readx; After 1918, the world situation continued to be turbulent, the war in Europe continued, although Germany and Austria-Hungary successfully defeated Russia and forced the Soviet Union to sign the Soviet-German armistice, thus obtaining a large amount of land and war resources, which allowed Germany to pool more troops and resources on the Western Front. Pen & Fun & Pavilion www.biquge.info

However, when the Germans ended the war on the Western Front, the United States had also completed large-scale mobilization and sent a large number of troops to Europe one after another. The entry of the United States into the war brought the advantage to the Entente countries was not only a large number of troops, but more importantly, the all-round support of war materials from the United States.

As a result, Germany's military superiority in the Western Front, which was freed up from the Eastern Front, was quickly neutralized, and the Western Front in Europe once again fell into a stage of strategic stalemate, and a large number of new technologies and equipment were developed one after another, including not only army tanks and air force aircraft, but also a large number of naval equipment innovations in the past few years.

In 1916, the German High Seas Fleet and the British Home Fleet fought a decisive battle between a large number of battleships and battlecruisers, and such a large-scale naval battle was destined to bring a technological revolution to the navy.

The Battle of the Naval Battles of the Battles of the Territories made the navies of various countries realize that the firepower of their warships was not strong enough, the armor was not thick enough, and the battleships were not big enough, and the Giant Ship Artillery Doctrine entered an unprecedented stage of development after the Battle of the Naval Battles of the Tons, and after the Battle of the Naval Battles of the Tons, the countries quickly changed the design of the new battleships, and the battleships with larger guns and thicker armor were designed and quickly began to be built on the slipway.

Leaving aside the naval competition between Britain, France, and Germany for the time being, the naval competition between the United States and the United States in the Pacific Ocean reached a much larger scale after the Battle of the German Sea.

There is a very interesting situation here, that is, the United States and Ben both participated in the war against Germany as a member of the Entente, Ben sent a navy to escort ships in the Mediterranean, and the United States directly sent troops to land in France to fight. But the hostility between the two countries has not decreased, and the competition between the navies of the two countries has even intensified.

After the Battle of Deland, Ben quickly modified their newest battleship, the Nagato-class battleship, the first of which began construction of the Nagato in the second half of 1917, followed by the second ship. Based on the experience of the Battle of Teland, he said: "The navy believed that the battle cruisers had great strategic value, and requested that the funds be increased for the construction of two battle cruisers, and that a new type of battle cruiser be designed on the basis of the Nagato-class battleships, and this plan was realized in the 88th Fleet proposed by the navy in 1918.

In the plan of the 88th Fleet proposed by this navy, the plan is to consist of eight super-dreadnought battleships within eight years of age and eight super-dreadnought battlecruisers of less than eight years old. From this it was said: 'This navy needs to build up to four more battleships and four more battlecruisers. In addition to the two Nagato-class battlecruisers, which had already started construction, it was planned to design and build two Kaga-class battleships on the basis of the Nagato-class, and four Amagi-class battlecruisers on the basis of the Nagato-class battleships and Kaga-class battleships.

Moreover, it is worth noting that according to the principle of "the first line in eight years, the second line in eight years, and the third line in eight years", then from the 12th year of Taisho (1923) to the 15th year of Taisho (1926), that is, after 1927, the six battleships of the Fuso class and the Ise class will be eight years old, and the four Kongo-class battlecruisers will also be transferred to the second line because they are more than eight years old.

This was the follow-up plan of the 88th Fleet in 1918, which was expected to cost more than 800 million yuan, while the revenue in 1918 was only about 1.4 billion yuan.

It can be said that the tremendous naval expansion that the Navy has been carrying out since the appearance of the dreadnoughts has seriously dragged down the development of their own economy, and if it were not for the surging impetus for the development of the economy after the outbreak of the European War, then the financial estimates of the Navy would have collapsed in 1915, not to mention the plans of the 84th Fleet, the 86th Fleet, and the 88th Fleet.

In contrast to the expansion of the U.S. Navy, the naval race between the United States and Britain never stopped, even when the United States landed in Europe to participate in the war. In the second half of 1914, after Ben seized New Guinea, the United States and Ben added two battleships to the temporary appropriation, and the United States added two New Mexico-class, while Ben added two Ise-class, and the U.S. 14-inch and 50-fold main guns were more powerful than the 14-inch, 45-fold guns of the Ben Ise class, and in response to the U.S. 40-inch and 50-fold guns, he said. Ben's Nagato-class battleships used 16-inch 45 times the main gun for the first time in history, and the United States, which was also unwilling to be left behind, took out a 16-inch 45 times gun in a short time and equipped it with the Colorado-class battleship.

