readx; On July 26, 1941, in Victoria Harbour, Hong Kong, a small fleet was slowly sailing into the harbor, led by three destroyers with smaller hulls, in addition to a light cruiser with a large hull, and of course, the most striking was the huge battleship in the middle. Pen ~ fun ~ pavilion www.biquge.info

The slender hull, the towering bridge and the nine huge twelve-inch cannons made the Shaohao a well-deserved star of the trip.

On the Shaohao, Rear Admiral Lin Xingyun was wearing a full set of admiral dresses, looking out through the bridge, the blue bay of Victoria Harbor attracted his attention like a charming girl, and of course, Lin Xingyun also saw the faintly visible shore gun batteries on both sides of the harbor.

Although Lin Xingyun was the commander of this small fleet, he was not the protagonist of the trip, which was led by Qin Tuolin, China's vice minister of foreign affairs, and was the second largest player among many Chinese diplomats. Although this person is not well-known among the domestic people, his reputation is not worth mentioning compared with several well-known diplomats in China, several Chinese diplomats, such as Shi Zhaoji and Gu Weijun, are all famous diplomats at home and abroad, while Qin Tuolin is much inferior.

However, although Qin Tuolin's reputation is not obvious, he is a real professional diplomat, currently serving as the consul of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in London, the ambassador to the United Kingdom, the ambassador to Germany, and has served in Europe for a long time, and is China's most important diplomat in Europe in the twenties and thirties, and only transferred back to China in the mid-thirties and served as the director of the European Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and then in 1940 he was further appointed as deputy foreign minister.

In July, he just led a delegation to Novosibirsk, the capital of the Russian Republic, where he stayed for five days and then took a special plane back to China without stopping, and reported to Chen Jingyun that he did not stay for a day after visiting the Russian Republic, and then went directly to Shanghai, and held secret talks with a small British delegation, and the content of the talks naturally involved the situation in Myanmar and the Hong Kong issue. The British Foreign Minister will also stay in Hong Kong for a short two days, at which point the two sides will be able to negotiate the actual details of Hong Kong and Burma.

In order to demonstrate the prestige of the country and at the same time to show off the strength of the navy, without anyone else's words, Guan Shijie of the navy took the initiative to say that the navy was willing to escort Qin Tuolin to Hong Kong, and directly said that an entire air fleet could be sent to Hong Kong.

However, this kind of ostentatious behavior of the navy was still rejected by Chen Jingyun, because now the relations between China and Britain are tense, and the Chinese navy has already panicked the British navy in the Far East after occupying Thailand and Cam Ranh Bay, and the Chinese navy's repeated passage through the Strait of Malacca in the name of training has made the British even more worried, and now if the Chinese navy sails a large fleet into Victoria Harbor, it is estimated that the British will be even more dissatisfied.

Now is a critical moment in the Sino-British negotiations, there is no need to make extraneous complications, so the navy only sent a small visiting fleet composed of the Shaohao and a light cruiser and three destroyers to Hong Kong, nominally to Hong Kong and the British Navy for friendly military exchanges, secretly to escort Qin Tuolin, of course, the actual content is still the Chinese Navy is showing off.

You must know that the British navy is now almost empty in the Hong Kong area, although the main reason is that because of the tension in Europe, in order to deal with the Germans' broken war, the British have sent their navy from all over the world to return home. However, the reason why the British Navy launched Hong Kong is that China has already controlled the six countries in Southeast Asia, and the Cam Ranh Bay military base has the existence of several military bases in Thailand, so that China's air force has the ability to partially block the Strait of Malacca, and more importantly, the South China Sea is the main activity area of the Chinese Navy at this time, and the British Navy does not dare to take the risk of anchoring too many capital ships in Hong Kong. After the war, it was served in a pot.

At this time, the only remaining naval forces of the British Navy in Asia are basically deployed in Malacca, and there are also many main forces in the direction of the Indian Ocean, and the strategic implication here is already very obvious, that is, if there is a war with China, then Britain will give up Hong Kong as soon as possible, and then go all out to defend Singapore and the Strait of Malacca, and strive to keep the Chinese Navy out of the Indian Ocean, so as to ensure the security of Burma and India and even the Middle East.

If there is no large-scale sea transportation, if the Chinese army wants to attack Burma and the Bay of Bengal region and even India, it can only rely on land transportation, and at this time, there is no railway between China and Myanmar, not to mention the railway between Myanmar and Thailand, there is no road, so it is impossible to supply on the road.

Therefore, in the eyes of the British, as long as Malacca is held, then the security of Myanmar and India is guaranteed.

Of course, this is just the calculation of the British, in the view of Chen Jingyun, the other party, that is, China, although Chen Jingyun has no intention of attacking India and Burma, but the control of Burma is a matter of time, and Chen Jingyun intends to completely solve this matter in the near future. After taking control of Myanmar, Chen Jingyun built the China-Myanmar Railway, which stretched from Kunming, Yunnan Province to Lashio in Myanmar, and then connected to the original railway network in Myanmar.

