Chapter 2250

The territory controlled by Annan State and Fujian Xu Xinsu are separated by more than two thousand miles, and a large section of the coastline in the middle area is almost divided between Haihan and Ming Dynasty. Therefore, there is no direct conflict between the two sides in the division of spheres of influence.

But both Annan and Xu Xinsu have the same strong obsession with achieving external expansion through sea routes. After all, their respective territories have long coastlines, and the most important partner, Haihan, made his fortune through sea routes.

The best example.

With the successful example of Haihan in front of them, both companies naturally want to imitate it. Therefore, while they cooperate as allies, there will also be natural competition among their peers.

Needless to say, in terms of business, Xu Xinsu’s territory was backed by the Ming Dynasty, and there were old trading ports like Zhangzhou and Quanzhou under his rule. In terms of business scale, it far surpassed rising stars like Annan. Although Annan is also vigorously developing maritime trade now,

However, due to its late start, the number of trade objects and navigation scope are still not as good as those of Fujian, which has been developing for a longer time.

However, compared to the commercial field, the gap between the two sides in the military field is not that big. They came into contact with Haihan Army at a similar time, and after tasting the benefits, they regarded Haihan Army as part of their own army.

The development goal is to fully adopt Haihan standards from military systems to weapons and equipment. Senior commanders in the army receive military training provided by Haihan and build their own new army in full accordance with the standards provided by Haihan Army.

Precisely because the army formation methods and standards adopted are almost the same, the armies of both sides also have many similarities, and their actual combat capabilities are at the same level. However, because they are allies, it is obviously impossible for the two sides to separate through a big fight.

Victory or defeat. If the armies of both sides want to compete in a certain environment, apart from various wars involving Haihan's coordinated troops, there are only activities such as military exercises and competitions between foreign military cadets.

However, the military personnel sent by the Xu Jiajun to study in Sanya have always performed slightly better than the Annan students in competitions in previous years, and this visible but unreachable gap makes Annanguo even more dissatisfied. Zheng Zao personally

He came to Sanya to supervise the war because he wanted to reverse Annan's unfavorable situation in this activity in previous years.

In previous years, the senior generals sent by Xu Xinsu to Sanya to observe martial arts competitions were usually Xu Jiaqi and Xu Yuzhuo who took turns. Among the Xu family troops, one commanded the army and the other commanded the navy. They had always been trusted by Xu Xinsu the most, and they had both served in the military.

He was trained in the Haihan Army and has rich experience in cooperating with the Haihan Army.

Zheng Zha's experience of dealing with these two people was almost all in Sanya, so he subconsciously thought that one of them would come to Sanya to participate in this event this year, but the answer given by Yan Chujie was obviously beyond his expectation,

Zheng Zha subconsciously began to guess why Xu Yuxing, who was in charge of military affairs, came to Sanya this year.

Zheng Zha did not rush to ask the reason, but Yan Chujie took the initiative to explain: "Generals Xu Yuzhuo and Xu Jiaqi have recently been engaged in military affairs, and it is inconvenient to escape to Sanya, so the Fujian side asked Xu Yuxing to do it for them."

Of course, Zheng Zha couldn't ask Xu Yuxing what his original mission was when he came to Sanya. He immediately laughed and said: "I see, can you trouble Minister Yan to make some arrangements? Let's see when Xu Laosan is free and we can have a casual meal together.

, let’s get in touch with each other.”

Yan Chujie smiled and said: "Young prince, don't worry. After all the guests from all parties arrive in a few days, we will hold a dinner in the name of the executive committee, and there will be an opportunity for you to interact with us."

Zheng Zhu nodded and said: "This is the best. By the way, Minister Yan, last year our country ordered several warships at the Victory Port Shipyard, all of which were paid in full in advance. Now that the date has arrived, there are still two ships missing.

It cannot be delivered. I heard that the two ships are still on the slipway and have not yet been launched. It will be at least two or three months before delivery. This is too far away from the originally agreed delivery time, right?"

After Zheng Zha got off the ship, he went straight to Fort Victory to see Yan Chujie. On the one hand, it was for diplomatic etiquette, and on the other hand, he wanted to personally inquire about the reasons for the delayed construction of the warship he ordered.

