readx; The news that the Chinese Navy ordered two Yandi-class battleships from the United States is not a secret, this has been known by the Chinese Navy when it first proposed the second phase of the naval development plan, and there has been a strong protest and opposition, so that the news has become public news, the people in China learned that China ordered two super warships, showing great enthusiasm, as China's most open and developed city, Shanghai has always been the youngest and most dynamic city in China, When the newspapers overwhelmingly publicized that the Chinese Navy was ready to order two super warships, a large number of students took to the streets and spontaneously raised slogans such as raising the prestige of our country and protecting our coastal defense. Originally, this was just a spontaneous act among students, but when the National Socialist Party also began to use this incident to publicize the merits of the National Socialist Party and Chen Jingyun's merits and organized several fundraisers, the storm of fundraising for the naval warship spread throughout the country, not only with students spontaneously participating in the streets, but also with donations from some corporate employees and political officials. Pen @ fun @ pavilion wWw. ｂｉｑUｇE。 ｉｎｆｏ

In order to reverse its negative image among the public, Huaxia Bank also took advantage of this opportunity to announce a high-profile donation of 3 million yuan for the funds of these two super warships! Three million yuan is not worth mentioning for Huaxia Bank, which has assets of billions of dollars, and the investment in a new 18-story building on Huidong New Road in Shanghai is as high as 4 million, and the crystal chandelier imported from Italy in the lobby on the first floor is more luxurious and expensive than the crystal chandelier in Huaxia Bank's headquarters building in Nanjing, costing 200,000 yuan.

Huaxia Bank's donation made purely for the sake of a positive public image is Chen Jingyun's private donation in the eyes of other enterprises, because the major shareholder of Huaxia Bank is Chen Jingyun, Chen Jingyun himself has taken out millions, and other consortia are impossible to watch, so the second largest consortium in China, holding three of the five major domestic raw silk enterprises, single-handedly controlling the domestic raw silk industry and directly controlling China's total exports of 20%, the asset scale has reached nearly one billion South China Bank, followed by a donation of 1 million. The second largest family shareholder of Huaxia Bank, the Sheng Xuanhuai family, which has been among the top five in China, is also very generous in donating 200,000 yuan in the name of Shengshi Hotel. Some of the other companies or super-rich people are very happy, and some are extremely painful to donate one by one, ranging from hundreds of thousands to tens of thousands of yuan.

This almost spontaneous fundraising activity raised more than 20 million donations for the Navy in just three months!

In the face of these donations, Chen Jingyun could not say that he would not return them when the saint said that he would not return them, so he asked the Admiralty to accept them and use them as additional funds for the second phase of the Navy's development plan.

In October last year, Sa Zhenbing tore off his old face all his life, and only then did he get a special fund of 30 million from Chen Jingyun, and in addition to Chen Jingyun's promise to approve 30 million in the 1919 budget in addition to the fixed military expenditure of 63 million for the navy, and then approve another 30 million in the mode of special funds, and then approve another 30 million special funds in 1920 in addition to the fixed military expenditure of this year.

The total amount of special funds approved in 1918, 1919, and 1920 reached 90 million, and in addition, the Navy still had about 200 million yuan in fixed military expenditures in the past three years, which means that the Navy's available funds in the past three years totaled about 290 million yuan. As for the difficulties in the future, it is not within their scope of consideration, because what the navy needs is to expand its establishment, and when the ships are in hand and the establishment increases, then the navy's annual fixed funds will naturally rise, and when the time comes, it will still eat steak and lobster every day......

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At the end of last year, in order to raise funds for two Yandi-class ships, the Admiralty once considered whether to cancel the construction of a heavy cruiser or an aircraft carrier.

At that time, the Americans offered China's Yandi-class battleships a price of up to $31 million each, based on the cost of $27 million for the Colorado-class battleships they had previously started. To tell the truth, this price was already much higher for the shipbuilding industry in various countries at that time, and the cost of the Nagato-class was only 43 million yuan, which is equivalent to only 21.5 million US dollars, and the scheduled cost of the Kaga class was also about 40 million yuan. The British Hood was only six million pounds. The main reason why the price of American warships is expensive is that the labor cost of the United States is higher, and the price of the same technical standard is reduced by at least 30% in China or in China. On the other hand, the Americans believe that since China wants to use the latest 16-inch fifty-fold naval gun, then the preliminary research funds of this naval gun will also share a part, which has caused the price to be somewhat inflated, of course, the more important reason is that in order to reach the speed of 29 knots, the Yandi class uses up to 130,000 horsepower units, and the price of the power system accounts for a large part of the battleship in these years, and the American Lexington-class battlecruiser uses a power unit of 180,000 horsepower, Its cost soared to more than $40 million.