Myanmar's railway development was originally good, it had been formed before the First World War, and the length of the railway was quite a lot, among which for China, if it took control of Myanmar in the future, once China's railway network was connected to Myanmar's railway network, China's large quantities of materials could quickly arrive in Myanmar and bypass the barrier of the Strait of Malacca.

In addition to the planned China-Myanmar railway, Chen Jingyun is also planning to build a railway from Bangkok, Thailand to Yangon, Myanmar, which is basically similar to the China-Myanmar railway, both to supply troops in Myanmar.

The railway construction in Southeast Asia is not too backward, thanks to the development of the British and French colonists, there are railway networks in the British and French colonies, there are railways in Myanmar, there are railways in Vietnam, China starts from Yunnan and then arrives in Hanoi, Vietnam, and then the North-South Vietnam Railway from Hanoi to Saigon has also been opened in the mid-thirties.

Most of the above strategic arrangements were precautionary arrangements, and the British Navy, in order to avoid falling into passivity and causing indifferent losses, transferred the navy from Hong Kong, where there are now only two old destroyers and a few small ships such as gunboats.

Now after the small fleet led by Rear Admiral Lin Xingyun arrived at Hong Kong's Victoria Harbor, it immediately became a star in the port, especially the huge figure of the Shaohao attracted many onlookers, because this time it came in the name of military cooperation and exchanges, and the Chinese Navy also held a naval liberalization this time, inviting a small number of Hong Kong citizens to board the Shaohao and several other warships for visits.

In order to gain the support of the domestic people and increase the military spending of the navy, the Chinese Navy has always been very active in improving the image of the navy, and often holds some naval openings, especially the two largest battleships in China: the Yandi and the Yellow Emperor, which often appear in the eyes of ordinary people, and the two warships can often be seen in the many propaganda albums of the Chinese Navy.

As China's two largest warships, but also one of the world's most powerful battleships, the two Yandi class has always been regarded by the Chinese people as the pillar of the country, the spiritual symbol of the naval power, just like the Kaga in the Navy, the South Dakota of the United States, and the Hood of the United Kingdom, the Yandi class is also one of the most powerful warships during the naval treaty.

And the Yandi has become a spiritual symbol of the Chinese Navy almost from the day it returned to serve in China.

The popularity of the two warships is high in addition to their large tonnage and strong surnames, but also related to the fact that their surnames can be open secrets, these two battleships were built by the Americans, which has caused China to keep the surnames of these two warships secret, but in fact it is impossible to do so, anyway, everyone already knows the surname, so the Chinese Navy does not hide it, and it is frequently open to the public.

However, other warships of the Chinese Navy have rarely made public appearances, and the Shundi-class battleships have not been opened to the outside world once since they were put into service, and China's aircraft carriers have only been opened to the public a few times by the oldest Huashan-class aviation wooden frames, and all other aircraft carriers have not been made public to the public, and when these warships are made public, they will also do some secrecy measures, important cabins will definitely not be allowed to be seen, and some sensitive electronic equipment will also be not allowed to be seen, so as to avoid the occurrence of leakage incidents.

And these measures are also very necessary, because every time it is opened, there are more or less foreign spies on board.

Shaohao also kept the surname Neng secret when it first entered service, but the military spies of various countries are not all idiots, as the only light battleship built by China during the treaty in the thirties, Shaohao has received widespread attention from the design stage, not only all countries in the world are concerned, but also the people have great attention, and the corruption case that broke out during the construction of Shaohao directly caused many high-ranking naval officials to be pulled off the horse, and even Sa Zhenbing and Cheng Biguang were forced to retire from active service. And these made Shaohao even more on the cusp of public opinion.

Such a Shaohao naturally inevitably attracted the attention of many spies, before the completion of the construction, the basic surname of the Shaohao can data has been listed in the Jane's battleship yearbook, if it is just some tonnage data, the caliber of the main gun and the like are nothing, then even the radar model on the Shaohao has been exposed is a serious leak, so at this time there are several generals in the navy who have been implicated.

Shaohao was watched by so many spies, on the other hand, it also proved how famous he was, even though it had only been in service for four years, it had not participated in any actual combat, in the Chinese people, Shaohao's reputation was much greater than that of a large number of aircraft carriers, and even much larger than the Shundi-class battleships, second only to the Yandi-class.

The significance of Shaohao in the Chinese Navy is far more important than his data on paper, although in terms of actual efficiency, Shaohao is a typical high is not low, and the price is still expensive, in 1931 in order to build Shaohao, but a lot of money was used, Shaohao construction cost not only the hull, but also specially developed a new 12-inch naval gun, radar system, high-pressure impulse steam turbine, etc., it can be said that Shaohao is built as a new technology experiment, And a large number of new technologies are used in it, which also makes the cost of Shaohao continue to rise.

After all, Shaohao is not a battleship, and its twelve-inch naval guns can no longer effectively threaten the new battleships of various countries, and even the old battleships of various countries are powerless, and this defect is magnified in the later Fuxi-class light battleships, which directly led to the abortion of the initial plan of the Fuxi-class light battleships, and was forced to modify the design, in addition to firepower, protection and speed are comprehensively reduced in order to reduce the cost.