After Britain started construction of seven first-class battleships in the London-class and Duncan-class, France started construction of six Dandong-class first-class battleships, and Britain and France quietly set off a naval arms race.

As one of the three European giants, after the German Navy saw the two giants of Britain and France further expand their naval power, German Navy Minister Tilbitz immediately responded to the call of German Emperor William II's grand navy plan and proposed to maintain the total tonnage of the German Navy at the level of 50% of the British Navy in the next three years, equivalent to the level of 75% of the French Navy, and strive to make the German Navy enter the top seven of the world's powerful navy.

Leading by Tirbitz, the German Admiralty proposed a plan to build five German-class battleships, with a budget of 15 million German Jinmaks.

German Emperor William II immediately approved Tirbitz's plan, and for this reason, German public opinion suddenly rose, catered to William II's self-esteem, saying that the German Navy would become the world's great navy.

However, the difficulties faced by the German Navy are not a small amount. The German Navy has had too few shipyards. Since 1892, German Emperor William II has been clamoring for the great naval plan. The German naval industry has been blocked by Britain and France for a long time, and its progress is far less than that of the Chinese Empire's naval industry. Therefore, seeing that the Chinese Navy has been able to build 20,000-ton battleships, the German Navy shipyard is still at the level of building 14,000-level.

However, Germany has not been concerned about the 20,000-ton divine bow ship of the Chinese Empire for the time being, because the German Navy is not optimistic about the shipbuilding project of the Chinese Empire. The German Navy is staring at the British Navy and the French Navy. When the British Navy and the French Navy only built about 14,000-ton battleships, the German navy industry could just keep up.

However, what made Tirbitz sad was that there were too few shipyards in Germany, and the ship platform was currently filled with construction warships. Therefore, the construction plan for the five German-class battleships was postponed until a year later before starting.

Although the German Navy delayed the construction of five German-class battleships, Tirbitz did not leave the funds in his hands idle, but instead began to expand the Royal William Shipyard and Kiel Germania Shipyard, so that it could build 20,000-ton warships. At the same time, Germany's first-class battleships can only be regarded as second-class battleships in front of other countries, so the German Navy was eager to improve its strength and speed up the development of large-caliber main guns.

At this time, except for the battleships built by the German naval industry, most of the main guns were installed with 240

The mm rapid-fire gun and 283 mm main gun, while the United Kingdom, France and China were 305 mm and 40 times extended standard equipment. The United States' main gun caliber even reached 40 times extended 13 inches, while Italy's main gun caliber is the most evil among all countries, reaching 30 times extended 17 inches (431 mm) and 32 times extended 150 mm. In terms of firepower alone, the German Navy has lagged behind.

Of course, the Germans did not know that their firepower was weak. The German naval warfare idea required the German naval tactics to take defense as offense, that is, the German navy's armor protection was very good. The purpose was to fight with the British navy, the German navy would fight with its armor advantage, take advantage of it, and run away if it could not be defeated. At this time, the German navy seemed to be still stuck in the tactical ideas of the Beiyang Navy.

Although the construction of five German-class battleships of the German Navy will be postponed for one year, this does not mean that the German Navy is weaker than the French Navy. Germany is the leader of the ally, so the German government encouraged his two allies, Italy and the Austro-Hungarian Empire to start construction of two battleships respectively. Therefore, the Allies also started construction of four first-class battleships in 1900, so Germany could achieve its goal.

If France is more nervous than Britain and Germany is more nervous than France, then Russia is actually the most nervous country. Russia's national policy and the Russian government cannot find many friends around the world and make enemies everywhere. Although Russia and France are military alliances, the French navy and the Russian navy have no intersection and are restrained by the British navy, so the Russian navy cannot expect the French navy to help.