Of course, Annan originally had a dedicated person in Sanya responsible for following up on these matters, but he was unable to get a reasonable explanation and handling method from the Haihan official. He had to wait until Zheng Zha went to Sanya for a business trip and personally negotiated the matter with Haihan senior officials.

Yan Chujie was obviously aware of this, and immediately explained: "Little Prince, the situation is like this. In the first half of this year, naval combat ships were intensively repaired and maintained at the Victory Port Shipyard. Because the workload exceeded expectations, they have been occupying the shipyard.

Only some of the technical personnel and facilities in your country will be delayed, which will lead to the delay in the construction period of your two warships."

Zheng Zha was silent for a moment after hearing this, and then continued to ask noncommittally: "How does your country plan to deal with this matter?"

Yan Chujie said: "Since we signed a contract in black and white when we reached the deal, we will act according to the rules. The shipyard will complete the follow-up projects as soon as possible. As for the previous delay, we will pay for it when it is necessary. We will not protect the shipyard."

After hearing this answer, Zheng Zha's face brightened a little, and he nodded and said: "Minister Yan is fair in dealing with things, so that's settled."

Delaying the Annan warship order is actually far from as simple as Yan Chujie said. If it is just ordinary warship maintenance, it no longer needs to be left to the Victory Port Shipyard to do it. The naval base in Victory Port also has a dedicated

Facilities, the military can complete basic repair work by itself. Projects that really need to be brought to the Victory Port Shipyard for work are usually relatively large renovation projects, such as installing a steam-powered propulsion system on the ship.

In principle, the Navy will no longer make similar modifications to ships in service, because practice has proven that such modifications that require disemboweling the warship will greatly damage the strength of the hull itself and shorten the service life of the warship.

In order to reduce costs, steam-powered propulsion systems are now only installed on newly built warships and will not be used on refitted old ships.

Therefore, the real reason why the Victory Port Shipyard delayed the Annan warship order was not the repair and maintenance mentioned by Yan Chujie, but the rush to build new warships for the navy.

Haihan has frequently deployed troops in the northern seas in the past two years. More than half of the navy's maritime armed forces have been concentrated in the area north of the Fujian Strait. This has directly affected Haihan's deployment of naval forces in the South China Sea. Especially in Cam Ranh Port and Vung Tau in the south.

The combat ships deployed in Hong Kong, Xingdao and other places have not been properly repaired and replenished for a long time.

Of course, there are reasons for the military's "laziness". On the one hand, the navy's military expenditure is limited and cannot meet the defense needs of all regions. On the other hand, it is because Navy Commander Wang Tom has been stationed in the north for the past two years.

Being in command of overseas wars prevented him from staying in Sanya to secure more resources for his naval forces.

Therefore, after a storm in the South China Sea at the beginning of the year, four of the main warships of the naval fleet stationed at the Star Island Base in the Malacca Strait were extremely damaged. Even if they were overhauled, it would be difficult to continue serving, and warships could only be dispatched from other places first.

Supplement local defense.

The Strait of Malacca is an important waterway for Western forces to enter the South China Sea and even East Asia. Haihan has always attached great importance to it. He soon asked Cam Ranh Port to dispatch warships south to the Xingdao base, and then transferred several warships from Hainan Island.

Replenish the defense force of Cam Ranh Port.

After all, tearing down the east wall to make up for the west wall cannot fundamentally solve the problem. The military will eventually have to fill the gap by building new warships as soon as possible. However, because this is a demand outside the normal shipbuilding plan, it has to disrupt the Victory Port.

The existing production arrangements of the shipyard give priority to providing part of the technical strength and production facilities needed for the construction of warships.

The Annan warships, which were also built here, required almost the same technical personnel and facilities, so they were inevitably affected. We could only postpone the processing of some orders from Annan to free up manpower and facilities.

Own tasks.

The reason behind this involves Haihan's military deployment in the South China Sea, and also involves the mobilization of combat ships in Cam Ranh Port on the Annan coast. Although it is a military ally with Annan, considering the risk of leaks from Annan officials,

Haihan still never informed the other party of the truth, and when he received urgings about the progress of shipbuilding, he always used various excuses to pass them by.