Each ship is 31 million US dollars, which is equivalent to 62 million Chinese dollars, and the price of two ships is 124 million. And this price has exceeded the Chinese Navy's initial estimate of 100 million yuan, at that time, in order to raise the extra 24 million, the navy was ready to cancel the construction of some other ships, in short, in any case, the construction of these two battleships must be guaranteed first.

Now with this additional funding, the Navy finally does not have to cancel the construction of an aircraft carrier or a heavy cruiser, and the construction of other ships in the second phase of the Navy's development plan has also been carried out smoothly.

In addition to the design of battleships, other aircraft carriers, heavy cruisers, light cruisers and destroyers also have a variety of mature design schemes for the navy to build ships at any time.

In the second phase of the Navy's development plan, in addition to the two battleships that need to be purchased, the others, including heavy cruisers and even aircraft carriers, are ready to be built by themselves, Jiangnan Shipyard has built several slipways that can be used to build 20,000-ton warships in recent years, and even 30,000-ton slipways are already under construction, and after the construction of a number of multi-level warships and civilian ships, Jiangnan Shipyard has accumulated a considerable level of technology, especially after the "Xiayi" and "Xiasa" After the construction of these two 5,000-ton lightning strike fleet flagship cruisers, the Jiangnan Shipyard has already overcome many major technical difficulties in building modern ocean-going warships, and as far as the hull construction is concerned, the Jiangnan Shipyard can already pat its chest and say that building warships of less than 20,000 tons is not a problem.

In fact, the obstacles restricting the development of China's shipbuilding industry in recent years are mainly large-caliber naval guns and power systems, large-caliber naval guns, especially large-caliber naval guns of more than eight inches, China's breakthrough in recent years has been limited, until 1918, that is, last year, the American-made eight-inch 55-fold main gun of Xingshang was copied out, you must know that this is already the technical level of the Americans in 1913, and China's Shanghai Arsenal is still copied in the case of a full set of technical drawings, which shows how weak the basic industry is. Although it is said that the Shanghai Arsenal designed and built a 12-inch and 45-fold naval gun that imitated the 12-inch and 45-fold guns imported from the United States, it is fair to say that this naval gun was at most at the level of 1900, and its power was not even as good as the 8-inch and 55-fold naval guns imitated by the Shanghai Arsenal. Therefore, only four were built and given to the Guangzhou side as shore defense guns, which stopped the production and research and development of this type of artillery, and instead developed and produced 12-inch and 50-fold naval guns and even 14-inch and 16-inch naval guns of larger calibers that meet the needs of modern naval warfare.

For large-caliber naval guns of more than 12 inches, although the Americans are willing to sell, they have always refused to sell technical drawings, unlike those eight-inch main guns of the Xingshang, the Americans gave it after Chen Jingyun threw out the money, and the reason for this is not because of technical barriers, but because Chen Jingyun did not have enough money, and the Americans still expect these China to be unable to build large-caliber naval guns, and then directly import warships from the United States.

This time, in order to sign an order for two battleships, in a package of Sino-US commercial and trade mutual assistance contracts, there was a transfer of 14-inch and 50-fold naval artillery technology from the United States to China, and these 14-inch naval guns have fallen behind for the Americans, and now people use 16-inch giant guns of larger calibers, and the technology of 14-inch naval guns will not affect China's plan to purchase battleships from the United States, so this is given, but even if it is given now, It takes four or five years for the Shanghai Arsenal to imitate an eight-inch and 55-fold gun, and it will not be possible to imitate it without five or six years of effort.

Although the Shanghai Arsenal is a complete mess about the technology of large-caliber naval guns, it can still be said that all types of naval guns under eight inches can still be taken out, and the surname can not be much worse than the original goods imported from the United States in the past few years.

With these confidences, China dared to build its own Huatai-class heavy cruisers