Although the total tonnage of the Russian navy remains at the third place in the world, too many old warships occupy more than half of the tonnage. Most of the old warships can only defend near-shore, rather than battleships, they are a large number of shallow-water heavy gunboats. In particular, the Russian fleet was divided into three parts: the Black Sea Fleet and the Far East Fleet. The three fleets were thousands of miles away from each other and had no possibility of mutual support. In other words, once a naval battle broke out, Tsarist Russia could only use one-third of the fleet to fight against the enemy's swelling fleet. What's even more tragic is that the Ottoman Turkish Empire stuck to the Black Sea estuary. The Black Sea Fleet was a Neil Lake fleet and could never come out.

But the Tsarist Russian Empire was another country that was desperate for face, and I wanted to build three fleets into powerful fleets that could fight against the British Empire's navy alone. Tsarist Russia is the country with the largest number of permanent troops in the world. With the economic strength of the Tsarist Russian government, it is obvious how tight its finances are.

Originally, in order to fight against the 66th Fleet of the Imperial Navy and the latest 33rd Fleet Supplement Act, Russia has devoted all its financial resources to build the Borodino-class battleship. In combination with the previous battleships, it barely matches the main battleships of the Imperial Navy in terms of quantity. However, in terms of quality, the self-built battleships of the Tsarist Russian Navy are not as good as the current battleships of the Imperial Navy in terms of tonnage, speed and firepower.

In this case, the strategic national policy of the Tsarist Russian Empire was to protect the navy, not to defeat the Chinese Empire's navy, but to defend the Far East coast. The Tsarist Russian Empire only hoped that the navy could win a draw with the Chinese Empire, and could accept it even if it suffered a little loss. The real decisive chip of the Tsarist Russian Empire was the army, and Tsar Nicholas II held millions of troops, and he believed that he could defeat any country.

However, Nicholas II was following the old path of the Napoleon era in France, which was to build the world's strongest army and the world's strongest navy. This idea of ​​Napoleon back then made France not breathless. Even the economically developed Britain could only choose to dominate the sea and dare not dominate both sea and land. But all these lessons did not make Nicholas II give up. He kept challenging Britain, but the British repeatedly used naval power to help Turkey in the Russian-Turkey War, so that Tsarist Russia almost captured Constantinople and walked out of the Black Sea in the last Russian-Turkey War. This revenge against the Russians must avenge, but the British were at sea, and if they wanted to avenge, they could only develop the navy.

This is what Nigol II thought. He wanted Britain to defeat Russia at sea. Only in this way could Nigol II feel that he had avenged his revenge.

For an imperial country, the will of the emperor is the will of the empire. If Nicholas II wants to develop the navy, the Tsarist Russian Empire had to tighten its belt to develop naval power.

In order to compete with the British expansion of seven battleships, the Tsarist Russian Empire increased its budget of 46 million rubles, three additional Borodino-class battleships were customized. At the same time, in order to no longer be looked down upon by the Chinese Empire in the Far East, Nicholas II, who was desperate to save face, ordered the Admiralty to develop a 20,000-ton battleship St. John's class.

However, at this time, the Russian Empire had just absorbed the technology of the French Prince battleship and some of the American Letvizan, which was only able to build a 16,000-class battleship. Moreover, the first attempt to build a new foreign battleship was to be built. It can be said that the Borodino-class battleship itself has problems in all aspects and has not been completely solved. It is impossible to build a 20,000-ton battleship.

However, since Nicholas II had spoken, the Russian Navy had to do the same. However, Russian shipyards had already lined up with warships under construction, and it was impossible to build the 20,000-ton St. John's battleship, so the Russian Navy used this as an excuse to drag it down again and again, and did not come up with a design blueprint until the end of the Second Sino-Russian War.

As a North American country, the United States has built nine battleships, more than a dozen large armored cruisers, as well as a large number of light armored cruisers in just five or six years. The United States has become the fourth naval power in the world, but it has recently been overtaken by the Imperial Chinese Navy. Because the nine main battleships of the Imperial Chinese Navy are all first-class battleships above 16,000 tons. In comparison, the tonnage of the US battleships is less than that of the Chinese battleships, which has caused the US Navy to drop to fifth place.