It was not until Zheng Zhuo came to Victory Fort in person to ask for an explanation that Yan Chujie responded positively for the first time, but the explanation he gave was still not the truth of the matter. However, Haihan did not want this kind of thing to affect his relationship with Annan.

Therefore, while giving an explanation, he also stated that he would make some compensation to Annan for this.

The shipbuilding contract signed by both parties does have corresponding punitive measures for breach of contract. If the shipyard delays the construction period due to its own reasons, it will compensate Annan financially. Although the amount of compensation is limited, it is not much.

It can soothe the emotions of the Annan people and prevent them from losing confidence in Haihan's shipbuilding capabilities due to the delay in the construction of these two warships.

However, Yan Chujie also took the matter a little too seriously. Although Zheng Zao made a gesture of launching an army to accuse him, it would not affect the arms order issued by Annan to Haihan.

Although Haihan has currently transferred part of the construction technology of the Discovery-class warship to Annan, and helped Annan build a shipyard on his own coastline, allowing him to build more than 90% of the Discovery-class warship by himself, which has basically achieved

For the localization of this kind of warship, but for higher-level expedition-class warships, we can still only place orders with Haihan's shipyard.

As long as the Annan Navy needs to continue to expand its strength and equip more powerful expedition-class warships, it can only achieve its goal by placing an order with Haihan. Even if it needs to wait for a long construction period to obtain it, in order to strengthen its own strength,

The wait should be worth it.

Moreover, Zheng Zha knew very well that Haihan was also providing similar shipbuilding business to Fujian. Zheng Zha also had some idea of ​​how powerful Xu Jiajun's naval fleet was. If Annan did not want to be left too far behind by his competitors in this regard,

Then we can only continue to place orders with Haihan's shipyard and obtain as many Haihan warships as possible to strengthen our own strength.

Zheng Zha rarely visited Victory Fort and had the opportunity to have a private meeting with Yan Chujie. Naturally, he would not miss it easily. He immediately used this conversation to ask Yan Chujie about the situation of other weapons and equipment.

Annan currently orders a considerable amount of various weapons and equipment from Haihan every year to gradually replace the domestic armed forces with more than 200,000 people. But this is not the ultimate goal of Annan. They know very well that if the weapons and equipment can only

If you rely on Haihan to provide it, you will ultimately be at the mercy of others, or you will have to try to achieve self-production and manufacturing.

After several years of cooperation and purchasing sky-high-priced weapons and equipment from Haihan, Annan also gradually obtained some manufacturing technology for export-oriented weapons and equipment from Haihan. However, although Annan obtained the technology, it would not be possible after domestic mass production.

The quality of weapons and equipment has never reached a satisfactory level.

For this reason, Annan had to pay a lot of tuition and asked Haihan to send technicians to Annan to provide on-the-spot technical guidance. In order to ensure that the imported manufacturing technology would not be out of shape, many production tools and equipment had to be purchased from Haihan.

"But I still don't quite understand. Our craftsmen were trained in your country, and then we invited masters from your country to our country for guidance. All the tools and even production materials used were purchased from your country. Why are they made like this?"

The things sold in your country are always slightly different from those sold in your country?”

It was a rare opportunity like this to consult professionals, so Zheng Zha asked the questions that had been accumulated in his heart for a long time.

Bai Kesi, who is in charge of this aspect, must be more familiar with the technical aspects of ordnance industry, but Yan Chujie also knows the reasons for Zheng Zha's problems.

"My young prince, regarding the situations you mentioned, we have also conducted special investigations and research, and finally found that the problem may still lie with people."

"Who did it happen to?" Zheng Zha asked puzzledly.

"Most of the craftsmen who make weapons in your country are only one out of ten or even one out of a hundred, and they are sent to our country for training. Three to five months may be enough for them to learn the production process, but they may not be able to master the principles of these production technologies. They return to my country What Annan taught can only be superficial. In the same way, the masters sent by our country to teach the technology can only teach the craftsmen of your country in a short time these superficial techniques, not the principles. There is an old saying that goes Knowing it but not knowing why it is the case is what we are talking about.”

Zheng Zha thought for a while and said: "What Minister Yan means is that the training time of these craftsmen is too short, so they have not mastered the essence of manufacturing technology?"

Yan Chujie nodded and said, "That's understandable. Of course, there is no solution to this problem."
Chapter completed!