In recent years, Ben and the United States have started to build a large number of warships almost every year, and the Chinese Navy, which is also a Pacific coastal country, naturally has also joined this naval competition, but unlike the large-scale shipbuilding of Ben and the United States, limited by Chinese mainland's militarism and insufficient naval funds, the development of the Chinese Navy focuses more on small and medium-sized warships and new types of ships such as aircraft carriers.

In 1915, after the Chinese Navy proposed the first phase of the naval development plan, the Chinese Navy spent three years building six destroyers, two light cruisers, and up to 27 torpedo boats. As a result, two lightning fleets of the Chinese Navy were formed, in addition to minor modifications of two former dreadnought battleships and two armored cruisers. Let it use its last potential to continue to serve as the main force of the Chinese Navy.

Shut down

Also affected by the Battle of Deland, the Chinese Navy is extremely optimistic about the prospects of large high-speed warships, so it put forward a plan to purchase four 30,000-ton large high-speed warships, but when the plan was submitted to Chen Jingyun, it was vetoed by Chen Jingyun, because in Chen Jingyun's view, the future development goal of the Navy should be aircraft carriers, even if aircraft carriers are not mature enough, but they should still take aircraft carriers as their development goals. As for the other types of ships, they should be in the service of aircraft carriers, not the same as the current "Ben and the United States." Aircraft carriers in the British and other navies are in the service of battleships.

In Chen Jingyun's view, the estimated cost of the navy was as high as 35 million yuan each, while the price of battleships of the same period was only about 40 million, and such a battleship had no chance of winning against the battleships of the same era, and a large cruiser equipped with only 14-inch guns could not be compared with the enemy's battleships equipped with 16-inch guns.

After this plan was vetoed by Chen Jingyun, the navy quickly changed the shipbuilding plan and once again proposed a huge plan to build two 40,000-ton battleships, four 20,000-ton large cruisers, two large cruisers, and six destroyers.

Looking at the second phase of the navy's development plan proposed by the navy, Chen Jingyun also felt a little hesitant, although China is currently practicing the doctrine of the Continental Army, and the main military expenditure is tilting towards the army, but the navy can still get a lot of funds every year, in 1915 it was 50 million, in 1916 the navy was 53 million, and in 1917 the navy expenditure had risen to 58 million, and by 1918, the navy expenditure had broken through the 60 million mark! Although it is far less than the army's annual military expenditure of hundreds of millions of yuan, it is not too small, as the so-called how much money can be done, and if the tens of millions of military expenditures this year are not built on a large scale, then so much money really cannot be spent...... Regarding the development of the navy, Chen Jingyun knew that battleships would inevitably fall behind in the future, but how long would it take for them to fall behind? According to Chen Jingyun's own estimates, it will be after the thirties, that is to say, at least more than ten years later, and in these ten years, the aircraft carrier will actually not be able to bear the heavy responsibility of the main force of the navy, and before the appearance of all-metal dive bombers, the aircraft carrier is destined to be only an auxiliary force.

Moreover, even in the era of aircraft carriers in the 40s, high-speed battleships still played an irreplaceable and important role, and it was necessary for an aircraft carrier formation to have a high-speed battleship escort, otherwise if it was attacked by enemy high-speed battleships in rain, fog, dark weather or narrow sea areas, no battleship in front of the aircraft carrier would be a live target.

Why are the early aircraft carriers so fast, except that the aircraft needs to fly on the deck to take off, because the aircraft carrier needs to rely on speed to escape, not to mention the defense capability of the aircraft carrier, not to mention the enemy's high-speed battleships, even if it encounters the enemy's heavy patrol or even light cruise, it will be hit hard.

Facing the future development, Chen Jingyun made up his mind after thinking about it for a long time, the battleship is not impossible to buy, but it must be a high-speed battleship with high speed, which can still play the role of escorting the aircraft carrier after more than ten years, otherwise it will only be reduced to a second-rate battleship to take on the role of shelling land targets in a few years.

In addition to this battleship, Chen Jingyun is more willing to develop those heavy cruisers of less than 20,000 tons, if the tonnage of these heavy cruisers equipped with eight-inch naval guns is extended to the standard displacement of 15,000 tons, then they can have a fairly balanced defense and firepower, and the battleships and battlecruisers of the enemy army are naturally not beatable, but they are very cost-effective when used to serve as the main force of artillery warfare on the secondary front and provide air defense and other escorts for aircraft carriers, of course, more importantly, it is cheap, the price of a battleship is enough to build three heavy cruisers.