However, as the number one overlord of the Americas, as the Chinese Empire intervened on the Panama issue, the United States' direct economic losses in the next few decades will exceed billions of dollars. Moreover, the Chinese Empire controlled the Panama Canal, which was equivalent to opening the door to the US backyard. In addition, the Chinese Empire seized Bo Do Rico Island in the previous war against Spain and had a base in the Caribbean Sea, which poses a huge threat to the United States.

Although China-US relations are still good, the US government has secretly guarded against China. Especially the United States is facing maritime security issues in both oceans, and large-scale naval construction cannot stop.

In order to prevent the United Kingdom from the Atlantic Ocean and Japan and China, the U.S. Navy decided to start construction of Maine-class battleships, and build three of them at the same level. One is deployed in the Atlantic Ocean and two are deployed in the Pacific Ocean.

There are also a batch of large armored cruisers under construction, and the US Navy has also accelerated its construction speed.

Before we knew it, a Divine Bow-class battleship of the Chinese Empire triggered a new round of naval arms race among countries around the world.

Of course, to be precise, the British Navy deliberately asked the British Parliament for money in order to make military expenditure, which triggered a chain effect and set off an arms race between the naval countries around the world.

The British government firmly refused to admit that it was the naval arms race set off by Britain. They blamed the Chinese Empire for whatever mistakes they made. The Chinese Empire government also denied this and pushed the responsibility to Tsarist Russia.

In this way, you push it to me, I push it to him, and he pushes it to you in turn. Then countries blame each other, and the arms race becomes a closed circulation system and has the momentum to further expand and upgrade.

No matter how European and American countries accuse each other of each other, they have no intention of actively reducing their armaments.

Beijing, the Imperial Study Room of the Forbidden City.

Every afternoon from 3:00 to 4:00, Wang Chenhao would stay in the imperial study room because at this time, the cabinet's General Secretary Zhang Feng would come to report some of the situation to Wang Chenhao.

The Chinese Empire was an ostensibly constitutional monarchy form of power. The General Administration became the highest state organ in the country, but in fact, the General Administration was still only responsible to the emperor.

After Zhang Feng handled the official documents submitted by the nine ministries of the five provinces every day, he would pick out some important or sensitive documents and take them to the imperial study room and hand them over to Wang Chenhao for imperial reading. These documents must be nodded or sealed by the imperial emperor Wang Chenhao before they can take effect, because officials of the nine ministries of the five provinces only recognize the emperor's jade seal and approval on some important matters.

Compared to when Wang Chenhao became emperor before, after Wang Chenhao became emperor, he only dealt with some major matters every day, and handed over the rest to the General Administration for handling, so Wang Chenhao became very relaxed and no longer as tired as before.

Of course, Wang Chenhao's political delegation does not mean that what he said is nothing. In fact, every word Wang Chenhao says now will affect the decisions of the cabinet and the parliament. Therefore, Wang Chenhao usually tries not to interfere. The cabinet and the parliament decide on their own to hope that China will realize democratic politics as soon as possible. If Wang Chenhao has to intervene, it must be that the cabinet is in chaos and has to let Wang Chenhao come to stabilize the situation. Of course, Wang Chenhao does not want to see that day come.

"Report to Your Majesty, I have received reports that a locust plague broke out in Henan and Gansu has caused disasters in the 13 counties and towns and a large number of crops have been destroyed. This is the third consecutive year and more than 200,000 people. The Congress has passed the emergency food aid bill to allocate food and pay for disaster relief."

This kind of thing is to allocate disaster relief funds. There is no need to report to Wang Chenhao one by one, or even the Ministry of Civil Affairs directly has the right to allocate funds for disaster relief. No need to pass the General Administration.

"What do you want to express? Let's hear it."

Wang Chenhao directly revealed the mechanism in Zhang Feng's words.

