach 15,000 tons. With such a huge hull, these two classes of warships can adopt a piggyback turret main gun layout, and can install at least eight 305 mm or 210 mm caliber cannons!
In addition, the design demonstration for the 10,000-ton cruiser has also begun, and the design plan should be available this year or next year.
In this case, the possibility of a large-scale war between Ming and Great Britain was almost zero.
"Ziyi (Zhuge Weiyi's name) is right. According to the report received by the Naval Staff, Yingyi's monarch-class main gun was destroyed not long after the battle began, while the unyielding 18-inch main gun fired The speed is too slow and the accuracy is too low, and it cannot deal with high-speed moving sea targets. As for the 6-inch secondary guns of the two ships, there are only 10 and 6, which together are only equivalent to a Lushun class... The only advantage of these two classes of warships is probably their durability. With the 305mm naval guns and armor-piercing projectiles we currently have, it would be difficult to sink them. So if we were to fight a world war with Britain, what would happen on land? I don’t know, but the naval battle will probably be decided by the battle on the side, because no one can use artillery to destroy the other’s capital ship. Since neither side has the battleships needed to win, of course a war cannot break out immediately.”
Yu Quan took over the topic from the two Zhuges and continued: "Your Majesty, we have no money, and the British and foreigners have even less money. They have been hit harder by the economic crisis than us. Dozens of domestic British banks have collapsed. Recently, If you still have to fight Turkey, how can you spare the energy to fight us again?"
After listening to the analysis of these people, Zheng Guozhong finally felt relieved and nodded: "That's right. War is a place of life and death, a way of survival. How can we be so careless? But don't we have airships? Can we use airships? Sink a British warship?
Since we can't fight for the time being, we'll probably still have to negotiate! If we can sink the Sovereign Level or the Unyielding Level, then our bargaining chip will be huge! "
"My lord," Zhuge Wenyong said, "I have already hung up the phone with the airship command...Whether to dispatch the first airship brigade of Busan Jueying Island will be decided by HNA's Guan Zhongyin (Guan Tianpei)."
"Where is Guan Zhongyin now?" Zheng Guozhong asked, "I haven't seen him for some days."
Zhuge Wenyong said: "He is now at the airship base on Jueying Island in Busan."
...
Jueying Island.
This small island next to the Busan Port of the Kingdom of Korea has been the territory of the Ming Dynasty Navy since the era of King Wu Zhong. The entire island is full of headquarters, barracks, warehouses, forts, watchtowers, military ports, naval ship repair yards, etc. Wait, even the home port of the Ming Navy’s Beiyang Fleet is located on Jueying Island.
Since the arrival of airships, an airship base has been built on Jueying Island. After several expansions, by the time Guan Tianpei took office as the naval aviation admiral, the airship base on Jueying Island was already quite large.
There are no fewer than thirty large warehouses used to store rigid airships. In addition to various warehouses, gas stations, workshops, and large and small buildings, there are more than fifty buildings in total. And they are all solid brick and wood structures, which look much more impressive than the airship field at Xianmenguan in the Kingdom of Jin.
In addition, tall castle-like anti-aircraft turrets were built at the four corners of the airship field, which are turrets specially used to erect anti-aircraft guns - anti-aircraft guns, of course, must be placed high to be useful!
Now, all the Feilong III airships placed in the airship hangar have been towed to the open and flat airship landing field. The twenty-five airships are lined up tightly together, and the naval aviation ground crew officers and soldiers are pushing forward. A small car loaded with aerial bombs, machine gun bullets, hydrogen cylinders and gasoline headed for the location of the airship.
Rear Admiral Guan Tianpei, the naval aviation admiral, had already boarded one of the airships that had been loaded with hydrogen cylinders, gasoline and ammunition, and was sitting in the deputy captain's seat.
Different from the Feilong III-type boat that Ming Dynasty "leased" to Daikin, the cabin of the airship in the Jueying Island airship base has the layout of a combat boat. There are not many crew members, only the captain, driver and deputy captain. Co-pilot, No. 1 Navigator and No. 1 Communications Officer, No. 2 Navigator and No. 2 Communications Officer, No. 1 Machine Gunner and No. 1 Observer, No. 2 Machine Gunner and No. 2 Observer, No. 1 Bombardier and Mechanic, The number two bombardier and medical officer totaled eight people.
The space saved, except for a small warehouse cum lounge and a toilet, is all built-in bomb bay! When performing bombing missions, a total of 16 100-kg bombs or incendiary bombs can be carried in the built-in magazine.
"Sir, the routine inspection before takeoff has been completed and all items are in compliance with the requirements."
The captain of this airship is Lieutenant Colonel Ma Xuchen of the First Airship Battalion. He has completed his routine inspection and is buckling his seat belt while reporting to Guan Tianpei.
"Okay!" Guan Tianpei nodded heavily, "Take off...the target is Muroto Cape, Shikoku Island!"