As for the battle cruiser that the navy group of people desperately desired, Chen Jingyun has no good feelings, for Chen Jingyun either to buy a high-speed battleship, or to build his own more than 10,000 tons of heavy cruisers, and the battle cruiser has now lost its important value in the twenties, and the rapid progress of the power system has enabled the new battleship to have a speed close to twenty-eight or even thirty knots, and the battle cruiser used as an avant-garde fleet has actually lost its strategic value. The Deland Navy was the first appearance of the battlecruiser, and it was also the last glorious moment of this ship! Later, it was used as a vanguard fleet, and the heavy cruise, which was about 35 knots, began to take on the responsibility of the vanguard fleet. If there were no aircraft carriers, the heavy cruisers would slowly become larger, and finally the battle cruisers would become capital ships, and then the next generation of light cruisers would also begin to become larger...... This is a rotation, the auxiliary ships are constantly developing, and the large ones finally evolve into capital ships, and when the auxiliary ships become the capital ships, then the auxiliary ships become the main auxiliary ships.

This is a law of the development of the Navy.

After carefully considering the Navy's second-phase development plan, Chen Jingyun made certain deletions and changes to its contents, and finally the Navy's second-phase development plan became: Purchasing two 40,000-ton battleships, building two 15,000-ton heavy cruisers, building two 6,000-ton light cruisers equipped with water reconnaissance planes, building six new-generation 1,500-ton destroyers, and building 27 100-ton torpedo boats. In addition, there are many auxiliary vessels, such as high-speed fuel supply ships, high-speed cargo supply ships, hospital ships, submarine support ships, destroyer support ships, minelayer ships, etc.

Among these purchased or self-built plans, the two purchased battleships are the two former dreadnought battleships used to replace the battleship formation, and are ready to serve as the absolute main force of the Chinese Navy for the next 15 years. The two 15,000-ton heavy cruisers were intended to replace the two German-made armored cruisers in the First Cruiser, while the two light cruisers were designed for air defense and reconnaissance in carrier formations. The six destroyers are intended to replace the six 500-ton destroyers in service in the Chinese Navy, which are outdated and no longer meet the operational needs of the main fleet.

Speaking of which, the development of the Chinese Navy's aircraft carriers has been somewhat sluggish in the past two years, mainly because the Navy is using the modified Taishan aircraft carrier to conduct a large number of tests and train pilots, etc., and before these large number of tests are over, the Navy has also suspended the development of aircraft carriers, but now Britain and Ben have successively designed and built aircraft carriers, and China naturally cannot lag behind, so Chen Jingyun has specially approved the construction of new aircraft carriers. And in order to avoid detours for those people, Chen Jingyun directly put forward the approximate goal of being able to do so, requiring aircraft carriers to exceed 30 knots, requiring at least 50 aircraft to be carried, and requiring them to be able to defend against the attack of light ships of the enemy navy, that is, to design the defense index of armor below the defense of six-inch naval guns, and not to be equipped with naval guns of more than eight inches, and only to install a small number of self-defense naval guns.

In this second phase of the naval development plan, the total cost is expected to be as high as 200 million yuan, even if the allocation is divided into years, it is also a serious challenge for China's finances today, and the United States is extremely excited when it learns that China plans to order two battleships, because in the current situation in the Pacific, the Chinese Navy and the US Navy can be regarded as semi-allies, and the enemies of both are called "this navy, and the United States supported China to rebuild its navy for this purpose a few years ago." Now China wants to spend a lot of money to buy two battleships, which makes the Americans very happy, and immediately said that the United States is willing to provide all the help for China to rebuild its navy, as long as China gives money, then the United States can start construction of these two battleships for China at any time, and the Americans said that according to the previous naval cooperation treaty between the two countries, the United States can provide China with the latest battleship technology, including the 16-inch and 50-fold naval guns that even the Americans themselves have not yet equipped with.

This made many generals of the Chinese Navy excited, and a large number of experts from the Navy began to go to the United States to inspect and carry out preliminary work for the order of these two battleships.

"China's large-scale development of the navy has not only caused serious harm to the Chinese people, but also posed a major challenge to peace in the Far East!" Yamamoto Guardian openly proclaimed that China's move to build a new battleship was an act of challenge to the Great Empire!