Zhang Feng smiled and said, "Your Majesty is wise. I will naturally not hide any thoughts from you!"

Wang Chenhao smiled and said, "Stop flattering. It will be cliché when you take a few days to take a few shots a few times a day."

"Your Majesty taught me a lesson." Zhang Feng smiled and turned to the topic.

Zhang Feng said: "I thought that in recent years, the Gansu area has been plagued by locust plagues in Henan and Gansu. Besides, Gansu has a harsh climate and barren land. Planting 100 acres of land is not as much as the grain produced by one acre of land in the Central Plains. Henan has a large population and does not have enough arable land. I thought that part of them should be moved out and opened up land on rich land in the northeast. This not only solves the pressure of the original place, but also makes a good livelihood for these people. At the same time, the Northeast is a region to be developed by the empire. The Fushun Industrial Base in Anshan is under construction and is also in urgent need of population."

Wang Chenhao nodded and said, "Good idea! It can be implemented!"

"Your Majesty's clarity!" Zhang Feng continued: "Recently, the six British Australian colonies seem to plan to establish the Australian Federation and seek independence and autonomy. Your Majesty, you are not saying that Australia is rich in capital and when the empire's economy is highly developed in the future, Australia will be able to provide the empire with continuous supply of funds. Moreover, Your Majesty has set up a sodium ore collection base in Australia. You also said that Ran Jin will have diamond and gold mines second only to South Africa, and high-quality iron ore with huge reserves. So I thought I could take the opportunity to support Australian independence on the grounds of aiding the local Australians. Then the empire found a way to control Australia. If the empire really cannot occupy it by force. After all, Australia is sparsely populated, and it is enough to dispatch several infantry divisions. "Wang Chenhao laughed and said, "That's right! Australia is unwilling to occupy it as soon as possible!"

Wang Chenhao paused and then sighed: "But, we cannot resort to force for the time being. Australia is a British colony after all, and the huge British naval power is not something we can fight against now."

Zhang Feng insisted: "But now is a good opportunity. By the time the UK suppresses the Australian independence movement, there may not be such a good opportunity in the future."

Wang Chenhao smiled slightly. Zhang Feng's judgment was correct. After passing this village, there would be no such store.

But the problem is that Wang Chenhao knew that Britain would not attack Australia by force, and Australia would eventually achieve autonomy this time, but it was still within the framework of the Commonwealth, and it was nominally the territory of Britain.

"British is busy with the British-British war, so Britain will not use force against Australia, but will instead allow six Australian colonies to form a federation."

Zhang Feng nodded and said, "According to the manner of Yinggu people towards Canada, there is indeed such a possibility. But the minister still believes that only by truly holding Australia in the hands of the empire can we ensure that Australia will become a supply place for the empire in the future."

Wang Chenhao agreed: "That's right! That's the reason! But now we still have to rely on Britain's support. If there is no international support from Britain, we may not face only Russia. After all, France is Russia's military alliance, and France has the obligation to send troops. Germany also wants to have a greater foothold in the Far East and invade us. At the same time, Germany also wants to lead Russia's disaster to China, so that Germany's pressure in Europe will be reduced. Therefore, not only can we not have conflicts with Britain now, but we have to find a way to form a military alliance with Britain. Only by forming a military alliance with Britain can France be cautious and dare not participate in the war."

In fact, Wang Chenhao judged it based on the Russo-Japanese War in history. It was precisely because Britain promised to form a military alliance with Japan for two years that France forced France to choose neutrality in the Russo-Japanese War. If Japan did not form a military alliance with Britain at that time, the consequences would be very terrible. According to the Russian-French military alliance treaty, once Tsarist Russia officially declared war on a certain country, France, as an ally, would have to participate in the war. The Sino-Russian War a few years ago was just a local war. Tsarist Russia never announced a war against China, so France did not participate at that time. But now as China and Russia relations deteriorated more and more, Tsarist Russia has been patient. The next war between China and Russia will definitely be a full-scale war. Russia will definitely declare war at that time. If China does not pull Britain into the alliance, France will intervene in the war.

Wang Chenhao had been thinking about the key benefits for a long time. He couldn't help but feel worried until he figured out this point after the end of the Sino-Russian War. At that time, Russia did not declare war and France did not participate in the war. It was Wang Chenhao's luck. But next time, he might not have this luck, and Wang Chenhao had to consider it comprehensively.

Zhang Feng thought about it and felt that what Wang Chenhao said was very reasonable, but if he gave up the opportunity to embezzle Australia, he would be a little unwilling to accept it.

Wang Chenhao saw his thoughts, so he smiled and said, "We can also obtain Australia without force."

Zhang Feng looked at Wang Chenhao in surprise. He knew that Wang Chenhao always had a way. In Zhang Feng's heart, Wang Chenhao existed like a god, which was also one of the main reasons why Zhang Feng was loyal to Wang Chenhao.

"Please make it clear to you."

Wang Chenhao said: "Have you heard of the word peaceful evolution?"

Zhang Feng shook his head, naturally he didn't know what this "peaceful evolution" meant.

Wang Chenhao then said: "If we form an alliance with the British, we can avoid letting France intervene in the war between China and Russia, and after forming an alliance, we can immigrate to Australia in a large number of legitimate manner.

There are six Australian colonies, four of which are sparsely populated and have a population of only a few hundred thousand. Most of the resources we need are concentrated in these four colonies. As long as we immigrate to these colonies on the grounds of mining, when the immigrants exceed half of the total local population, the right to speak is ours."

“Is this peaceful evolution?”

Zhang Feng suddenly realized and looked at Wang Chenhao in surprise, and he couldn't calm down for a long time.

Wang Chenhao nodded, Zhang Feng savored it carefully, and then bowed his hand and said, "Your Majesty is really a god! I'm a teacher!"

Wang Chenhao said modestly: "It's not a god or a man, this is just a solution.

It is important to know that large-scale immigration to Australia is not an easy task.”

Zhang Feng smiled and said, "That's not simple? It's covered by Weichen!"

Wang Chenhao said, "Tell me!"

Zhang Feng then smiled shyly and said, "Australia is so big, and the west is almost unmanned. If large-scale immigration is rejected, then smuggle. According to Weichen's analysis, if a city or fortress is established in Western Australia, as long as it is well concealed, the British may not be able to discover it for more than ten years. By the time they discover it, we can also say, "We have been here for hundreds of years, and this is our territory."

Wang Chenhao laughed a few times, and I have to admire Zhang Feng's trick as shameless, but it is a good method. It is similar to the territorial disputes between countries in Wang Chenhao's era. As long as the de facto settlement is completed locally, once it exceeds a certain period of time, it can be declared. To put it bluntly, this is the legal and negative invasion of rights in the real estate law, but the hunch is not the house but the territory, and the truth is the same.

Zhang Feng then said: "Your Majesty, the scale of the empire's sodium mine mining in Australia is now expanding. I believe that we can use the reason of importing migrant workers to immigrate to Western Australia and North Australia first. Let the workers take the family and live in Australia in the future."

Wang Chenhao nodded and said, "Immigration starts with poor people first. It will be better for them to live in Australia. In addition, the empire is so big that there are always one or two natural disasters in China every year, and one or two provinces suffer. For those affected people, immigration can be given priority."

Zhang Feng said: "Your Majesty is wise. Australia is so big that it is enough to accommodate tens of millions of immigrants. The empire's transfer of these poor people has also reduced the empire's economic burden and will have great benefits to the empire's social stability."

Wang Chenhao nodded, not commenting.

"Weichen will do it now!"

"Remember to notify the Ministry of Foreign Affairs that the matters of alliance with Britain must be resolved as soon as possible."

"I obey the order, and I sue you!"
Chapter completed!